31 Days / 31 Characters - AMERICAN DREAM

Happy New Year Everybody! Welcome to 2025!

Hitting the ground running I'm opening the 31 Characters in 31 Days Challenge with a Superhero, inspired by Tim Knight of Heropress and his current discussions and references to the classic 4-Color Comic Book RPG Villains and Vigilantes.

Character: American Dream

AKA: Constance Anne 'Connie Anne' Crawford 

Player: Don't recall her name. 

System: Villains and Vigilantes, 2nd Edition

 
Nature: Short-to-Mid Length Campaign. Approximately two dozen sessions, the first quarter and last quarter of which were widely spaced. Sessions ranged from 5 to 7 hours on average.

 
Gamemaster: Adam Dickstein

 
Circa: 1990-1992. 

 
Origins: I was working at the Forbidden Planet - a popular pop-culture store in NYC that carried books, toys, comic books, and other fandom products - when I got into a conversation with several customers about the fact that most Superheroes in comics seemed to live in New York. More specifically, we discussed how we don't see Superheroes in other states. "I mean, are there Costumed Crusaders in Des Moines, Iowa?"

The Supers RPG Villains and VIgilantes sort of addresses this, since you are supposed to be playing a superpowered version of yourself, living in your own hometown. This got us to thinking about how one would set a Superhero campaign in some small town in Nebraska or the like. One person in the discussion then suggested, "Wouldn't it be cool to run a Superhero featuring Superheroes from across the United States except for New York and LA?"

We all agreed that indeed, that would be very cool. The gang decided I would run it and everyone in the conversation would play, each choosing a state in the USA to represent. Actually, the way we did it was to randomly roll up a V&V character and then decide what state the player wanted their PC to represent ( American Dream is from and represents Oklahoma). Throughout the course of the campaign, entitled 'The Heartland League', a number of the players and PCs came in and out of the story. American Dream was there from the beginning and participated in most of it. 

 
Backstory: Connie Anne Crawford was the most popular girl at school, cheer captain, and well on her way to a college scholarship because she wasn't just beautiful but an A+ student as well. The perfect girl with the perfect life in . Happy family, great neighborhood, and a picture perfect existence. However...all was not as it seemed. 

As Crawford readies for the next phase of her life, she begins to see the cracks in the one she'd been living all these years. It was too perfect, too good to be true. Eventually she discovers her life was lie and that she was the key to a terrible legacy. A dozen children were genetically engineering to be super-soldiers for the US by an 'Evil SHIELD' black-ops project. They were given fake families with specific conditions to result in the type of individual they wanted to produce. 

Connie Anne ends up escaping, fighting her way through the opposition, and dealing a blow to the enemy both devasting and long lasting. The real 'SHIELD'-type organization, Villains and Vigilantes' C.H.E.S.S. (Central Headquarters of Espionage for the Secret Service) is made aware of the black-ops group's existence and the fact that is was a front for/backed by Intercrime.

The entire situation is covered up by CHESS on Crawford's request, the family supposedly tragically killed in a gas explosion that burned down their house. CHESS transferred the fake family's money and assets to Connie, thus enabling her to continue on with a normal life. She instead decided to lend CHESS her unique abilities as a superpowered agent. Enter: American Dream, Oklahoma's favorite daughter. 

Overview: American Dream was such as awesome character, played by an equally cool young woman. I wish I could remember her name. I've been trying for years but it just keeps eluding me. I distinctly recall that she brought  a sense of pure Americana and unwavering optimism to both the campaign and the character. 

The make-up of the group would regularly change in a fashion similar to the Justice League Unlimited animated series. A villain or situation would pop-up somewhere and whichever heroes were available to respond would show up. American Dream often took the lead but the Heartland League team never had an assigned leader. Her attitude and interactions with the eclectic and ever changing cast of Superheroes was always fun.

 
The Highlights: 

An investigation into a string of kidnappings by West Virginia's Mothman and a series of graverobberies being looked into by Pennsylvania's Freedom Ring crossover and reveal the mad schemes of a modern day Necromancer. Calling in fellow Heartland League members for back-up, American Dream of Oklahoma, The Apparition of Maryland, and Ohio's Buckeye respond. During the battle against the Shroud and Dr. Wraithman, American Dream leapt from one zombie minion to the next, royally kicking their butts, all the while giving a speech on the sanctity of Human life. (I've often wondered why a lot of gamers see scenes as being either RP scenes or Fighting scenes. We always did both things at the same time. lol). 

A favorite American Dream moment I recall was when she and several other members took on a team of supervillains trying to...er...do something...at the Grand Canyon. Each hero picked out a bad guy to oppose, sometimes teaming up two against one for the real tough hombres. American Dream teamed with The Visitor (New Mexico) and took down their target faster than expected. Visitor went to help another hero having difficulty with their fight as American Dream spun around to find another enemy to face off with. She is immediately caught by the throat and lifted into the air by a big robot dude. 

She was waaay out powered by this mechanical menace, like Captain America going one-on-one against Ultron. She decided to try and talk it down, using a logical arguement with philosophical elements to get the robot to question its actions and its alliance with the other villains. It put her down and the two had a brief discussion that resulted in the robotic rogue deciding to sit out the fight. When one of the other villains saw it doing nothing the baddie yelled at the robot, who - prompted by American Dream, proceeded to beat the snot out of its former teammate. 

Game Info:

I don't have American Dream's original character sheet so I remade it from memory. She's first level here because that's the write-up I remember best. I believe we got to 5th level or so by the end of the campaign. I left off Cash and Training because honestly I have no idea what her data was in those categories. 

Notes: 

This was the first Superhero campaign I ran using the Justice League Unlimited approach, though we played it some 14 years before that show would go on the air. 

American Dream clearly resembles a female Captain America, many years before Captain Carter or other similar Marvel Comics characters would become well known. Costume and secret identity wise there is some similarity between American Dream and DC's Stargirl, whom she also pre-dates by a good 5 years or so.

Definitely an asset in battles against the forces of evil, it was the personality given to her and her wholesome, positive outlooks that really made American Dream special. She won as many fights with her wits and dialogue as she did her powerful punches.   

Interestingly, the player of this character wasn't a huge comic book fan. She was a casual reader but really liked the idea of 'Superheroes that don't live in New York'. Her decision to go with what she described as 'an all-American Good Girl' was in sharp contrast to her other RPG characters who were of the sneaky, back-stabbing, cloak of darkness sort. 

 
Legacy: I've had American Dream appear in one or two of my Mutants and Masterminds games but other than that, we haven't seen her in a very long time. That's a real shame. I would love to bring her back one of these days. 

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