It was written by Barak Blackburn, and uses a significantly modified version of a rules system that was first introduced in Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2 in late 2008.

Capes, Cowls and Villains Foul, abbreviated as CC&VF or CCVF, adapts the narrative and open-ended trait system of Cartoon Action Hour: Season 2 to the genre of superhero comics, and aims to make each roleplaying game session feel as much as possible like writing and editing a comicbook.

Conceptually, it operates on the edge of the narrative school of game design, aiming to make characters and their abilities as flexible as possible while still maintaining its own system and dice roll mechanics.

Tim Kirk's Hearts & Souls and Chad Underkoffler's Truth & Justice, both written for the same genre, share similar goals and design features, but are unrelated publications that came out about five years before CC&VF.

While Cartoon Action Hour and CC&VF are closely related systems, both are de facto independent rules frameworks, and the texts in either are written from scratch to reflect the chosen genre, and the “parent medium” emulated (animated cartoon shows for CAH, printed comicbooks for CC&VF).

Unlike other games by Spectrum Games, CC&VF does not use a default time period, location, or style of superhero stories, but the majority of its illustrations and a few hints and allusions in the flavor text suggest a tribute to superhero comics of the early to late Silver Age, and maybe the Bronze Age.

Blackburn had played and studied most of the earlier and contemporary roleplaying game systems published for the superhero genre, and found them either too restrictive or too rules-heavy, especially in character creation.

Blackburn also wanted to mostly streamline and unify the crunchier aspects of character design from CAH: Season 2, such as the representation of companions, vehicles, gear, or magic spells.

Just as in all editions of Cartoon Action Hour, as well as the related games Midway City and Tomorrow Knights, a rating of zero in a trait did not cost any points in character creation.

Those points became unified as “Oomph” in CAH: Season 2, and appear in CC&VF, re-christened “Editorial Control” or simply “EC.” Thirdly, the traditional distinction between raw attributes and skills was dropped.

The name “Capes, Cowls and Villains Foul” also came with its share of history: According to the Designer's Notes section in Cartoon Action Hour's first book edition (2003), the title had been used half-jokingly by Cynthia Celeste Miller for a small superhero system that she had written as a project for Zan's Super Home website.

However, the updating of the Omlevex universe had not progressed significantly by mid-2010, and the playtesters of the new system were using their own superhero characters, or heroes borrowed from popular Marvel and DC titles.

By September 2010, CC&VF had been established as the new name for the superhero product line, and a logo for this title was designed by Miller.

There is absolutely no distinction made between the formal game aspects of an inborn talent or ability (e.g. “strength” or “intelligence”), a learned skill, academic knowledge, super-abilities, powers, magic, psionics, gadgets, vehicles, weapons, or even a character concept that summarizes many skills and advantages, such as “Ninja Training,” “Martial Arts” or “Shamanic Magic” (examples taken from the Quickstart Preview PDF).

In the internal rules jargon of the game, a Trait is typically defined by a single noun or adjective (“Tough,” “Vicious,” “Athletic,” “Super-Strength,” “Bouncing,” “Gun-Fu,” etc.

While no rules for building your own Traits were given in the Quickstart Preview, the Core Rulebook explained this as a feature requiring a specific number of points in character creation.

The reverse is also possible: a single d12 for the first usage, the better of two d12 results for the second one, and best of three for the third, representing a character that gets increasingly powerful or skillful over a short period of time.

This form of stacking Traits on top of one another makes for a way to get an extremely high modifier to your d12 roll, increasing your chances to meet or beat a target number.

This rule ensures that players have to be careful with their resources, knowing that failing with a heavily linked roll will make them susceptible to further attacks in that scene.

Linking one's Traits is also the game's method to encourage crazy and flavorful “power stunts” or “super feats” without having a previous definition for those.

CC&VF uses genre-appropriate character flaws and weaknesses, essentially the same as Cartoon Action Hour's “Subplots,” under the name of “Complications.” The pre-gen heroes and villains all come with at least one Complication each.

The art is actually unrelated to the game as such, and all the pieces chosen are pages or panels from Williams' free online comic Sidechicks, published through the website GraphicSmash.com.

Most of these characters appear as fully fleshed out, playable heroes and villains in the book, also (including Americana, Breaker, Deathstalker, Lillith, Moon Girl, and Vector).

Within days of its original PDF release in August 2012, CC&VF had become the fastest and best selling rulebook product for its publisher Spectrum Games.

Spectrum Games's first ever Kickstarter campaign, started in October 2012, is also for a book for the CC&VF line, a large villains gallery supplement including all new art, plot hooks, and adventures.