In 2023 Palladium Books successfully funded a Kickstarter for a new, Redux Edition of its Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness role playing game (which I previously covered). Recently I acquired the two books which they released late last year. With books in hand now I can do a full review of them in this blog post.
While I was curious about the new books since they were released, I was not about to back a Kickstarter campaign by Palladium given a prior Kickstarter left many backers disappointed. And there were bumps in the road as new tariffs presented obstacles to everyone who manufactured products or printed books in China, including Palladium. Fortunately Palladium managed to weather the storm and release books after some months of delay. The two books comprising the new edition were released in November 2025.
I was curious about their presentation and how they updated the rules but in no hurry to spend over $100 on RPG books. I was pleased to find that at least my local gaming store had a copy of both versions of both Redux books for sale. But less than a year later Palladium announced its decision not to renew the license. As a result they were offering the books, which usually retailed for $59.99 each, at a 40% discount, so I grabbed them. Shipping via USPS Media Mail was $13.42. Palladium also offered a special Game Shield and set of Mutagen-colored dice with the discount but I did not buy those.
Brief Overview Original Line
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness (TMNT & OS) was released in October, 1985 as a 110 page trade paperback. Cover Art by Kevin Eastman (front and back) and Peter Laird (back), Interior Art by Eastman and Laird. Includes the short story "Don't Judge a Book..." by Eastman & Laird.
TMNT & OS was one of the first licensed TMNT products released less than 18 months after the debut of the comic in May, 1984. A Revised Edition of the core rulebook was published April 1988 (6th Printing, with 2 extra pages added as of the 8th Printing). TMNT & OS had five TMNT-focused supplements:
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Adventures! (Adventures!), published July 1986, 48 pages. Cover Art by Eastman, Interior Art by Eastman and Laird. Includes the short story "New York Ninja". by Eastman, Laird, Ryan Brown & Steve Lavigne.
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Guide to the Universe (Guide), published May 1987, 48 pages. Cover Art by Laird, Interior Art by Eastman and Laird. Includes the short story "Terror by Transmat" by Eastman, Laird, Brown & Lavigne.
Transdimensional Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (Transdimensional), published April 1989, 112 pages. Cover Art by Kevin Long, Interior Art by Jim Lawson.
Erick Wujick was credited as the author for all of the above.
Truckin' Turtles (Truckin'), by Jape Trostle and Kevin Siembeda, published November 1989, 48 pages. Cover Art by Kevin Long, Interior Art by Tom Baxa.
Turtles Go Hollywood (Hollywood), by Daniel Greenberg, published March 1990, 48 pages. Cover and Interior Art by Long.
Presentation
The Redux Edition is presented in two Rulebooks:
TMNT & OS Redux (TMNT & OS Redux) includes TMNT & OS, Hollywood and Truckin'. 270 pages
TMNT Transdimensional Adventures Redux (Transdimensional Redux) includes Transdimensional, Guide and Adventures!. 256 pages
Each Redux Edition book comes in two regular versions, one with fully-colored art and the other in black and white with red highlights. They are the same price, but as I own most of the original books so I chose full color versions of the Redux Edition for a more varied experience. The Kickstarter offered pricier limited versions not available after it ended.
All copies are hardcover with a sewn binding, which is more impressive and durable than anything Palladium released with the prior editions of TMNT & OS. Those were all trade paperbacks, they could show wear on the spine without very heavy usage. Their covers have a tendency to delaminate over time with frequent handling or indifferent storage.
Each Redux Edition book weighs close to 3 pounds, are 8.75" x 11.25" and just under an inch thick, making them very substantial books indeed. They are a little less readable than the old trade paperbacks due to the extra weight but obviously much more durable. In terms of quality they look to be on par with the latest printed Dungeons & Dragons books.
The Redux Edition pages have a certain level of gloss to them and are bright white (with exceptions to be described later). Paper fibers are visible in the pages, somewhat similar to how they appear on U.S. currency. I imagine this was a conscious choice rather than going with a cheap printer because nothing else about these books looks or feels cheap.
These books have artwork on the endpapers. TMNT & OS uses the cover from TMNT Adventures! (by Kevin Eastman) and Transdimensional Adventures uses the cover from TMNT Guide to the Universe (by Peter Laird). Both covers were wraparound, which permits them to fit neatly across the pastedown and the free page.
A variety of interior fonts are used, mainly something like Times New Roman but not exactly Times. Headers use a large font with colors to help direct the eye, narrative blocks use different fonts and tables are shaded. The rows and columns of the tables use something like a Comic Sans font which I found quite jarring compared to the other, more elegant fonts used but this is a minor complaint. Another minor complaint is the TMNT logo used on the front covers. While they did a passable job of recreating the original TMNT logo, it is not quite correct as they did not use a "crooked J" in NINJA. Still the titles are far superior to the boring generic fonts they used on the original books.
Another minor complaint I have is with the placement of the various original books in the new Redux volumes. I understand that because TMNT & OS and TMNT Transdimensional Adventures were larger books and the other books were smaller, the two larger books had to be the anchors of their respective Redux Edition books. Ideally I would have paired TMNT & OS with Adventures! and Guide because that was the order of their publication. However, even if you kept the books where they are, I would have put Truckin' before Hollywood! and Adventures before Guide to reflect their publication order.
I believe there is a reason for the order Palladium chose, namely that Guide has additional rules and source materials before its scenarios while Adventures! consists entirely of scenarios, so it makes sense organizationally to focus as many scenarios in the same area as possible. The book recommends playing Hollywood before Truckin' but does not give its reasoning.
Thinking of the Children
The first thing which stuck out to me were warning labels on the back covers and the first pages of each book. The back cover states "Ages 14 and older." Originally TMNT & OS did not have an age recommendation on its cover but with its 10th Printing it added “Suggested for ages 12 and older” to its front cover. On page 1 of each book is a "parental discretion advised" warning-style warning about the subject matter of these books, which includes magic, psychic abilities, violence, war, insanity, the occult and drug use.
All of those things were in the original books published from 1985-1990 and there were no such warnings in any of them. Back in the 1980s Dungeons and Dragons was under fire from people who claimed and believed that playing the game lead to drug abuse, detachment from reality, suicide or Satanic Ritual Abuse. The warning given in the new books seems more appropriate to address 1985's concerns rather than 2025's. Their advice to parents seems and increasing the age recommendations is rather backwards, today's 12 and 13 year-olds are far more worldly than they were forty years ago. (Their page for Transdimensional Redux contains the curious statement "Old school gamers will find a system that is familiar and nostalgic guaranteed to delight your inner 12-year-old child.")
Back in the later 1980s, as the 1987 Cartoon was gaining popularity, Palladium had no such concerns with advertising TMNT & OS to children. Its ads ran in issues of Archie Comics' TMNT Adventures from 1988-1990. It had ditched the insanity and drug addiction rules from the Original Edition to silence parents complaints but otherwise made no concessions to the younger crowd. The Revised Edition still had this eyebrow raising sentence in Michaelangelo's Personal Profile: "In many ways he is the hedonist and a sensualist, appreciative of pleasures of the flesh." That sentence got cut from the Redux Edition.
The second and final sentence reads "The weapons and scenarios in this game may have unfortunately grown more prevalent in today's society than they were in 1985 - their role in this game is reflective of their use when the book was originally printed." I am not sure what this is supposed to mean. At first it implies that today's world is more violent. If that is the case then why include a sentence which seems to apologize for reprinting books from a less violent world? Is this a statement of regret for any role they may have played in making the world more violent? Apologia included in modern reprintings of old work is commonplace these days (when the work is not rewritten by "sensitivity readers", they would have a field day with these). It is rather hypocritical if a publisher feels the need to apologize for their work but still wants you to buy it anyway. This sort of thing is not exactly rare but it still annoys me whenever I see it.
I suspect the reason for these warnings' presence may be influenced by the place in which TMNT stands in the popular culture. TMNT is controlled by Nickelodeon (Paramount), which produces entertainment for children. TMNT is as focused as a child-friendly brand today as it has ever been. The TV shows Rise of the TMNT, and Tales of the TMNT and the TMNT: Mutant Mayhem movie all skew young. Currently there is a YouTube short series called "Teeny Mutant Ninja Turtles" being given regular episode releases. If you want more mature Turtles, you can only find them currently in the comics with series like "The Last Ronin" (which had a planned film adaptation canceled). Even the 2012 TMNT show had its heavier moments but we do not see many of those today outside of the printed form. The raising of the suggested playing level and the warning may have been imposed by Nickelodeon as a condition of approving the books.
Artwork
These books when originally released had a lot of spot artwork in them, several full-page illustrations and three had backup stories. The Redux editions have even more artwork. Each book has a section in the back with over a dozen new full color illustrations. Mirage-era artists, including Lawson, Lavigne, Dan Berger and Eric Talbot all contributed pieces. Kevin Siembieda, head of Palladium and designer of the Palladium RPG Megaversal system with which TMNT & OS is compatible, is no mean artist in his own right and has a few contributions here. People who contributed to the IDW TMNT comic such as Sophie Campbell, Freddie E. Williams II and Fero Pe are represented here. Larry Elmore, famous for his TSR D&D work, added a piece. Ciro Nieli, the showrunner for the 2012 TMNT cartoon, has art included. Lavigne's piece (probably inspired by Return of the Jedi) might be my favorite, Fugitoid never gets as much attention as he deserves. The new art is first-rate and definitely a strong reason to buy these books.
The covers are newly drawn (Williams) and colored (Michael Majestic) but reinterpretations of the original covers for TMNT & OS and Transdimensional TMNT. Eastman's original 1985 cover work is iconic but he would improve as a cover artist (as shown with his covers for First Comics color TMNT graphic novels). Long's work on the original Transdimensional, Truckin' and Hollywood covers are so accomplished that they would be difficult to top. Williams and Majestic wisely decide not to try to compete with Long's acrylic paints and go for a more comic-book style instead. Eastman (TMNT & OS Redux) and Campbell (Transdimensional Redux) did covers for the Kickstarter Exclusive Variants, Eastman (pencils) and Laird (inks) did the covers for the Mutagen Green Foil Stamped Cover Editions (also Kickstarter exclusive) and do I wish I could afford those!
Much of the artwork included inside the books outside of the galleries at the end was original to the books which were published from 1985-1990. This artwork was fully colorized for the main release of these books. My feelings on colorization of what were originally black and white illustrations are mixed. If the color was applied by the original artist and close to the artwork's generation, then I am all for it. The artwork for TMNT & OS, Adventures! and Guide was done by Eastman and Laird (and Brown for two of the strips). If one of them or Lavigne colored that artwork back in the 1980s (in the days before Photoshop) I would have loved to see it.
Back in the 1980s, Laird and Eastman drew their line art on a special kind of paper board sold by a company called Ohio Graphics Arts Systems/Grafix under the brand name "DuoShade." This board was specially manufactured so that the paper had two patterns in it which were not readily visible to the naked eye. By applying special chemical toners the artists could produce a lighter or a darker pattern to simulate grayscale with a more painterly quality than was possible with screentones physically cut and adhered to over line art. Before applying the toner chemicals Eastman and Laird would typically photocopy their artwork after inking it to preserve the possibility of applying color to it. DuoShade and paint do not mix well. Over the ensuing decades these photocopies may have been lost or sold.
With the colorization in these volumes, DuoShade printed art rather than photocopied line art appears to have been used. Hopefully Palladium kept the original photostatic negatives that were used to construct their books to obtain the sharpest base images. Color was applied digitally. IDW did the same thing when it colorized Mirage TMNT stories, but one thing Majestic did (and IDWs colorists did not do) was to erase most of the DuoShade toning before applying color. Sometimes DuoShade toning is kept but the area has been blended so the alternating line pattern is no longer discernable. This makes the colorization appear more natural, but at times I detail and character was lost compared to the original black and white DuoShaded versions. The colorized art feels "polished", but I grew up with "gritty." The Turtles have been given their unique mask colors (blue, red, orange and purple) when colorized. The black white and red versions retain more of the DuoShade but sometimes add in some extra gray tone not present in the old books.
The short stories previously included in the first three original books have been colorized for the new Redux Edition as well as the three pages from TMNT #1 included in TMNT & OS explaining the Turtles' origin. "Don't Judge a Book" and "New York Ninja" were previously colorized in Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Classics, Volume 1. TMNT #1 has been colorized on three separate occasions. These pages are printed on black-bordered paper as opposed to white bordered paper on the other pages of the book apart from the art galleries. The color choices are very bold and very saturated, making IDWs efforts look restrained by comparison. Majestic does add some nice extra touches, like Michaelangelo's face paint when he wears his clown costume in "Don't Judge a Book" and has an excellent eye for light and color effects. Sometimes he goes a bit overboard such as drawing red borders around Leonardo when he is taking out the burglars in that story. Luis Antonio Delgado handled the coloring for the spot illustrations in Transdimensional Adventures and took a slightly more restrained approach which preserves the original inks a little more sharply.
The Shredder was given statistics twice, the first time in TMNT & OS and the second time in Turtles Go Hollywood! With TMNT & OS Redux, which includes the material from both books, he appears twice. Turtles Go Hollywood! also gave statistics for Foot Ninja for the first time, as they were also added after The Shredder's entry in TMNT & OS, they are also featured twice in the same book. The entries are nearly identical (The Shredder's were less so in the original books.)
It should be observed the descriptions for the characters from TMNT & OS which were not newly added to this addition have not changed significantly since 1985. This means that April still runs the Second Time Around shop, Casey is nearly psychotic when it comes to criminals, the Shredder suffered his first death and Baxter Stockman is awaiting trial for his robbery and extortion schemes involving the mousers.
Changes from the Prior Edition
Those purchasing TMNT & OS expecting a brand new RPG or one as revised as D&D 3rd Edition was from AD&D 2nd Edition are bound to be disappointed. The changes are closer to AD&D from 1st Edition to 2nd Edition or D&D 5th Edition to 2024 Edition. The first four books were written by the late Erick Wujick from 1985-89 and his name is still listed as the author of these 2025 editions (with additional credit for Truckin' & Hollywood given inside TMNT & OS Redux.) I would estimate that 80-90% of the original books' text has been retained. Wujick's conversational, idiosyncratic prose has for the most part not been lost. Sean Owen Robertson, the project lead for the Redux Editon, supplemented the work in various places, tweaked various statistics in several places, modernized some elements such as skills and equipment but the core of the game system remains Palladium Megaversal-based.
The Megaversal system had approached AD&D in popularity, especially during the 1990s when Palladium achieved its greatest success with its Rifts RPG. Today the company has a small but loyal following and many detractors. How many people have bought TMNT & OS Redux for the nostalgia or for the artwork versus how many people would play it as an RPG is a real question.
In terms of changes, they start quickly but are not as significant as you might expect. Movement rules have added measurements for use with miniature figures. It should be observed that none of these books contain maps unlike a D&D module, The Palladium Megaversal system is much more of a "theater of the mind" style of RPGing compared to the more wargaming-like approach of D&D. Speed no longer gives a dodge bonus. Several new mutation-candidate animals, such as salamanders and ferrets are available. Aquatic animals like Octopi and Sharks can now be evolved. A section on creating new animal characters was omitted.
Skills categories have been renamed from Scholastic and Secondary Skills to Professional and Amateur Skills. Most of the skills remain the same but some have been consolidated or renamed. Skill programs have been eliminated, instead characters are free to choose skills from any category as their background allows. All characters start off with certain basic academic and athletic skills and perception. The skills all use a uniform advancement of 5% per level and all start at a percentage base ending in 0 or 5. You can acquire a new Amateur Skill at certain levels. Skills are now capped at 95% instead of 98%. (With a skill check, rolling under the percentile means success, rolling over equals failure.) However these changes were not reflected in many of the skills assigned to the characters in the adventures and from the comics.
Equipment sees the most from modernization. Shields, both made out of old-fashioned and modern materials are introduced. Glock 17s and AR-15s get the 9mm semi-auto and 5.56 assault rifle entries. The non-weapon equipment section has been mostly rewritten to reflect changes in technologies and tastes in the forty years since the game was first published. Laptops, smartphones, GPS location trackers and tasers take the place of items like 35mm cameras, bumper beepers, ground sensors and telephone scramblers. Sometimes prices have been adjusted for inflation, other times not.
The method of awarding experience has not changed significantly. It is re-emphasized in an expanded table that experience points rewarded are based on actions taken during an adventure much more so than victory in combat. Heroic and selfless conduct may earn experience but fighting to impress or cause trouble does not. The system encourages creating crime fighting teams, not amoral mercenaries.
Combat has not seen drastic change. A welcome new section has been added on movement and other actions one can take in a combat round, as all characters now have at least two actions they can take during a 15-second round. The basic system of attack and dodge rolls, armor ratings, structural damage capacity and hit points remains in place. More varied combat actions like holds, tackles and disarming are given procedures beyond the wrestling skill given in prior Editions. All unarmed strikes do the same damage.
The organization of the rules various sections is improved. Attributes leads to animal selection then to origins, mutation and abilities (including psionics). The animal descriptions come next followed by alignment, skills and equipment. The section on experience comes before the Don't Judge a Book comic, followed by combat, recovery from damage, (from here this Edition follows the previous Editions) advice on game mastering, constructing your own scenarios and the adventure scenarios included in the book. The source material for the TMNT comes at the end of the book.
In other books changes were minimal for the most part. One exception is the aircraft and space vehicle and combat rules in Guide, these were completely reorganized and substantially revised. Instead of a paper atlas, Truckin' recognizes that services such as Google Maps can serve the same purpose. Transdimensional originally had sections covering differing skill systems of TMNT & OS Original Edition and TMNT & OS Revised Edition, the Redux Edition substitutes its own skill system and adds some new skills. The other Dimension Possibilities explored in other Palladium Books has been revised to outline the current lineup of available Palladium RPGs (no Robotech.)
The rules on how magic is supposed to be used in combat are omitted in the Redux Edition. There is an errata PDF covering both books on Palladium's website. Palladium is still selling First Printings of these books and there will not be Second Printings, so these fixes (like Michaelangelo's number of Actions per Round) will need to be referred to by this document. Unfortunately the errata document does not address the Spell Combat omission.
The errata presents an even newer version of the Sparrow Eagles, the original test characters from when Wujick was playtesting the game, than that contained in the Redux book. The other test character from the prior Editions of TMNT & OS, Fred Hamster, is also included alongside a new character called Ferreterick (Ferret + Erick). There is also a character sheet which can be downloaded and filled in from Palladium's site (same link given in the previous paragraph).
Testimonials and Conclusion
The last aspect of these books which deserves a comment is the wealth of background material and testimonials included in each. Siembieda traces the development of the game and shares amusing anecdotes. (The one about his daughter's choice of Halloween costume in 1987 was charming.) Eastman included a forward in Transdimensional Redux reminiscing about the work he and Laird did on the game. I have cited their written contributions on several occasions for my own in-progress work.
TMNT & OS has had quite the influence judging by the people who wrote essays included in these books, it helped inspire careers and creativity. They read with genuine affection not just for TMNT but the RPG as well. In addition to yours truly, a lot of actually talented and accomplished people were first introduced to RPGs (and some to TMNT) through TMNT & OS. One writer related a story of playing a game of TMNT (as ordered by his commanding officer) on an armored personnel carrier while he was serving in the military. Another budding artist kept sending in TMNT artwork samples to companies who liked what they saw but lost the license to publish TMNT works just before they could hire him. One of the playtesters confirmed that two of the Sparrow Eagle names (Chirp Yenko, Gorba Chirp) were inspired by leaders of Soviet Russia just for fun (the third, Brown Wing, was inspired by another source).
At 40% off the value of these books cannot be understated. In them you are getting everything related to TMNT and RPGs which has ever been printed. It is significantly more expensive to buy the original books in good quality on eBay. The Redux Edition books are high quality, the rule presentations are better than ever and the new artwork is great. Even if you do not want to play the system you can still crib ideas, adapt adventure scenarios and take heroes and villains from it. While they may not offer as much of a slice of late 1980s RPGing, they still preserve the spirit of the original books and rules.
Unfortunately its impact today is muted. It does not (Google) trend anywhere near D&D or even its competitors like Pathfinder, Daggerheart, Draw Steel or Shadowdark. It even usually gets beaten out by Old School Essentials, (which started out as) a clone of B/X D&D. Not many people are playing this game, despite the popularity of TMNT as a franchise. They are not running this game often at RPG conventions. One cannot blame Palladium for not renewing their license, these books were no doubt expensive to manufacture and the tariffs must have had an impact on Palladium's profits. Buy it while you still can at in-print prices if you are interested in playing the TMNT or modern mutant animal RPG.
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