Attributes as Saving Throws

In 2009, I posted an article in Fudgerylog—reposted here in 2014—advocating the "Separation Between Attributes and Skills" that is the standard procedure for Fudge. I continue to hold this opinion, but I thought it might be made more palatable to skeptics if attributes were described in a different way as saving throws (inspired by Steffan O'Sullivan's explanation for one of the three things he uses attributes for in his "Recent Thoughts on Fudge"). Attributes represent your ability to avoid, resist, survive, and withstand anything deleterious. They are your resistance rolls, survival rolls, morale rolls, health rolls, and saving throws. They are your last defense when skills cannot save you, for they are not skills themselves, but characteristics inherent to you. Your skills describe your competence; your attributes describe your essence.

They can save you.

Perhaps they can save us all.

Seriously, though, I think it helps the mind adjust to the Fudge concept of attributes by thinking of them as holistic saving throws instead of the soil in which skill trees are grown.

Fudgifying the Fairly Obvious

From the moment I read the Basic Role-Playing pamphlets included in my copies of Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu in the early 1980s, I was fascinated by the skill-based system, but it had one major flaw: common abilities started far below what would be normal for an average person in the real world. Skills reflecting ordinary communication, the senses, or knowledge of one's place of birth were extremely low and unlikely to improve unless they were used frequently (and at a slow rate at that). Granted, I normally do not require rolls for very easy tasks such as observing things, using common modes of transportation, remembering facts about one's local community, or doing things that any able-bodied person can reasonably be expected to do under normal circumstances, but for those cases that do warrant a skill check, I feel that characters ought to have a fair chance of succeeding without having to devote valuable character creation points to those standard abilities. And by a "fair chance" I mean a Fair chance.

Any heavily skill-based role-playing system that is burdened with unnecessary common skills (that is, skills that everyone has) can benefit from a little fudgification. Simply replace the score of any common skill (such as See, Listen, Drive, Climb, Swim, etc.) with an appropriate Fudge trait level. In most cases, make it Fair. If the character has an obvious disadvantage for whatever reason, make it Mediocre. If the character has an obvious advantage, make it Good. Use the normal action resolution rules for any other skills that are used, but whenever these common skills come into play, use the Fudge rules to resolve them. The distribution of results will be more realistic, and the player can spend more points on specialized skills (in systems that use that form of character creation).

In short, Fudge rules are not just for Fudge. If your favorite game flounders in some respect, fudgify it.

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.

Reconsidering Default Skill Levels

I have reached the conclusion that having multiple default skill levels is not desirable in my Fudge games. I had formerly believed that the standard default skill level of Poor (and skill difficulty of Average) was fine for free-form games and creating characters on the fly (with certain exceptions), but I now think it's best for detail-oriented games as well.

The use of multiple default skill levels not only creates unnecessary complexity, it establishes an objective perception of skill difficulty that is frankly unrealistic. The difficulty (or ease) of mastering a skill is relative to the person undertaking its mastery. It is, in a word, subjective. What is easy for one person is hard for another, and the only logical way of reflecting this fact without resorting to mind-boggling complexity is to give all skills the same default level: Poor. A character's natural inclinations, meanwhile, are evident in those skills in which the character excels (namely, by choosing to assign levels to them during character creation or development).

The only other default skill level I would retain would be Nonexistent for those skills that are clearly beyond any possibility of practicing without prior training or research due to their esoteric (and possibly supernormal) nature. For the sake of simplicity, I would make the starting level of all such skills Terrible. Even skills that might be considered mundane in their natural environment (where their default level is Poor) could be exotic and incomprehensible to the denizens of another environment (where their default level would be Nonexistent).

This is a case where simplicity does the best job of simulating reality. Now I need to decide whether to revise my Optimum Skills for Fudge page [Edit: see Ultimate List of Skills instead] to reflect this epiphany... [Edit: I did.]

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 16 March 2011.]

Notes on Skills 2

Exactly two years and a day ago [from when this article was originally posted], I posted my Notes on Skills [reposted here], and quite coincidentally I have been thinking about skills in Fudge again. The most important thing to remember about skills is that they need to be self-explanatory, especially if you desire to comply with one of the major design principles of Fudge, which is not having to look things up during the game. This coincides with another design principle: not being required to translate the information on one's character sheet into one's native language in order to comprehend it. A skill ought to be instantly recognizable for what it is and generally what capabilities it confers.

Some may balk at the notion of skills taken at face value. They want precise rules governing the use of any skill. They want rules about range, duration, frequency, extent, effort, efficiency, etc. They want to know precisely how well a skill is executed upon a Fair result, or a Good result, or any other result. They want to know exactly what their characters can and cannot do when they use that skill. It all misses the point.

What is the point of trying to pin down the "objective" nature of a Great result when one doesn't even possess that skill in reality? What game designer can claim to be an expert on every skill or area of knowledge? With the exception of very few games (early The Morrow Project is the only one that comes to mind), no player is expected to know a character's skill well enough that he or she can describe every action accurately and in detail. (One of my favorite Call of Cthulhu experiences certainly would not have been possible. I played a motion picture director/producer, one friend played my character's doctor and longtime chum, and another friend played a jazz trumpet player from New Orleans. I'm not a filmmaker, my first friend isn't a doctor, and my second friend plays piano, not trumpet — and he isn't from New Orleans.) If we all had to be qualified in reality to play the characters we portray in a game, then role-playing would have died swiftly and quietly in the night a long time ago.

This, then, is my defense of a list of skills with real world definitions that the casual reader can understand, rather than an itemization of bonuses, penalties, timetables, restrictions, and prerequisites. If the skill is listed on a character sheet, the player should know instantly what it means unless the player doesn't know what the word means in the real world. That is why my skill list has brief definitions. (And the Big Chart has no definitions.) There are a few exceptions, but they are infrequent and brief enough to be easily memorized, and they are entirely logical.

That being said, I still haven't defined the martial arts skills, but rest assured they will be easy to understand, easy to remember, and they will make sense — as soon as I can get around to it...

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 18 February 2009.]

Notes on Skills

Skills are a major component in defining many role-playing games. They usually tell the player not only about the limitations of his character, but about the limitations of his entire species. If a game doesn't have an existing skill for Multidimensional Bungee-Jumping, generally you can't attempt it. Games like Fudge, however, have the benefit of default skill levels. Unless it is explicitly stated that the skill cannot be performed except by characters who have purchased the skill or otherwise acquired it (i.e. it has a default of Nonexistent), then any character can attempt to use that skill at its default level (usually Poor).

This is wonderful for free-form games where there is no set skill list or where the skills are broadly defined. The Fudge rule of thumb is that all skills default to Poor. There is no need to worry about the relative complexity of a skill given the culture and technology of one's world or whatnot. If you purchase a skill, you have it at the purchased level; if you didn't purchase a skill, you can always attempt it as if you possessed it at the skill level of Poor.

I enjoy playing free-form Fudge, but on some occasions I like to play detail-oriented Fudge. For this reason, and also because some players prefer to choose their skills from lists rather than allow them to spring Athena-like from their own heads, I have compiled the Optimum Skills for Fudge (Original) list, a universal list of skills including default skill levels, skill difficulty, and skill descriptions. This information (sans the descriptions) can also be found at the Big Chart of Optimum Skills for Fudge. [Edit: The aforementioned list and chart have been replaced by the Ultimate List of Skills.]

Free-form games without skill lists are fun because they encourage players and GMs to create skills that would never be found on any list. Games with broad skills are fun because character generation is a faster process and many capabilities can be encapsulated by a single concept. Games with professions as skills are perfect examples of this. My own skill list, because it is intended to serve a different purpose (the desire for greater detail), necessarily concentrates on somewhat narrower skills. Technically, I would classify them as medium skills. Most, if not all, of the skills can be defined more narrowly by applying Areas of Specialization or Areas of Further Specialization. These are entirely optional, and GMs are free to specify that certain skills must be taken with an Area of Specialization, other skills must be taken with an Area of Further Specialization, and still others may be taken as is whether they have Areas of Specialization or not. Furthermore, GMs (and players) may invent their own Areas of Specialization or Further Specialization, or they may, of course, invent entirely new skills (something of which I highly approve).

The thorniest problem in creating a skill list is determining the default level and difficulty of each skill. How does one measure the difficulty of Chemistry compared to Skiing, Painting, or Fluency in Navajo? "Apples and oranges" is an understatement. There is simply no truly objective way of doing it. I have two solutions for detail-oriented Fudge. The first solution is that any skill created on the fly has a default level of Poor and a difficulty of Average unless it is a highly unusual and/or unnaturally powerful skill, in which case it has a default level of Nonexistent (unless the GM really wants the player characters to have a chance to try them).

The second solution is my skill design rule of thumb:

• Basic survival and labor skills have a default level of Mediocre and a difficulty of Easy.
• Physical and trade skills have a default level of Poor and a difficulty of Average.
• Academic skills have a default level of Terrible and a difficulty of Hard.
• Highly unusual and/or powerful skills have a default level of Nonexistent and a difficulty of Very Hard.
• Skills that no one without special training or previous study could possibly perform have a default level of Nonexistent, but their difficulty may vary.
• Most unarmed combat skills (except Brawling and Wrestling) have a default level of Nonexistent, but their difficulty may vary.

Obviously, there are some inconsistencies (I wouldn't consider Bicycling to be a basic survival skill nor a typical labor skill, but I think it could be considered Easy by most people who have grown up with them). I know there are people who would consider any physical skill to be Hard or Very Hard, and there are others who would consider almost any academic skill to be Average, but as an admittedly sweeping generalization about the world's population, it works for me, and I hope it might work for you, too (if you need it).

In the end, you can always fudge it.

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 17 February 2007.]

Separation Between Attributes and Skills

The topic of whether and/or how one ought to link attributes and skills is a perennial one in Fudge discussions. It's understandable, too. Fudge doesn't link them. Ironically, the deliberate separation between attributes and skills is one of its greatest innovations, yet it is the first thing that many want to change. This is an argument in favor of preserving the separation.

Simplicity is on the side of separation. Linkage, on the other hand, demands complexity. The first step in establishing a link is categorizing all skills. It seems the easiest possible way to do this is to decide which attribute governs each skill, but therein lies the thorniest of problems. How can one say that Agility alone governs a skill in Running? What about Strength? What about Endurance? Who is to say that Intelligence alone governs a skill in Drawing? Perhaps the creative aspect of Spirit or Soul is involved. Perhaps the skill is largely owed to Perceptiveness or Manual Dexterity? In response one may argue that the solution is to create new skill categories composed of combinations of attributes, as in Basic Role-Playing. Categories such as Fine Manipulation combine Intelligence and Dexterity. Unless each attribute is used the same number of times, however, one or two attributes will dominate the skill categories (usually Dexterity and Intelligence or their equivalents), and players will min-max with wild abandon. It's not so much that most players are power gamers, but that the temptation to take advantage of the system is just too great. The mere presence of a linkage not only enables min-maxing, but actively encourages it. (And this, incidentally, leads to the original and most compelling argument in favor of separation as made by the author of Fudge, Steffan O'Sullivan, in his Recent Thoughts comments).

The next step in establishing a link would be deciding how the attribute and skill actually interact. Do attributes confer a bonus or penalty to purchasing skill levels or as a modifier in action resolution? Do unskilled actions default to a governing attribute or skill category? The problem with this approach is skill inflation. Either no skill can be taken at face value (which defeats one of the basic design principles of Fudge) because it may be raised or lowered by an attribute, or no unskilled action can be counted on to be justifiably inferior to an action by someone possessing the skill at a moderate level. In any event, what you see is not necessarily what you get and thus another layer of murkiness complicates the game.

In the real world, all of the factors involved in connecting whatever attributes we possess with whatever skills we have learned are complicated beyond any enumeration or comprehension. Instead of trying in vain to simulate something so complex, why not use common sense? If a character has many academic skills, why not assign an appropriate level in the appropriate attribute? In terms of skill acquisition, why should a character who is a mathematical genius receive a bonus to acquiring skills in Writing or History for example? One kind of mental excellence does not necessarily translate to another, and the same goes for any other attribute. The attributes used by a hockey player do not necessarily translate into the same advantage for learning flamenco dancing just because hockey and flamenco are both physical in nature.

The Fudge solution is elegant. I resisted it upon my first reading of Fudge years ago, but I came to realize that it solved one of the worst banes of game design, and it did so by relying on a common sense approach. For that reason, I will maintain the separation in my own games. I may design or run games that have attributes and no skills, skills and no attributes, plain traits, or separated attributes and skills, but I'll never again resort to the legacy of linkage when it comes to Fudge.

[Originally posted in Fudgery.net/fudgerylog on 12 January 2009.]