Roleplaying Games | Comics
Judge Dredd Busts Pro-Democracy Radicals in ‘Dread: Dredd’
Or, Jenga & Judges
“As the iron fist of the Justice Department tightens its grip on the people of Mega-City One, there stirs once again a movement towards democracy. As pro-democracy agitators, now is the time to take a stand for self-governance.”
— Dread: Dredd
The Game
The original Dread, with two dees, is a horror RPG that uses a “classic stacking block tower”, which is code for Jenga.
Dredd, with three dees, refers to Judge Dredd, a future cop invented to satirize Thatcherism.
Dread: Dredd applies the suspense of the original game to the brutal world of Mega-City One.
Like with classic Dread, any time a player wants to do something risky, they pull a wooden block from the tower. If they do so without knocking it over, they get away with it. If the tower falls, they die and the tower is rebuilt. Special abilities and other rules futz with these conventions a bit.
Dread: Dredd includes a one-shot adventure scenario. The Power of the Crowd is a socio-political thriller that pits the players’ pro-democracy insurgents against the oppressive Justice Department. Like other Dread variants (there are a few), it tinkers with the original’s rules. Instead of one tower of blocks, there are two. The Justice Tower is 12 stories. The Liberty Tower is 6 stories. Which tower the players draw from and place atop of is dictated by what players are doing, who’s trying to stop them, and their unique abilities.
“The democrats’ objective is to get Walter on a live broadcast and expose the Judges for who they are, or failing that, to make as much of a splash as possible. For the democrats to succeed, they need to meet three conditions:
- Walter is spilling the beans on-air before an audience of millions,
- While the Liberty Tower is taller than the Justice Tower,
- Before the arrival of Judge Dredd.”
— Dread: Dredd
The Power of the Crowd has some hard win conditions. They players want to get a robot, Walter, who used to serve the infamous Judge Dredd, to smear him on live TV during a gigantic sports event. But that’s not enough to succeed. The Liberty Tower must be taller than the Justice Tower. Remember, Justice starts the game twice as high as Liberty.
But worst of all, they have to do both in 2 hours and 24 minutes, which represents 48 in-game minutes. After that, Judge Dredd arrives on the scene. Once he arrives, all hope for democracy dies in either the iso-cubes or at the business end of a Lawgiver while resisting arrest. The players cannot fight Dredd. He just wins and everyone else just loses.
The character sheets include abilities, summaries on what players can do, and questionnaires to fill out the characters’ personalities and motivations. They’re like playbooks from Apocalypse World, and represent fairly specific kinds of people. They include a Perp, a Celebrity, a Dilettante, a Wheel-Ape, and a Gearhead.
While the real world clock is ticking, The Host will also tick off boxes on a Countdown and Encounter Track whenever the players take long actions. After a few of these, the clock will give the players a false sense of security, since more time has actually passed. Once the timer reaches the time on the last unmarked box, Dredd arrives. The text doesn’t explain what happens. It’s left to the Host to describe the shit-storm of Judgement.
Judge Dredd is the Bad Guy
The comics are tonally all over the place. Often, Dredd is straight-up the villain. That’s the Dredd we get in this game.
At some point in Dredd’s character arc, he starts to doubt the morality of the Judge System. Eventually he convinces the Justice Department to hold a referendum on restoring the democratic system. Not because he thinks it could or should pass, but to force the Justice System to prove itself.
It’s unclear when this game takes place, but it doesn’t matter. Regardless of what side of the Democracy storyline The Power of the Crowd takes place, Dredd will have no mercy for the democrats. They’re breaking the law, so he will break them.
Liberty vs Justice
Calling the two block towers Liberty and Justice is a reference to the Statues of Liberty and Justice in the comics. The Statue of Justice is about twice as tall as Lady Liberty. Some comics call it the Statue of Judgement, because comics are weird.
The Plan
The crux of the democrats’ plan is for Walter to accuse Judge Dredd, the poster boy for the Justice Department, of corruption. Not just breaking the rules, but profiting from his position. But anyone who knows the Judge Dredd canon can tell you while he’s a fascist, he’s not a dirty cop.
The game implies that Walter is making most of it up. Does this make the democrats the bad guys? No, it doesn’t. Playing dirty in the name of democracy is worth it. Real-world Democrats could learn something here.
Misprints?
Dread: Dredd has a few typos. Missing “A”s and whatnot. But more concerning is that three of the five character sheets have identical questionnaires. That might be intentional, but then some of the questions don’t make sense for those characters. Because of this uncertainty, this might not be a great game for new players. Experienced gamers can figure it all out.
Dread: Dredd vs Older RPGs
Don’t confuse this game with the recently discontinued Judge Dredd & The Worlds of 2000 AD. That game was way too rules-heavy to emulate the fast and bizarre feel of the setting. The same goes with even earlier Judge Dredd roleplaying games.
Dread: Dredd is nothing like the previous games, and that’s a good thing. It was published in-house and developed by people that grok that conservatism taken to its logical conclusion will always lead to a police state.
