Mutants & Masterminds (abbreviated "M&M" or "MnM") is a superhero role-playing game written by Steve Kenson and published by Green Ronin Publishing based on a variant of the d20 System by Wizards of the Coast. The game system is designed to allow players to create either heroes or villains.

History

Mutants & Masterminds was published in 2002; the setting, which was once known as Century City, became Freedom City. The first edition of M&M books featured graphic design and art direction by the design studio Super Unicorn, but other firms provide the artwork on all subsequent releases.

A second edition of the Mutants & Masterminds system debuted at Gen Con in 2005 and saw wide release in October of that year.

A third edition of Mutants & Masterminds was released in 2011 and it has also been translated to Italian by Kaizoku Press. In the previous year, Green Ronin Publishing had released another superhero role-playing game, DC Adventures. Both games have the same mechanical system and are fully compatible.

In 2025, Steve Kenson posted to Bluesky that a fourth edition of Mutants & Masterminds would be debuted as a playtest at Gencon that year.

System

Mutants & Masterminds game mechanics use a highly modified version of the d20 System.

Power Level

M&M characters are not class-based nor do they have class levels.

  • Noir: Written by Christopher McGlothlin, Noir is based on classic film noir. The setting of Noir is a dark world where heroes are flawed and the friends may become greatest enemies.
  • Nova City Heroes: Written and published by Verse Online, Nova City Heroes imagines a world where 95% of the existing heroes have vanished, leaving the fate of Nova City and the rest of the world in the hands of new unknown and untested heroes.
  • Golden Age: A setting for adventures in the Golden Age of Comic Books published from 1938-55, it also details the Freedom City setting during that era.
  • Hero High: A supplemental rulebook dealing with teenage heroes.
  • Iron Age: Similar to Golden Age except that it deals with the Modern Age of Comic Books which is considered to roughly encompass the mid-1980s through early 1990s.
  • Lockdown: A prison-based setting.
  • Paragons: A generic and modular "real-world" setting that takes the recent trends in comic book films, the Ultimate Marvel line of comic books, and the television show Heroes as inspiration.
  • Wild Cards: An adaption of the novels of the same name, edited by George R. R. Martin. The setting itself is a much stranger version of superheroes, opting for z-list types with only one power or mutation.

Green Ronin licences the use of M&M through the M&M Superlink program. Under this program, other publishers may request permission from Green Ronin to publish their own material (such as adventure modules, character books, and new power books) incorporating "product identity" text from Green Ronin's published works. Text which is not "product identity" is already covered by the Open Game License; its use requires no further permission from Green Ronin.

Over a dozen publishers have produced more than fifty products using the Superlink program. A few have released their products as hard-back or soft-back books through retail outlets, but most have produced products as Portable Document Format books intended to be obtained online through electronic distribution systems.

Reception

Mutants & Masterminds won the 2003 Gold Ennie Award for "Best d20 Game".

Mutants & Masterminds 2nd edition won the 2006 Gold Ennie Award for "Best Game" and "Best d20/d20 OGL Product" and the Silver Ennie Award for "Best Rules" and "Best Product".

Reviews

  • Pyramid
  • Pyramid
  • Pyramid - Second Edition

See also

  • Time of Crisis
  • Foes of Freedom
  • The Algernon Files

References

  • Mutants and Masterminds at RPGnetWiki
  • www.d20herosrd.com - a fan-built and maintained SRD (System Reference Document) that includes all of the Open Game Content portions of the Mutants and Masterminds 3E rules.