Simple question, what attracted you to V&V to begin with? And why have you stuck with it so long?

Bumping this back up, as I'd like to hear what our newer members have to say.

My friends and I had already tried adapting D&D into a supes game, so the original V&V was a perfect fit for us. When we saw the Dragon magazine ad featuring Skyhawk, we knew we had to get the new rules! The Dee-licious art was irressitable. And my little hoodlum friends and I so amazed that the revised rules included weaknesses!

Our only complaint was that the character generation rules were too random. And we wuz all too young to take it upon ourselves to customize the system.

I think what keeps me hanging around is:

- love of superhero comic books

- the deceptive simplicity of the rules (a minute to learn, a lifetime to master)

- nostalgia of great games gone past

- great modules

- ease of GM-ing. I mean it's the only game I can recall that everyone in the game group ran at one time or another. I once played in 4 regular campaigns and ran a fifth... simultaneously.

- messboards like this

I had been playing AD&D (Greyhawk Campaign) for a long time. Any AD&Der worth their weight bought Dragon Magazine. So...

I saw the ad for Villains and Vigilantes in a Dragon Magazine.
The one with Magnetor.
The image and design grabbed me.
So I ordered the box set.

When I first got it... it was a breeze, character creation was easy, powers were descriptive and simple enough to understand, movement, velocity all of that...

Until play.

Then I hit a wall... why you might ask?
Well I had been a DM for a long time. Using the TSR rules of combat and all.

I COULD NOT WRAP MY MIND AROUND REVERSING THE D20!!!

You know... 20 in AD&D is a serious hit... 1 is an absolute miss!
In this game... 1 was an absolute hit... and 20 was a serious miss!

It was like forcing myself to be dyslexic...
I did... then it became a no-brainer.

I was hooked.
The reason I stick with it?

It is an easy game... why change a good thing?
I tried Champions... sorry... lame!
Superworld...
Mutants and Masterminds...
Hero...
and virtually all the rest...
It always... ALWAYS lead back to V&V... because it is still the best system.
It has a managable world (if you want to take the effort).
It also does not need anything than just the rulebook (Some of the add on rules such as Knock Back are good to have. Underwater Combat). But otherwise...


What more can I possibly say?

G&

Doctor Foom wrote on Sep 8^th, 2009 at 11:44pm:


This got my attention. There has got to be a good story behind this deceptively simple statement. I'd luv to hear an elaboration if you'd be up for it! From da sound of things, you are a celebrity in deez woods, after all!!!

Same basic stuff here, started off hardcore AD&D, saw the adds in Dragon Magazine, I liked comics, looked cool, so I ordered the boxed set.  Hooked every since.  We played the heck out of it, I can remember some almost 24 hour sessions during the summer in high school.  Ah, those were the days!  I was seriously into Champions for awhile, the deceptive balance of points systems... it was just way to complicated to keep track of everything.  V&V captures the essence of comics without beating you over the head with the rules... Mutant Power, Psionics, etc... make your own power.  I have been out of gaming, other than computer games for almost 20 years, but it's definitely like riding a bicycle.  I've been a member of the V&V yahoo group for sometime, but the only thing I ever felt a part of there was when we tried the COH crossover... It was a lot of fun, but as you say, nothing compares to the actual game, the human interaction.  It has been great playing with my kids, I'm spending quality time with them, teaching them values (no you can not play a villain, no, you can not stab him in the back, would you really want to kill someone? Getting them to understand what it is to stand up for what's right, and that doing the wrong things have consequences, in the game as in life...), and we're having fun!

Me and my friends were into role-playing games in high school, and me and my best friend loved comics.  We played some other games (Top Secret, Gamma World) and I'd played some D&D, but we wanted to try out a supers game.

We went into a small gaming and comics store, and we saw V&V for the first time.  Champions was the other possibility, but to us the choice was a no-brainer, as V&V had tons of amazing art by Jeff Dee and Bill Willingham and Champions was gray, full of charts, and boring looking.

We fell in love with it and played it a ton, sometimes every day.  We spent hundreds of hours making character sheets and markers, converting many comics heroes (mostly Marvel) and incorporating them into our campaign.

In the late 80's I fell away from the game for a few years, but one time while on vacation in 1990 with my brother and brother-in-law (who used to play in the mid 80's), we got a bug and wanted to play again.  We recruited my wife's cousin, jumped in our cars (we were hours away from home), raced home, picked up the game again and started up a new campaign (which is now still going nearly 19 years later, though the other three dropped after a few years).

It's simplicity, elegance, ease of character creation, quick combat system, open ended powers desciptions (for many powers), beautiful artwork, great markers, fun modules, and outstanding supplements all make it the greatest supers game in the world!   

I love the simple style.

The chart that compared offensive attacks against defense was awesome.  I loved how the characters are different.  Champions had no flavor for me (all 10D6 Power Blasts with effect attachment)

I loved how the battles could be fast and furious or long and drawn out, either way they were great.

I loved how Random Generation could create a beloved character I would never have thought of without it.

I loved the artwork and the modules

One word...ELEMENTALS.  I picked up the first issue on its release and loved it.  As the story progressed I realised this was probably my favourite book at the time.  Then I found out it was also an RPG adventure.  Scoured high and low for it and eventually bought Death Duel and the box set in one hit.  Loved the adventure as much as I loved the comic.

For me V&V has the same flavour as my other favourite RPG (Warhammer first edition).  It is a simple enough system to grasp the basics quickly and places its emphasis on storytelling.  I can't stand rules heavy systems that just seem to get in the way of story flow (which put me off Champions completely).  Plus it's all there in one book.  A solid reading session and you're ready to go.

And then there's the price.  Let's not forget how good the pricing was/is on all the books.

  Always loved D&D 2nd version the most and still do. Basically because that's more of my Genre. I have not read a comic in several hundred years. Anyway John introduced me to V&V and for several reasons that became the game of choice. Reasons:

1. John was bigger than me.
2. John was the GM
3. Nobody else liked me due to an abrasive personality......can you believe that??

One I forgot, I did try Champions because it was said to be more versatile.

For me, all the characters felt the same.

Like the famous Champions joke, "You have a new character, no don't tell me, let me guess: 12D6 EB and 6 PD"

While there was suppose to be all this favor added to the 12D6 EB, it really didn't translate to game play.

It didn't have the never hit problem of V&V, all characters can soak up alot of damage, a slow battle of attrition basically.

With V&V, when you connect with an attack you opponent feels it!

  I love sitting down and hammering out characters, I prefer random roll systems, some of the best villains come from random rolls. Plus a system that allows you to throw away a power/weakness allows for just enough modification to make a fairly complete and competant villain.

Jeff wrote on Feb 4^th, 2010 at 12:22am:


Myself and others have noticed as well that Jeff Dee's art doesn't seem quite as good as it used to be.  I tend to prefer his older stuff to most of his newer stuff, though he still occasionally nails an awesome piece.

Avengers, baby! 'Nuff Said!

I didn't pick uo V&V.

V&V picked up me! 

Okay, I'm kind of the odd guy out here.

I had been playing RPGs since elementary school (Gamma World 1st edition being my first RPG).  I shopped at a local comic shop back when I was in college that had a decent RPG section.  The guy behind the counter was a fun guy to talk to and ended up inviting me to play a superhero game with his group.  So I showed up, created a character, and jumped right into V&V.  I had seen the Dragon magazine ads, but never picked the game up.

Long story short, it turned out he was actually trying to pick me up, not realizing I didn't swing that way.  After things were clarified, I stuck with the group and had a blast playing V&V (the only game they played), and my best group ever ended up spawning off that group.

polarboy wrote on Apr 17^th, 2010 at 7:51pm:


Excellently written, polarboy!  Wow - this sums up so well what I believe many of us feel.  Kudos on a well written summary!