I tried running Death Duel at an event and also figured it would be a short one. Two hours into it and they had barely finished off the first fight. Don't forget to take into account that you are likely to have a number of people at the table who don't know the V&V system or haven't played it in so long that it's going to take a lot of time to get rolling.

I would say four hours is good for Death Duel alone unless you get a bunch of players that really know the V&V combat system, then you could probably pull it off in two.

Duroon wrote on Dec 1^st, 2010 at 2:41am:


Really? Were they just trying to slug it out with the robot? I only skimmed it before I left for work, but I thought there were a few easy ways inside to take out the crew?

I'm just worried that if I run each one in a slot, and it runs short, people might be a little disappointed.

The thing that could eat up a lot of your available time is character creation, especially if people aren't familiar with the rules (combat, movement, etc. aren't that complicated, and can be picked up on the fly). But if you've got a batch o brand new players, or people who haven't played since the 80's, then its going to take a while to get them to work up their characters, and that's not going to give you much time to actually run the game.

Gerry wrote on Dec 1^st, 2010 at 4:29am:



There are ways inside but they aren't supposed to be readily evident right away. They started out slugging away at the robot. One player went down almost immediately from that. After that I let one of the characters that had weakness detection discover the hidden hatch. From there it was a slug fest inside the machine. One of the major problems was "analysis paralysis" on the part of the players and them trying to develop a plan before the combat even started. Also I had all of two players at the table that had played V&V before and it had been years since either of them had played, we stumbled on explaining the rules a lot. I think we could have finished up in four hours with Death Duel, unfortunately I was the one running the event and had only allotted myself two hours away from the main desk.

I ran Secret in the Swamp at GenCon this last summer and it took four and a half hours to get through. I ran through it with three different groups at home before hand and came up with combat tables for all NPC's and PC's along the way, that made combat go much faster.

The only thing I'm worried about is that I might have different players for each session, so that could be a quandary. Still, I guess I should plan to run each as a separate event just in case.

So any tips on useful powers for either scenario I should keep in mind for the pregens?

I would like to know more about Nerd Con and I would like to attend one if I could.

dsumner wrote on Dec 1^st, 2010 at 1:03pm:


I would agree. Give (almost) every PC an energy attack (it is incredibly frustrating to wait forever in combat for your turn and then swing and miss), between 15 and 30 Agility (don't want someone super fast or someone super slow).

Any versatile powers would be excellent to work with. Force Field, Flight, Vibratory, etc.

Nemo_the_Clown wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2010 at 1:44am:


I'm not sure about everyone having an energy attack, as not everyone wants to play a blaster, but some sort of offensive good little number of offensive capabilities is always a plus. And as far as agility goes, I say let the chips fall where they may, if you get a low score, that's what you get. It'll force you to have to use your brain to come up with a way to make your character more effective in combat.

dsumner wrote on Dec 2^nd, 2010 at 2:30am:


I won't be randomly rolling for the characters. I realize it is the way the system is designed, but for a one shot, I prefer assigning everything, so that characters are not too weak (or too strong). Especially since I have predesigned concepts for certain characters, it's better to just write them up how I want them, because random rolling won't necessarily garner the abilities I want for these characters

I heard the Naked Avenger weilds a really small weapon.

Schwartz Smalls is his secret Identity.

Great modules you've picked, Gerry.  I would have to say Death Duel is far better for a Con than Island of Doc Apoc, though (IMHO).  I've run each of these numerous times (at least three each), and I recently (a couple of years ago) ran DD at a Con (in a five hour time block).

I played the starting part (with the storm and all), but then I'm a veteran V&V GM, and all of my players were experienced with the system as well.

A couple of pieces of advice that I would offer:

1) Pay attention to the time (actual time) as GM, and move things along as need be.  In other words, if the players get "analysis paralysis" (as Duroon put it), kick start things by having the players discover a way into the robot, or whatever.  You don't want to have ALL of the time spent only on the opening skirmish (fun though it may be).

2) Make sure the characters all have a chance to shine, and make sure none are too weak.  The two lamest things that a new player could be saddled with are a really low chance to hit and/or a really low Agility.  A character like Behemoth (any brick, really) might LOOK really cool and seem fun to play.  But if the other characters are moving three times to their one, and when they FINALLY get a chance to move, and then they roll decently (let's say a "10") and they miss, they are going to end up really frustrated.  Balance things out so that your HTH combatants do a solid amount of damage (but not obscene), and have a good chance of connecting (with Heightened Expertise and/or Natural Weaponry if needed).

3) As Duroon suggested, a trick that can REALLY speed up combat is to figure out all of the chances to hit ahead of time.  This can make combat "scream", as all the players have to do is tell you what they're doing and who they're attacking, and all YOU have do is cross-reference their attack with a particular defender and see a number.  That number (or less) is then what they need to roll with a d20.  Simple.  Quick.  Elegant.  No hunting around and looking at charts and doing math while the combat is rolling.  Your players will appreciate it, and - since you'll know all the characters ahead of time - it's just a matter of time of figuring things out beforehand (both for the Destroyers and the robot and the PCs) on what it takes for one character to hit another.

Best of luck, Gerry!  I think you've picked some fun adventures, and they should be a great deal of fun.  Be sure to tell us if you're going to go with The Island of Doctor Apocalypse, as - if you do - I'll have some hints and insights on what you can do to speed things up.

Part of my advice for IoDA is that it's a huge island (and thus there's just a ton of stuff for the characters to explore).  If I were running it in a four hour time block, I'd recommend 'forcing' things along a little more linear than the way the original module is set up.  In other words, rather than letting the characters wander about from place to place to discover and explore, I might have one event leading into another.  Perhaps they follow smoke to the native village and discover that it was just attacked, watch as a Guardian robot rises up from the deep, or hear a scream at the limestone caves which causes them to investigate.

The key would be (somewhat) forcing the action, or keeping the momentum of the train barelling down the track (sorry, I just saw Unstoppable last night  ).  This module does have so much good stuff, but the players could spend days exploring it if not pressed or given an appropriate McGuffin to chase.