I've been doing a lot of thinking on this, and I've been watching what Evil Hat's been doing with Fate Core (a project which I've backed, btw). I've taken a good look at Fudge itself and everything surrounding it, including what other people have said.

For Fudge itself, on its own and as its own game, I'd say we need a do-over. I don't know if I'd call it a new edition or not, but I think at the very least, a new core book is in order. The biggest thing, and this is what keeps some people away, is that there needs to be an out-of-the-box way of playing that gets people diving into it. Yes, the current book has Fantasy Fudge, but it's buried at the back. But everything before that is all rules and examples, but nothing concrete.

The big thing I noticed about Fate Core is this: The authors obviously mean for it to be customized according to setting, game and even group, but if you pick up the core book, you can play it, as is, right away without even really needing to change anything. And just to really show how it can be customized, they have Fate Accelerated, which works a bit different, but is still Fate. It's a "Fate build."

I think that's what Fudge needs, really. I know this might go against the original intent, but I think a new core book would open with a game with predefined Attributes, Skills, etc. Heck, Fantasy Fudge could be the default, really. Then, once you have that there, you can put out the information on how to customize Fudge for your own game.

I also noticed that a lot of the language in Fate was changed to make it easier to understand, and it might not hurt Fudge to do the same. Terms like ODF, DDF, and such could be retermed, like with just Attack and Defense, say.

I think we do need new self-contained games, also, and there are at least two that I know of being released this year: Blood, Sweat and Steel as well as Psi-Punk, not to mention my own game, which I hope to have on Kickstarter later this month, or the beginning of February. I think this could be a great opportunity to really drive home Fudge's place as a ruleset.

Interesting points; and I think you're largely right. There are other examples of successful semi-generic and generic games out there which don't seem to be tarred with the "you can't run it out of the box" brush, Savage Worlds for example, and the way they have avoided the problem is worth considering.

A smaller format core book might help, stripping away a lot of the duplication (I suspect that even if a typical buyer appreciates having an option for something in a game he doesn't necessarily want to know several ways of doing the same thing) and perhaps creating a functional, out-of-the-box core with modular genre elements. So, you have the same basic framework and then turn to the chapter for Modern, High Fantasy, Pulp or whatever to pick the sorts of skills and options appropriate to those genres. It wouldn't be the only way to run such a game with Fudge - the full rules still exist to let you tweak and alter all you might wish - but the basic book would follow a set of common assumptions letting you quickly make a character and be sure he can play in a typical Fudge adventure. Naturally I'm ignoring tiny matters such as who would write such a book and how it would be financed, but for the sake of a discussion about making Fudge more accessible and popular it doesn't pay to examine everything at once.

The closest we have to this at the moment is probably Now Playing, but again it's a big pricey hardback, the television show conceit may not appeal to everyone and it's a little more involved than I think is necessary.

As someone who no longer browses in gameshops, perhaps this is not as novel idea as I think.  But what about a new paradigm in producing FUDGE under a new format?  Specifically, I am wondering, with the switch from paper to digital in people's reading habits, whether a "electronic book" with hyperlinks in the style of Twiki could move the general design to the forefront of the presentation with the variation and appendices tuck away within reach of a curiousity-driven click or left for latter perusal in the general outline of the book's structure.   Would eFUDGE be enough of a pioneer/innovation that it would create the buzz for a second look that the evolution from "complete adventure" to "generic toolkit" creates for FATE?

As for the tiny matter of authorship, perhaps the words exist already in the current latest edition to prototype a hyperlinked version.  From such a skeletal conversion, the cooperative documentation purpose of the original Twiki software could facilitiate the refinement by a group of contributors.   An Adobe document can be generated to capture a whole Twiki website and, viola, you have an electronic, highly interactive (but static content) document to publish/distribute. 

Financing implies money-making and that is beyond my comprehension.  But there is a portion of the human psyche that adheres to a belief that "you get what you pay for".  My understanding of OGL is perhaps too elementary to see its avenues for profit.  Could the "it's free" nature of FUDGE core rules (if perhaps not its accessories, such as die) be contributing to its fading in comparison to more newly marketed products?

Great Post, BigJackBrass. Them thoughts have been gnawing on me.

I'd love to have a revised Fudge eBook, particularly for beginners.

New ways to share it is a very good idea.  Things worth looking  into, which I think will put Fudge back in the RPG radar, are:
TiddlyWiki, http://tiddlywiki.com/ http://tiddlyspace.com/ - one html file and only uses javascript
Twine, http://www.gimcrackd.com/etc/src/ - graphical way to write a choose your own adventure ebook
textallion, https://code.google.com/p/textallion/ - new to me, still looking into it.
ChoiceScript, http://www.choiceofgames.com/make-your- … ipt-intro/ - good choice for making android adventure books
RenPy - python based graphical adventure maker. See MikeConway's post above.

I *want* to design a Fudge Adventure Book for Newbies (with serials and modules) but Real Life keeps interrupting! :p

EDIT: I'd like to add Ramus, http://felix.plesoianu.ro/index.php/page:Software:Ramus - uses hypertext only!?!

EDIT2: UnDum, http://undum.com/games/tutorial.en.html - beautiful!

An odd, and likely impractical, thought came to me earlier. Have any of you seen Green Ronin's The Pirate's Guide to Freeport? Lovely book, very nicely done, but the key point as far as this discussion goes is the interesting way that Green Ronin chose to make it "systemless"... they didn't. Systemless books typically face a few hurdles: some are simply descriptive, covering the setting in the manner of a travel guide without attempting to pin numbers and statistics onto anything; others, such as Flying Buffalo's Citybook series, use their own simple set of standards, which can then be easily translated into your favourite game mechanics; very few seem to sell as well as ready to run books tied to a known game.

What Green Ronin did was to produce a systemless book, then make a series of supplemental volumes containing the game mechanics for the setting. So, you buy your The Pirate's Guide to Freeport and then pick up the relevant stat book for True20 or Savage Worlds or whathaveyou. So here's my thought: would this work in reverse?

You spot a setting book you like the look of but it's not for a game you play. Would it be possible to have a range of Fudge books tailored to play specific genres, designed so that they intentionally use products for other games? Let's say you have our hypothetical Fudge Fantasy game. It would give you all sorts of options for setting up your own fantasy game without needing to buy anything else, in typical Fudge fashion, but it would be designed with a modular approach making it as easy as possible to slot in an adventure or whatever from a different game. It might have two or three pre-built approaches to magic, for instance, so you pick the one labelled "Classic Dungeoneering Magic" if you're going to use a D&D module, or "Demons and Elemental Summoning" if you're using something written for Stormbringer. Same for combat and wounds, reflecting heroic or gritty games. Clearly you couldn't have an exact match for every game out there, but I reckon that it would be possible to create something that would broadly fit the tone and style of a great many games, making it exceptionally easy to adapt gaming materials without laboriously converting and balancing numbers. In some ways this is what Fudge does already, but instead of a wealth of options I'm thinking of boiling it right down to a few pre-built blocks. The book as a whole would cover one broad genre, such as "fantasy", and the "blocks" would let you very quickly assemble the stats, combat style, power level etc for your game.

Fudge already makes a great system for using with other games - the word ladder helps enormously there - but perhaps it's possible to make it quicker and more appealing to assemble differently balanced and flavoured games by presenting it as a sort of linear, modular series of choices. Not sure, just thinking aloud again

A good idea, BigJackBrass.

Maybe we can start off with Fantasy Fudge. That would require development of the setting.

Or

We could work on the free Talislanta or any other existing, free setting. Any recommendations?

Or

Get a licence of a popular book or movie, like Star Wars or Hunger Games. Maybe even classic novels, like Black Beauty or Charles Dickens. Yes, this is a long shot but maybe someone reading this can "make things happen"!

Or

An original setting!!! Anybody care to present theirs?

Just voicing out my thoughts in stacacco bursts, as usual.

--Jonas/fudgebob

P.S. My attack approach is to design a soloFudge game (electronic) book for newbies but its just a plan for now.

Premise of long-term dimension travelers. With different packaged rules for different dimensions. You can then sell the rules for any number of genre's as a setting. Anything from history, ghosts, science fiction to secret occult bargaining, super powers or magic rich. If it's well planned it would allow Fudge to have a broad appeal.

Would be difficult to set release dates possibly. I doubt all of it would come out at once.

Just wondering about the lots of classic/unknown/public domain works by Fantasy forerunners, like Howard, William Morris or George MacDonald. They could be good starting points as settings for a game under the ideas provided here. I mean, CONAN! As far as I know, there are at least 2 different Conan roleplaying games, and this is a setting immediately recognizable even by those not so much into Fantasy and "geek stuff". It may be a good starting point...
(P.S.: You have my sword)

heder.osny wrote:

Just wondering about the lots of classic/unknown/public domain works by Fantasy forerunners, like Howard, William Morris or George MacDonald. They could be good starting points as settings for a game under the ideas provided here. I mean, CONAN! As far as I know, there are at least 2 different Conan roleplaying games, and this is a setting immediately recognizable even by those not so much into Fantasy and "geek stuff".

There's actually already one of these in the works. Blood Sweat and Steel is a sword and sorcery game, made under Fudge, which will be a complete game when it's been released. It's also getting closer to completion, although there isn't a set release schedule by any means.