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Post by crinklechips on Feb 12, 2020 21:14:43 GMT
Here are my post game thoughts... 1. I feel like there should be a street cred goal seeing as Judges are such paragons of the law. I haven’t tested these numbers but something like 25 street cred in 2 years for a normal game or -25 for an alternative Judge gone bad would make for an interesting game. Keep going of course if you want a big campaign. 2. As previously mentioned by GoneFishing, the psi rules in 5150 No limits are perfect for playing a psi Judge like Judge Anderson. 3. I developed a novel approach to playing out the ‘confidential informant’ encounter. I was a little confused by the mechanics of this encounter but discovered that this was a major plot-line maker for my stories. I felt that off book employment was unsuitable for a normal Judge. They would never do something like that. This replaces that. Sorta. Confidential Informant - Instead of taking a savvy challenge I flip two Gamemasters apprentice cards (you could also use Rorys Story Cubes or whatever) to get inspiration like "Identify, Structure". I interpreted that to mean losing your way in the big city - savvy challenge, but it could easily have been some sort of physical challenge. This is what lies between you and your contact. If you overcome this challenge I use the cards again to generate a little crime scenario that my judge can choose to follow up on at any time. If you think it's straight forward you could wind it up with one ‘Confrontation’ encounter. If it needs investigating you could assign it a number of clues (as I did) and stretch it out over a number of encounters. If you want to really go for it you could use the New Hope City P.I. Supplement rules to turn it into a big investigation. 4. After The Horsemen is coming out soon. Its the 2 Hour Wargames post apocalyptic wasteland game. It will be almost perfect for incorporating journeys into the Cursed Earth. I say almost perfect because unless things have changed Eds version of the post apocalypse doesn't have crazy mutants in it. This should be easy enough to recreate by assigning attributes from other games to make up random mutations. I reckon I can manage something like that. Can’t think of anything else right now. Chip in if you like!
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Post by gonefishing on Feb 17, 2020 15:43:40 GMT
Those are some excellent thoughts. This weekend I've been doing my own Judge Dredd games in Working Grave and have been pleasantly surprised at how well things have gone.
I must admit to far preferring the older, more table top oriented combat rules of, say, Future Tales, at least in most things. In my games the battle board combats seem to overwhelmingly favour whoever had the first go - all the opposition either seem to go down or get into duck backs from which they never seem to recover; they pop up, which takes their turn, and then are either smoked or duck back yet again, in what feels a little like whack-a-mole. Frustrating. What I've done to change that is to bring back the old initiative rules (both sides roll die, highest number goes first with all Reps acting that match the roll). What this does is allow a side that has a number of recovering duck backs to have a chance at going first and getting an active shot in. Hope that makes sense? Anyway, it has worked well for me.
I've experimented more with representing Kleggs (for those of you not into Dredd, these are alien mercenaries used as hired muscle - they are big, nasty, possibly a little stupid, and tough). What I did the other day is to make them all Rep 3's (this mimics their lack of accuracy), but their tough hides makes them 4's when damage is being rolled against them - and they melee at rep 5. Likewise, they always count as in cover. A little too tweaky, perhaps, but it's worked rather well - they are tough, but not too tough. A rep 5 Judge can generally take 'em, and that's as it should be.
One of these days I need to load up PEFs for the game to better reflect Mega City One. The alien races in Working Grave will go (though I'll use them as inspiration!), to be replaced by basics, lots of basics, mutants, droids and the occasional ape. And the aforementioned Kleggs, of course.
Those are my thoughts for now. Thanks again for starting the discussion!
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Post by crinklechips on Feb 17, 2020 20:32:50 GMT
Those are some excellent thoughts. This weekend I've been doing my own Judge Dredd games in Working Grave and have been pleasantly surprised at how well things have gone. I must admit to far preferring the older, more table top oriented combat rules of, say, Future Tales, at least in most things. In my games the battle board combats seem to overwhelmingly favour whoever had the first go - all the opposition either seem to go down or get into duck backs from which they never seem to recover; they pop up, which takes their turn, and then are either smoked or duck back yet again, in what feels a little like whack-a-mole. Frustrating. What I've done to change that is to bring back the old initiative rules (both sides roll die, highest number goes first with all Reps acting that match the roll). What this does is allow a side that has a number of recovering duck backs to have a chance at going first and getting an active shot in. Hope that makes sense? Anyway, it has worked well for me. I've experimented more with representing Kleggs (for those of you not into Dredd, these are alien mercenaries used as hired muscle - they are big, nasty, possibly a little stupid, and tough). What I did the other day is to make them all Rep 3's (this mimics their lack of accuracy), but their tough hides makes them 4's when damage is being rolled against them - and they melee at rep 5. Likewise, they always count as in cover. A little too tweaky, perhaps, but it's worked rather well - they are tough, but not too tough. A rep 5 Judge can generally take 'em, and that's as it should be. One of these days I need to load up PEFs for the game to better reflect Mega City One. The alien races in Working Grave will go (though I'll use them as inspiration!), to be replaced by basics, lots of basics, mutants, droids and the occasional ape. And the aforementioned Kleggs, of course. Those are my thoughts for now. Thanks again for starting the discussion! I think using the old initiative rules is a fascinating idea. I’m definitely going to give that a go. If I like it I’ll apply it to all my 2Hour games. Ah yes. Droids and robots. I’ll have to check the rules in Future Tales. Hopefully they transfer well to the battle board as its my preferred mode... My next rules mod is going to be a system for creating Muties. Don’t hold your breath but if I’m inspired it might come sooner rather than later...
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Post by whiteface on Feb 20, 2020 5:23:26 GMT
I wanted to use Chain Reaction for Judge Dredd some years ago, but got carried away with action / decision tables for NPC judges. Choosing the right type of ammo in every situation and knowing the punishment for every crime was probably too much detail. 😁 I‘ve just realized, that I don‘t seem to have 5150 Working Grave. Must have missed that one. On a side note, I‘d really like to see CR3 police / crime rules for vanilla 21st century earth.
Anyway, I know there are some 15 mm Not-Judge-Dredd miniatures out there waiting for me, so please continue with your project. Might be the last push I need.
Whiteface / Oliver
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Post by crinklechips on Feb 20, 2020 21:18:40 GMT
I wanted to use Chain Reaction for Judge Dredd some years ago, but got carried away with action / decision tables for NPC judges. Choosing the right type of ammo in every situation and knowing the punishment for every crime was probably too much detail. 😁 I‘ve just realized, that I don‘t seem to have 5150 Working Grave. Must have missed that one. On a side note, I‘d really like to see CR3 police / crime rules for vanilla 21st century earth. Anyway, I know there are some 15 mm Not-Judge-Dredd miniatures out there waiting for me, so please continue with your project. Might be the last push I need. Whiteface / Oliver Working Grave is fairly new. Keeping things simple is a good idea. You need enough crunch to give you the theme you want without slowing down the game. I certainly intend to keep working on this, at my own pace. I have many rule sets and like to play them all! Then there are all my other games. I need more time dammit!
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Post by Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy on Feb 21, 2020 16:57:56 GMT
I wanted to use Chain Reaction for Judge Dredd some years ago, but got carried away with action / decision tables for NPC judges. Choosing the right type of ammo in every situation and knowing the punishment for every crime was probably too much detail. 😁 I‘ve just realized, that I don‘t seem to have 5150 Working Grave. Must have missed that one. On a side note, I‘d really like to see CR3 police / crime rules for vanilla 21st century earth. Anyway, I know there are some 15 mm Not-Judge-Dredd miniatures out there waiting for me, so please continue with your project. Might be the last push I need. Whiteface / Oliver Working Grave is fairly new. Keeping things simple is a good idea. You need enough crunch to give you the theme you want without slowing down the game. I certainly intend to keep working on this, at my own pace. I have many rule sets and like to play them all! Then there are all my other games. I need more time dammit! Yep, simple is best. I've been updating rules over the past years and always streamlining them to get the same result and they really do play much better.
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Post by crinklechips on Apr 18, 2020 13:49:07 GMT
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Post by ironicwolf on Apr 19, 2020 13:46:04 GMT
Awesome, thanks for sharing this!
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Post by ironicwolf on Apr 19, 2020 13:51:11 GMT
Talking about the Working Grave. Any hints what is inside this book? NHPI for example has system for solving various crimes. Are there something unique that Working the Grave offers?
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Post by crinklechips on Apr 19, 2020 16:25:51 GMT
Talking about the Working Grave. Any hints what is inside this book? NHPI for example has system for solving various crimes. Are there something unique that Working the Grave offers? Working Grave is about being regular police. You go on patrol, make arrests and chase down criminals in your car. It’s completely different really. It doesn’t have the investigation rules because they’re in NHPI as you know. Put them together and you have crime busting completely sorted! They’re are new aliens in Working Grave too. All good stuff.
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Post by ironicwolf on Apr 19, 2020 18:05:48 GMT
Talking about the Working Grave. Any hints what is inside this book? NHPI for example has system for solving various crimes. Are there something unique that Working the Grave offers? Working Grave is about being regular police. You go on patrol, make arrests and chase down criminals in your car. It’s completely different really. It doesn’t have the investigation rules because they’re in NHPI as you know. Put them together and you have crime busting completely sorted! They’re are new aliens in Working Grave too. All good stuff. I see, thanks for clearing that out. It would be very helpful if THW had an index of each book as a preview, or beter yet, they should make one huge compendium of all the rules without setting material, that would be an instabuy for me
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Post by atomicfloozy on Apr 19, 2020 18:40:28 GMT
I started to pipe in "What new aliens?" & then realized that if you didn't have 5150: Book One or 5150: Illegal Aliens, then the aliens would be new to you.
The big differences of course is that NHCPI is a supplement & not a complete game. It originally was meant to be played with 5150: New Beginnings, but works well with Urban Renewal, Fringe Space, No Limits & Working Grave.
To stream line the game, Working Grave has fewer attributes & a more condensed version of the profession circles. This is to better fit the Action Table mechanism.
I think a compendium of all of the rules would be confusing to many. The 5150 series has had several different mechanisms over a 14 year period. Some games required the use of playing cards, some games had lots of tables to cover lots of minute detail, some games had terrain cards - etc. I think (& this is my opinion) that the best use of the old rules is to generate encounters or scenarios for the newer rule sets.
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Post by crinklechips on Apr 19, 2020 20:03:24 GMT
You could kind of compile an uber Chain Reaction if you scoured all the books to find all the stuff that would work well across all the games up till the present. You might need two. One for Battle Board play and one for tabletop. The Battle Board one is conceivable. The tabletop one would be very big I reckon...
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Post by Ed the Two Hour Wargames Guy on Apr 19, 2020 20:10:13 GMT
I started to pipe in "What new aliens?" & then realized that if you didn't have 5150: Book One or 5150: Illegal Aliens, then the aliens would be new to you. The big differences of course is that NHCPI is a supplement & not a complete game. It originally was meant to be played with 5150: New Beginnings, but works well with Urban Renewal, Fringe Space, No Limits & Working Grave. To stream line the game, Working Grave has fewer attributes & a more condensed version of the profession circles. This is to better fit the Action Table mechanism. I think a compendium of all of the rules would be confusing to many. The 5150 series has had several different mechanisms over a 14 year period. Some games required the use of playing cards, some games had lots of tables to cover lots of minute detail, some games had terrain cards - etc. I think (& this is my opinion) that the best use of the old rules is to generate encounters or scenarios for the newer rule sets. ASctually the latest version of NHCPI has 40 pages of bonus Encounters and more as well as all the updated tables for Action etc.
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Post by davidlhsl on Apr 19, 2020 20:49:16 GMT
ASctually the latest version of NHCPI has 40 pages of bonus Encounters and more as well as all the updated tables for Action etc. Is this the one currently for sale, or is it in the works? (dig-dig-dig-dig-toss rule books over my shoulders-dig-dig-dig) *Ding!* Ah-HA!!! It's the one currently for sale. I had purchased the original and completely forgotten I had purchased the updated version. My recommendation for a THW starter kit: Get the free Chain Reaction 2020 and Swordplay 2020, because both of these are actually from 2015 (tabletop version) and 2018 (battleboard version). This offers you the best way to learn each set of mechanics, because these free rules cut straight to the basics without adding the genre-specific details you get with the paid versions. Battleboard is my dominate method of gaming, because it allows me to move from one scene of my adventure to the next seamlessly. It's also a great way to just sit down and toss a bunch of dice without a lot of setup. Tabletop is very useful for epic confrontations or elaborate scenarios. For example, today I decided to set up a completely impromptu scenario using the Loke Giant Book of Sci-Fi Battlemats I recently purchased. Without going into a lot of detail, my scenario involved hacking into various computers to obtain secret data and escaping. I established 1 square = 2", I utilized the old-school movement, old-school PEF movement and resolution, old-school activation rolls, modern 2d6 combat mechanics and damage resolution, and I added a lot of additional on-the-fly tweaks. But I also created an impromptu scenario today involving tracking down a big thug by fist-fighting my way through several waves of his minions. This was strictly battleboard style using the boat dock and warehouse battlemat in the Loke Giant Book of Battlemats for pure window dressing. I managed to toss in some other impromptu rules as well. Next, I personally consider the Larger than Life pulp rules currently sold at Rebel Minis' website the best source to provide wonderful inspiration for practically every genre I play, because it utilizes a great clue-based system similar to what NHC:PI introduced. I love the way it allows you to chain multiple encounters together to reach a final objective, such as locating a witch in High Moon that might cure me of lycanthopy, or chasing down a bounty hunter that shot at me and ran away in Six Gun Sounds. Future Tales is structured similarly to Larger than Life, and you might choose to get that instead of Larger than Life if it interests you more.
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