Quote from: RPGPundit;1060809Yes, but it also stopped most people playing FUDGE anymore, and (as far as I know) anyone making any other successful FUDGE derivative.

Until Fate there were no FUDGE derivative. Fate the only standout hit the FUDGE system had. The only serious Fudge effort outside of the core was the Deryni RPG based on Katherine Kurtz book series. There is Gatecrashers and some supplements like a Magical Medley. But until Fate it was little different than any other random second or third tier professional RPG. It main claim to fame was it's dice, it's genesis on the old internet newsgroups, and handy to use for an off the cuff RPG session or campaign.

Then there is the fact that Fudge in part spawned off the GURPS community. However very few does crunch quite like GURPS so that sucked the wind out of that aspect of FUDGE. You see traces of it in a Magical Medley but things dragged on, it wasn't a hit, there was little excitement, and wound up puttering along.

That is until Fate came along.

Quote from: estar;1061006Until Fate there were no FUDGE derivative. Fate the only standout hit the FUDGE system had. The only serious Fudge effort outside of the core was the Deryni RPG based on Katherine Kurtz book series. There is Gatecrashers and some supplements like a Magical Medley. But until Fate it was little different than any other random second or third tier professional RPG. It main claim to fame was it's dice, it's genesis on the old internet newsgroups, and handy to use for an off the cuff RPG session or campaign.

Then there is the fact that Fudge in part spawned off the GURPS community. However very few does crunch quite like GURPS so that sucked the wind out of that aspect of FUDGE. You see traces of it in a Magical Medley but things dragged on, it wasn't a hit, there was little excitement, and wound up puttering along.

That is until Fate came along.

There is a certain point to that, sure. There wasn't any major FUDGE-based game before FATE. But there were a ton of FUDGE variants that were being made at the homebrew level.

As the author, I'm saying you might want to take a look at this...

https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/288199/The-Orb

It's a crunchier implementation of Fudge and a complete game--GMs will not be compelled to add anything. All proceeds are going to two cancer charities. If you have questions, fire away.

All the best,

John

I likes my FUDGE and haven't given it up at all, however also haven't managed to run a game for it at a convention or similar public venue for over a decade now.

I have some fantastic adventures written specifically for Terra Incognita, and really should publish these and make them available for Fudge/Fate fans. FUDGE also underpins one of my RPG's set during the American War for Independence, and I have a full rules set available for that as well, that I have used not too long ago it to run RPG games set during the Revolutionary war era. Ann Dupuis from Grey Ghost is still available and you can easily chat with her over on the Mystara FB mailing list, and you'll also find her commenting from time-to-time over on Bruce Heard's Calidar chat group too. As far as I know, Scott Larson (Author of Terra Incognita) doesn't really game anymore, however we have remained Facebook friends, and I do see him post once or twice a year, and it's usually about baseball. Being from Boston, he loves his Red Sox.

I have never really went with exclusively using the 10th anniversary edition mechanic of rolling just a 4df success test, because Estar is correct and the dice probabilities are skewed highly into the probability of auto-success, especially with just a +1 or +2 skills roll modifier. My personal preference is to conduct skills checks more often than not where the player is making an opposed roll against the comparable skill level of an NPC,  or monster, and the skill of an NPC that crafted an item, device or trap. Running games this way and also using lots of action modifiers tends to balance out that bias that favors of players simply taking an action in order to create a successful resolution. Add in critical success, and critical failures with exploding dice ranges and Fudge is just as fun to play as any other RPG.

Have to say that I enjoy FATE as well, and the FATE points pool that can modify a skills or challenge result in the game, the unfolding story or plotline of the game, or even the introduction of significant NPCs and factions keeps this game system as one that I want to continue running games for. The big thing, is FUDGE is a bare-bones RPG toolkit, and coming up with anything really good is a major and very time-consuming undertaking, which is something of an Anathema for young millennial game designers it would seem. God forbid they should actually have to use their brain and do some real creative work, to make an entertaining RPG game.

Not sure why anyone would have any trouble at all with the FUDGE gaming license, since it uses the Open Gaming Licence v 1.0a

IMO one of the very best FATE games that came out in 2015 was Sarah Newton's Mindjammer which is a post-humanist transhuman setting which features a well developed sci-fi toolkit that allows one to create a Tour-De-Force far future campaign setting that adds in a Luc Besson (His cinema credits include The Fifth Element, the original La Femme Nikita, The Transporter series, and of course Valerian) quality of pan-galactic sci-fi awesomeness.

Fudge could use some updating.  I bought two sets of zombie dice and used it as a sort of advantage/disadvantage method.  Basically green dice are advantage while red dice are disadvantage.  Mostly because green dice have one more brain aka success while red dice has one more explosion aka failure.  So green dice are +++00- while red dice are +00---.  It gets interesting once you apply it on FATE aspects instead of the usual +2 and forget about the fate points.

Quote from: ffilz;1059664Interesting, that definitely shows a real difference, and yea, I guess it's reasonable to conclude the Fudge die mechanic may be a mechanic that looks more cool than it plays out. Hmm, you show about 60-40 for +1 in D&D and maybe that was more what I saw.

Keep in mind that in D&D a +1 to hit is a 5% more chance to hit.
But also in D&D that often also means a +1 to damage. The two combined can add up over several rounds. Even just a +1/5% to hit can add up over several rounds as you see. But that is over several rounds. Over shorter combats the tipping of the scales may be smaller. Even a combat as long as 10 rounds you might only hit one time more than normal. Or not. But that is one more hit than the opponent. So it is not as cut and dried as it seems since the number of rounds is a factor.

Who cares if FUDGE is dead? A roleplaying game is dead if no one is playing it. I am sure a small group of people are still playing it, somewhere. Is SPIs UNIVERSE dead? Doubt it. There is a crazy group or three somewhere still playing it. There is 300-350 million people in the US. That is a fuckton of people.

Quote from: Omega;1105433Keep in mind that in D&D a +1 to hit is a 5% more chance to hit.
But also in D&D that often also means a +1 to damage. The two combined can add up over several rounds.

+1 to hit and damage means that for two otherwise equal fighter and circumstances Fighter A will win 80% of the time over 10,000 fight. Of that the +1 damage is more significant as +1 damage alone means Fighter A will win 71% of the time. Fighter A having +1 to hit will win 60% of the time.

D&D Combat Simulator
Source Code

In Fudge, assuming that damage is a function of the degree of success between two opposed rolls. Fighter A will win 77% of the time given a +1 to hit. Which also effects damage due to the role of degree of success in determining damage..

MW (Fudge) RPG Combat Simulator
Source Code
First zero out every entry and just have +1 for OCV for Alex

However subbing in d6-d6 in lieu of 4dF produces a more reasonable increase to 65% of the time.
MW (Fudge) RPG Combat Simulator
Source Code
Again zero out all entries giving Alex +1 OCV

Quote from: Omega;1105433Over shorter combats the tipping of the scales may be smaller.

It depends on the interplay of AC, +to hit, +damage, and damage dice. But in general you are correct that if you can take out your opponent in one or two hits, +1 attack is about as effective or more effective than +1 damage.

Quote from: Omega;1105433Even a combat as long as 10 rounds you might only hit one time more than normal. Or not. But that is one more hit than the opponent. So it is not as cut and dried as it seems since the number of rounds is a factor.

It is pretty cut and dice, if you use a simulator like I have to see how the different mechanics interact in terms of probability.

For Fudge the major issue is that degree of success determines damage. Unlike D&D, no amount of playing around with the combat procedures escapes that. I tried several things to no avail. As for omitting degree of success determining damage, while technically optional most fans consider it a core mechanic of Fudge. Separating the damage roll like in D&D and other RPGs just means the +1 problem is transferred over to the damage roll.

The easily solution without mangling Fudge badly is to switch to d6-d6 for a +5 to -5 result.

Quote from: LouGoncey;1105540Who cares if FUDGE is dead? A roleplaying game is dead if no one is playing it. I am sure a small group of people are still playing it, somewhere. Is SPIs UNIVERSE dead? Doubt it. There is a crazy group or three somewhere still playing it. There is 300-350 million people in the US. That is a fuckton of people.

Because Fudge is presented as a toolkit for DiYers and it is useful to know what you getting into before putting in hours of your hobby time.

As it stands Fudge (or Fate) is pretty good for making one off sessions or short campaigns provided one has a good grasp on the setting or genre. But fares poorly for long term campaigns.

Quote from: estar;1105571Because Fudge is presented as a toolkit for DiYers and it is useful to know what you getting into before putting in hours of your hobby time.

As it stands Fudge (or Fate) is pretty good for making one off sessions or short campaigns provided one has a good grasp on the setting or genre. But fares poorly for long term campaigns.

I feel like if you were set on running Fudge or Fate you can just recruit players. Get new players and have them play. People are pretty easygoing about system when you've already pitched playing and they're interested.

Or is it bad for campaigns because of something inherent to the system?

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1105580I feel like if you were set on running Fudge or Fate you can just recruit players. Get new players and have them play. People are pretty easygoing about system when you've already pitched playing and they're interested.

As I said if you know your genre, setting, or adventure down cold Fudges (or Fate) works well as something with a tad more meat to the mechanics than say Microlite. The author tried to make it easy to translate genre specific or real world specific into Fudge terms.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1105580Or is it bad for campaigns because of something inherent to the system?

The advancement of characters is problematic due to the outsized benefit of gaining +1 in an ability or skill.  Other than that it is no better or worse than any other arbitrary RPG especially if you opt for Traveller style character advancement. I.e. it happens but infrequent and only after a good deal of in-game time has passed.

FUDGE is an absolutely great game for one-shots and getting non-gamers to play in an easy to grok one-shot.

I've run short campaigns with it, but it shines for one-shots.

It's "dead" because like most other "lite systems", there's not much for a publisher to sell long term.

Quote from: estar;1105570+1 to hit and damage means that for two otherwise equal fighter and circumstances Fighter A will win 80% of the time over 10,000 fight. Of that the +1 damage is more significant as +1 damage alone means Fighter A will win 71% of the time. Fighter A having +1 to hit will win 60% of the time.

I played around with it and similar.

It is interesting that over such an immense spread a +1 to hit resulted in around a jump of 10% on wins.
But a +1 to damage resulted in around a 20% jump in wins.
 
Pit a strong fighter with just +1 damage against a more accurate fighter with +1 to hit and it shifts to the strong fighter winning around 12% more often. 3% if the accurate fighter has a +2 bonus and the agile fighter wins around 3% of the time once they get up to a +3 bonus. And continues the progression to 12% then 20% with +4 and +5.

Now pit a strong fighter with the max 18/00  STR bonus of +6 vs that agile fighter with a to hit bonus of +5 and damage beats accuracy nearly 40% of the time.

Quote from: LouGoncey;1105540Is SPIs UNIVERSE dead? Doubt it. There is a crazy group or three somewhere still playing it.

My computer still runs a few programs I wrote to generate stuff from UNIVERSE.

I love Universe and still use parts of it in Star Frontiers.

Also it saw a brief resurgance when players realized a year or two ago that WOTC AGAIN let an acquisition slip through their butter fingers and allowed the license to expire allowing a fan remake with the Universe/Pandora/Star Trader IP filed off.