One method that I have seen used elsewhere, with some frequency, is the representation of mechanical economies (Fudge Points, Savage World's Bennies, all sorts of stuff) with physical objects. The physical objects both make the use of mechanical economies easier, particularly in more fluid or more complex systems; and through existence call attention to said mechanical economy. Its easy to remember you have Fudge Points when there are a bunch of beads in front of you explicitly telling you that you have them.

Knaight wrote:

Its easy to remember you have Fudge Points when there are a bunch of beads in front of you explicitly telling you that you have them.

A really great (and obvious) suggestion. I should have thought of it myself. Thank you. The evil GM in me is tempted to use small individually wrapped candies of some sort and I suspect my players will grow absent minded and eat them thereby using up Fudge points without really getting the benefits. However, I'm not sure I could really be that evil to them.

pdupuis wrote:

The evil GM in me is tempted to use small individually wrapped candies of some sort and I suspect my players will grow absent minded and eat them thereby using up Fudge points without really getting the benefits.

o.o
I would have expected such evilness from either fudgebob or Knaight. But you Paul?!

Knaight wrote:

The physical objects both make the use of mechanical economies easier, particularly in more fluid or more complex systems; and through existence call attention to said mechanical economy. Its easy to remember you have Fudge Points when there are a bunch of beads in front of you explicitly telling you that you have them.

I second this thought. I like to use tokens myself. Usually glass beads or seeds.

WarLord wrote:

    pdupuis wrote:
    The evil GM in me is tempted to use small individually wrapped candies of some sort and I suspect my players will grow absent minded and eat them thereby using up Fudge points without really getting the benefits.

o.o
I would have expected such evilness from either fudgebob or Knaight. But you Paul?! tongue

Well, it's true I haven't been very involved with the FUDGE community since the 1990's - work just got way too busy in the 2000's - for any folks who have played in the convention games like 'What's the Catch?" or "Routine Never Is" or "Escape Never Is" or even "Another Fine Mess" should realize that, I, as the author of those, definitely have a very evil streak as a GM 

I'm not so evil that I wouldn't just remind someone of the opportunity, but if you give out any kind of cheat sheet for the game highlighting things like attack modifiers or damage tracks, then putting a reminder on that sheet wouldn't hurt either. Or putting the Fudge Points part of the character sheet in bold, or more heavily underlined or in a prominent place.

As a player of the Star Wars RPG by West End Games,  I couldn't wait to get to the climactic moment and blow a force point on a heroicly awesome roll. So I was always looking out for that perfect place. So maybe reminding the more rules minded player in the group to be on the lookout might spark a reminder?

Or, like mentioned abovie, little squares of fudge

pdupuis wrote:

I am also blessed by players show are both quite creative and getting out of trouble and quite adept and getting into trouble, so I tend to liberally award Fudge points (relatively speaking). When my players remember they have Fudge points, they make good use of them at dramatic points to further the story. The one problem I have is that they often forget all about Fudge points in the heat of play and even when they're in a heap of trouble and a Fudge point is almost necessary to escape, that's mostly likely when they forget about them entirely (perhaps because they are too caught up in the story or maybe we're all just getting too old and have failing memories). Do any GMs out they have a good (or superb) tips on how to remind players about their Fudge points without being obvious that "now" might be a good time to use them?

Ann Marie and I (the players) were surprised to hear Paul say he liberally awards Fudge points, because he hasn't actually awarded any Fudge points to our characters in the current Terra Incognita campaign since we started! We started off with generous amounts - 5 Fudge points (it's a two-fisted pulp campaign, after all). But none since. We've been hoarding our Fudge points for that reason! We thought we'd need our last couple of Fudge points per character for the climactic end of the current adventure!

When we pointed this out to Paul, he was astonished.... he certainly thought he'd been awarding Fudge points! Maybe we'll actually get some Fudge points next session, we certainly need them! We're in Iceland in January 1930,  about to go either to a volcano or a glacier or a mountainous area, depending on whether we decide to follow the enemy -- who has hundreds of men to our group of 7 intrepid adventurers -- or go where they're not and hope that we get lucky and find the end goal first. Fortunately Iceland in January isn't as cold as most people might think. But it's awfully dangerous in the wilderness!

I tried to tackle this problem in a slightly different way. I've been experimenting with creating a mini-economy of FPs in game. I've created a little system to replace Fudge Points (which I call Fudge Passions). I haven't tested it anger yet so it's still experimental.

The premise is that characters have a set of traits that define what drives or what the character is passionate about. If they use these traits in play, they can earn FPs. However FPs are restricted. They can only be used in life or death situations or when one of the characters driving traits is applicable. For example, Batman might have a trait of "Justice for all" which would allow him to gain FPs when he brings about justice but also to spend those FPs in the pursuit of justice. The idea is that this generates a quick turn-off of FPs (as long as the player is staying true to their character) and therefore allows players to spend them more often but only within the scope of roleplaying their character.

Because my realm was online I used fudge points (then called cosmic energy to match our Stargate SG-1 theme) I awarded them when someone posted his part in really good detail describing his characters actions and the creativity of what his character was doing.

paul wrote:

Knaight wrote:

Its easy to remember you have Fudge Points when there are a bunch of beads in front of you explicitly telling you that you have them.

The evil GM in me is tempted to use small individually wrapped candies of some sort and I suspect my players will grow absent minded and eat them thereby using up Fudge points without really getting the benefits.

The game QAGS, published by Hex Games, does this very thing, even calling the points "Yum-Yums". It's an idea I'm enthusiastically pinching for my next Fudge adventure, probably using rather nice, individually wrapped Lindor chocolates. One of my players is notorious for trying to squeeze the maximum advantage from Fudge Points... but she's also something of a chocaholic, so presenting her with such a temptation is particularly cruel