Some love for the Judges Guild...

moriarty777 · Post by **moriarty777** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:51 am

Well, after about 20 years, I finally picked up some of the classic Judges Guild material. To be more precise, I tracked down and ordered some stuff which came in today.

I had only first heard about the Wilderlands only a couple of years back which would have been shortly after I started with C&C. From there, I was fortunate enough to grab the Player's Guide to the Wilderlands published by Necromancer Games at a very good price and locked on to James offerings through AGP.

The feel for the setting is something I have really been enjoying as well as the style of the material produced. Old School all the way! However, despite having many classic AD&D books and adventures, I have found that I had a gaping hole in terms of what I had compared to what I lacked with some of the Judges Guild material. Add to this the uncertainty (at least a what was a couple weeks ago) regarding the future of these products and AGP, I decided to look up and get some of the older products.

Despite the offerings of Necromancer Games as well as those by Goodman Games, I decided to avoid the 3.x incarnations and go for the truly original stuff. I didn't necessarily want to spend much of a fortune either so I decided to be selective. I tried to stay away from material that was using the Judge's Guild Universal System and I was mostly looking at adventure modules.

I was able to pick up:

- Citadel of Fire

- The Illheidrin Book

- The Caverns of Thracia

- The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor

- Skulls & Scrapfaggot Green

- F'dech Fo's Tomb

The last one was using the Universal System but just looked too cool. Obviously I'd love to get the Dark Tower, Tegel Manor, and a few other things but some of the prices for those items are a bit much from what I've seen. The Caverns of Thracia was the most expensive of the lot but still cheaper than the 3.x version put out by Necromancer Games. I point this out simply because I had considered getting the 3.x remakes but decided to go for the older versions instead. Owning a few pieces of history and all that is just cool.

Having not owned this kind of material before (and only seeing a couple of PDF versions of this sort of material), I have to confess at being a bit disappointed at the lack of a stiff cardboard cover which were standard with the TSR offerings. Many of them use the same paper stock for their covers as they do for their contents. This is only a problem for fear of causing additional or undo damage to them. I've decided to keep them in plastic to help maintain the condition of the modules because of this. However, I do understand why they were probably published in this manner and... it is a VERY small price to pay. These are just great!

I'll most likely continue and pick up the occasional thing here or there though I'm not going to go crazy over collecting either.

Just thought I'd share!

M
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serleran · Post by **serleran** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 12:55 am

Some good things to score in there. My favorite is Caverns of Thracia from that list. Congrats and enjoy!

DangerDwarf · Post by **DangerDwarf** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:00 am

Nice scores there. I didn't get into Wilderlands stuff until I got the NG box set. It is beyond amazing. I picked up NG's other Wilderlands offerings after that.

I've only run 1 campaign in the setting but not due to lack of interest on my part, I'm just such a big Greyhawk and Dragonlance fan that most of my gaming takes place in those settings.

My current 4e campaign doesn't have a setting as of yet, still using the generic world.

Hmmmm.....

Methinks I might can change that.

*eyes his Wilderlands stuff on the shelf*

I've been debating where I'd place this campaign....and the Wilderlands just might fit the bill of what we've already done.

The Highway Man · Post by **The Highway Man** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:11 am

DangerDwarf wrote:
Nice scores there. I didn't get into Wilderlands stuff until I got the NG box set. It is beyond amazing. I picked up NG's other Wilderlands offerings after that.

You and me both, pard. I too love the Wilderlands. NG's boxed set is just... awesome. Totally awesome.

Nice stuff you got here, Moriarty!

sieg · Post by **sieg** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:15 am

Good stuff in that lot, though I must say Caverns of Thracia left me disappointed. Not that its a bad adventure by any means; its just held up as such a classic (re:dungeon ecology) but left me rather cold.
Yeah, back in the day JG stuff ran from $2-3 per adventure...when TSR's stuff was $6-8. Low publication quality but hell; for the price they really couldn't be beat!

My fave to run in was JG's Inferno. Though it only covers the first 4 or so circles, its quite a ride. My old DM in the late 70s let us choose heroes from the D&Dmg book to run. I chose Lancelot The 20th level paladin. In hell. As you can imagine, I attracted everything in the !@#$ place!
City State of the Invincible Overlord is a great one to have...and is very OS. Not the "Mayfair" one; avoid that one at all costs!

The City State of the World Emperor is ok, but not worth the $$$ people are asking for it nowadays.

Dark Tower is quite good, as is Tegel Manor (as I've waxed nostalgic over and over again)....

As for the campaign stuff, most of the Wilderlands books are pretty reasonably priced. Between them and AGP's stuff it wouldn't be hard to set up a Wilderlands campaign. Maybe I'll start one in the near future. In my COPIOUS amount of free time.
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seskis281 · Post by **seskis281** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 1:20 am

I've picked up the NG Boxed Wilderlands boxed set, the PG and all of James' stuff so far from AGP. We played in an excellent adventure he ran at LGGC, Cro Manach. One of my friends picked up a bunch of the older JG stuff from James there as well.

Gotta say, I love it -- Damn all the good settings lol
I'm stickin with Aihrde for now and melding in things from other settings (specifically 1e mods from Greyhawk like S3, X1 from Mystara and likely I'll import some stuff from Wilderlands as well.).

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Julian Grimm · Post by **Julian Grimm** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 4:40 am

I'm partial to Operation: Ogre. It's fairly cheap and easy to get. I just had a hell of a session with it a few years ago. I also have the Illhedran book and Theives as well.
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Plaag · Post by **Plaag** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 9:46 am

The good 3.5 version from that list would be The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor. And anything from Paul Jaquays of the old material is just gold - even adventures in the Dungeoneers Magazines.

If you can find a Tegel Manor for cheap (from Judges Guild more so then Gamescience), grab it!

ShaneG.

SirClarence · Post by **SirClarence** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 2:29 pm

Dark Tower... IMHO the best adventure ever published for D&D. Closely followed by Caverns Of Thracia. My third favorite is Thieves Of Fortress Badabaskor.

Omote · Post by **Omote** » Fri Jul 04, 2008 3:51 pm

Hey, lots of love for JG. I have pilfered those resources for years, but never actually run a true, dedicated Wilderlands game. Though, there have been many games which took place in the Wilderlands, and even my current campaign takes place in a setting very close, but not exactly the Wilderlands.

Always lived CSIO, and I have turoughly enjoyed all of the Goodman Games JG releases (Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, Citidel of Fire, DArk Tower).

-O
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tacojohn4547 · Post by **tacojohn4547** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 1:13 pm

Another lessor known Paul Jaquays book published by Judges Guild, but which has several short adventures that are really good, is The Book of Treasure Maps I. Paul Jaquays also did most if not all of the illustrations in the book. (Rudy Kraft may have penned some of the adventures, now that I think about it.)

One of the adventures in there is deliciously wicked. The Lost Temple is set in a remote jungle location and has such evocative details that the players can't help but be put on the edge of their seats. When I last ran it, I clocked it up to about 10th level or better, and had the players expecting death at every turn. AWESOME STUFF BABY!!

SirClarence · Post by **SirClarence** » Tue Jul 08, 2008 3:04 pm

tacojohn4547 wrote:
Another lessor known Paul Jaquays book published by Judges Guild, but which has several short adventures that are really good, is The Book of Treasure Maps I. Paul Jaquays also did most if not all of the illustrations in the book. (Rudy Kraft may have penned some of the adventures, now that I think about it.)

One of the adventures in there is deliciously wicked. The Lost Temple is set in a remote jungle location and has such evocative details that the players can't help but be put on the edge of their seats. When I last ran it, I clocked it up to about 10th level or better, and had the players expecting death at every turn. AWESOME STUFF BABY!!

I especially like the The Tomb of Aethering The Damned adventure. And of course Thulcondar as one very cool demon prince.