V & V again!

Back in the day, if you wanted to play a superhero role playing game you had a few serious options. Champions was the leader but as cool as Foxbat was, it had a large amount of modules and supplements. This made it a bit daunting to jump into starting with it. Marvel Super Heroes was another one (FASE RIP) that I ended up getting – but it was more of a simplified game. It eventually ended up with a large amount of books but it started out small – plus it was heroes from Marvel. When I decided to get into another one, I went with Villains & Vigilantes (2nd edition).


Besides having an ampersand, it also was written (with Jack Herman) and had artwork by Jeff Dee – who had drawn some of the pictures in the original Basic D&D book. They eventually had a bunch of supplements and modules as well as a set of comic books. Then they stopped. Eventually, they had come out with Living Legends game – which was effectively an expansion of the Villains & Vigilantes rules. We had a campaign that we ran for a while and I still think of my weight in how many Basic Hits it will generate. But the math formula for the carrying capacity was what really endeared the game to me.



There now seems to be new modules coming out for V&V. What is interesting is that they are being published by two separate companies. There is a legal dispute over who has the rights for the system.

FGU or Fantasy Games Unlimited used to publish V&V, plus a bunch of other games that I had also picked up. They were dissolved by the state but are still printing new modules at their new site. They have almost a dozen modules as well as some of the counter sets from the old modules.

Jeff and Jack have formed a new company called Monkey House Games and have also printed about a half dozen modules as well as a newer edition of the game.  They also have some character sheets and counters available as downloads from their site.