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Masterminds & Madmen
Written by Rob Hudson. A 187-pg trade paperback, perfect bound with black and white interior. This is a comp copy and was not playtested.
Overview: Masterminds & Madmen is an “Enemies Book” filled with villains designed to be used in a Pulp style game. I don’t play much Pulp (as in none). So, I gritted my teeth and started reading. Imagine my surprise when I found the book a good read and readily cannibalize-able for our Dark Champions campaign. Several of the villains or groups can be used as is with a bare minimum of thought to update their history from the 40s to modern day Hudson City. [An “Enemies Book” is something like a monster book in that it provides tons of opponents to challenge characters in different ways.]
Layout & Design:
Cover - The cover of M&M has several pulp styled characters caught in action. It is fitting with the genre but lacks a strong punch.
Interior Art – The black and white interior art is done is a genre style and looks decent. Many of the pieces remind me of 4E interior art but I can’t put my finger on the exact cause. There is a large multi-paged map of a huge zeppelin called the Skyfortress. that is nifty. Overall, the art in Masterminds & Madmen is a step in the right direction.
Editing and Layout – Other than the odd typo there isn’t much to critique. The book is standard two-column layout with sidebars.
Masterminds The first chapter of the book covers the movers and shakers of the pulp world. Masterminds designed to give the party a rough ride. There are a total of five presented. Doctor Feng Shen, a Chinese super-genius is my personal favorite. Two of the masterminds (The Skymaster and Geistkapitan) seem out of sorts. They certainly fit the genre and would make great villains in a comic book or dime novel; however, they are difficult translations into an RPG.
Each of the five comes equipped with their own elite followers, gear, and organizations to extend their reach and usefulness.
Fiendish Organizations There are a total of four organizations presented (The Cabal, The Coletti Mob, The Cult of Nine Degrees, and The Frankenstein Mob). The Colletti Mob is designed to be useful in just about any mob game in any era with only a little tweaking. I took some notes. The Cabal and the Cult are both useable concepts with limited power (opposed to DEMONs broad grasp). They also don’t infringe on DEMONs shtick. That leaves us with The Frankenstein Mob. To tell the truth, when I read the name - I groaned. Never judge a book, they say. I enjoyed the twist on the theme and the author did some homework to make these guys “fantasy believable.” Big Frank and Hunch were my two favorite characters in the book. So, don’t groan.
Solo Villains This is the largest section of the book clocking in at 74 pages. Rob Hudson throws just about everything in here. There are slimy conmen, super-spies, and exploding debutantes with a dash of everything in-between. There are a total of 34 solo characters although several have connections. Stand out characters include the now separated, but born co-joined martial artists, the ghoulish girl fascinated with beauty, and the previously mentioned exploding debutante (how can you beat that?).
Summation I went into Masterminds & Madmen with more than a few prejudgments. Most of those still hold true but I enjoyed the book despite myself. The Arthur does a great job capturing the genre while still designing characters that are useful for non-pulp games.
The Negative Well, it is Pulp. There are a handful of characters that I just don’t see getting used in a game, no matter how thematicly correct they might be. A second less obvious pitfall (this might be part and parcel to the genre) is that several of the characters are tied to specific and unusual locations that might make it hard to use them in a game (such as the oriental pirate on a punt).
The Good Masterminds & Madmen does a fantastic job designing a host of unique and distinct characters. Rob Hudson has created some very interesting characters that transport well across genre in many cases. The writing is good and at points it is excellent. Masterminds & Madmen does the job it is intended to do — provide a pre-built stable of eccentric pulp style villains to use in Hero games.
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