The Year in Review
The Green Ronin offices will be closed next week for the Christmas and New Year's holidays, so as 2006 draws to a close, it's time for a look at the year that has passed and what's coming up for the World's Greatest Superhero RPG in 2007!
What a year 2006 has been, too. Counting Time of Vengeance (in stores by the time you read this), Green Ronin released eight print M&M products this past year: Freedom City Second Edition, the Second Edition Gamemaster's Screen, a print edition of Lockdown (revised for 2e), Mastermind's Manual, Golden Age, Ultimate Power, the M&M Pocket Player's Guide, and the aforementioned Time of Vengeance. Agents of Freedom won't quite make it out in print in time for 2006, although the PDF edition is already available.
That's not even counting the PDF products in 2006 like the popular Archetype Archives or Character Stand-Ups, to say nothing of the numerous M&M Superlink products available from many fine publishers. All-in-all, 2006 was a great year for M&M.
If you've been following Super-Vision then you already have a pretty good idea of what we've got lined up for 2007, starting with the print edition of Agents of Freedom hitting stores in a few weeks.
After that we've got two "themes" in 2007: introducing new players to the fun and excitement of the World's Greatest Superhero RPG and taking a somewhat darker turn from the four-color fun of Freedom City.
The M&M Beginner's Guide kicks off the year with a small, low-cost product intended to teach newcomers how to play M&M. Follow along with Firepower, the newest student at the Claremont Academy, as he learns what it takes to be a costumed hero. The Beginner's Guide has simple scenarios: one for solo play and one for group play, designed to teach the rules of the game.
Instant Superheroes follows close behind, giving new players and old a legion of ready-made heroes to play! Produced by Michael Hammes and Phil Reed (creators of the popular Archetype Archive PDF series), the book looks at dozens of the most popular hero archetypes, each with a starting set of game stats and two complete variants, making for more than a hundred characters! It also includes guidelines on customizing, tactics for game-play, and even pre-generated origins so you can have a new character in just minutes!
You'll see more previews of Lucien Soulban's Hero High as the weeks go by. It's the complete guide to teen hero campaigns for M&M, including an expanded chapter on the Claremont Academy in Freedom City, and all new characters like the dimension-spanning AlterniTeens. It makes a great follow-up to the Claremont Academy scenario in the Beginner's Guide for kicking off an all-new M&M campaign!
Then we take a step away from products for the newcomer and turn our attention to some products with a different tone. Since the genesis of M&M Second Edition, we've wanted the game to cover all genres of comic books and super-powered roleplaying and, next year, you're going to see some of it.
The Iron Age sourcebook by Jon Leitheusser and Seth Johnson goes through a panel darkly into the comic book era of leather, chains, ninjas, and guns, guns, guns! When anti-heroes ruled the day. It includes a look at the "Iron Age" of Freedom City, with details on that dark time in Freedom's history and characters like FORCE Ops.
Then it's an all-new world for M&M with the summer premier of the Paragons campaign setting: paranormal powers invade a world much like our own. How will things change, and how will people cope? That's for you to decide!
The action kicks off with the adventure A More Perfect Union, designed to introduce players to the world of Paragons and allow them to learn about it as their characters do, while they confront the mysterious force that has drawn them all to the sleepy town of Unity, a confrontation that may decide the fate of the world.
Then comes the Paragons Campaign Setting, packed with everything you need to create your own campaign of paranormal powers. Since Paragons will also be filled with new characters, factions, and adventure ideas, you can also use it as a source for ongoing M&M games. There will even be suggestions for pan-dimensional crossovers with Freedom City!
Six products, and that just takes us into the start of Fall! We've got more planned for 2007 (and even beyond), so stick with us another year: we promise it will be a fun ride.
