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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Messageboard Golem" data-source="post: 2009256" data-attributes="member: 18387">The Rookies Guide to the Justice Department. Roleplaying supplement: By John Caliber. Mongoose Publishing: £9.99. ISBN 1-903980-32-1The Rookies Guide to the Justice Department is the first sourcebook for the all new Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game from Mongoose Publishing, and covers all the aspects of the Justice Department that where omitted from the core rules due to lack of space. This sixty page supplement contains almost everything a Games Master will need when thinking of setting up a judge campaign, and will allow wise GM’s to plan for the future of their players with all new Judge Prestige Classes. The supplement is split into nine chapters; each covering a different aspect of the workings of the Justice Department, from its basic organisation to the weapons in its armouries, and even a break down of a Sector House. The organisation chapter kicks the book off, and delves deeper into the history and background of the law enforcers of the worlds most dangerous city, its origins and the day to day running of this vast metropolis. Details are not only given for the basic street judges division and how it operates on a basic basis, but also for other division that operate behind the scenes, out of sight but are none the less as important as the helmets who patrol the streets of Mega City One daily. From the Accounts Division (Acc-Div) to the Undercover Division, this chapter has detailed information on almost every aspect of the behind the scenes operation of the Justice Department, which judges are the heads of each department and even a break down of how the whole thing interacts together and forms a strong web that relies on each strand to be at full strength. Not too much detail is given over to Psi-Division and the Space Corps as both of these branches of the Justice Department will be covered in the own Rookies Guide in the near future, but enough information is present for any GM worth their salt to get stuck into. Although Dredd has been around for the past twenty-five years now, there are still a great many aspects of the world of the character that we know very little about and so it was down to The Rookies Guide to the Justice Department’s author John Caliber to extrapolate what he could and fill in the blanks. The result is well written and I can foresee this becoming something akin to a ‘Dredd Bible’, for both writers of the game and supplements and perhaps even the comic book itself. John’s background information is well presented and in a logical, yet entertaining manor that leads the reader to wish to carry on with each chapter, only putting the book down when finished.The second chapter deals with all new Prestige Classes for judges only, and features the Acc-Judge, Heavy Weapons Judge, the Holocaust Squad Judge, the Pursuit Judge and finally the Sector Chief his/herself. There is a lot of meat here for the GM to chew over and this is where you can really plan the future of the characters in your campaign. I can see that some GM’s will want to steer members of the party towards playing a Sector Chief or head of Division in their sector and with the new classes this should not present to much of a problem to anyone. I did think that the addition of the Acc- Judge would be a waste of time and could have been given over to another class until I read through the background and it could make for a very interesting setting, having your players choose this class and see how life is on the other side of the rails. The weakest perhaps of the classes is the Heavy Weapons Judge and I don’t really see much need for a judge toting the latest weapon of choice, though I can see a lot of players wanting to pursue this class just so they can get their hands on the Widowmaker and other goodies. The Pursuit Judge is a highly trained judge who lives for the open road and are used in high speed chases on the meg-ways of the city, and rather than using the standard Lawmaster they are equipped with a state of the art vehicle called the Banshee Pursuit Interceptor, the fastest thing on the streets of the Big Meg. The Holocaust Judges have made appearances in the comic’s history on a number of occasions and have always perked much interest, and it was nice to see the addition of these judges as a new class. Holocaust Judges are only called in when something disastrous is about to befall the city and all hope looks in dire doom of failing. They are trained to handle situations that most other judges would be unable to cope with and they know that their days are numbered when they volunteer to become a member of a Holocaust squad. Used only in times of dire emergency, the Justice Department cuts Holocaust squads more slack than any other branch of the department, allowing access to tobacco, alcohol, and even drugs. Their life expectancy is short, with suicide missions being the norm for the Holocaust squads. Perhaps the best of the new classes from the angle of a one-on-one campaign would have to be the Sector Chief. Politics if handled correctly in any roleplaying game can be great fun for both GM and players alike, and here a player could start off as a rookie street judge and work their way up through the ranks to the point that they are running their own sector house. Ideal if you only have a small regular group of players or like to run one-on-one adventures. Next up is the issue of cloning and bloodlines. Dredd as we all know is a clone of former Chief Judge Fargo, and we have been informed during the comics history that almost a third of all judges are taken from clone stock, to augment the citizens who will provide the gene pool for the rest. Details and rules are given for six senior judges who have provided clone templates, and how to add them into your games. Cloned judges have identical statistics and for all intents and purposes look identical, and only one of the templates is from a female judge, so in reality all judges will bear the same gender as their template. This is my only real gripe with the supplement, and I do feel that if you wanted to play a female Fargo Strain clone (the same strain as Dredd himself) you should be able to. If a society is advanced enough to clone a human and advance its development then surely they could change the gender of the foetus during the process! For those who like their toys in supplements you will find plenty here to get to play with. Rules are given for the MKI Lawgiver for those who like a more traditional weapon of choice and also the Widowmaker, cluster bombs, and lots of other cool weapons to dispense justice with. Lots of new equipment is also given and some cool vehicles, new robots and more. The chapter on locations gives just that, various sections of Mega City One and the locations of key Justice Department instillations and buildings and even describes how the city can be run from a mile below its surface in the event of a disaster! The final chapter gives the Games Master what they really need for their judges, a base of permanent operations from which their players can venture out and explore the city. Its always good to have a static base for characters as it will act as a focal point, and even though judges do not get free time as such, they will be using the Sector House on a daily basis. Here; John has broken down the running of Sector House 190 and has given a wealth of information for the GM and players alike. Everything you need to know from the number of duty judges to tech facilities are given and when this is added to the excellent computer imagery of Scott Clark, and his CGI rendition of Sector House 190, the entire thing comes to life. Layout is excellent and the interior artwork, mostly from John Caliber himself is first rate, with illustrations of weapons, vehicles, and even judges. There is a slight problem with place-holders appearing on a few pages of the supplement, that reference the GM to look at  pXX for further information. The Rookies Guide to the Justice Department was written while the core Dredd rules where still being worked on and written and as such John had no idea what pages certain rules would appear on, so place-holders where used (a common practice in the industry) but several where missed during final editing and the supplement went to print with the errors intact, but this is not very common for Mongoose and is the first time in over thirty books that it has happened. I have created an errata page for the supplement for you to download for free, which points you in the right directions. Overall this is a stunning start to an excellent license and with many more products of this calibre due out soon it looks like The Judge Roleplaying Game is going to make a really good impression on gamers everywhere. -Marc</blockquote>

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