Feedback after a day of Judge Dredd gaming

cheetor

Mongoose
Two of my gaming buddies and I played JDMG for the day last Saturday. We have each been playing miniature games for over twenty years and we have experience of playing many skirmish scale systems. After one day of play and seven games we came to the following conclusions:


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1) The core rules are simple, but fast and satisfying. The application of modifiers to both sides during opposed rolls is handled neatly. This was very important to us as other games that we have played have involved pointless, inconsequential recalculating of modifiers when attacking that slow down play and frustrate players. Thats a very big plus for JDMG.


2) The lethal nature of weapons was a pleasant change from other systems. Crucially it was very in keeping with the brutal environment of MC1. I cannot overstate how important that was to me in particular as I didn’t want to play a Judge Dredd game that didn’t feel like Judge Dredd. JDMG did, and that was a very big deal.


3) The progression in credit totals in the campaign games seemed excessive to us. Generally once number of miniatures on a side exceeds eight or so it stops being a skirmish game as far as we are concerned.

We initially enjoyed that each player could game with only a handful of Heroes while the rest of the gang was composed of expendable faceless Minions. Initially this added both atmosphere and character to the games.

Unfortunately it did not last as as the credit total increased each player was rapidly forced to keep track of increasing numbers of Heroes or else vast numbers of Minions, diluting the character focus of the game. This was something that none of the members of my group desired. We feel that it should be addressed. In the meantime we will be playing one-off games of JDMG, rather than the campaign as written.

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Those were the main issues that we had, which were happily mainly in the positive. Other minor points of note follow:

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1) The Standard Execution round may be too powerful. As it stands there is little incentive to use any other Lawgiver round. While the three shooting dice make Standard Execution formidable, it seems to us that the fact that it deals two damage is the clincher. Even when shooting at characters in a building Standard is a better option than Ricochet (although part of that is Ricochets “Weak” status).


2) There are not enough skills that key off pistol weapons, while there are very many that key off rifles.


3) Some additional skills without pre-requisites would be a good addition. We found that many Heroes ended up with Luck of Grud simply because it was easy to access. Some other options instead would make for more variety.


4) While there are many individual skills, the progression is quite limited due to the pre-requisites. While that in itself isn’t a problem, a few more more skill “trees” would give some more room for personalisation in heroes. As it was we found that heroes were too often forced into identical skill choices. A few more sets of skills would be great.



5) Respirators give models immunity to Riot Foam. Whether that was the intention or not, it was a bit counter-intuitive (and doesnt fit with the background either).


6) Additional generic scenarios would be great. A couple of scenarios specific to Judges would be cool too (a bank robbery or hi-jack, a pursuit, a kidnapping maybe, an "Officer Down" scenario, that sort of thing).



7) A condensed pre-and post game sequence on one or two pages would be very useful.



8 ) The rules need an index and contents.

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I hope that this feedback is of some use to you guys and I hope that you don’t see it as simply a list of demands. My group is happy to contribute via playtesting if it would help to push the development of this rule set forward as we have had quite a lot of fun with it so far.

Some photos of our days gaming can be seen HERE.
 
Cheers for this, keep the comments coming!

1. This is intentional - 95% of the time, Judges should use SE. However, there may be some situations where a specialist round is more appropriate.

2. Agreed. What would you like to see? :)

3. Again, agreed. What would you like to see?

8. It does, but we have lots more to add to the rulebook first, so that is a ways off.
 
Thanks for the response. I will have a think over the weekend and get back to you :)




msprange said:
Cheers for this, keep the comments coming!

1. This is intentional - 95% of the time, Judges should use SE. However, there may be some situations where a specialist round is more appropriate.

2. Agreed. What would you like to see? :)

3. Again, agreed. What would you like to see?

8. It does, but we have lots more to add to the rulebook first, so that is a ways off.
 
For 2) How about something to allow to you move and take a (penalised) pistol shot in one action by blasting awya from the hip? A reaonsbaly hefty modifier on the shooting roll would control its potency
 
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