Fudge Combat: One Vs. Many

I’m working on a zombie apocalypse scenario for the One Month Fudge Adventure Challenge and this has me thinking a great deal about Fudge combat rules for multiple opponents versus a single character. This is standard fare for any good zombie movie, because having an escalating number of zombies attacking the protagonists is a great way to keep the pace of the film accelerating while at the same time ratcheting up the challenges that the heroes face.

Yet multiple opponents have to be managed carefully especially if that sort of encounter will be the standard for the game being played. You need to ensure that you as a gamemaster do not throw an impossible to overcome challenge at the players. Horror only works if we believe that the protagonists might win, no matter how unlikely. Right up until the bloody end that is (gamemasters – feel free to indulge in a total party kill if it is the very last encounter of the evening in a horror game).

So how do I plan on handling the one versus many combat scenario in my zombies game? First I am going to establish the zombies as creatures with a rank of Poor individually. I will then increase the rank of the zombies by one for every zombie beyond the first that is encountered  within a group. Two zombies in a group will have a rank of Mediocre, three zombies in a group will have a rank of Fair, and so on, and so on.

For every zombie destroyed the rank of the group drops by one. To destroy a zombie you need only to make an attack roll of the group’s rank or higher. So if your character attacks a Good group of zombies and rolls an attack of rank Good or higher one zombie will be destroyed and the group of zombies will now be a rank of Fair.

What if a player wants his or her character to attack multiple targets? The rank of the trait being used will be reduced by one for every attack made beyond the first. So if the character is using a trait with a rank of Fair to attack with and decides to make two attacks against two targets instead of a single attack then each of those two attacks will be made at the rank of Mediocre, and three attacks would be made at the rank of Poor, etc.

How many additional attacks should the character be allowed to make? That is a gamemaster’s call. A character wielding a chainsaw against a zombie might only receive one attack with that weapon, or perhaps three. You as the gamemaster should have the final say as to what number of attacks the character receives with a particular trait. A double barrel shotgun might grant a maximum of two attacks per round, and the skill of Kung Fu might grant five attacks per round (two punches, two kicks, and a head butt). Whatever works for your game and with your group is all that matters.

That is most likely the rules that I will be using with my zombie adventure. It allows me to customize the encounters quickly, adds an appeal to wielding weapons in the game (“A baseball bat grants a +1 to all attacks and it can be used to make up to three attacks against zombies per round? Batter up!”), and if the challenge is too easy I merely need to add more zombies into the mix to find the right level of challenge. Play testing will determine for sure if these rules create the desired feel that I want for this particular game, but I feel good about these rules based upon my past experience using them in other games.

How do you handle multiple opponents versus a single character combat scenario in your Fudge games? Share your tips and tricks by commenting below.