Justice, Inc. (1984) is the third RPG from Hero Games. As with Espionage!, it uses the core point-buy system developed for Champions, though instead of powers, this game features toned-down “talents.” The idea here, as you can probably tell from the cover, is to simulate pulp-style games and the rules basically account for everything from hardboiled detectives to slightly supernatural mystery men like The Shadow to stranger types of characters like the Invisible Man. You could probably do Hellboy with this, certainly Lobster Johnson. Oddly, you could probably run a better gizmo-filled James Bond game with this than with Espionage!.

It’s interesting to see how much more generic this is with the lower power level, versus the supers game. Judging from the illustrations alone, the game is meant to cater to a wide range of genres (worth noting that the two adventure modules that came out for Justice were dual statted for Call of Cthulhu). This is made explicit in the second book in the box, which offers guidance on a number of campaign types — horror, action, espionage, spicy stories, science fiction and so on. There is a perplexing sourcebook section which includes a list of World Series winners for some reason, and a slang glossary. Then there is a campaign frame called the Empire Club and a handful of adventures — a haunted house and two mystery scenarios.

It’s also interesting seeing how the scene was developing. As I mentioned, Hero Games was collaborating with Chaosium. But there is cross-over here with Flying Buffalo — Michael Stackpole is one of the main authors and Liz Danforth contributes illustrations. Another author, Aaron Allston, had previously worked on Steve Jackson Games’ Autoduel and illustrator Denis Loubet had also worked with both SJG and MetaGaming.