I discovered Villains and Vigilantes in 1982, with the publication of the game’s second edition, and 11-year-old me played it like a fiend; I still remember long hours of designing costumes on the super-cool character sheets that came with the game (we’d sneak into the school office and run off more of these from blanks; ditto for hex-ruled paper for Car Wars and all the best stories from that month’s Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine).
The team that rebooted V&V in 2010 with version 2.1 has produced a “true version 3.0,” which is now a fully-funded Kickstarter. $15 gets you a PDF of the 3.0 rulebook; $30 gets you a paperback rulebook; $55 gets you a hardcover; $400 gets you a private game GM’ed by the creators. The team behind the kickstarter have already shipped a successful V&V version, so there’s every reason to believe that they’ll fulfill this campaign, though as with all crowdfunding campaigns, there’s always the risk that you’ll get nothing.
The new ‘third edition’ has a name, and not just a number: it’s called MIGHTY PROTECTORS™ after the player group from the very first V&V campaign in our official setting – the Mighty Protectors Multiverse.Mighty Protectors features a new streamlined and expanded revision of the V&V rules, an intro to the Mighty Protectors Multiverse (about which we’ve only provided scattered details before), and all-new artwork.
We’ve posted about the new rules extensively on the Monkey House Games website. Expansions and changes include: refined character generation (supporting campaigns at Low, Standard, or High-powered ability levels, and allowing optional character construction in addition to random generation), improved game balance, new super-abilities (such as Arsenal, Grapnel and Communicators), greatly improved rules for old abilities (such as Special Weapons and Vehicles), and new rules for customizing abilities! Check out this sample conversion of the villain Bandit and his Race Car, from the V&V supplement Most Wanted!
Villains and Vigilantes 3.0: The Mighty Protectors RPG [Jeff Dee/Kickstarter]
(Thanks, SEJ!)