Random Attribute Generation for Fudge

Sometimes it is more fun to let chance dictate the attributes of a player character or non-player character rather than settling for default trait levels. Fudge has its own official suggestions for Random Character Creation with attributes generated via 2d6. Having started the hobby with the Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set and Expert Set c. 1981, however, I have a preference for the values generated via 3d6. This would yield the following results:

3d6	Fudge
18	Superb
16-17	Great
13-15	Good
9-12	Fair
6-8	Mediocre
4-5	Poor
3	Terrible

This is fine for standard Fudge, but if mediocrity is the baseline, I think the following might be more useful:

3d6	Fudge
18	Superb
16-17	Great
13-15	Good
11-12	Fair
6-10	Mediocre
4-5	Poor
3	Terrible

The Baseline Is Mediocrity

In standard Fudge, the default trait levels for attributes and skills are Fair and Poor respectively, but I ask you: Are most people really of Fair intelligence, physical fitness, or charm? Or are they, in fact, Mediocre? Fair can generally be assumed to mean "good enough," but in my observations of the world, I think it's more accurate to say that the general pattern of human behavior is Mediocre, or "needs improvement." "Good enough" is rarely achieved without effort or luck. Mediocrity, in reality, is the baseline.

If the baseline of attributes truly is Mediocre, can the same be said of skills? Skills are a more complex matter as their difficulty varies, and I doubt there is any system that can accurately reflect all the factors involved in measuring them, so I think it is more useful to frame the question not in terms of what is most realistic, but rather what is more consistent with the genre or medium of inspiration. The baseline of skills in a fictional work tends to be Mediocre or Nonexistent. Either a character has no chance of practising a skill, or the character can just muddle through with a possibility of doing well enough to pass for success. A trait level of Poor or Terrible is reserved for those who have a notable deficiency beyond the human average.

If both attributes and skills have the same default trait level of Mediocre, what is the point of differentiating them? In my opinion, there is none. I fold them both into plain traits or descriptors. Others, however, may prefer to distinguish between the two in terms of how they are acquired and the method by which they can be improved. At any rate, I think Mediocre is the proper baseline. It reduces unnecessary complexity and facilitates more interesting play. And it does so without altering the standard trait ladder. Just drop the average by one rung. Problem solved.

On Fudge Points and Character Development

There is a variety of ways to handle Fudge points and character development and whether there is a relationship between the two, and I think I have settled on a perfect balance for my own games. First, they are separate. They do not influence one another in any fashion. Second, I minimize the bookkeeping. Any meta-rule I can live without is happily jettisoned.

Fudge points are handled, for the most part, in the standard manner. They are first acquired at character creation and then awarded at the end of a session, but I may also award them during the session if circumstances are appropriate (such as the accomplishment of a particularly daring deed). They may be spent or saved at the player's discretion.

For character development, I opt for the subjective method, which requires no tracking of experience points. Additionally, I allow development through training.

Why am I writing about this? Because I know there is a temptation to create a tension between Fudge points and experience, to make them one and the same or to allow players to spend one in order to purchase the other, but I think it overcomplicates the game and blurs the distinctions in an unhelpful way. Fudge points at their best are a fun way to use a resource to pull off impossible feats or narrow escapes. Subjective character development is an organic way to improve a character without resorting to out-of-character considerations. I can perceive no good reason to link them. And that is how I have decided to handle it henceforth.

Locational Wound Tracks

The wound system in Fudge has always fluctuated — for me — between too much and too little, and I have tinkered with it in many different ways over the years. (One of which, dealing with pulp cliffhangers, has been lost to the Internet Void.) Now, I am grasping once again for that elusive perfect wound system. Will this one meet my needs?

I am calling this method Locational Wound Tracks. Whenever an opponent is successfully struck, the location is noted whether by called shot, random determination, or a default target area (such as the torso). Each location has its own wound track. For the sake of simplicity, the locations are left leg, right leg, left arm, right arm, torso, and head. Damage (and its effect) is applied normally, but for that location only. If, for example, the right arm is Hurt, any action requiring the use of the right arm receives a -1 penalty. An Incapacitating wound will render an arm or leg useless, but such a wound to the torso will cause one to collapse and the same wound to the head will cause one to lose consciousness. Near Death wounds will likewise vary in severity and effect depending on the location affected.

The upshot of this is that wounds are not regarded as equal. A wound to the leg will not have exactly the same effect as a wound to the head. The torso is more likely to be armored than the arms. And a combatant might choose to aim a blow at the least protected area of an opponent.

As for healing, one could rule that a successful result on a healing skill heals all wounds the same number of levels, or one could require a separate roll for each wound treated. Healing through rest heals all wounds at the same rate (one wound level per week of rest).

Pertinent rules links

• Wound Levels
• Recording Wounds
• Hit Location

[The above is similar to something I wrote in 2005 (Alternate Hit Location), but I think it's a bit more straightforward and, therefore, easier to implement.]

The Goldilocks of Stat Blocks

Character stat blocks can either instill or kill inspiration. If it's too short, there's too little to work with; if it's too long, one's eyes glaze over and the information is just as useless as if it weren't there. If it's just right, the player can embody the role without constantly referring to the character sheet and the GM can probably derive hooks without much effort.

Getting it just right is the difficulty. I don't wish to publicly mock the winners of the Most Tedious Character Creation Rules or the Most Boring Stat Blocks by name because I know even they have their devoted fans, some of whom are probably friends of mine, but I will say that some games get it right and some can be altered so that they, too, can get it right.

This is just an idle thought, but maybe all a character stat block needs is whatever is most pertinent to what the character will be doing in an adventure. Depending on what an adventure entails in a given role-playing game, the player ought to list only those things a character might reasonably be expected to do as well as anything else necessary to convincingly portray the character.

Some game designers, aware of this conundrum, limit the range of skills a character may have to just those that are relevant to a typical adventure. Zorro: The Roleplaying Game is an excellent example of a game perfectly pruned to the essentials. Few games are as well focused.

Another approach is to allow a player to assign some skills to a character at creation, but to reserve the option to assign others later. This way, the player and the GM have an idea of the character's capabilities from the beginning, but their knowledge of the character expands through play. I believe this idea was introduced in Fudge.

Either way, the key to the user-friendly and non-sleep-inducing character stat block is to avoid listing every conceivable skill a character might have. First, it's impossible. Can you list every single skill you have ever acquired? Of course not. And why should you list those skills that a majority of people in your society have anyways? Where does it end? Without digressing further, let me just say that the solution is to keep it short. List a few broad skills that you know your character will be using or is noted for, and reserve some points to purchase other skills later as needed. After all, when you are reading the stats of a PC or NPC, do you really need to know they are somewhat good at trivia games or driving or birdwatching?

As always, keep it simple, and fill in the gaps with imagination.

[This article was previously posted here in Applied Phantasticality on 13 October 2021.]

Picturing a More Approachable Rule Book

Fudge is excellent for experienced GMs teaching novice players, but many players encounter a rule book before gaming with an expert, so an important question to consider is this: What is the best way to present the rules to a beginner? And by "beginner" I mean someone new to Fudge or even role-playing itself (because Fudge can be something of a mystery even to experienced gamers). Fudge in a Nutshell is a good place to start, but I'm looking for something a little more organic, something that takes the reader on a (brief) journey. The ideal primer for the new Fudge player, or even a GM, might be a comic book, or perhaps a comic zine. It would have the flow of a good comic, emphasize the main points, illustrate useful examples, and demonstrate the dynamism of the game in a visually memorable way. And it would be succinct.

Another game has done this and quite well, albeit for a single genre: Supercrew (see RPG Geek entry). Something along similar lines might be useful in making Fudge more approachable, which I think should be of interest to anyone who loves the game.

Negative Reinforcement Trait Ladder

Do your players and/or their characters need to be taken down a peg or two? Are you tired of coddling them with comfy trait ladders such as this or this or even the standard trait ladder? Then spread a little darkness with

The Negative Reinforcement Trait Ladder

Fudge Traits	#	Dull Insensitive Traits
Superb	+3	Not Terrible
Great	+2	Not Poor
Good	+1	Not Mediocre
Fair	0	Not Not Fair
Mediocre	-1	Not Good
Poor	-2	Not Great
Terrible	-3	Not Superb

Now you can be unimpressed with any result! Roll and be underwhelmed!

Rulespotting 2022-06-04

In Fudge, as with most role-playing games, but especially Fudge, the best rules are the simplest rules. Most of the fan-created Fudge material I've read over the years have been of the blotation device variety — bloated rules that slow the play of the game. Once in a while, though, I stumble upon an optional rule that can be quickly read, easily understood, and easily implemented. Best of Three Contests for Fudge is one such rule.

Revivify Your Role-Playing Games with Fudge

If, like me, you have a library of role-playing games that you know you will never play because they are in some way unplayable, but which you are keeping because they have value as reference material or they have a few interesting rules you might want to use in another game or the nostalgia is just too strong to let you part with them, then try this: Just throw out the ordinary rules (but keep the one or two interesting innovations), throw out the stat blocks, convert only what you need to Fudge terms (don't worry about the science of it — this is a game, so "ballpark" it, i.e. fudge it), and play the damned game with Fudge rules. If you ever have a question about which option to use, choose the subjective method by default. You can always complicate it later if that's your bliss. If the game has any redeeming value at all, dust it off and run it with Fudge and make it justify the space it occupies on your bookcase. Games are meant to played and Fudge is honestly the best hope some games have of ever fulfilling their purpose. Just fudge it already.

The Might of Gods Cannot Be Quantified by Mortals

As much as I prize my mint condition copy of Deities & Demigods (with the Cthulhu and Melnibonéan Mythos intact), and as much as I enjoy the illustrations, I find its gaming content mostly useless. I do not endorse the treatment of gods as mere monsters (unless it is a monster being worshipped as a god), nor do I approve of describing them with statblocks, especially if they purport to quantify their attributes on the same scale as player characters. No god in any world of mine will deign to be compared to mortals. Any mortals in my campaigns will either be unaware that they have encountered a god (for it is said they walk amongst us in disguise when it suits them) or they will be awestruck. Watch Jason and the Argonauts (1963) for a lesson in how to handle such encounters.

Nonetheless, it is interesting and informative to know how the attributes of gods compare with one another on their own scale without tempting players to see them as potential experience point awards. To this end, I recommend describing their attributes in Fudge terms. Fudge uses adjectives instead of hard numbers to compare traits (attributes, skills, and sometimes powers). Traditionally, it uses the following progression:

Superb
Great
Good
Fair
Mediocre
Poor
Terrible

Scale is used with Mass, Strength, and Speed to further differentiate beings. A pixie, for instance, is on an entirely different scale than a human being, but their attributes would still range from Terrible to Superb in comparison to one another. By that same logic, gods within a pantheon may vary in strength, wisdom, charisma, etc., but the weakest of them will still be capable of crushing the strongest mortal like an ant.

To illustrate the possibilities, here are four Greek gods and their basic attributes (all of which are Scale: Divine).

Athena

Strength: Fair
Intelligence: Superb
Wisdom: Superb
Dexterity: Good
Constitution: Good
Charisma: Superb

Aphrodite

Strength: Mediocre
Intelligence: Fair
Wisdom: Mediocre
Dexterity: Good
Constitution: Good
Charisma: Superb

Ares

Strength: Great
Intelligence: Mediocre
Wisdom: Poor
Dexterity: Great
Constitution: Great
Charisma: Great

Hephaestus

Strength: Superb
Intelligence: Superb
Wisdom: Good
Dexterity: Great (manual dexterity); Terrible (agility)
Constitution: Good
Charisma: Poor

Role-playing the interaction of gods with one another can be accomplished by using the basic Fudge rules, which can be obtained for free here (at my own Fudge site) or at FudgeRPG.com.

[This article was previously posted here in Applied Phantasticality on 30 September 2013.]

Scale Chart Issues

Recently, I noticed that Blogger has been distorting the tables for my Mass Scale Chart and my Strength Scale Chart. This is disappointing. I might convert the charts to documents and store them on Dropbox instead of leaving them at the mercy of Blogger's whims.

I don't really pay much heed to numerical Scale these days, as I have been leaning more into subjective Fudge. The difficulty of trying to ascertain the Scale of certain animals whose range of sizes can vary wildly has also been challenging to the point that I am not convinced its usefulness outweighs the effort. I am more of the opinion that Scale ought to be descriptive. It keeps things flexible and tangible. So, if the Scale charts move or disappear entirely, those are my reasons.

In Praise of the Trait Ladder

The trait ladder and how it interacts with Fudge dice is probably my favorite feature of Fudge. It is designed for the purpose of enabling the players and the GM to describe aspects of the game (attributes, skills, difficulty levels, etc.) in character without resorting to game jargon. As a result, the trait ladder uses simple adjectives that are indistinguishable from their meanings in the real world. The trait ladder is practical in game and out of game. In fact, I have found it eminently useful as a review scale for my movie reviews in Theoretical Swashbuckling. I find it easier to assess something using language rather than converting it to a measurement of one to five "stars" or a blunt "thumbs up" or "thumbs down." How much easier is it to grasp that a character's skill is Good as opposed to 15 or +2 on whatever scale (or scales) a game happens to use?

As far as I am concerned, the trait ladder is Superb. Nay, Legendary.

The Simple Trait Ladder

In a previous article ("I Am Not A Number! I Am a Free-Form Adjective!"), I made the statement, "I think the key to better Fudge is to divorce the trait ladder from numerical values." I have more thoughts on the matter.

Have you ever noticed that most online Fudge dice rollers generate a trait level and a numerical result simultaneously? It will read something like, "Good (+1)" or "−2 (Poor)." Any Fudge gamer ought to know that Fudge dice generate a number that modifies an existing trait level. If your skill is Great and you roll 4dF getting −2, then the result of your action is Fair. Fudge dice don't generate the trait level—they tell you whether the quality of an action is normal, better than normal, or worse than normal. In order for these online rollers to be considered accurate, you can either use them only for situational rolls and actions involving Fair traits, or you can ignore the trait level and use only the numerical result.

Is it nitpicking? Perhaps. The issue is that it leads to confusion. The more complicated versions of combat in Fudge are rife with calculations that remove us from the immediacy of the role-playing experience. Add Scale to the equation and you have even more of a number-juggling morass. But the answer is right in the rule book (3.21 Reading the Dice):

At the top of the character sheet, there should be a simple chart of the attribute levels, such as:

Superb
Great
Good
Fair
Mediocre
Poor
Terrible

To determine the result of an action, simply put your finger on your trait level, then move it up (for plus results) or down (for minus results).

There are no numbers here, just adjectives arranged in a hierarchy. It is quintessentially elegant game design. My mantra in game design is "Keep it simple," and my defense of Fudge at its simplest (and a trait ladder unburdened by numbers) is described at greater length in "Simplicity Equals Power".

I am just here to remind the Fudge community that simplicity is the game's greatest asset. If we want more people to play Fudge, we need to play to its strengths.

Roll or Let It Stand

A common bit of advice shared amongst Fudge GMs is not to call for a skill check every time a player character uses a skill. Save it for situations where the consequences really matter. In all other cases, assume that the skill is performed at the character's skill level with no roll needed. I agree with this advice, but I think it could be fun to create a new rule with a twist based on it. I call this rule Roll or Let It Stand.

Roll or Let It Stand

Any player who wishes to use a skill has the option to roll or let it stand. If the player chooses to roll, then there is a chance to exceed the listed skill level, but at the cost of possibly falling short. If the player chooses to let it stand, then the character performs at the listed skill level and no roll is required. This only applies to unopposed actions. Opposed actions being competitive by nature always require rolls.