Villains and Vigilantes

B.C.'s RPGs: The Crusaders

The Crusaders

I've always been rather fond of the game, Villains and Vigilantes. It was the first superhero game that I got in to in a bid way, and it was probably the game I played the most often, right up until my players disbanded after university. Several years ago, in a fit of foolishness, I got rid of all my old V&V stuff. And some of it, I've missed.

The first adventure for V&V was called Crisis at Crusader Citadel, and involved the nasty Crushers capturing the superheroes, the Crusaders. Can your PCs help?

I've always liked the Crusaders as a superteam, for no good reason. They were kinda bland, and weren't terribly well fleshed out. I used them in my own V&V campaign for years and years. They would sometimes lend a hand to the PCs. Evergreen had to help out in a "plants have attacked the west coast" adventure. At one point, Enforcer was killed in my campaign, and the PCs and the Crusaders went to the funeral. Carter Manning eventually became a financial backer of the PCs' groups. And there was a V&V comic book once too, that featured the Crushers.

Several years ago, I got into the Hero System. And recently, I started my first Champions campaign. And I found myself thinking back a lot to those superhero games with the Crusaders. I popped on to e-Bay one day and bought myself a copy of the old module. And for no very good reason, I decided to convert the Crusaders to the Hero System. Which is probably a huge betrayal of the V&V system that I loved for so many years. But says something about my like for the characters.

And from the comic:

  • Shatterman
  • Condor

Some notes about the conversions:

  1. I haven't tried to get the V&V to Hero conversion exact. Just because the V&V stats say that Manta Man has 21 charges with his paralysis ray, doesn't mean I'm trying to reproduce that in Hero terms.
  2. I've taken some liberties with interpretting the powers to make the characters a bit more unified. For example, Blizzard has "Vibratory Powers" in V&V terms. What does that mean? It means he can fire "Vibratory Blasts" and walk through walls. Why? Uh. Well, I decided that these powers were wind-based. He can turn himself into freezing wind.
  3. I've also drawn on information in the Villains and Vigilantes comic book. For example, Blizzard's profession as a comic book writer/artist is mentioned in the back pages of the comic, but not in the original V&V adventure.
  4. I've guessed some limitations for the characters.
  5. V&V doesn't really have a skill system. For most of the characters, that doesn't really matter, but some, like Enforcer, really needed skills.

Copyright © 2003 by B.C. Holmes. Based on Characters owned and copyright by Jeff Dee and Jack Herman. Last updated March 22nd, 2003.
Champions, Fantasy Hero, Hero System and Hero Games are registered trademarks of Hero Games. All rights reserved.

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