The Princess Bride: A Literal Fudge Gift

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.

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.]

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.

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.]

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!