New GM, some questions... (Judge Dredd)

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Cool, seems I have an account here from long ago... Haven't been active since... the Starship troopers game came out.... oh well, carrying on!

Greetings,
I am about to delve into the world of Dredd via the traveller RPG. I have no prior experience from Traveller, but I have played some other RPGs. It does sound like a simple and yet compelling system of rules, and from reading the Dredd book, it feels like a good rendering of the setting. I have started plowing through the Complete Case Files to get even more into the setting, yaddayaddayadda...

A few questions have surfaced, however. Note I haven't actually started playing yet, these are juts what's popped up while reading...

1) Heat-seekers. How do people treat them? Always hit on 6+ instead of 8+? Or is this only when firing blind? Even go so far as to let them auto-hit (unless target managed to dodge) or treat them as homing missiles, i.e. massive bonus to his while aiming?

2) Judges do not receive payment for doing their job, that much I understand. But it is my understanding that every citizen in Mega-City 1 gets a kind of 'citizen salary' (3,000 cred/months or something?) Are judges entitled to this payment as well, or are their money channeled into the Justice Department? If they get some money, they should be pretty rich upon retiring (if they retire...) since they get food, lodging and gear for free, but if they do not get any kind of payment they couldn't even stop for synth-caf and donuts.... ?

3) Gun Combat Categories. As far as I can tell, in Dredd there are no sub-categories for Energy Weapons (pistol/rifle) or Heavy weapons, is this correct?

More questions are sure to follow, but this feels like a good start, thanks in advance for answers and suggestions

 

[havercake lad]

2) Judges don't recieve money and it's possession is often the cause of suspicion. Undercover Judges of course may recieve funds etc and Judges on Cursed Earth missions recieve a few gold eagle coins for emergencies. Judges are expected to give a chit to food venders etc which can be redeemed from the Justice Department, they are not allowed to recieve anything gratis. Some experienced Judges can get assigned to an apartment in a Meg Block, though this practice has become less common with time.
I would imagine they will get re-housed on retirement and a standard welfare benefit. If they decide to take up civilian life (few do), those healthy enough to work on retiring can potentially earn money in the security industries or Justice Department auxilary posts. The Justice Department seem to have tried lining up jobs for expelled cadets in Hershey's administration, so it's feasable that they might help honourably retiring judges in this fashion.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

2) Judges don't recieve money and it's possession is often the cause of suspicion. Undercover Judges of course may recieve funds etc and Judges on Cursed Earth missions recieve a few gold eagle coins for emergencies. Judges are expected to give a chit to food venders etc which can be redeemed from the Justice Department, they are not allowed to recieve anything gratis. Some experienced Judges can get assigned to an apartment in a Meg Block, though this practice has become less common with time.
I would imagine they will get re-housed on retirement and a standard welfare benefit. If they decide to take up civilian life (few do), those healthy enough to work on retiring can potentially earn money in the security industries or Justice Department auxilary posts. The Justice Department seem to have tried lining up jobs for expelled cadets in Hershey's administration, so it's feasable that they might help honourably retiring judges in this fashion.

Ah, I see... Thanks very much for clearing that up!
While we're on that subject, would you happen to have even more knowledge about the chits? Are they like fixed value coupons and each judge gets a bunch of different values, or more like blank checkbooks, where they write the appropriate value each time they're used?

Are they even physical objects, or more like a credit card? (They could perhaps integrated to the keycard override unit...? ) Options two and three would mean any judge can (within reason, of course) buy more or less what he/she needs while out in the field, but everything has to be registered and followed up upon, meaning they can't do anything they want and get away with it.

I kinda like the 'no money, it raises questions' attitude. An easy way to control the judges, along with their special ammo and gear. They cannot function at all if cut off from the Justice Department for some reason (at least legally, and within the city, and so on, but you get the idea...)

I'll try to toss the other two questions over to the Rulesmasters forum, don't know why I didn't think of that from the beginning....

 

[havercake lad]

I can't get to my 2000Ad collection easily this aft. I imagine the expenses chits work like a blank checkbook.

 

[Annatar Giftbringer]

Oh, no need to bring them up, you've been most helpful as it is!

Now all I gotta do is decide if I'm gonna settle for the official version, or create my own, with a credit card built into the key override card. I kinda like that idea, and of course the card would also log every transaction made and every lock overridden, simplifying things for the people in accounting and making it easier to keep an eye on the judges.