14 March 2024

Reading Sherpa in Public

It seems I may have participated in the last (loosely) organized observation of Read an RPG Book in Public Week as there have been no updates to the site since 2018 and no updates to the Facebook group since 2020. It was winding down even before the global pandemic, and that's a pity. It was a nice tradition.

Incidentally, the last time I participated (on 11 March 2018), I photographed myself holding a copy of Steffan O'Sullivan's second masterpiece, Sherpa, at the original Tim Horton's in Hamilton, Ontario. My wife and I were in Canada to see Brent Butt doing stand-up comedy, and we always make a point of stopping at two places whenever we are in the area: the original Tim Horton's and The Mule (home of the best tacos I've ever tasted).

Never travel without your Sherpa.

Gordon Cooper holding a copy of the Sherpa RPG at Tim Horton's in Hamilton, Ontario.

24 February 2024

Fudging Blades

"Fudging Blades: Swashbuckling Combat for Fudge!" (from SpiritMusketeer's Blog) is a simple swashbuckling combat system for Fudge by Thijs Krijger and Jay Shaffstall with help from François Letarte. It lacks the detail of simulationist fencing rules, but it appears to be relatively fast-paced. It looks promising.

[This article has been cross-posted here in Theoretical Swashbuckling.]

04 February 2024

The Difficulty with Difficulty Levels

Once upon a time, a commonly heard complaint about Fudge amongst those who enjoyed writing about it in the Fudge List (an Internet mailing list of longish ago) was that it was counterintuitive for difficulty levels to use the Fudge trait ladder. Why, they opined, would someone say a task has a Good difficulty (for instance)? It sounds wrong, they insisted.

I addressed this issue in 2010 in an article entitled "Why Is It Difficult?" (originally posted in Fudgerylog, the blog connected to my no-longer-extant site Fudgery.net; reposted in Creative Reckoning in 2018). My view has not changed on the matter, but in case there are those who just cannot accept it, I can think of one acceptable alternative chart of difficulty levels.

Behold!

Difficulty LevelAlternative Term
SuperbVery High
GreatHigh
GoodModerately High
FairModerate
MediocreModerately Low
PoorLow
TerribleVery Low

This way, instead of saying "The task has a Good difficulty" (their strange phrasing) or "The task has a difficulty level of Good" (my superior phrasing) or "Jumping the chasm has a minimum success level of Good" (also one of mine), one could say, "The task is of Moderately High difficulty," which everyone will instinctively know (I assume) requires at least a Good result to accomplish.

Now, is that difficult?

17 January 2024

The Princess Bride: A Literal Fudge Gift

The Princess Bride Roleplaying Game (deluxe edition).

Lo and behold! We celebrated a belated Christmas at my father-in-law's house this month, and my wife's brother and sister-in-law gave me this as a gift! I can now strike off "Purchase [or otherwise acquire] a copy of The Princess Bride Roleplaying Game (deluxe edition)" from my nonbinding New Year's resolutions! Everyone expressed great interest in at as well as a desire to play it, so I think I had better reacquaint myself with the source material so I can present it to best effect. I am very grateful for this gift, and I look forward to reading it, playing it, and sharing my discoveries and experiences here in Creative Reckoning.

Happy Various Belated Holidays!

Note: The Princess Bride Roleplaying Game by Steffan O'Sullivan is a Fudge-based role-playing game published by Toy Vault.

14 January 2024

Let the Dice Fall Where They May

[The following article is a predecessor to "It Matters Who Rolls."]

Dice in any game contribute suspense. Your strategy may appear flawless, but dice represent the fickle finger of Fate that tends to poke you in the eye just when victory is in sight. On the other hand, it can also point the way to safety just when you think all hope is lost. In a role-playing game, dice are the element of chance that is the great equalizer between the GM and the players. For the GM, dice are both a limitation and a liberation. The GM already bears the burden of describing a world and all the inhabitants the players encounter. When the dice are rolled, however, there is no such burden except to describe the results. Here is where the GM gets to participate like a player, where events in the world the GM created can be influenced by an external neutral force. For those GMs who rarely get the opportunity to be players, this is where they, too, can watch events unfold from a non-omniscient point of view.

In order for this dynamic to work, it is necessary for the dice to be rolled in the open. That is to say, the dice ought to be rolled in full view of the players and the GM. Certain kinds of rolls would still be made secretly by the GM, such as a percentage chance of a certain event or encounter happening or when a player character attempts a skill for which success is not readily discernible (e.g. searching for a secret door or detecting a trap), but rolls that represent a contest between characters or a character and the environment should be visible to all participants in the situation.

One problem this alleviates is distrust by the players. If a player can see the GM's roll, he or she knows that the GM is not fudging rolls for the players' benefit or detriment. Although some GMs are suspected of fudging rolls in favor of their NPCs or monsters, I suspect many more are actually guilty of fudging rolls in favor of the players because they do not wish to be too harsh. I suspect this because I was one of those GMs in my early days in the hobby. Mollycoddling players does them no good in the long run. You may think you are helping them, but in actuality you deprive them of the true taste of victory when they succeed if you withhold the bitterness of defeat when they fail. You are also obstructing their growth as gamers.

Any given dice-rolling tradition is probably as old as any other. Some GMs roll in the open; some roll in secret; some let the players roll, but never tell them the target number; some even roll for the players, too. Different groups have different needs. My needs, both as a GM and a player, require that I get to roll dice and let them fall where they may.

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 27 December 2011.]

13 January 2024

Card-Based Action Resolution for Sherpa

This article is intended for use with Sherpa, a role-playing game by Steffan O'Sullivan published by Two Tigers Games. Access to Sherpa is necessary to utilize these rules.

Card-Based Action Resolution is an alternative to the stopwatch-based Action Resolution, p. 12 in the Sherpa rules.

Preparation: Take a standard deck of cards. Remove all Jokers and face cards. Shuffle the remaining cards. Place one Joker at the bottom of the deck.

Execution: Whenever it is necessary to generate a random number, draw the top card, read the number, and place it at the bottom of the deck.

Reshuffle: When you draw the Joker card, remove it, shuffle the deck, and replace it at the bottom of the deck. Return to Execution.

Note: Using this method, the GM can easily show the players the result of an action. In an opposed action, the GM can retain both cards for comparison until it is resolved.

08 January 2024

Reviewing Reviews

There is a debate amongst some in the hobby—if not the industry—whether a review of a role-playing game is legitimate if the reviewer did not first play or run the game. The crux of the problem is this: Is it the game or the product that is being reviewed? Take chess for instance. One could review the rules of the game and the experience it produces as an activity, or one could review the physical components of the game such as the board and the pieces. Most role-playing game reviewers rely heavily on the latter because there is the added complexity that no two groups of gamers play exactly the same way. When they do address the rules (as opposed to the details of a rule book such as font, binding, type of paper, or quality/quantity of illustrations), they typically concentrate on how they think they will help or hinder the gameplay. Without experiencing the effect of the rules firsthand, they can only theorize whether a given rule is good or even necessary. And this will vary from gaming group to gaming group. One group might respond favorably to a game in which each player controls multiple characters whereas another might find it a nuissance. One group might consider an initiative rule to be novel and entertaining whereas another group might find it too time-consuming. All reviews are subjective. It is in their nature. I would merely suggest that reviewers draw a distinct line between a review of a role-playing game as a product versus a review of the same as an experience, because both are valid. Sometimes a rule looks better on paper than in practice, and sometimes the rules as written work better than you could have imagined. Too often I have made assumptions about a rule only to be proven mistaken at the game table. The proof is in the actual play. You can a) review the game itself, b) review just the physical product, or c) review the product and speculate about how it might work at the table. Just be clear about your approach.

[This article has been cross-posted here in Applied Phantasticality.]

02 January 2024

Some Nonbinding Resolutions for the Year 2024

I have heard no news regarding Fudge and the Open Game Licence controversy since January 2023, and this makes me hesitent to make predictions about the game or, indeed, this blog. So, instead, I will fudge some nonbinding personal resolutions for the New Year. In no particular order, they are as follows:

  • Purchase a copy of The Deryni Adventure Game (as seen here).
  • Purchase a copy of The Eleven Kingdoms: Poster Map of the Deryni World (as seen here).
  • Purchase a copy of The Princess Bride Roleplaying Game (deluxe edition).
  • Experiment with converting some other role-playing games to Fudge (mainly those that have interesting ideas, but terrible rules).
  • Playtest some of my own Fudge builds and make any necessary revisions.
  • Post some art on the blog?
  • Remind myself to stop worrying and just fudge it.

Peace!

05 November 2023

Fudge Points and Your Table

In Fudge, five options are given for the use of Fudge points. The rule states, "Here are some suggested ways to use them—the GM can create her own uses, of course. A GM may allow as few or many of these options as she wishes—the players should ask her before assuming they can do something with Fudge Points."

Immediately, I wonder: How many GMs allow all of the options versus some of the options? How many use only one? How many expand or replace the options with their own? Do they ask for the input of their players? Do they vote on it?

Four or five different options is a bit much to keep in mind, and I have a feeling most players would forget to use them when it would be most advantageous. It's also a thing that removes one from the in-character state, which I would consider a flaw in the system. I think it would be better to limit the use of Fudge points to one or two options in order to better internalize the rule and reduce its out-of-character impact.

Regardless of the number of options used, I think every character sheet ought to have them listed close to the Fudge points entry. The longer the list of options, the more crucial it is to give players a visible reminder.

I welcome any comments on this topic.

20 September 2023

"and Bake for 15 Minutes" Fudge

Over the years, I have been gravitating more and more toward simpler, more streamlined Fudge rules of my own design, and I am always pleased to see others heading in the same direction. Today, I discovered another Fudge variant in line with my preferences entitled "and Bake for 15 Minutes" Fudge. Designed by Doug Bolden, it is based on the concept of "phrases" as the core of character creation. I am always interested in systems that take this approach, and I feel it's worth a playtest.