For the past few weeks, I’ve been discussing some of the ideas I’ve had about giving more variety to a campaign or session without just using the Offensive Damage Factor (ODF) and Defensive Damage Factor (DDF) that come with the rules. This week I thought I would bring in another area that might add a challenge without having to level up your players or the enemies they face.

I have found with my group that the introduction of weapon/powers immunity has been great at not only spicing up the fight but making the players think outside of the box. When I was running A Fudge Tale: The Ice Princess, I gave the ice golem an immunity to ice or any sort of cold damage which caught our resident sorcerer off guard. As they team had been building everything around this magic user, the introduction of the immunity really forced them to think of new tactics to fight off the creature. It also made sure that the sorcerer player started looking at his other spells instead of just relying on the more common ones he liked to use.

One of the things you would have to be careful with is giving a weapon immunity to broad that nobody can really hurt it or to specific that it’s just a stat that is never used as that type of damage isn’t inflicted.

I have only had a limited experience using this as my group has been playtesting Blood in Space RPG and those rules do not have any weapon limitation or immunity (as of yet).

What do you think of weapon immunity? Do you have your own methods of throwing some spice into fudge combat? Let us know over on the forums!

In recent months, I have been asked on more than one occasion for some "help" in coming up with adventure ideas for another GM. I very much respect the equivalent of "writer's block" for GMs, I have expeienced it myself a time or two.  Endless self-help books have been published on how to kickstart or reinvigorate the creative juices.

I personally find my inspiration on the Internet these days. Through Facebook, I have liked a number of pages that present interesting factoids of history, science, technology, and other topics that help provide me with ideas for adventures, gadgets, and more. Most require some creative effort to really fit into whatever setting or scenario I may be working on. Occasionally, some stories just seem like they must have been written by a closet gamer and are ideally suited for inspiring adventures or even an entire campaign.

This morning, an article of what-if historical scenarios that almost happened caught my attention. Each of these moments in history could have led to a very different world of today. My personal favorite to consider how history would have changed is the possible division of Japan between the US and Soviet Union. How much more would that have shifted the theater of cold war spying from Europe to Asia?

See the whole article at http://www.cracked.com/article_20192_5-insane-what-if-scenarios-that-almost-changed-everything.html.

In the years that I have been playing Fudge, one of the more difficult things that I have tried to do is finding a way that players continue to stay challenge in stories thare are more episodic instead of a one off adventure. With the way Fudge is, when players skills start reaching Superb, it is very hard for these battles do not come automatic successes for players. Without a challenge, nobody is going to be interested in playing.

It was about a year ago that I finally hit on a way that can help alleviate this type of pain for campaign settings and it has been working very well. What I did was create four new levels above Superb and did not allow players to achieve these levels. For example I create a Impressive (+4), Most Impressive (+5), Legendary (+6), and Mythic (+7). In my campaigns I made sure there were ODF and DDF abilities for weapons and defenses to help add some variety to the rolls. An example would be the Emerald Fire Dragon I created as a bad guy for my group of knights that were trying to free a kingdom.

Emerald Fire Dragon

~Attributes~

Strength: Mythic
Agility: Most Impressive
Stamina: Impressive
Intelligence: Legendary
Charisma: Impressive

~Skills~

Claws: Impressive (+2 ODF)
Frost Breath: Superb (+2 ODF)
Hide: Impressive (+3 DDF)

This dragon gave my team of four (with a bunch of superb skills) quite a hard time making them think instead of just strutting in and battling the creature. The biggest drawback that I have found (and in a way I do not consider it a drawback) is that if the player does not roll well, he could wind up being insta-killed if the campaign does not allow expansion on the amount of wound boxes that the player character has. Sir Roderick battled the dragon and went sword to claw. Sword Skill was Superb with a sword of ODF +3 and a DDF +2 (Leather armor). He rolled a -3 dropping his end result to Fair while the Dragon rolled a +3 on Claws. The Margin of Failure was a whopping 6 points plus the +1 for ODF giving a massive 9 points of damage. The armor did cut this down to 7, but that seven incapacitated him. Suffice to say, the players were very happy to have their fudge points now.

So, those are my thoughts. Do you have any other ideas on making it challenging for players when the level is getting high? If so, please share them on the fudge forums!

So, did you like my pun? Yes, I know it was pretty horrible, but the title was what made me think about writing this article to cover. For those of RPG experience, you have probably already had this discussion and so I wanted to gear this toward the newer GMs that may have asked themselves this question. So, is it alright to fudge results in your RPG?

This question came up when my brother was designing his own session and was very concerned about the difficulty level of the bad guys. He was designing with the Pathfinder system so he was taking in to consideration the Average Party Level (APL), the mixture of Challenge Ratings (CR), and all the movement and maps needed. With all the rules, he had asked me, “Is it alright to fudge the rules in case my enemies are too powerful?”

The answer is yes. The reason that I say this is because the point of roleplaying is the excitement and the adventure. If your players are not being challenged enough (or being to challenged) then it is quite alright to adjust or “fudge” the results so that they do not instantly die or waltz through your dungeon. A total party kill is not good for a GM as they have to handle the fallout among players, while it can depress or upset the players who have vested a lot of time and consideration in to the design of their characters.

Some game systems are inherently friendly toward the player and the GM when it comes to this because the dice system is made in a way that allows for adjustments on the fly. The Fudge System specifically has the fudge point to even give players a chance to change the results. It is a very important give and take between the player and the GM.
The important part is the feeling of adventure and comradery. One of my fond adventure memories was a battle against the undead to protect a city and in the end we lost one of our companions. I do not remember the dice rolling or the mechanics, but the epic battle and loss of our good friend. Even the character’s player was in a good mood in the end because how well our GM handled the death allowing him to be epic in the end.

This is the point of a roleplay, to experience an adventure like no other. If you, as GM of the game, have to fudge the results here and there to bring that about, it is perfectly acceptable!
Have fun gaming!