Judges Guild setting

[yipwyg]

I read a PR recently that says that Necromancer Games is going to re-release the Judges Guild setting. I have never heard of this setting before. I was wondering, for those in the know, if someone could post information about this setting or direct me to where I can find some.

Thanks for any info.

 

[Davelozzi]

http://www.necromancergames.com/jg/index.html

There's also some discussion on Necromancer's boards.

 

[DrSkull]

The Judges Guild setting, from the late 70's, was basically centered around two cities: The City State of the Invincible Overlord and the City State of the World Emperor. There were a large selection of Wilderness maps too (in a sort of parchment-like style that was neat).

It was set up for the Orginal D&D system, with some of AD&D1e bleeding into it. I seem to recall that just about every NPC had an adventurer class and level (no 0-level characters or "commoners")

The City State of the World Emperor, at any rate, was crammed full of shop descriptions, encounter matrices, all sorts of adventure seeds, underground lairs, rumors and the like.

I really don't know how to bring across just how different the setting "feels" than most settings today. There was little or no "meta-plot" involved. It was a place where lots of things MIGHT happen, if the players stumbled into them.

 

[Melan]

My collection of JG stuff is pretty small (hey, I am younger than most of these books), but here are my impressions:
The JG world, much like Greyhawk and Blackmoor, was influenced by different kinds of fantasy than most contemporary ones. In the 70s, there was no D&D canon, so all authors could base stuff on was Conan, Leiber's Ffahrd/Grey Mouser stories, Moorcock and Vance. As a result, the world feels different - not darker (it is high fantasy), but perhaps "harder" (as in "Hard fantasy" or "Black and white with lots of both"). It isn't PC, either: there is widespread slavery (you get rules for pricing), amazons in skimpy clothing and such... Lots of weirdness, too - there are golems and harpies as wandering encounters in the City State, lots of ancient technology hidden here and there. There are umber hulk barmaids, a pub for trolls, lots of things which aren't present in common D&D anymore.
There are very few real states - most communities are stubbornly independent with little communication due to monsters. This also means most "commoners" have to be battle-ready, so no 0th level people there, or very few... In fact, the JG world is a bit like FR in power level, but it feels truly different and the overwhelming majority of high level types are either neutral or evil - hell, Lord Balarnega (the Overlord) himself is LE, and he is served by mind flayers and evil dragons!

The actual world description is fairly vague - you get maps (the greatest maps ever! - numbered hex grids, one for the players and one for the DM, or Judge as they were called!), and a booklet with locations of castles, their garrisons, local communities, monster lairs, weird sites and optional rules/random tables - for prospecting, taxation, generating lairs and caverns, etc. Lots of blanks you can fill in, lots of wilderness your players can explore (and map on their incomplete player maps!). For example, the City State included ten cool maps of dungeon levels beneath the city (or were some of these below Thunderhold), but you had to determine yourself who was down there. Or a bunch of caverns, with vague hints to inhabitants. Of course, the Necro treatment will be slightly more detailed... The JG staff was the ultimate master of cramming - with the City State, you also got a nice bonus in the form of a described little dwarven town and the nearby Sunstone Caverns. With Wilderlands of High Fantasy, you got Haghill, an even smaller town ruled by a guy called Huberic.

I love this world, and it might be the first non-homebrew I ever use. If you like slightly crazy, slightly conanesque fantasy in a wild and expansive world, get the Necro version, or the originals, even.

 

[bushfire]

The "feel" of the JG stuff (in my opinion) is much different than most of today's settings. The underlying assumption is that each DM would "make the world his own". Rather than spelling out entire histories, detailed life stories of NPC's and intricate political relationships, the Wilderlands and the City States gave you fantastic frameworks to create your own world around. When setting stuff is presented the option of ignoring/changing it is always implicit. And you can't forget the random tables

This is a holdover from when the setting was created. In the beginning years of D&D it was *always* assumed that a DM would create his own world. Remember that the Wilderlands first saw publication *before* Greyhawk.

As noted there are no "meta-plots" and most Wilderlands DM's don't follow any kind of canon. Each Wilderlands campaign is different. Even Bob Bledsaw, the JG creator said that he has run multiple Wilderness campaigns, each one different from the others. One of the big differences is that the Wilderlands, outside the influence of the big City-States, is truely a wilderness. Over that mountain, through those woods, across that river, can still be considered the Unknown.

There is a very good "unofficial" FAQ on the Necromancer boards
http://pub123.ezboard.com/fnecromancergamesfrm40.showMessage?topicID=23.topic

Most of the description was sparce and designed to make you creative, yet at the same time there is a terrific amount of detail; village names, rivers, montain ranges, NPC names, etc. Things to spark ideas and encourage exploration. The original maps were things of beauty and more useful than any of the fancy color poster maps of today.

See the link below for a teaser Clark posted on the Necromancer boards about the Wilderlands.
http://pub123.ezboard.com/fnecromancergamesfrm42.showMessage?topicID=1.topic

I have been a big fan of JG and the Wilderlands/CSIO for a long time and can't wait for the 3E version to come out.

That being said there will be some that won't care for it. The Wilderlands is *not* Forgotten Realms or Kalamar. I doubt if you will ever see novels about Iconic characters in the Wilderlands. It is a setting made for a DM to run a campaign in, not a campaign setting made for the DM to run. Most likely no "fluffy" supplements either, The JG is the original "crunchy" setting.

Below is a quote from Bob Bledsaw that sums it up pretty good

The City State Campaign should be considered a backdrop or outline for any active judge. To this end, it should be modified to suit the needs of your group or desires. Creativity is not only a bonus but essential to you as a judge to permit your ideas expand. Please modify any Judges Guild product to suit your campaign. These are to be changed and, above all, used as you deem fit at every opportunity. I appreciate that many fans are collectors but my goal has always been to create something which is actually used. Many responses have indicated that the judges copies have become dog-eared or filled with notes necessitating new copies. Nothing brings me more satisfaction than to hear this. It is like a grand symphony. To inspire others to create is my fervent hope. Your players will respond to your delight in seeing your creation take on life and enthusiasm will increase the fun.

 

[Melan]

bushfire: care to lend me a sturdy hammer and a few hundred iron nails? I plan to affix that particular quote to every game designer's forehead.

 

[yipwyg]

Thanks for the replies. I really appreciate it.

This looks really interesting to me. I am in the process of designing a new campaign practically from scratch. I was thinking of starting it underground where the players would start out either as all dwarves or other races living in an isolated dwarven city.

Anway I am considering getting Green Ronin's Book of the Righteous diety accessory and using it as my default pantheon. From what I read it should be really easy to adapt the JG world to use with it, when the PC's eventually have to come to the surface.

 

[trancejeremy]

One of the wacky things about the JG setting, was that the Gods were somewhat involved. For instance, I think in the City State of the Invinceable Overlord, there's a god in disguise working as something or other. Smith? Bartender? I can't remember.

 

[rounser]

It's interesting that there aren't more "DM's playgrounds" like this around.

Perhaps designers who design a setting can't help themselves, and almost inevitably try to dictate the nature of the game to it's players (the macro level juicy bits, like stories of entire kingdoms, backgrounds and schemes of powerful NPCs and campaign meta-plotting), instead of just sticking to the grunt work of encounters, locations, NPCs and micro-level plots and stories from abstract hints to detailed...er...details.

(What I'm referring to is unrelated to the overused and abused crunch/fluff thinking pattern, but about the nature of setting material, and whether it defines the big picture or the little pictures.)

 

[Melan]

rounser: is this so because several setting designers are wannabe novellists, who want to "write the next LotR"? Or am I just stupid?