The
Freeform
Universal
Do-it-yourself
Gaming
Engine
Fudge provides a universal system for role-playing games. It is universal in both senses; it will fit any period or style of game and uses the same mechanics throughout. This isn't at the expense of flexibility though. FUDGE is very tuneable, indeed much of the text of the rules concerns tuning and examples. It is not, then, a system for the novice GM, or someone who needs to refer to The Book for The Answer, but for those who are happy adjusting rules to fit their game.
To give an idea where this review is coming from, I'll tell you how I got FUDGEd. A few years back I found myself at a pre-game get-together where, for lack of anything better to do, we ended up hiring a couple of tacky videos to kill an evening as no one had a game to hand. I decided there that I had to get back into GMing (having shut down my old New Jerusalem campaign some years before). I also decided that a simple game and simple system that I could just pick up and run was essential to avoid boring evenings in front of the TV.
Pyrates was born a little after this. The first game used Pete's Intentionally Simple System. I was looking around for ideas. I'd tried the commercial GURPS for a campaign that didn't quite get off the ground earlier that year. A very good system covering pretty much everything that a game system should, and then some. It was a bit heavyweight for my needs though. Perhaps I would cut it down a bit At about that time (summer '93) I was watching the rec.games.frp newsgroups on the net, saw mention of FUDGE, and gathered that it was a simple universal system. It sounded to be worth a look for its aims and the fact that it was the work of Steffan O'Sullivan of GURPS Swashbucklers and Bunnies & Burrows fame.
I wasn't an instant convert to the Fudge way. It was an interesting read though and it was under development on the net. I used bits of it, posted some comments on the basis of my experiences and generally kept an eye on how the system developed. Along the way I must have said something useful, my name ended up in the credits along with a lot of others (that was a Declaration of Interest, by the way). Pyrates has run something pretty close to vanilla Fudge for just over 18 months now. FUDGE development has continued, with rough corners gradually being rounded off. The latest version is August 95.
The core system is level based. Most things are assessed on a seven level scale running from Superb, through Great, Good, Fair, Mediocre, Poor, down to Terrible. FUDGE is word-based for stylistic and practical reasons. Steffan makes two points: first that saying "I'm a Good swordsman" is far more meaningful than saying "I'm a third level fighter" or "I'm a +3 swordsman" which tells one little about the relative performance of the character and second that the Fudge description intrudes upon role-playing far less than naming numbers. In FUDGE Good is supposed to mean just that - better than average. Superb is far better than almost anyone else (excluding perhaps other players' characters) and Terrible? We'll just draw a veil.
FUDGE uses four three-sided dice by preference, though conversion tables are given for other rolling systems (d%, 3d6, 4d6). The dice are not the 1-3 scale you might expect, but +1, 0, 1. Marking some d6s with two + faces and two faces does nicely (you can buy FUDGE dice too) to give a possible range of results of ±4, which is then applied to the attribute being tested. A +2 result with a Good attribute gives a Superb result and if the required result was only Great, as in "'Twould be a great feat of strength to bend yonder poker in a figure of eight, Messire!" the character has succeeded in the task and succeeded handsomely. Alternatively FUDGE can be diceless if you like that sort of thing - the Superb-Terrible scale gives as good a scale to base adjudications on as the Amber ranking system. Diceless adjudication is recommended anyway for trivial situations where real life experience overrides the system. The dice can give a Terrible skill a chance to beat a Superb on extreme rolls. If this could have a major effect on the plot, roll it. If not, well the system is not sacrosanct in roleplaying. The GM is expected to fudge sometimes, of course.
And there you have the majority of the system. The rest of the FUDGE rules are amplifications and practical examples. Generally there are at least two alternative levels of detail proposed, Subjective and Objective, the former being more rule-of-thumb generalisation while the latter is a little more orientated to point counting. As well as the levels of detail there is consideration given throughout the rules to different styles of game, from realistic to cinematic, in the tips and examples.
FUDGE has seven chapters.
The first is Character Creation, introducing FUDGE terminology and the Superb-Terrible scale before attending to attributes and skills. The main point about these is there are no absolutely required attributes (strength, health) or skills (sword, sorcery). There are a lot of suggestions as to what you might like to consider in breadth and depth and quite a comprehensive list of possible skills, but no integration into a typical set suitable for a particular genre. It is up to the gamesmaster and players to pick a suitable set and define what they cover. As well as skill and attribute FUDGE also allows non-scale (ie not rated SuperbTerrible) traits as gifts and faults. Actual character generation presents three systems, subjective, objective and random. The final section, importantly in such a loose system, is entitled Minimizing Abuse. Nothing exciting, just pointing out the usual GM techniques for keeping player characters under control, but overall FUDGE expects cooperation between GM and player rather than confrontation.
Chapter two separates off Supernormal Powers from mundane character creation. Supernormal is defined as powers beyond those of human beings as we know them. The main headings are magic, miracles, cybernetics, comic book superpowers and scale. These are discussed in general terms for the purposes of character generation, however no magic, etc, systems are provided at this point.
Except for Scale. Scale is different to the other supernormal traits as it may come into play in the normal course of mundane play. The core FUDGE scale is based on human abilities. To rate a tank's or a dragon's strength on the same scale as a man is difficult with only seven levels, so a Scale modifier is applied, leaving tanks and dragons rated TerribleSuperb relative to others of their kind but with an overwhelming Scale difference to modify encounters with a human.
After the detailed treatment of the considerations of scale the chapter goes back to the truly supernormal and discusses what needs to be considered in designing magic and other such systems.
Action Resolution is covered in chapter three. Dice rolling systems, d%, various d6, the preferred dFUDGE system and types of roll, unopposed actions, opposed actions, degree of success and the like are covered, with some ideas on implementing a critical result system.
Following on from general action resolution chapter four goes into detail of applying this to Combat. It is the longest chapter in FUDGE and presents numerous variations on combat systems, with lots of examples optional rules and alternative methods. Any GM wanting to use FUDGE will need to read this chapter through carefully and pick the combat system elements that best fits the game to be run. Some of the variations covered are Story Element combat ("You charge the guns at the head of the Light Brigade. Roll to see if you get to the other end of the valley"), Melee Rounds (simultaneous or alternate) with combat options, modifiers, wounds, weapons and finally, fortunately, healing.
Chapter five gets though Character Development in a couple of pages with a skill improvement table and some words on training. This is the end of the core FUDGE. All the 'rules' have been covered.
So chapter six, Tips and Examples covers questions of conversion for those too slow to work out that a FUDGE Superb corresponds to an 18 on a 3d6 scale and so on. This is followed by some ASCII-Art character sheets then several pages of example characters (mainly added for the requirements of the commercially printed version) and sample creatures. Even equipment can be rated in FUDGE terms of course so there are a couple of magic swords and a spaceship as examples.
Chapter seven is the Addenda. In the standard FUDGE this gives sample Magic, Miracle and Psi systems (the magic system is particularly neat and worth a look in its own right). These are not The FUDGE Magic System, just a magic system in FUDGE. Anyone who wants to can write their own, and publish it too, provided they keep it in Chapter Seven. Other alternatives provided in the addenda are more character creation rules, diceless FUDGE, more thoughts on combat options, wound recording mechanisms etc.
The pros of FUDGE are quick to list while the cons take several paragraphs, but that is more a sign that the rules are right in broad terms while the problems need a lot of explaining. The advantages:
Which conveniently brings us to the disadvantages. The dice have been a bit of a problem in FUDGE. It has progressed through various 2d6 systems to the current recommended 4dF. None of these have been greeted enthusiastically by the majority of my players, perhaps because there is a strong undercurrent of disdain for any systems not using d10/d20, preferably as d%. Myself I had strong doubts about the dF when it was first proposed, but to my surprise counting the four dice for the ± total and applying it to the level is quick enough for me - and I regard any form of mental arithmetic in the rolling process with strong suspicion, preferring to read two d10s as a percentage, tolerating 2d6 as I pattern-recognise rather than count spots, with increasing difficulty experienced down through 2d10 and 3d6, the other dice I've suffered over the years. Nonetheless, my feelings aside, most of the older generation of my players fell on the d% to FUDGE conversion table with glee
Some of FUDGE's strengths are also its weaknesses. Its simplicity, particularly the seven levels from Terrible to Superb constrain systems quite tightly. Combat and character progression suffer particularly from this limitation. Combat, or any system that attempts detail in FUDGE, quickly runs into the huge difference that a one point skill modifier makes. While half or quarter point modifiers could solve the problem the underlying assumption of simple whole-number/level systems is against this, though a fudge to the level system suggested as an aside in the rules allows for a split into level-plus, level, and level-minus in certain areas. Extended 10 or 12 level FUDGE varients have been discussed but face a couple of related problems, first in thinking up level names and then in keeping them in order. One of the reasons for the choice of seven levels was probably (I speculate) the human interface and usability research finding that the average person can keep seven things straight in short term memory
Character progression and experience can be a problem because there are only a limited number of levels in a skill/attribute. This is exacerbated by the lower levels not always being available - easy skills may start at Mediocre, it is suggested, which is only four steps from Superb, while only very difficult ones start at Terrible. If you make the design decisions I did and have a limited number of broad skills in your campaign you risk seeing character skills topping out. In the objective experience system it takes around 18 experience points to get to Superb in a given skill, while suggested experience rate is 1-3 points per session. I've run around 90 sessions of Pirates (three player groups) with characters having about 10 skills. I'm continually cutting back the experience awarded. FUDGE is not primarily designed with long term campaigning in mind, I suspect. This is not a fundamental flaw once you are aware of it. You can tune the number of skills/experience rate or whatever, it is a consequence of flexbility. The rules are not, cannot be, guaranteed to integrate perfectly all combinations chosen.
A related problem is the objective character generation system. It uses a point system for character building, not linked to the objective experience system. This allows you to generate useful characters for scenario/short campaign play, but should be modified heavily by anyone intending a long term game. FUDGE rules suggest a lot of player-gm interaction in the character building process to limit excesses that can occur, but who has time when three people a creating characters and another three are demanding attention to unfinished business from last week?
These problems are nitpicks, born of my implementation of a FUDGE campaign. Make different choices, choose a different style and you'll avoid my problems. You may find your own but that's freedom for you. Like me, you'll be able to fudge round them.
If you have net access FUDGE is available via anonymous ftp from:
Site: oz.plymouth.edu
Directory: pub/fudge
The FUDGE Frequently Asked Questions are at:
There is also a Fudge mailing list: FUDGE-L. To subscribe to the list, send mail to
majordomo@southwind.net
with a message body of
subscribe fudge-l
The FUDGE mailing list FAQ and FTP links to official archives can be found at:
The terribly unfashionable and netless can get it from:
Grey Ghost Games
P.O. Box 838
Randolph, MA 02368
"The August, 1995, version is a 104-page paperback book including the basic rules and the addenda which costs $12 plus shipping ($3 in the USA, $4 in Canada, $6 elsewhere). It is illustrated, but only with copyright-free clip art, so the book can be photocopied legally. Formats available: softcover perfect bound book, and on disk. Disk formats available: ASCII (text-only) files on IBM 5.25", IBM 3.5"; Mac 3.5"."