RPGPundit Reviews: WWII: Operation Jedburgh
Operation Jedburgh is a "quick play adventure" by Small Niche Games, written by Peter S. Spahn and Rick Hershey. The gamebook itself is a roughly 40-page magazine format softcover; which is a really good format (IMO) for the size of the product and the type of use its supposed to get. The production values are fairly good, with a few black-and-white images in the book, nothing too fancy or that stood out. The layout is fine.
Operation Jedburgh (hereon abbreviated "OJ") is a D20 Modern sourcebook/adventure with something of a twist. Its set during WWII, obviously, where the players play Operation Jedburgh operatives, special agents who parachuted into occupied Europe with the job of co-ordinating with and assisting the local resistance.
The "twist" is in that the book comes with some pre-generated characters (like most adventure books of this sort) but in this case (and unlike most adventure books of this sort) the default of the adventure is that you WILL use those pregens for the adventure. The adventure is specifically crafted around the design, skill sets and abilities of those particular characters. You can certainly run with your own WWII-era characters, but this would require a bit of tweaking.
The adventure itself is divided into a day-by-day account of events for the PCs as a group of operatives working behind enemy lines. The action is divided into a series of scenes each amounting to a small encounter. The writing is such that you get a very good feel for the whole "French Resistance", old War-movie feel of the adventure. There's getting a doctor from an occupied village to help a wounded US soldier, getting Nazi war plans from a dinner party in a chateau, blowing up a crucial bridge, all the typical stuff.
You also have a good detail of the various NPCs, fleshing out the characters that the PCs might meet on both the French and German side of things. There's also an equipment guide, which is nothing to write home about.
What is really cool, however, is the cartography. You get a map of the area of "Bierville" where the adventure takes place, and then 11 page-sized miniature floormaps for combat purposes (hey, you don't even have to buy expensive miniatures for once! Just use your standard plastic army men!).
Finally, there's the pregenerated Characters. There's 10 of them, with the understanding that a few of them are redundant and they need not all be used. A couple of them are female members of the resistance, one is a Czech deserter who doesn't know what the hell is going on, and one of them is a spy for the Gestapo. Yup, that's right, one of the characters is actually meant to be playing against the other PCs. I won't name any names, of course, because some of you might actually play it, but I thought that this certainly added a cool twist to the standard WWII adventure that OJ would otherwise have amounted to.
In conclusion, I'd say that if you're looking for a good guide to run a three or four session WWII-era D20 game, OJ would certainly be worth your while. If you're not, then it obviously won't be. Its good for what it does, and would spare a GM a lot of work if he tried to do something like this himself.
RPGPundit
Thanks for the review! I like that you touched on the pre-generated characters. I tried to make them diverse and not your run of the mill gung-ho soldier types. Rick drew the maps and they came out awesome. I especially like the roadblock and the screaming mimi maps. If I don't see a spike in sales after this review I'm blaming you (http://www.xanga.com/home.aspx?user=RPGpundit&nextdate=7%2f7%2f2007+15%3a31%3a11.483&direction=n). Couldn't you have trashed it just a little? :)
Thanks again,
Pete
Sorry, its a good solid little product. If you want me to bash it, make it crappier next time! :D
RPGPundit