Vigilance

[Messageboard Golem]

Vigilance is a d20 SuperHero game. Designed to be a "generic" game, allowing you to live out your superheroic fantasies, whether they involve gritty crime stories or four-color comics of the silver age, Vigilance can meet your needs. Come make the world safe! It is a task that requires constant Vigilance.

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I have always been a fan of superhero games, and was happy to see a d20 superhero game at last. This game has new classes that represent the genre well, a ton of new feats, and an interesting powers system. I thought the powers system was the best thing about it. Powers work like skills, with power points gained every level in addition to skill points. I also liked the disadvantages, which both allow characters to start at higher than first level but also round out your character.

I give this game a 4. It was a good read, and I enjoyed playing it.

 

[Gothmog]

I don't know about you, but when I'm strolling onto a city street in the
early evening in my tightest blue and red's, I'm lookin' at that 2002
Mitsubishi Galant, and I'm thinkin', "...wonder what that thing crit's
on?". 'Cause ya' never know when VILLAINY will rear its ugly head and
a hero will have to use the nearest thing to defend humanity... well
wonder no more. In Vigilance we have "Improvised Weapons", doors, flag
poles, telephone poles, etc... I don't know what else you really need
to know about a game, but alas renowned D20 writer Charles
Rice has put together a full fledged super heroic extension to D20,
so I'll go on a bit more...

Among the innovations present in Vigilance you also will find Resources.
Resources describe the overall wealth of your hero or villain. It is an ability
you can configure when you create your character and grow later if you choose
to, using the skill points you earn as you level. With resources the funds
accounting headache is gone. When starting an adventure should you decide
to purchase something you make a DC against your resource skill to see if
you've got the credit, cash, land, etc... to buy that spiffy new battle suit or
cool black car. You want to make Batman? Well, Batman's a billionaire,
with the layer to prove it. If billionaire resources are an important facet
of your character, spend your skill points accordingly...Its fantasy role
playing and if I want to burn skill points to be rich, so be it.

Heroes are a special breed, with special powers. One way those powers
manifest in Vigilance is with Heroism/Villainy points. A hero or villain can
spend a point during combat to alter certain results, such as damage taken,
or to grant him/her self an extra attack die roll of 1d6 / 5 levels that is added
to their base roll and can further open end. Some other features that make
the Vigilance hero special are Reputation/Infamy, the hero or villain's ability
to call on friends in the community and flex their standing in the community.

Rather than race, Vigilance give us Origins. Origins tells us something
far more important than race to the hero. That is how our pulp fiction
fellow or fem-fatale came to be. Perhaps you're an alien, artificial life form,
a mutant, or maybe the result of a science experiment gone terribly arry,
or maybe it was a life changing mystic encounter.

All the standard hero classes are present and ready to be played,
Acrobat, Brick, Detective, Energy Projector, Gadgeteer and psychic.
Each class presents a set of special powers granted to them as they
level. A handful of new skills, and a vast array of 61 feats and 39
powers are presented. Some of my favorite feats: ArcBlast/ArcStorm -- I
get to keep reacking havoc as long as my oponents fail to save!
Cooperative Attack(Team Work)/Coordinated Attack(Team Work), ExoSkeleton
-- sweet!, Lair -- gotta have it!, and finally Banter and Wit! Yeah, these
are actual feats. THIS GAME IS COOL. There is an extensive powers list
as well -- everything you need to recreate almost any pulp fiction hero I can
think of: Plasticity, Regeneration, Radar, Sonar, Time Manipulation, just to name a few.

Finally, no hero would be complete without a disadvantage, some
incident, somehow inexorably tied to who and what they are. Again
Charles Rice has provided a broad list to make it possible to build most
any architypal pulp fiction hero.

Oh yeah, and there are prestige classes too... Behemoth, Mentor, Mind
Master, Power House, Spy, and Speed Demon. This game is good fun... a
complete ready to roll compendium of heroic deeds just waiting to be put
in play.

The PDF is light on Artwork and strong on content. The font and spacing
are good. It's easy to read printed, and very little space is wasted.
It is 63 pages and is quite inexpensive at $5.00. The PDF can be purchased
via: http://www.vigilancepress.5u.com/cp.html

Enjoy..and BE VIGILANT

C Nicholson (gothmog1)

 

[Messageboard Golem]

My first impression of this book was primarily negative.

It's UGLY. It is obviously the output from a wordprocessor slapped right into PDF format. Nothing pretty to it at all.

U - G - L - Y.

Time to take the sales money and buy some publishing software. Also consider publishing in a SLIGHTLY smaller font. 12 point arial is huge, especially when you print it. Exported to RTF and reformatted in a word processor with the margins reduced and the font reduced to 9 pt Times New Roman or 8 pt Arial, each page of my version of the document held 3 full pages of the original. The full document is slightly under 27,000 words, definitely not worth 62 pages of dead trees to print.

BUT. Then I really started to work through the content, and I was impressed! This has obviously seen some major thought and work and probably playtesting too! New classes, prestige classes and so on. It really feels like a complete work, definitely infinitely superior to NightShift Games' nasty foray into the d20 supers market. Better than that, it is presented as a complete RPG (minus the character generation rules, as per the d20 license), not as a tack-on set of rules to turn another game into a superhero RPG.

Basics:

Vigilance uses the Wounds / Vitality rules. Which means it's most likely in violation of Wizard's latest decisions against other companies who were going to use this system. But it works better for the genre than straight hit points (at least, if yu want a more "realism-based" supers game... but then again, plain hit points should be fine considering the amount of abuse a super can take in most stories).

Instead of Races, there are origins. Classic to the genre. These include 'Advanced Training', 'Alien', 'Artificial Life', 'Mutant', 'Mystic Encounter', and 'Scientific Experiment'. I was surprised not to see 'Robot' on the list... but pleased to see the munchkin's choice from Marvel ('God') to be missing.

The classes seem fairly typical for a non-fantasy game. One has an odd saving throw progression, but otherwise they seem balanced and appropriate. Brick, for example, gains a bonus Wound point at every even level. I was surprised to see Gadgeteer here instead of as an Origin.

The feats and powers are what make the book truly part of the genre. I would have appreciated more powers (looks like it's time to crack open the Ultimate Book of Powers from the old Marvel RPG again), but the ones here are well done and the feats are very nice.

The equipment section seems lacking. The vehicle rules are rudimental and the weapons are about the same. There is more detail for the six types of hand grenades than there is for all the firearms thrown together. While the introduction to the document mentions that armor provides DR instead of AC benefits, NO body armor is included in the rules, and in the section on buying material from the PHB, it doesn't say how to handle the switch from AC to DR.

The next chapter is Prestige Classes, and they are Golden. Behemoth, Mentor, Mind Master, PowerHouse, Secret Agent and Speed Demon all feel perfect for the game. Just by expanding on this chapter and the powers chapter, this could evolve into a masterpiece of a game.

All in all, this BARELY rates better than a 2 as it is really an incomplete work being sold as a finished product. But the groundwork is excellent and later editions should be something to watch out for.

(Last note - It is my understanding that the term "Super Hero" is a shared trademark of Marvel & DC... which is more legal trouble for the vigilance game).

 

[JacktheRabbit]

As a complete aside to your post. I do not see how "Super Hero" could be trademarked by anyone. It is two words written one after the other that are completely normal words in the English dictionary. I do believe it is impossible to copyright items like this.

Now if they have a trademark on "Superhero" with no space in between then that might be different since that would be a madeup word. The solution for any other publisher would be to merely write their game with the word broken up into "Super Hero".

 

[Morrus]

"I do not see how "Super Hero" could be trademarked by anyone. It is two words written one after the other that are completely normal words in the English dictionary. I do believe it is impossible to copyright items like this."

So are "Star Wars", "Dungeons & Dragons" and "Wizards of the Coast". Most trademarks consist of one or more Engligh language words, unless they're in a foreign language.

 

[jmucchiello]

I couldn't find Super Hero. But Super Heroes is a valid trademark. Apparently only DC owns it now but Marvel and DC applied for the trademark together.
http://tess.uspto.gov/bin/showfield?f=doc&state=p8u2jt.2.48

 

[Messageboard Golem]

I dont think its trademarked by anyone, or else Im not the only one "in trouble". Godlike markets its rpg as "Superhero Roleplaying in a world on fire" crediting no one for the trademark, likewise GURPS Supers' subtitle is "Super-Powered Roleplaying meets the real world".

 

[Messageboard Golem]

Here is the TradeMark registration:

Registration Number: 825835
Mark (words only): SUPER HERO
Current Status: This registration has been renewed.
Date of Status: 1988-08-22
Filing Date: 1966-04-12
Registration Date: 1967-03-14

CURRENT APPLICANT(S)/OWNER(S)
1. MARVEL ENTERTAINMENT GROUP, INC.
2. DC COMICS, INC.

Super Powered (as in Gurps) is legit, but Super Hero is DEFINITELY a trademark. This was a big deal back in the 80's when the trademark was jointy renewed by DC and Marvel. Several Super Hero RPGs in that era had to very carefully tip-toe around the words.

I'm surprised that Godlike is callign itself a Superhero game also. I really thought this trademark was well known nationally and internationally, especially by Comics & Super Hero fans.

 

[Illuminati]

While Vigilance is admittedly a bit rough in production/presentation, it more than makes up for any shortcomings with an abundance of creative rules, re-thinking, and adaptation. I give this product a maximum rating of 5 because it did something that I didn't expect, and that was to bring a lot of flavor, enthusiasm, and ingenious creation to the superhero genre. You'd be surprised at how well the author adapted a fantasy-based system to suit a faster-paced form of play with superheroes and arch-villains!

Vigilance has all of the bases covered when it comes to this genre, which means if you've ever liked a certain hero, villain, or figure from comics and movies, there is an option here for playing him (or her). The rules are extremely well organized, with options describing in detail the various concepts available. There are origins (backgrounds that you choose as a foundation on which to build your character) for nearly every kind of superheroic figure you could possibly imagine, from aliens to genetically-engineered mutants to psychic government agents. Each has a balanced set of starting abilities and features that mean none of them are overly powerful or abysmally weak. This was really well done, and as a first step in character creation goes a long way to sparking the imagination when making your character.

Moreover the classes are also tailored to the genre and are very appropriate. From a technical aspect, superhero powers are handled extraordinarily well in Vigilance, with what appears to have been a lot of in-depth thought and playtesting. What I really liked about this section was something that is missing from many games, and that is a sense that the author really took scaling into account. For example, powers get better as a character goes up in levels, which means that with each new advancement players feel a real sense of accomplishment and improvement. I thought this was a really nive way of handling something that seems so generic and "flat" in D&D and other games (where once you get an ability, it never actually develops for better or worse).

There is also an amazing abundance of different powers and abilities that mean there must be at least a hundred or more varieties of heroes you can play. Really, really nice work.

What impresses me most about Vigilance is that the character generation system is not just a method of creating a string of numbers for a stat block, but does so much for devising a backstory to each unique character. The process allows the player to not only decide who and how he wants to play, but also develops the character's history, weaknesses, and potential flaws. Every character is unique, which I think is essential to building the kind of story that drives a heroic campaign.