Blast From The Past - My First V&V Character

I'll never forget my first character for Villains & Vigilantes. It was the third one I made.

If you went, "Eh?!", then I say, "Eh?! not true believer!", as I spin the spectacular spellbinding story of...
THE PCs THAT NEVER WERE!

Or...
By My GMing BETRAYED!

But first, you may want to check out these back issues.

Meanwhile...

After convincing a friend of mine to go 'halfsies' with me on the box set of Villains & Vigilantes 2nd Edition, I set out to create a campaign. Basically, I was just going to run the official module that came with the game, Crisis At Crusader Citadel and see what happened.

By this point in 1982, due to some bad experiences with other GMs and all the gamers I know basically preferring I GM, I played as a player extremely rarely. Still early in my time in the hobby, I sort of felt bad I wasn't getting to 'play'* and so very often I would create PCs to use as NPCs in whatever game I was running. These PC-NPCs would help round out a team, enable me to have a 'guide' in the universe I was running and provide me with a PC quality character should someone else want to GM and I want to play.

My first character was Saint Patrick, aka Patrick O'Ryan, an Irishman (our team was international, something like the Global Guardians from DC Comics) who had been granted mystical powers by the Wee Folk. His power was the same as the Human Torch of Marvel or Fire from DC, as I had rolled Flame Powers. There was a twist in that I had also rolled a Mutant Power (a 'Make Up Something Not On The List' power). I decided that the flames were mystical and made me look like an emerald Human Torch (i.e. exactly like Fire would look many years later). As the flames were essentially Balefire or Faerie Magic, they could not be doused by water nor snuffed out by vacuum. At the same time, I could not melt or damage 'Cold Iron' and cold iron objects could go through my fiery shield and hit me.

My second Non-Player PC as it were was U.F.O., The Ultimate Flying Operative, mentioned in one of the back issue posts above. U.F.O. was basically an Iron Man type armored character, except his origin was a mix of the Hal Jordan/Green Lantern story and a bit of UFO conspiracy stuff. He was an Air Force pilot investigating reports of a flying saucer when his equipment cut out and he crashed his helicopter (or plane, I forget). He found the downed alien space craft and entered it. A suit of futuristic armor was suddenly constructed around him. He was ejected from the ship and then it self destructed.

I don't remember much more than that. His powers were cool though. His abilities were mostly psionic in nature, like Telekinesis, a TK Force Field, psychic senses, etc. The armor gave him psionics. Neat huh? I certainly thought so. I liked that he was so different from most armored guys.

Anyway, I never really got to play either of the above characters. I used them as NPCs only. So my first real PC for Villains & Vigilantes was...
Excelsior.

I actually created Excelsior before I discovered RPGs. I had him copyrighted. I love this guy. At one point I updated his story, look and other elements every few years.

When I got the chance to finally play in a game of V&V a friend was running, I randomly rolled Armor B, Disintergation Ray, Heightened Strength B and two Mutant Powers. From the armor I got the additional abilities of Flight and Heightened Endurance B. My Mutant Powers? Double Final Carrying Capacity (giving him Uber Super Strength) and a Disintergration Field (basically objects or people hitting the field are struck with damage as if hit by Disintergration Ray).

His weaknesses included Magnetic Powers (his powers were Anti-Matter based) and a special one which was basically that he can't take off his armor or he'll die (in a huge explosion that would likely vaporize a city block).

He was and is an awesome character. His personality, his origin...oh so cool.

But that is a tale for another time. A time not too far away...

AD
Barking Alien


*Yeah, at one time I felt that in order to be a 'real' RPG gamer you had to be able to both play and GM. Now, I don't really care if I never play again. I actually do get to from time to time, more nowadays then I have in years but if I couldn't it wouldn't bother me at all. I love to GM, really don't like playing and that's about the size of that.