Villains & vigilantes

[magic-rhyme]

Anyone remember Villains & Vigilantes, 2nd edition?

I'd like to start a Golden Age V&V campaign up if you live in Oklahoma, in the Norman/Moore area near the Universtiy. If you're interested, please contact me forthwith!.

As for the people who don't live in Oklahoma, what did you like about the old skool yet classic V&V system? What are your fond memories?

[LAST CRUSADER]

V&V was the first superhero game I ever saw and of course the first I ever played. At the time everthing about it was either totaly new and exciting to me or familiar from AD&D (like the range of normal atributes, experience points and levels, random encounter tables etc...).
I made many characters for the game and my game ran for about 3 years until someone stole all of my game books and I started work on creating my own super hero game.
The most consistant player in my game had a character named STEEL HEAD who was a vigilante and not a classic super hero. A teleporting Marksman with super agility and strength. He constantly ran up against my favorite NPC PALADIN. who was really my own character because that's how I played him. (Thats just an element of my GMing style.)
There were some elements of the system that I didn't really grasp at the time so some things didn't get done right but they were done consistantly and since none of the players owned a copy of the game rules, no one knew if I got something wrong. I had a great time and so did everyone else.
Though I've moved on and now play Super Crusaders instead, (the game I made) i still look through the old V&V modules and character books for inspirations, once in a while, and my own books mention V&V more than once, offering praises to Jeff Dee, may he live forever.
Jeff Dee has also moved on since V&V and has produced a new game called LIVING LEGENDS, which he promotes as a sequal to V&V. if you're interested you can find it at http://www.io.com/unigames/ll/products.html I don't own it myself because I just haven't gotten around to buying it (money is tight) but the free preview looked good and you might want to check it out.

[Utgardloki]

One of my most successful campaigns was a V&V campaign set in "Earth Sigma". I came to know and love the cast of characters I created for the game, although the supervillians kind of sucked. The only one who actually did anything worthwhile was one I pulled out of a Top Secret module.

I also typed up about six pages of house rules to make V&V a generic RPG system suitable for any setting. This when GURPS had just come out. I never did end up using V&V for anything other than superheroes though.

Every once in a while I think about updating V&V to modern standards, but I don't know how I would save the parts I like about the game, without also bringing in parts that would be considered intolerable in a 21st century game. Besides, between D20, Runequest, D6, 7th Sea/Legend of the 5 Rings, et al, do I really need to spend the time to create a game system?

[statichaos]

I had a lot of love for this game, as silly as the characters could end up being from the random generation system. While I played in a group, I also had a side character named Broadsword, a lost knight from Arthur's Round Table who had become a celebrity in the modern world due to his constant appearances on television.

What enormous fun that was.

[guardian1968]

V&V was the first superhero game I ever saw and of course the first I ever played. At the time everthing about it was either totaly new and exciting to me or familiar from AD&D (like the range of normal atributes, experience points and levels, random encounter tables etc...).
I made many characters for the game and my game ran for about 3 years until someone stole all of my game books and I started work on creating my own super hero game.
The most consistant player in my game had a character named STEEL HEAD who was a vigilante and not a classic super hero. A teleporting Marksman with super agility and strength. He constantly ran up against my favorite NPC PALADIN. who was really my own character because that's how I played him. (Thats just an element of my GMing style.)
There were some elements of the system that I didn't really grasp at the time so some things didn't get done right but they were done consistantly and since none of the players owned a copy of the game rules, no one knew if I got something wrong. I had a great time and so did everyone else.
Though I've moved on and now play Super Crusaders instead, (the game I made) i still look through the old V&V modules and character books for inspirations, once in a while, and my own books mention V&V more than once, offering praises to Jeff Dee, may he live forever.
Jeff Dee has also moved on since V&V and has produced a new game called LIVING LEGENDS, which he promotes as a sequal to V&V. if you're interested you can find it at http://www.io.com/unigames/ll/products.html I don't own it myself because I just haven't gotten around to buying it (money is tight) but the free preview looked good and you might want to check it out.

I just got LL from rpgNOW.com and am in love with the game (all over again). Despite it's framework resembling DC HEROES with the use of Advantages or Disadvantages (or whatever they call them in LL), it works. The system simply works with the utilization of these concepts merged with classic V&V.

I just wish they offered more created characters than they do both in the game (especially!) and on the website. Those characters from the old game system helped me figure out a lot of lingering questions I had concerning character creation when they didn't tell you about it. Unfortunately,despite the lovely feel and presentation, I still (after all these years) feel I need more information on a few things I feel were glossed over too quickly.

Either that, or my age is catching up with me...aging gamer that I am...

[magic-rhyme]

Jeff Dee has also moved on since V&V and has produced a new game called LIVING LEGENDS, which he promotes as a sequal to V&V. if you're interested you can find it at http://www.io.com/unigames/ll/products.html I don't own it myself because I just haven't gotten around to buying it (money is tight) but the free preview looked good and you might want to check it out.

My experience with Living Legends has left me fairly cold. It seems less like a sequel to Villains & Vigilantes and more an effort to turn V&V into a pale imitation of GURPS or the Hero System.

Jeff Dee has disappointed me not a little. The brilliant designer behind both V&V and TWERPS has become enamored of late with destroying the cherished role of the game master or, at best, dehumanizing the game master down from an artistic fellow gamer into a mindless, mechanistic slave to RPG "tools" that control plots and characterization for him or her.

[guardian1968]

My experience with Living Legends has left me fairly cold. It seems less like a sequel to Villains & Vigilantes and more an effort to turn V&V into a pale imitation of GURPS or the Hero System.

Jeff Dee has disappointed me not a little. The brilliant designer behind both V&V and TWERPS has become enamored of late with destroying the cherished role of the game master or, at best, dehumanizing the game master down from an artistic fellow gamer into a mindless, mechanistic slave to RPG "tools" that control plots and characterization for him or her.

It was still good to read another superhero game that doesn't feel it needs to cater to the monopolozing D20 system. I still think that, despite the faults, LL has a future...if it can get its bearings as what it's trying to be at the time.