This sourcebook is available only as a PDF file from RPGNow.com.

The book describes itself as a guide to running/playing with “epic, world-shaking powers, missions of cosmic importance, saving not just the world but the universe, and what it means to be more than human.” The guidelines provided in the book are unabashedly four-color with a modernist spin. One does not really even need to read the listing of “References and Inspirations” to feel the deep debt the text owes to Morrison’s JLA, Ellis’s Authority, Kirby’s New Gods and nearly every Extra-Sized Summer Crossover ever written. If that’s the kind of wide-screen, galaxy-hopping, planet-smashing superheroics (or villainy) you’re looking for then this book is aimed at you.

Overview of Contents Chapter 1: This chapter focuses more on the player side of the screen. Why do these people care about saving the world, and why do they need to hang around together when each of them are so overwhelmingly powerful by themselves. The chapter explores the debate on the role of world-class supers in contemporary comics: do we act simply as inspirations and allow the “mere humans” to solve human problems, or do we go forth and Make the World Right. There are also words of caution about other forces, both mundane law enforcement and political authorities and possible “divine” or cosmic entities, who may take exception to the actions of the players.

Chapter 2: Here we begin to get into the crunchy mechanics. The chapter addresses the problems both of the M&M system specifically and of gaming in general when players are given unspeakably high levels of power. There is discussion of balancing the system based on whether a character is “deep” (one or two very strong powers) or “broad” (many varied powers) that I’m not completely convinced achieves the kind of balance the author is seeking, but the point is at least addressed for GMs to keep in mind. There’s also a section addressing the fact that the d20 mechanic for Saving Throws break down once you get upwards of 25 or 30 ranks of powers, and a couple of suggestions of how to work around this. There is also a section on powers that may cause the greatest GM headaches when taken at very high levels and tips for reducing those headaches while also presenting satisfying challenges for the players. Some of these tips (especially those for dealing with precognition) could feel repetitive/forced if a GM had to pull them out every session to deal with a player. Maybe it would be better to just veto players from taking certain powers and save the inevitable headache.

Then comes the pure gold nugget at the heart of this book: 101 Adventure Tips. These are only one or two line idea seeds, but I could run a campaign for years using only a handful of these. Some of them bear striking similarity to the “classics” of the high-power genre (#25: “The sun goes out.”) but half the fun of running these kinds of games is the nod and wink to the stories everyone knows, and turning them on their sides. These six pages make me want to run a game RIGHT. NOW. and are themselves worth the price fo admission.

Chapter 3: The “control knobs” for the GM to set the genre rules and genral game “feel” necessary for a high-power game. How much focus to put on Earth vs. other places in the cosmos, for example. There’s also an interesting idea of “Nobilis-izing” a supers game (or supers-izing a Nobilis game) where the characters are Sandman-like personifications. Frankly, I’m not sure why the topics in this section are covered here as opposed to being in the first chapter.

Chapter 4: More rules New powers designed for use at a cosmic scale (actually, most of these are just interesting blendings/constructions of existing powers. It admits to this freely, giving guidelines on how these Powers were built). Also, there are interesting high-level DC descriptions for Skills, allowing super-high level Skills to replicate some abilities of Powers, so they don’t become even more overlooked than Skills usually do in supers settings. Lastly, this chapter presents some very yummy ideas on how to handle large scale battles, like throwing the entire US Air Force against your players, or even an army of super-humans.

Chapter 5: Charatcers. Here are fourteen sample high-level characters, one of whom are just Superman or other high-end characters with the serial numbers filed off. They all have interesting powers and over-the-top backgrounds, but aren’t wedded to a specific continuity or setting so they are easily swipeable for your own game. The characters are presented here more fully than the dense yet flavor-empty format found in Freedom City.

Chapter 6: Locations, Locations, Locations. Interesting places to put your super-headquarters when real estate on the Moon is all taken up, or alternately places to visit like ringworlds and the obligatory mirror universe.

Overall appearance: There isn’t a lot of artwork in this book, which is just to my personal liking (more meat, less fluff). The art itself is serviceable with some pieces nicely impressive and some only okay. The art style is almost more reminiscent of Box Office Poison than JLA, but then who would have thought Frank Quitely would ever be able to pull of superheroes, so what do I know? The PDF file contains 2 versions: one with and one without fancy decorative borders (for easier printing). The layout is standard two-column and very functional. I found the borders a little thick and distracting but maybe that’s because I read the no-borders file first.

Overall Assessment: Many of the ideas presented in this book are the sort of thing that would have come to me eventually had I sat down with 1) lots of free time and 2) a huge comics library. The advantage of the book is that I do not have to spend that time coming up with the ideas. In fact, I ran a high-power M&M game recently and this book (especially the section on throwing whole armies against your players) would have been infinitely valuable to me in prepping for that game. There are also a lot of elements that would not have occurred to me, and that is where the real value of this book lies. Above and Beyond is definitely worth a read for anyone, player or GM alike, who wants to pull on the tights and cape and get into a high-powered supers game.

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