Simon Smith
2006-11-17 18:20:28 UTC
The recent interesting discussion on fudge factors with ref to Deadlands and
other systems inspired me to write a summary of the fudge factors used in a
variety of games, trying to identify what makes them work exceptionally well
(D20 superheroes is the best I'm aware of) or exceptionally badly (2nd
Edition D6 Star Wars takes the prize here).
Can anyone recommend or warn against any other systems with particularly
good, bad, or different factor systems? I think I have covered most of the
spectrum here, but would be interested if there are any other 'takes' I'm
not aware of.
------
Successful and Unsuccessful 'Fudge Factors' in RPGs
Star Wars Edition I
1. Force points
SUMMARY: Mostly successful.
DESCRIPTION: All characters start at one Force point. When spent, a Force
point doubles all skills and attributes for a short period. Depending on how
the Force points is spent the character will receive 0, 1 or 2 Force points
back. Spent selfishly, to save one's skin, the Force point is lost. Spent
heriocally, to save or help others, the Force point is returned. Spent
heroically at the climax of an adventure, two Force points are returned.
In the short term, it works very well. Characters build up to 2 or 3 Force
points and become reliably heroic. Longer term, characters can gradually
build up to 5, 6 or more Force points, at by this level scenario balance can
be a major problem. A party of PCs with 3-5 Force points apiece could have
20 between them, and one Force point spent at the right time can be
decisive. Occasionally characters' Force point total will drop back a point
or two, but the long-term trend is upwards. The more spectacular the game,
the steeper the growth curve. A relatively grim campaign style can keep
things under control, but it is a struggle.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: The system can be gamed by characters accepting poor
rolls and letting themselves get hurt - which then gives other characters
the chance to heroically rescue them. And everyone spends Force points at
the climax of the scenario, which will usually result in extra Force points
accruing.
FIX: As long as characters can be kept at around 2 Force points (sometimes
dipping to 1, sometimes rising to 3) the system stays on a more or less even
keel. Further ideas for a reliable mechanism for keeping characters within
this range would be welcomed.
Star Wars Edition II
2. Force points
SUMMARY: Mostly successful.
DESCRIPTION: Uses pretty much the same mechanics as for Edition I.
Unfortunately, even the Force point mechanics taken in isolation are still
more-or-less OK, they are poisoned by the character point mechanic described
below.
FIX: As above, more or less.
3. Character points
SUMMARY: One of the worst implementations of a fudge factor I've seen.
DESCRIPTION: A character point can be spent to add a modest boost of 1D to a
character's skill. As up to five character points can be spent at a time, at
low skill codes they can be more effective than Force points. However,
character points spent like this are permanently expended. As a side-effects
of this rule means characters with high strength codes and body armour gain
a big advantage, because character points can be spent to boost one's
Strength to resist incoming damage. A low-strength character may have to
spend the full five character points to help him survive combat damage; a
high strength chasracter may get away with only spending a point or two. The
unintended consequence is that being injured costs you XP, and the weaker
you are, the more XP it costs you. Bounty Hunters and Wookiees thrive under
the new rules, but high Knowledge characters - who usually have low Strength
and low Dexterity - can barely risk getting in to combat at all.
[It seems that these character point rules were an attempt to lift the
Possibilities rules from Torg (where they did seem to fit at least a little
bit better) and apply them to Star Wars. To compound the problem, a 'wild
die' mechanic was lifted from the GhostBusters RPG (really!) and imported as
well. I know of no group that actually used the Wild Die rules - they gave a
1 in 6 chance of a roll-up, and a 1 in 6 chance of a character losing 2D off
their skill. This would have made even quite experienced characters wildly
erratic, and it intruded in the game far too frequently to be acceptable.
There was a better than evens chance it would occur in every combat attack
(with four rolls for each attack - to-hit, dodge, damage and strength, the
odds are at least one of them would have been affected.]
FIX: Definitely don't use the wild die, which compounded the problems. If
you used the character points rules, use similar mechanics to the Force
rules for replacing spent character points so that characters usually broke
even when they spent them. This at least meant the GM could reward heroic
play, rather than sitting back and let the system penalise it. If a
workaround is required for the fact that character points are more effective
at boosting low skills than Force points, the best I could come up with was
an alternative Force point mechanic that added 6D to each skill and 3D to
each attribute, rather than doubling them.
Torg
4. Possibilities
SUMMARY: Eccentric and came be gamed, but seem to fit the system.
DESCRIPTION: The Swiss army knife of fudge factors. A wide variety of
different uses, but all reasonably well factored-in to the game. A
particularly nice feature was that the rules explicitly explained how the
characters' point totals were supposed to fluctuate over the course of a
scenario. Charcters were expected to start on about 10 points, spend about
four points per episode, and get two returned, which would result in a
gradual drop to about 4-6 Possibilities by the final encounter. After the
final enounter, the scenario reward was supposed to give a net gain of about
6 points. If you followed those guidelines I think the system would work
quite well, and at least the designer had made a point of explaining how the
system is supposed to work.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: AS has already been pointed out, you just spend less
Possibilities than expected during the scenario and your ending XPs will be
proportionally increased.
FIX: Again, Torg is a heroic game, so if you rig things so that standard
uses just make the character break even, and only unselfish or heroic uses
are profitable, you can skew things in the favour of characters who play in
the spirit of the rules system rather than trying to game it. Unfortunately,
because of the way characters' Possibility budgets are supposed to work, I
don't believe this can be a complete solution.
EarthDawn
5. Karma
SUMMARY: Work well as 'die or die points', work poorly if at all as 'save
the character's skin points'.
DESCRIPTION: Karma points can be bought at a cost of 5-10 XPs each up to a
maximum of 40-100 or so. Buying a rank 1 skill costs 100 XPs, buying a skill
from rank 3 to 4 costs 500, rank 7-8 2100, 14-15 20000 ish), so they're
comparatively cheap. As fudge factors, though, they're rather limited. They
must be used to power certain abilities, they give about a 20-60% skill
boost (depending partly on skill level and race) to a low level character
and as little as a 10%-30% boost to a high level character. They can't
easily be used defensively. They typically add a small but worthwhile boost
to a character's main skills, which are usually offensive. So they tend to
be a bit do or die. They can only save you by helping you take down your
opponent before he gets you. So they work better as 'extra heroic effort
points' than 'save the hero's skin points'. Personally I think I'd prefer it
if they were more useful in defence.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: A character who spends Karma points like water is about
10% more effective on avaerage than a character who spends them
conservatively. Thats means he'll face deadlier opponents, which means a
slightly greater risk of failure, but slightly bigger rewards. Excluding the
highest Karma race, and certain magical monsters, I think the overall
difference in power level between low and high levels of Karma usage are
more 'flavour' than critical or unbalancing. My main gripe is that the Karma
rules /could/ have been used as a worthwhile defensive fudge factor as well,
but I think that's more a missed opportunity than a flaw in the rules.
FIX: None, really. Some rules tinkering would be required to make better
defensive useages of Karma possible.
James Bond
6. Hero points and Survival points
SUMMARY: Work very well for the system, and possibly good enough to be worth
stealing for elsewhere.
DESCRIPTION: Heros have Hero points, which can be used offensively or
defensively, villains have Survival points which can only be used
defensively. A Survival point can be used to cancel out a hero point.
This is an excellent way of preventing the system from escalating, works
well, and fits the genre.
The main problem is that characters only get Hero points when they get a
critical success on a skill roll, and for starting PCs the rate at
which critical successes occur is just too low. Thus there is always a
chronic shortage of hero points for all characters except the for the likes
of James Bond, who just about breaks even.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: Given the low probability of the required critical
successes, even assiduously gaming the system makes little practical
difference.
FIX: Increase the rate at which Hero points can be earned, but then you
would probably also have to put a maximum cap so that the James Bonds didn't
end up with ridiculous numbers of Hero points.
D20 Superheroes, second edition
7. Hero points
SUMMARY: Excellent implementation, works well for the system, and good
enough to be worth stealing for elsewhere, particularly other heroic and
superheroic genres.
DESCRIPTION: NB There were two versions of this, and I am only familiar with
the mechanics of the second edition. Basically, all characters start the
session at one hero point. You gain additional hero points by allowing bad
stuff to happen to you early on in the scenario. Or you can spend hero
points to prevent bad stuff from happening.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: The rules, very cleverly, rely on players gaming them.
Characters allows themselves to get beaten up and otherwise take reverses
during the early part of the scenario. As they do so they accumulate hero
points. That means at the end of the scenario they can heroically overcome
the odds and kick villain butt. This fits beautifully with the to-and-fro
nature of comic-book combat. With this refinement, the D20 Supers system
gained one of the best fudge factor systems I've ever heard of.
FIX: This /was/ the fix for the first edition rules, where I believe
characters just started each scenario with a fixed number of hero points
which they could spend as they pleased throughout the scenario - which
meant in practice they'd tend to get used in pretty much the opposite way to
what the GM (or his villains) were likely to want. The corrected rules seem
to do a superb job of making it in the players' interests to follow the plot
of the scenario, even at the expense of a few lumps on the way.
DC Heroes
8. Hero points
SUMMARY: Bland implementation, configurable genre conventions determine how
great a fudge is possible, but inflationary if abused.
DESCRIPTION: Heroes keep 100 or so XPs back at the end of each adventure to
spend as fudges during the comming adventure. Spend them at every
opportunity and you can use them up at an alarming rate (5-10 at a time),
but it can make your character half again as powerful. This can have the
same adverse effects (increasingly powerful opposition, to 'challenge you'),
as in EarthDawn.
FIX: Don't really know. This fudge factor system does fit the game, but it's
rather bland. Other than a reminder to try to avoid XP inflation, there's
not much more to be said.
------
Simon Smith
other systems inspired me to write a summary of the fudge factors used in a
variety of games, trying to identify what makes them work exceptionally well
(D20 superheroes is the best I'm aware of) or exceptionally badly (2nd
Edition D6 Star Wars takes the prize here).
Can anyone recommend or warn against any other systems with particularly
good, bad, or different factor systems? I think I have covered most of the
spectrum here, but would be interested if there are any other 'takes' I'm
not aware of.
------
Successful and Unsuccessful 'Fudge Factors' in RPGs
Star Wars Edition I
1. Force points
SUMMARY: Mostly successful.
DESCRIPTION: All characters start at one Force point. When spent, a Force
point doubles all skills and attributes for a short period. Depending on how
the Force points is spent the character will receive 0, 1 or 2 Force points
back. Spent selfishly, to save one's skin, the Force point is lost. Spent
heriocally, to save or help others, the Force point is returned. Spent
heroically at the climax of an adventure, two Force points are returned.
In the short term, it works very well. Characters build up to 2 or 3 Force
points and become reliably heroic. Longer term, characters can gradually
build up to 5, 6 or more Force points, at by this level scenario balance can
be a major problem. A party of PCs with 3-5 Force points apiece could have
20 between them, and one Force point spent at the right time can be
decisive. Occasionally characters' Force point total will drop back a point
or two, but the long-term trend is upwards. The more spectacular the game,
the steeper the growth curve. A relatively grim campaign style can keep
things under control, but it is a struggle.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: The system can be gamed by characters accepting poor
rolls and letting themselves get hurt - which then gives other characters
the chance to heroically rescue them. And everyone spends Force points at
the climax of the scenario, which will usually result in extra Force points
accruing.
FIX: As long as characters can be kept at around 2 Force points (sometimes
dipping to 1, sometimes rising to 3) the system stays on a more or less even
keel. Further ideas for a reliable mechanism for keeping characters within
this range would be welcomed.
Star Wars Edition II
2. Force points
SUMMARY: Mostly successful.
DESCRIPTION: Uses pretty much the same mechanics as for Edition I.
Unfortunately, even the Force point mechanics taken in isolation are still
more-or-less OK, they are poisoned by the character point mechanic described
below.
FIX: As above, more or less.
3. Character points
SUMMARY: One of the worst implementations of a fudge factor I've seen.
DESCRIPTION: A character point can be spent to add a modest boost of 1D to a
character's skill. As up to five character points can be spent at a time, at
low skill codes they can be more effective than Force points. However,
character points spent like this are permanently expended. As a side-effects
of this rule means characters with high strength codes and body armour gain
a big advantage, because character points can be spent to boost one's
Strength to resist incoming damage. A low-strength character may have to
spend the full five character points to help him survive combat damage; a
high strength chasracter may get away with only spending a point or two. The
unintended consequence is that being injured costs you XP, and the weaker
you are, the more XP it costs you. Bounty Hunters and Wookiees thrive under
the new rules, but high Knowledge characters - who usually have low Strength
and low Dexterity - can barely risk getting in to combat at all.
[It seems that these character point rules were an attempt to lift the
Possibilities rules from Torg (where they did seem to fit at least a little
bit better) and apply them to Star Wars. To compound the problem, a 'wild
die' mechanic was lifted from the GhostBusters RPG (really!) and imported as
well. I know of no group that actually used the Wild Die rules - they gave a
1 in 6 chance of a roll-up, and a 1 in 6 chance of a character losing 2D off
their skill. This would have made even quite experienced characters wildly
erratic, and it intruded in the game far too frequently to be acceptable.
There was a better than evens chance it would occur in every combat attack
(with four rolls for each attack - to-hit, dodge, damage and strength, the
odds are at least one of them would have been affected.]
FIX: Definitely don't use the wild die, which compounded the problems. If
you used the character points rules, use similar mechanics to the Force
rules for replacing spent character points so that characters usually broke
even when they spent them. This at least meant the GM could reward heroic
play, rather than sitting back and let the system penalise it. If a
workaround is required for the fact that character points are more effective
at boosting low skills than Force points, the best I could come up with was
an alternative Force point mechanic that added 6D to each skill and 3D to
each attribute, rather than doubling them.
Torg
4. Possibilities
SUMMARY: Eccentric and came be gamed, but seem to fit the system.
DESCRIPTION: The Swiss army knife of fudge factors. A wide variety of
different uses, but all reasonably well factored-in to the game. A
particularly nice feature was that the rules explicitly explained how the
characters' point totals were supposed to fluctuate over the course of a
scenario. Charcters were expected to start on about 10 points, spend about
four points per episode, and get two returned, which would result in a
gradual drop to about 4-6 Possibilities by the final encounter. After the
final enounter, the scenario reward was supposed to give a net gain of about
6 points. If you followed those guidelines I think the system would work
quite well, and at least the designer had made a point of explaining how the
system is supposed to work.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: AS has already been pointed out, you just spend less
Possibilities than expected during the scenario and your ending XPs will be
proportionally increased.
FIX: Again, Torg is a heroic game, so if you rig things so that standard
uses just make the character break even, and only unselfish or heroic uses
are profitable, you can skew things in the favour of characters who play in
the spirit of the rules system rather than trying to game it. Unfortunately,
because of the way characters' Possibility budgets are supposed to work, I
don't believe this can be a complete solution.
EarthDawn
5. Karma
SUMMARY: Work well as 'die or die points', work poorly if at all as 'save
the character's skin points'.
DESCRIPTION: Karma points can be bought at a cost of 5-10 XPs each up to a
maximum of 40-100 or so. Buying a rank 1 skill costs 100 XPs, buying a skill
from rank 3 to 4 costs 500, rank 7-8 2100, 14-15 20000 ish), so they're
comparatively cheap. As fudge factors, though, they're rather limited. They
must be used to power certain abilities, they give about a 20-60% skill
boost (depending partly on skill level and race) to a low level character
and as little as a 10%-30% boost to a high level character. They can't
easily be used defensively. They typically add a small but worthwhile boost
to a character's main skills, which are usually offensive. So they tend to
be a bit do or die. They can only save you by helping you take down your
opponent before he gets you. So they work better as 'extra heroic effort
points' than 'save the hero's skin points'. Personally I think I'd prefer it
if they were more useful in defence.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: A character who spends Karma points like water is about
10% more effective on avaerage than a character who spends them
conservatively. Thats means he'll face deadlier opponents, which means a
slightly greater risk of failure, but slightly bigger rewards. Excluding the
highest Karma race, and certain magical monsters, I think the overall
difference in power level between low and high levels of Karma usage are
more 'flavour' than critical or unbalancing. My main gripe is that the Karma
rules /could/ have been used as a worthwhile defensive fudge factor as well,
but I think that's more a missed opportunity than a flaw in the rules.
FIX: None, really. Some rules tinkering would be required to make better
defensive useages of Karma possible.
James Bond
6. Hero points and Survival points
SUMMARY: Work very well for the system, and possibly good enough to be worth
stealing for elsewhere.
DESCRIPTION: Heros have Hero points, which can be used offensively or
defensively, villains have Survival points which can only be used
defensively. A Survival point can be used to cancel out a hero point.
This is an excellent way of preventing the system from escalating, works
well, and fits the genre.
The main problem is that characters only get Hero points when they get a
critical success on a skill roll, and for starting PCs the rate at
which critical successes occur is just too low. Thus there is always a
chronic shortage of hero points for all characters except the for the likes
of James Bond, who just about breaks even.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: Given the low probability of the required critical
successes, even assiduously gaming the system makes little practical
difference.
FIX: Increase the rate at which Hero points can be earned, but then you
would probably also have to put a maximum cap so that the James Bonds didn't
end up with ridiculous numbers of Hero points.
D20 Superheroes, second edition
7. Hero points
SUMMARY: Excellent implementation, works well for the system, and good
enough to be worth stealing for elsewhere, particularly other heroic and
superheroic genres.
DESCRIPTION: NB There were two versions of this, and I am only familiar with
the mechanics of the second edition. Basically, all characters start the
session at one hero point. You gain additional hero points by allowing bad
stuff to happen to you early on in the scenario. Or you can spend hero
points to prevent bad stuff from happening.
GAMING THE SYSTEM: The rules, very cleverly, rely on players gaming them.
Characters allows themselves to get beaten up and otherwise take reverses
during the early part of the scenario. As they do so they accumulate hero
points. That means at the end of the scenario they can heroically overcome
the odds and kick villain butt. This fits beautifully with the to-and-fro
nature of comic-book combat. With this refinement, the D20 Supers system
gained one of the best fudge factor systems I've ever heard of.
FIX: This /was/ the fix for the first edition rules, where I believe
characters just started each scenario with a fixed number of hero points
which they could spend as they pleased throughout the scenario - which
meant in practice they'd tend to get used in pretty much the opposite way to
what the GM (or his villains) were likely to want. The corrected rules seem
to do a superb job of making it in the players' interests to follow the plot
of the scenario, even at the expense of a few lumps on the way.
DC Heroes
8. Hero points
SUMMARY: Bland implementation, configurable genre conventions determine how
great a fudge is possible, but inflationary if abused.
DESCRIPTION: Heroes keep 100 or so XPs back at the end of each adventure to
spend as fudges during the comming adventure. Spend them at every
opportunity and you can use them up at an alarming rate (5-10 at a time),
but it can make your character half again as powerful. This can have the
same adverse effects (increasingly powerful opposition, to 'challenge you'),
as in EarthDawn.
FIX: Don't really know. This fudge factor system does fit the game, but it's
rather bland. Other than a reminder to try to avoid XP inflation, there's
not much more to be said.
------
Simon Smith
--
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence.
Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is
watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass
wherever you may be." - Robert Fulghum
The grass is not, in fact, always greener on the other side of the fence.
Fences have nothing to do with it. The grass is greenest where it is
watered. When crossing over fences, carry water with you and tend the grass
wherever you may be." - Robert Fulghum