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Ok, so in the last few years, I've become a crazed Judge's Guild fan. Pretty incredible considering a lot of their stuff was published when I was a toddler.
I picked up some Pegasus magazines off eBay a while back, and it had an assortment of other things in the set as well - old JG stuff including some modules, and some of the city books for the Wilderlands.
I love mining this stuff for ideas. To me, JG represents what D&D is all about - just raw, unadulterated adventuring for adventuring's sake. Like, the Wilderlands is the most awesome setting in the world because it assumes nothing about the characters, or the over-arching plot. It's just like BAM! - here's this huge freaking sandbox oozing with mind-blowing adventure at every turn. What's not to love?
I absolutely reading these old modules. Some of them are so painfully written, it's just hilarious. Like, the keep with ghouls in one room, a blacksmith shop in the basement (?!) manned by a human smith, orcs in the next room, and then beetles in the next. WTF?
But then, I read other stuff, and I'm like holy crap - I must use that! I must run that idea. It's so incredibly awesome - better than any schlop WoTC has managed to put out in the last twenty years.
What are some good Judge's Guild products? And anyone else out there become maniacal Judge's Guilds fans lately?
My favorite was a Paul Jaquays adventure from one of the Books of Treasure Maps called the Lone Tower. It suffered from fewer of the old 1E oddities than most adventures of that time... apart from the magic six-sider that turned you into a were wolf, of course...
__________________ "I hurt Firewing." is not something a huge number of people can say. "He dropped a parking garage on me," on the other hand, a lot of people can say. -Kazan, my Champions GM.
I fondly recall JG's Inferno. It was the first adventure for AD&D that I ever went through- I had six PCs and they served as henchmen to the more experienced players. All of my character's luckily made it to Pluto's circle.
When we reached Pluto, he teleported the entire party back to the surface. By that time, my characters were a decent level and one had a belt that allowed him to shapechange into a Silver Dragon
I only had one other module from Judge's Guild. The name escapes me. However, if I recall correctly, it was a single player adventure where you played either a druid or a ranger.
__________________ "The designers of the newest edition built so much reliance on rules right into the game, to make it easier to play. As one of those designers, I occasionally think to myself, 'What have we wrought?' " -Monte Cook
" If the DM has to make a lot of judgment calls, the game is more difficult to learn. However, it's my belief that it's also more satisfying." -Monte Cook
"Don't let rules replace good DMing skills"- Monte Cook
Find Inferno. The finest of the old JG stuff, sadly the second half never saw print.
Um, oh yeah, it never did see print. I just got to read and critique it.
Hmmm. I wonder if he could be able to get it printed via TLG... for C&C of course. That way it will still read a lot like Inferno does.
Ooh! I wonder if Goodman Games would be interested in publishing it 1E Style? That would be awesome too! Gotta e-mail Paul!
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
-1E DMG, page 230
Last edited by Treebore; 25th October 2008 at 07:27 AM..
Reason: Goodman question added
I got introduced to JG via the Necromancer Wilderlands stuff, and have become a fanatic too, loading up on the old stuff off Ebay and rpgnow. There is some drek, certainly, but also a lot of fantastic stuff (Tegel Manor!), and stuff that might look like drek initially but turns out fantastic in play, like The Unknown Gods with its dozens of fantasy deities, covering all those portfolios that get forgotten about usually. My Tegel C&C PBEM has a PC Cleric of Kadrim - God of Small Birds!
My best buys have been Necromancer's Players Guide to the Wilderlands, and Wilderlands of High Fantasy Boxed Set. Caverns of Thracia should be good if I can get to run it. The Goodman Games 3e conversions Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor and Citadel of Fire have not been so good, converted at much too high a level IMO; I don't have their Dark Tower.
Of the old stuff, Tegel Manor Gamescience version off rpgnow is fantastic, though initially I struggled a bit to get to grips with it, the map keying is a bit erratic. It's ideal for a PBEM, because every room is crammed full of coolness. "Fantastic Personalities" is a fat booklet of detailed NPCs and has lots of inspiration. The Unknown Gods is bare-bones, but we've found it highly inspirational. Shield Maidens of Sea Rune is a cool mini setting, with its 3 opposed factions. The Ilhiedrin Book is a nice introductory adventure, cheap off ebay, works well set in the plains west of the City State - but reduce the map scale! And the free Pegasus magazine downloads off Necromancer's JG site and judgesguild.net have tons of good stuff.
I've had two DMs inflict JG stuff on me (OK, my characters - and others'), now and then throughout the years, and well, it was great fun every time.
I agree, it doesn't get much more 'classic D&D'. I seem to remember some it being rather brutal (not in a bad way), but damned if I can recall the exact names - as I said, it wasn't me DMing, so that doesn't help. . .
I love the original sandbox feel of the first Wilderlands products. The combinations of these odd little rumours and a number of monsters in some hexes that could launch hundreds of campaigns.
Caverns of Thracia was the greatest dungeon of that era, IMO. I know that Temple of Elemental Evil is generally held to be the high point but I think that both overlooks ToEE's extensive flaws and CoT's cohesive design logic.
I got introduced to the awesomeness of JG with Necromancer's Wilderlands boxed set. I find the sci-fi backstory, with its multiple alien invasions, the War of the Pious and the Philosophers, etc. totally inspiring and true to a lot of the looks-like-fantasy-but-is-SF-under-the-surface nature of many of the books in the AD&D recommended reading list, like Saberhagen's Empire of the East and Norton's Witch World.
From there I got into the Village, Castle, Island, and Temple books, which have great smallish-scale hex maps of various locations, plus some random tables you can use to flesh them out. I think the Temple book I have is the weakest of these, but it still has lots of goodness.
Recently I've been buying up adventures and other JG stuff - Troll and Toad has lots of them for about $8. Two that I've really enjoyed have been the Ready Ref Sheets - a compilation of lots of random tables, good for city encounters where you might be spat on by a harlot or insulted by a leper - and the Dungeoneer Compendium, which has some great early Jaquays adventures, plus old-school weirdness like the tin-foil monster.
The OD&D 74 boards have a thread listing other folks' favorites that I used as a shopping list at Troll & Toad.
__________________ I play and DM old-school D&D with the New York Red Box, play a shaman in a homebrew 4E campaign & write third-party and first-party stuff for that edition, and blog about all of the above at The Mule Abides.
I picked up the Necro JG supplements for 3.x (Wilderlands, Players Guide, City State) - great stuff, really brought back the Swords & Sorcery feel. Really makes me wish I knew about Judge's Guild in the early 80's when we played AD&D... though maybe I would've been too young to appreciate it... I look back on some of those guys as giants these days.
I've heard great things about the original Caverns of Thracia - is it true it's never been put into PDF? I've never seen it at the usual suspects (Drive Thru / RPGNow) and hard copies seem fairly rare or expensive.
And supposedly there have been rumors that Tegel Manor would get redone in 4E, though with no GSL and the passing of Bob Bledsaw early this year, who knows?
I'm a JG fan, too. I like the Wilderlands and the City State, but my favorites are the adventures: Tegel Manor, Caverns of Thracia, Dark Tower, Realm of the Slime God/Night of the Walking Wet (in Dungeoneer), etc. The new AGP Wilderlands material is pretty cool, too.
__________________ "You want to play "Semantics and Lawyers"? Go ahead. We'll be busy kickin' ass and chewing Stygian Black Lotus- the best!" - Predavolk
And supposedly there have been rumors that Tegel Manor would get redone in 4E, though with no GSL and the passing of Bob Bledsaw early this year, who knows?
I'm pretty sure it was said that the Bledsaw clan isn't going anywhere near the current GSL. Search Clark Peterson's posts over on the Necromancer boards.
So no, Tegal Manor is not being done for 4E. Unless there is some significant change in the newest version of the GSL, whenever Scott is able to get it out.
__________________ It is the spirit of the game, not the letter of the rules, which is important. NEVER hold to the letter written, nor allow some barracks room lawyer to force quotations from the rule book upon you, IF it goes against the obvious intent of the game. As you hew the line with respect to conformity to major systems and uniformity of play in general, also be certain the game is mastered by you and not by your players. Within the broad parameters give in the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons Volumes, YOU are creator and final arbiter. By ordering things as they should be, the game as a WHOLE first, your CAMPAIGN next, and your participants thereafter, you will be playing Advanced Dungeons and Dragons as it was meant to be. May you find as much pleasure in so doing as the rest of us do.
Judges Guild simply put out some of the coolest adventures for RPGs ever.
Besides the recent stuff, I have:
House on Hangman's Hill
Wilderlands of the Magic Realm
The Fantastic Wilderlands Beyonde
Portals of Twilight
Portals of Irontooth
City State of the Invincible Overlord
Temple of Set (currently AWOL)
As well as the Gamescience release of Tegel Manor.
The maps were basic sepiatone, but vast. Encounters were not designed to be survivable by anyone who stumbled upon them- JG products were definitely formative to my GMing/playing style because you had to know if/when you were beaten in order to surrender or retreat, or choosing otherwise, to die.
Its still out there lurking about, even the second half. Sadly, I don't see a way forward for the return of Inferno with the fractured publishing market, and I keep looking through the murky crystal ball. A couple of the more old-style companies that once might have had an interest are currently in limbo. I'm not against doing it in non-D/D brand systems, such as C&C, but darn it, I"m not going to learn another system to do the translation myself; I already know that when I try to translate into a system (3E) that I don't play, it doesn't get done well.
I love the old JG stuff, and now that most of it is on RPGNow I have been able to fill in the gaps with pdfs. There's nothing more 'old-school' than stuff like Tegal Manor.
Judge's Guild. Wow. I had totally forgotten - I grew up in a small town near their store in Decatur, IL. That's where I bought my 1st edition Player's Handbook, first set of dice and first character mini. Then tons of JG products which I don't even remember the names of, but do remember having a good time using them in our games.
__________________ "Sometimes we buy books because we think we're buying the time to read them." - Warren Zevon
- and others'), now and then throughout the years, and well, it was great fun every time. 
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