Review - Judge Dredd Judge's Handbook (MGP)

Judges Handbook (Mongoose Publishing)
System: Traveller
Campaign Setting: Judge Dredd

120page perfect bound softcover. Color cover, B&W interior, with thick paper.

Description:
Uncover the secrets of the Justice Department in Mega-City One. Within this book, you will find all the methods, technologies and procedures the judges use to track down criminals. From the forensics of Tek-Div to the Manta Prowl Tank, there is a tool to solve every crime, and your judges have access to them all.

The Justice Department provides new rules and options for judges as they patrol the streets of Mega-City One, and allows them access to the more elite divisions and promotions, allowing them to become Exorcist Judges, join the holocaust Squad, or even Acc-Div! If that is not enough to complete an investigation, then the judges will be happy to try out the latest weapons and equipment, straight from the workshops of Tek-Div.

This is one of those products you almost need if you're playing Judge Dredd games, and I'd say it's must have for a prolonged campaign. Within this handbook lies the secrets of all the divisions of Mega-City One.

Chapter 1: 17...SEVENTEEN character creation 'templates' for creating seasoned judges attached to one of the many specialty divisions, from advanced training of seasoned judges, to common specialties like Heavy Weapons Judge, Riot Squad Judge, Wally Squad (undercover) and COE (covert operations) Judge; to the mostly NPC roles of Harbor Squad, Sector Chief, and SJS Squad (Special Judicial Service (aka Internal Affairs). This one section greatly expands the entire universe of Dredd. Each specialty is just like a standard character creation table, Survival, Training, Requirements, Mishap and events tables. Training in a Specialty Judge role represents 1 year of training. Allowing characters to expand their characters in a quick and easy way, taking them off-camera for a year.

With the way I plan on Running Judge Dredd, ala FATE style, letting the players call their own shots, I was thinking of letting the players roll up the additional characters, so when they call in back-up, they're not calling in NPCs, they're calling in their own secondary characters, with their own back stories, personalities, and skills. This also lets players take more control of Mega-City One. Hell I'd probably occasionally let them bring Dredd in and run him once or twice just for the experience of running Dredd. Of course, they'll also be called in to back-up Dredd occasionally.

Chapter 2: the Equipment chapter, what can I say that I haven't said before, I'm a softy for Gear, junk, weapons, etc. So this chapter is right up my alley. This chapter incudes EVERYTHING from Holocaust Suits, Blast Shield, Riot Shields, and Armor; up to Special Issue Equipment like Cling-Nets, Com-scan, EpiStrip, Modular Repair Kit, and Space Boots. Weapons? Drokk yeah! 35 weapons, from the lowly sawed off stub gun, to the Blockbuster cannon present on the walls of Mega-City One, and the Omni Tank. This adds in most of the rest of the stuff missing from the main rulebook.

Chapter 3: Vehicles & Robots Chapter. 18 vehicles, this encompass the aforementioned Omni Tank, A-, S- and HH-Wagons, and other specialty vehicles of the Justice Department. Three spacehips, the Hubble attack Ship, Justice Pod, and Titan Shuttle make up the rest of the vehicles. Then come the Robots, always the Robots, do you have your Robot Insurance? 8 robots, Large Warbot Droid,

Chapter 4: More details on the Justice Department, Atlantic Division, COE, Immigration, Personel, Space Corps, Street Division, Undercover Divisions, all expanded. A Bunch of Backup units are described, stuff every Judge would know about. Gunbirds, Manta Prowl Tanks, K-unit, Long Gunner (aka sniper), Pursuit Squads, etc. Finally, A Bunch of Sample NPCs are given stat blocks, always useful for a Game Master.

Chapter 5: This flshes out Sector 13, the sample sector given to players to run as their sector, away from Dredd's sector. It gives descriptions, simple maps of most of the Sector House. Everything a growing Judge needs. Including Iso Cubes for those Perps that need putting away. Then, to make the Sector come alive, Dock 13, contacts, perps, and establishments round out the book.

Overall Rating: 18/20 Excellent proof-reading, lots of content, useful for advanced players and any game master running a Judge Dredd campaign.

Value: $29.99 for hard-copy, a bit pricey for a soft-bound at 120 pages, but as it's a supplement that is less used, it's going to cost a bit more. However, the PDF is currently available at Drivethru for $16.79.

Edit: Sorry, the formatting was jacked!

Review - Judge Dredd Miniature Game

With the Judge Dredd Miniature Game Kickstarter coming down to the last 3 days, I have decided to do an initial review of the FREE miniature rulebook.



The rules are quite simple, consisting of 4 pages for the basic rules. It's a d10 based system instead of the d6 system that most miniature games use. I like that the game includes a campaign system similar to that of Necromunda, but with 25 levels of advancement for heroes! It's not as a robust of system as Necromunda, but it's close, I wish there were underdog rules, instead of having forces be equal cred values. I do like the minion rules, simple, survive 5 games, and they become heroes.

Characteristics are pretty simple: 
Move: Simple movement in inches.
Agility: Used for dodging shooting attacks and also for jumping gaps.
Shoot: This is the shooting and throwing skill modifier
Melee: Melee skill modifier
Melee Dice: Number of dice that you roll in melee combat.
Will: This is the mental toughness, for resisting arrest checks, psychic powers and other will related checks.
Armour: Ranging from 0 to as high as +7 for Heavy Holocaust Suits this value is added to the d10 armour roll, minus Armour Piercing, if the total is greater than 10, the armour saves. Pretty simple
Hits: Pretty simple, these are effectively hit points, most models have one, Judge Dredd, being a Level 20 Merc, has 22 points!! A Fattie has 6 hits, which is a lot for a minion.


Play switches from Player to Player, One side moving all of their models, then the other.Actions in the basic game are also simple. 2 actions per turn for each figure. A figure must use both actions before moving to the next model. Actions are as follows, Move, Shoot, Melee (including a Move & Attack action), or Special.

Shooting is interesting, because Rate of Fire is figured in with the Shooting Dice on the weapon so a Zip Gun has 3d Shooting dice, and Damage 1, with a 0 AP (3d/1/0). Lawgivers that Judges use are the most versatile weapon, as they should be, with a selection of 7 different rounds, Standard (2d/2/-1), Armor Piercing (1d/1/-4), Gas(1d/1/- explosive 2/gas), Heatseeker(1d/1/-1 ignores cover), Hi Explosive(1d/3/-2 explosive 1), Incendiary(1d/1/0 flames), Rubber Ricochet(1d/1/0 weak, but 5d/1/0 inside a building. This variety completely encompasses Judge Dredd.

The variety of forces continues the trend, by representing the extensive universe of Judge Dredd, from Robots to Mutants & Zombies from the Cursed Earth. Forces can also draw on Mercs (though, for the Justice Department, these are mostly forces also drawn from the Justice department, just not Street Judges.

Other Force Lists in JDMG, include, Street Gang, Mobsters, Ape Gang, Fattie Stampede, Cursed Earth Desperadoes, Sky Surfer Gangs, The Lone Vigilante, The Angel Gang, Cheif Judge Caligula's Personal Retinue, Zombie Horde, and Renegade Robots. (Additional forces are available in the Block Wars expansion.)

Heroes in JDMG gain Talents, these really make the game feel like Judge Dredd. An example of a Judge Dredd feeling talent, would be the Bike Wheelie...This,  judge only,  talent lets the Judge ride down perps while pulling a wheelie for defense. The bike does 3 dmg but also grants the Judge a +2 armour bonus. These talents are very much like feats in OGL games, many having prerequisites.

I'm really looking forward to playing this game, with it's talent system, psi powers, and overall Judge Dredd-iness, the game really captures the atmosphere of the world of Mega-City One. The best part is you can check it out for FREE, read through the rules, see if it's something you want to play, if it is, maybe jump in and support the Kickstarter, Some sweet Block Wars vehicles up for the next Stretch Goal of $66,666, 4 grand and 3 days to go.

Note: I haven't had a chance to play the system, so this is an overview of the rules, the feel of the rules, based upon 2 decades of experience with wargames. 

Reviews - Judge Dredd RPG (Mongoose)

JUDGE DREDD RPG (Mongoose Publishing)

Mega-City One - a vast metropolis where each of 360 million citizens is a potential lawbreaker. Patrolling these mean streets are the judges, tough lawmen of the future, trained to keep the peace and equipped to take on the criminals of the 22nd Century. Toughest of them all is Judge Dredd, for he is the Law, and you'd better believe it creep!

Judge Dredd is a new setting for the Traveller roleplaying game, in which you take on the role of Mega-City One judges, patrolling the streets astride your Lawmaster bike, ready to defend the city's civilians against an array of foes.

Lavishly detailed as a full colour hardback, Judge Dredd will take your Traveller games to somewhere they have never been before!

JUDGE DREDD requires the use of the TRAVELLER Rulebook, conveniently available in Little Rulebook format for $20.

I must say, having run generic TRAVELLER several times now, I'm REALLY looking forward to running the Hot Dog Run scenario I'm prepping for JUDGE DREDD  I have seen the older Dredd editions, and this one is by far the Best I've seen so far.

Chapter 1: Character creation
Using the TRAVELLER style character creation starting at age 5 instead of 18, using full d66 for event tables. Term 1 is age 5-8, Term 2 is 9-12, Term 3 (age 13-16) is where the creation really starts getting interesting, this is where the character ends up with a Judge division, Psi, Tek, Med or Street Judge, culminating in the mandatory Hot Dog run. Each division has its own Mishap tables as well. Term 4 is the final term, culminating in Full Eagle Day. Fifteen years of training, put to the test on the actual streets of Mega-City 1, under the eye of a  Full Judge, who assesses whether the candidate has what it takes to be a Judge. This character creation makes a stronger starting character than the Traveller character, but that's good since most starting characters in Traveller wouldn't last long as a Judge.

Chapter 2: Skills & Special Techniques
This chapter lays out news skills and special techniques, which are like Feats in the OGL system. A very good additional system for bringing the life of  a Judge together. These special techniques make the Judges feel like they're a step above the rest of the populace, and provide lots of opportunities for for role-playing, and making each judge feel a bit more unique as most starting characters will have only 1 or 2 from 21 different techniques. Short but jam packed chapter.

Chapter 3: The Justice Department
Every player not fully familiar with Judge Dredd should read this chapter, It would be basic information every cadet should know after having spent 15 years in the Academy. This chapter starts to bring the world of Mega-City 1 to life.

Chapter 4: I am the Law
Most people probably think playing a judge means executing wrong-doers immediately, however, playing Lawful Stupid in Judge Dredd is a good way to get yourself executed by another Judge. Often the perps will be captured alive, and have to be transported to a holding post for questioning and sentencing. A great portion of the chapter is dedicated to laying out the codes, section and what the sentencing is. (This would be a good handout for players to have, letting them flip through the codes to mete out justice.) Backup indicates what kind of help a Judge may call on when they're in over their head. Lastly the "Mega Rackets" are covered, this is the organized crime portion, and always a good opponent for a good group of Judges.

Chapter 5: Equipment
You got it, the chapter on the equipment, from the Lawgiver, the Lawmaster and Judge standard issue equipment, wonderful detail is presented here, with 3D CGI renderings of many weapons. One of the great things about Judge Dredd is 35 years of gadgets to give characters, challenging the characters which gadget to use to proceed in the game. Food, accommodations, illegal paraphernalia, etc is covered, a great book with plenty in it.


Chapter 6: Megways and Skedways
You can't get around MegaCity One without knowing the terms, From the Judge's Lane, to the Megway to an Eeziglide, this chapter covers it all, and the vehicles which travel on said 'ways.


Chapter 7: Mega-City One
Twenty Eight pages of coverage for Mega-City One and the rest of the Earth, from Cursed Earth, to East Meg One, Atlantis, and out to the Space Colonies. It covers recreation, sports and daily life. There's a section on tips for bringing th  mega-city to life, which unless you've lived in Hong Kong, New York or other mega city, you will have trouble imagining it at all. It has a couple of charts to help

Chapter 8: Thought Crimes
This is the Psionics chapter, which Psionics are a bit different than Traveller psions, but they operate under the same general rules.

Chapter 9: Crazies, Fatties, Muties and Perps
The monster book...From classic Dredd villains like Judge Death and the Angel Family to generic crazies, muties and perpetrators of crime. Plenty of charts help round it out, letting you make a plethora of baddies to challenge your Judges.

Chapter 10: Robots
With events such as the Robot Wars, and Walter the servant robot, it's bound to have robots, with a couple of Charts and Lots of Robot stat blocks.

Chapter 11: Mac's Database

A Timeline chapter. pretty straight forward, especially useful if you haven't read 30 years of Dredd.

Chapter 12: Sector 13
A Sample Sector for players to run in. It's not Dredd's sector. Population 1.5 million. With that many people to care for, there should be plenty for characters to do.With the following Blocks: Buzz Aldrin block, Jon Bon Jovi Block, Jimmy Gandolfini, and Bruce Springsteen block among others, interject it with an additional Justin Beiber Block that houses the worst scumbags in the sector and you've got a place to run.

Artwork:  This is a full color book, with lots of artwork from the comics, beautiful full  city panorama which make help bring the immensity of the city to mind.


Family Rating: Teen (The world of Mega-City 1 is a brutal place, with Block Wars, senseless violence due to boredom and various other wars, the players will have to make moral decisions about killing and violence in a non-fantasy setting, against humans, most often.)

Cost: $49.95 Print Version ($29.99 for PDF at Drive Thru RPG)

Value: If you're a role-player and you're a JUDGE DREDD fan this is a must have. It's gorgeous, well written and a classic, using TRAVELLER rules makes it simple to run.

Kickstarter Watch (Judge Dredd Block War)

BLOCK WAR!!! (Wish I had 2 or 3 nickels to rub together...heh)



WOW!!!! This shows everything available in the Kickstarter (though they're very close to the next Stretch goal, so more on the way...The next stretch goal brings in Judges from the other cities, like Hondo and Tex City.

"If your support takes us to $40,000, we will add another brand new box set to the range - Judges of the World! This set will include judges from other Mega-Cities, including Texas City, Hondo-Cit, the Emerald Isle, Oz, East Meg-2, and Luxor."

Free PDF rules available at Mongoose.

Joys of Paranoia RPG

Paranoia is an amazing game especially for One-shots at game conventions. Players aren't supposed to know the rules, the game itself runs best when it's off the cuff, a basic outline of some ideas is really all you really need, besides some handouts, players need to know what secret society they belong to, what their mutant power is (not how it works), and during the course of the game you give out the mission for the Computer (or a high programmer's secret agenda), plus the secret society missions.

There are so many variations of fun things to do in Paranoia, perhaps all the characters are actually Internal Security secret agents. Perhaps the Team Leader is torn between completing the mission and fulfilling his Death Leopard mission of ensuring the Computer's mission is a failure.

The secret to a good Paranoia game is plenty of conflict. Conflicting orders, conflicting secret society missions, conflicting information about the mission....

I just recently had an idea of the puzzle mission. The characters are sent on a top secret mission, they will receive orders on their Series 1300 PDC. Unfortunately when they receive their orders, they each only receive a portion of the orders. Hilarity ensues as the players scramble to figure out if they're going to the right locations, in the right order. Does it matter if they're really going to the correct location? Nope, not really, the GM in Paranoia is really just someone to pass notes to, and try to control the chaos that ensues, oh and occasionally throw an arbitrary die.

The second most important thing to do in Paranoia is provide opportunity. If there are opportunities, the players will generally know how to exploit them, one of my favorites is the dark elevator, or TransBot.

If you have at least 4 people to play your game this is really one of the most amazing games to run. If you want to run a long term campaign, then you employ the 'dark' setting of the rules, different from Zap and Classic, this type of play focuses more on subverting the computer rather than back-stabbing your buddy. Make the players all part of the same secret society, or service group, focus on the darker aspects of the world, change it up a bit, perhaps more like Logan's Run. Instead of a sexless world where hormones are tightly suppresed, it becomes a decadent world where recreational drugs and sex become the way to escape the harsh realities of Alpha Complex. Make the 'plex at war with another Alpha Complex, a secret war that the Infrareds know nothing about. They think it's all a 'commie' plot.

Paranoia is endless in fun and possibilities.

Any version will do, as the rules don't really matter as much as the setting, I like a combination of the Mongoose versions, I like that Paranoia "Troubleshooters" brought treason points back, but I like Paranoia Service Pack 1 because the artwork is the original artwork and the version is really tight.

Paranoia Troubleshooters PDF $23.98

Paranoia Service Pack 1 PDF $23.98

Also, I'm running Paranoia at Gam3rCon Gam3day this Saturday (unless I don't recover my voice...) provided I have enough players, if not, I might run a Traveller: Judge Dredd Eagle Day run for 1 or 2 players.

Legend

Picked up the Legend RPG from Mongoose. (This is effectively RuneQuestII rules, crunhed into an OGL format...which is pretty sweet I think).

The core rulebook which is using a smaller format similar to the Savage World's explorer edition except this one is over 200 pages. On DrivethruRPG.com it's only $1, as Mongoose doesn't have an SRD up for Legend, so for $1 you get all the rules and the art (which isn't OGL). So effectively you're paying for the art and getting the book free...Anyway, I downloaded an Eberron Conversion for it, so I think the boys and I are going to try it out with a setting I already know.

Review - Earthdawn, Namegivers of Barsaive

Namegivers of Barsaive 
Earthdawn 3rd edition
This product is produced by Mongoose Publishing, on their Flaming Cobra imprint, licensed by RedBrick Ltd under the original FASA license. (yes, it's a complex arrangement.)

First Impressions: The print version is hardbound and  runs 256 pages. You flip through the book, you notice that there's lots of information. The first half of the book is fluff, that last half is pure crunch.

Art: The art is black and white except for the cover art, much of it is recycled from previous editions, but there are some nice new pieces of art, especially in the disciplines section of the book (which is nice in the PDF version because it's pretty easy to make stand up copies from it). Laubenstein's art is prevalent throughout the book, which is excellent, because his art is the soul of Earthdawn. 

Fluff: The first half of the book is pure fluff for the races. Most people can imagine how to play a dwarf or even an elf easily, but, how do you play an obsidimen, troll, or t'skrang? This book gives you all the information you need to truly understand any of the name-giver races. 

Crunch: This book compiles the original information from several 1st edition books. It is packed with crunch. The second half of the book is pure crunch, each race has at least one discipline that is race specific.  Fifteen disciplines are presented, now these are disciplines which have appeared in previous books, but have been updated to the 3rd edition. The disciplines covered are as follows: Boatman, Horror Stalker, Journeyman, Liberator, Messenger, Outcast Warrior, Purifier, Shaman, Songsmith, Taildancer, Traveled Scholar, Winddancer, Windmaster, Windscout and Woodsman. After the disciplines, is the talent discriptions for the new disciplines, and talent knacks. Skill versions of the same talents. The last big section of the book is the Goods and Services section covering armor, weapons, blood charms, potions, etc. 

Cost:  The print copy $39.99. The PDF costs $19.99 at Drivethru RPG.

Value: If you're getting into Earthdawn, this should be the 3rd book you buy, (second if you're a player). The companions are for Warden level and above (9th circle). 

Rating: Epic! Earthdawn is my favorite system for a reason, it is high fantasy that deals with magic is a unique manner. 

Earthdawn buying guide for players

Player's Guide

Namegiver's of Barsaive

Player's Companion

Earthdawn buying guide for GMs

Player's Guide

Gamemaster's Guide

Namegiver's of Barsaive

Player's Companion

Gamemaster's Companion

Review - Traveller (MGP)

Traveller RPG

This is a review of the core rulebook for Traveller RPG. Available in both print and PDF format from Mongoose Publishing.

First Glance: If you’re familiar with the GDW (Game Design Workshop) version of Traveller of the past, you instantly recognize the simple black trade dress with the red TRAVELLER logo. It’s a 181 page hardbound book with black and white interior artwork.

Main Review: The rules are pretty simple, based upon 2d6, or the d66 variation, the rules are updated but mostly the same as the old rules from GDW. Character creation is fun, with the ability to choose and change careers, your character’s life is in your own hands, random rolls determine what happens as your proceed through the different terms, for good or ill, nothing is set in stone, not your stats or skills during creation, you could easily start as a dirt farmer and end up a Duke.

Artwork: Decent, some of the figures have a bit of a proportion issue. The old ship artwork appears to be recycled into the new edition, which forges yet another bridge to the past.

Replay Value: Excellent, as any RPG, there’s always good replay value. With Traveller it’s even more so, as it’s a core ruleset, around which nearly anything could be emulated. The character creation is so randomized that no character should be exactly the same.

Comprehension Level: Excellent, The rules for Traveller are pretty simple as I’ve already stated, by using d6s, That automatically makes it simpler for some, since everyone is familiar with a 6 sided die. Combat isn’t too complex, easily picked up in 1 or 2 sessions.

Humor: This is a stripped down basic rulebook, not a lot of humor, or humour as the Brits say, involved.

Game Mastering: Gamemastering can be challenging, not for the sake of complicated rules, but the fact that they game spans galaxies and each session may see two or three different worlds. Though there are various settings based in Traveller, most notably, is the Judge Dredd Campaign Setting. No matter what you want to do, you can probably find a place to do it here, you could recreate other settings, from movies or anime, perhaps an exiting RPG doesn’t quite fit your vision of how the game should run. This is an easy system to convert it to. If you can find old adventurers, conversion should be simple as the stats are the same, just a few minor tweaks and you’re done. Plenty of online support exists for adventures as well. Including articles in the Free Signs & Portent eZines that Mongoose publishes (available on their site or on DriveThruRPG).

Family Rating: 10+, it’s a dangerous world out there, violence is sure to happen. However it is a simple system compared to many of the systems out there, but when you have a simple game system, it’s easier to focus on good gaming.  

Price Tag:  $39.95 or $23.97 for the PDF on DrivethruRPG.

Value: Pretty Good. For the Basic system you’re getting a 181 page book that covers everything from Character Creation, to World Creation to Game Mastering, it’s a bit pricey for the number of pages, but it is on par with other comparable systems, and this one you don’t need to buy a Game Masters Guide. There are plenty of supplements already published if you wish to go deeper down the rabbit hole. Earthdawn was the same price, but it was a much larger book.

Overall Rating: Mostly Epic! As a core setting it lacks an in depth setting, and for the price it could have been a bit meatier.