In February 2020 we presented two offers featuring WOIN (“What’s O.L.D. is N.E.W.”) games and supplements from EN Publishing. The all-new Judge Dredd and More Bundle presented EN Publishing’s licensed Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD standalone RPG, the N.O.W. Modern Action rules set, and more. And we also revived the March 2018 WOIN OLD and NEW Bundle with the fantasy (O.L.D.) and space opera (N.E.W.) versions of the flexible WOIN rules.
EN Publishing’s What’s O.L.D. is N.E.W. is a system of crunchy, tactical roleplaying toolkits. Designed by ENworld‘s Russ “Morrus” Morrissey and funded in an April 2014 Kickstarter campaign, the WOIN games let you play many kinds of characters. Tweak the system dials to handle low or high fantasy, hard or soft sf, spycraft or street-level superheroics, and so on. Using each book’s extensive tools, create your own races, lifepath careers, planets, cybernetics, freeform spell-paths, starships, strongholds, martial arts, and monsters. Focus on one genre, or mix-and-match them to create urban fantasy, cyberpunk, or spells-in-space. Hack the system, mold it to your setting, and — because the free WOIN Rules Reference Document is designated Open Game Content — even publish your creations free or for profit.
Not a “universal” system as such, WOIN is designed specifically for medium-low-magic Tolkienesque medieval fantasy, ’80s action, and a Trek-ian to Wars-ian range of sf, with rules systems designed to replicate those genres well. Though characters become more competent and skilled over time, they never end up wading through armies of orcs. The system is a bit grittier than that, with tactical skirmishes, subtle magic, and magical items quite uncommon. The avowed inspirations for O.L.D. include the medieval fantasy of Glen Cook, David Eddings and David Gemmell, Robert E. Howard, Le Guin, Abercrombie, Rothfuss and, of course, Tolkien. N.E.W. is inspired by Star Trek, Star Wars, Battlestar Galactica, Firefly, Babylon 5, the Alien franchise, and other media science fiction, along with the stories of Asimov, Niven, and Clarke. N.O.W., published last year, is all-out action movie: James Bond, Jackie Chan, Arnie, Sigourney, Road Warrior, et al.
1. JUDGE DREDD AND MORE [all-new]
You are the law in this Judge Dredd and More Bundle featuring the WOIN-powered Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD RPG, along with the N.O.W Modern Action rulebook and several campaign settings.
For 40+ years Judge Dredd, the most popular character in the long-running British comic 2000 AD, has been judge, jury, and (very often) executioner of perps in Mega-City One, a dystopian American megalopolis of 800 million people. Aside from thousands of comic “progs,” Dredd has starred in board, card, video, and pinball games, novels, gamebooks, and two films. (The 2012 Dredd is fun and faithful to the character.) Dredd tabletop RPGs have appeared from Games Workshop (1985), Mongoose Publishing (d20 and MGP Traveller versions, 2002 and 2009), and now EN Publishing (2019). Funded in a September 2018 Kickstarter campaign, this new standlone game lets you play as Judges (Street, Med, Tek, and Psi) and also as citizens or even perps, not to mention robots, clones, mutants, and uplifted apes. Combat is deadly, and the weapons list goes on and on, but Cinematic Mode gives characters a Luck dice pool to stay alive. For Psykers and Judges in Psi Division there’s a long list of psionic exploits. Your character may contract weird diseases like Black Scab, 2T(Fru)T, Rigellian fever, and Jigsaw Disease, where parts of you disappear one by one. And look at all the cybernetics stuff!
This offer included much of EN Publishing’s Dredd line, plus lots of N.O.W. modern titles, for a bargain price. There were four titles in this offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $38) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the N.O.W The Modern Action Roleplaying Game core rulebook and three N.O.W. campaign sourcebooks and adventures: Dark Decade: From Dust to Dawn (supernatural horror in 1980s New York City), Spirits of Manhattan (who ya gonna call?), and Santiago: A Myth of the Far Future, based on the 1980 novel by the late Mike Resnick.
Those who paid more than this offer’s threshold (average) price also got this offer’s entire Bonus Collection with four more titles worth an additional $50, including the complete 244-page full-color Judge Dredd & the Worlds of 2000 AD standalone core rulebook (along with the Print & Play Counters and the free Judge Dredd Quickstart), plus The Robot Wars sourcebook-adventure and the Judge Dredd GM Screen.
2. WOIN OLD AND NEW
[from March 2018]
This revival of the March 2018 WOIN OLD and NEW Bundle gave a new chance to get the O.L.D. (fantasy) and N.E.W. (space opera) versions of the WOIN system, plus lots of supplements and adventures. There were five titles in this offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $42.50):
- O.L.D. The Fantasy Heroic Roleplaying Game: The complete fantasy-medieval rulebook with versatile lifepath character creation, innovative freeform spell-point magic, fast but tactical combat, and tools for building any setting from Tolkien to Braveheart. Includes the free adventure The Haunting of Calrow Ruins.
- N.E.W. The Science Fiction Roleplaying Game: The complete 310-page rulebook for every style of science fiction adventure from Trek to Wars to Firefly and more. Includes the free adventure Death on Ascalaon.
- The Ills of Hengistbury and the free Holdenshire Primer: An introductory fantasy sandbox campaign adapted from the 5E adventure To Slay a Dragon.
The Bonus Collection added seven more titles worth an additional $56:
- Xenomorphs: The Fall of Somerset Landing: A N.E.W. campaign sourcebook of sf survival horror on a terraforming colony invaded by predatory aliens.
- Two N.E.W. starship guides: Starship Construction Manual and Starship Recognition Manual.
- Three N.E.W. articles from the official WOIN magazine, EONS: Racebuilding Engine, Trappist, and Real Solspace.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to these two WOIN offers’ designated charity, Rainforest Trust.
