Mutants and Marvels 2.0 was designed and published by Tom Doolan of Wishful Gaming. The elevator pitch for MnM would to imagine if the FAERIP system that powers the classic Marvel Super Heroes system from TSR was crossbred with much of the D20 System, including Green Ronin's Mutants and Masterminds. However, I feel that Doolan's MnM really hues closer to the spirit of FASERIP and is much cleaner game than Mutants and Masterminds.

Character creation is point based, with different levels corresponding the the power level of the heroes you want to play.

Attributes are those from FASERIP: Fighting, Agility, Strength, Endurance, Reason, Intuition, and Psyche. Your attributes default to Typical or +0 and have Ranks ala FASERIP that correspond to modifiers ranging from -4 to +25. A handy chart shows you what each Rank means for every Attribute.

The Powers section goes into the different types, Power Packages, Power Stunts, and Power Sources and Character Origins.

Your Power Source and Character Origin determine where you got your powers and give you a bonus of some kind.

The Power List might appear short at first glance, but the powers have been created to allow you to sort out their special effects and to customize them. I felt all powers were covered in some way and I think it was the right amount of crunch for me (I "grew up" on Champions and use to love elaborate tools to build characters, MnM lets me get started and is easy to teach).

Skills are broad and improve your Rank in an Attribute.

Then your Identity, Resources, Reputation, Popularity/Infamy, Contacts, and Karma are covered. They are directly inspired by FASERIP, which I appreciate.

The mechanics themselves are 2d20 + Rank to roll higher than a Difficulty set by the Game Master or an opposed roll.

Combat in MnM has these steps:

1. Check for Surprise.

2. Roll Initiative 2d10 + Intuition.

And then Each Round:

1. Attacks use Agility for Ranged, Fighting for Melee, or Psyche for Psychic and your roll has to exceed your opponents' appropriate Defense, which is Agility, Fighting, and Psyche + 10.

2. If a character is hit, they make a Damage Save by rolling 2d10 + their Rank in Endurance vs a Difficulty equal to your opponents Rank in their Power or Strength + the amount they succeeded in hitting you. If you succeed you take no damage. If you fail, you take damage to your opponents' Difficulty number. You have six levels of Damage (Bruised, Injured, Stunned, Unconscious, Disabled, and Dying) with each level having "hit points" equal to your Ranks in Strength + Endurance. Damage is removed from your "hit points" and each level imposes a penalty.

At the beginning every turn that you are at Bruised, Injured, Stunned, or Unconscious) you make a Recovery Roll of 2d10 + Endurance Rank vs 10 + Your total Damage. A success means you gain hit points back equal to the amount you passed the roll by.

Combat rules cover multiple foes, knockback and slamming, minions and so forth. I feel the rules are straight forward yet robust.

Overall, I'm impressed with the rules and find it a great mix of FASERIP and more modern rules. For me its a better alternative to Mutants and Masterminds because I like the bell curve of 2d10 and I find Mutants and Masterminds lacks character.

I recommend this product.

I wrote a review of Mutants & Marvels 2.0 on my blog... It's a bit long for copying here so here is a link. Thanks for looking

https://brainstormoverload.wordpress.com/2015/06/04/small-scale-shout-outs-2-mutants-and-marvels-2-0/

I have always been a fan of the old MSHRPG roleplaying game. And still to this day, is perhaps one of my favorites. Now, Tom Doolan has come along to introduce to us, his variation, using the d20 rules. Which is something I have wanted to do for a while myself. This game comes in at only 45 pages.

(1) Character creation is simple, and based on "Ranks" instead of Dice. Applying those ranks between your Abilities and Powers. This game takes as much care to keep it looking very much like MSHRPG as much as possible. (2) The use of "Talents or Skills" is primarly what you might expect from MSHRPG, but only a few skills are listed that bare importance to being a super hero. And Skill resolution, is kept fast and loose so you can enjoy the action. (3) Damage in Mutants & Marvels , uses a Damage Tracker instead of a pool of points. And a damage save, to see if you do take damage. (4) Perhaps one of the best "gems" of the system, is the amount of options for using Experience to enhanced your character. There are at least 3 different systems, so each person can use what they prefer. Plus it comes with a lightly detailed campaign setting, and a starting adventure to help get things started. (5) Now the powers list is very small, not as expanded as I would wish. But it does handle the most important, and I think many can just make up their own powers quite easily. Since it keeps the old MSHRPG feel. (6) Still no Charisma ability. But, the changes made to Popularity are a much needed change I think.

The cover is not too bad, the product's print is clean and large so your not squinting or having to enlarge the pages to read them. Everything is kept concise and short, and assumes you already know a bit about the RPG games, such as MSHRPG, and D&D.. But i think a new comer, could wrap his head around these concepts with a few reads. Cause lets face it, even I prefer simple over complex. There's Not a lot of Art in the book. Ranks only go up to Unearthly, but it would probably be easy to expand this if GM's wanted to.

The best part, is it lives up to his statement. Taking an old game I love, and making it d20 compatible without being complex. So Thank you Tom Doolan, for coming along, and giving us this fine product. . This was the best $5 dollars I ever spent for a game. And this is sure to give me plenty of enjoyable hours to come!

Full test here: http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2013/09/review-basic-arcana.html

The idea of Basic Arcana is simple. Create an "Unearthed Arcana" for the B/X rule system. Via the OGL and OSR this can be done for Basic Fantasy or Labyrinth Lord. The result of this idea from Tom Doolan is this book.

The style is very much in the feel of the old B/X books. The text and most of the art is by Doolan himself, so kudos in that regard.

We start off with some class variants. The obvious parallel here is when the UA expanded the classes demi-humans could take but it also fills a niche. Not all elves use magic, not all dwarves swing an axe. While we can see some of this in ACKs, this has a tighter feel with the B/X design. We get two new races, the Half-elf and the Half-orc and two new classes, the Barbarian and the Martialist.

There are some rule additions including various to hit bonuses, rules for Followers and the Mass Combat rules.

Mass Combat is interesting since it is a backwards evolution of what D&D took from Chainmail.

On the down side I did not see a declaration of open content. The OGL is there, but not the copyright for this book or how much open.

Also while the book feels packed it is only 17 pages total or about 14 pages of text. I am of two minds on this. First the book does feel packed, so a lot was crammed into these 14 pages of text. On the otherhand is $3 too much for 14 pages?

In the end I judged the price fair, but I would have liked to have seen some more. Some special spells for the Dwarf Priest and the Elf Sorcerer would have been nice.

Who should buy this? If you are a big B/X fan (like me) then there is a lot of value here for your buck. If you play any of the "Basic Era" games then there are things you could use here.

UPDATED: So how is this for service? The document has been updated to include the proper OGL declarations AND a page of new spells!

+Tom Doolan of the Wishful Gaming blog has written Life of Rage, an Orcish adventure game. Tom also writes short fiction that is available on Smashswords. If you're looking for a good fantasy fiction story give them a look. I've read two of his stories and enjoyed them both.

But what I want to talk to you about is Life of Rage. Besides being a kick ass title it is a very good gaming book. Tom wants you to play an orc and stop being a damn sissy about killing things. And I quote, "...every adventure should be able to be solved with the judicious use of violence." That folks, is poetry. Tom has developed a mini-handbook so you can play orcs in your campaign.

I think what I like best about Life of Rage is Tom keeps it simple. You'll be able to read it through in a single pass and roll it out for your players. He offers you three classes and a sub-class. Keeping with the basics, the three classes offered are race classes; orc, half-orc and goblin. Yup, goblins are considered weenie versions of orcs. The sub-class is the shaman. Here's where he does something I like a lot, shamans can chose from four dominions and that determines what spells they gain. Guess what? Not one fricking healing spell in any of the lists. Oh yeah! Oh they can heal. It's an innate power. But they must draw the life from another thing to do the healing. There also a great write up about herbal healing, but you still get your ass kicked even when you're healing.

Orc do no accumulate experience points. That's what the stupider weaklings collect. Orcs horde glory. He even introduces a new currency into the orcish culture, targs. I really like both ideas. They both may be cosmetic, but it adds a depth to the orcish way of life.

He provides a player's guide to orcs, sort of the ecology of an orc. My favorite section was about orc gods. Bravo for Tom for not falling back on good old Gruumsh. I like old one-eye, but Tom creates his own pantheon of brutishness. These are very well thought out and interesting.

Lastly Tom gives you a sample of the orcish lay of the land. It could easily be lifted in placed into a campaign. He includes some nice details about some different tribes. Each has their own personality and distinction. Lastly, he includes a section about how you could run a orcish campaign.

I think Tom has done an excellent job with Life of Rage. I've been creating a campaign world lately and I plan on using many options offered in Life of Rage. It adds a depth to a race most consider cannon fodder. He also offers a choice to make orcs more than just a 1HD critter to be killed without a thought. There is a lot of great stuff in here that I plan on including my world.

It is a 29-page PDF for $2.99. Well worth the price.