[Obscure Games] Justice Inc.

My copy, a second print, has a different,
but similar, cover for the Campaign Book.

Back in the '80s, the game publication industry was still feeling out a lot of questions that we take for granted today. One of the debates was in regard to universal, or "generic", systems. First, were they a good idea? Second, if they were, what was the best way to present them? TSR seemed to be on the side of treating them as a bad idea, creating a new system for nearly every game they released: there was D&D and AD&D, of course, and then there were games like Top Secret, Boot Hill, Gangbusters, Star Frontiers, and Marvel Super Heroes. There was a faint relation between some of them (Gangbusters almost looks like a heavily streamlined version of Top Secret if you squint at it right, and of course Gamma World famously was easy to convert to AD&D terms and vice versa), but generally TSR seemed to prefer that players learn a new system that was adapted specifically to the genre. Palladium, on the other hand, joined in with the idea of adapting their existing system to various genres, using their heavily-modified version of D&D to power games of martial arts action or superheroics or whatever. Each of the games was released as a separate title and including all of the rules needed for play. Steve Jackson Games was heading in a different direction, providing a core set of rules and then supplementary material for specific genres or settings.

Hero Games was still in the process of deciding in the mid-'80s, releasing versions of their game system adapted to specific action genres, using the Champions system, originally designed for superheroic action, to run spy fiction and modern action-adventure with Espionage!, followed the next year with a game tailored to '20s and '30s, or "pulp", action and adventure called Justice Inc. After a few more (a revision and expansion of Espionage! called Danger International, along with Fantasy Hero, Star Hero, and Robot Warriors), they would finally decide to go the route of core rules with supplements, but for that one moment, they were tuning the rules more precisely for a given genre.

Of all of the variations of Champions prior to the unification of the game under the fourth edition, Justice Inc. stands out as perhaps the best example of why and how the way of precisely tailoring for a particular approach can work.

The game was released, as so many in the '80s were, as a boxed set. It contained two books, the main rules and a "Campaign Book" that provided background on the 1920s and 1930s.

After getting some experience in giving characters who don't have superpowers something to pay points for with Espionage!, the designers of Justice Inc. returned to powers, but on a smaller scale. Instead of flying around and throwing blasts of cosmic power from their hands, pulp adventurers with unusual powers are more likely to be able to see the auras of living beings, fold their joints over double to aid in escaping bonds, or hold a séance to speak with ghosts. The most outré might be able to cloud men's minds or see dimly into the future. So, instead of providing powers like Energy Blast, Justice Inc. chose to add a sort of intermediary set of skills. Unlike other skills, these were difficult to use intentionally, but able to come into use more easily if the Referee felt it would aid the story. So, the "paranormal skills" were bought much like other skills, but if the player actively tried to initiate them they would take an enormous negative modifier (-5 on the Hero System's 3d6 roll). So, a character with a very respectable 14- skill (roughly 90% chance of success, and usually not very cheap in terms of points spent—a typical character would spend 19 points or more to get to that level, out of an initial pool of 75), if trying intentionally, would be rolling against a 9- (about 37.5% chance). Meanwhile, if it suited the Referee's purpose, whether for atmosphere or plot, they would roll against the full skill and let the player know what happened.

The Hero System relies on a large number of statistics, most with a fairly narrow use, and most roughly on the 3-18 scale. A couple of statistics are more useful than the others, and so cost 2 or 3 times as much to increase (or get back twice or three times as many points if reduced from the average). DEX, for instance, is the basis not only of DEX rolls and DEX-based skills, but also the basic CV, or Combat Value, used to hit or avoid being hit, affects the character's SPD, or number of actions per round, and so on. Meanwhile, APP is mostly a roleplayed stat, having very little mechanical effect on the game. Individual stats can be the basis of a Stat Roll, by taking the stat divided by 5 (rounded to the nearest) and adding 9 to give a target number to roll equal to or less than on 3d6. So, an average person with a stat of 10 will have a Stat Roll for that stat of 9 + (10/5) = 11 or less. Since stats have a soft limit of 20 for normal humans (the player may pay extra points to exceed the limit), these Stat Rolls never get very high, though the bell curve of the 3d6 roll certainly makes higher stats worthwhile.

Combat is fairly baroque, as is probably to be expected for a game that originates in playing superpowered beings. When making an attack, the base chance to hit is 11-, modified positively by the attacker's CV (in this case, as the OCV, or Offensive Combat Value) and negatively by the defender's CV (as Defensive Combat Value, or DCV). There are many modifiers, ranging from the attack maneuver used to situational modifiers. If successful, the attacker rolls damage in one of two ways. For lethal, or Killing, attacks, the BODY damage is rolled on a small number of dice, usually no more than 3d6 and frequently less than that. This is compared to any Resistant Defenses the target has that affect the specific kind of Killing Damage (PD, or Physical Defense, protects against physical attacks, ED, or Energy Defense, protects against energy attacks, and so on), which is a way of saying armor that protects against Killing Attacks. The remainder is subtracted from the target's BODY statistic, which is basically a hit point pool. Then, a single d6 is rolled and 1 subtracted, which is multiplied by the original roll for BODY damage. This is the STUN damage of the Killing Attack. This is modified by any appropriate Resistant defenses the character has. The remainder is subtracted from the target's STUN characteristic, and if that value is reduced to 0 the target falls unconscious. On the other hand, if the attack is a blunt attack such as with the fists or even a baseball bat, the attacker rolls a handful of d6s. With a punch, the base damage is 1d6 per 5 pts of STR, for example, while weapons add an appropriate amount (a baseball bat adds 4d6). So, an average person swinging a baseball bat would roll (10/5 =) 2d6 + 4d6, or 6d6 for damage. This is counted differently than Killing Attacks. The total of the dice is used as the STUN damage, and any appropriate defenses (PD versus physical, ED versus energy, etc), not just Resistant defenses, apply. To figure out the BODY damage of the attack, each die that comes up 1 counts as 0 BODY, each that comes up 2-5 counts as 1 BODY, and each die that comes up 6 counts as 2 BODY damage. This can be quickly counted by starting with the number of dice, pairing off 1s with 6s to cancel each other out, and then counting the excess 1s or 6s, adjusting the base up or down by that excess. Which sounds complicated to describe, but is really very easy indeed in practice.

There are more complications, too. Like I said, baroque. And then there are the optional rules like hit locations, bleeding, and so on. I don't mind complexity in my games (wait'll I get around to reviewing Aftermath!, Bushido, and Daredevils), but I like it to serve a purpose.

Anyway, Justice Inc. continues on with rules to cover vehicular combat and chases for cars, boats, and aircraft, and special dogfighting rules for aircraft, rules for gadgets, supernatural monsters, animals, and all of the other things that a good action-adventure game needs. Unfortunately, at one point the rules cop out and refer the Referee to Champions for handling the supernatural powers of ghosts and the like. Which, enh. This is made even worse because, in the next edition of the game, the one where the company decided to create a set of core rules, they would get rid of many of the things that made Justice Inc. such an exemplar of the reasoning behind creating new games using the same system. The paranormal skills were removed, for instance, and players were told to just build them in the same way as superpowers.

Like all of the Hero System games, Justice Inc. offers a generally "cinematic" experience, with that sort of physical logic being well-simulated by the system. Unfortunately, the complexity of the game system works against that experience by being very fiddly and detailed in some strange places.

It's a truly solid game that covers the source material nicely. Unfortunately, Hero System is just not focused enough to be a really good game, in my opinion. I prefer the Basic Role-Playing system, CORPS, EABA, or especially GURPS when it comes to universal/generic games, and I daresay that those who are looking for what Hero has to offer in terms of "cinematic" feel or reality are going to be better served by Savage Worlds. Still, if nothing else, a game designer would do well to know about the paranormal skills and weird talents, as well as the vehicle combat rules, of Justice Inc. when making design decisions.

I feel like that's an ongoing refrain with me. There are many games that I like for showing the way toward certain experiences, even if the games themselves are flawed or uninteresting as a whole.

Games That Influenced My Current Understanding Of RPGs

I'm still working on the follow-up to the "What is Magic?" post, describing what spirits are, exactly. I also need to write up the events of the Deindustrial Future game, where the players' characters fought off a major assault by the forces of the antagonist—or antagonists, as the case may be—and realized that they may have been making some bad assumptions about what is going on. However, because I want to post something before the end of the year, this will be a simple social media game about my history in gaming. All it really is is a list of "games that influenced me", but I want to include some commentary to make it worth your time to read. Without further ado, and after the first two in no particular order:

1. Advanced Dungeons & Dragons, 1st edition - This was, of course, the first RPG I played, before I had even heard the term "RPG". I learned a lot about gaming from this, in part because I had no idea what I was doing. It was where I learned that having followers is a good thing. It was where I learned that maybe you shouldn't trust your fellow players, but also that you could generally rely on them if they weren't dicks. I learned what it means to be able to attempt anything, even if you might or might not succeed. Some of those I would count as life lessons, too. I learned that resource management is a fun game in itself, even if it took me years to be able to articulate that lesson.
2. Traveller - Since it was the first game I'd ever run instead of just being a player, this is where I learned the value of Referee tools. Random encounters, rumor tables, world generation procedures, and so on mean that the Referee can concentrate on the arc of the story and leave the details up to the dice. This has served me as well in learning what the value of divination is outside of gaming, too.
3. Call of Cthulhu - This is where I learned that even a single rule, if properly designed, can thoroughly change the experience of the game by altering the approaches that the players will tend toward.
4. Champions - I didn't know it at the time I was playing it, but this game taught me that point-based character creation is terrible. Even if the intent is otherwise, it encourages players to find as many loopholes in the system as they can. This is also called "system mastery", and it continues to infect some games to this day. Some games revel in that, such as Pathfinder, while others, such as GURPS, try to minimize it.
5. RuneQuest, 3rd edition - Proved that it is possible to use points to generate characters and not have it be awful. On the other hand, it does this by limiting the point use to only one segment of character creation, the skills of the character. Technically, I probably learned this with 2nd edition and with Call of Cthulhu, but I really like 3rd edition RQ and wanted to include it in this list.
6. Marvel Super Heroes - I learned that the description of a power—what Champions calls "special effects"—is very nearly as important as the mechanics of the power. I also learned that the direction of complexity that I was heading deeper into was not necessarily the best direction.
7. Pendragon - There are other ways to play a game is what Pendragon taught me about gaming. Adventures can be had without making "adventuring" the centerpiece of the game. Instead, adventures can serve a larger purpose of supporting the play of families and the exercise of power politics.
8. Hârnmaster - This game taught me that not every situation affecting a character is best simulated as a pool of resource points, but that conditions applied to the character are often the better tool to use. Also, that characters don't have to be high-competence to be fun to play. Other people learned that latter lesson with Warhammer Fantasy Role Playing, but this game was my lesson in that.
9. Flashing Blades - Here I learned that the proper focus of a game is on the players' characters, even if the events being portrayed are larger than those characters. I also finally came to understand the lesson that I should have learned in Traveller or even earlier, that character development is not necessarily something that affects stats and skills.
10. GURPS - Taught me that the math in the game is important, but that it should absolutely not be something that the players have to deal with much. It should be baked into the system as much as possible.
11. Lace & Steel - Here, I learned one part of the lesson that even small things can make an adventure more fun, by helping to immerse the players into the setting. In particular, the concentration on the small indignities of travel, and how this encourages characters to choose to pay for better accommodations when available, taught me about the little things that matter to characters.
12. Swordbearer - Like the previous entry, I learned that even seemingly minor elements, presented correctly, can add immeasurably to play, with travel being another area treated especially well, in this case by detailing how things like setting and striking camp, the condition of the travelers, weather, and so on affect matters. I also learned that sometimes finances are better handled abstractly, since the characters shouldn't be worrying about every last copper piece and so neither should the players, at least in some settings.

That gives an even dozen games, though I could have included more. I learned things from Chivalry & Sorcery, Fantasy Wargaming, Vampire: The Masquerade, TORG, Rolemaster, and many others as well, but I have to stop somewhere. That's not even counting the negative lessons—other than Champions, which I think was one of the most important lessons—such as the WotC editions of Dungeons & Dragons.