In September 2020 we presented the Fudge Bundle, featuring indie RPGs based on Steffan O’Sullivan’s rules-light game engine Fudge.
Fudge, the precursor of Fate, is a customizable toolkit that supports every setting you can imagine. Its word-based trait scale and simple action resolution make it ideal for novices and flexible enough to satisfy experienced roleplayers. Fudge is historically important, too, as one of the first rules systems released under an open game license. [The name “FUDGE” was once an acronym for Freeform Universal Donated (later, Do-it-yourself) Gaming Engine and, though the acronym has since been dropped, that phrase remains a good summation of the game’s design goals.]
The Fudge rules adapt easily to any other RPG’s campaign world — and, of course, to your own creations. As Gamemaster, you choose attributes and skills that match the genre and play style. A simple Fudge game might get by with only two attributes, or dispense with attributes entirely and define abilities by skills, gifts, and faults. Or you might want six attributes, or ten, or more. The skill-driven system supports broadly defined skill groups or fine-grained individual skills, or mix-and-match as you like.
Task resolution uses normal six-sided dice — or, optionally, special Fudge Dice — to determine how well characters perform any action. Results describe degrees of success or failure in words — from Superb down to Terrible. Alternative rules allow d20s or percentile dice. The word-based system lets you easily translate any campaign world or adventure written in Fudge into any other system, and vice versa. As a “universal translator” of gaming systems, and released under the Open Gaming License, Fudge can provide an excellent foundation for any game designer.
This bargain-priced offer marked the debut in .PDF of several Fudge-based titles. There were six titles in our Starter Collection (retail value $69) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:
- The comprehensive 318-page Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition rulebook (retail price $17), which debuted in .PDF in this offer.
- Psi-punk: Cyberpunk meets psionics in this alternate world of ghosts, psiborgs, technomancers, and soul jackers. (Previously in our February 2015 IGDN Bundle.)
- Hack-n-Slash (retail $15), a low-prep dungeon-crawl RPG you can be up and playing in minutes. Includes the Hack-n-Slash GM Screen (retail $2).
- The Orb (retail $10), a colorful fantasy RPG with expanded rules for magic and miracles.
- Survival of the Able (retail $5), a haunting horror adventure of disability and hope in a worldwide pandemic — of zombies.
Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got our entire Bonus Collection with seven more titles worth an additional $97:
- The Deryni Adventure Game: Based on the long-running Deryni novel series by Katherine Kurtz, this 2005 RPG of feudal politics and ritual magic debuted in .PDF in this offer, along with the full-color “Eleven Kingdoms” Deryni world map.
- Terra Incognita: Globetrotting Victorian adventurer-researchers discover secrets of the trackless unknown — and then hide them.
- The Unexplained: The truth is out there in this modern-day RPG of investigating paranormal phenomena just like on cable TV. Included The Unexplained Storyteller’s Screen.
- Now Playing: Create, cast, and produce your own episodes of any kind of TV series from science-fiction epics to sitcoms to reality shows. Included the full-length adventure Ghosts of the Lady Grace.
Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) went to this Fudge offer’s pandemic-related charity, Direct Relief. Direct Relief gets protective gear and critical care medications to health workers, with emergency deliveries daily to medical facilities across the US and to regional response agencies across the world.
Fudge RPGs use Fudge Dice, available from Grey Ghost Press, from Evil Hat Productions (as “Fate Dice”), at hobby gaming stores, or from Amazon (affiliate link).
