So, what is the Fudge Roleplaying Game? Since the launch of the Princess Bride Roleplaying Game on Kickstarter a few days ago, there have been more than a few people wondering about this system.
It is a fair question to ask, too. It has been more than a decade since the last major releases for the system from Grey Ghost Press, the owners of the rights to the system. In 2005 Grey Ghost released both the Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition and the Deryni Adventure Game. There have been games released using the rules, but outside of an insular fan community, neither the minor or major releases have grabbed much attention in the larger role-playing market.
The original 1995 draft of the Fudge rules (then known as the acronym for the Freeform Universal Do-It-Yourself Gaming Engine) was little more than the trait ladder, a resolution system (using Fudge dice, or a couple of other options including percentile dice) and the idea that Fudge characters should have attributes, gifts and faults. It wasn't until the 2000 Fudge Expanded Edition was first published by Grey Ghost Press that predetermined lists of attributes, gifts and faults started to coalesce around the 5-Point Fudge rules developed by Fudge creator Steffan O'Sullivan.
Having been a designer for Steve Jackson Games' GURPS ruleset, much of what O'Sullivan's motivation behind creating the Fudge rules looks to have been to create something that had the broad application of the GURPS system, but in a much simpler format. You can see GURPS's advantages and disadvantages in the DNA of Fudge's gifts and flaws. O'Sullivan has stated that it was what he saw as the rigidity of GURPS that caused his dissatisfaction with the system more than complexity of the game. "It really is an elegant game, and most of what is wrong with it has nothing to do with the core rules, which are quite lovely. Obviously, the whole Gift, Fault, Skill thing is a direct descendant of GURPS, fully acknowledged."
The simplicity of games like Prince Valiant (then from Chaosium, now available through Nocturnal Media) and Tunnels and Trolls inspired the simpler approach of Fudge. One thing that both of these games demonstrate is that you don't need a lot of mechanics to make a robust, engaging game.
Fudge also deemphasized much of the mathematics that you encounter in a role-playing game. One of O'Sullivan's ideas behind the development of Fudge was that there would be a better chance of long term retention of people in the role-playing hobby if the games were easier. This is an argument that you can still see in game design today, so it is an idea that obviously appeals to some. Speaking purely from the view of this Liberal Arts educated gamer, less math was and still is definitely appealing to me. It is what drew me to the Fudge rules in the first place. Games like Fudge and Hubris Games' system The Story Engine (which powered games like Maelstrom Storytelling) moved me away from heavier systems like GURPS and onto the path of the games that I play these days.
Fudge was at the right place and at the right time to help with the charge in role-playing games for a number of things. As a self-styled "freeform" game it pushed for a lighter hand on the mechanics of a game, and it came out around the same time as the aforementioned Story Engine, and games like Over The Edge. I used freeform in quotes mostly because its use in the original title of the Fudge rules is a bit of a misnomer (particularly in how the term freeform is used in more contemporary RPGs). The original idea was that the Fudge rules were a toolkit that could be customized to create the exact game that a group wanted. However, Tudge is an awkward name for a game.
Of course, the elephant in the room for any discussion of the Fudge system is Evil Hat's ruleset built off of Fudge's foundations, the Fate system. Where Fudge is proudly pushed as a toolkit that lets groups build the system that fits them best, years of development from the minds at Evil Hat (and the greater Fate community as well) have created a ready-made ruleset that comes with standards and expectations. When you, as a GM, tell the group that you want to run a Fate game, they know that aspects, stunts and other elements will be a part of that game. With a Fudge game you have to specify a lot of variables. Will it use 5-Point Fudge? Or the ASCB version of the game? Perhaps it will use the NAGS Society Worldbook that is still available online as its basis? That is three different approaches to character creation (complete with different attributes, and in the case of ASCB a different approach to attributes), which don't even touch upon a GM creating their own system using the fundamentals of the rules.
The exact greatest strength of the Fudge rules for many (the customizability of the rules) would be its greatest weakness for a lot of others. We know that no role-playing game really pleases everyone, but that lesson is really driven home by the design aspects that were prioritized by O'Sullivan when he designed the Fudge rules.
The Fudge rules have a lot of good things going for them. The main one is probably the Fudge dice used by the game. O'Sullivan, the system's creator, spent a lot of time working out the statistical impact of the dice, and how they interact with a character's skills and attributes. One of his "beefs" with role-playing games, at the time that he was developing the initial Fudge rules, was that many of them didn't let heroic characters be heroic. No matter how competent a character might be, there was always a significant chance of catastrophic failure in a character's actions. O'Sullivan's idea was to come up with a dice mechanic that would put a weight onto rolls that would keep the results close to the rank of the attribute or skill rank, with less of a chance of a catastrophic success or failure. In a way this was almost an early attempt at narrativistic mechanics in a role-playing game, because the mechanics were designed with more of an eye towards mirroring a fictional reality, rather than attempting to model a view of physics or capabilities of characters.
I haven't had a look at the Princess Bride Roleplaying Game, or the project page itself very closely, so I can't comment on what the final design of the rules of the game will be. I can imagine that it will be inspired by the 5-Point Fudge rules, and likely inspired by what O'Sullivan calls VG Fudge on his website. Called by O'Sullivan his "first big change" to the Fudge rules, the primary difference is to the adjective ladder. He took out the bottom "step" to the ladder, in Terrible, and added another "step" between the Good and Great "steps" with Very Good. I think this revisits one of O'Sullivan's early design ideas (as I mention up article) of letting heroic characters be heroic. To me, that would fit in with the setting of The Princess Bride, where characters being larger than life is a big part of the story. We'll see when the game itself comes out.
Although I am more likely to play a Fate game these days, Fudge is still important to me as a game that influenced where I am today as a gamer. Hopefully the Princess Bride Roleplaying Game will give Fudge the credentials to make it ready for prime time among the multitude of role-playing systems that are available out there in the marketplace. I also hope that this means that we will get to see a PDF of the Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition that is readily available from places like OneBookShelf. Because of the book's age, it is increasingly rare to see it on the shelves of a game store (unless it has had a copy since the book came out). Having a PDF would make it easier for more people to get a hold of the rules and use it in their games. We'll see what happens.
One last note: neither Fudge nor Fate are considered to be acronyms any more, so they aren't spelled out in all capitals any longer.
It is a fair question to ask, too. It has been more than a decade since the last major releases for the system from Grey Ghost Press, the owners of the rights to the system. In 2005 Grey Ghost released both the Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition and the Deryni Adventure Game. There have been games released using the rules, but outside of an insular fan community, neither the minor or major releases have grabbed much attention in the larger role-playing market.
The original 1995 draft of the Fudge rules (then known as the acronym for the Freeform Universal Do-It-Yourself Gaming Engine) was little more than the trait ladder, a resolution system (using Fudge dice, or a couple of other options including percentile dice) and the idea that Fudge characters should have attributes, gifts and faults. It wasn't until the 2000 Fudge Expanded Edition was first published by Grey Ghost Press that predetermined lists of attributes, gifts and faults started to coalesce around the 5-Point Fudge rules developed by Fudge creator Steffan O'Sullivan.
Having been a designer for Steve Jackson Games' GURPS ruleset, much of what O'Sullivan's motivation behind creating the Fudge rules looks to have been to create something that had the broad application of the GURPS system, but in a much simpler format. You can see GURPS's advantages and disadvantages in the DNA of Fudge's gifts and flaws. O'Sullivan has stated that it was what he saw as the rigidity of GURPS that caused his dissatisfaction with the system more than complexity of the game. "It really is an elegant game, and most of what is wrong with it has nothing to do with the core rules, which are quite lovely. Obviously, the whole Gift, Fault, Skill thing is a direct descendant of GURPS, fully acknowledged."
The simplicity of games like Prince Valiant (then from Chaosium, now available through Nocturnal Media) and Tunnels and Trolls inspired the simpler approach of Fudge. One thing that both of these games demonstrate is that you don't need a lot of mechanics to make a robust, engaging game.
Fudge also deemphasized much of the mathematics that you encounter in a role-playing game. One of O'Sullivan's ideas behind the development of Fudge was that there would be a better chance of long term retention of people in the role-playing hobby if the games were easier. This is an argument that you can still see in game design today, so it is an idea that obviously appeals to some. Speaking purely from the view of this Liberal Arts educated gamer, less math was and still is definitely appealing to me. It is what drew me to the Fudge rules in the first place. Games like Fudge and Hubris Games' system The Story Engine (which powered games like Maelstrom Storytelling) moved me away from heavier systems like GURPS and onto the path of the games that I play these days.
Fudge was at the right place and at the right time to help with the charge in role-playing games for a number of things. As a self-styled "freeform" game it pushed for a lighter hand on the mechanics of a game, and it came out around the same time as the aforementioned Story Engine, and games like Over The Edge. I used freeform in quotes mostly because its use in the original title of the Fudge rules is a bit of a misnomer (particularly in how the term freeform is used in more contemporary RPGs). The original idea was that the Fudge rules were a toolkit that could be customized to create the exact game that a group wanted. However, Tudge is an awkward name for a game.
Of course, the elephant in the room for any discussion of the Fudge system is Evil Hat's ruleset built off of Fudge's foundations, the Fate system. Where Fudge is proudly pushed as a toolkit that lets groups build the system that fits them best, years of development from the minds at Evil Hat (and the greater Fate community as well) have created a ready-made ruleset that comes with standards and expectations. When you, as a GM, tell the group that you want to run a Fate game, they know that aspects, stunts and other elements will be a part of that game. With a Fudge game you have to specify a lot of variables. Will it use 5-Point Fudge? Or the ASCB version of the game? Perhaps it will use the NAGS Society Worldbook that is still available online as its basis? That is three different approaches to character creation (complete with different attributes, and in the case of ASCB a different approach to attributes), which don't even touch upon a GM creating their own system using the fundamentals of the rules.
The exact greatest strength of the Fudge rules for many (the customizability of the rules) would be its greatest weakness for a lot of others. We know that no role-playing game really pleases everyone, but that lesson is really driven home by the design aspects that were prioritized by O'Sullivan when he designed the Fudge rules.
The Fudge rules have a lot of good things going for them. The main one is probably the Fudge dice used by the game. O'Sullivan, the system's creator, spent a lot of time working out the statistical impact of the dice, and how they interact with a character's skills and attributes. One of his "beefs" with role-playing games, at the time that he was developing the initial Fudge rules, was that many of them didn't let heroic characters be heroic. No matter how competent a character might be, there was always a significant chance of catastrophic failure in a character's actions. O'Sullivan's idea was to come up with a dice mechanic that would put a weight onto rolls that would keep the results close to the rank of the attribute or skill rank, with less of a chance of a catastrophic success or failure. In a way this was almost an early attempt at narrativistic mechanics in a role-playing game, because the mechanics were designed with more of an eye towards mirroring a fictional reality, rather than attempting to model a view of physics or capabilities of characters.
I haven't had a look at the Princess Bride Roleplaying Game, or the project page itself very closely, so I can't comment on what the final design of the rules of the game will be. I can imagine that it will be inspired by the 5-Point Fudge rules, and likely inspired by what O'Sullivan calls VG Fudge on his website. Called by O'Sullivan his "first big change" to the Fudge rules, the primary difference is to the adjective ladder. He took out the bottom "step" to the ladder, in Terrible, and added another "step" between the Good and Great "steps" with Very Good. I think this revisits one of O'Sullivan's early design ideas (as I mention up article) of letting heroic characters be heroic. To me, that would fit in with the setting of The Princess Bride, where characters being larger than life is a big part of the story. We'll see when the game itself comes out.
Although I am more likely to play a Fate game these days, Fudge is still important to me as a game that influenced where I am today as a gamer. Hopefully the Princess Bride Roleplaying Game will give Fudge the credentials to make it ready for prime time among the multitude of role-playing systems that are available out there in the marketplace. I also hope that this means that we will get to see a PDF of the Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition that is readily available from places like OneBookShelf. Because of the book's age, it is increasingly rare to see it on the shelves of a game store (unless it has had a copy since the book came out). Having a PDF would make it easier for more people to get a hold of the rules and use it in their games. We'll see what happens.
One last note: neither Fudge nor Fate are considered to be acronyms any more, so they aren't spelled out in all capitals any longer.
