Comments on: The Pros and Cons of Fudge

By: bf

bf — Wed, 17 Jan 2007 13:45:10 +0000

try fate at faterpg.com, which gets rid of the granularity and the attributes by only leaving skills. i highly recomand a read of the pdf

By: Michael Orton

Michael Orton — Tue, 14 Mar 2006 14:47:15 +0000

Yep, in truth there cannot be one universal RPG system for all genres.
In my experience Champions was (and I presume still is) the best system for the Superhero genre: I remember rolling a 30d6 power neutralisation attack to stop a fireball taking out Big Ben and the Houses of Parliament. Rolling that many dice does show just how over the top that genre is.
However, at lower levels “The Hero System”, as the generic version is called, doesn’t work as well as many other sets of RPG mechanics.

By: Amadan

Amadan — Sun, 05 Mar 2006 08:13:23 +0000

Yup, it's still available here: http://www.amadan.org/Innomine/IN-Fudge.htm

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Sat, 04 Mar 2006 20:07:18 +0000

I’ve long since given up finding the ‘one true system’, and recognise system is just a tool to do a job. Saying that, Fudge seems to work pretty well for most things I’ve tried it with; the one thing it doesn’t do is detailed tactical combat, where you’re better off with GURPS or even (cough) d20.

Didn’t you do a Fudge In Nomine conversion once?

By: Amadan

Amadan — Fri, 03 Mar 2006 23:49:15 +0000

I’ve done Fudge implementations of several settings, and run a few Fudge games. For a game with basically normal people, Fudge works fine, but for other settings I always seem to wind up switching back to a more “specialized” system that is less granular and has rules specifically geared towards the setting.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 21:59:27 +0000

>>Adjectives are not useful measures of ability.

Oh yes they are, provided you choose appropriate ones.

>> How good is “Great”? Is it better or worse than “Expert”, “Master” or “Legendary”. If you are going to put these keywords in an order, why not just use numbers?

Perhaps some people find it easier to think in worse than in numbers?

>>There are people for whom the fight sequence is the whole point of the game.

And there are people for whom it isn’t. I’m one of them.

>> These are the sort of people who like “Swashbuckler”. (Anyone else remember that series of games which came out in album covers with the boards printed on the back?) And this is the reason I’ve only tried Fudge once, a long time ago: it is not suitable for that sort of world.

I don’t get the point your trying to make. If you really, really like games like Star Fleet Battles or Advanced Squad Leader then Fudge is possibly not the game for you. I personally find complex tactical combat systems a completely different beast from roleplaying, and get bored with any RPG where a combat seems to take forever to resolve. YMMV, of course.

>>Why do you need special dice for Fudge?

You don’t; you can play Fudge using d6s. But it’s just a lot more fun with proper Fudge dice.

By: Michael Orton

Michael Orton — Thu, 02 Mar 2006 13:04:08 +0000

I don’t have time to read the sites Tim links to, but I must take issue with some of the observations Tim makes here.

Adjectives are not useful measures of ability. How good is “Great”? Is it better or worse than “Expert”, “Master” or “Legendary”. If you are going to put these keywords in an order, why not just use numbers?

There are people for whom the fight sequence is the whole point of the game. These are the sort of people who like “Swashbuckler”. (Anyone else remember that series of games which came out in album covers with the boards printed on the back?) And this is the reason I’ve only tried Fudge once, a long time ago: it is not suitable for that sort of world.

I agree that there is a problem with Attributes and Skills. I now prefer the system adopted by the people I played RPGs with most: no attributes, no skills, just abilities. It doesn’t make any difference if you open a door by brute strength, find weekness and a gentle tap, casting a Knock spell, or throw togther an arrangement of levers: the ability to open a door with a certain level of probability costs the same.

Why do you need special dice for Fudge?