The Hope Preparatory School Freshman Handbook is a lovely in-game artefact and a useful reference to the workings of the school. If playing a game in this setting, the Freshman handbook will add verisimilitude to the setting or if you need a super high school to visit, take a look.

Hope Preparatory School (HPS) Freshman Handbook is a 64-page PDF (61-pages if you remove the cover, OGL pages and ad) for the Mutants & Masterminds (3rd Edition) RPG written by John Dunn and published by Melior Via, LLC. This is part of the Melior Via’s Hope Preparatory School line.

HPS Freshman Handbook has mostly a traditional column layout and is digest size and easily readable. The text is annotated by three students which adds color commentary (in actual colored text). The art is full color but limited mostly to pictures of the teachers. It is very well book-marked and you can turn off layers (including the annotation) for easy printing.

HPS Freshman Handbook is exactly that, an in game artefact for students at the HPS school, a high school that caters to superhumans. This details the history of the school and its rules, information on academics (including class schedules and teachers -all of whom are superhumans-), sports, and extracurricular options (conspiracy club!). Overall, giving a solid view of the general workings of the school from the student side of things.

A short section on game rules talks about the appropriate power levels for students and rules for how school cliques impact on social skills. Lastly, the teachers are given short stat blocks.

Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.