Old Indie Game Reveiw: Justifiers RPG

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Justifiers RPG is an obscure game, but it holds a special place in my heart. It was the first RPG I bought, twenty years ago in 1993, and over the next few years I wound up buying almost all of the supplements. Please remember that I was fifteen years old in 1993. The reason I chose this game over more prominent games is convoluted and full of stuff you don't care about, but the big reason is I was, and still am, a huge furry jackass, and this is a game where you play animal people. I have not significantly revisited the system in over a decade, and probably closer to fifteen years, and I am almost afraid to. I would like to think that I have learned a lot about game design in the last twenty years, and yet I remember there being things about the rules then that I didn't like, so how well can it have possibly held up?

I don't know if there's a threshold of exposure needed for Old-School Sourcebook Reviews, and I as I write this I haven't cracked a one of these books in years so however much I suspect it will qualify, this doesn't really qualify for Anatomy of a Failed Design. It's not a Drunk Review because I drank all my whiskey last night on an unrelated matter.

The premise as I recall it is that you play members of a team of disposable, genetically engineered animal people who are owned by mega-corporations, colloquially known as a "Beta". Your job is to go to newly discovered planets and set them up for colonization. This includes setting up equipment that makes it easier to get to the planet, setting up a safe and secure location to operate off of, away from dangerous terrain, flora and fauna, and investigating for exploitable resources (Which includes sentient life forms and remains of deceased civilizations). You do this, getting paid a pittance, hoping to earn enough to buy your freedom out of this corporate-owned slavery.

Here is the cover, spoiler'd for courtesy's sake.

The Book Itself

The cover declares that it was written by a single person with a single name, "Gideon", who also did all the art. Note that there is a furry artist who goes by "Gideon" but I doubt they are the same person as their styles aren't terribly similar and there's not nearly enough macro-muscle beefcake in this game. I suspect that this having to do with the evangelical organization that plants bibles in hotels is equally unlikely. The inside cover says that it was "Co-Written by James Perham", but the credits say that it was designed, written and illustrated by Gideon, with James Perhan(sic) writing the timeline, and editing done by Michele M. Baidas (Aside: Good one Michele. You already got one of the staff members' name spelled differently on two pages.) There's also a Production Assistant and someone listed as "Inspiration" which judging from the dedication on the next page is probably Gideon's wife. I'mma just leave that there.

There's an Introduction that looks like an Author's Forward but is mostly "What is a Role-Playing Game?" section. Bonus points for this, since the Introduction is only a page long in total so it doesn't waste much time on this. Most of those points are withdrawn though when I get to the penultimate paragraph of the introduction:

Keep in mind that this is a game and should be fun for all concerned. Hostile, argumentative or obnoxious played should have their characters suffer sudden severe accidents. Remember, as GM you are court of last appeal.

Classy. Still, this particular thing was written in 1990, so Gygaxian passive-aggressive bullshit was still considered legitimate.

Background
Next we get a bunch of setting info. in the late 20th century and early 21st century, world economies were destroyed by a long string of small petty wars. Governments were bailed out by corporations, and eventually the corporations formed a megacorp called The Terran Trade Alliance, or TTA for short. Governments that remained became figureheads beholden to the TTA. Curiously, there's no mention of space travel in any capacity until after the TTA is introduced. Specifically after the TTA is formed comes the advent of TransMatt, the game's particular method of FTL travel, which is described in detail later. Humanity spreads to the stars and apparently the TTA gives up all pretense of being a governing agency rather than a profit-driven organization managing subsidies. At this point the center ceases to hold and colonies begin breaking away from TTA, but instead of forming governments, they create their own corporations. There was a short conflict to stop this, but TTA quickly decided that there was no profit on maintaining their outposts, I guess? Instead, they decide to distroy all Transmatt technology sites off-earth, with the killing or kidnapping of anyone who could help rebuild this. The TTA then rebranded itself "Terran TransMatt Specialists, Inc." refocusing themselves as the only people who know how to do FTL even though later we'll find that TTMS doesn't send people along to build TransMatt pads on mission to protect their IP, meaning anyone who cared could probably reverse-engineer the technology. Because that works. Whatever.

Oh, they're also a bank too. They created a form of currency to be a universal money and refuse to take anything else. This is... probably stupid as their suggested grip on their technology probably shouldn't be as tight as it is, but it's a handy excuse for the game to use a single currency so let's roll with it. TTMS, having apparently taken the universal economy by the balls, has decided to play Stern Parent to all other companies. The game's kinda vague on what TTMS does aside from manufacture FTL devices and run the economy. I guess that's enough, but they're also suggested to be absolutely huge on an order of magnitude above even the five megacorps the game assumes you work for.

Next is a list of those megacorps. Tau Ceti Prime, which deals in natural and artificial foodstuffs(And is 150 years old, being the first colony to break away from the TTA. Good for them!); Enclave, Ltd, which started out in prefab structures and now does... everything, I guess? United Industries, a weapons concern; STPD Engineering, whose entry says nothing about what they do except that they got totally spanked last time the Corps got together for a cockslapping contest; and B'Hazard Mining whose purpose is probably obvious. There's also a write up of TTMS which helpfully notes that noone knows for sure how TTMS maintains its FTL monopoly, as their methods are "Shrouded in Secrecy". They suggest that they probably maintain a network of spies and assassins to keep people in line. Well, as long as you guys acknowledge that it's stupid, too.

Then there's a bit on the Galaxy Worker Alliance, the union which is said to have almost as much clout as a megacorp in its own right. How the crimson fuck this works in a world where there are no civilian governments, where corporations openly maintain military forces, and where corporations have access to genetic manipulation and cloning is beyond me, but it lets the setting function by giving you a reason as to why you're not a slave for life. But you probably are anyway; more on that in a bit.

The game then goes on to explain the history of TransMatt and how it works. Basically it converts matter to Phlebotium waves and shoots it across space at twelve times the speed of light. You usually need a receiving station to catch the ship and make sure it doesn't accidentally fuse with anything when it arrives. Also, it can only go for six light years before the energy starts to disperse. Fortunately the universe is apparently thick with earth-like planets. Apparently the Standard Operating procedure is to send a ship into orbit around a planet the corp wants and have the crew land it. The ship contains a build-it-yourself Transmatt pad as well as the weapons and equipment necessary to begin explore the planet looking for dangers and exploitable resources. This is referred to commonly in-setting as "Justification and Pacification". That's where the party comes in.

Now the game explains what a "Beta" is. Basically, to be able to have a disposable workforce in dangerous unknown areas, corporate scientist began experimenting with combining human and animal DNA. The first result were "Alphas", who were... not particularly sophisticated. They were actually used by corporations, and a few of them are still alive owing to the fact that they were mostly used during a time where blind-beaming wasn't considered feasible and Justifier teams were mostly sent on sleeper ships. The process was refined until they developed "Betas", which are a pretty seamless meld of human and animal, creating things right out of your favorite furry art, though there's no bare boobage in this book. They also mention that for some reason, Betas are interbreedable. The rules are pretty sparse for how to handle this, probably so they could release The Hybrid Handbook later. I may review that later as a proper OSSR if this is received well.

While Betas at first were slaves, and now are really little better than slaves, the Galaxy Worker Alliance has stepped in and taken up the cause of Beta Rights, earning them the right to "Buy themselves back" from the corporation. This bit involving the Union at least makes sense. More people to pay union dues, of course. This is also the section that first proposes that the reason for so many habitable aliens is due to some sort of progenitor race's empire that rose and fell.

The last part of this section is a timeline. I will not bore you with it.

Next up, we get to character creation. I did this part by doing a color commentary as I read, but I want to get to understanding this system before I continue so the next one might be a day or two.

[DragonChild]

The rules are pretty sparse for how to handle this, probably so they could release The Hybrid Handbook later. I may review that later as a proper OSSR if this is received well.

It took me a moment to realize you were not making that book name up as a joke.

[Antariuk]

The game seems adorable in its silliness, also weird, but I can see the appeal. Fascinating stuff, please continue!

[Aryxbez]

I quite liked the way ye had presented the premise of this game, though it seems like the setting might put a damper on that. I could see the idea of PC's eventually realizing the power at their disposal, of setting up all this by their own means, and then using it to fight back at the TTMS? corporation. Mix in the idea of it having something the Mega-Corp wants, and have situation where PC's can't just get nuked within first 5 minutes of trying.

So given that, board a planet, adventure, survival, maybe even a kind of raising Civilization Simulation, or "Logistics & Dragons minigames", and I'd find this rather appealing (don't think ye need to be a furry or otherwise to like this games premise).

I was, and still am, a huge furry jackass

I'd like to inquire what it means, to be a "furry jack@$$", I can get the furry part well enough, so it's moreso in combination with it (what's different from being a normal furry?).

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I'd like to inquire what it means, to be a "furry jack@$$", I can get the furry part well enough, so it's moreso in combination with it (what's different from being a normal furry?).

There is no difference, I'm just being self-depreciating.

[PoliteNewb]

I was, and still am, a huge furry jackass

I'd like to inquire what it means, to be a "furry jack@$$", I can get the furry part well enough, so it's moreso in combination with it (what's different from being a normal furry?).

[Desdan_Mervolam]

So. Character creation.

Attributes and Statistics
You roll 1d100 seven times, and you may replace one of your rolled values with 65 at your discretion. There are seven attributes. Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Agility, And presence. Notice anything? Like perhaps it's exactly D&D's attributes with Charisma renamed Presence and Dexterity split into "Hand-Eye Coordination" and "Grace of Movement"? And as with D&D contemporary to the age, Wisdom and Presence are pretty much useless. Well, that's not true. Only Presence is actually useless, Wisdom is only mostly useless. None of the attributes are checked against in actual play (Except for one scenario only, to see if you get to act during a surprise round you make a Wisdom check), the attributes only exist to throw into a set of derived values, something that was popular in the 80s but you don't see much anymore. I don't really like derived value systems, but at least this one's not as bad as others I've seen. They only make you do algebra once, during character creation, and its at least basic algebra.

The first derived value (Which they call "Statistics") is Mental Strength ((Int+Wis)+1d10/Lvl). The books description for this is "This statistic reflects a person's willpower; how strong the mind is, both in defending and attacking with psionics. Think of Mental Strength as you would Constitution. It reflects the amount of damage your mind can take." This is a lie. Mental Strength is spent to activate Psionics and that’s pretty much it. There’s nothing else in the game that strips you of Mental Strength, and there is no consequence of having a Mental Strength of zero. So, since Psionics as we will see are hard to get and mostly useless, you can probably ignore this.

The next one is Body ((Con/10)+1d10/lvl). This is straight hit points, and when you run out you start taking Con damage. The implications of this are not addressed, so I can only assume that what they mean is that you have supplementary Body points equal to your Con score. In practice it hardly matters since the only thing Constitution modifies is Body anyway, but it's a bit of sloppiness that is frustrating.

Resilience ((Str+wis)/10)+1d10/lvl) is claimed to be to Mental Strength what Body is to Constitution. Much as with Mental Strength, this does not at all reflect what Resilience actually does. In actuality, Resilience is your Will Save and your caster stat. You don't spend Resilience, and Resilience is only stripped from you in one instance which I will go into in a bit.

Next up is Speed ((Agl+Dex)/10), which handles your movement and your initiative. You're redirected to the Combat section for how movement works, and told that the person with the highest Initiative goes first. That's it. There's no roll, there's no modifier based on what you're doing and what you're using. High goes first. This is actually not too bad, because this means that you can establish turn order before game starts and not have to dick with it during combat.

Your Base Skill Level(Int/10) is added to all skills you use. Warning: this game uses a percentile skill system, so you want to get your skill rating as high as possible. The game includes suggested modifiers to rolls, but I honestly have never seen a GM ever remember to use modifiers in systems like this.

Next is Base to Strike(Dex/3). It's your base chance to hit anything with any weapon ever. But you use skill rolls to attack with this game, and it kindly forgets to tell you if this adds to or supersedes your Base Skill Level bonus.

And last up is Base Damage Bonus, which is Strength/10. This is added to your melee attack damage. This seems important, considering it's not too hard to get a strength into the mid triple digits between roll placement and selecting something like a Bear, Bison or Gorilla beta, it's not hard to get to really impressive damage bonus that you can couple with a good melee weapon, but this means you have to be in melee with your opponent, and your damage is still a pittance compared to the ranged weapons you will want to be using. So, even in the future Fighters can't have nice things.

So, in the end you want to focus on Constitution, Intelligence and Dexterity, with some decent stats for Agility and Wisdom (In that order) if you can spare them, and Presence doesn't do anything so you can ignore it.

Psionics
This is where things start getting simultaneously crazy and stupid. By and large they're pretty useless, both because of vague mechanics and the fact that the system relies so heavily on Resilience which is a really small number.

Every PC has a 5% chance to have Psionics, which means that I guess there was at least one person who thought that 2E Wild Talents in D&D was a good idea. You have to roll percentile for this, because the number 1-5 on the die result is the number of powers you get. There are 11 powers listed in a 2d12 table, with an additional three which can be subbed out at the GM's discretion. I have no idea why, I suspect they just couldn't find a chart that had 14 spots.

There's a brief overview where they describe Psionics. If you have an option of how much MS to dedicate to an attack, you declare how much you're spending before you roll. Attack powers which do physical damage require you to roll at or below your Resilience to see if you succeed. This is really shitty. Assuming for a moment that if you got really lucky and put 100 in Strength and Wisdom, you only have 20%+ 1d10% per level, and in practice you're probably going to have quite a bit less than that. And then they describe the Break Will contest. If you are using a psionic attack that does not attack an opponent physically (Of the 14 psionic powers listed, only 3 do this), you need to do what is called a "Break Will Test". You roll a d100+your Resilience versus your opponent's Resilience. I had to read this a few times to make sure I was getting this right, since this is really easy. If you win, you begin spending Mental Strength as described in the power. It also mentions that if you find yourself using powers against an artificial intelligence, that the GM should generate stats for it. That's pretty normal, except it then goes on to explain that AIs can totally have psionics too. That's... pretty awesome, actually.

As for the powers themselves:
Telekinesis: This is apparently the power to have to do algebra in combat. You might think they would have given a chart with damage values for objects of various approximate sizes and cost for distance you need the object to travel, but no.

The ability to manipulate solid objects with the power of the mind. 1 MS per pound of object times(Yards moved vertically plus yards moved horizontally) All moves are considered to be at least one yard. If the object is used as a weapon, treat damage as 1/2 d6 x the weight of the object

And you get to do that every time you want to use the power. Aren't you excited?

Teleport: This does exactly what you expect it to do, but it only works on organic or high-carbon items, and while it suggests carbide weapons would qualify, it's ammo wouldn't. It can go anywhere you've been before, costs 1 MS per pound teleported (It's implied the user doesn't need to go along but it doesn't say so directly), and must charge for 1 minute per 5 miles traveled. The range of the teleport is limited to the user's MS in miles, but it doesn't say if that's total MS, Current MS when the user starts casting, or current MS minus the cost of the teleport. This is kind-of important.

Psi-Blast: You make a psychic attack and if it hits, every MP you spend is 1 point of damage done. If you planned for psionics at all you have more MS than most people who have Body and Constitution combined and even if you didn't, since there's no consequences to being out of MS you are totally free to apply gun to your target. The only thing stopping you from playing Scanners and making one head asplode per combat is the fact that you have to roll Resilience to do that.

Pyrokinesis: Pyrokinesis is much like Psi-Blast. Again you spend 1 MS per point you want to inflict. However, for some reason this power cannot be applied to living matter. I don't know why, some sort of half-hearted attempt at balance? They totally do suggest you could use it on items worn or carried, but it doesn't suggest how having a pair of pants lit on fire would affect the creature in those pants.

Cyberpathy: We are told Cyberpathy works the same as Telepathy, just on computers and electronics. This is funny, because Telepathy hasn't been described yet and this section is not in alphabetical order. You can control computers, read files on hard drives, and see through security systems without actually interacting with them physically. If you need to break security or if the computer is sentient, you use Break Will to resolve. Not bad, except that you have a job where it's almost certain that the only computers for millions of miles around are computers you brought yourself. It could be useful if you encounter an abandoned alien base that has computers and you don't know how to use them, but that's something that will happen maybe once in a character's lifetime.

Psychic HealingThis is a healing power, and as such is awesome and required. 1MS per point of damage healed, and a minute's charge time per 10pts healed which only means you're not doing it in combat. The only catch is you can't use it on yourself.

Animal Control: Counter-intuitively, this power does not actually let you control animals. It just lets you see, hear and feel what an animal does. So, if you ever wanted to know how it felt to be a tiger who is mauling your best friend, now's your chance. You have to make a Break Will check to use it, despite not working on anything sentient (Because sentient creatures "lack the inherent trust necessary for this kind of mental bonding" whatever the fuck that means) . The definition of "Sentient" is apparently like the definition of porn in that you know if you see it, because there's no actual definition listed. There's a 50% chance that a given type of "alien animal"(Another term not defined) will be immune to this power from the user forevermore from that user. It doesn't say so explicitly but from my reading if you happen to have two animal controllers in the party somehow, that person could run up and give it a try and if they win they get to gloat it over the other. There's also a 1% cumulative chance per use that "Contact will become permanent", but no indication as to what that would mean.

Danger Sense: This power give you a GM controlled and GM rolled chance to notice impending danger. It's equal to Wisdom+20, or Wisdom+40 if "definite ill will is present". I skipped ahead to see how Surprise works, and found out that you roll a straight Wisdom check to see if you can act. I guess this means you can wheedle your way into a second roll if the Danger Sense roll fails.

Body Control: This is a self-buff power. The cost is 1MS per point of Strength, Dexterity or Agility per round. If you get this, you're going to be using it on Dexterity until your Base-to-Strike has your attack skills at 100%. You can also use this to give yourself super-strength to lift stuff, I guess. If you have Body Control and Psi Blast, you could use it to buff your Strength and thus your resilience, but that's really inefficient.

Psychometry: This lets you sense everything that happened around a given object, 1 to 3MS per year examined, depending on how much detail you care about. And with those prices you'll be spending 3MS every time. This is really awesome in an investigative game like a mystery. Too bad you're playing a game about exploring hostile planets and making sure mud farmers don't get eaten in the night. Still, there are ways to abuse this, since there's nothing saying how much time is compressed in your visions. This means you can walk into an alien's village, touch something at the center of town and immediately know the history of that village for decades if not centuries. If you're persuasive and your GM has had a lot of tasty fish-flakes lately, you could even parlay this into learning languages and customs too. Just be warned that the rules don't say anything about this specifically, so you could also get shut down hard and this power is then useless in 95% of all situations.

Telepathy: The book assures you that this is mind-to-mind contact and the ability to read other people's thoughts. It's remarkably light on rules for what that entails. It's rather frustrating. It doesn't say if you can read surface thoughts, or if you can probe deeper into memories. It doesn't say whether you can see/hear/feel what your target does like Cyberpathy or Animal Control, and it doesn't say if you can talk to someone telepathically. It doesn't say you can control anyone either, but I would speculate that this is intentional. It doesn’t even let you stunlock someone. It says you have to make a "Break Will" check on an unwilling target, but the crazy thing about it is that if, for this power only, you initiate a Break Will test against a target and lose, your Resilience is reduced by half. This is the only thing I've found that can touch your Resilience, and since it’s probably pretty low in the first place, I would be tempted to say you would never use it. Then again, you still have guns, and nothing stopping you from using them. I also suspect that they meant that the loser of a Telepathy-based Break Will check, on either side of the check, loses half their Resistance, but that sure ain't what it says.

Then there's three "Optional Powers" that can be subbed for any roll by the GM. Trance is like Psychic Healing except this time you can ONLY use it on you, and thus is only marginally less useful. Psi-Shield lets you boost your Resilience, but only to resist powers used against the character. Since Break Will is ridiculously slanted to the user this could be useful, but probably won’t be since the only power that can use this against PCs is Telepathy. Nothing else requires the victim to interact with Resistance in any way.

And then there's Empathy which lets you spend MS 1 for one to buff Presence. In other words, this is a good power for a GM to give someone if they want to unnecessarily increase that character's Buyback without giving them something that will actually do anything.

I was hoping to do Cyberware in this post too, but Cyberware is just as poorly written and this is really long, so I'm going to call here.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

That was probably a bit longer than it should have been. Sorry, folks.

[DragonChild]

No such thing as too much detail, as long as it's interesting - and how these powers work is pretty WTF. Keep it up.

[Ikeren]

I laughed hard at the algebra in combat comment, so I kept reading as a result. A++, would read again.

[Aryxbez]

If you need a third reassurance, seems enough to say, that you have a decent fanbase to continue discussion on this game (myself included). I don't really have too much quarrel with reading a large body of text, it's something I've gotten used to, especially on this forum (till people started doing "Too long acronym", I figured reading large swathes of text was the accepted norm around here).

So yeah, continue up with Cyberware, the races? (not all are equal?!), and other expansions you deem fit for discussion. However, sad to hear, this game doesn't sound all that playable?

[Desdan_Mervolam]

I never said I was stopping this review. I'm just taking my time going through this because I work 10 hour shifts during the week which cuts into the time during which I can facepalm at old games.

Regeneration
Next is the section on Regeneration, or how you heal your various depletable pools. This section is only two paragraphs long but makes me wish I had decided to make this a Drunk Review. Healing is relatively straightforward; Constitution and Body heal at 2d10 per day, and a successful, if undefined, medical check adds another +1d6. Mental Strength and Resilience heal at 2d6 per day, with no check for a bonus, though you might be forgiven for thinking you did because the bit about getting a +1d6 added to your Regeneration comes after the part about recovering MS and RES, which is in another paragraph. It ends by instructing us to "Modify according to the conditions under which treatment was administered. Additional modifiers for such things as infection and surgical complications can be used at the GM's discretion." Why should they provide any mechanics for this? Naw, go on. Figure it out on your own. You'll do great, Tiger. I believe in you.

Cybernetics.
Let's be short about it. Cybernetics in this book are crap except for the eyes and maybe the ears. There are five options: Eyes, Ears, Arms, Legs and Hands. Cyber-Eyes give you an explicit ability to see Infra-Red, and in total darkness, and give you telescopic vision. Cyber Ears give you a Track-By-Hearing ability with 50% skill. It doesn't really specify how it works; I think you're just supposed to treat it like the Tracking Skill that used with your ears, except it doesn't improve over time. The hand gives you strength of 100 with regards to your grip, which I guess is cool if you are hanging off of something, like to crush things with your bare hands or want really good incentive to stop masturbating all the damned time. Arms and Legs can give you a legitimate 100 to strength, at least under circumstances you care about like encumbrance and melee damage, but if you've decided you care about that, you've already picked something with a beefy Strength bonus and put one of your high rolls there, in which case you've knocked your strength DOWN. There's no cool built-in weapons or augmentations (At least not until you get The CyberMedTech Sourcebook, sold separately), so I guess for the most part they're there to make your character look badass, an effect you could duplicate by writing "Looks badass" on the back of your character sheet.

How you get cybernetics is vague and kinda confusing and not directly addressed beyond "If your GM says so". There's a chart you can roll on to randomly determine what's been replaced, in case you didn't already know. Cybernetics are really expensive, ranging from 25,000C to 100,000C each, but you don't care because the cost is added to your Buyback and here's a spoiler for future installments of this review: Buyback's kinda a joke.

Beta Racial Types
Why they decided to wait until now to give you racial modifiers, I do not know. There are seventeen types of Betas and three varieties of Human to choose from. There's your usual spread of standard furry morphs such as lions, bears, wolves and foxes, plus slightly offbeat stuff like gazelles, monkeys and sea lions, to complete batshit like Mantis-morphs. There's also birds and bats which get wings and the power of flight, which is cool but not particularly well defined. Surprise!

Racial stats include a number of factors, such as natural Armor(Which is explained, but in the Equipment section), attribute modifiers, a speed bonus, natural weapons (Again, explained in the Equipment section and pretty crappy, even by melee weapon standards), Track by Sense abilities (which, again I can only assume work like skills except they don't increase), and also miscellaneous things like Sonar for bats or poison for the Gila Monster, though these things are not explained at all. Some creatures get flight, as I mentioned, but the only rules for that is a cryptic notation on each effected archetype saying something along the lines of "Miles in Strength". I have no idea what this means. It's not the speed they can fly, because they get a separate flight speed. It's not a maneuver skill roll, because that makes no sense with the "in miles" notation. I guess it's how far you can fly before you have to stop and rest, but there's no rules for how long you must rest and if there's any consequences for trying to go beyond it.

There's a blurb about humans justifying in general. In short: They don't. It's way too dangerous for most people to want to do. Most baseline humans who are justifiers are criminals carrying out a sentence. This always confused me a little because Justifying is very dangerous and most positions require you to be a scientist of one type or another. Since the book points out that criminals who are sentenced to Justifier duty are prohibited from having and using weapons, I'm wondering what exactly these people do. Bob the Mud Farmer probably doesn't know how to run geological survey equipment or analyze potential foods for safety, and I don't really understand the point of sending Riddick on your justifying mission if you don't expect him to be a badass during it. I understand that you're worried he'll kill the rest of your team, but that's a good reason to not send him on the mission at all. Maybe they just want the team to push the criminals in front of whatever dangers they've found, but that's just a really drawn-out death sentence. Interesting note, humans get bonus intelligence, and nothing else in the core book (Including other human types) gets that.

You also have Augmented Humans, who are super soldiers from the various rounds of Corporate Grab-Ass that happen every few years, it seems. They have decent stats and night-vision, and a penalty to Presence, so who cares about that. Also, throughout the games you will see pictures of Augmented Humans, and universally they have dark hair with a bright white streak down the middle. Lastly are Heavy-G Humans, who are basically dwarves since they have a slightly reduced speed in exchange for more Strength and Constitution. Also there's a picture of a Space Dwarf next to the entry (Complete with bald head and large beard). There’s nothing saying a Heavy-G human is a dwarf, or really anything at all except they come from worlds that have higher-than-earth's gravity. They're apparently not genetically engineered, and evolution would not turn out anything in particular in the 250-odd years since Humanity spread to the stars. They just grow 'em stronger and hardier on those worlds, I guess, which makes a measure of sense, I suppose.

Up next, the clusterfuck that are skills. Wut is this i dont even.

[RelentlessImp]

Maybe they just want the team to push the criminals in front of whatever dangers they've found, but that's just a really drawn-out death sentence.

I am picturing this, and it is hilarious. This game seems really quirky and fun; even if it is atrociously designed, the premise is so interesting I might steal it and import it into some other system.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Oh yeah, I should get back to this... Sorry, Work's been stressful this week, I have the next section about half written, I just haven't had the energy to finish. I'll get it done soon.

I am picturing this, and it is hilarious. This game seems really quirky and fun; even if it is atrociously designed, the premise is so interesting I might steal it and import it into some other system.

With a new system and a bit of tweaking to the setting, I do think this could be a really good game. I've heard for years rumors of a new edition, but nothing ever came of it. The suppliments add a lot of both crazy and awesome, when I finish I'll give a quick capsule review of the five sourcebooks and four adventures I have, and see if there's enough interest to hit up any of them.

I am kinda stumbling through this though, I don't there are quite enough jokes in this and I'm not sure that my writing is clean enough to work otherwise, so I'm trying to figure out how to make this better.

[RelentlessImp]

With what's been presented so far, it looks like the premise could be lifted wholesale into Shadowrun 4E. With non-insane (okay, mostly non-insane) rules for cybernetics, slightly restricted magic to serve as the Psi powers, and an equally insane politic set-up (just replace TTMS with Zurich-Orbital), and this could work pretty well. Betas would just be genetically-created Changelings, with free Changeling III qualities for every player on top of a Human metatype base (or Ork - Ork would probably work better, given their low standing in SR canon). Technomancers (and simplified Matrix rules) would give the Cyberpathy power its own little niche.

Unless there's something in it so far I haven't seen, I think it could work fairly well.