A Game Centered On Fudge Points?
I’m working on the Pudge rules (Pudge stands for “Portable Fudge”) which are supposed to be short, sweet, and fit onto no more than the two sides of a single index card. I’ve decided that to make this streamlined version of the rules work I need to hook everything into Fudge points. You want a higher rank in something? Spend Fudge points. You succeed in a challenge? Earn Fudge points. Everything is all about the game currency of Fudge points. So far I like how these rules have played at various events.
Ammo will be based on fudge points. Spells will be based on Fudge points. Skills will require Fudge points. The dice will still be rolled when needed, but the exchanging of points is the true focus of the game.
One problem though:Â How many Fudge points should the GM have? In order for this system to work the GM must have unlimited points to hand out to the players as needed, but does that mean that the GM should be able to spend unlimited points as well?
Right now I am leaning towards the GM having no Fudge points to spend until a player spends Fudge points. The GM will have unlimited points to reward the players with and to compel character aspects with, but when the GM wants to activate an NPC’s aspects only the Fudge points collected from the players may be used. These points go back into the “unlimited rewards” pile. Otherwise an NPC may only take actions at the rank of Poor. Spending a Fudge point increases the NPC’s rank by 1 per point spent. In order to keep an NPC in the game after it has taken damage the GM must spend the amount in damage dealt to keep the NPC active. This is the basics of the premise so far.
Has anyone tried this before? If so, what were the results? Should I give the GM a starting fund to work with (like 3 points per player)? Leave a comment below and tell me what you think.
I’m designing a game I call “1,000 Fudge Points”…
Each player has that amount from the start and he has free reign on how he will use it – from chargen to the cool things he owns. You _will_ get your dream concept but it will cost ya!
The standard uses of FPs is still available – and the PC should keep some for that! Remember, you only get new Fudge Points from good roleplaying or a GM’s generosity.
A Gamemaster has 1,000 Fudge Points X number of Player Characters in the game. He should be allowed to have some fun too. 😉
But the problem is I have to list all things that a Fudge Point can buy or at least guidelines on what FPs can give. That is where I am currently.
Good luck with your Pudge game design, Patrick! 🙂
FP-economics Games –
1000 might be an overly large number. Why not 100?
One of my diceless ideas: divide an FP pool (let’s say 100) among various Categories of Attributes, with total and turn-spend limits for each Category (basically limiting max result less than Ladder-top+1). From a ranked Attribute, spend FP to improve your result and/or decrease your opponent’s result. Results revealed simultaneously. Margin of loss reduces that many FP from any mix of Categories, up to value of turn-spend limit. When those allocated 100 FP run out totally or out of a Category, the character is OUT in one way or another – retired to NPC or dead.
Why I didn’t pursue it past the notebook: it’d work better for anthology-type games, where each single story fits together as a larger campaign-arc, with various characters sliding in and out. Sort of Thieves’ World… but not limited to genre. For that sort of game, I like something else better… but it’s not ready for the world. The gameplay itself with a FP+Att. v Target Rank/FP+Att. mechanic is pretty non-immersive and kind of clunky. Even for deterministic play, it was more “stuck” than usual. Play started with lean spends and ended with lean spends as FP started running out, with gonzo in the middle – not the sort of thing I liked to play or to run.
GM Moves –
I have to admit, I’ve really been liking the MC (GM) moves model from Apocalypse World.
One of the limits I’ve liked playing with best is that the GM doesn’t roll for an NPC directly – they can use dice to modify a Target Rank, but not directly against a PC. To apply a modifier, the GM needs FP spent by a player to buy a die to roll. In the case of dF, this means that an FP is 1/3 reduction or 1/3 improvement on any NPC Attribute – improve damage, reduce mobility etc – in various combinations. A GM FP spend isn’t overpowering, but is effective on the game as a whole if used strategically.
Combined with the dF matrix tables that are starting to show up, it also starts to make a randomly driven Fudge build more viable – the FP:dF exchange then becomes fuel for building new story branches from rolling on an r-Map between possible paths with a weighted average. It’d also cut down on the GM fiat of the system, at the expense of making the GM “just another player.”
Crap – I type slow for the editor…
Add:
I think having a GM starting budget makes some sense, but even leaner than 3/player. Maybe 1/player works better. There is an existing GM budget in the form of the scenario design – that starting budget is simply for fine tuning.
The ideas that White Wolf uses for the SAS system makes some sense in this context: a scenario has a budget of X FP, with N scenes. Each scene is then ranked by emphasis on Physical, Intellectual and Social challenge. The starting budget can then be used to apply blanket shifts to those categories, which trickles down to specific shifts to the associated NPCs of those scenes. I also like how the organizational structure of it works – even though most of the existing ones are pretty friggin’ railroad. Which is where the anthology campaign idea comes in…
Interesting idea. Players will have to consider the fact that every time they spend a Fudge point, they are giving it to the GM. In other words, every time I play a Fudge point to help my PC, I’m also giving the GM more ammunition to use against me later. That makes the decision to spend a Fudge point more complex. Normally, the only decision is whether to use a Fudge point now or save it for later. But now there’s another factor: is winning the current obstacle worth the cost of letting the GM hurt me later?
Have you play tested this yet? I’m curious to know how that dynamic works in play.
@Kevin – if it’s what I saw when I played Pudge with Patrick for IDoF, then I’d say it worked well. The economy was pretty robust and flowing throughout the whole game and the bid-insist-persist mechanic was a good player prompt (that wasn’t a railroad) that didn’t overly deplete the GM’s pile of resources.
However, what I saw wasn’t as strict as what Patrick’s proposing here. Personally, I like the more restrictive style, especially with the wheel-reinvention-avoidance measures I’ve talked about previously. YMMV, obviously.
“1,000 FPs” is a more catchy/impressive-sounding title than “100 FPs” 😉
but, yes, the budget can be scaled up or down depending on “campaign/power level”.
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I just wanted to thank everyone who commented here. Your feedback resulted in this article:
http://www.sinisterforces.com/2011/06/24/follow-up-on-fudge-point-centric-games/
@Kevin Richey: I have play tested about 60% of what is proposed here as part of my “Day of Fudge” event. You can read about it here: http://www.sinisterforces.com/2011/06/06/my-day-of-fudge-game/