1  FUDGE Overview
=================

FUDGE (Freeform, Universal Donated Gaming Engine, or Freeform
Universal Do-it-yourself Gaming Experience) is a roleplaying game.
The basic rules of FUDGE contain no world background whatsoever.  They
may be used with *any* gaming genre, and some customization tips are
included.  However, Game Masters using the basic FUDGE rules must do
some work to customize the rules to their game worlds.

Freedom of choice is the basic premise behind FUDGE.  Every Game
Master using FUDGE has the right to add or ignore any attributes,
skills, or other character traits.  Hence, the FUDGE rules are easily
adaptable to a world of your own creation, a setting from your
favorite fiction, or a commercial source book from any game company.

You can even integrate FUDGE with other role-playing rules.  If an
existing game has a brilliant game mechanism in an otherwise
lackluster set of rules, you can easily import the brilliance into
FUDGE without bringing along the mediocrity.  Do you like the way game
X handles psi, game Y combat, and game Z sanity?  Use them all freely
with FUDGE.

The complete version of FUDGE includes many examples of character
creation, each using different collections of character traits.  In
addition to supplying tips on how to build your own unique set of
character traits, Chapter Two presents  both a subjective and
objective system of character creation.  Chapter Three provides
guidelines for supernormal abilities if you wish to include character
traits and powers beyond the realistic human range: magic, psionic
powers, aliens, super heroes, etc.

FUDGE's action resolution system, detailed in Chapter Four, is simple
and consistent.  In summary, a player rolls two dice and adjusts his
character's trait level up or down (according to the dice result) to
determine how well his character succeeds - or how badly he fails.
When two or more characters can influence the outcome of an action,
all their players roll and compare the results.  Combat is just an
extension of the action resolution system.  FUDGE offers both a
subjective and objective system for tracking damage to characters.

Chapter Five covers character development (experience).  Chapter Six
is a collection of Game Master tips and FUDGE examples, while Chapter
Seven offers several ready-made additions to the FUDGE basic rules,
including sample systems for magic and psionics as well as alternative
systems for character creation and action resolution.

Throughout FUDGE, the GM is given options to help her customize FUDGE
toward either a realistic campaign or an "epic" (or "legendary" or
"cinematic") campaign.  Any genre can be played at any point between
these opposing stances of realistic vs. legendary.

FUDGE may be used as an engine for other game designers.  FUDGE's
word-based descriptive levels are easily translated to any other game.
Any publisher who has a good world to game in is welcome to adapt
FUDGE to that world and publish as much or as little of the FUDGE
rules with that game world as desired.  The FUDGE rules may also be
customized to an individual setting by the publisher.  If you are
reading this overview in such a book, it may or may not include all
the FUDGE rules.  This overview will tell you what you are missing in
such a case, so you can judge if it's worth hunting down the full
FUDGE rules.

For those of you with access to the Internet, the basic FUDGE rules
can be obtained free via anonymous ftp at soda.berkeley.edu in the
directory pub/fudge/rules.  Many FUDGE options, such as described
above as contained in Chapter Seven, can also be found at that site,
in other /pub/fudge directories.  (These samples and options are
occasionally referred to in the FUDGE rules as the Addenda.)

The current version of FUDGE and the Addenda can also be obtained from
Wild Mule Games, P.O. Box 838, Randolph, MA 02368.  FUDGE is available
from Wild Mule Games in book format or on Macintosh or IBM diskette.
Send a self-addressed stamped envelope for current prices (including
shipping and handling charges).  Outside the U.S.A., enclose an
International Reply Coupon.
