Superpowers in Supervillains

The Amazing Adventures of Holo-Man #1;
1978, Peter Pan Records; Art by Joe Giella

As one might expect from “an exciting game of super human role-playing,” player characters have superpowers – or “Abilities” as the rules refer to them.  A character's Ability is determined by rolling a percentile die and consulting the Ability Chart (sometimes called the Ability Table) and subsequent Ability Descriptions.  There are thirty-three Abilities.  Many of them are standard comic book superhero fare, some are unusual yet not without comic book precedent, and a few are original and...interesting.

There is a one to four percent chance of obtaining any given Ability; however, there is a ten percent chance that a character will not have any Ability.  There is a one percent chance of getting two rolls on the Ability Chart and a one percent chance of getting three rolls.  It is possible to obtain the Abilities of 'Enhanced Vision', 'Bulletproof Skin', 'Leap Great distances', and 'Flight' by themselves; however, for each of them, there is a one percent chance of obtaining the Ability and an extra roll.  ('Leap Great Distances' is identical to 'Flight' except the character “cannot hover...and cannot change direction or his landing site once he is in the air.”  Also, the Ability “may be countered by a punch from another superbeing that hits.”)  So, there is a six percent chance that a character will have at least two Abilities.

Under the Ability Descriptions, each Ability indicates its Area of Effect and the amount of stun and/or kill damage it inflicts (if any).  Abilities that can be used to attack also indicate if said attack is a “Material Attack Form,” which is whether or not the damage “is caused by a tangible object.”  Material Attack Form may not be intuitive; for instance, Heat Control has a Material Attack Form but Sound Control does not.

“A character that possesses the LIVING HAIR ability will have hair that is approximately 10 feet long...The character will have total control over every strand of hair.”  This is obviously based on Marvel Comics' Medusalith Amaquelin Boltagon.  Living Hair can be used in three 'forms' – attack, defense, and movement (using hair to climb a building).  When an Ability has multiple 'forms', only two can be used simultaneously.

Inspired by DC Comics' Wildfire, “The entire body of a character which possesses the LIVING ENERGY ability will be composed of LIVING ENERGY which will be held together only by the special suit that the character wears.”  Should the suit be punctured, an “energy output” explosion occurs.  “This energy output will have a duration of one combat phase, after which the suit will repair itself completely.”  Similarly, Explosive Demolecularization allows a character “to literally blow himself up...[then] his molecules will re-form at the same spot” in the fashion of Marvel Comics' Nitro.

Designer Rick Register created 'original' Abilities based on scientific principles.

A character having the STRONG FORCE ability will possess one of the fundamental forces of nature; the STRONG FORCE ability which suspends the atom's strong force, thus causing the electrons to fall into the nucleus.  The remaining material, after a successful STRONG FORCE attack, will basically be white-dwarf star matter, which, under normal gravity conditions, will sink through anything to the center of the earth.

If a character survives a Strong Force attack, there is a possibility that one or more of the character's limbs will become crippled.

Another 'original' Ability is Conversion:  “In accordance with Einstein's Unified Field Theory, a character with the CONVERSION ability may convert an ELECTRICITY, a MAGNETISM, a GRAVITY CONTROL, a RADIOACTIVITY, and/or a STRONG FORCE attack into one another.”

Last but not least (actually, 'least' may be accurate), we have Oxidation/Reduction:

Following the principles found in chemistry, a character possessing the OXIDATION/REDUCTION ability will be able to cause a bridge support to rust through, or will have the ability to to reduce water to hydrogen and oxygen, etc.  When the OXIDATION/REDUCTION ability is applied to a target character, this will change that character's molecules to carbon if the attack is successful.  The result is that the victim will look and will feel as if he were a burn victim.  A character using the OXIDATION/REDUCTION ability will have the capability to produce an atmosphere as long as there is some source from which to obtain oxygen nearby...  

Yeah, without the oxygen it's kind of tough, isn't it?

An Exciting Game of Super-Human Role Playing

cover art by Alvin J. Belflower

Villains hold a certain allure; they appeal to our baser desires.  A game where players assume the roles of evil-doers would seem to have a great deal of potential.  Supervillains was an attempt to capitalize on the 'bad boy' mystique in terms of the comic book super-being genre.  According to the back of the box:

SUPERVILLAINS includes scenarios which may be played as board games, and complete rules for setting up and running a role playing campaign game.  The game contains a strategic map, a tactical map, die cut playing pieces, and all the dice, charts, and rules required for play.

In fact, Supervillains presents itself as three games:  a basic game (“...the same as virtually any Adventure board game”), an intermediate game, and an advanced game (with “as much freedom of character play as any other role-playing game”).  The role-playing nature of Supervillains is often ignored.  Lawrence Schick neglected to list it in Heroic Worlds, even though he catalogues Masters of the Universe – a product with less of a claim to being a role-playing game.

The cover indicates Supervillains was a Task Force game.  Task Force was a company in the 80s perhaps best known as the (then) publisher of Star Fleet Battles.  It also produced a variety of 'pocket games'.  Apparently, Supervillains is Rick Register's only design credit.

One bygone summer, when he was a kid, your humble host purchased this game.  It was money well spent as he derived extensive use of the product those halcyon months so long ago.  Nowadays, kids have detailed HeroClix figures for games of super-being combat.  Back then, all we had were cardboard counters and we were grateful.  Nostalgia notwithstanding, Supervillains is not without its faults.

Part of the trouble with Supervillains is the premise; it's not easy being evil.  All a superhero has to do is stumble across a villainous plot and thwart it.  A supervillain must formulate and advance plots.  Also, the motivations of supervillains are myriad.  Among the various sorts of supervillain there are:  a misunderstood alien who steals electronic components to repair his spaceship, an operative of a hostile foreign power, a mad scientist seeking revenge against the civilization that spurned him, a megalomaniac attempting to conquer the world, a thug who has no aspiration beyond robbing a bank.  Supervillains does nothing to address character motivations or the need for players to create plots.

The RPG aspect of Supervillains includes what I call a 'schedule' game – a type of game I have discussed previously.  “In the Advanced game,” the rules state, “the players will inform the Gamemaster what actions their characters are taking during each segment.”  (A 'segment' is a half-hour of game time.)  Continuing, the rules state that “encounters between player-characters...will be played out...”  This suggests that player characters are not grouped as a party, they engage the setting separate from one another.

Here is the complete introduction to the game:

          The fiendish Dr. DuNos was running wild through the city terrorizing the populace and creating havoc.  As public enemy #1, the master of sound, had managed to evade both DAGGER and The Sentinels.  The mayor of New York City was so distraught over the matter that he had been ready to resign over the furor, when the Controllers volunteered their services to track down and arrest DuNos.  The intangible Null-Man, the Living Vacuum, Electro-Thing, The Battery, Soundwave, and the Gyro-Changer all had long criminal records; but the mayor had little choice.  He gave the Controllers permission to attempt what no one else had been able to do.
          Given their own headquarters, the Controllers soon proved their loyalty to the mayor by doing their best to track down the infamous DuNos.  Although DuNos managed to evade them time after time, they were soon given another assignment in addition; to capture the notorious Holy Crusader and Company.  The Holy Crusader, the Giver of Light, Perihelion, and The Crab were all wanted for numerous and various crimes against the state, one of the most ruthless of which included the brutal massacre of an entire squadron of DAGGER agents.
          Laboring night and day with little sleep, The Controllers were finally able, through luck, to locate the Crusaders' hideout.  They prepared to engage in combat with the fiendish foursome.  Both sides tensed, as each was waiting for the other side to make the first move.  As these Superbeings stood poised for action, suddenly a whining sound filled the air and the sky grew darker as two DAGGER air cruisers passed overhead, containing forty agents, who were authorized to eliminate both the Crusaders and The Controllers, each for their various crimes.  It would be a long and bloody battle and many Superbeings and DAGGER agents would lie dead before the day was over, but perhaps the city, for a time, would be free of the supervillains.