Dredd: Getting Started!

[Lux71]

Well, I'm running a new Dredd game on Thursday

Character generation was a blast. We had cadets shot in training, mishaps and close calls - oh, and our Med Judge lost an eye! The same suffering Med Judge also got a strict SOB assessment Judge on her Full Eagle Day. She nearly washed out.

I really like how the characters came out of the process. Feels like they have some history to them - and also, my players love the whole lifepath approach. I'm also very pleased with the way that characters can specialise so early on in the game - we don't have three carbon-copy Judges - we've got a Street Judge, a Psi Judge and a Med Judge (and one more to come).

But anyhow, back to Thursday.

I like to throw players into the action right from the start. Get them rolling dice, doing cool stuff, and getting comfortable/familiar with the new Traveller system. I want to start big.

So, I'm thinking - some kind of big emergency. First day in a new sector, and something major goes down. Maybe some kind of accident/mass evacuation of a block/megway pileup? If possible, I want to show that Judges have more to their daily lot than sentencing and perp-busting.

Judges Brikk, Crowe and Nightingale are ready for the streets. I want to make them love it.

For some reason, I'm seeing a single city block collapsing into the Undercity for some reason - troggies, sewer gators, block-panic cits, maybe even a run in with werewolf Judge Prager? Not to mention tracking down whoever is responsible.

Any ideas for more first session Big Meg action?

 

[AndrewW]

Start out with something that looks like it'll just be another routine but things go terribly wrong. Maybe they get called in for a disturbance, after they arrive the disturbance erupts into a full scale block war, maybe even with multiple blocks involved.

There's a rogue AI virus that's infecting all the Mo-Pad's and causing them to go after pedestrians. Turns out it's actually part of a larger plot to cause a mass disturbance to take attention away from someone else.

Try and work stuff in so they can make use of their differing abilities. There could be some sort of psychic disturbance that is causing mass rioting for example.

 

[dreamingbadger]

One way maybe, is to get the judges involved on their way from the Academy to their Sector House, rather than as part of a formal patrol, maybe the patwagon they are being transfered in is part of the cause of the accident on the megway? Or is caught in the pile-up, this seperates them from their lawmasters and gives them a lot of search/rescue/arrest priortisation challenges.

 

[AndrewW]

Alien invasion?

Mutants have broken through the walls in several places are are rampaging through the streets. Meanwhile there is some diplomatic function going on and the judges are ordered to keep a lid on things...

The judges are assigned to escort some VIP around. This VIP wants to visit places he/she shouldn't be (bad part of town and all) and while there something erupts, maybe a war between rival crime syndicates, with one of them bringing in some Kleggs and the judges have to explain how they got caught in the middle of that when they shouldn't have been anywhere near there.

 

[Dredd Times]

As Andrew says start off really simple and take it from there. One of the best ways to get the players involved with the world of Dredd is to have them take part in a crime blitz and uncover something more sinister. One cherry I have used a few times to great effect is organ leggers (crocks who look really innocent till further investigation is made) being uncovered during a crime blitz, always made the players sit up after a few mundane busts.

The best thing to remember about playing JDRPG is that Mega-City One is a very strange place and absolutely anything can and often does happen. If your really stuck for an idea just read through a couple of issues of 2000AD and I am sure that you will soon be inspired

Marc

 

[lastbesthope]

Drop them into the plot of either of the "Assault on Precinct 13" movies, scared the crap out of some of my players once when I ran it.

LBH

 

[GbajiTheDeceiver]

For some reason, I'm seeing a single city block collapsing into the Undercity for some reason - troggies, sewer gators, block-panic cits, maybe even a run in with werewolf Judge Prager? Not to mention tracking down whoever is responsible.

Has to be a league of fatties convention in the area. Something totally mundane like that, but all the weight causes structural failure in the block foundations and we have havoc and carnage. The company who built the city block need to be tracked down and sentenced fairly heavily (pun intended) and we get a new law passed that no more than 25 fatties are allowed in any gathering.

 

[ned-kogar]

I like your 'block crashing into Undercity' idea...

Straight in with an emergency, dealing with victims, the sudden emergence of a sewer gator smashing out of the rubble at an inopportune moment, etc... Great!

Finding incriminating evidence on someone they heroically rescue, pointing to a tangential story which will form their first big investigation might be good... If the disaster victim lives, she'll be able to help them with their enquiries (and spend the rest of her life in the cubes)...

Maybe the cause of the collapse should've been within the block, though, not external - a trans-dime summoning in the basement or a Citi-Def explosives mishap - something that can be sewn up quickly, with arrests (of the collapse-causers or accomplices). The disaster site becomes a major landmark for the first part of the campaign, as other problems develop in cinjunction with construction, the attentions of the Undercity denizens, the mob using it for illicit body disposal, dodgy dealings amongst construction companies in the bid for the rebuild contract, etc.

I'd save any actual Undercity exploration for another time - maybe they'll be on guard duty by the hole in a couple of sessions' time, when they see a light down in the depths...

Ned

 

[havercake lad]

Good luck with you gaming guys. I'm starting a campaign myself in a few weeks.
Beauty of Mega City Judge campaign is that city campaigns can easily adapt to players missing sessions ( they are located elsewhere in or out od sector ) or new players arriving mid-campaign.
External help from Justice Dept resources might arrive if the GM is kind and players are overfaced or clueless ( without stretching creduility ) or likewise its easy for the GM to decide all potential help or re-inforcement is needed elsewhere.
Good med facilities for building back the maimed and the threat of the SJS to keep most judges temper their conduct with deligence or discretion.

 

[wazza]

The Dark Judges - nuff said!

How about chasing down a rogue Judge on a vendetta against a crime syndicate who murdered his partner (and secret lover)? or a group of cadets doing a Senior Judges dirty work ala the plot from Dirty Harry 2?

Perps are getting whacked indiscriminently and the latest victim was a Judge who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. Might be a nice morality tale as the Judges must decide who to protect - the perps or the cadets.

 

[Rex]

I like the Block Crashing into the Undercity myself, though I think I would lean towards a group of Mole/Morlock Mutants, stealing the Core of the block, pancaking the interior down into the Undercity for more of a sprawl and rubble effect.

Then you can play up the mystery part as well as the Action part. Blocks still standing....*walks in* ......Watch the first step....It's a doozy.

~Rex

 

[Dredd Times]

The Dark Judges are way to powerful to introduce characters too but you can always introduce them to the effects of the Dark Judges rather than an out and out confrontation which they would have no chance of surviving. Dredd vs Death is a great example and you could introduce the players to the world of JD using this quite easily.

Of course you can always drop them in the deep end and throw them into the Apocalypse War, Necropolis or Judgement Day with the latter being awesome as they will just be fighting against zombies

Either way have fun

 

[Rex]

The Dark Judges are way to powerful to introduce characters too but you can always introduce them to the effects of the Dark Judges rather than an out and out confrontation which they would have no chance of surviving. Dredd vs Death is a great example and you could introduce the players to the world of JD using this quite easily.

Of course you can always drop them in the deep end and throw them into the Apocalypse War, Necropolis or Judgement Day with the latter being awesome as they will just be fighting against zombies

Either way have fun

Or......No Tek Judge in the party? Drop the big red button of Time Travel on them.

Paradox, always the GM's friend.

~Rex

 

[havercake lad]

As some players will probably be new to traveller system I thought I would have a none lethal 'Cadets Rights' honour fight part way through character creation. Hopefully the rivalries or misunderstandings with their fellow cadets might crop up in future adventures.

 

[AndrewW]

As some players will probably be new to traveller system I thought I would have a none lethal 'Cadets Rights' honour fight part way through character creation. Hopefully the rivalries or misunderstandings with their fellow cadets might crop up in future adventures.

Could be worked in as contacts, rivals and such.

 

[havercake lad]

I like the Block Crashing into the Undercity myself, though I think I would lean towards a group of Mole/Morlock Mutants, stealing the Core of the block, pancaking the interior down into the Undercity for more of a sprawl and rubble effect.

Then you can play up the mystery part as well as the Action part. Blocks still standing....*walks in* ......Watch the first step....It's a doozy.

~Rex

Or a huge starship crashing through the Mega City and into an underground lake . The Judges have to negotiate the undercity and then get into the ship and evacuate its occupants amidst an assortment of dangers and the fact that the ship is flooding . ( A friend, Dan, ran a brilliant Posidon type adventure for 'Corum' involving a crashed sky-city a couple of years back. )

 

[Rev503]

For some reason I always liked the idea of Mo-pad's and wreckers.
I'd be very tempted to have the judges start on traffic duty and witness a mo-pad piracy (anotehr mo-pad drives up, down go the boarding planks and the pirates weilding long knives, spit guns and baseball bats yelling "Yaaar, me hearties" jump across)
Gives a nice straight up fight and sentancing to start with, but then introduce evidence of a pirate meeting at the port royale flyover, which, if the players take that down leads to evidence of an organised pirate ring using the old tortuga flyover to get around over the maze and cover 5 sectors with tehir piracy.

The other idea I'm fond of, crime blitz leads to wrecking tools, which leads to tunnel full o wreckers (TM) which also contains large unexploded bomb which leads to boom and then to aforementioned block sinkage - stage a renactment of titanic as the block slowly goes down with civdef going bananas and blaming the next block over, citizens running, screaming and looting, children getting pushed out of hoverbusses - the whole 9 yards

 

[Rex]

Mo-Pad Piracy for the win methinks. Though I rather like that mentioned Poseidon Adventure gig. Lot of potential there.

My Main Dredd game will be dropping to two players for awhile, I'm thinking, CHiPs.

~Rex

 

[AndrewW]

My Main Dredd game will be dropping to two players for awhile, I'm thinking, CHiPs.

You could put them in the pursuit squad from Judge's Handbook.

 

[havercake lad]

Ran first play session for six players last night. Used Bad Moon Rising. split them into three teams so everyone got some action and a chance to roleplay their character. Each team comprised one Street Judge and one specialist. Only fatality to date was a perp shot and killed by the Team's Med Judge.