Freeing Up Time for Fudge
I have been wrapping up other commitments in order to focus solely on Fudge in 2010. This is a surprisingly difficult thing to do. You have to be very honest with yourself and face the facts; You cannot do it all. This is why I will only be developing two works in 2010.
The first is the SinisterForces Fudge Game Designer’s Kit, or GDK. This document is meant to help others develop their own games using Fudge. It will not provide any rules or modules, but it will outline a process for taking a game concept and turning it into a reality by using Fudge. It is not meant to be longer than forty-eight pages.
I am turning to others for help with this. I have designed a great deal of rules and setting materials for my private games, but I’m not kidding myself into thinking that I am a publisher. I do believe that I can direct this project though.
I want to capture my development routine onto paper. I also want to include tips and tricks from other Fudge enthusiasts. I am sure that I have more to learn than I have to offer.
The second project is a magic system that I have been toying with for four years now. This I will be offering as a module that anyone can plug into their Fudge game. It uses an innovative mechanic that is not very Fudge-like at all, but that I feel compliments the Fudge core mechanic very well.
Work on the GDK and the magic module begins for both projects in January. From now until then I’ll be focussing on the Fudge Creatures: A to Z series again.
I am really excited about this, and I have been making changes to the site in order to recruit others into helping. I am tying the site, my Facebook page, and my Twitter account together through plugins and apps. I want to spread the word through multiple approaches.
I am also taking greater advantage of my mobile device to develop some parts of these projects with tools like Google Docs accessed with Google’s Mobile Apps. In fact, this post was written on a mobile device with the new WordPress for BlackBerry app. How cool is that?
But best of all I am running more Fudge games and introducing people to the Fudge system whenever possible. At my local game shop a lot of people are getting to know Fudge through my pick up games. I hope to start a new Fudge play testing campaign this winter with some of these new fans as players.
So that is how things are shaping up for 2010. The GDK proposal will be posted here sometime in early December. The magic module will be developed at a slower pace, as that is going to be my personal project.
What are others working on? What Fudge projects are you looking forward to seeing completed in the near future? Leave your comments below and share your ideas with others.
GDK: the NLP geek in me wants to talk to you about modelling and how that works when observing someone. Even though it’s your view of how you do things, there’s still some probable merit to looking at it from an outside perspective.
Critters: never can have too many! Write write write!
Year of Fudge: I’m in, and I’ll raise you 2 GameDays, a GenCon slot and, hrm… one night every month at *that* FLGS…
Trite replies out of the way, here comes the meat of my comment:
Magic systems – no matter how well written, no matter how elegant their implementation, no matter what – suck the life and … well, magic out of a game. The closest I’ve seen to having magic stay “magical” is DRYH.. and that’s not magic, it’s madness. No, the beauty of magic is that it takes people off the mental maps of others. It’s just less-well-explained technology otherwise – an enhanced wheelbarrow or bow-and-arrow or telescope. Even “real” magicians tend to look at things in a mechanistic/technological way – I want X, I summon critter to bring me X/enchant for X via random chance/alter perceptions to allow X in my immediate vicinity, then walk away like putting down the remote or getting the TV dinner out of the microwave. It’s boring and unsatisfying to anyone with any hint of creativity over the long term.
That being said: if you can find a way of balancing player ingenuity with consistency of mechanics while not borking game balance… you’ve really got something there. My own view of it for my own weird little FASERIP/4e mashup is to go Vancian in a truly Vancian way: magic is math that ruins tiny parts of your mind, driving you further and further insane the longer you keep it in. Combined with the unlimited mana/environmental overload system that SOS wrote… yeah, it might work.
Thanks for the feedback Keith! Here are the goals of the magic system:
1) Magic should not balance against other things in the game. You want to play a super bad-ass Marine with serious combat skills? Fine. The mage will still fuck you up. Why? Not because the mage can physically beat the Marine, but because the mage can set the Marine on fire just by looking at the Marine.
2) Spells should be created by the player. The magic system should just provide the mechanics for determining the spell effect.
3) Magic should be about power. Whether keeping it in check, or just throwing it out there to obliterate your opposition. The whole point of magic is that it is power beyond normal means.
Next time we meet face to face I will demo the system concept for you. I plan on making it to more meetups since I can bring the kids by, but I’ll also keep you informed of any events at the FLGS. A regular Fudge game has been discussed by some of the other regulars there.
Correcting a mistake: S John Ross is the eeeeevyl mastermind behind Umana – which was originally for GURPS, SOS just converted it to Fudge. No disrespect to either intended…
Don’t know how many non-Fudge folks read this, but having accurate refs is always a plus when discovering cool stuff. 😉