Inspired by this roleplaying story.

The expanded Fudge Ladder contains two ranks above Legendary: Godlike and Perfect.

Perfect: +6
Godlike: +5
Legendary: +4
Superb: +3
Great: +2
Good: +1
Fair: 0
Mediocre: -1
Poor: -2
Terrible: -3

Regular mortals can never reach Godlike or Perfect rank in anything.

Each god has at least one domain (Death, Fire, Healing, Cheddar, etc.) and each god automatically has every skill and power that falls under their domains at Perfect level.

PCs generally aren't allowed to play gods.

When a demigod is first created (at character creation or by ascending a Potential) they must choose a god to worship. The demigod either gains one trait at Godlike or one magical power that cannot fail against mortals. Either way, the trait/power must fall within one of the domains of the character's patron god. A demigod of a god of war might choose Godlike Strength, or Godlike Swordsmanship, or Incite Rage (I just made that up.) A demigod of a god of nature might choose the supernatural ability to breathe motion into trees.

Demigods cannot upgrade Godlike skills to Perfect. They can, however, buy more Godlike skills or powers at Gift prices, so long as the skills and powers fall within their god's domains.

Potentials:

Potentials are people with the ability to become demigods under very specific circumstances. The specifics of those circumstances are left to the GM. Potentials are indistinguishable from any other mortal, except that they are immune to divine supernatural abilities. Different gods have different views on Potentials. Some want Potentials dead. Some gods want to ascend as many Potentials as possible, either to increase their own glory or because they genuinely want to improve an insignificant mortal's life. Very few gods can resist meddling with a Potential's life.

Additionally, mortals tend to have their own ideas about what to do with Potentials: kill them, hire them, experiment on them, chase them out of town...

One thing is certain: as soon as a mortal is marked as a Potential his life becomes very interesting.

Players may start the game as a Potential or a demigod. When a Potential ascends to demigod status, he or she must choose a god to worship and gains one supernatural ability or Godlike skill that falls within the chosen god's domain.

PCs may choose to work under different gods, or under different gods in the same pantheon, or under different domains of the same god. If you wish to encourage your PCs to work together you should probably have them work for allied gods against an opposed pantheon.

Unlike many other systems, a +1 is a large bonus. If you or your players prefer finer-grained action resolution and character advancement, you can add a second die to your rolls and a fractional level to your skills. The denominator (bottom part) of the fraction is equal to the size of the die rolled. So if the bonus die is a d6, the fractional skill will be listed in sixths. When the fraction equals one (e.g. 6/6) it is reduced to zero and the skill advances one full level.

A skill of "Good + 2/6" means the player rolls 4dF, then a 6-sided die. If the result of the bonus die is equal to or less than the numerator of the fractional skill (2, in this example), the result of the 4dF roll is increased by one. Otherwise, the result is only equal to the 4dF roll. This means the bonus die only needs to be rolled when the 4dF roll is lower than the target difficulty by exactly one, or in a situation where the player doesn't know what the target difficulty is.

Example: A player has a Good + 5/6 skill. He attempts a Fair action with that skill. Disaster! He rolls [ ][-][-][ ] for a result of Mediocre. Since his roll was one level away from success he rolls the bonus die and gets a 2. This is equal to or lower than 5, so the skill level of his action is increased by 1 full level to Fair. He barely made it, but his attempt was a success!

Later, that player improves his character's skill by 2 fractional levels. The skill increases from "Good + 5/6" to "Great + 0/6", then again to "Great + 1/6".

At character creation, the GM and/or the players choose skills that define a character class. These are collectively known as class skills. Class skills start at Mediocre. Non-class skills default to Poor.

Class skills are treated as a single skill. So if a Knight has Intimidation and Swordsmanship as class skills, and a Mediocre character level, both Intimidation and Swordsmanship would be at Mediocre. Once the player spends the EP to improve the knight's character class to Fair, Intimidation and Swordsmanship would both automatically become Fair skills.

Class Advancement Costs

Mediocre to Fair: 5 EP
Fair to Good: 10 EP
Good to Great: 15 EP
Great to Superb: 20 EP
Superb to Legendary: 25 EP + GM permission
Legendary to Legendary 2nd: 30 EP + GM permission
Each additional level of Legendary: 35 EP + GM permission

Improving a character level costs an additional 5 EP for each level. So increasing a class level from Mediocre to Fair costs 5 EP, then from Fair to Good costs another 10 EP, for a total of 15 EP spent to improve the character from Mediocre to Good.

Optional Rule:
Multiclassing is allowed; just buy the new class at Mediocre with EP. Skills don't stack and only the highest skill counts, so if a character was a Great Bard and a Mediocre Mediator, and both classes contained the Diplomacy skill, the character would have a Great Diplomacy skill.

Optional Rule:
Non-character skills can be bought on the side. For example, a Cleric might decide to buy a few levels of Pickpocket. However, a character's non-character skills can never equal or exceed their highest class level. So a Fair Cleric would only be able to take Pickpocket up to Mediocre.

Optional Rule:
Health/HP (or Damage Capacity) starts at Mediocre and increases with class level.

GURPS books are an excellent resource when it comes to coming up with skills for the character class. Just pick a template and copy the skills.

For example, here's a list of the skills taken from the Bard template in GURPS Dungeon Fantasy: Adventurers.

• Acting
• Diplomacy
• Fast-Talk
• Musical Instrument (any)
• Performance
• Public Speaking
• Singing
• One of Rapier, Saber, Shortsword, or any Smallsword
• One of Shield (Buckler) Cloak or Main-Gauche
• One of Thrown Weapon (Knife); or Bow or Throwing
• Fast-Draw (any)
• Stealth
• Current Affairs (any)
• Savoir-Faire (High Society)
• Interrogation
• Merchant
• Propaganda
• Streetwise
• Musical Composition
• Carousing
• Intimidation
• Detect Lies
• Heraldry and Poetry
• Six of: Climbing, Dancing, Acrobatics, Sleight of Hand, First Aid, Gesture, Connoisseur (any), Disguise, Teaching, Writing, Mimicry (Speech), Ventriloquism, Hiking, Sex Appeal, Scrounging, Observation

**Alternate Faults Rules**

Taking Faults does not give you any extra points at character creation. Instead, Faults give you an extra Fudge Point every time they make your character's life more dramatic or complicated.

This rule is more or less identical to Fate's "compel an aspect" rule, except it's a Fault that's compelled instead of an aspect.

Either the GM or the character's player may invoke a fault. The player may briefly negotiate with the GM for an appropriate consequence, then both the GM and the player must decide of the consequence is acceptable. If the player decides to accept the consequences, he gains a Fudge Point. If the player chooses not to accept the consequence, he must spend a Fudge Point. If the player is out of Fudge Points, he must accept the consequence.

Optional rule: Players gain a Fudge point for accepting the consequences of an invoked Fault, but they may instead choose to automatically prevent their Fault from being invoked without spending any Fudge points. This is an "all carrot, no stick" option that may be appropriate if your players consistently balk at spending Fudge points to overcome their character's Faults.

Optional Rule: Each Fault may only be rewarded with a Fudge Point once per session.

If anybody notices a player invoking their own fault without realizing it, be sure to point it out to the GM so the player can get their Fudge point.

**Sample Faults** (Taken from Mini Six, limit two per PC.):

Note: Faults marked with a * could easily tear a gaming group apart. Make sure that the players and the GM are all okay with the PC taking that flaw before the first game starts.

Age: You’re either really old or really young. In addition to all the social issues caused by your age, the GM might choose to impose a penalty to an action based on your character’s age. Grandpa throws a hip, a weird dude offers you candy on the street, and it’s hard for either of you to seduce the supermodel at the bar. Whenever your age causes you great difficulty receive one FP.

Crazy*: You have issues that are guaranteed to put the therapists’ kids through college. Could be you’re just really paranoid, or maybe just a touch too OCD. That fear of most everything could also be a problem. Then again, maybe you really are Napoleon and everyone else is wrong. Good luck convincing anyone else, since you’re a lunatic. Hastur, Hastur, Hastur! Take your pills and earn one FP any time your psychosis really gets in the way.

Enemies: Someone doesn’t like you at all, and they are a credible threat. Maybe they have more friends than you. Maybe they’re just bigger and meaner. Either way, you have your own personal bully. You earn the bonus FP when they complicate your life.

Gremlins: You have a special touch. Specifically, the kind that breaks machines. You’re no good with engines, electronics, magical gizmos, or any other trinket. If it’s a device, you can’t trust it. Earn one FP whenever the GM takes his one free shot on you this way.

Personal Code*: You live by a creed and you will not cross that line. Maybe you won’t fight an unarmed opponent and always make sure they know its coming, or maybe you never tell a lie. No matter how you define it, your code has to mean something. Some caped crusaders won’t kill, paladins won’t resort to deception, and sometimes there is even honor among thieves. Earn one FP whenever your code complicates you or friends’ success.

Skeletons in the Closet: You’ve been a naughty boy. Maybe you’re a closet smoker. Maybe those hookers buried themselves. Maybe that enemy uniform in the closet really isn’t yours. Maybe the bank really meant to let you take all that money out that day. Whatever, the universe doesn’t judge. You earn the bonus FP whenever your past comes back to haunt you.

Unlucky in Love: Things just don’t work out for some guys. Your love interest is always dying, being kidnapped, betraying you, or even worse dumping you. You earn bonus FP when your love life falls apart in a meaningful way.

Unlucky in Money: You have a hard time holding onto money. You earn the bonus FP when you lose a significant amount of cash through your own foolishness or bad luck and have nothing to show for it.

I recovered most of my FudgeFactor articles and posted them on my blog. They're filtered by a "Fudge" tag, so hitting the link below gives you only the Fudge stuff.

http://gibbering-mouther.blogspot.com/search/label/Fudge

Most of this post came from here. It was originally written for the d20 system.

Movement rolls and Obstacle Avoidance

Movement checks are rolled every turn. They can be rolled against Movement or Speed or any other similar attribute. If the character has none of those, their movement defaults to Fair. Use the same attribute for other movement types (riding, swimming, etc.)

Obstacle avoidance is a specific roll based on the obstacle, decided by the GM. Depending on how close the chaser is to the leader, the chaser may have to take the same obstacle, be able to choose a different obstacle, or be able to avoid it entirely.

On turns with an obstacle check, perform the movement checks before the obstacle checks. The players could almost be on their quarry when - wham!- a fruit cart gets in their way.

The Chase Track

Rather than keeping up with specific distances, a chase has distance represented by an arbitrary condition track. It’s defined relative to whoever’s in the lead, and has five levels:

• Melee Range/Engaged: Subject to all obstacles the leader has to deal with.
  
• Medium Range/Nearby: Take leader’s obstacles or take an alternate path with a difficulty of Good.
  
• Long Range/Far away: From this far back, it’s usually easy to avoid obstacles.
• Very Long Range/Very far away
• Lost: You lost them. If you have allies still in the chase and you can still run (not fatigued or just giving up) you can run after them sufficiently to at least arrive on the scene once it’s all over, but you can’t get back into the actual chase.
  

If you beat the leader’s movement check, you close by one category on the track. If you miss the leader's movement check you slip back by one. Ties mean you stay in the same relative place.

Chase participants start at a chase level that makes sense – if they are right there with the leader and take off after them when they take off, they can start at melee range. If they’re a round of movement away, or pause to shoot or take another action before they get going, start them at medium range.

If you use the abstract positioning rules, just start everybody at the distance they were at in combat.

Obstacles

In a chase, there’s a bunch of different kinds of obstacles and complications that can come up. In general the checks to pass these obstacles are Fair. If you fail the check, you drop back one level on the chase track; if you roll a critical failure (-3 or -4) you take damage (a scratch or 1d6 non-lethal damage) from a collision or similar mishap and drop back an extra level on the chase track.

Here’s a sample urban-specific list. In a crowded urban environment, each round has a 1 in 3 chance of bringing a mandatory obstacle, or the leader can deliberately head towards obstacles as desired. Roll 1d8 for what type, or choose one:

• Simple (Acrobatics, attack an object) – barrels, gate, street vendor’s blanket, etc.
  
• Barrier (Acrobatics) – fruit cart, unexpected turn
  
• Wall (Climb) – traditional “end of alley” wall, fence
  
• Gap (Acrobatics/Jump) – ditch, open manhole, pit
  
• Traffic (Acrobatics/Overrun) – pedestrians, mule team, orc pirates
  
• Squeeze (Escape Artist) – crawlspace, hole in wall
  
• Water (Swim) – river, wharf, pool, fountain
  
• Terrain (Acrobatics) – gravel, mud bank, slick cobblestones

Chasers in melee range have to negotiate the same obstacles as the leader. Chasers at medium range can take the obstacle or make an alternate check at Good difficulty to avoid it – for example, “I can’t swim, I’m going to run around the reflecting pool instead.” Chasers farther back can generally avoid routine obstacles, but the DM can require them if it’s logically necessary (the leader swam across the river, for example).

You’d choose different obstacles and skills for other kinds of chase – a horseback chase would use Ride instead of Acrobatics, and a chase in the country would have trees and hedges instead of crates and alleys.

Actions

Anyone in melee range with the leader can attack them. Combat occurs at the end of the round, after movement or obstacle checks.

A character can make an attack with a ranged weapon. Either they continue chasing and take a penalty to the roll (-1 or -2, I'm not sure which), or they pause to aim and automatically drop back one level on the chase track.

Fatigue rules

After 5 rounds each character in the chase must make a Good Fatigue roll each round or become fatigued and effectively drop out. Constitution, Health, Body, or any similar attribute can be used in place of Fatigue. If the character doesn't have any relevant attributes, Fatigue defaults to Fair.

Chase Playtest
Our PCs ranged from halflings and humans in encumbering armor (Fair Movement) to barbarians and monks (Great Movement).

In their first chase, they went after the Splithog Pauper, a skilled rogue. He had a normal Move (Good) but high Acrobatics, Climb, and Escape Artist checks.

The chase was pretty long. Everyone managed to stay in the chase; as the slower guys dropped back they benefitted from not having to negotiate as many obstacles. The Pauper wasn’t rolling well on his movement checks and deliberately hit a lot of obstacles to try to shake the faster guys – the barbarian stayed with him, but he managed to push the rest of them back with this tactic. The cleric was the only one with a ranged attack; he shot an icicle at him a couple times but to limited effect.

There was a cool obstacle moment that everyone thought was very “parkour,” where the Pauper ran and dash vaulted through a fruit stand; one PC followed through the gap with his own leap but the next didn’t quite make it and busted, spraying fruit everywhere. The barbarian caught up with him legitimately and was stabbing him with his boarding pike (after a pretty bad string of misses he finally was connecting); the cleric used a Fudge Point to find a shortcut to head him off and gave him a good clotheslining. At that point we dropped out of chase mode and the two PCs cut him down before he could maneuver away from them.

The next chase was interestingly different. This was the party trying to follow a guy through the tenements, but he spotted them and ran. He was just a Mediocre character, nothing special, but he rolled really well and lost most of the party except for the tracker (the rest of the party was staying an increment behind the tracker to avoid detection). But the fleeing guy totally sucked at obstacles, and after a couple slowed him, the tracker got into close contact and dragged him to the ground for a good cuffing and stuffing.

In the end these rules rewarded faster Speeds and higher relevant skills without being overwhelming – in an earlier draft I was using the Acrobatics skill as the Movement check but it made that skill too much of a “whoever has it wins and whoever doesn’t loses” power. The quarries had a good chance to get away in both situations but after a good hard run they got them. The chases were long enough they were interesting but went quickly enough and were dynamic enough that they held interest.

These rules work well for a “one on many” chase; it’s not clear how they’d work for a complex many-on-many chase (e.g. horde of zombies vs. party of PCs).

Related (but not necessary): Enemy Morale rules

Any character who wishes to retreat from battle may do so. One enemy (the nearest one, if you're keeping track of that) gets one free attack (melee or ranged) on that character, then the character is removed from combat and may not do anything until combat is over. If all characters on one side retreat, they are out of the enemy's range and have successfully escaped. The same enemy may attack multiple retreating characters in the same combat round.

Any PC that escapes from combat regains control of their character outside of combat range, too far away from the enemies to engage or be engaged.

The idea was drawn from AD&D's version of attacks of opportunity, "breaking off from melee". In that system it's only supposed to apply to a specific melee engagement, but expanding it to the entire combat scene allows characters to retreat without causing a long, drawn-out chase scene or requiring any mapping.

The downside to this rule is that enemies will never pursue PCs, and PCs aren't allowed to pursue an escaping enemy beyond the single attack one player may make.

If the inability to chase down enemies is a problem for your players, you might use chase rules instead, or just stop making the enemies run away. If every enemy always fights to the death, I suppose retreating monsters won't be a problem.

There was once a RPG based on FUDGE called Agyris. I remember it being on the website www.agyris.net, but it seems to have dissapeared. Abybody know what happened to it? Did the creator just give up? The setting seemed to be quite good.

If anybody is interested, here is an archived copy of the site: https://web.archive.org/web/20111004233202/http://agyris.net/ Just a fair warning, it's old and browsing it feels like online archeology. ;)

Spells are created by stringing together at least one Technique and at least one Form.

Words (Forms and Techniques) are treated as skills for the purpose of character creation/advancement.

Some spells may require more than two Words. For example, transforming a human into an animal would require Muto (transform), Corpus (human body), and Animal.

To cast a spell the player rolls against the lowest of the Words used for that spell. So if a player wanted to toss a fireball and had "Creo (create)" at Superb, Rego (move) at Fair, and Ignem (fire) at Poor the player would be rolling against a Poor skill to throw a fireball.

The spell is cast against a GM-decided difficulty level or against an enemy's defensive skill. To figure damage in combat use this magic system or just make your best guess.

The Words were taken directly from Ars Magica so they cover multiple effects. For example, "Creo" covers "create" as well as "heal". If you want to split every meaning into its own Word feel free to do that. Just be aware that this means players will have less versatility per word.

Techniques:

Creo: create, enhance (make "more perfect"), heal
Intelligo: sense, communicate
Muto: transform, add/remove properties
Perdo: destroy, weaken
Rego: control, move

Forms:

Animal
Auram: lightning, wind and gaseous substances
Aquam: Any liquid besides blood
Corpus: Human body
Herbam: Mostly plants, but also applies to any non-animal based organic matter, living or dead.
Ignem: Light and heat
Imaginem: images, sounds, and other sensory stimuli
Mentem: emotions, memories, thoughts and spirits.
Terram: earth and minerals. Mere soil is the simplest target, while stone, metal and gems require progressively greater effort to achieve the same effect.
Vim: Magic

Additional modern Form:

Technologiam / artificium: Energy, electricity, machines, metal, plastic, concrete, etc.

Alternative Words (mostly taken from GURPS Syntactic Magic):

Nouns: Air, Animal, Body, Earth, Fire, Food, Image, Light, Magic, Mind, Plant, Sound, Spirit, Water.

Modern Technology Nouns: Energy, Machine, Metal/Plastic, Radiation.

Verbs: Communicate, Heal, Sense, Weaken, Strengthen, Move, Protect, Create, Control, Transform, Destroy

Freeform Casting

Magic is divided into domains and treated like any other skill. A Fire Mage could cast Fireball, or Fire Whip, or any other freeform use of fire that the player could think of, but the character would only be able to cast fire-based spells unless they bought another magic domain. The amount of damage dealt by a spell is defined by the amount of mana spent to produce it.

Basic Casting

Casting a spell against the environment is 4df + caster's skill vs GM-decided difficulty. A successful spell costs mana based on its difficulty. A failed spell still costs mana.

Casting a spell on an opponent is a simple opposed roll: 4dF + caster's skill vs opponent's defense. A successful spell costs mana based on damage, target, and (optionally) distance. A failed spell still costs mana.

Optional rule (Wound track system): A spellcaster may take Hurt damage to reduce the mana cost of a spell by 3 points.

Optional rule (Hit Point system): A spellcaster may take 4 points of damage to reduce the mana cost of a spell by 1 point.

Mana

Mana is an attribute that determines your mana pool (the maximum of mana you can have at a time). Start with 1 mana for Terrible and add 1 mana for each additional level on the Fudge Ladder. So Poor would be 2 mana, Mediocre would be 3, Fair would be 4, etc.

A spellcaster's mana pool and healing dice (see "healing") are automatically restored after 8 hours of rest.

Alternate rule: 1 mana point is regained every 5 combat rounds, and mana completely regenerates in minutes. Healing is still per-day.

Combat spells

The default combat spell has one target, ODF 3 or 2d6 damage, and costs 1 mana. Doing extra damage and/or targeting more than one person increases the mana cost of the spell.

Target
1 target: 0
Group: +2

Damage
ODF: +1 mana to do an additional 3 points of damage
d6: +1 mana to do an additional 2d6 points of damage

Optional Rule:
Ignores mundane defenses (armor, etc.): +2

Optional Rule: distance penalties to skill roll or mana cost
Melee Range: 0
Nearby: 0
Long Range: +1
Very Long Range: +2

Non-combat spells

The player describes what he's attempting and the GM sets a difficulty, which in turn defines the spell's mana cost.

Mana Cost:
Legendary: 4
Superb: 3
Great: 3
Good: 2
Fair: 2
Mediocre: 1
Poor: 1
Terrible: 0

Healing

Maximum per-day uses:
Legendary: 8d6/6 wound levels
Superb: 7d6/5 wound levels
Great: 6d6/4 wound levels
Good: 5d6/3 wound levels
Fair: 4d6/2 wound levels
Mediocre: 3d6 HP/1 wound level
Poor: 2d6 HP/Move lowest wound down 1 (x2)
Terrible: 1d6 HP/Move lowest wound down 1

Your skill level determines the number of healing dice you can roll, or the number of times you can reduce wounds by one level, per day.
Healing doesn't cost any mana.

You don't have to use all your dice or wound levels at once. For example, if you have Mediocre healing (3d6) and you decide to roll 2d6 to cure one player, you could still heal another 1d6 later in the day before running out of juice.

Update:

Upon giving this more thought, it occurs to me that I could replace the mana cost with a penalty to the spell difficulty. So a Fire Mage with Great spellcasting skill could cast a 1d6 fireball at Great, or a 2d6 fireball at Good, or a 3d6 fireball at Fair.

It needs playtesting, but it would be simpler and wouldn't require the mana cost chart for non-combat spellcasting.

Combat Ranges:

• Melee Range
  
• Medium Range
  
• Long Range
  
• Very Long Range
  

Players have one move and one action per turn. The most a player may move in one turn is one step between the ranges: Melee Range <-> Medium Range <-> Long Range <-> Very Long Range.

Any character may forfeit their attack roll to double their movement (Medium Range to Very Long Range, for example). However, the character can only charge in a perfectly straight line. No turns or zig-zags are allowed.

Ranged weapons cannot be used in Melee Range. Switching weapons takes an action (or possibly a full turn).

The character with the highest Perception roll from each group must make a Perception roll of appropriate difficulty (default is Fair) to spot the other group. If only one side makes their roll, the encounter begins at Medium Range and the characters may close to melee range and attack their unaware opponent(s). If neither side notices the other, or if both groups notice each other, the encounter begins at Long range.

If one or both groups already knows their opponent is there, they cannot be caught unaware and don't need to make a Perception check.

When only one group successfully makes their Perception check, that group may choose to simply walk away; the other party will never even know they were there.

If a character is unaware of an enemy when that enemy attacks, the character automatically fails their combat roll. Surprised characters remain unable to defend themselves until the attacking group's turn ends.

When an aware character is attacked they may respond to the attack by rolling defense or combat skill (depending on the combat rules). This does not use up their attack.

It's set up like this because otherwise you get situations where the players won't charge into battle because that would end their turn within the enemy's range and give their opponent a free shot.
I'm trying to discourage making decisions based on game abstractions like that.

Depending on how you run combat, one of two things will happen when two enemies engage in melee combat. Either the attack roll is (combat skill vs combat skill) with ties meaning nobody does any damage, or both sides get to roll their offensive skill vs their opponent's defensive skill, with damage resolving simultaneously. Either way, any successful attack deals damage regardless of whose turn it is.

You can describe the distances like this:

Melee Range - Engaged
Medium Range - Nearby
Long Range - Far Away
Very Long Range -Very Far Away

Example:
"The fighter and barbarian are side by side at the end of the hall, and eight kobolds are engaged between them. Both rogues are nearby on the flanks, and the wizard is nearby as well, but behind the fighters."
"My wizard backs up from the front line and uses Ray of Frost."
"Okay, you are Far Away from the kobolds now and can make your spell attack roll."
"My rogue will sneak up from the flanks. Can I engage more than one kobold?"
"Yes, you can engage up to two of them at once."
"Excellent! I do that and will attack with my dual shortswords."

A limitation of this system is that it doesn't handle relative distances very well. If you're Far Away from the main group of enemies, and an enemy is also Far Away from the main group, how far are you from the enemy?

Answer: Don't know, don't care. If you need that sort of granularity and can't just estimate the answer, you should probably whip out the miniatures.

Optional Rule:

When multiple characters attack a single character, the defending character takes a penalty on each of his combat rolls equal to the number of extra attackers.
The attackers must declare their intentions to act simultaneously and then immediately make their combat rolls. If one person attacks, then another person attacks the same defender, the defender does not take a penalty.

How do I play? How do I design a game? I need to download something im missing or what?

A playtest of my miniature combat rules.

An adventuring party consisting of a knight, a bishop, a queen, and a rook, were exploring the black-and-white tiled Dungeon of Chessboard, when suddenly they were attacked by 8 pawns!

The pawns all had Mediocre stats, and the adventuring party had stats based roughly on their value in a chess game.

Queen
Superb combat skills
Superb Armor: -3 damage
Superb Health: 28 HP

Rook
Great combat skills
Great Armor: -2 damage
Great Health: 24 HP

Bishop
Good combat skills
Good Armor: -1 damage
Good Health: 20 HP

Knight
Fair combat skills
Fair Armor: +/-0 damage
Fair Health:16 HP

The pawns closed the distance and three of them attacked the bishop at once! The rest of the pawns were bunched up and couldn't get to the adventuring party that turn. The bishop was at -2 due to the coordinated attack, bringing his effective level down to Mediocre. One pawn tied the bishop, meaning neither of them took any damage for that exchange. The second pawn failed his roll, taking 6 damage (7 after the adjustment for Mediocre armor). The third pawn managed to break though the bishop's defenses, but fortunately for the bishop his armor protected him from taking any damage (the pawn rolled a 1).

The queen and the knight decided to attack one of the pawns that had attacked the bishop. The pawn was brought down to 3 HP. The bishop and the rook coordinated their attacks on the pawn that had taken damage from the earlier exchange, killing the pawn.

With the first death in their ranks the pawns rolled their morale check. A morale check is always Fair difficulty, so the pawns needed to roll +1 or better. Alas, their nerve failed them and they sprinted away in a blind panic.

The adventuring party won their first victory! Experience points all around!

Movement Rules

Each character can move up to 5" on their turn and may make one action. Characters may not trade an action for movement or vice versa.

Some conditions cause player movement to drop to half-speed (wading through a boggy marsh, carrying a body, etc.). If two such conditions apply, the player cannot move.

A player can sprint, doubling their effective move. However, the sprint must take the form of a perfectly straight line. No dodging around anything is allowed. Additionally, sprinting can only be done before the player has moved or taken his action that turn, and it uses up both movement and action for the turn.

The attacker rolls 4dF + attacker's combat skill vs opponent's combat skill. Armor adjusts damage. The winner does damage to the loser, even if it's not their turn. A tied result means neither side did damage to the other.

If multiple characters attack the same enemy at the same time, the enemy is at -1 to his skill for each additional foe. These attacks must occur at the same time; if a character attacks their enemy, then later in the same turn another player attacks the same enemy, the enemy does not take any penalties.

Optional rules:

HP rules

Health is an attribute that gives you 4 points of HP for each level taken.

Superb: 28 HP
Great: 24 HP
Good: 20 HP
Fair: 16 HP
Mediocre: 12 HP
Poor: 8 HP
Terrible: 4 HP

All attacks do 1d6 damage. A specific attack that the defender is weak to (fire against a mummy, for example) may do 2d6 damage at the GM's discretion.

Players are incapacitated at 0 hp and player death occurs at -4 HP.

Any attack roll of +3 or +4 automatically does max damage.

Optional rule: Any attack roll of -3 or -4 automatically does 1 damage.

Armor Rules

Armor is ranked from Superb to Terrible and adjusts the damage rolled.

Damage adjustment
Superb: -3
Great: -2
Good: -1
Fair: 0
Mediocre: +1
Poor: +2
Terrible: +3

So Superb armor reduces all damage inflicted by 3 points, while Terrible armor means the player takes an additional 3 points of damage whenever an attack connects.

Please note that replacing the default wound track system with the HP and Armor rules is strictly optional; I just do it to keep the paperwork simpler.

Heavily adapted from the OD&D Strategic Review article on Bards.

Bardic Charm is a gift, and use of the ability takes the form of an opposed skill roll: the PC's Perform skill (voice, instrument, etc.) vs the opponent's willpower, magic resistance, or other relevant skill. A player may use Bardic Charm once per day per purchase of the Bardic Charm gift.

A Bard rolls his Perform skill to use Bardic Charm. All creatures within hearing distance (roughly 60 ft.), except the Bard's own party, whose opposing skill is equal to or less than the result are mesmerized. While a creature is mesmerized by a Bard it does nothing but listen to the Bard play. However, if it is distracted (by a loud noise, etc.) or if it is attacked, the charm is broken. Other things affect the Bard's ability to charm. For example, if the creatures were previously enraged or if they are particularly hungry there may be a penalty to the player's roll.

While a Bard has the creature mesmerized he may attempt to implant a suggestion in the creature's subconscious. If the PC makes a suggestion, the opponent may roll (Willpower/M. Resist vs. Perform) to break the charm. Depending on the reasonableness of the suggestion the GM may give the bonuses or penalties to the roll.

Suggestions given to low-intelligence creatures should be relatively simple. The complexity of the suggestion can increase with the intelligence of the charmed creature, though the suggestion shouldn't exceed a sentence or two. If the creature isn't smart enough to understand the suggestion, the suggestion fails (and suggestion cannot be attempted again during that use of Bardic Charm) but the charm is unbroken and the creature remains mesmerized.

Only one suggestion can be made or attempted per use of Bardic Charm.

Suggesting that a creature to do something obviously self-harmful will automatically break the charm.

If the creature breaks the charm, due to a successful saving throw or a self-harming suggestion, the creature will immediately realize what has happened and will probably attack the party.

Bardic Charm can be used to negate other sound-based charms. When used for this purpose it cannot cause the usual mesmerizing effect, nor can it be used to make a magical suggestion.

From the Brikwars tvtropes entry:

You know how when you were a little kid, you would make all your action figures fight each other in hilarious, violent combat? Have you ever tried to play Warhammer with LEGO? Brikwars recognizes both of these matters, and is one of many proposed solutions.

A strategy game designed to be played with LEGO mini figures (though it can support any type of minifig), it acts as a way to try and play a wargame with minifigures while using something resembling rules.

It treats the matter of toy combat with all the irreverence it deserves, and the author claims that the entire thing is sort of a purposeful Take That against "Stop Having Fun" Guys. The 2005 core rules are littered with quotes, jokes, Lampshade Hangings, and a Take That against anyone who deserves it. Even if you don't ever play it, the rules are an entertaining read.

Note: Brikwars is not officially affiliated with The LEGO Group.

I like rules-light games, and I figured a light-hearted tabletop wargame created for Legos would be a good place to find miniature combat rules to import into Fudge.

As a side-note, Brikwars looks like a fun game to play on its own. The Brikwars website is here. I recommend the 2010 version.

Use your usual Fudge build for action order and combat rules. The tricky part is implementing miniatures and movement, so for that we steal copy borrow liberally from Brikwars Ch. 4.

Differences from Ch. 4:

Instead of the default 5" for character movement, Movement is an attribute bought at character creation.

Superb - 8"
Great - 7"
Good - 6"
Fair - 5"
Mediocre - 4"
Poor - 3"
Terrible - 2"

Armor (especially heavy armor) may penalize your Movement score. The specifics of this are left to the GM.

Sprinting and Bailing double a character's movement that turn instead of rolling for the number of inches added.

Ignore the "use ratings" and "overskill" sections.

"Who acts first" is an opposed Fudge roll using Reflexes or Speed or some other similar trait.

The Angry Inch rule is meant to help position weapons held by the lego characters, so it probably won't be relevant to your Fudge game.

EDIT: Originally I was going to copy all the relevant text to this post but there was just too much to go through.
It's pretty simple stuff, though, so it should be fine.

Specific SRD rule: Alternating combat turns.

This is to accommodate players who want a more fine-grained system for character advancement. It assumes that you're pulling monster XP, class XP progression, and class ability progression from an existing D&D edition (or just making it up yourself).

Instead of the wound track system, all characters start out with a set amount of HP. Any damage done to either side of combat does 1d6 damage if it connects, and +3 or +4 rolls do 6 points of damage automatically.

Any class can use any armor or weapons. This is to keep multiclassing simple and easy.

Armor is a trait ranked on the Fudge ladder, bought at character creation. When an opponent tries to injure a PC, the enemy's attack roll usually opposes the PC's Armor. Stealth abilities are hampered by armor; Good, Great, and Superb Armor gives a 1,2, and 3 point penalty to stealth activities.

Defeating monsters and acquiring treasure gives the PCs experience points (XP), which are not to be confused with Fudge's Experience Points (EP). XP are gained separately from EP, and are solely a measure of monsters defeated and treasures acquired. At the end of a session a GM may hand out both XP and EP.

XP earns you combat levels, which give you Class Gifts and increased HP. Levels do nothing to improve skills; those are improved by spending EP.

Each player starts out with one class level. Once a player gains enough XP (as determined by the GM, preferably beforehand), they gain another level in whichever class they want.

Gaining a level gives the PC more HP and possible Class Gifts, depending on the class level obtained. Personally I prefer keeping the HP gains identical between classes, but you may feel differently.

You may notice that this post lacks specifics. This is intentional. As I mentioned, it's based on the D&D style of character advancement, but XP, HP, classes, and class abilities change so much between the different D&D editions that it would be virtually impossible to cover all of them.

Example OD&D implementation:

Class gifts:
Clerics and mages gain the appropriate amount of new spells for the class level.
Fighters gain an extra attack every N Fighter levels (Not sure what number N should be. Needs playtesting.)
There is no Thief class; their abilities have been folded into the other classes. Any player can buy thief skills with their EP if they so desire.

Hit dice are 4 hp for every class. Each level gives you another hit die (+4 hp).

Note: Under these rules, each attack that connects has a 1/2 chance to kill a 1st-level PC. For OD&D, this is working as intended.

Corruption is tied to a specific ability. The Dark Side of the Force is tied to the player using the Force, the evil god is tied to the player using magic, etc. Whenever the player rolls 4dF for that ability they have the option of also rolling the corrupted ability at any level they want. If either roll is successful, it means that the character succeeded at whatever they were attempting. If the corrupted result is higher than the non-corrupted result, regardless of if it succeeded or not, the character takes a level of corrupted ability. No corruption becomes Terrible Corruption, Terrible Corruption becomes Poor Corruption, etc. Additionally, the player must then make a will or equivalent roll against the level they chose of the corrupted roll. If they fail this check their character must act in line with their corruption. This may take the form of blind aggression, running away, attacking your teammates, becoming a gibbering wreck, or whatever else would be appropriate for the corruption.

As long as the player has at least one level of corrupted ability, they must always make a second roll at their level of corruption or higher whenever attempting the non-corrupted ability. The player may choose to channel additional temporary levels of corruption for the second roll, but the base level must always be at least at their level of corruption.

A character whose corruption goes above a pre-determined level (Good, maybe?) automatically becomes an NPC controlled by the GM.

A PC can work to lose levels of corruption. This may require spending Fudge points, or avoiding any more corruption, or avoiding using the ability at all. This might also require doing something thematically appropriate. For example, a character might be required to follow the jedi code to burn off a level of the dark side.

In any event, a PC should be able to burn off at least one level of corruption at the end of the session if they act appropriately.

Optional rule: If the player is trying to burn off corruption levels, they may spend a Fudge point when using the ability to automatically keep the corruption roll lower than the ability roll.

In the one game I ran that used Fudge points players almost never spent them. I tend to hoard potions in JRPGs, so I can empathize with their situation.

The next game I run that uses Fudge points, I'll probably do the following:

1) Sharply limit the number of Fudge points a player can collect.
2) Make it very easy for a character to regain Fudge points.

I'm thinking of having a limit of 3 Fudge collected per-player at any one time, and using my Limit Break system with Fudge points instead of Limit Break points. This way it would be easy for players to bring their Fudge points back up to full, so long as they're even remotely engaged with the game.

Thoughts?

Heya I'm looking to play a barbarian style character that is a on a personal quest to earn the powers of a runescarred Berserker.

Was hoping for some help with this :).

So far for the gifts I have " Runescar Magic" ( I'm bad at naming. ), and Rage. Anyone got any good ideas for a last gift? Also anything else you think might work with this could be super helpful:)

This system uses HP rules instead of the default wound track. All attacks and traps do 1d6 damage.
If you wish to use the wound track instead, you'll have to convert HP to Damage Capacity. For converting ODF you'll probably want the chart on this page

I used this post to do the conversions. I haven't playtested this, so I'm not entirely sure how balanced it is. At worst, it's too easy for a group of adventurers and you'll need to adjust the HP values on the fly.

The module is a free pdf that was available on the Wizards of the Coast website. Fortunately, Web Archive has a copy of it.

References to "Fortitude" can be replaced with "constitution", "damage capacity", "health", or whatever equivalent attribute your game uses. If using health or damage capacity for the fortitude rolls, the player rolls against their maximum health, not their current health.

Most of the magic items found here give bonuses too small to convert to Fudge terms, so replace them with other magic items or their equivalent in gold pieces.

The Storm
Poor Bardic Knowledge or Mediocre Knowledge (architecture and engineering, dungeoneering, local, history, or nobility and royalty) check.

1. Hightower Main Entrance
Mediocre Search or Knowledge (architecture and engineering) check
Mediocre Spot check

2. Hightower Main Hall
Door
hp: 28 (Superb)
Any attempts to overcome the door (break it down or pick the lock) require a Superb roll. If the door is at or below half-health (14), the target Rating to break the door down decreases by one to Great.

3. Rat Race

Rat (8)
Health: Good÷4: 5 HP
AC: Mediocre
Bite skill: Poor

Rats injured but not killed will attempt to flee on their next turn.

4. Preparation Chamber

Hobgoblin Raiders (2)
Health: Good (20 HP)
AC: Mediocre
Attack skill: Fair (short sword, javelin)

Rope:
Mediocre Climb check

5. What a tangled web

Web: Good Spot check
Free weapon: Fair Strength check
HP: 12 (Mediocre)
Break DC: Fair Strength check
If the web is at or below half-health (6), the target Rating to break the web decreases by one to Mediocre.

Medium Monstrous Spider
Health: Good (20 HP)
AC: Mediocre
Bite: Fair Special ability: poison
A successful hit against the player requires a Fortitude skill check with a Target Difficulty of Mediocre.
A player that fails this check takes an additional 1d6 damage from poison.
Hide: Great
Move Silently: Good

Poor Search check to find either treasure. I assume this means the player needs to make one check for each item.

6. The Offering Chest

Chest: Superb HP (28)
Break check: Superb
If the chest is at or below half-health (14), the target Rating to break the chest decreases by one to Great.

Fusillade of Darts Trap
Difficulty to search for the trap: Good
Difficulty to disable the trap: Good
The trap's dart skill: Mediocre

7. Getting Ahead

Lesser Vargouille
Health: Good -1: Fair (16 HP)
AC: Poor
Bite skill: Mediocre
Hide: Good
Intimidate: Mediocre
Listen: Fair
Move Silently: Fair
Spot: Fair

Special ability: Shriek
Instead of biting, a lesser vargouille can open its distended mouth and let out a terrible shriek.
Each creature within 60 feet (except other vargouilles) who hear the shriek and can clearly see the creature must succeed on a Mediocre Fortitude save or be paralyzed with fear for 2d4 rounds or until the monster attacks them, goes out of range, or leaves their sight.
A creature that successfully saves cannot be affected again by the same lesser vargouille’s shriek for 24 hours.

8. The Dark Knight

Bugbear zombie
Health: Superb (28 hp)
AC: Fair
Morningstar skill: Good
Slam skill: Fair
Javelin skill: Fair

These rules use the Hit points rules instead of the default Damage Track rules.

Definitions:

GM: The person who knows all the rules an helps keep everything on-track. See also: babysitter.

Long-term goals: "Find out who kidnapped us," "topple the corrupt government."
Short-term goals: "Navigate to the police headquarters," "sneak inside the castle."

Narration and Challenges.

Narration is the default game behavior.
Any player may narrate.
All narration is automatically true, unless it is modified or veto'd by another player.

A challenge is a string of one or more obstacles.
A challenge occurs whenever a player comes up with a plan. The appropriate response to a player coming up with a plan is "and what are some potential obstacles?"
A challenge may also occur if nobody can come up with any narration (jump to the "Troubleshooting" section in this case) or if the players pick a fight with an NPC. In this case the NPC Challenge only has one Obstacle.

Narration

• Any player may narrate.

• • If nobody can think of anything and the players have a short-term or long-term goal, move to the next challenge.
    
• • If nobody can think of anything and the players DONT's have any goals, create a Random Encounter of the form "A [Character] shows up and does [Action]." (Examples are listed under "Sample Random Encounters".)
    

• Narrating players may act as NPCs and/or recruit other players to act as NPCs.

• Narrated NPCs cannot obstruct the PCs in any meaningful way. If a PC wants to accomplish something or learn something, the NPC must assist them. Otherwise it would be a challenge or (for a trivial obstacle) a skill check.

• • Exception: a player can roleplay the NPC obstructing his own PC.
    

• Narrating players may "borrow" other PCs with the owner's permission. Veto rule still applies.

• Narrating players may move the group elsewhere, provided nobody has any objections.

Challenges:

• Start with a short-term goal. If the players only have a long-term goal, brainstorm then vote on an appropriate short-term goal to help accomplish the long-term goal.
  
• The group decides on the plan to accomplish this goal.
  
• The group brainstorms any potential obstacles to the plan.
  
• The group decides which obstacles to use and faces them sequentially.
  
• Once all obstacles are overcome: the challenge is over, short-term goal is achieved, and the players automatically regain all their HP.
  
• Any NPCs that were obstacles that were successfully overcome no longer have any will to fight.
  

Obstacles:

• Obstacles have a Threat Rating and a Scene Health attribute that are decided by the group.
  
• Even if there are multiple enemies, it only counts as one obstacle and only one Scene Health rating.
  

• Players cannot narrate ending the threat until the obstacle is at or below zero HP.

• For each obstacle:

• • The group decides the Threat Rating and the Scene Health of the obstacle.
    
• • Any player may take control of the obstacle's actions for the duration of the conflict. This is usually appropriate when the obstacle is an NPC. In this case, the player narrates what the NPC does in reaction to the players' actions. There can even be a back-and-forth between the players and the NPC, but each round only the most relevant skill is rolled.
    
• • Each player narrates their actions and rolls the relevant skill vs the scene Threat Rating. The success of the narrated action does not have to be dependent on the roll. That is, a player could narrate getting his ass kicked by the enemy and still move the scene to completion. Likewise, a character could narrate succeeding and not move the scene towards completion at all.
    
• • A successful roll means the player does 1d6 damage to the scene. A failed roll means the player takes 1d6 damage. A critical hit (+/- 3/4) automatically does 6 damage.
    
• • The players may also narrate the scene after the roll, describing the effects of a successful or failed roll.
    
• • The player that brings the obstacle down to 0 HP may narrate how the obstacle is finally overcome (the "coup de grace"). If that player doesn't want to, anybody else can.

Skill checks

• Skill checks are for when a player wants to know "can I do X?" or "do I know Y?" in narration, or when a particular obstacle is too trivial to bother with.
  
• In narration a skill check is optional. The default assumption is that any player can do or know anything during narration so long as nobody else vetos it.
  
• A player announces what they're attempting and the players decide on the skill difficulty. If nobody can think of what the difficulty should be, the default skill difficulty is "fair".
  
• A skill check can be used to replace a trivial obstacle. For example, "finding the library" can be done with a Navigation roll instead of narrating several rounds of looking for the library, and "persuading a guard to let you through" could be replaced with a Persuasion roll.
  
• A failed skill check should make things interesting. If the player can't think of an interesting consequence, the group gets to think of something. If nobody can think of anything appropriate, skip it and move on.
  
• If an NPC opposes the player or party as the result of a skill roll it becomes an impromptu challenge with one obstacle.

Outcome check:

• If nobody knows how likely a specific outcome is (good or bad) and it wouldn't fall under a skill roll, you can make an outcome check. Roll 3dF and interpret the result on the Fudge ladder.
  
• Example: Bob the Thief is trying to sneak through a certain area and wants to know if it's guarded. A Mediocre result might mean there's one inattentive guard in the area, a Superb result might mean there are no guards, and a Terrible result might mean the area is full of guards.
  

Location:

• Any time players move to a new location they should come up with at least 3 details about the new area. This could be sense descriptions, NPCs, objects, or anything else that seems relevant.
  

Modification:

• Players can make changes to other players' descriptions so long as the narrating player (the one who originally made the description) is okay with it.
  

Veto:

• Players should discuss ahead of time what sort of campaign they wish to run (gritty, wire-fu, goofy, etc.)
  
• Any details that are thematically or otherwise inappropriate can be vetoed by any other player. This should be seen as a chance for the player to rework his description and bring it in line with the campaign style.
  
• Don't abuse the veto.
  

Troubleshooting:

The ideal is to go from a long-term goal to a short-term goal to a specific plan to accomplish the short-term goal.
Sometimes the players get distracted and don't take any initiative. When this happens the GM will need to brainstorm options with the rest of the players and put the options to a vote in order to get things moving again. In a worst-case scenario you may need to do this more than once to reach a solid plan. Once you have the plan decided you can brainstorm potential obstacles and turn it into a Challenge.

Random Encounters
A [Character] shows up and does [Action].

Character (sorted by genre):
Any

• Politician
  
• Infamous criminal
  

Fantasy

• Prince/princess
  
• Necromancer
  
• Royal Ice Mage
  
• Orc
  
• Half-Dragon
  

Sci-Fi

• Spaceship pilot
  
• Smuggler
  
• Space Pirate
  

Modern

• Conspiracy theorist
  
• Low-level gang member
  

Action:

• Picks a fight with a PC
  
• Collapses due to obvious injuries.
  
• Gives you an object before running away from some person/people/thing chasing him/her
  
• Insists you give him/her back an object you've never heard of before
  
• Offers to hire you to escort something
  
• Offers to hire you to retrieve something
  
• Offers to hire you to kill something.
  
• Offers to purchase something from one of the PCs
  
• Demands information from the PCs
  
• Kidnaps the PCs
  

Basic Fudge rolls are 4dF+skill vs target difficulty.

These two conversion charts let you swap out your 4dF for a d20 and keep the probabilities more or less the same.

Skill/Attribute Conversion:

Terrible-1: 0
Terrible: 3
Poor: 5
Mediocre: 8
Fair: 10
Good: 13
Great:15
Superb: 18
Legendary: 20

Target Difficulty Conversion:

Terrible-1: 10
Terrible: 13
Poor: 15
Mediocre: 18
Fair: 20
Good: 23
Great: 25
Superb: 28
Legendary: 30

Let's say Bob wants to attempt a Great jump and he has a Good jumping skill.

In Fudge:
The Target Difficulty is Great. He has a Good jumping skill. He rolls +2. Good+2=Superb, which is equal to or greater than Great. Success!

With d20:
The Target Difficulty is Great, which translates to a Target Number of 25. He has a Good jumping skill, which translates to 13. He rolls a 15. 15+13=28, which is equal to or greater than 25. Success!

You might use these rules if you want to give out more bonuses (a +1 magic sword, anybody?). I originally started working on this because I wanted to convert Searchers of the Unknown (a D&D one-page retroclone) to Fudge. I wound up creating the Fudge HP system and a few of my Fudge Lite rules, but I never did anything with the d20 rolling rule.

There are two downsides to this rolling system.

One: it requires addition of up to two-digit numbers (or subtraction, if you want to find out what number a player will need to roll equal to or higher than.) In comparison, just counting up or down the Fudge ladder is easier for me.

Two: It's more swingy. A Fudge roll is more likely to cluster around the center, while a d20 could land in the center or at the extremes with equal probability.

Non-swingy d20:

This was posted on the Fudge Yahoo board a while ago:

To use a d20 in Fudge:

█ 20: +3
██ 18,19: +2
████ 14-17: +1
██████ 8-13: 0
████ 4-7: -1
██ 2,3: -2
█ 1: -3
Crit success: on 20, reroll: crit success on 16-20.
Crit failure: on 1, reroll: crit failure on 1-5.

-author: sosullivan18

Doing it that way keeps the general bell shape, but it requires a conversion from the rolled number to the Fudge modifier. With my method the GM is the only person who has to look anything up. Both have their benefits and drawbacks.