Show Don’t Tell–How Playing Fudge Online Is Better Than Talking About Fudge In Any Format

Yesterday I had the great pleasure of seeing social networking in action in order to help a game master new to Fudge prepare for running this person’s first Fudge game for the “Day of Fudge”. I won’t name names, but it was just great to see members of the Fudge community helping a person new to Fudge to embrace the game. Kudos to all of you who stepped forward to offer your advice and input. You know who you are.

Yet halfway through the slinging of digital updates it occurred to me that telling a person what rules to use and how to run Fudge was not as effective as playing Fudge. I can tell someone who has never had a grilled cheese sandwich how to make one, but won’t that person be better prepared to follow the recipe if I actually made them a grilled cheese sandwich to taste first? I know that I always have an easier time following a recipe if I have actually partaken of the dish myself. Knowing what the end result should be gives us a better understanding of how to achieve it while in the process of actual production.

When I run a game online I use the software ScreenMonkey to share a map with the players as well as for the virtual dice rolls via the included chat program (a free alternative is MapTool from RPTools*), Skype for conference calling online with the players, and Google Docs to share the character sheets with the players.

So I offered to run a game of Fudge for this new game master online. Why not? This person is helping to support the “Day of Fudge”, so I should step forward to provide any support that I can.

Needless to say, we are working out the details now for an online game**. How cool is that? Not only is someone new to Fudge going to start running Fudge games soon, but we have the technology to run games for anyone who is interested in Fudge no matter where they may live in the world.

This has me thinking that talking about Fudge is not enough. We need to start running more Fudge games, and while the “Day of Fudge” is all about embracing this very concept in a public setting we can also run such games in private and online too. With a virtual presence all year long the physical presence will have more impact as the “Day of Fudge” takes place each year.

Have you ever ran a Fudge game online? If so, write a comment below and tell us all how it went.

* I also use RPTools excellent TokenTool for creating online “miniatures” to use with ScreenMonkey.

** Those of you who follow me on Gnome Stew know that I am currently working on an article about how to run online games based upon my “Game With A Gnome” offer. Expect that article to go up some time next week!