The Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game, published in 2002 by Mongoose Publishing, is a D20 based system. I received these books last year when a friend was looking to reduce the number of books on his bookshelf. I’ve read a few of the Judge Dredd comics (it’s been a while) and I enjoyed both movies that came out. Yes even the over-acting of “I AM THE LAW!!!!” in the first movie. Of course I’m of the opinion that most science fiction/fantasy/horror shows are better than some of the drek that comes out of Hollywood. So I decided that this would be one of my entries in the 2022 Character Creation Challenge. And while it may not be totally based on me, he will carry the name “Judge Stark.” (insert curled lip grimace here)
The campaign can consist of all Judge characters or all civilian characters trying to survive in this post-apocalyptic world. The rulebook stated that the Judges would be too powerful when compared with civilian. In my quick read through I could see where they were coming from. The rules also state that Judges should start out as Level 3 characters because of all the training that they have received in the academy before being set loose on the streets. They also included the info for levels 1 and 2 if a GM was interested in running an academy game.
The rulebook does reference the Dungeons and Dragons 3.5 Player’s Handbook for some sections. So it is probably a good idea to have that book handy.
So let’s make Judge Stark. Well first all players are human. There are no special languages. Judges already have their equipment assigned (and added to the character sheet). While I could have made the character a Psi-Judge, I’m not very big on the psionic powers. I kept trying not to get distracted by the background info on this game world and concentrate on getting the character done. Since it was based off of the D20 system, I was able to get through it pretty quickly.
Afterthoughts:
I liked that the game had different character sheets for the different classes and that they were already filled in with class specific information. It made things go a lot faster in the character creation process.
This is another game that I’d like to see run. I’m wondering how it would play on the table. However the likelihood of it happening is not very big.
Additional Notes:
Going through the #CharacterCreationChallenge hashtag on twitter I discovered another blog participating in the challenge. I’ve added it to the links on the CCC page.
Coming Up Next:
Boldly Go!