I like Fudge (The RPG)

...well, I also like the desert, particularly that of the peanut butter variety, but that is another story.

I first played Fudge at a convention in my hometown somewhere around 2000-2001. I had heard of it before, but never had I seen or played it. The gentleman running it had prepared a scenario based on the TV show G vs. E (which I never watched), and it was such a good time I tracked the book and some special Fudge Dice (not actually made from Fudge, mind you) at one of the vendor booths.

In the eight or nine years since then, I have tinkered with Fudge from time to time, often filling mini-notebooks with campaign ideas and game mechanics. (Fudge is perhaps the must customizable rpg I have ever encountered.) Unfortunately, I have only run Fudge twice: one shots in 2004 and 2006, give or take. One of them was an 18th century monster hunting oneshot where a blacksmith and some brave villagers stormed the castle of a Frankenstein wannabe to save his daughter from becoming monster parts. The other session was a quirky, Quick-and-the-Dead style western, complete with exploding watchtower and squinty eyed bad guy. Both sessions were an absolute blast.

...so why don't I play this game more?

I suppose one reason is the amount of prep time. Fudge has no preset attributes, no preset skills, and only a bare skeleton of a combat system. The GM is supposed to make up the number of stats and define what they are, as well as decide how skills work, everything from depth (is there a Melee skill, or Heavy Blades vs. Light Blades vs. Polearms, or are we talking Broadsword, Longsword, Dagger, Heavy Crossbow, Light Crossbow all as separates?) to whether or not they are packaged (as pseudo-character classes) or separate, etc, etc. In fact, everything is so customizable that all my attemps to create a coherent campaign out of Fudge stall as I get stuck obsessing over a particular subsystem, such as how magic works or how to work out damage vs. wounds in combat. I believe, to date, I have partially developed Fudge rules for a 70's Action/Blaxploitation game, a weird ass pulp/four color superhero game, several attempts at a fantasy heartbreaker(gods do I hate Edwardsian terminology, but I just can't shake that one), a Victorian era monster hunting game, a modern monster hunting game, and conversions of Steve Jackson's In Nomine and Dream Pod 9's Tribe 8. Oh, and a zombie mecha game. (A friend and I were in a rather whimsical mood) I have finished exactly none of these, and aside from the In Nomine conversion, I have long ago lost or tossed the notebooks containing the rest of the material.

Despite the strange ADD that grips me when I fiddle around with it, this game continues to dwell in the back of my mind. The rules liteness, the sheer mutability of it... and of course, if you take the game's use of adjectives to evaluate stats and skills (My Intellect might be Great and my Sword skill Fair and my Compose Improvised Haiku might be Mediocre, for instance)

A haiku for fudge
the dice are many colors
and the stats are vague

(Sorry, after typing improvised haiku I couldn't help myself)

...anyway, the adjectives are also used to determine the outcome of various tasks. I like this because it syncs up with the creed of "rulings, not rules." If Joe gets a Great job on his climb check, what does that mean? We could say he beats the party to the top, or perhaps he is not as fatigued. You could even rule the results of an entire combat using them. If the party is attacked by orcs, you could use the adjective to determine how they come out of it. (Modified, of course, by the monster... going Good against orcs means you come out with a light wound or perhaps a shattered shield, whereas doing Good against an Ancient Red Dragon might mean that you put up a really impressive fight before being burned to cinders.)

I have far too much on my plate right now to run another game (much to my chagrin), but someday I intend to give Fudge the attention it deserves and run at least a brief mini-campaign with it.

Plus, you know....those Fudge dice are just cool and puzzle the hell out of anyone who comes across one when digging through my humble communal dice pool.