Judges Guild Deluxe Collector’s Edition, Volume One

by Bob Bledsaw Jr., Jon Peterson, Jim Wampler

This volume contains 1970’s-era Judges Guild RPG publications, scanned from the original publications and digitally restored. Contained within these pages you will find the legendary adventure modules Citadel of Fire, Tegel Manor, and Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor. Each of these adventures changed the course of role playing. Also included herein are scans of the original Judges Guild Journals, the gaming periodicals that were shipped with each installment of Judges Guild mail order product. The Judges Guild Journals have never before been reproduced in any format. Finally, you will find a number of historical essays, as well as all-new game material expanding the original adventures, all authorized by the Judges Guild.

Gamers today who seek to recapture the excitement of their youth will find it in the pages of the Judges Guild. This book connects you to an era of unbridled imagination. It collects some of the finest work of Judges Guild in its original published form. This is the Golden Age of Role Playing presented as it originally happened, when the concept of “adventure module” had never been seen before.

Genres: Role Playing Games

240 pages, Hardcover

Published March 23, 2017

Reviews

[Jerry · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is an amazing piece of history. It contains Judges Guild Journals I (the Initial issue, though the I apparently meant Roman numeral 1 initially), L, N, P, and S. They are reprinted at approximately full size, 11x17. That makes this a huge book. It also makes them at least as readable as the originals. The energy in these early writings is unmistakeable, as people wrote in with ideas and as Judges Guild pumped out ideas like nobody’s business.

Installment N, for example, from August/September 1977, begins thus:

The Warlord of Barsoom is alive and well and living in Richmond, Virginia! For more on this, see Randall Garrett’s “On the Martian Problem”, published in Isaac Asimov’s Science Fiction Magazine… Winter ’77 issue. Mr. Garrett has published a Xerox copy of a letter penned by Uncle Jack, himself! In it he details the efforts of Menz Klausa and the wisest savants of Helium to explain the misinformation distributed by NASA and JPL after the Martian landing. I am utterly convinced that they are on the right track. In fact, my Gridley Wave Communicator is on back-order at the Sorceror’s Supply House and Woody can’t wait to ask if Ogres play knucklebones in the canals of the red planet.

Now that the great new Basic Dungeons and Dragons has been published… we are chomping at the bit to see the Advanced Dungeons and Dragons.

They also “now have Traveller, a new role-playing game by Game Designer’s Workshop.”

There are questions and answers “as I run them” about the various kinds of undead, described in single paragraphs at best in the original D&D books. A huge set of encounter tables for wilderness encounters, for carnivorous plants, for dungeon encounters.

Later, in Journal P, they announce that the Monster Manual is out, and review it.

Along with these journals are the adventure modules Citadel of Fire, The Thieves of Fortress Badabaskor, and Tegel Manor that came with S, P, and L respectively; Tegel Manor is clearly the star of the book, as its maps are reproduced in giant size in pull-out sheets; and the original drawings on the inside front and back cover.

Each adventure comes with supplemental material written by Michael Curtis (of Stonehell Dungeon fame).

At the beginning are photos of the Judges Guild offices and some short articles by Jim Wampler, Michael Curtis, Jon Peterson (author of Playing At the World) and several by JG owner Bob Bledsaw’s son, Bob Bledsaw II.

It’s an utterly fascinating read and a beautiful piece of gaming history.

[Steven "Steve" · Rating 5 out of 5]

Backed this on Kickstarter (and therefore I am an honorary member of the Judge’s Guild). Gorgeous oversize slipcase version documenting the early days of roleplaying games.