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SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules $9.99
Average Rating:4.6 / 5
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SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules
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SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules
Publisher: Bloat Games
by Timothy B. [Featured Reviewer]
Date Added: 09/13/2022 11:51:25

Originally posted here: https://theotherside.timsbrannan.com/2022/09/review-vigilante-city-1-core-rules.html

Vigilante City has been sitting on top of the computer I use as a home server forever. I figure now is a great time to let everyone know about this great street-level supers game.

Vigilante City #1 Core Rules

PDF and softcover book. 292 pages. Color cover, black & white interior art. For the purposes of this review, I am considering the PDF from DriveThruRPG and the soft-cover books I picked up either via Kickstarter or from Bloat Games' own store.

Vigilante City, or more accurately, SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City #1 Core Rules, is a street-level supers game for the SURVIVE THIS family of games from Bloat Games. The same folks that gave us the awesome Dark Places & Demogorgons and the amazing We Die Young RPGs. So right away these rules feel familiar. But this game is more about teenage angst in the 80s and 90s. There are mean streets out there.

The game really is a great starter for anyone that has played D&D/OSR-like games and wants to get into a supers game. Like all SURVIVE THIS!! games this one in class and level with levels topping off at 10.

Right from the start, this game lets us know what it is all about. These are street-level supers. While there might the occasional mutant, anthropomorphic otter, Super Soldier, or power suit we will not be seeing the likes of Superman or Wonder Woman. This is Batman, Captain America, and Tony Stark down all the way to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and some guy with a baseball bat. If this sounds like your kind of game (and really who wouldn't want to play this?) then buckle in, because this is going to be fun.

The Core Rule book covers the basic hero classes (this is a class/level system derived from the SRD) and basic rules. I am going to point out here that the rules are very much the same as other Survive This!! games with notable areas to aid heroic play. While in the past I have pointed out that teens of the 80s in Dark Places & Demogorgons can grow up to become the young adults of the 90s We Die Young, there is no logical progression here from those games. To be fair that is also not the designer's intent. I can see a world that involves all these games (that and their newer What Shadows Hide line) but let's first appreciate this game for what it is right now and not what inhuman creation I'll make with it later.

The Basics

We start off with the basic rules, or maybe I should say "Basic" rules since these rules are designed from the d20 SRD to feel like old-school D&D, D&D Basic in particular. As mentioned before it shares this design with all the other Survive This!! games. You generate attributes, the usual six plus a seventh "Survival," you generate your saving throws, pick your alignments, calculate your Vigilante Points, work out your Origin/Background (every good hero has a backstory!) and then comes the time to choose your class.

Human Classes

Basic D&D's DNA is peaking through here. You have your normal human classes and then a section on "Mega Humans." But let us talk about humans first. Essentially these are the roles that an everyday, but not really average, human could pick up and say "I am going to fight crime as a ..." Yes a lot of these require training and/or to be born with the right genetic lottery (smart, rich, or both).

These classes are: Athlete, Crime Fighter, Dark Avenger, Gadgeteer, Genius, Hardboiled Detective, Knight Nurse, Martial Artist, Mentor, Mercenary, Protégé, Sharp Shooter, Street Preacher, and True Vigilante. Most, if not all are fairly self-explanatory. Each gets 10 levels of advancement where they gain certain advantages. Like the comics that inspired them the character classes are fairly 2-Dimensional. THIS IS APPROPRIATE. You fill in the blanks with your backgrounds and skills. You can choose "Street Preacher" but you have to figure out if you are Jacob Fuller (Harvey Keitel's character in "From Dusk til Dawn) or Jesse Custer from Preacher.

Mega-Humans

Much like the split between Demi-humans and humans in D&D, and Meta-humans/Mutants and humans in comics, we get our section on Mega-Humans. Mega humans are both a "species" and a "class" they can pick up skill packages to differentiate themselves, but largely this is what they are. Again, this fits the tone of the X-man comics.

Our Mega-Human classes are: Anthropomorphs, Borg, Mutant, Mystic, Powered Armor, Psion, Super Soldier, and Super Speedster. Lots of choices here.

These classes and their powers (spells for the mystic, psionics for the psion) cover the first 210 pages of or 2/3rds of this book. That is expected really.

The classes are followed with Skils & Skill Packs, XP/Leveling, Gear, Vehicles, Game Terms and Critical tables.

There is a solid index and the PDF is bookmarked.

The game has a feel of Villians & Vigilantes mixed with Mutants & Masterminds with the difficulty of Icons. Any veteran of either of those games will pick this one up fast. Anyone that has played D&D or other Survive This!! games will pick it up even faster. That is already given the fact that this is a quick and easy game to learn and play. There are groups out there that are searching for the perfect Supers game and this could very well be it for them. I find it very, very appealing.

Like all games from Bloat Games, there is a lot of support online and in other books for this line.



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules
Publisher: Bloat Games
by Ben T. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/16/2019 00:56:12

This is the class based superhero game I have always wanted in my life. This took everything cool about the vigilante hack and made it come to life with super powers. This along with Dark Places and Demogorgons is THE best OSR content I have seen. I cannot wait for the next two books!

All I can ask for is that I hope you come back and have a "Divine origin/Supernatural creature" set of classes and perhaps add even more variety to the mystic Class. Perhaps divine options? Magic systems from the world?



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules
Publisher: Bloat Games
by Eric F. [Verified Purchaser]
Date Added: 03/14/2019 09:41:28

So I've been a Pulp & supers guy for a very long time. I've played em all & changed systems more times then 'Supes' has done the quick change in a phone book.. Then I recently saw Tim Brannan's post on his blog about Bloat Games SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules & Villain's Guide PDFs Kickstarter I'm not going to lie I didn't even know this was an OSR event. But after reading through Tim's blog entry I approached Eric Bloat for a copy of the preorder rules.

I've been scanning through it like a demon & it looks like alot of fun. I'm familiar with many of the Swords & Wizardry style concepts here. Many of the classes I've seen before in D20 Modern OGL but here give a far more cohesive whole over the system. This is a complete OSR style super hero gaming system end of story. You don't need anything else to play this with. There is a lot of crunch here allowing a player to go for Humans, Mutant Animals, Borg Conversion and Power Armor, Magic, Mutant Abilities, Psionics, Speedsters and Super Soldier Drugs. There are rules for , Background/Origins, Weapons, Equipment, Gadgets, Vehicle Upgrades, Vehicle Combat, Ranged & Melee Combat, Morale, Skills, Usage Die & more immersive play style. But this is all done from an OSR platform & outta of the box play.This book clocks in at 292 pages of actual playable content & that's where things break into context. This book is done very well & the lay out is easy on these old eyes. The column count is done professionally & so its easy to read. Characters straight out of the gate are going to kick ass. But the first thing I've thought of is SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules & Villain's Guide going to be cross compatible with the In Dark Places & Demogorgons rpg?! Why? Because kids are some of the most underutilized resources in super hero rpgs. That's right I know that they get constantly used in comicbooks & possibly the new Shazam film. But the truth is that In Dark Places & Demogorons is the perfect opportunity to introduce kid heroes & a possible origin point for new supers. This is where SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City - Core Rules shine because they give the DM the tools to make their campaigns happen. Because of the PC customization option given by the system there's all kinds of options on the table top level for adventure gaming. There are some solid options that the system provides & street level adventuring is what this game excels at. Do I think that SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City, succeeds as a street-level, & gritty superhero game set in the near future? In a word oh yes! I'll be covering even more of this system & diving deep into the SURVIVE THIS!! Vigilante City Villain's Guide From Bloat Games next! Eric Fabiaschi Swords & Stitchery Blog Want even more OSR content? Subscribe to https://swordsandstitchery.blogspot.com



Rating:
[5 of 5 Stars!]
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