Monkey House Games

So, anyway...
There I was. My old V&V group was slowly disbanding, due to college, work, etc....

((My original V&V group was: Myself, Eric 'Green Hornet' Hauge, Clyde 'Storm Lord' Skipper, James 'WARP' Vietch,... along with a rotating cast of: Scott 'Wrath' Phillips, Mark 'Phallanx' Jerger, Bryan 'Sable Spector' Johnson, Will 'Stombolter' Moore, Scott Baker, and Scott Rahee. ...As well as a few others.))

And, I was on the lookout to recruit together a new one. But, noone was interested. As Eric had pretty much put a permanent 'black mark' on V&V as a 'fun' system. (A few of my players would still play it, tho. But, they were still 'unsure' of the system's potential... They ALL just *KNEW* that 'DeathDuel with the Destroyers' kicked ever so much butt! But, figured that had more to do with Bill willingham's writing talent, etc.)

Eventually my group (more or less) settled as...
Corbett 'Black Adder' Kirkley, David 'Dr. Watchstop' Outland., Mona 'Sidewinder' Massengell, Tim 'Shadow Fox' Honnell, Johnny 'Magna-Man' Graves, and Kevin 'Freelance' McCarley. (Chris Yard was business partners with Kevin back then, and WAS an avid gamer. He just didnt play V&V at that point.) And, again, there were a few others who would also 'sit in' as visiting players, etc. Some, from the old group even.

But, I was looking to also add Damon. (Who WANTED to play... and, was LITERALLY my upstairs neighbor. But, just wasnt sure about V&V as a system.) BUT, I figured that I could prolly easily cook up a 'Super-Wrestlers' campaign, and finally bring him onboard. So, thats what I set about doing.

And, I had a little help...

Corbett was also a bigtime wrestling fan. It was his third 'passion'. (Right after... #1:Star-Trek and #2:Superheroes.) So, he was 'behind the effort' all the way, and even lended a hand wirth alot of the prelim-work. (Mostly helping me with questions about wrestliong. AS, I am NOT that big of a wrestling fan.)

A good deal of time was spent trying to 'sensible-ize' wrestling, inrto superpowers. And, an equal amount of time was spent on 'writing up' super-wrestler characters. (Mostly, in setting solid 'guidleines' on just exactly HOW a super-wreslter should be written up.) Along with their counterpart-nemesi, etc.

If 'Bat-Man' had the 'Joker'... and, 'Hulk Hogan' had 'Rowdy Roddy Piper'... Then 'Rock Rogan' HAD to have ...

(the) 'HURTLOCKER'!

(Named after a line in the '94 Stallone movie: 'Demolition Man'. NOT the 2008 movie of the same name.)

Real name: 'Simon Callaway'. Hurtlocker was 'designed' to be Rock Rogan's arch-nemesis, and was in many ways his equal.

We even spent a good deal of time working on super-wrestler writeups for the other interested players. (David Outland made: 'Sven Hoek', a super-sized, nordic wrestling star. Who speciallized in 'supplexing'. An homage to the 'Ren & Stimpy' cartoon.)

For myself, I made...

El GATO ROJO de INFUERNO. (Ie.- "The Red Hellcat" Tho, an actual luchiador would never call himself that. *shrug* ...Blame 'bad marketing'!)

My tribute, to spanish luchiadors like... El Aguila, El Tornado, etc.

And, as you can see, I spent ALOT of time trying to perfect the 'look' of the game.

(ALOT of my notes were quickly 'scrawled' while watching actual wreslting matches.)

And, the campaign WOULD have materialized, too... IF a *series of unfortunate events too lengthy to discuss here* had not occurred. Suffice it to say, a number of us moved (including myself, Corbett, and Damon), and work and schoool claimed about half of my new group. SO, the idea got 'mothballed'. But, we ALL still kept in touch.

((Corbett would eventually take up the ball, and run his 'SLAMMAGEDDON' campaign online, much later on. (Damon and myself even participated.) But, it quickly fizzled out and went nowhere.))

So, the idea was still... 'there'. And, Damon still LOVED the idea of playing Rock.

It was at this time that I moved to CA, for my family. I was there for 2.5 years. But, eventually I made the move back to TX. And, when I got back here, I found most of my old players back together and wanting to know if I was going to join them. (Damon was, of course, still itching to play Rock, and asked about me running the Super-wrestling scenario for the newly reassembled group.) So, I told him that I'd think it over and, once I got settled in, I'd ask them if they wanted to play super-wrestlers....

So, I did.

And, they (ALL) said, "No." (A few even adding... "Tough-tiddy, Damon." Just to let him know that they were still his friends.) {;-,

HOWEVER, (to the LAST MAN), they *ALL* wanted me to run a superheroes campaign. (Possibly remembering all of the fun we had with 'DeathDuel', I'd guess.) And, seeing as how I'd promised him a chance to play Rock, I asked Damon if he wouldn't mind at least playing him through a 'normal' superhero campaign. And, he said, "What the heck?!! Its all just another wrestling-match to Rock! Bring it on!!" (Thats a quotation, btw.)

So, the groundwork was set.

To backtrack a bit...

About halfway through my stay in CA, I got a little homesick and nostalgic.

So, to try and raise my spirits, I decided to rollup a new V&V character, to play. But, once I sat down to start the task, I also started wanting to
'disprove' some of the commonly accepted logic of the local Champs fanatics, at the same time. The local Champs gamers out there really had it in for V&V.

Their two biggest complaints were...
1)that you couldn't 'design' your hero in V&V
-and-
2)using the powers V&V presented, you could NEVER make anything that was "really powerful".
So, I was determined to prove them wrong.

And, I figured the best way to go about doing that was to 'design' the Super-man type of character I had always wanted to play in V&V. (But, had unfortunatley rolled up as Megadeath power-wise.) Something that could have stood 'toe-to-toe' with my players in the Megagame, but 'wasn't' insanely CHEAT.

But, I also decided that if I was going to specifically 'make up' something new -and- powerful enough to play through the Megagame.... it HAD to be soemthing 'cool'. ...Something I had always 'liked'.

And, that was when I stumbled across the memory of an old toy I had once owned, waaaaaaaay before I had ever even played a V&V game...

(No. I dont own it anymore. My mom threw it away ages ago. I wish I still did tho... those things are now worth $400 and up, a pop! BUT, I'd be VERY hardpressed to sell it.)

The old 1975(?), 12inch, G.I.Joe: 'Bulletman' figure. (Waaaay cool.) So, I decided THAT was the character I was going to play... as MY personal all-time MOST-powerful hero.

(Heck. even the comic ad was 'COOL'.)

But, I needed to make the character 'my own', and 'unique' to me. So, I needed a good 'background'.
And, for THAT I turned to the comicbooks and found out that Fawcettt Comics had once published a 'Bulletman' superhero comic, back in the 1940s
or so.

As that character had not seen print in multiple decades, I borrowed heavily from his origin to cook up a background for my new character, and then set
out to 're-design' the G.I.Joe Bulletman's costume's look, to fit my own personal style. (I never liked the 'bare legs' look, on a superhero. It just doesn't
work for me.) And, this is what I came up with...

ENTER: BULLETMAN 2.0

A design I felt worked 'well enough' for my needs. (I was never quite pleased with the chest emblem, but felt it would work in the interim.)

So, once he was finished, Corbett (who was going to college in Berkley at that time) and I set out to 'field test' the strength of my writeup. Along with
some of the other local gamers we had made friends with out there. We even converted him over into (Mayfair's) DC Heroes at one point. So we could
pit him against 'Capt. Marvel' and 'Superman'.... just to see what he could do.

(Before you ask... Capt. Marvel = 'close-but-no-contest'. And, Superman = 'wiped-the-floor-with-me'.)

And, all of that playtesting was actually very fun. As,Corbett and I actually came to enjoy trying to write scenarios that would challenge Bulletman's
abilities. Regardless of how insanely 'over-powered' they were.

(Corbett liked the charatcer so much, he Xeroxed one of my 'note-pics' of Bulletman. And, made this water-color image, with it.)

So, for a brief period, I at least got to playtest my idea, and we were having fun.

And, then DC Comics had to go and screw up the whole thing! (They started publishing 'The Power of Shazam' comic. Which soon 'brought back' the
original Bulletman, into current DC continuity. To add insult to injury, Alex Ross did an 'homage' to the G.I.Joe Bulletman, with his 'chromed' DC
Bulletman, in his 'Kingdom Come' series.)

So, if I was going to keep my idea... 'mine'... I needed to rework it again...

As my V&V writeup for Bulletman was lost... (I still had the Mayfair DC Heroes writeup, tho)... and, I wanted to 'rewrite' the character anyways... (moving it AWAY from what DC was doing at the time)... I thought Champs might be just the place to try and 'flesh' everything out.

My players all came on board, with their characters in tow. And, soon... we were all 'number-crunching' with the best of them.

And, we were at it for weeks. And, by the end, we had firnly 'established' just about EVERY detail of the group (and it's characters) that you might ever need to know. (..."Down to the LAST point.") It was made even more complex by the fact, that a good number of options were bought with 'pooled/team points'. (Such as the group's 'skyscraper Loft' HQ, their 'Majestic UFO' transport vehicle, and even the group's 'handsfree comm-headsets'.)

((NOTE: I do *NOT* like presenting Champions stuff in the V&V forums... BUT, as these ARE the last survivng bits of Majestic-7 memorabilia, and illustrate most of what I am trying to say... If you feel like doing the conversion... HERE THEY ARE.))

(This is Chris Walker's printout for the Majestic-7 penthouse HQ info. Affectionately called: 'the Loft' -or- 'our Majestic Loft'.)

**((Chris was very proud of these printouts... It almost broke my heart to have to tell him that 'BUDDHA' is spelled with two 'D's.
(...ALMOST.) And, just in case you are wondering... [as they always left this junk up to me anyways]... the B.U.D.D.H.A. acronym stands for: 'Binary Unified Digital Diagnostic Home Automaton. ...Its a knack.
*IN-JOKE*: If you look closely, you'll see that the last names of all of the Loft's staff are also the last names of most of the M-7 team's members' players! With the exception of Dr. McCoy, Nurse Chapel, and Nurse Rand, who are all stolen directly from Star-Trek.
Walker also misspelled: 'sattellite', but who am I to judge?))**

Notes on roleplaying B.U.D.D.H.A.:
"Buddha has a permanent 1-point 'glitch'... he always ends (or incorporates into) *EVERY* sentence he speaks, (with) an eccentric buddhist-like 'possessive acclamation', directed at the listener's gender or age...
(Examples: Speaking to a child... "Yes, my child." -or- "Yes, my young one." Speaking to a man or a woman... "Yes, my son." -and- "Yes, my daughter." Speaking to the elderly... "Yes, my venerable one." -or- "Yes, my venerated one." Etc.)

I added this as a roleplaying 'affectation', but it actually made the group like him more. Even though they often complained about it....

Ballistic: "Buddha, are the repairs to the M-7 completed yet?"
Buddha: "Yes, my son."
Ballistic: "Dont call me that. ...And, are the new fuel cells loaded and ready?"
Buddha: "Yes, my son."
Ballisitic: "Don't call me that! ...Has the team been alerted to our new departure time?"
Buddha: "No, my son. But, I will do so immediately."
Ballistic: *sigh* "DON'T CALL ME THAT!"
Buddha: "As you wish, my son."
Ballistic: *GROAN*
Rock: "Ya know,... we REALLY OUGHT to fix that thing, one of these days."
...(brief pause)...
Buddha: "Yes, my son. You really should."

(This is Chris' printout for the Majestic-7 'UFO' transport. Callsign: 'Majestic'. Number: '007'. The small index card, is my handwritten attempt at churning out the group's headsets, with team-points.)

Stat-wise we had most everything worked out. It was during this period that I finally sat down and reworked Bulletman from the ground up. I still wanted to keep the same 'chrome-silver bullet-hero' imagery, but with a slight change up of powers and origin... So, a new name and costume also seemed due.

ENTER: 'BALLISTIC'

A design that took me quite a while to flesh-out/get comfortable with...

(My 'note-sheet' for the new costume and... specifically... the new helmet. Also, depicted 'up top' is my original attempt at the helmet redesign. But, I went with the 'bicycle-helmet_meets_mask_meets_bullet' design, I scribbled on the lower right side, as my final version.)

(I figured that this was also a good time, to figure out what Ballistic's 'civilian-ID' looked like.)

EVERYTHING got a 'notes-sheet'...

(This sheet depicts the 'Majestic' (UFO) craft... two outside views... one from the top... one from the bottom. As well as, the 'upper and lower decks' floorplans. Worked out as close as I could get them to the actual stat writeup. I even did a side-view of Ballistic's command-chair, some gameplay notes, a 'helmet-less pic' of Ballistic wearing a Majestic headset, and a 'costume clarification' shot of Ballistic with his hand raised, for Walker.)

So, anyways...
All of that effort took us about,... I'd say,... two months total. (Maybe 2.5.)
So, when everything was finally 'complete'...

We scheduled the 'Majestic' Champions game in, as our next campaign...

Played exactly 'two' sesions of it...

And, the rpg-group then immediately 'disbanded'.

(yay.)

Great stuff, Scott! One question, though I like the artwork for the team pic, I'm not sure which one is Ballistic. Is he the one in the upper left?