The last time I played any kind of roleplaying game was in the late 70s. When I decided that it might be fun to RPG with my grandchildren, I was fascinated by the changes in the intervening years. I've been reading lots of games and some game criticism to try to orient myself to the current game-system landscape as well as preparing to GM for the first time in my life.

One thing I've learned is that creativity needs constraint in order to be intelligible. At least that's true for me. Having a background that encourages systems thinking, I came up with a set of constraints based upon the principles of

(1) If you cannot explain what a game concept means in character-world terms, you shouldn't be using it.[/ul]
(2) Too much 'crunch' is boring and distracting and encourages the wrong kind of gameplay.
(3) Too little order is just confusing.

and these are the constraints/design parameters:

- No levels.
- No classes.
- No separate 'hit points' player characteristic.
- No showing how the system works more than is absolutely necessary to allow players to strategize effectively
- Analog, not numerical descriptions of people, places, things and events.
- Simplified, holistic combat.
- Success is it's own reward.
- Failure is it's own punishment.
- Build the right game-play incentives in to the game-system.
- Gaming is about characters doing stuff (not players figuring out how to mini-max the game system).
- Real magic changes everything.

The foundation of what I'm building is Fudge because of the 'analog' naming convention (Good, Fair, etc). Some people might find this foolish, but I think that having some squish around character attributes and event resolution is a good thing. It gives player characters more room to think like their character experiences the character-world.

I've never understood levels or experience points and think that every explanation of them would make no sense to the characters. It's a very reliable goal-creating device that far too easily becomes the whole point of a game. The games I played became most fun when people stopped thinking about 'advancement' and started thinking about how their character could succeed (sometimes through any means necessary). Players end up being 'murderhobos' (a term we didn't have in my day, but would have been appropo) because that's what's rewarded.

One of the innovations since the 1970s has been things like Fudge coins. So I'm going to try to integrate the 'fudge' option into a 'action points' system where players get a base number of 'Do' cards (or coins) that can be used to enhance character actions and also are the equivalent of 'hit points'. When your character runs out of 'Do' cards, they need to rest before they can do much of anything or have someone magically share their 'Do' with them.

Another innovation since the 1970s is 'dice pools' and the use of success (bonus) and failure (penalty) dice enabling different ways of understanding 'failure'. Fudge doesn't use dice pools because all Fudge dice are the same...unless they're not. So, I'm going to try using red dice for penalty dice and only the minuses (-) are counted on those dice. White dice will be bonus dice and only pluses (+) are counted on those dice.

One conscious choice is to make magic ubiquitous but only at a very low level unless you're trained. It's like everyone receiving a little first aid training in K-12 means everyone can do something for some kinds of injuries, but it does not make everyone a heart surgeon. This low-level magic is based upon three forms: Help, Harm, Alter. A 'Help' or a 'Harm' costs one 'Do' card/point. An 'Alter' costs two (and perhaps entails a short-enduring complication). Help includes healing or sending additional energy ('Do') to another character (including bonus dice). Harm includes breaking things as well as direct physical damage (removing 'Do' or adding penalty dice). Alter includes things like locking a door or making a knot really strong.

There are only four attributes, but the players are not going to know the numeric values assigned to them. Instead, the character sheet is going to have clusters of related activities that correspond to that attribute and they players will be given Fudge descriptions to assign to them or I may assign them based upon gameplay in 'Fudge On The Fly' fashion. Either way is more character-world-oriented than the typical 'you get four points to distribute' methods that we generally seem stuck with.

In actions were there are enduring consequences, such as 'complications' from failure, a penalty dice will be given to the character to include with their standard Fudge dice 'pool' and will have an effect until 'cleared'. Still not sure how such complications will 'clear', but use of 'Do' points might be one way to accomplish that, or someone could magically 'clear' them (and give up a 'Do' card).

Because the game involves children, I've pretty much ruled out gory, edged-weapons combat in favor of mostly wooden weapons. The combat part of the system is still under construction as I am still trying to figure out now to take as much 'crunch' (and accounting) out of combat as possible while still keeping combat as something best avoided because your character can really get hurt and lose some of their ability to function. Again, there will probably be plus-only (damage-aborption/armor) and minus-only (damage-inducing/weapon) Fudge dice involved. I'd like to see one roll of multiple different dice rolled by the player resolve each round of combat. I'm still thinking about this aspect of the system, so any ideas anyone might want to suggest on how to make it work would be welcome.

I'm posting this to a Fudge forum because I don't think I would have thought in terms of 'analog' as much without coming across Fudge in my research. Thanks to everyone who has ever contributed to the design and content of the Fudge family.