FUDGE Rocks!

[thelevitator]

WOW! Despite my relative newbiness, and the fact that I've never run a FUDGE session before learning about this system a couple months ago, I had an absolute blast tonight!

Despite the fact that I have never run a game with simultaneous rounds, it was awesome! Despite the fact that until Sunday I hadn't even contemplated how I was going to run the game (been using DM Genie for 5 years), I had a blast!

The base mechanic is so easy to understand and yet so elegant. It feels like what an RPG should feel like. The game played very fast, even though I had no experience running it and my players barely had time to read over the rules. I was amazed at how easy it was to determine how to adjudicate things on the fly. I've felt so confined by D&D over the years with the increased focus on minutiae, I really felt liberated tonight.

Now, it was a very clunky session on my end. I forgot to factor how the heck I was even going to run a FUDGE game, because I have been spending so much time just developing my version. I've been spoiled with DM Genie for the last almost 5 years. Even with DM Genie and 4+ years of experience, I couldn't run combat as quickly as I can with FUDGE and no clue how to manage my games. I decided to go with TreePad+ for my campaign manager. It works very much like DM Genie's Campaign Manager, only with more options. I have Tablesmith to create all of my weather, treasure and whatever tables.

One thing I quickly realized is that I need to use Initiative Tool, but for the opposite reason as what I would expect. 3.5 throws me for a loop sometimes because it takes so long to get through a round, and I forget where we are, even with DM Genie. FUDGE threw me for a loop tonight because we were getting through rounds so fast, I kept thinking I was missing something. Now don't get me wrong, tonight's game was anything but smooth on my end. We stopped the action often so that I could explain as we went along, and there were a lot of unusual actions tonight.

I was amazed at how quickly my players caught on to everything, and they even caught things that I missed. The biggest feedback I got tonight was how entertained everyone was and how much fun they had. There were a lot of great moments. We pretty much spent the whole session on one map, due to a lot of questions and people needing to take care of personal issues on the side (me being one of them). If we had had a handle on the system, we would have blown through a pretty complex encounter in minutes.

I really like the simultaneous rounds idea. Not only does it make more sense to me (I've never really witnessed a fight where people take even turns trying to kill each other), it is much quicker and easier to visualize. I'm really excited about getting more proficient with it, because the descriptive possibilities make my mouth water!

One thing I am very sure of, is that I will be starting a CinEpic campaign very soon. That's the working name of my version of FUDGE, which is basically Cinematic and Epic smashed together. I'm hoping that those two words describe my Sword & Sorcery game. FUDGE feels much more description-driven, and my players seemed to be making their decisions based on their environment and circumstances, not the game's rules and loopholes.

I was also very happy with the very limited use of "gamespeak". Gamespeak has always been a pet peeve of mine. It's probably due to my ADD, but when someone starts throwing out a lot of game terminology, I lose my suspension of disbelief and become disconnected to the story. Since FUDGE is based on words to describe relative levels of success, even when you describe things you can use words instead of numbers. In FUDGE, you don't have a 2nd level Fighter, but you can have a Good Swordsman.

What I love most about FUDGE is the lack of classes and levels (in the conventional sense). Those are two metagame concepts that have always been hard for me to fall in love with. Doing away with them has really made me feel liberated. In FUDGE, you do have varying "levels" of proficiency, but it's not the same as in D&D, where levels give you all kinds of goodies. I think levels are the crack of D&D, the way players get when they are close to getting a new one.

Anyways, thanks a ton to Mark, Eric and Josh for indulging me and letting me try out what will likely be my system of choice in the future. I really missed Frank tonight, as he's in Germany and couldn't join us. Frank's absence was actually what gave me the opportunity to give this a whirl. We didn't want to continue our regular campaign without him, but the rest of the group still wanted to do something, so I got a chance to try this out. Next week we are trying 4E, and I believe we are doing Cthulu the following week. After that, Frank will be back and we can get back to our campaign.

[Double King]

Oh man, oh man... this isn't going to be another one of those James Anthony is great threads is it? because if that's the case, i'd have to totally hijack Josh's comments from another forum and repost them here because i totally agree with the sentiment.

MrJoshObvious said: "Okay, I'll be honest. I was really looking forward to the D&D break since I heard we were going to switch out some games in the meantime. I enjoy the D&D but I heartily enjoy other games/settings and systems. When there was talk of trying out James' new FUDGE system, I was excited. Then I heard it would be Conan. I couldn't help it. I thought it would be a lot of the same (i.e. fantasy with little to no magic- basically what we've been doing but with different rules). I felt a little cheated like, "this isn't a break- it's just a different system." I was looking forward to playing a mecha pilot, renegade cowboy, cyborg ninja, supersoldier, or something equally fantastic. Realizing that this would be different though and trusting in James' ability to storytell, something I have yet to be disappointed about, I started creating a character and attempted to wrap my head around these rules because going from "good" to "good-" on stats wasn't making a ton of sense for the longest time...ANYWAY, James and I talked and that got smoothed out. My character concept started taking shape and instead of asking the classic D&D character creation ("which class will allow me to do this?"), I was able to ask "what attributes/skills/gifts/flaws would this character possess?" I've ALWAYS hated class based games and so that change was more than welcome. I wasn't able to complete the character in time for the game (though I've come up with a decent sheet if we need for the future, lol) and instead played one of the pre-gens James had created for us. I'm really glad I did too because I was really happy with my character.

It has been a LONG TIME since I spent so much time on one map, finishing only one fight, and had so much fun (we're talking like the first few sessions I ever played of AD&D). Instead of worrying about mechanics and keeping track of item hit points, the system seemed more like what roleplaying should be (story driven with mechanics more in the background helping to facilitate it- not the opposite). I was taking actions with my character that made sense (as opposed to worrying about how the mechanics would play out- improvised weapons, lacking of proficiency in the weapon, hit points of said improvised weapons, etc.). The highlights of that were setting the guard tent on fire (James even said he was happy he didn't have to worry about hit points of the canvas, item saving throws, how far the fire spread each round, etc.) and then using one of the guards' helmets as an improvised weapon, fatally goring an injured foe with the attached horns. It was also nice because EVERYONE stopped the meta-game language ("I take a five foot step, coup de grace and finish him, perform a strength test to break down the door and get a modifer of blah blah blah, take a shot with my bow at exactly X distance away instead of a general range, etc.). It was very liberating and I know James appreciated it because storytelling undoubtedly became much easier on his part as well.

In short, I am totally digging the FUDGE system and can't wait to help and "work out the kinks." I know there are some issues inherent in the system (the system isn't really designed so that characters can "level up") but I think some of those "flaws" may be what give the game some of its power. There's a quote about limitations that is more than appropriate in this instance. "The power of the genie comes from its being trapped in the bottle." In other words, sometimes limitations make things better (in roleplaying terms the fact the rules don't allow me to play a jedi in a call of cthulhu game helps the cthulhu game work and stay true to the style of the game/genre). In summation, it was a TERRIFIC session and I'd love to help flesh out the system any way I can!"

...

Couldn't agree with the lad more. We had lots of fun. LOTs of fun.

...

Techs/Tips/Travails: b31 is giving me ownership problems twice now. It seems to be a mac only issue, fwiw.

[trevor]

The biggest feedback I got tonight was how entertained everyone was and how much fun they had.

Which is really saying something because your session are always super awesome.

[Hawke]

Sweet! Glad you had fun with it.

[Double King]

Behold!! screen cap from the first ever play of The Levitator's new game:



MrJoshObvious has the honor of having made the first attack in this system; and i have the more dubious honor of having taken the first damage (note: not from Josh).

[thelevitator]

The biggest feedback I got tonight was how entertained everyone was and how much fun they had.

Which is really saying something because your session are always super awesome.

Oh Pshaw......

Well, that was actually something we talked about a bit after the session last night. I'm very much a descriptive storyteller type, and I've always felt a bit hobbled by running D&D. Don't get me wrong; I know that you can run a deeply immersive and story-driven game with D&D, but it is a lot of work. D&D puts so much emphasis on rules and math, that it almost forces players to approach situations differently than they might without all of that. That was a common comment last night, how the players tried things last night that they wouldn't have thought to try in a 3.5 game because they wouldn't have wanted to slow the game down with looking up rules and multiple rolls and calculating results. I've always struggled with a system that rewards system mastery, because, while system mastery can be a really fun element of role-playing, it does take the focus off the story and "cool moments" in a game sometimes.

I will always love and play D&D. But now I have a system that I built around my gaming style, so now I can play D&D for what it is, and not try to beat it into submission to accommodate my gaming style. I think that will take a lot of pressure off of me when I run D&D games now. I may end up marrying FUDGE, but D&D popped my cherry, so it will always have a special place in my heart.


Ok, that last line even creeped me out a little bit!

On a more serious note; Trevor, do you need my request on the list of features, or is it something that is easily slipped in? I'm speaking of the option to change scale in a gridless environment. I think we all felt very liberated last night in being able to just move where we need to move and not have to worry about exact precision. It would be nice, though if I could create larger and smaller creatures.

One of the great things about FUDGE is that it uses scale in the system to account for mass and speed. I like that because you can have a "weak" dragon that is still strong compared to a human. I've always thought that putting every creature on the same scale to be a bit wonky.

I would love to have a system that works like FUDGE. Every scale level in FUDGE is 1.5 times the previous scale level. So a scale 2 creature is 2.3 times larger (it's 2.25, but rounded up). The Fudge scale goes from around -11 to +20. Is this a simple thing to add in? For me personally, it would just be nice to have the image resizer like an object available for now. Otherwise a simpler version using whole numbers (like Phergus described in another thread) would be great too.

I also discovered last night that I have to learn how to use Initiative Tool. It was weird because D&D throws me off because it takes so long to get through a round. Last night threw me off because we were going through rounds so quickly, that I kept feeling like we were missing something.

I'll be heading over the Initiative Tool thread for much study and many questions.

On a related note, Trevor, was there a thread mentioning the integration of Initiative Tool in MapTool in the near future?

[UntoldGlory]

Is that system a bit like the old World of Darkness system?

How the heck does simultaneous init work?

[thelevitator]

Is that system a bit like the old World of Darkness system?

How the heck does simultaneous init work?

I'm not familiar with WoD, so I don't know their mechanics. Simultaneous rounds uses a single roll for all phases of the combat round. One roll determines who gets an action for that round, and the results of that action. FUDGE uses a 4dF roll, which are d6 dice with 2 pluses, 2 blanks, and 2 minuses. Basically you get a bell curve spread of -4 to +4. FUDGE uses terms to describe these levels, called a Ladder. It looks like this:

Legendary (+4)
Superb (+3)
Great (+2)
Good (+1)
Fair (0)
Mediocre (-1)
Poor (-2)
Terrible (-3)
Abysmal (-4)

Everything in the game uses the 4dF roll, and the Ladder to determine outcomes.

Simultaneous Rounds combat works in phases, but uses a single roll by each combatant to determine results. In a simultaneous round system, only one side gets an action, as each round is only 3 seconds long. To me, this system is much more realistic as I've never seen a fight where people just take turns trying to kill each other.

The phases work like this:

1. Everyone declares intent, from lowest Reflexes to highest. (no roll)
2. Everyone rolls 4dF.
3. Movement is made and actions are taken by those winning their opposed rolls, from highest roll to lowest.
4. Actions are resolved, using the same die roll, but with different modifiers.
5. Results and damage are calculated and conditions applied.

It's much easier to play than it is to explain. But basically, you use one set of modifiers to determine whether you get an action for the round, and you use a different set of modifier with the same roll to determine your relative success of your actions.

I actually screwed this up a bit in the first half of our test. Once we got it figured out, it worked really well. One thing that will help is better organization on our end. I was having difficulty calculating ODF's (Offensive Damage Factor) and DDF's (Defensive Damage Factor) because I didn't have a good system set up for keeping track of who is using what kind of weapon. Our FUDGE system differentiates weapon types (Piercing, Slashing, Bludgeoning), and the armors also protect against each differently. Had I been better prepared for that aspect of the combat, the numbers would have all been in the appropriate places. The damage is handled using RD, or Relative Degree; basically the sum difference between combatants.

Simultaneous rounds do take a little getting used to, especially after having used alternating rounds for the last 27 years. But the rounds fly and resolution is quick. What really surprises me about a "simplified" round is the number of options available to players. I don't really see it as a simplified round, but actually a finer detailed version of standard alternating combat rounds. If you are superior to your opponent, why waste time rolling their ineffective flailing? That can be handled through description. But this system allows for that Legendary shot that a lowly squire can get in on a master knight, and kill him in a single blow.

I'm sure this can all be described better than I've just done. One of the real gems of CinEpic (my version of FUDGE), is that we use a non-linear wound system. Once the players learn the varying levels of wounds, they will be able to describe their own actions in gory detail!

[UntoldGlory]

But don't you end up with alot of rounds where your PC's don't get to actually do anything when they come up against a powerful baddy?

[thelevitator]

That's really the strong point of FUDGE, in my opinion. The realism of FUDGE encourages strategies other than toe-to-toe slugfests, especially when you are at a huge disadvantage.

I think D&D encourages slugfests, to some degree, because many players don't want to go through the whole process of task resolution in a rules-heavy system. Having to pour through books and make multiple rolls to determine something that takes a few seconds of game time can be a buzz kill. So many times players just choose, "stand there and attack" because it has the least amount of headaches involved. That's why I think D&D encourages slugfests, because using tactics and doing things outside of the rules can be a major headache.

3.5 has awesome combat options and it is a really solid combat system. But it's awesomeness, for me, is overshadowed by its complexity and reliance on rules mastery. Most players I game with don't want to have to think about the game rules during an exciting scene. They just want to describe their character's actions and then see the results.

I think that FUDGE's strength lies in its task resolution. My players last night had never even seen FUDGE or played it prior to our test, and yet, they were trying things they've never tried in our 20+ 3.5 sessions. You don't have to be the strongest guy with the biggest sword in FUDGE. Because of its looser and faster play, it's much easier for players to envision what their character would actually do, describe it, and see the results.

Now all of that said, the drawback to FUDGE that I see is that it thrives in an environment with experienced and mature gamers. Because it doesn't have every little thing spelled out with 3 paragraphs of rules and sub-rules, it requires a certain level of maturity and trust from its players. This game would be a pain to play with players who try and manipulate things to showcase their characters, or look for loopholes to extort and work to their advantage. To me, FUDGE seems closer to cooperative storytelling than a rules heavy system like D&D or GURPS. What I found interesting was that FUDGE was created by Steffan O'Sullivan, who has contributed a ton of official material for GURPS. His articles on how he came to design FUDGE were very interesting reading to me.

http://www.panix.com/~sos/rpg/fud-des.html

http://www.panix.com/~sos/rpg/fudlatest.html

[UntoldGlory]

I think D&D encourages slugfests, to some degree, because many players don't want to go through the whole process of task resolution in a rules-heavy system. Having to pour through books and make multiple rolls to determine something that takes a few seconds of game time can be a buzz kill. So many times players just choose, "stand there and attack" because it has the least amount of headaches involved. That's why I think D&D encourages slugfests, because using tactics and doing things outside of the rules can be a major headache.

I whole heartedly agree with you, when speaking of 3rd ed. 4e combat though is alot more like what you are describing. Not from a rules mechanics standpoint, but from a "sure try it!" standpoint. If you're curious about 4e combat, check my post on page 6 ofTHIS thread. I'd just quote myself but sheer size would hijack your thread about a really neat sounding system.

I am intrigued by the system, but I also admit that I love rules and numbers. I'm part storyteller, part munchkin. Also I do have a couple players that tend to showboat.

[thelevitator]

Thanks for the link UG! I'll definitely be checking it out, as our group is going to do some 4E round-robin encounters next Tuesday. While I have no intention of ever running a 4E game, it might be fun to play as a player with the right bunch of people.

[trevor]

On a more serious note; Trevor, do you need my request on the list of features, or is it something that is easily slipped in?

I'll add a tracker, it'll take a little work since it's a different system than currently exists.