About

Fudge Reborn is a rules-lite, narrative-heavy RPG that works in most settings.

Making Characters

Making characters is easy! Choose from an archetype the Referee provides as a part of their game, or you can create one from scratch.

Unless the Referee suggests otherwise, pick three skills or abilities at the Mediocre level, two at Fair, and one at Good.

The Ladder

Excellent
Great
Good
Fair
Mediocre
Poor
Terrible

Play

The Referee will describe the situation, and the players then describe the actions their characters take.

When something risky, dramatic, or interesting is about to happen, players may roll the dice to decide if things go well for the characters or not. The Referee will indicate the difficulty in terms of the Ladder and the potential consequences of failure.

Players roll the 4 Fudge dice (4dF). For each + that comes up, they move up the Ladder, and for each -, they move down the Ladder. Ignore blank results. + and - cancel each other out.

If a players is unskilled, treat it as Poor.

Results

Working Together

When two (or more) characters act in unison, both roll their related skills but take the highest overall result.

Consequences

Before any roll, the Referee must describe the potential consequences. If the character accepts the potential consequence, they can continue. They may also suggest an alternative consequence.

The Referee is only responsible for saying what a potential consequence is. The actual consequence will be up to the Referee after the result is known.

To keep this feeling fun, fair, and safe, discuss what is and isn't acceptable for consequences before play begins.

Equipment

Most skills require equipment. Improvising may earn a trait that makes the job harder, but trying to do something without even basic equipment may be impossible.

If you are about to suffer a negative consequence, you may choose to break a piece of your equipment instead. Breaking equipment might mean the difference between a blast destroying your armor and you losing a limb. The equipment is ruined and unusable until it has been fixed or replaced.

Advancement

After a significant accomplishment or milestone, the Referee will give out an advancement point. Remarkable success may earn more.

Spend advancement points to improve existing skills or learn new ones as long as it makes narrative sense.

You cannot promote a skill up if it would make the level it is leaving equal to or less than the level above.

Traits

Traits are descriptive elements that add interest to the story by helping or hindering the player's actions.

When a trait hinders, it acts as an additional - on the dice unless the Referee says otherwise. If a trait helps, it acts as a +.

Referees and players can create and use traits, but the Referee has final say.

Traits can apply to characters, NPCs, environments, and even items.

Creating and Removing Traits

Traits are most often created by Referees as they describe situations and consequences, but players can create them to as a part of the story.

Traits can be removed as appropriate to the story and the Referee's approval.

Favor traits that are interesting over completeness.

Don't Have Fudge Dice?

Grab 4 six-sided dice. Roll them and use the chart below.

Optional Rules

Encumbrance

If you're playing a game where resource management would be interesting to add, you can introduce a simple inventory and encumbrance system.

Characters have "Slots" that represent what they can carry. They have one slot per hand and may wear clothing or armor appropriately. They may use a pack or other things to add additional slots.

Very small items can be either disregarded or treated 10 as taking one slot.

Random Chances

Imagine your party is searching a place and you as the Referee is thinking that there is a good chance that folks show up. How might you do that in this game?

1. Treat that as a consequence during their rolls
2. Roll on a random table that you made
3. Roll under the ladder

Roll Under the Ladder

Decide the chances in terms of the ladder. Then roll as though you have a mediocre skill. If your result is under the chance, it happens.

Default Difficulty

While this is absolutely up to every Referee and table to decide, a rule-of-thumb is that most things you want to do well you need to be "Good" at. This means when a character wants to attempt something and you aren't sure how to decide the target, start at "Good." If that feels off, think about the circumstances that make you feel it's wrong. These are likely traits in play and you can talk about how they're effecting the situation.

Locations and Encounters

Since Referee's don't roll in this game, preparing locations, NPCs, and encounters is meant to be easy to improvise and light to prep. Simply write down 2-5 descriptors for your locations, NPCs, and creatures. These are ways you'll not only narratively describe things, but also build an initial set of potential traits to bring into play.

Damage and Opposed Rolls

For more traditional combat where damage is tracked instead of the more free-form narrative consequence, you can try the following.

To the side of your ladder, you'll place an attribute that represents vitality or hull integrity.

In combat you and the opponent will roll opposed rolls and the winner will apply the difference in the rolls as damage to that attribute. If the combatants are of significant size differences, treat that as a trait that modifies the rolls.

If you want to include armor or shields, simply add another track next to that first one. Work through damaging the shields or armor then the vitality or hull. You can layer protective measures as appropriate.

Here's an example as a table.

Vehicles and Ships

Creating vehicles is meant to be simple. Represent your vehicle as a set of core components like engines or helm or cab or weapons. These are treated as equipment in terms of you need them to function and can be damaged in combat or as a consequence.

Some components like bulletproof glass or armor plating may be able to get damaged more than one time before it is destroyed.

Dramatic events like diverting power or a pushing engines past limits can be handled as traits to benefit one roll but hurt others as an option, with high risk consequences.

Players make use of their skills to enable the vehicles to perform actions. Good luck evading a high-speed chase without anyone with a significant driving or piloting ability!