History
In the late 1990s, Steve Kenson had an idea for a superhero setting that he had been contracted to produce. Through a series of misfortunes, the project fell through and he was left with a partially completed manuscript. Shopping it around to various publishers, none were interested (superhero games had lost their popularity) until he talked to Chris Pramas (President of Green Ronin Publishing) about the setting.
Chris made the offer to publish the setting if Steve would also create a superhero game system based on the d20 System. Steve agreed and got to work. Over time, it became clear to him that the game would need to be released only under the Open Game License. Releasing the game under the d20 Standard Trademark License, as originally planned, would have prohibited the inclusion of ability generation and character advancement rules. Presenting a complete game was seen as taking precedence over having a d20 logo on the product, so the decision was made to use the OGL without the d20 license.
Mutants & Masterminds was published in 2002 and the setting, which was once known as Century City, became Freedom City and was published in 2003. The first edition M&M books featured artwork 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.
On May 12, 2010, Green Ronin Publishing announced a third edition of the superhero roleplaying game would debut in the fall. This announcement came just 9 days after the publisher announced that it would debut a new DC Adventures game in August, based upon the Mutants & Masterminds game. According to Green Ronin President Chris Pramas, the two new games will "share a common ruleset."
Read more about this topic: Mutants & Masterminds
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