TTRPG Review - Dread: Dredd

Dread meets Dredd as the acclaimed horror game takes a trip to Mega-City One...

Democracy has always been the silent rot that coils around the heart of Mega-City One. (In)famous Cits such as Hester Hyman, Blondel Dupre, and even America Jara, have all attempted to wrestle control from the totalitarian regime of the Judges. And all have failed. Now, the stir of democracy threatens to rise again and this time the movement might just win! 

Set during the live broadcast of the inaugural broadcast of the first Aeroball game in years, Dread: Dredd sees the players take the role of these activists campaigning for the restoration of democracy. It's a race against time as while the Judges can't preemptively shut the broadcast down - Judge Dredd is on his way. With 48-minutes before Dredd arrives there's a lot that could go wrong. Ultimately will you demolish the Judge's fascist regime? Or will it be destination Resyk? 

Dread: Dredd, tasks the players and their characters with three objectives that need completing to achieve overall victory. The first is to get Walter the Wobot to spill his secrets on-air before the audience of millions. The second is to build the Liberty Tower so its taller than the Justice Tower (more on this below). And third is to do both of these before Judge Dredd arrives at the stadium.

Failure to achieve all three of the objectives before the arrival of Dredd and the team loses the will of the crowd, and as such its game is over. They'll also lose if they all die in the attempt, though in doing so the group could inspire others to take up arms - which then allows for plenty of other player created scenarios utilising the same rules and basic premise. 

As mentioned above the beating heart of Dread: Dredd is the Liberty and Justics towers. These are made form the game's physical component - a Jenga tower. The basic gameplay element revolves around this Jenga tower which is split in two. One large tower - the Justice Tower - and one short tower - the Liberty Tower. As the game progresses, whenever the characters perform and action, that player attempts to remove a block from either tower, to then add it to the top. For added tension, the same player can then take an additional block to represent whether the action was inspiring, done quickly, showing off, reckless, etc. If said player removes these blocks then the action is considered to have been successful and the story carries on. However, if the block remains in place, or the player stops pulling the block, then the action has failed. If the worse happens and either tower falls, this not only signifies that the task has failed - but also results in the death of that player. 

Getting Walter live on air is ultimately the main objective and it is up to the Host to determine exactly how this happens. When a player pulls a block, it's then added to the tower is taken from. However, the players need to move the blocks from the (taller) Justice Tower to the (smaller) Liberty Tower to succeed. To give the players a small advantage each character has their unique ability and skill set, which are used to move blocks to their tower. Each character shares the same three abilities, dodge, spend, and stash, which can be used to tip the scales. Dodging allows for a free tower pull, spend allows you to use blocks from your reserve to place on a tower, and stash allows you to store a pulled block into your reserve.

The last gameplay element is Judge Dredd who arrives in forty-eight minutes of game time (three minutes of real-time per one minute of game-time). To keep track of time the GM has a countdown and encounter sheet which keeps the mission structures and gives the GM some daring challenges and situations to throw in the player's path.

When it comes to choosing what role you'll play, Dread: Dredd gives you five starting characters. ‘The Perp From The Judge’s Tree’, ‘The Psychic Celebrity With A Grudge’, ‘The Dilettante On A Mission’, ‘The Wheel-Ape’, and ‘The Gearhead With A Secret’. Each of these also comes with a character sheet with questions to build their background, and their own set of dodge, spend and stash abilities. While the role you play is predetermined it does give you scope for expansion. Naturally, Dredd's world is just as absurd as it is grounded, so while you can't go too over the top, with a little imagination (and Dreddverse knowledge) there are a lot of character variations to use. Simps, Fatties, ex-Titan returnees, Wally Squad, for example.

Much like any other table-top RPG, there's a central Games Master whose job is to lay out plot details and narrate how the player's actions affect their mission and the world. While some deaths and events are a certainty, at other times the GM has free reign to describe the situation as they see fit.  Dread: Dredd does come with advice for the GM to follow as they guide the players through their mission. The main advice is to follow the player's lead as they dictate the action, and role play as Walter (yes really!). To help set the scene there's also the addition of a very in-depth description of the Hellcat Memorial Stadium, as well 2000 AD  pages about the Harlem Heroes, the Harlem Heroes Super Liner, and the blueprints of Walter. If your GM happens to be a Dredd fan then there's a heck of a lot of storytelling to be told. But even if they have basic knowledge, there's a lot here to guide them in still having a fun-filled narrative. 

When it comes to buying Dread: Dredd, Rebellion packages it as a digital product. As such -aside from the Jenga tower - there isn't a physical component to the game. However due to being digital it does mean that the game is very versatile in how it plays. If playing online the GM is able to send individual character sheets over to the players, whilst they control the Jenga pulls. Naturally being in the same room is far more enjoyable, but in our world of un-desirable lockdowns at least playing via Teams/Zoom etc is an option. 

All in all Dread: Dredd is a very interesting TTRPG. While it perfectly works as a one-shot narrative, there's a vast amount of scope to expand further upon the events. Role playing as the perps in this instance is both a tense and rewarding experience. Your vastly outnumbered and the wrong tower pull could soon see your hopes of democracy crumble - along with your characters lifespan. The setting of Mega-City One makes for an entertaining location, and with a bit of Judge Dredd knowledge the GM has full reign to build their story upon this rich location. 

Dread: Dredd is available now and can be purchased from Rebellion Unplugged by clicking here. 

Thank you to Rebellion for providing a free copy of the rule sheets for this review

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Rob Lake - For more comic book and video game chat why not follow Geek Culture Reviews on Twitter and Facebook @GeekCultureRev