The FUDGE Roleplaying Game is yet another generic, "one-size-fits-all-genres" style roleplatying game. The unique thing about FUDGE is that it was the first Shareware roleplaying game. (At least as far as most people know.)
Fudge was designed by Steffan O'Sullivan in November, 1992 (originally named SLUG). (I discovered it not long after that as a file uploaded to my BBS.) Steffan O'Sullivan was known as the designer of "GURPS Bunnies and Burrows" and has done other freelance work for Steve Jackson Games. He designed it to combat some of the weaknesses which he felt were part of GURPS. He later added the concept of the Fudge Die to the game when they started to sell the product. The Fudge Die was unique in that it had two minus signs, two plus signs, and two blank spots on each die.
Fudge is often faulted for not having rules to cover certain situations. For instance, there are no rules for falling damage. The designer says that rules that such rules are infrequently used, such as that, would detract from the game by requiring you to look them up in those rare situations, which bogs down play. The designer says that it would be better for the Game Master to make a spot decision and get on with the game.
Fudge also has no fixed set of character statistics. One game master could set the basic characteristics as just "Body, Mind, Soul" and another could have the standard D&D of "Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Intelligence, Wisdom, Charisma." They also are not rated in numbers, but words. These words are also not absolute ratings, but relative ratings. So, a "Good" strength in a game involving pixies would be a Terrible strength one in a game involving larger races. The ratings are "Superb," "Great," "Good," "Fair," "Mediocre," "Poor," and "Terrible."
A character is divided up into several sections. Attributes (the D&D analogue are the ability scores), Skills (which should be familiar to most gamers now), Gifts (other systems call them either advantages or merits), Faults (other systems call these either disadvantages or flaws), and Supernormal Powers (which are those other nifty bits of things your character can do, like super powers, psionics, magic, etc.)
Since the game is freeform, the game tries to use as few rules as possible and yet maintain an actual framework for you to build your games upon. This allows it, like GURPS, to be used as the basis for a background for a roleplaying game to be produced by someone who is not interested in creating their own set of rules. Gatecrasher and Terra Incognita are both settings for Fudge that are published by Grey Ghost, the publishers of the printed version of Fudge.
These URLs might be handy to you:
- The new home of FUDGE: http://www.greyghostgames.com/
- The Full fudge rules: http://members.dsl-only.net/~bing/frp/fudge/index.html
- Steffan O'Sullivan's Fudge FAQ: http://www.panix.com/~sos/fudfaq.html