Lego Heroica and Fudge
I have been enjoying playing two of the four Lego Heroica games with my seven year old daughter and five year old son. These games are definitely going to introduce a new generation of gamers to the world of RPGs even though they are highly modular board games at this time. What you do is build a dungeon with Legos, and then go explore it with little Lego figures. There are monsters, obstacles, traps, potions, and treasure to be discovered in each scenario. Players can earn gold which can then be used to buy items from the armory. Players are encouraged to keep track of what they earn in order to use their figure’s items in the next game. Whoever designed this series must be a Dungeons & Dragons fan!
I do have two complaints though:
- There are no female figures for the players to choose from.
- The rules could have easily been extended into a full fledged RPG!
The first point is one that I cannot fix on my own, but I want to convince Lego to start creating female figures for these games. My little girl makes sure to let everyone know that her figure is a girl when we play. Good for her! Shame on Lego! They will be getting a letter from me in the near future regarding this matter. Maybe if enough parents do the same Lego will see the error in packaging these games with only male figures in their games for children.
The second point though I can do something about on my own! I am taking some of the elements of Fudge and using a very simple list of traits to layer Fudge on top of the Heroica game system. Here are the traits that I am using:
- notice (spot hidden items, monsters, etc.)
- figure-it-out (read strange texts, solve puzzles, etc.)
- presence (convince people, lying, inspire others, etc.)
Each player character in the game has each trait. One of the traits starts at Fair, another at Mediocre, and the final trait is Poor. In the game challenges will be assigned a rank and the players need to roll Fudge dice and add the results to their character’s appropriate trait. If the result is equal to the challenge’s rank or higher the character succeeds. If the result is lower than the challenge’s rank the character fails.
When the player characters complete a quest or achieve a milestone of some sort one player will be given an experience point which he or she can use to increase a trait immediately. The player who gets that experience point will be decided by the players, so that my children learn about teamwork and cooperation. Progression will be slow for the group, but since this is such a simple game I do not foresee a problem with that pace.
And how will I add this to the game? By building the character sheets and the Fudge dice from Lego pieces! With a little bit of work and research I am sure that I can design Lego Fudge! I am ordering the pieces that I will need now, and once I have them I will be sure to post some pictures of what I build.
Good idea? Bad idea? Will you write a letter to Lego asking that female figures be produced for these games? Whatever your thoughts are share them with the rest of us by leaving a comment below!
I really like your idea of a three-trait Fudge. If you add some kind of conflict system and damage track, you actually have a minimalistic Fudge game that you can not only use with your kids but with adult players as well. *Thumbs Up*
@Stargazer – That is the great thing about the Lego Heroica games, because they already have a conflict and damage system. I’m just trying to add a role playing layer to what is already there. 🙂
Ah, of course, I haven’t thought of that. But I still like the idea of a minimalistic Fudge game that just uses a few traits etc., maybe I “borrow” your idea. 😉
I used to run Lego battles and dungeon crawls back in the day. There are tons of rules sets available for the minifig aspect of the game.
Stargazer: I use a 3 trait fudge for some of my games: Background , Body , Brains. aka: skills, physical, mental.
You can also check out my 6 stat 4 page fudge variant: http://www.slideshare.net/sponng/happy-fun-fudge-v1-1
Character sheet is also up there now too.