Pyramid Review
Mutants & Masterminds Character Record Folio
Published by Green Ronin
Designed by Rick Achberger
Developed by Steve Kenson
Cover by Ramon Perez
16-page b&w softcover; $4.95
Given the proliferation of photocopiers, printers, and PDF files, is there really any need for another professionally designed character sheet, outside the one included at the back of most games? Is it worth it to provide a multi-page booklet on a single character? If it's the Mutants & Masterminds Character Record Folio, it is.
The folio benefits from its straightforward organization and intuitive progression. The first page is all about the most common character traits, which is to say those used for rolling dice, referencing stats, and other system rules. Abilities, saving throws, and attack scores are all in easy reach. Not only is there a Hero Point track, there's a summary of what they're used for. You can tally your damage, up to and including a box for noting that you're, well . . . dead. Handy.
Only at the end of the personal information section does one find the vital statistics -- height, weight, hair color, costumes, and anything else that might get a superhero a date. You can describe your character visually and/or textually with sketches and origin stories. Quirks of personality, flaws, and so on go here as well.
In between these segments are the building blocks of superheroes. Your skills, feats, and powers fit here, and each has its own space for all the components like how far your energy . . .
This article originally appeared in the second volume of Pyramid. See the current Pyramid website for more information.
Article publication date: November 5, 2004
Copyright © 2004 by Steve Jackson Games. All rights reserved. Pyramid subscribers are permitted to read this article online, or download it and print out a single hardcopy for personal use. Copying this text to any other online system or BBS, or making more than one hardcopy, is strictly prohibited. So please don't. And if you encounter copies of this article elsewhere on the web, please report it to webmaster@sjgames.com.