I've used some of the subplot/diversion ideas from the list on the opening pages.

I like the potential tie-ins the sourcebook provides to the Tarot Masters (Pentacle Plot) and the Capellans (From the Deeps of Space).

The decidedly irreverent flavor of many of the villains makes for fun reading but doesn't mesh with the types of campaigns that I've run.

I should note that a good many of the crazy and wacky villains from this supplement I used in an unusual place - the island nation of New Babylon.

Years ago in our campaign (inspired much by concepts in the Elementals) many paranormals decided to form their own nation-state.  They took over the island of Madagascar and declared it their own sovereign state, and now it seems to have many different fiefdoms and city-states, with hundreds of paranormals from all over the world.  They're not much of a threat to the outside world, but there's been a couple of adventures there over the years.

It is on this island nation that many of the Opponents Unlimited folk have been encountered.

MUCH better acronym, G7!   

Well here is my take on the material located within the Module.

ENCOUNTERS:

1) Thug and Old Lady was an intro to Auntie Phil... instead of having a hand gun... she had her energy Luger. She menaced the guy because he had backed out on delievering illegal weapons that B.A.D. was selling on the Black Market (henchmen/hirelings groups... such as FORCE, T.O.T.E.M. and others).

2) House fire was a staging area for weapons development. Again an illegal weapons dealer. This was fun because of the various explosions and armaments going off (This was a developmet zone for Intercrime. Though the Crusaders never knew that).

4) the Space ship and rock band advertising campaign I used. It was just a fun thing. Good for a laugh. Especially with Laserfire and his quirky origin involved. LOL

7) Stolen Street Lamps... this was one of the Prankster lead ins...

8) Power Fist- Instead of a gun I switched it to a gauntlet which heightened the wearer's strength and could do a power blast carry attack. Unknown to the Crusaders at that time, This Gauntlet was stolen from Fieldfire (Captain Floop), who had made it via designs he found in an old underground complex that was owned by the deceased super villain... Psinister (The Psi that Headhunter ate - I will eventually get to both Psinister and Headhunter). As a matter of fact... nearly all of the powers of the Blackguard (Floop Brothers) had their origins within this lab (More later).
Gauntlet and two of the PCs (Titan and Sunburst) battled. Trying to escape he ended up electrocuting himself when a wild punch at Titan rolled a 20 and he struck a generator. This fused the gauntlet circuitry to his arm permanently making it a part of him (ala Doc Ock!). He would come back several times over the years always having a serious hate on for Titan or Sunburst.
Power-Fist saw what he thought was his chance to get even with the two heroes when they (The entire Crusaders) were battling the enraged and overly powerful Marutukku.
Unfortunately the insane Marutukku didn't know that Power-Fist was there to help (not that he would have cared anyhow had he known) and struck him with both Lightning and hurricane force winds, between the combined attack and knockback (including falling damage.), the minor villain was killed. His body was taken to M.E.D.U.S.A. (NOTE: I remember Titan being bummed cause he thought that Power-Fist was always fun to fight).

9) Religious Cult removal - I actually made this event the first showing of the Church of Divine Harmony. It was a fun little ditty. Frustratingly so. They basically called the Crusaders a bunch of fight lovin haters. (LOL) The Crusaders took their lumps (begrudingly) and waited for the police to arrive to break it up.

11) Brownshirts. These guys were a SERIOUS pain to the Crusaders. They constantly harrassed them (When they could) after every fight. Name calling and such. This was organized by the Purple Mask to discredit the heroes. They screwed up when they tried to wholly blame the Crusaders for the damage after the Doomsday Robot scenario and tried to say they were the ones that perpetuated the storms before it (Many citizens were outraged that these bigots would harass these heroes and essentially turnd on the Brownshirts). These guys would return one more time and make the biggest mistake of their lives (They brought weapons and were coaxed into attacking the Crusaders by Intercrime). Suffice to say the majority of them went to Prison for their destruction of private property and assaults.
ODDLY ENOUGH...
One would continue to appear as a running gag as a henchman/hireling/guard throughout my V&V campaign. His name was Froyd Hopper (Frog Hopper, Pink Froyd, Mister Hooper, Hopeless Hopper... etc... sorry I can't remember all the names they called him). He was a guard in both FORCE and Assassin Mods, He worked for V.I.L.E. as a driver for the transport of the R.A.M. 101, He was a former henchman of Psinister, He was also a former gang member of Nicotines, He had joined OD's Avant Guard, worked for both Master Zero and Madame Frigia (as a Zero man or Cold unit), He joined T.O.T.E.M. (and nearly died in an explosion), He was also very skilled with all kinds of weapons, both high and low tech, he was an accomplished pilot (knew how to drive both hovercrafts and jets) and he was a bomb expert.
Finally he turned to C.H.E.S.S. and helped them hunt down wanted criminals (Including exposing two separate Intercrime Hideouts). Froyd was a busy guy, who had all the right connections!

14) Man on top of the building with artificial wings. I think this was (PC) Sunburst solo... The guy called himself Wingman and insisted that his invention could and would work. Skeptical... Sunburst let him jump (he could catch him after all)... amazingly the wings worked. Sunburst tried to tell him that though he could fly as Wingman... he had no defenses to protect himself and he was essentially a sitting duck for any criminals who might take a shot at him (unlike Sunburst himself who's flaming defense protected him). Wingman insisted he could help others... and so begrudgingly he invited Wingman to the Crusader Citadel where he provided him with some minor light armor and a comm unit for emergencies ONLY!
Big mistake. Wingman became kind of a nuisance (moreso than the coming of Wonder Boy). He constantly stopped by the Crusader Citadel, was always calling them and would land himself in a heap of trouble more often than he helped. He was nearly killed when he tried to engage B.A.D. at one point. Manta Man had grown tired of having to babysit the man. So he contacted C.H.E.S.S. to see if they could use him before he got himself killed. C.H.E.S.S. placed Wingman at the M.E.D.U.S.A. facility in the Panhandle of Texas. Where he happily annoys the Goverment Heroes Steel (formerly 1st Stigmata) and Trickshot (His highlight was holding off Carnage of T.O.T.E.M. when they attacked the Facility seeking a chemcial compound... pretty decent feat that! - course he had a standard issue CHESS energy rifle attached to both arms *Grin*). He was essentially the Crusader's inside man at M.E.D.U.S.A. (shhhh!)

16) Pick Pocket troupe of musicians. Just a fun little side thing. Involving the PC Speed Demon.

17) LEAPING LIZARDS! this was a PC Thunderstar solo ditty. Kinda unfair considering Thunderstar had flight and armor.

22) Life of their own ROBOTOIDS... this eventually led to three separate incidents with these dreadful robots, making it worse is they got more improved everytime they showed up... Until Cybernaut came to life... which eventually led to the devestating ROBOTS ATTACK! way deep in the campaign.

24) ENTER... the PRANKSTER!!! What an absolutely joy of a character to have in a campaign. If any of the characters were having an especially difficult time (here he would come!). He helped and annoyed the Crusaders so many times. He would simply show up at the Citadel (like making a sandwich in the kitchen, or watching the TV in the residential area when they came back from a mission). He was eventually captured by Enforcer in the Citadel and they had a long talk with him. He became a reserve member and always seemed to show up at the right time
HIGHLIGHT 1: Going toe to toe with Doctor Apocalypse in Central Park. There is nothing like an enraged Major Super Villain getting pie in the face - The Crusaders were VERY protective of Prankster, because as a stealth chara... you really couldn't get much better (it was just containing him from goofing off they had a difficult time with).
2ND BEST HIGHLIGHT: taunting FORCE (In HIGHEST BIDDER!) and wrapping him up in plastic wrap, enough so that PC Titan could knock him into his next body (At this point the Crusaders were not pulling punches very often).

Prankster also put out a building fire by hosing it down with pie filling (50 cubic feet if I remember correctly), it stank and was a total mess... lol... but the fire was out.

Good character. Comic relief is always a good thing and this character was just geared to be funny with his seemingly minor powers.

Okay... that is it for the ENCOUNTERS... next time I will highlight the solos... then onto the Organizations (I told you all I used the V&V material extensively).

G7

I found them too on Amazon, but I'm with you... 30 bucks will get you almost every other module there is out there.

I've been lucky enought to find copies of Death Duel, and we actually got two copies of FORCE.  I'd offer you one, but I gave it to my son for his Birthday.  I'll keep waiting for a copy of OU, but I'm not going to fork over that kind of money for a book that looks kind of average by the reviews here.

Oh, I love the concept, tying an entire comic book series to the game... I wish Willingham had still been doing V&V stuff when they did the Elementals... That was a cool series.  I think I heard they were making more source books like this, but I never saw or heard about any of them.  I can't say how I feel about DNA Agents Sourcebook exactly as I've never seen a copy.

Hammer wrote on Oct 11^th, 2009 at 4:24pm:


Yeah, the DNAgents sourcebook is a neat idea, but it's one of the few V&V published items that I've never used.  I've recently went online and purchased a bunch of the DNAgents comics, which I'm slowly reading through (I'm not a big fan, to be honest - they're kind of 'blah', IMHO).

Evidently they did make an Elementals sourcebook, but it never saw print.  Not sure how much of it was ever completed, but Willingham was the creator and longtime writer/artist, and V&V's Jack Herman was the scripter of the series for many years.  Rumor has it that Scott Bizar at FGU will be releasing it someday soon.

Scott told me in an email that FGU would be re-releasing some of the older V&V modules, like what they are doing with the Aftermath stuff as he comes accross it, evidently he's moved, and all the V&V stuff is in crates in his garage... how'd you like to go for a treasure hunt there...

He also said they might be releasing some previously un-released stuff.

Here are the last two sections of Opponents Unlimited.

2) Freelancers

SIRRIANDOR - Alien who by his description in OU seems to emulate a toned down Impossible Man (From FF/Marvel).
I called the race the Glamour and treated them a bit more like Chameleon Boy's race. Very secretive but unlike the Durlans... protective of all neutral or good sentient races in the universe (Though I never truely explained why). They tended to help races that were subject to the villainy of other alien races (as they helped PC Thunderstar during his tenure in the captured Capellan Worlds in "From the Deeps of Space")
Sirriandor was one of the NPCs that traveled with PC Thunderstar. The two became close and unfortunately he was killed deactivating/destroying a new weapon as it was launched to destroy the Psy homeworld.
Near the end of the (PC) Thunderstar's ALIEN WAR he did meet Sirriandor's Replicant Parent Rosirdrina who unknown to PC TS replicated again and left it's child on the Psy homeworld.

Ben Ben E. Jahmoka… okay… this is such an awful character in his original concept (way WORSE than the name PASTE POT PETE). When I initially read this profile I was like… oh come on you have got to be kidding me. So with (VERY LITTLE) thought. I transformed him into…
ALCHEMY I made him a man who had discovered a book of Alchemy and developed the basic abilities he showed with his “Coin” powers to powers of a chemical nature. He had a drapey capey look and wore a hood. He was usually trying to steal chemicals and ingredients for his abilities. He was a successful thief and oddly enough escape artist. The only way they found they could hold him in prison was to keep him in a catatonic state. His BIG moment came when he was a part of the RETURN of the ANCIENTS storyline. Which involved virtually every magic character (including a brief appearance of the Devil from Devil‘s Domain) in the game system. Oddly enough it was Alchemy that saved Miranda Manning (Carter Manning/Manta Man’s deceased wife) at the end of the storyline and reunited the two lovers (Long story that…). He also assisted the Crusaders during my version “Dawn of the Devil” Mod. and ended staying on my version of Primion to help govern the world (obviously not an evil guy in the end).

THE SHROUD He was used as is. Though later in the game and during the RETURN of the ANCIENTS game he was seriously injured and ended up with the weakness of having a limp and needed a cane to walk upright. He lost his skull mask, opting for robes and a hooded cape and took up the title of HERMIT in the Tarot Masters.

Ronky… ugh… another person with lame kind of background (I was very strict about the amount of Alien crap on my world). So I just transformed him into…
WEAPONSMITH a genius (I boosted his intelligence massively) who designed the HUGE amount of  high tech weapons that were used by MANY organizations lackeys (Energy rifles, armors, computers and technology - course he kept the best for himself and had a trigger for a flaw he created in the weapons that allowed them NOT to be used on him). He was a pretty prominent figure in my games and was on C.H.E.S.S. and INTERPOL’s most wanted list. He was elusive and seemed to always have an escape plan.
He and Motivator were friends and it was hinted that more was going on than just idle conversation. In one of the fights with Doctor Apocalypse, Weaponsmith was seen leaving (teleporting) away as the heroes arrived. Technically he probably was the one foe in the game where the Crusaders were consistently coming across and dealing with his handiwork.

ORION OPERATIVE UIY 2249 I used him as is. Even keeping his alien origin the same. He was virtually destroyed in the battle with members of the Crusaders and it was his basic design that enabled the hero Steel (Frank Kmilek a Russian who had become the first Stigmata - see STIGMATA entry in the MW v1) to regain a new body based on the remains of the Orion android body. Steel played a significate part with PC Thunderstar during the ALIEN WAR as he was one of the heroes to go along with Thunderstar to help stop the Capellans. (See more on Steel in the Stigmata entry when I do it).

Sergeant Ramble - ugh…  Well this guy got sort of an overhaul in the powers department (Sorry… as much as I disliked having too many Aliens running around… I disliked dimension hoppers - there is enough to explore on the World as we know it… to not have other dimensions popping in all the time, which is used a BIT too much in comic). So Sgt Ramble became…
TIMELORD - His powers allowed him to manipulate time. Though he did have a base designed and situated outside of Earth and time. He was and became more of a neutral character. Preventing alternate horrible futures from happening… but never asking for help in doing it (thus he was perceived as a villain). This included attacking places and people.
He is responsible for bringing several beings from different times and leaving them on earth for the heroes to deal with. It was later learned that both Lifeguard (from MW v3) and Timemaster worked hand in hand together to prevent horrible futures from happening.
SIDE NOTE: In a past adventure of the Crusaders, they battled Timelord as he sent Dinosaurs against the team. It is the reason the T-Rex is in the Crusader Citadel trophy room (and the reason I shaped Sgt Ramble into Timelord).

WAVEMISTRESS - I kept her the same. She has a GREAT LOOK. The only thing I changed is I took away the ICE aspect of her Ice Powers and replaced them with a Water Version. She briefly joined the Crushers but found them inept (despising Mocker) and eventually joined Black Guard (Floop Brothers) and along with her teammates was a consistent pain for the Crusaders.

ANACONDA (formerly HOOPSNAKE) - I kept his origin and look the same. Though I did allow him to stretch all portions of his body at the listed 5” (instead of just his Body only). He was a fun character and he was sometimes partner of Mammoth/Tusk (Ala Sabertooth and Constrictor)… He also used to work with an insecure villain called Oculon (yes taken from the Champions system). They were a fun trio to play with when doing minor bank robberies and such. They either usually battled PC Titan and Dreamweaver, Though they did fight PC Speed Demon and Laserfire a few times.

Okay.. That is it for the Freelancers. I was kinda hoping to get the rest done but I just don’t have time today.

ENJOY.

G7

Oh and as soon as I can I will dig up the images I did of the revamped guys and post them here with a link to my G7 art thing. Cya

I used some of the ideas here when I got to fill in as DM one session. I used the komodo dragons. The module doesn't say what happens if you catch the komodo dragon disease, so I said you had to save vs. death touch. Nobody died, though.


I like the art in this module. It's very creative.

We ended up using every single character in this module.  The Floop Brothers were recurring villains, normally working for a more powerful villain. 

As I've mentioned, Ronky and Prankster (and Sirriandor) all became memebers of assorted superteams.

I did level up one or two of the villains, but all of them are fun.  Cosmic Zoom was dangerous in lots of situations, often freeing other villains from jail...