Cosmic Handbook: A Mutants & Masterminds Sourcebook

This is a great addition to the MnM 3E books. It has new archetypes and discussions on what constitutes a Cosmic game. My only complaint is that I'd have liked more details on the fluff of the MnM 3E lore alien races. Its pretty limited though it gives a few decent frameworks to work off of. Also it might have been nice to have an adventure or two written in.

The Cosmic Handbook for  Third Edition Mutants & Masterminds  is another fine supplement for this game system. Since Mutants & Masterminds is fully compatible with the  DC Adventures  roleplaying game, most of the material presented here supports that game, as well.The first chapter in the Cosmic Handbook, "Infinity and Beyond," opens with a short piece of fiction to set the mood, followed by a detailed overview of all things extraterrestrial in superhero comics-- with a particular focus on the tropes and conventions of science fiction and alien invasion type stories. Since alien cultures or civilizations have been portrayed in markedly different ways throughout the various eras of comic book publishing history, this chapter surveys much of that terrain and offers practical suggestions for Game Masters who want to recreate a particular theme or set a mood specific to one of these eras. While this section might not be of much use to a Game Master who already knows exactly what type of story he or she wants to tell, there is some excellent food for thought to be found here.Chapter two, "Cosmic Heroes," offers plenty of crunch for character creation, but it begins with a discussion of the science fiction genre and the various roles which player characters could fill in those story types. It presents new abilities, skills, advantages, equipment, and powers which are appropriate to a science fiction comic book adventure, as well as suggestions for how existing character options from the core rules can be adapted in such a setting. Finally, the chapter closes with some new player archetypes of varying Power Level.The third chapter is entitled "The Cosmic Series" and covers exactly what that title implies. Addressed primarily to Game Masters, it discusses many of the themes central to outer space or interdimensional comic-book stories-- aliens and alien invasions, space travel, cosmic mysteries, and so forth. It also includes several excellent villain archetypes and examples of alien races.The fourth and fifth chapters are specific to Mutants & Mastermind's default 'Freedom City' setting, and therefore might not be as useful for DC Adventures campaigns set in the DC comic book universe. Chapter four, "The Freedom Cosmos," looks at the timeline and history of the 'Freedom City' setting, going all the way back to the creation of the universe and fast-forwarding to the far, far future. Chapter five,"Freedom City 2525," presents that distant future as an alternate setting for Mutants & Masterminds games, a setting reminiscent of DC Comics' 'Legion of Super-Heroes' setting on 30th-century Earth. This last chapter also presents a somewhat DC-esque far-future superhero group, the "Freedom Legion," whose members sadly seemed so uninspiring that their presentation and page count, combined with my overall lack of enthusiasm for the "Freedom City" setting, led me to dock one star from this review.The Cosmic Handbook doesn't quite do for outer space adventures what the  Supernatural Handbook  did for horror adventuring, but it's still a useful supplement with a lot of good material for players and Game Masters. I'd recommend picking the Supernatural Handbook up first, but wouldn't discourage anyone from buying this supplement.

Don't know how much of it we'll use in our gaming group, but it's there if needed.

The book has good ideas and builds on the base of M&M very well.

good book.

Great book!

To get this out of the way, my copy is softcover, not hardcover.Comsic is definitely an era useful to cover for M&M. As they note, it covers a lot of area, and good suggestions are provided, with the ever useful Archetypes taking you from PL 10 to 14.I have to admit, I'm happy to see the Lockheed option here.Chapter 4 isn't bad with information on the universe, but Chapter 5 looks like it was written in the 90's and never updated. The Freedom Legion has 8 people, only 2 of which are female. And both of them are attractive, and show a lot of skin. Because...reasons, I guess. Note none of the men are attractive, because that would be gross and no women like cheesecake. Apparently. I give Professor Danger credit for a high INT, but no one will notice as they are all staring at her boob window. It's a pity the author couldn't come up with a better female character that actually inspired the artists.

For any GM playing a cosmic adventure with M & M this is the book for you. It covers space as it is presently for the M & M universe and it also covers the future when Earth would be a star faring culture.

Apart from the fact that the product was listed as a hardcover, and the product I received was softcover, the book did arrive in excellent condition, and the representative was apologetic for the misrepresentation.