Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (1989) is a great example of how Palladium upped the ante as its systems evolved. The book takes the relatively modestly powered TMNT game and introduces time travel and alternate dimensions. It is either a totally weird step, or perfectly in-line with TMNT, depending on how you view the franchise (I tend toward the latter).

I kind of love this book because DINOSAURS. You can’t really go wrong with throwing dinosaurs into the mix and here, you really can’t go wrong because there book applies the mutation rules for regular animals to dinosaurs. Mutant T-Rex with a machine gun? Yes please. The trade-off is that, considering the relative size and power of dinosaurs, the system required an upgrade in terms of its power level, so the rules get a bit more complicated. Not like full blown Rifts complicated, but still.

The time travel rules are fun. There are rules for building time machines and the TMNT principles of time travel are neat – basically, you can jump forward or backward in 125 year increments (from 1988), which is a good limitation. There’s a little detail for the past (I guess the assumption was that you could wing it with a history book) and more involved explanations for the futures, which include After the Bomb and a fun Terminator riff.

Big fan of Jim Lawson’s art, too. I kind of like his style a bit more than Eastman’s, if I am being totally honest.