Villains & Vigilantes is BACK!

Why?

SWBaxter said:
Wow. I think I first stumbled onto the Living Legends website something like three or four years ago, and it looked like an abandoned game back then. Never thought to see it released. I wonder what prompted Jeff Dee to finish it?

Honestly? About a month ago, my wife said, "Why don't you just stick a fork in it and call it done?" Or something like that.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames

P.S.: Hi everybody! This is my first time on EN World, and I don't know how often I'll be back, but I see a lot of questions so here I am.
 

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RE: What's with the new name?

trancejeremy said:
IIRC, FGU Has the rights to the name "Villains & Vigilantes", apparently as long as the original game is still "in print". The FGU owner just barely prints enough to maintain legal status, apparently wanting quite a bit of money from Mr. Dee for the name.

(That's what I remember from usenet several years ago.)

That is basically it. Can't call the new game V&V with FGU owning the trademark, and can't pry the trademark away from FGU, so there's no real alternative.

But gosh darn it, I *like* the new name.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames
 

Jack of Shadows said:
Hey,

Just an FYI. From what I read Living Legends is being released in a "as is" state. From what I've read Dee is still working on the game so consider this a beta edition for lack of a better term.

Jack

True, but it's not quite as "beta" as I originally thought it might be. A lot of stuff came together in that last hectic month.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames
 

UNIgames said:
Honestly? About a month ago, my wife said, "Why don't you just stick a fork in it and call it done?" Or something like that.

Your wife is an extraordinarily wise women. Be sure and thank her for all of us. And thanks to you for creating such a great game; V&V was the very first superhero RPG I every played, and like a lot of old fogeys I have fond memories of arguing with my buddies about what everybody's stats should be, rescuing the Crusaders, facing down Doctor Apocalypse, and so on. In all honesty I dunno if I'll get a chance to do the same with Living Legends, but I'm definitely going to buy it and give it a read.

Thanks again!
 

Karl Green said:
hehe put me down as someone else who saw this years ago and thought it was dead. As I remember when I looked it over oh so long ago, it was not the V&V that I remember at all.

I might still give it a chance as I was a huge fan way back in the day (like the early 80's)

You're right, LL is not the V&V game system at all. I've been working on this darn thing, it's gone though multiple games systems as well as multiple names. Anybody remember when it was called AV&V? Luckly somebody told me that was dumb. Likewise, at one point I was trying to "modernize" V&V, but the result was an ungainly Frankenstein's monster.

The LL game system just published is best described as a point-based construction system built on top of a fast and simple underlying set of game mechanics, and using polyhedra dice.

The thing that's going to be most like V&V are the characters, and the way we do adventures. FGU has no legal claim on any of the characters from any of the published V&V adventures - they all belong to the original writers. The characters Jack and I created, in particular, are moving on to the Living Legends Universe - and when we start doing adventures, which I hope won't be too long, we're going to do 'em in the V&V mold.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames
 

Teflon Billy said:
Sweet! I'm holding out for PoD though, but then I'm so there:)

I am definitely gonna do a PoD version. But I'm a one man operation, and I got a lot on my plate. Thanks for your patience.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames
 

UNIgames said:
Honestly? About a month ago, my wife said, "Why don't you just stick a fork in it and call it done?" Or something like that.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames

P.S.: Hi everybody! This is my first time on EN World, and I don't know how often I'll be back, but I see a lot of questions so here I am.

:eek:

Are you kidding me?

Did Jeff Dee just post to this thread????

This place rules.
 

I want to gush a bit about V&V, and Jeff's art in it.

First off, it was the second RPG I ever Got into (we saw that awesome ad in Dragon magazine with Magnetor in it and were basically drooling over the dea of playing it).

V&V is responsible for my longest running campign setting (Cascade City), which is approaching 25 years of age.

I've mentioned a few times that Mutants and Masterminds is as good as it is because they endeavored to use Comic Book Style art in it...V&V was the progenitor of this. Jeff's character drawing, incidental art and comic strips gave the game a lot of it's flavor (The tension between Action Man and Raven in the Island of Doctor Apocalypse strip was just fantastic).

Man, I'm goobing out here. Sorry.
 

Teflon Billy said:
First off, it was the second RPG I ever Got into (we saw that awesome ad in Dragon magazine with Magnetor in it and were basically drooling over the dea of playing it).

Right, those ads - they gave the character's stats, which was pretty neat. The dim recesses of my brain tell me there was another character shown, some kind of rocker with sonic-based powers?

I've mentioned a few times that Mutants and Masterminds is as good as it is because they endeavored to use Comic Book Style art in it...V&V was the progenitor of this. Jeff's character drawing, incidental art and comic strips gave the game a lot of it's flavor (The tension between Action Man and Raven in the Island of Doctor Apocalypse strip was just fantastic).

And the back of all the modules (or at least all the ones I've still got) had a few panels of art and dialogue hitting the high points instead of a text blurb, as if it was a page from a comic book. Really did a great job of setting the tone.
 

SWBaxter said:
Right, those ads - they gave the character's stats, which was pretty neat. The dim recesses of my brain tell me there was another character shown, some kind of rocker with sonic-based powers?

That was an early version of Shatterman, who later re-appeared (slightly altered) in the V&V comic book miniseries we did at Eclipse.

Oh, and thanks all you guys, for all the nice stuff you're saying.

-Jeff Dee
UNIgames
 

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