# Fudge *Created:* 2026-11-10, *Modified:* 2026-11-10 ![[Fudge RPG (cover).jpg]] **Fudge** is less a rulebook than a permission slip. Steffan O'Sullivan's system went up on rec.games.design in 1992 and has been free ever since, on the condition that it stays that way; characters are described in ordinary words, every roll is plus-blank-minus, and almost everything else — the attribute list, the skill list, the damage system — is presented as an example to be replaced. The book's own advice, when the rules and the story disagree, is to just fudge it. ## Setting There isn't one, and the design is honest about the consequence: the setting is whatever the table builds before the first session. **Fudge** calls this world building, treats it as the GM's job, and offers no default world to fall back on — which is why the system's own books read as toolkits rather than games. What the rules do supply is a way to describe *anything* consistently. Every creature, vehicle and culture sits somewhere on the same ladder, and the **Scale** rules exist so that a rabbit, a human and a giant robot can share a fight without anyone converting anything: pick the scale your game is about as 0 and let everything else be relative to it. The 10th Anniversary Edition also carries a worked **Fantasy Fudge** build — a setting, an adventure and a bestiary — as the demonstration of what the toolkit looks like once a GM has made the choices. ## Mechanics ### Traits and the Ladder Everything a character is, is a **trait**: an *attribute* (something everyone in the world has), a *skill* (improved by practice), a *gift*, a *fault*, or a supernormal power, which is treated as a very potent gift. Attributes and skills are rated on seven adjectives, with one more above them: - **Terrible** - **Poor** - **Mediocre** - **Fair** - **Good** - **Great** - **Superb** - **Legendary** — beyond *Superb*, and often reserved for NPCs Gifts and faults sit outside the ladder entirely, because they are not about degree. ### Character Creation Two routes, and the book means both. **Subjective** creation starts from a written character concept that the player and GM then translate into traits. **Objective** creation starts every attribute at *Fair* and most skills at *Poor*, hands out a budget of free levels, and lets the player trade: one attribute level buys three skill levels, a gift costs six skill levels or two attribute levels, and taking a fault buys levels back at one gift's worth. Identical arithmetic, different question — who decides what this character is good at, the writer or the accountant. ### Action Resolution Unopposed actions get a difficulty level from the GM, usually *Fair*; the dice move the trait up and down the ladder and the result is the **rolled degree**, which can go as far as *Superb +4* or down to *Terrible −4*. Opposed actions compare two rolled degrees, and the difference is the **relative degree** — which is also the number a fight runs on. The dice are **4dF**: six-siders with two pluses, two blanks and two minuses. Add the total to the trait. The book prints the odds, which are worth knowing because they are narrower than they look: exactly 0 comes up 23.5% of the time, +4 and −4 just 1.2% each. A **3d6** table is offered as an alternative, and 1–2, 3–4, 5–6 on ordinary dice stand in for minus, blank and plus. ### Damage and Wounds Damage is a stage, not a number of hit points. Seven of them: **Undamaged**, **Just a Scratch**, **Hurt** (−1 to traits), **Very Hurt** (−2), **Incapacitated**, **Near Death**, **Dead**. The **Objective Damage System** derives the stage from an Offensive Damage Factor (weapons, Strength, Scale) against a Defensive Damage Factor (armour, Scale): relative degree plus ODF minus DFF, read on a table from 1–2 for a Scratch up to 9+ for Near Death. Most characters absorb three Scratches, one Hurt and one Very Hurt before the stages start escalating into each other, and the book suggests adding boxes for a more forgiving game. ### Fudge Points and Supernormal Powers **Fudge points** are the luck currency: spend one and an unopposed action succeeds automatically and with style. Magic, psionics, superpowers and cybernetic enhancements each get a chapter in the 10th Anniversary Edition rather than a single system, because a toolkit does not pick one — a magic system is a design choice, and the book shows several. ### Scale **Scale** rates Strength, Mass and Speed outside the human band. Human scale is 0; each Strength step is about 1.5 times the one below, so a Scale +1 Fair fighter is half again as strong as a Scale 0 Fair one and rather harder to hurt. The examples are the point: rabbits at Scale 0 put humans around +7, and a mecha game can reasonably put humans at −15. ## Editions - **Fudge** (1992) — the original, circulated on rec.games.design (as *SLUG* before the name changed); free to the public from the start, and the 1995 PDF still is. - **Fudge** (1995) — the first hard copy, from Grey Ghost Press; the acronym now read *Free-form Universal Do-it-yourself Gaming Engine*. *In the library.* - **Fudge Expanded Edition** (2000) — Grey Ghost Press; the acronym dropped in favour of plain *Fudge*, since the fashion for pronounceable names had passed. - **Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition** (2005) — the current edition and the fullest: suggested subsystems for the things every game needs, the Fantasy Fudge build, and the whole thing released under the Open Game License. *In the library.* ## Related products - **[[FUGU RPG]]** (2026) — Lonfo's fifteen-page slacker's build of the system: sixteen fixed skills, Gifts and Faults worth two dice each, Hit Points, Stamina and Coin bought with the relevant skill, and the same adjective ladder underneath. *In the library.* ## References - [Fudge at Grey Ghost Press — the publisher's own page, and where the free rules live](https://fudgerpg.com/) - [What's Fudge? — the publisher's overview of what the system is for](https://fudgerpg.com/about/about-fudge/fudge-overview.html) - [Fudge (role-playing game system) — Wikipedia, for the publication history and the reception](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fudge_(role-playing_game_system)) - [Review of Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition — RPGnet](https://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11442.phtml) - [Why Fudge is a Great Accessible RPG — Accessible Games](https://www.accessiblegames.biz/fudge-great-accessible-rpg/)