# FUGU RPG *Created:* 2026-11-10, *Modified:* 2026-11-10 ![[FUGU RPG (cover).jpg]] **FUGU** is [[Fudge]] with the waffle taken out and the page count thrown after it: fifteen pages, sixteen skills, and a rule for everything you will actually do at a table. The subtitle offers two readings of the acronym — *Fudge Good enoUgh* and *Fudge Greatly Uncomplicated* — and either is an accurate description of the thing inside, which calls itself a slacker's build of **Fudge** and treats that as a design brief rather than a confession. ## Setting There isn't one, and the book is emphatic about it: *Deciding on a Setting* is a line on the preparation list, not a chapter. The group picks a genre and a world, the GM gives the players something to be, and the rules stay neutral enough to survive it. A **class** is the closest thing to a setting statement — the book offers profession, way of life, archetype or high concept as synonyms, and suggests that an adjective does more work than a longer list of powers: a Vegan Teetotaller Barbarian gives the GM more to build a scenario out of than a plain Barbarian does. What the rules do commit to is the shape of a group and a night's play. One GM, no fewer than one, and at least two players, with six already at the upper end of what a person can run. The book's own examples are modern or recent-historical rather than mythic — a hacker, a pilot, a bounty hunter, a scientist — and it is careful to say that a PC has the tools of their trade without itemising them, so that the sheet stays about what the character *is*. Genre arrives through the same loose door. **Extra characteristics** are the sanctioned way to bolt on whatever a setting needs: sanity points for cosmic horror, a reputation trait for a bounty-hunter campaign, scored on the same adjective ladder as everything else. ## Mechanics ### The Ladder Every number in FUGU is an adjective on ten rungs, with the odds of rolling each one or better printed beside it: - **Horrifying** (−4) — a lemon could be better at this - **Catastrophic** (−3) — don't even try - **Terrible** (−2) — inept, or somehow impaired - **Poor** (−1) — worse than most - **Mediocre** (+0) — inexperienced, or lacking talent - **Fair** (+1) — experienced, or a talented beginner - **Good** (+2) — a professional - **Great** (+3) — among the best in town - **Superb** (+4) — among the best in the world - **Legendary** (+5) — among the best in the universe and history The ladder does triple duty: it rates skills, it sets the difficulty of an action against the environment, and it sizes weapons, armour, distances and damage. A character can be described entirely in words and never lose information. ### Skills Sixteen skills, in four groups. Action: **Agility**, **Fight**, **Shoot**, **Stealth**, **Strength**. Social: **Business**, **Empathy**, **Influence**. Technical: **Burglary**, **Hardware**, **Pilot**, and **Software** (or Literacy, in a low-tech setting). Intellectual: **Lore**, **Perception**, **Science**, **Will**. Three of them are quietly load-bearing: Hit Points are 5 + Strength, Stamina 5 + Will, Coin 5 + Business, so a character's durability, nerve and wallet are their skills too. **Combinations** handle everything the skill list doesn't cover — hacking needs Software and Burglary. If the most important skill is the highest of the pair, take the average of them, rounding up; if the most important is the lowest, that level is the answer; when they're equally important, average and round down. It is a small rule with teeth: a computer expert with no larceny in them rolls like a beginner at breaking in. ### Gifts and Faults Two **Gifts** at most, and at least as many **Faults**. Each is worth two dice in the relevant situation — a Gift an Advantage of 2, a Fault a Disadvantage of 2. A **mixed bag** counts as both and is written down twice. There is no cap on Faults, only on Gifts, which tells you where the designer thinks the fun is. ### Health, Stamina and Coin Three tracks, each a row of checkboxes equal to its maximum. **Hit Points** carry the consequences: at 3 or less a character is **Hurt** and takes a temporary Fault, at 2 or less **Very Hurt** and the Fault is permanent, at 1 **Incapacitated** and must roll Will to act at all, at 0 **Dead**. Recovery is calibrated in days and weeks, and a doctor (or witchdoctor) shortens it. **Stamina** is fatigue: 2 or less is **Tired** and −1 to every skill; 0 is collapse or burnout, and it comes back at a point every couple of hours or in full at the end of a session. **Coin** buys a day of food and shelter per point and comes back at Business level per week of working. ### Rolling Tense actions are 4dF plus the skill level against a target the GM sets — the printed percentages on the ladder mean the GM can see what they are asking for. **Advantage** and **Disadvantage** work by rolling extra dice and keeping the highest or lowest four; each one cancels the other out, so the pool never has both. **Grit** is the spend: a player announces it before rolling, burns Stamina at a point per die, and buys Advantage for the scene. It is the one way to push a roll, and it is paid for out of the same pool that keeps the character standing. Against the environment, the GM sets the level and the margin of success says how well it went. Against another character, both roll and the higher action level wins, with a tie resolved as a draw, a stall or a reroll; the book notes that NPCs can simply be assumed to roll 0, which keeps the GM from rolling against themselves all night. ### Conflict An attack is an opposed roll: Fight against a block, or Agility against a dodge. Damage is the weapon's level, plus Strength if it is swung by hand — a machete is a Fair weapon, and a Fair-strength attacker does 1. A **Mediocre hit** (a margin of 0) grazes for half, rounded up; a **Great hit** (+3) doubles it or hands the GM something worse, like a dropped weapon or a temporary Fault. **Armour** subtracts its own level, and the book caps it at Fair or Good for anything you can wear discreetly. When damage comes out at zero or less, the attack's difficulty rises instead and a hit still does 1 point — which is how a Mediocre fighter can spend an evening punching someone and achieve very little. **Shooting** adds a range penalty from −2 close to +4 very far, a bullet can be dodged only at 2 disadvantage, and defending against several attackers adds +1 to the difficulty for each extra one. ### Scale For fights with things bigger than people: pick a scale factor (×2 for an ogre, ×4 for a T-Rex), multiply the creature's damage by it, and divide the damage it takes by it, so a scale-×3 monster needs 3 points of damage to lose 1 Hit Point. Wrestling something off your scale adds four times the difference to the difficulty, which is the book's polite way of saying don't. ### Advancement One XP per session. A skill rises a step at a time, at a cost equal to the level being reached, and only if the character has been using it; two skills of adjacent levels can be swapped for free. A new permanent Gift costs about 5 XP, subject to the GM agreeing it fits. ## Editions - **FUGU RPG** (2026) — fifteen pages, one build, published under both readings of the acronym (*Fudge Good enoUgh* and *Fudge Greatly Uncomplicated*); CC BY 4.0, with the **Fudge** system itself used under the Open Game License. *In the library.* ## References - [FUGU RPG on itch.io — the pay-what-you-want download and the most current rules](https://lonfo.itch.io/fugu-rpg) - [fugu.lonfo.info — the author's own site, with the other FUGU materials](https://fugu.lonfo.info) - [Fudge at Grey Ghost Press — the system's home, where the rules are free to read](https://fudgerpg.com/) - [Fudge overview at Grey Ghost Press — what the parent system is for, in its own words](https://fudgerpg.com/about/about-fudge/fudge-overview.html)