The year 1983 was a big time in my life. All the music I loved hit during the New Wave, I was introduced to MTV for the first time, I started Junior High School and met my current best friends for the first time, I was re-introduced to comics by these new friends, and I started playing D&D. Over the next few years we strayed from D&D to other role-playing systems in order to accomodate one of our friends who wasn’t permitted to play due to parental restrictions. Fortunately, his parents had no problem with sci-fi or super-heroes, so we started playing Star Frontiers and Villains & Vigilantes. We later started playing Marvel Super-Heroes (yeah, we were TSR slaves, but who wasn’t at the time?). Much later on I was introduced to other hero role-playing systems: Heroes Unlimited, Rifts – Wildcards, and lastly DC Heroes RPG. Of all of these, Villains & Vigilantes (hereafter refered to as V&V) was the most endearing, closest in comic book simulation, and most complicated system of them all.

My first impressions of V&V was as a simple system of numerical formulae to describe how super-powers work. Movement and ranges were expressed in inches (each equal to 5 ft.), your attributes determined much of what you could accomplish in the game, and powers were randomly developed for each character without much of a plan in place. Most importantly, the hero was supposed to be YOU translated into the game world. This was radically different from other games in which you assume a role of a completely different character. Now, you had to create yourself as a super-hero, not an easy task, or one that was very satisfying. In my little group, we were not very physical or athletic, we all thought we were smarter than we really were, and wanted to be more charismatic than we truly had been. In the end, we placed stats in the mediocre range, a horrible place for a super-hero. Then came the random powers. If you were lucky, you got an ambiguous power like Mutant Power or Spells, which allowed you to select something you would like to have instead of a random collection of abilities. Along with a random amount of powers you had to roll a weakness. The system allowed this weakness to be bought off by disposing of powers that did not fit the character concept. What you were left with was your character.

One of the things I think is cool about V&V is that you needed a scientific calculator to determine some of your character’s abilities! One stat that definitely required a calculator was Carrying Capacity (from which was derived your Hand-To-Hand combat damage). The basic formula was:

[(Strength/10)^3 + (Endurance/10)] x (weight/2) = Carrying Capacity (pounds)

I’ve used this formula to back-calculate Marvel character strength scores based on the Marvel Universe strength ratings, then compared them to the values given in the TSR version of the role-playing game. The math involved in the creation of one’s character was probably daunting to some people, but it’s what attracted me to the game. We weren’t great at actually “playing” the game, but we enjoyed making characters which we then detailed like entries from the Marvel Universe rosters. Yeah, we were uber-geeky.

Once we figured out the combat section, we played a few sessions, but fell back on the only dynamic we had encountered in RPGs to date – D&D. However, killing off the villains tends to get your character in trouble with the authorities and quickly eliminates the choices your GM has to oppose the heroes. In hindsight, the “heroes” we played would have resembled the various villains of early Marvel and DC comics: two-dimensional personalities with a gimmick power based on a purely unheroic ethic (much like the current Marvel heroes….). The system was quirky and completely different from those we had used before:

A) Initiative: Everyone rolls d10 and adds Agility. Highest score goes first. However, if your Agility + d10 was high enough, you got another action 15 points later (spending 2 Power Points to take it, if desired), continuing until remaining actions were all used up at phase 1 (a turn consisted of 15 phases and cycled through until all characters acted as many times as they could). Thus a character with a Heightened Agility of 30 who rolls a 3 for initiative goes on 33, then again on 18, then again on 3. Each character has to keep track of their initiative order – a confusing prospect at best in a large group. I ran an X-Men scenario in V&V for a convention once with 8 characters and 12 villains. Needless to say, we only got through a few turns of combat….

B) Movement: Measured in inches per turn, you got a number of movement inches based on the sum of your Strength + Agility + Endurance. Some powers increased movement or gave you alternate forms of movement (like swimming, flying, teleporting, etc.). You could perform some actions by expending movement. You could divide your movement between your actions in a turn. For instance, using the initiative above, if the character had 66” of movement for the turn and took all three actions for the turn, he could divide the movement into 40” running the first phase, lifting a parked car for 10” movement cost, then heaving it at an opponent flying in the air (no movement cost, attacking is a full action). You could spend all or none of your movement each phase you get to act. Some powers required movement to activate or maintain.

C) Combat Chart: This was the scary part! V&V used a reverse hit roll from D&D; a 1 was a critical hit while a 20 was a miss! Talk about screwing with our already muddled minds! A single chart listing attack and defense types was used to determine chances of success, modified by powers, skills, and bonuses gained by level. Hand-to-hand combat, a mainstay of comic books, was relegated only a 5 in 20 chance of hitting if the target had no defenses activated, and was next to useless against many defense forms. You had to pick skills and level boosts that increased your HTH combat chances in order to be like a Batman or Thing character. The cool thing was knockback from physical damage! If you took more damage than you had Basic Hits (your character weight / 50 pounds) you were knocked back 1” per point of difference. This became insane when villains with 45 Strength started attacking pitiful average heroes (Basic Hits 3–4) for something like 2d10 points of damage per hit (remember 1” = 5 ft.)!!!

D) Power Points: This was a new stat for us, derived from adding all the attributes (except Charisma). Power points fueled powers, allowed bonus actions during a round of combat, and could be expended to reduce damage from a blow! You could negate up to 1/10 of your current Power Score from any one hit by taking the points to your Power score instead. This allowed those lucky heroes with high Power and low physical stats to survive attacks by bruisers for a little while. When you are out of Power you are fatigued until you can rest.
E) Campaign Rules: This section gave a lot of ideas for adventures based on comic books and TV serials. It provided info for fully fleshing out a character, making NPCs memorable and unique, and included a section on Government (which had laws and punishments listed exactly like a legal text). The rest of the rules dealt with the superhero code, mechandizing, inventing things, resources, the influence of Charisma, and how to get cash rewards to finance your heroic career.

I never got very far with the game since few of my players liked a game in which the d20 was read in reverse (superstitious dice-rollers). We played a campaign or two using randomly rolled characters instead of ourselves as heroes (which NEVER works since we are, by definition, poseurs in a heroic world). It would be interesting to run something in this system again with the right group. I later played Marvel Super-Heroes RPG and found it to be too restrictive and less detailed. I’ll try to talk about this game next time.

The problems we encountered with V&V were:

1) Ridiculously long combat rounds. In retrospect, the time to play a single round of combat was comparable to running a round of combat in 2nd edition AD&D. If you find yourself bored waiting for your turn to come again, this is not the game for you!

2) Math Intensive. Honestly, you NEED a calculator to play this game! If you don’t have a head for math, or can’t add and subtract on the fly without scrap paper, V&V is not for you.

3) Player Compatibility. If you play with someone who likes comics but has no idea what a “hero” does, you can end up fighting about the ethics of actions and reactions from NPCs in the game. If you can’t play a hero, or prefer anti-heroes, this is not the game for you.

4) Low-Power Scale. If you like to play Superman, Wonder Woman, or Thor, you’re out of luck. The higher-end of the superhero spectrum is not really attainable, but you can simulate these characters rather well with years of game time and advancement. As an aside, most of the action in the Marvel Universe is “low-end” and is easily represented by the powers and stats listed in this game. I guarantee you can recreate characters like the Fantastic Four, X-Men, and Spider-Man by tweaking the system a bit.

Jeff Dee and Jack Herman have since revamped their system and renamed it. You can find it here: Living Legends by Uni Games. For more V&V stuff on the web, you can find it at the Official Villains & Vigilantes website. More V&V info and module listings can be gained here at the wikipedia. Since the game is out-of-print, visit your usual internet stores for a copy. I guarantee it’s a good read!

All illustrations copyrighted by Jeff Dee and used here with permission as per the V&V website.