In Short
This is a classic Godzilla-like encounter where super heroes have to stop a giant, rampaging lizard. The author does a good job of providing different scenarios, full stat blocks, a timeline of attacks, and other helpful information to make this an easy encounter to incorporate into any game.
The Good: Three different ideas let the GM choose whatever works best for their game. For the very small cost this can provide a game session’s worth of fun. The product does a good job of playing off the major types of super hero games suggested in Truth & Justice.
The Bad: The information presented barely touches the basics. Many GMs may not be using the super hero campaign options from Truth & Justice, and even if they are there’s a moderate amount of information that just isn’t applicable. More discussion of how to defeat Turtlezilla, perhaps describing different encounters with the creature, would be welcome.
The Physical Thing
This 10 page PDF showcases above average production values for its $1.95 price tag. The layout is great, there are no typos, and while there is very little art what is here does a good job of conveying the ideas. My one complaint is that the PDF seemed very ink intensive when I printed it out, but take that with a grain of salt – I don’t print out a lot of PDFs.
The Ideas
The adventure kicks off with a handy handout for the players. “What we know” describes the well known aspects of Turtlezilla based on encounters over the past year. Turtlezilla has a variety of strange properties. In addition to being a giant turtle monster, the creature is highly resistant to psychic prediction, disappears, may be attracted to radioactive areas, etc. This, combined with the history and location of all the attacks, provides excellent fodder for getting players interested and having their characters advance theories about what is really going on.
The rest of the document is GMs only and starts by providing more rumors about the creature. It then goes on to describe how to use the creature depending on if your game is more like Second-String Supers, SuperCorps, or Fanfare for the Amplified Man. Without a doubt the SuperCorps option gets the most support here, and that’s hardly surprising considering the author originally ran this scenario for a group using the SuperCorps setup.
Three different takes on Turtlezilla – mutated hero, alien monster(s), and psychic projection – are presented and each type has different stats associated with it. The stat blocks seem well done to me, and just having a big crazy monster ready to go in a game is great. While I’m not enamored with any of the versions of Turtlezilla presented, it’s easy to take the existing ideas and stats and alter them however I like.
My Take
It’s not an exceptional product, but if I was pressed for time I’d probably drop this in a
Truth & Justice game. While Turtlezilla sounds appropriate only for classic super hero adventures (and I think it does that quite well), this is a fine idea for darker, more realistic games as well. The author does a good job of getting in, providing stats, options, and a hand out, and then gets out so the GM can integrate all of this into the current game with ease.
Review Summary