There are ten chapters to the book, all differently colour coded, which is a very nice touch. I'm going to review each chapter in turn.
Chapter 1: Introduction. This gives a brief history to the world of Judge Dredd in 2099, the start date of the scenarios presented in the book and in The Robot Wars supplement. This takes us right back to the start of Dredd's adventures in the 2000 AD comic. I can see the point of this although I expect some people would have preferred it to be set in Dredd's present day. Future supplements will progress in Dredd's timeline until we get to the present day in the Judge Dredd comic strip, currently 2141 as I type this. There is a very welcome three page example of play presented in a comic strip format.
Chapter 2: The Worlds of 2000 AD. This chapter gives brief overviews of many of the strips that have appeared in 2000 AD over the years. No doubt some readers will be asking "where is such and such strip?" Have no fear. EN Publishing hold the licence to produce all of the stories that appeared in 2000 AD so there is a good chance your favourite strip will appear at some time in the future. Just bear in mind, 2000 AD has a huge backlog of different stories. Currently in production are supplements for Rogue Trooper and Strontium Dogs.
Chapter 3: Character Creation. This chapter takes you through the process of creating a character to play in Mega City One, be it Judge, Perp or Citizen. When I bought the N.E.W. rulebook, primarily to check out the WOIN role playing system, I immediately fell in love with the character creation system. The idea of career paths greatly helps in bringing a character to life. This is the longest chapter in the book, running to 70 pages, and is the chapter I'll be referring to more than any other chapter. Brilliant and faultless!
Chapter 4: Equipment. Here are the stats and prices for your basic equipment, weapons, armour, shields, drugs, cybernetics and vehicles. My one criticism of this chapter is that it lacks pictures of the various items listed. The N.E.W. rulebook provided pictures of everything listed in its Equipment chapter and I found that a great aid. I'd have liked to have seen the same here, but I do appreciate it would have added to the page count considerably.
Chapter 5: Playing the Game. This chapter presents all the rules you need for playing any game based on a 2000AD comic series, not just Judge Dredd. It includes rules for the Attribute check, common tasks, countdowns, the role of Luck, combat, injury and death, objects and the environment. You'll need to refer to this chapter if you buy any any supplement for a different 2000 AD story setting.
Chapter 6: Mega City One. This chapter gives you a history of the city, a gazetteer, a glossary of MC1 terms and a list of crimes and their punishments. What I particularly liked about this chapter was in the gazetteer, each location came with ideas for using that location with your PCs, thus giving you loads of scenario plots.
Chapter 7: Games Master Advice. A very helpful chapter for Games Masters giving advice on running campaigns, published adventures, creating organisations (note that the rules for creating organisations in N.E.W. are very similar but much more detailed), types of scenarios and campaigns, plots and railroading, opponents and rewards.
Chapter 8: Crime Blotter. This is simply five short scenarios that can be played by Judges, Perps or Citizens. I really appreciated this as you can never have too many scenario ideas.
Chapter 9: State of the Empire. This is a much longer scenario, set in the decaying and mostly derelict Empire State Building. Once again, it can be played by Judges, Perps or Citizens. A great introductory scenario. The floor plans were a very useful addition.
Chapter 10: Foes. This gives you the rules for creating foes. Note that these rules are very different to the character creation rules in Chapter 3. In there, you start with an origin and advance your character until you reach whatever grade your Games Master has assigned you (usually rank grade:5). In this chapter you pick the grade you want and work backwards from there. Examples of common NPCs found in Mega City One round out this chapter.
Appendix. Here you will find six pages of quick reference rules as well as four pre-generated Judge characters. I have converted four of my 28mm scale Judge figures to represent these four characters and I'll showcase them in a future post.
My thoughts on this book is that it far exceeded my expectations and I believe it is the best Judge Dredd RPG that has ever been produced. The whole layout and production values of the book are of a very high standard. I showed this book to my brother, who is not a role player, and his first comment was, "Wow, this is very impressive!" WOIN has quickly become my favourite RPG system of all time, and so I can't wait to get started on my own campaign. Will I be playing Judges, Perps or Citizens? That's a no-brainer - it has to be Judges. Judge Scott will live again.
Do I have any criticisms of the book? Yes, a few. As I said above, I'd have loved to have seen pictures of all of the equipment items. I'd also have liked to have seen a map of Mega City One, showing all of its 300+ sectors. Finally, for a book called Judge Dredd and the Worlds of 2000 AD where were the stats for Judge Dredd? That's a serious omission in my opinion. I did ask Russ this question and he replied that Dredd's stats will appear in future supplements as he ages and grows in experience. He also gave me a link to download Judge Dredd's Character Record Sheet as he appears in 2099. Here he is. Surely this should have appeared in the rulebook and not as a download.
Very nice review Bryan, will probably pick this up at some point, as and when time allows
ReplyDeleteThanks, Dave. I'm sure you'll find it well worth it.
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