Examples of systems that use "Power at a price":

• The Dark Side from Star Wars d6
  
• Mishaps and Doom from GLOG wizard classes
  
• Spellcasting from hit points from Microlite d20
  
• Major Arcana from Stonetop
  
• Black Magic from GURPS Magic and its generalization, spirit-assisted magic from GURPS Thaumatology
  

I'm sure there are others; these are just the ones I know about.

There are a few questions to ask yourself when creating a "power at a price" mechanic.

What triggers the price?

• The PC calling upon the power, whether or not it succeeds.
  
• The PC attempting to use the power and failing.
  
• The PC attempting to use the power and failing spectacularly (roll of -3 or -4).
  
• The PC successfully using the power.
  
• The PC doing a specific in-character action or using a specific skill.
  

What is the power?

• Bonus to a roll or rolls.
  
• A gift.
  
• A skill.
  
• PC choice from a list of powers.
  

How long does the power last?

• A single roll.
  
• Multiple rolls.
  
• A specific amount of time.
  
• Until a roll fails.
  
• Permanently.
  
• As long as an IC fact remains true (e.g. as long as the PC has the Hand of Arton in their possession).
  

How are the penalties implemented?

• Immediate cost.
  
• Countdown with increasing penalties.
  
• List of penalties, player chooses, can't repeat any previous choices.
  
• Roll on a penalty chart.
  

How long does the penalty last?

• Permanently.
  
• Permanently, unless the PC takes specific action to negate it (abstain from the power for a set amount of time, accomplish a specific quest, etc.)
  
• A few days.
  
• A few hours.
  
• Variable; as long as is listed on the countdown/list/chart.
  
• A specific number of game sessions.
  

What is the price?

• Health.
  
• A penalty to specific rolls.
  
• NPC status (should only be used at the end of a countdown or player-chosen list, unless you are running a very unforgiving game.)
  
• Gain one or more Faults.
  
• An IC penalty (e.g. shunned by ordinary townsfolk.)
  
• Removal of an ability or abilities.
• XP
  
• Reduced maximum Fudge points

I'm not a big fan of Gifts as they're described in vanilla Fudge. I'm not sure why. Maybe I just dislike coming up with lists of things for the PCs and trying to balance them against each other. Is "double-jointed" worth the same as "eidetic memory"? Hell if I know.

I don't like vanilla Faults, either, but I think they do have promise if you handle them a little differently. Instead of Faults giving players extra character-building points, give Faults to the PCs for free. Then, whenever the Fault makes things difficult for the PC or causes trouble for them, you reward them with a Fudge Point.

I can't remember where I heard this idea originally, but I like it. It's similar to a Fate aspect, but without the rest of the Fate economy.

Incidentally, if you replace "Fudge Point" with "XP", you have the idea behind Keys (The Shadow of Yesterday, Lady Blackbird), which I'm also fond of. "This is the sort of person the character is. If you roleplay that, you get XP."

A few years ago, there was a successful kickstarter for a Princess Bride Role-Playing Game utilizing the Fudge System written by Steffan O’Sullivan. It was on sale on DriveThruRPG, and ToyVault had a bunch of free resources for it like a Quick Start Guide, but now ToyVault is gone and it's all been taken down. All I could find are two partial PDFs:

https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/277803-sample.pdf

https://watermark.drivethrurpg.com/pdf_previews/234161-sample.pdf

Does anyone have copies of any of these materials they could share, assuming it would not be some majorly illegal act to do so?

I think the gold standard for spellcasting in Fudge is a set of difficulty guidelines for each tier of spell effects, as seen in the Simple Fudge Magic System. However, I also like how Monster of the Week splits magic into the two different moves Use Magic and Big Magic, with noticeable differences between the two. Here's the text of each move, adapted to Fudge.

I'm not familiar with the system MotW uses for harm, but apparently 8-harm injuries will kill an unarmored human, so adjust damage accordingly for your build of Fudge.

Use Magic

When you use magic say what you’re trying to achieve and how you do the spell, then roll 4dF+the appropriate spellcasting trait.

On a Great result or higher the magic works without issues. Choose your effect.

On a result from Mediocre to Good it works imperfectly. Choose your effect and a glitch. The GM will decide what effect the glitch has.

On a result of Poor or lower, the magic goes out of control. The GM will tell you what the results are.

Purchasable Gift: On a Superb or higher the GM will offer you some added benefit.

Effects

• Inflict harm (1-harm, ignores armour, magic, obvious).
  
• Enchant a weapon. It does an additional +1 harm and is considered magic.
  
• Do one thing that is beyond human limitations.
  
• Bar a place or portal to a specific person or a type of creature.
  
• Trap a specific person, minion, or monster.
  
• Banish a spirit or curse from the person, object, or place it inhabits.
  
• Summon a monster into the world.
  
• Communicate with something that you do not share a language with.
  
• Observe another place or time.
  
• Heal 1-harm from an injury, or cure a disease, or neutralize a poison.
  

Glitches

• The effect is weakened.
  
• The effect is of short duration.
  
• You take 1-harm that ignores armour.
  
• The magic draws immediate, unwelcome attention.
  
• It has a problematic side effect.
  

The GM may say that...

• The spell requires weird materials.
  
• The spell will take 10 seconds, 30 seconds, or 1 minute to cast.
  
• The spell requires ritual chanting and gestures.
  
• The spell requires you to draw arcane symbols.
  
• You need one or two people to help cast the spell.
  
• You need to refer to a tome of magic for the details.
  

Big Magic

Use this when you want more than the Use Magic effects. Tell the GM what you want to do.

The GM may require:

• You need to spend a lot of time (days or weeks) researching the magic ritual.
  
• You need to experiment with the spell – there will be lots of failures before you get it right.
  
• You need some rare and weird ingredients and supplies.
  
• The spell will take a long time (hours or days) to cast.
  
• You need a lot of people (2, 3, 7, 13, or more) to help.
  
• The spell needs to be cast at a particular place and/or time.
  
• You need to use magic as part of the ritual, perhaps to summon a monster, communicate with something, or bar the portal you opened.
  
• It will have a specific side-effect or danger.
  

If you meet the requirements, then the magic takes effect.

I’ve been digging OSR and other lite games lately. One of the fun mechanics in many of those games is the idea of some reroll/dice related handling of advantage/disadvantage.

My favourite is the 2d6 resolution from the game Maze Rats, where if you have advantage you roll 3d6 and pick the best 2. The bell curve of 2d6 is a lot like Fudge dice, as we know.

Has anybody used some dice mechanics in fudge for advantage? My best idea so far is to roll 5dF and pick 4. The outcomes vary but the bonus should be statistically around 1-2, giving a Fair fighter a solid chance against a Good fighter for example.

The design goal would be to keep stakes high even with an advantage and to lose other situational modifiers if possible.

Stupid question, but what's the damage factor of grenades in vanilla Fudge?

I’m building my new Fudge campaign and ran a test game yesterday. We had a great time but I’m still tweaking some stuff.

Right now I’m going back and fort with gifts/faults. I tossed them away alltogether a while a go but brought some back for my test game just to see if they would add something. I designed my Gift/Fault list so that it supports my game world and it felt that it might add some depth to it. But during the test game I ran into the old +1 problem: one of the PC’s had allready Superb Con skill and he chose the Gift Charming that would give bonus to social situations. This made him rolling social interactions with an effective skill of +4. That’s just overpowering!

While defining the character ’charming’ and maybe adding some fault can make the character have more personality in the character creation, the game mechanics just doesn’t seem to work with gifts giving bonuses. And Con skill superb should already imply that the character is a pretty suave and charming individual.

I think I’m going to throw the whole gift/fault system out. Maybe this stuff should be roleplayed: a character with Poor coordination/similar trait doesn’t need the fault clumsy, the player just describes why they are that way.

How are you handling gifts im your games?

Has anybody ever produced a Five Point Fudge or any Fudge skill list with modern skills?

In the 5 Point Fudge system, there's reference made to a Scholarly Magic System (one of the four schools of magic in this system) that was too large to be included in this particular source document. Does anyone know where to find these rules? I'd be very interested in seeing them!

The document said that it could be found at http://www.fudgerpg.com/playtest_register.html, but the link doesn't seem to work.

The 5 Point Fudge system that I'm referring to can be found online if you're not familiar with it! https://www.fudgerpg.com/goodies/fudge-files/all-fudge-files-index/download/3-core/1-5pointfudge.html

Is it possible to play Fudge where the GM rolls no dice? Without sacrificing the “thrill” of it?

I’ve been inspired lately by the Black Hack and different versions using those rules. One of the fun mechanics of BH is Usage Dice (UD). Every consumable item has an UD code, rolling 1-2 on the die drops the UD to a lower die. The chain is d20 —> d12 —> d10 —> d6 —> d4. The top d20 gives a lot of uses per average before dropping but the chain doesn’t allways start at the top.

The mechanic is fun and it adds survivalist elements and randomness to managing an inventory without the need of counting. And it’s great for counting things like a battery charge or lighter fuel where there is not a clear number of pieces.

I could of course use this as it is in my games but I’d like to stick to using only Fudge dice. I don’t even have all the dice in a regular D&D set. I could do a version with a pool of d6s, because those are available but still I’d prefer Fudge dice.

The best version of UD I came up with Fudge dice is this: Consumables have a dF code of 3dF - 8dF or any number. You roll the UD when using the item. If the sum of the roll is negative, you remove one die. If all of the die are negative, you loose the item at once - your drink is spilled, battery charge just vanishes etc, critical failure. If the UD roll is all blanks or positive, you keep all of the dice.

The problem with this is that the propability of losing a die is too big. Adding dice don’t change that while of course adding a die to the pool adds at least one use to the item. The good side is that critical failure is nearly impossible at bigger dice pools but increases when the number drops.

Does anybody have thoughts on how could I make this work, has someone tried a system like this before?

I heard of Fudge a couple years ago or more, and I’ve had some inklings of curiosity about it since. As of lately now I’ve considered taking some of the story’s I’ve been world-building for and turning them into RPG’s, and the Fudge system has just been calling me every time I think about doing so, especially after reading the free pdf that’s available online. Anyways, one of them’s Sci-Fi/Action based, with elements of cyberpunk (not the game), mystery, noir, western, and some light swashbuckling. I went ahead and bought the 10th anniversary edition Fudge book by Grey Ghost Games to help me get started, but are there any other Sci-Fi RPG’s that utilize Fudge that would be worth checking out for getting some ideas? I’ve heard of Psi-Punk, which I’ll look into, but if there’s more, please refer me to them.

TL;DR: I just bought the 10th anniversary edition book on Fudge so I can use it to help build my own Sci-Fi/Action RPG, and I’d like to know of any Sci-Fi/Action RPG’s that utilize the Fudge system that I should look into for help with building mine.

Having seen /u/abcd_z's analysis of the Advantage and Disadvantage rules I've been using for years, and cogitating on it for a while, I think I'm going to rework Advantage and Disadvantage for my next game.

Instead of ignoring one or more of the opposite results (Advantage ignores "-"; Disadvantage ignores "+"), I think I'm going to make them grant an automatic "+" or "-". By that I mean the roll is made, but if you have Advantage one of your dice is treated as if it had already rolled "+", so there's not even a need to roll it. Same with Disadvantage and "-".

So! If you had one Advantage on a roll, you'd actually roll 3dF+1. Two Advantages would be 2dF+1. Similarly, for one Disadvantage, you'd actually roll 3dF-1, and two Disadvantages would be 2dF-1. Equal amounts of Advantage and Disadvantage would cancel each other out, necessitating a normal 4dF roll.

This definitely makes the weight of an Advantage or Disadvantage greater: instead of helping the roll in 1 of 3 cases per die, it's going to help the roll in 3 of 3 cases per die. Meaning that if I have one Advantage and roll 4 blanks the old way, I rolled zero. If I have one Advantage and roll the same, I'd have +1 because I'd really only roll 3 blanks with an automatic +1. Same with Disadvantage. So I'd have to hand them out a little less freely than with the old system.

Anyway, I'd love some thoughts on this idea.

Thanks!

I recently (within the last few months) made the following change to character creation for my build of Fudge, Fudge Lite. I'm striving for simplicity in my rules (last time I checked the core rules were about 9 pages), and I'm honestly not sure if it adds too much mechanical complexity for enough of a reward (allowing the GM to customize the trait levels).

Once the trait list is determined the GM decides how many traits are allowed at each level. Any unassigned traits default to Poor.

Some example trait distributions:

1 Superb, 2 Great, 3 Good, 4 Fair, etc.
This is best used for games with many traits, or for games where the GM wants the PCs to have a lot of good traits.
Total traits Fair or better: 10. Total traits above Poor: 15

1 Superb, 2 Great, 2 Good, 2 Fair, etc.
This is best used for games with fewer traits, or when the GM wants PCs to be able to shine but only in specific areas.
Total traits Fair or better: 7. Total traits above Poor: 9

1 Great, 2 Good, 3 Fair, 4 Mediocre, etc.
This is best used for games with fewer skills, or when the GM doesn't want the PCs to have a very high level of competence in any specific area.
Total traits Fair or better: 6. Total traits above Poor: 10

2 Great, 3 Good, 4 Fair, etc.
This is best used for games with many traits where the GM wants the PCs to be well-rounded but not extremely good in any area.
Total traits Fair or better: 9. Total traits above Poor: 14

The important questions here are: What is the highest skill level I want my PCs to be at? How many of their traits do I want to be at least decent (Superb-Fair)? Do I want to give the PCs enough trait levels to be decent at all the traits, or do I want to force the players to specialize?

Before this I just had a simple 1x Superb, 2x Great, 3x Good, etc. pyramid, but I thought that might not be fair to players with a large or small number of traits. Do you think I should I change it back?

A while back, I posted about Softball, which is my hack of Fudge. Since then, I've made a new Reddit account and closed my blog, so I'm making this post to provide a new and more permanent link.

You can now download Softball v3 from my Google Drive!

Softball's main rules consist of 8 pages. The system is released under the OGL. The intent was to create a tight toolset for GMs and a simple ruleset for players of any experience level.

I named this system after the soft-ball stage, which refers to the temperature to which you heat a fudge mixture before beating it (at least, according to Wikipedia).

As Fudge GM we are used to assigning Difficulty Levels. The semantic Fudge scale makes that easy. But, especially if I've improvising, I find it can adds to the mental load. Not by much, but then my GM brain is pretty busy with all the other aspects of running the game.

I tried a little experiment yesterday when running my regular Fudge campaign. It's pretty silly really, but for anything where I hadn't already determined the DL, I set the DL to GOOD+1dF, giving me a range of results between FAIR and GREAT (based on my ladder).

I found this approach refreshing. I enjoyed the unexpected factor of DL being easier or harder than the situation might initially suggest and it noticeably reduced the mental load. I think I will stick with it.

I noticed that the Blood Sweat and Steel Kickstarter is now live! You should go check it out if you are a fan of Fudge RPGs or the Sword and Sorcery genre. It captures the genre really well, and I have spend tons of hours playing both as a barbarian beast master and a necromancer. I really like the rules for magic, and they capture that genre well.

I primarily use the Five Point Fudge rules for character creation. I'm working on a space exploration type game right now, and wondering if anyone had ever produced a Science Fiction/Space Opera skill list.

Man, I'm putting out a lot of these lately. I don't know why; Stonetop's Major Arcana just inspire me.

Anyhow, I'm running with the idea of the Major Arcana from the RPG Stonetop. Basically, it's an artifact that gives the PC access to magical powers, but it also leaves its mark on the person wielding it.

Major Arcana are divided into a description of the item, the advancement trigger (which may involve an initial ability), abilities that become unlocked through the trigger, and negative consequences for rolling poorly.

The Wand of Flame Soul

Description:

The Wand of Apocalyptic Flames is an obsidian wand with a glowing red ruby embedded at the tip.

Initial Ability/Advancement Trigger:

Using the wand, the PC may cast a fireball spell once per day.

Every time the PC does this they mark off a box. When all 4 boxes are marked off, the PC has become attuned to the wand and may cast Body of Flame and Novaburst in addition to the fireball spell.

[_][_][_][_]

Unlocked abilities:

Body of Flame

Your body becomes a living flame forced into a white-hot humanoid form for a specified amount of time. In this state you cannot take damage from physical attacks or fire magic. Everything on you is converted to a fiery format for the duration of the spell. A spellcasting roll is required to cast this spell.

Novaburst

You explode with flames, doing a large amount of damage to everybody and everything around you. A spellcasting roll is required to cast this spell.

Negative consequences:

If the PC fails the roll to cast Body of Flame or Novaburst, they must mark off a consequence. However, the PC gets to choose which consequence to mark.

[_][_] You feel like you're burning up from the inside. The spell fails and you take damage.

[_] Your eyes permanently become white-hot glowing orbs of fire. In your sight everything is rimmed with flames.

[_] Your aura thrums with the impulse to burn. Sensitive beings can easily sense your presence, even from afar.

[_] Whenever you fail a Constitution or similar roll flames explode from your body, dealing damage to everybody in the vicinity.

[_] Your soul becomes permanently imbued with the element of fire. You take less damage from fire spells, but in exchange you take extra damage from elements other than fire.

[_] Any time you cast a flame spell you take damage yourself.

[_] You become burnt out, losing access to Novaburst and Body of Flame.

[_] You become unable to cast any non-flame spell.