Blackmarsh in Hungarian!

I just got word from Adam Borbely that the translation and layout of the Hungarian version of Blackmarsh is finished. It is stated for Hungarian retroclone RPG called Adventurers and Catacomb (in English)

This is really cool and I am ecstatic that a group of RPG gamers get to enjoy Blackmarsh in their native language.

Thanks Adam!

Again if anybody want to translate Blackmarsh for their own country's gaming community, you are free to do so as Blackmarsh is 100% open content for the text and cartography. I include a art free text files in the download of Blackmarsh to make reuse and conversion easier.

What is Fudge and why?

Fudge is game developed in the early 90s on the internet by Steffan O'Sullivan. Specifically the rec.games.design on the old Usenet forum. The Wikipedia article has live links to the original post so you can read them yourselves.

It is a toolkit meant to be refined for a specific game. The core rules have a wealth of options that a referee can choose from to make the game he wants. Anything from extremely lite and freeform to very crunchy.

Fudge in a Nutshell sums up in two pages the heart of the Fudge mechanics.

Fudge characters are defined by attributes, skills, gifts, and faults. When there is a rating like for a Strength attribute or Piloting skill it uses the fudge scale; from low to high; Terrible, Poor, Mediocre, Fair, Good, Great, Superb. If you don't like the descriptive scale you can use numbers with Fair = 0, Mediocre = -1 and Good = +1 and so on.

Fudge assumes that one attribute level = 3 skill levels, 1 gift = 6 skill levels, 1 gift = 2 attribute levels, 1 gift = 1 fault.

Coupled with this is the concept of scale. In a human focused campaign a human being has a scale of +0. It is primarily a rating of Strength and Mass which is mostly applied to the ability to deal damage and to withstand damage. Each +1 scale give the character 1.5 times the mass of a ordinary human. The rules have examples of scale equated to various real world and mythological creatures.

The elegance of this system is that the resolution of two creatures at the same arbitrary scale works the same as resolution of two humans. So if two pixies at scale -7 go at it the system work just as well as normal human combat. The same with two dragons. For fights between two creatures of different scale in general the larger creatures will do more damage and have the ability to withstand more damage than the small creature.

Action are resolved by either an opposed roll or a roll against a target difficulty.  In an opposed roll the two sides will have a skill or attribute level. For example a fighter with a sword skill of Good and a mage with a mediocre dexterity.  Both side roll 4dF generating a number from -4 to +4. For example the fighter rolls a -1 and the Mage rolls a +2. Like GURPS 3d6 roll the result is a bell curve. The result is applied to the two sides skill and compared. For example because the Fighter rolled a -1 he only gets a Fair result as Fair is one level lower than his Good sword skill. The mage in contrast has a Good result as his +2 roll is applied to his mediocre dexterity raising it to Fair and then Good. In this roll the Mage successfully dodged the fighter's sword swing.

For unopposed rolls the skill or attribute is compared to a target difficulty set by the referee. For example the Fighter has a good strength and is trying to lift the portcullis gate up. The referee rules that he need a Great result. The Figher rolls 4dF and gets a +1. This is applied to his Good strength raising it up by one level to Great. The gate is wrenched up.

The Fudge core rules gives several ways of resolving a successful combat hit. Fudge spends the most time on a wound level system. Characters can be undamaged, scratched, hurt, very hurt, incapacitated, or dead. Typically you can take 3 scratches, 1 hurt, and 1 very hurt. If you already taken all the damage you can at a particular level it is applied to the next worse level.

Again this is summarize nicely in Fudge in a Nutshell. Also the core documents are released under the open game license which means you are free to adapt and publish them for your own use.

So why Fudge? As readers of this blog know I am a long time fan of GURPS. While developed independently Steffan and those helped have strong connections to GURPS and many have written GURPS books. So while Fudge is not GURPS it shares some DNA like the bell curves and allows for attributes to be the primary component of a skill level as well as advantages i.e. gifts and disadvantages i.e. faults.

And what it comes to is that I want to publish my GURPS material along with my Dungeon and Dragon material. Since GURPS doesn't have an open license, to me Fudge is the next best thing. And the fact that Fate, a closely related game, is popular system for many doesn't hurt either.

My focus is implementing Fudge for the type of fantasy games I been running for the past 30 years. Building on the things I like about the various games I played over the years. There is a lot of inspiration from GURPS but also I am inspired by Hero System, Fate, Runequest, and other games I have played over the years. The result is I hope a fantasy game that is allows for skill based character with a moderately detailed combat system using the fantasy tropes of the world's most popular roleplaying games that is easy to get into and that because of it common heritage with Fudge and Fate easy to add new elements of the referee's choosing.

And thanks to the development of the internet and the progress of technology, when I am done writing this it is easy to share it in an attractive format with the rest of you.  Like Blackmarsh and my other open projects the PDF will be free I will charging for the physical book.

I am shooting to get this done by the fall of 2014, I have some other projects to complete first that are priority like a certain English Civil War setting. In the meantime I will play one off games and then when the rules are settled enough I will start a playtest campaign. And of course I will be sharing the development when I have something usable.

Another 40% sale at Lulu

You can use the code LULUEMP2013 to buy books at 40% off on Lulu.

You can buy Majestic Wilderlands (in one of two covers) and Scourge of the Demon Wolf.

As well as OSR stuff along with Swords and Wizardry which the MW Supplement is based on. I personally recommend the Monster Book. Also have a look at back issues of Fight On!

Thanks to Tim of Gothridge Manor for pointing this out. And while you are on lulu look at his store.

Majestic Wilderlands Fudge Attributes

Here is the list of attributes I am using in the Majestic Wilderlands Fudge RPG. It is somewhat similar to how GURPS is setup.

The following the are the costs.  I started with one of the recommended point buy system in the Fudge SRD.

Here is the combat stat block from the Character sheet I made.

A very basic outline of combat is 

• Roll for initiative 4dF+initiative..

Or if you really like how GURPS does things 

• Go in initiative order from high to low.
• Everybody get to do two actions on a turn. A move plus an attack, a long action or an attack/cast spell.

To Attack

• Roll 4DF add your skill plus dexterity.

The target defends either choosing to parry, block, or dodge. Only one parry or block per turn. First dodge is at full subsequent dodges are at -2 cumulative per dodge. No defense against rear or surprise attacks.

• Roll 4dF add your skill plus dexterity.

If the roll equals or is greater than the attackers roll then you have defended.

If it is under the difference is applied to the attacker's damage roll.

• To do damage make an opposed roll of 4dF + weapon damage + strength vs 4dF + armor rating + shield bonus + fortitude. 

If the attackers wins then apply the degree of success as follows

+1 to +2 scratch, +3 to +4, Hurt (-1), +5 to +6 Very Hurt (-2), +7 to +8 incapacitated, +9 or better death.

Humans can take three scratches, two hurts, one very hurt, one incapacitated, one death. If you take more injury at a particular level you mark off one on the next worse levels. So if you took three scratches then your fourth scratch is a hurt. Hurt injuries causes you to be at -1 to all rolls. Very Hurt -2.

You can download a short price list with fudge stats for weapons and armor.

Note the +0 for buckler for the shield bonus is useful because it allows the use of the shield defense.

Here is a character sheet.

For magic just wing it using the spell list found here.

To successfully cast a spell roll 4dF + Thamautology + Intelligence. If you roll equal or greater than the spell difficulty you get the spell off. The degree of success acts as a penalty on the target's save if a saving throw is needed. The reason I have secondary characteristic named Reflex, Willpower, and Fortitude is to make d20 spell conversion easier. 

Each spell has a difficulty associated with it. If you use numbers then you can equate the difficulties as follows

Mediocre 1, Fair 2, Good 3, Great 4, and so on up the Fudge Scale. Note I don't plan on using the Fudge Scale just raw numbers.

Spell damage works the same as weapons except add the degree of success of the Thamautology roll instead of the weapon roll.

I had a full writeup but that was using Vancian magic and spell slots. I am in the process of switching it over to a system like the above and when I am done I will share it.

Majestic Wilderlands Fudge Skills

 been asked what the skills I am using for the Majestic Wilderlands RPG.

The basic list comes from my Majestic Wilderlands supplement for Swords and Wizardry. There they are called abilities. I been running Swords and Wizardry with my supplement since 2009 so I am pretty comfortable with that set.

In the MW Supplement I have a catch all ability called Professional Skill. For Fudge I expanded that into something more concrete. Plus I had to add weapon skills which are covered by proficiencies in SnW.

Each skill has an associated attribute and a default level of -3 to +0.   Added to this your skill level. Skill levels cost are as follows.

For example Sword, One Handed is associated with Dexterity and defaults to -2. If you have a Dex of +1 and put 4 points into the skill your final levels is -2 + 1 + 3 = +2 Swords, One Handed.

This is one of the options found in the Fudge SRD and is obviously inspired by GURPS. Which make sense given how fudge is developed.

I have to stress that I haven't subjected any of this to a proper campaign so this is very much alpha level of quality. However given my experience with the list in Swords and Wizardry I have high hopes that it is diverse enough to make for interesting characters but not so huge that one gets lost in figure out what is needed for a given character.

The adventuring skills are pretty much ported over from my Majestic Wilderlands supplement.
The professional skills are from the guild categories found in my price list.

Adventuring Skills
Skill(Attribute) Default
Acrobatic(Dex) -2
Athletics(Str) -1
Climbing (Min(Str, Dex)) -2
Combat Dodge (Dodge) +0
Eavesdrop(Per ) -1
Interrogate(Will) -1
Legerdemain(Dex) -2
Locution(Int) -2
Perceive(Per) +0
Physician(Int) -3
Riding(Dex) -2
Stealth(Dex) -2
Strategy(Int) -2
Survival(Con) -2

Arcane Skills
Alchemy(Int) -3
Divine Ritual(Int) -3
Herblore(Int) -2
Research(Int) -2
Thaumatology(Int) -3

Melee Weapons
Axe/Mace/Hammer(Dex) -2
Axe/Hammer, Throwing(Dex) -3
Knife(Dex) -1
Knife, Throwing(Dex) -2
Polearm(Dex) -2
Shield(Dex) -1
Spear(Dex) -1
Spear, Throwing(Dex) -2
Staff(Dex) -1
Sword, One handed(Dex) -2
Sword, Two handed(Dex) -2

Missile Weapons
Blowpipe(Dex) -2
Bow(Dex) -2
Crossbow(Dex) -1
Sling(Dex) -2

Professional Skills
Accounting(Int) -2
Animal Handling (type)(Int) -2
Artist (type)(Int) -3
Brewing(Int) -2
Carpenter (Int) -2
Cooking(Int) -1
Farming(Int) -2
Finesmith(Dex) -2
Glassblowing(Int) -2
Hideworking(Int) -2
Knowledge (type)(Int) -1 to -3
Knowledge (Heraldry)(Int) -3
Knowledge (Legal) (Int) -3
Knowledge (Ritual) (Int) -3
Knowledge (Social)(Int) -2
Knowledge (Area, local)(Int) -1
Knowledge (Area, region)(Int) -2
Knowledge (Area, cont.)(Int) -3
Lexigraphy(Int) -2
Mathematics(Int) -2
Masonry(Int) -2
Mechanics(Int) -2
Metalsmith(Int)-2
Mining(Int) -2
Natural Philosophy(Int)-3
Performance(type)(Dex) -3
Pottery(Int) -2
Tailoring(Dex) -2
Timbering(Int) -1

More Mapping with Hexes

Wizards posted an article about mapping with hexes and scale. I played with hex maps a lot over the years. In particular how to join hex maps together and how to manage a hex map when making a hexcrawl setting.

Writing sandbox settings can be painstaking work at time. Even writing tersely the quantity of locales can be overwhelming. My observation that you will have a dozen or so really good ideas and the rest you crib from whatever idea generator or random table you have.

You could limit this but you don't want to make the region so small that the player are able to move past it's bounds in a session or two. Nor you want to make the locale spaced so far apart that that you get the howling wilderness of the 30 mile hex.

I found that making your hexes between 3 to 6 miles to be ideal. If you are using 1/2" hexes on a 8.5 by 11 paper you get a region of 135 miles by 90 miles. It comes roughly to 27 hex columns and 19 hex rows. For that size three dozen locales fit nicely.

For a 22" by 17" map, the size of a Judges Guild Wilderlands map, detailing that many locales becomes a bit of chore. If that what you want to do find some good random tables to help as an idea generator.

So you start off your campaign a letter size paper full of 1/2" hexes. Then you decide to expand the campaign. How to do you make sure everything lines. The easiest method to have some overlap, generally a
hex column, or hex row is sufficient to keep everything consistent across multiple maps.

There are two types of hex grids

Horizontal


Vertical



Of the two, the vertical hex map is by far the most popular.

The examples in this post will be using the vertical hex grid.

Hexgrids have several choices how they can be formed.

You can make the end columns even in number.
or

You can make the ends uneven in length.


The last arrangement is used when you sub dived a large hex into smaller hexes.


Joining Maps

If your map just going to be one page. Then you don' t need to worry about how to join two hex maps together. However with multiple maps then this issue needs some attention

For vertical hex grids the top and bottom of the map are uneven. If you don't want to overlap then you have to have one page start the first hex column high and the lower (or upper) page start the hex column low.



But there are other ways of handling the vertical joining of two hex grids and they have the virtue of making it easier to avoid mistaking in drawing features like rivers and coastlines across multiple maps.

A half overlap


A full overlap


Of the two I prefer the half overlap. It slightly spreads out the vertical coverage of each individual map and I only have to copy the top and bottom hex every other column.

The horizontal joining has several types.

If you use a hex grid with uneven numbers of hexes you can lay them side by side with no overlap.



Judges Guild in the Wilderlands of High Fantasy was one of the first publishers to deal with this issue. They used 18 hex maps arranged in a three maps across 6 maps vertically. Each Hex maps had 52 columns, and 34 rows on the odd columns (1,3,5, etc) and 33 rows on the even columns. The resulting hex grid had uneven ends on the left and right edges.

They decided to use the half overlap to join the maps on the top and bottom edge. However they messed up on the left and right edge and decided to make them overlap. Because of the even ends of the hex grid this resulted in a staircase effect as below. Each map to east was a half row south of the map to the west.



For hex grids that have even ends you can do a full overlap of the last hex column with the first hex column of the next map.




I prefer the full overlap option as it helps ensure that I am correctly drawing from one map to the next. The same reason applies to the half overlap option.

Numbering Hexes

For vertical hex grids the numbering system is XXYY where XX is the column number and YY is the row number. This is reversed for horizontal hex grids.



Sub-maps

Judges Guild is famed for having a complete mapping system that goes from campaign level of 5 miles per hex to a regional level of .2 miles per hex and finally to a local level of 42.24 feet per hex. Each larger hex was subdivided by smaller hexes 1/25 th the size of the larger hex. Hence the odd number at the local level.

If your scale per hex is an odd number (5 miles, 25 miles, etc) it is easy to draw up a subdivided hex as shown below. You pick a center hexes and count the remaining hexes outwards. You can use the six points to draw up the six sides of the larger hex.



Hexes with a even scale (10 miles, 30 miles, etc) are not as easy to subdivide. The lines you will be drawing for the sides will be meeting in the center of hexes.




There is alternative for drawing even scale hexes but you will lose the center hex. You will have decide which form is best to use for you game.



I hope with the Wizards article you find this results for your mapping with hexes.

Lower starting character in Majestic Wilderlands Fudge

This weekend I ran a another session of my Fudge based Majestic Wilderlands for my friend Dan and my wife Kelly Anne. The object this playtest is to see how characters with lower starting points work out. One of the feedback I got from previous sessions that 30 points characters felt really tough. So this time I cut the points in half and made 15 points characters.

Overall I think it went well. The players felt they were more like first level DnD characters. However they didn't get slaughtered by the some bandits I threw at them despite being out numbered.  Dan played a magic-user and cleric template, and Kelly Anne played a burglar and a fighter.

As a twist the burglar was really a swarm of rats that acted in unison and was friends with the fighter. Fudge is so straight forward mechanically it wasn't hard to figure out a way to handle this. In exchange for being limited to using only a dagger like attack, the burglar could fit through rat size opening and reform on the other side. Otherwise the character was treated as a human burglar for skills and combat.

For the adventure I used Field of Daises by Columbia Games. A short adventures involving an investigation into some missing serf boys and a atmospheric exploration of a local cave. The one of the monsters was an adaption of Harn's Vlasta or Eaters of Eyes. It is a small cat size creature (scale -2) that is noted for it leaping ability and its propensity for going for the face and gouging out the target's eyes.

Basically it had a Dex of +3 and if it hit for +4 for better it hit you in the face. If you sustain a very hurt wound it gouges one of your eyes out. What made the creature interesting was it fast speed vs its scale -2. What damage it did was based solely on its ability to score a good hit as this fudge variant the margin of your to hit roll is applied to your damage roll. If it got hit it scale -2 meant it usually got crushed by the fighter.

I have to take another look at the spell system. Like Scourge of the Demon Wolf, Field of Daises is representative of the type of adventure I ran using GURPS. Which means adventures happens over days with ample time to rest. There is rarely more than a few combat encounters per day. The DnD magic system with it limited but powerful spells may be not a good fit. All three playtest groups have been lukewarm about it use. Despite it working pretty like it does in my Swords and Wizardry games. I could tone it down to more like how the spells are in the d20 SRD.

So 15 point characters is what I will focus on in subsequent revisions of the rules. I will probably reserve a final decision on the magic system after a proper campaign.

Right now I am going to get some more options and this will come directly from OGL sections of Runequest 2/Legends. If you score a greater degree of success you get one or maneuvers. Ranging from disarming your opponent, blinding them, or bypassing their armor. I am going to adapt this to my fudge based games. You can covert every +4 degree of success into a maneuver. Some maneuvers require double or +8. If need be I will reduce it down to every +3 or even +2.