The Invincible Overlord

Posted on April 21, 2008 by Scott Jennings| 9 Comments

Just got an email that Bob Bledsaw, founder of Judges Guild, passed away this weekend.

For those of us far-too-old people in the RPG hobby, the Judges Guild is remembered for two things: some of the first 3rd party D&D modules (which, unlike TSR’s offerings were actually affordable by teenagers) and the frikkin’ huge City State of the Invincible Overlord. And by frikkin’ huge, I mean a wall-sized map of a city that you could throw a dart at, look up where your dart landed in one of several sourcebooks, and find out that you just defaced the home of a 6th level fighter/thief that is the bodyguard to the 45th in line to the Overlordship. ROLL FOR INITIATIVE.

It’s been reissued, if for some reason you weren’t playing D&D in the late ’70s, and I can’t think of a better testament. Sadly, I doubt it comes with a wall-sized map of a city straight from Conan’s grog-soaked nightmares, which does kind of miss the point.

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  • Njal

    Man that was a great supplement, even though we never used it as such, it spawned many ideas for our gms.

  • http://www.thisisnotacommunity.org D-0ne

    .

  • Wanderer

    When Gary Gygax died, someone said “God needed a DM”. I guess He found out that He needed someone to write adventures and draw maps, too.

    RIP, Bob. You changed the world.

  • mystery

    We used the Judges Guild Thieves supplement almost exclusively for ship battles, as they had a great system for categorizing different ships and setting up rules for combat that were …eponysterically incompatible with the D&D combat rules.

    “You see a ship on the horizon. It’s getting closer. It’s a Ship O’ The Line and it’s going to board you! Roll 2 six sided die!”

    “I roll an 8.”

    “Uh…Ok. Uh…. Yea. I guess that means they board you.”

    “Huh?”

    “Yea, game’s over, they burn your ship to the waterline. Sorry about that. Should have rolled a 6.”

    Good times.

  • Aufero

    I still remember the hour we spent arguing over the possible uses for gold, silver, brass and copper “oots” listed as merchandise in one of the City State shops. We finally agreed it must have been a typo for pots, but a friend of my carried one on all his character sheets for years trying to find bizarre things different GMs would let him do with an oot.

  • Aufero

    Friend of mine. Damn typos.

  • http://tagn.wordpress.com/ wilhelm2451

    I used to drool over the City State at the game shop when I was a kid.

  • chabuhi

    I had a strange relationship with D&D — in 1978 or ’79 I was nerdy enough for D&D (had the books, dice, figurines, etc.), but apparently the other D&D-playing kids at school were too nerdy for ME.

    It was hard to play D&D by myself … yet somehow I did, sort of.

  • Snarg

    Have used City State, Glory Hole Mine and Undercity as a starting point for adventures since c’76. Lots of good times.