DISCLAIMERThe following materials based on FUDGE, entitled FUDGE Magic With Feeling, are created by Christopher A. Goodwin and made available by Christopher A. Goodwin, and are not authorized or endorsed in any way by Steffan O’Sullivan or any publisher of other FUDGE materials. Neither Steffan O’Sullivan or any publisher of other FUDGE material is in any way responsible for the content of these materials. Original FUDGE materials © Copyright 1992-1995 Steffan O’Sullivan, All Rights Reserved.
ABOUT FUDGE
FUDGE is a role-playing game written by Steffan O’Sullivan, with extensive input from the Usenet community of rec.games.design. The basic rules of FUDGE are available on the internet via anonymous ftp at ftp.csua.berkeley.edu, and in book form or on disk from Grey Ghost Games, P.O. Box 838, Randolph, MA 02368. They may be used with any gaming genre. While an individual work derived from FUDGE may specify certain attributes and skills, many more are possible with FUDGE. Every Game Master using FUDGE is encouraged to add or ignore any character traits. Anyone who wishes to distribute such material for free may do so - merely include this ABOUT FUDGE notice and disclaimer (complete with FUDGE copyright notice). If you wish to charge a fee for such material, other than as an article in a magazine or other periodical, you must first obtain a royalty-free license from the author of FUDGE, Steffan O’Sullivan, P.O. Box 465, Plymouth, NH 03264.
Sorry, no introduction. May appear here soon.
Casting Requirements: Power skill is necessary in order to cast spells. Also, mages need to purchase Alliances (their realms of power, purchased as skills) and skills in manipulating their Alliances (known collectively as magical skills). Players may choose from any Alliance; they can create their own Alliances, with GM agreement. The GM may optionally require mage characters to have the Magical Aptitude gift. Characters can purchase magical Talents, and need not be mages to do so; these characters must purchase Power skill and a skill that represents the Talent.
Source of power: Characters have an unspecified connection to the source of all magical power; mana points represent the character's ability to control this power. Characters who are not careful can find themselves biting off more than they can chew, attempting to use more power than they can reliably control. Will is very important in controlling magical power.
Reliability: Questionable. Characters tend to high skill levels, which makes them seldom fail, but depending on the point in the casting process at which the spell does fail, a failure can be dangerous.
Casting time: One to several rounds, depending on how powerful the spell is. Characters can set up spells beforehand to be triggered by a specific event or even when the character desires (this process is known as "implanting" a spell; a spell implanted into an item or another person requires the Imbue skill.).
Spells: Improvised. Characters have free rein to improvise effects within the limits of their Alliances, magical skills, and available power.
Components: Not required by the system, but some characters may take methodologies (including gestures, incantations, and materials) that limit how they can cast spells of an Alliance, in exchange for reducing the difficulty level of that Alliance.
Drawbacks: Failure (including normal failure) at the final step of the process (magical skill rolls; actually forming Power into a spell) can cause results ranging from painful to disastrous, depending on the degree of failure. Characters tend to have their own styles of magic; it is difficult to teach knowledge of magic to characters using radically different methodologies for their Alliances. If a Talent fails, other than critically, it simply doesn't work and the character can try again.
Societal Constraints: None. Mages are common.
Attributes
This system assumes that characters have attributes representing Reason, Health, Will and Awareness. For purposes of examples, we will assume a campaign using the following attributes, although GMs may choose any attributes they wish:Strength: Raw physical power.
Agility: Combination of manual dexterity and full-body coordination.
Health: Overall physical condition, energy level, and damage capacity.
Awareness: A combination of physical sensory apparatus and sixth sense or intuition.
Will: Raw mental power.
Reason: Cognitive ability, including computation and recall.
Gifts
(Optional) Magical Aptitude: This is the basic magical ability; it is required in order to call yourself a mage. This gives you the ability to bring up the Power; it gives you an amount of Gate equal to your Power skill (minimum of 1 for Fair or below). It is optional in that the GM may or may not require all mages to take this gift.Skills
Magical Skills (used to cast spells):Power Manipulation (VH): This is the skill on which all use of magic is based. Power skill represents the ability to work your will upon the flows of magical energy. It is used in "bringing up the Power" about which more will be written soon.
Sense/Cloak (A): Allows you to sense or cloak a manifestation of energies based on an Alliance. Also allows you to sense through a manifestation; Sense Stone might allow you to see through a stone wall and into the other side.
Bind/Loose (H): Allows you to control or redirect energies based on an Alliance, whether magically or mundanely created. Magically binding another person is usually resisted by the target's Will (although, for example, attempting to telekinetically force a person's hand to push a button could be resisted by Strength).
Shape (VH): Allows you to actually change the form of the target of the spell. You must have Alliances for both the target's current form and the form you wish to change it to (in other words, if you wanted to turn a person into a frog, the Alliance of Life would do it, but to turn a person to stone, you'd need Life and either Earth or Stone). Resisted by the target's Will attribute. More drastic changes are higher difficulty Shape rolls (i.e. changing a man to a woman would be Fair difficulty, while turning a man to a toad would be Good, turning a man to stone would be Great, and so on).
Conjure/Destroy (H): Allows you to create or destroy a manifestation of the Alliance's power. For example, Create Fire would start a fire. If maintaining the Create Fire spell, the fire would remain a magical fire as long as it was maintained; when it is no longer maintained, the fire loses its magical character and becomes a mundane (normal, nonmagical) fire. Also, a magically Created fire would remain without fuel, but if no longer maintained it would burn itself out (its fuel would be the mana used to maintain it). Created Water would be "magical" water as long as it was maintained, but would become normal water when the spell was dropped. Create Demon would allow you to create demonic flesh or ichor; to summon a demon, use Summon.
Summon/Banish (H): Allows you to summon (or banish) a creature or complex construct based on the Alliance's power. Summon Fire would allow you to summon an Ifrit (fire-based magical creature) or create a fire elemental (complex construct, like an AI). The difference between this and Create/Destroy is that this brings a self-directed creature or construct with a Will attribute, while Create just forms the substance. Use of this skill is opposed by the target's Will. Generally it is necessary to have a source of the force in question before summoning a being (if Summoning a wolf, there must be wolves nearby; Summoning a fire elemental usually requires a fire nearby for the elemental to manifest in, and either enough fuel to maintain the fire or a magically created and maintained fire source).
Imbue/Disenchant (H): Used to tie a spell to a physical object or another person. Imbue Fire would place a fire spell into a wand, so that it could be used later. If you wanted to give another person the ability to trigger a spell you casted on her, you'd use Imbue. Disenchant will destroy the energy inside an object, and can sometimes be used to destroy Created or Summoned manifestations as well as implanted or Imbued spells.
Power Tap (A): Allows you to draw mana from an external source, either magical or mundane. Mundane sources will generate less mana than magical ones will, of course. Also allows you to draw power from a willing subject; if the subject is not willing, use of this skill is opposed by Will or Power, whichever is greater. Some mages may use different methodologies for different Alliances in regards this spell; Death Magic may require the death of the subject in order to use its power, for example.
Other skills:
Thaumatology (VH): The science of magic. Includes knowledge of the properties of various types of magical energy. Can be helpful when trying to identify magical effects without having the Metamagic Alliance.
Alliances:
Alliances are the realms of Power. The GM will determine the difficulty levels of power of player-created Alliances, but will usually have a set of pre-created Alliances to choose from. Alliances are purchased as skills, and are used in creating magical effects. These are simply examples; GMs may want to alter this list for their own campaigns. Also, characters (with the GM's permission) can suggest their own Alliances. The GM has the final say on the difficulty level of an Alliance.Very Hard
Time
Forces
Matter
Space
Life
Death
Perfect Illusion (including mental and physical components)
MetamagicHard
Illusion (non-mental, no physical components)
Mind
Fire
Water
Air
Earth
Animals
Plants
Body
Healing
Kinetic EnergyAverage
Light
Sound
Clairsentience
Telepathy
TelekinesisEasy
Color
Holographic
MusicNote: To use Alliances such as Clairsentience and Telekinesis, you'd use Conjure (to create the sensory point or the telekinetic force) followed by Bind/Loose (to move it around); with Clairsentience, follow this by Sense (to sense through the sensory point). Alternately, you could use Summon (to create a quasiliving construct) and either Bind/Loose or Sense. Metamagic is the power behind the Power; effects such as dispel magic are often found here, and Sense Metamagic can be used to determine what kind of effect is being cast.
Methodologies
Difficulty levels of Alliances may be reduced by taking methodologies. A methodology is a limitation the character has taken on his method of casting spells from an Alliance; all of his spells from that Alliance are required to be cast under those limitations. Characters don't need to take the same sets of methodologies on all of their Alliances. A one level methodology is something minor; gestures, incantations, or an ash twig would be one level methodologies -- easy to acquire or always present but could be taken away fairly easily. A two level methodology is rare, dangerous to obtain, or hard to carry around; "requires an expensive, stone inlaid pentagram which only exists at character's home" or "requires the third molar of a baby dragon" would be two level methodologies. Difficulty level of an Alliance is reduced by the levels of methodologies that Alliance requires to cast, unless the Alliance is Very Hard; it takes two levels of methodologies to reduce a Very Hard Alliance to Hard.Power Reserve
Characters have a Power Reserve. The amount of mana in the Power Reserve is equal to:2 * (the total number of attribute levels in Will + the total number of skill levels in Power)
For a base cost of 1 mana, a spell generates one attribute level worth of increase or reduction of an attribute, or two attribute levels worth of summoned sapient being (or four worth of nonsapient); for every 2 mana, a spell generates one level of damage, defense, or healing.
When casting a spell, the character spends mana points from his power reserve. These points do not recover until the magical effect has been triggered or otherwise exhausted itself, or is no longer being maintained by the caster, although the character may recover other points that are not "tied up" by spells. Example: Red is maintaining a 4 point fire shield around himself; as long as he is doing this, those points are tied up. Red then throws a 6 point fireball; these points begin recovering immediately. When Red drops his fire shield, he begins recovering those points as well.
Recovering mana: If the character's Health and Power skill are both Mediocre or below, the character recovers one point of mana every 2 hours. If either is Fair or greater, the character recovers one point every hour. If both are Fair or greater, add together the total number of levels both are above Fair; for every two levels both are above Fair, the character recovers one additional point every hour. This is subject to the restrictions mentioned in the above paragraph. For example, Red has Mediocre Health but a Power skill of Great. He would recover 1 mana per hour. If he had Fair Health, he would recover 3 mana per hour. If Red knows what's good for him, he'll hit the gym.
To cast a spell: Decide how many base points of effect you want to put into the spell (determined by the effect you want to achieve). Multiply this by the total amount of advantage multipliers to find the final cost of the spell.
Modifiers:
Range:
Multiplier Circumstance 1* Touch 2* Line of Sight 3* Out of Sight (over the horizon, for example) Area:
1* One person 2* Several people (an adventuring party or single squad) or a full room 3* Horizon to horizon Time:
1* Immediate/Instant 2* Triggered (by an event or the caster) 3* Conditional (until an event occurs) GMs may alter these as they see fit. For example, if you don't like the idea of horizon to horizon area being a lousy 3 times multiplier, change it. These numbers aren't graven in stone.
Creating an effect
Decide how many base points of effect you want to put into the spell (determined by the effect you want to achieve). Multiply this by the total amount of advantage multipliers to find the final cost of the spell (see tables above). This result is the total amount of points you need to spend from your mana reserve in order to cast the spell, up to the character's total Gate; a character's Gate is the maximum amount of mana she can put forth into one magical effect (spell). You can increase your Gate up to an absolute maximum of four times the number of skill levels in your Power skill.First turn: You need to bring up the Power. To do so, roll against your Power Manipulation skill. Ordinarily, you need to roll a Fair success to bring up the Power; circumstances can make this more or less difficult (in the middle of combat, under heavy stress, and so on). Your roll against Power takes one round. This roll represents your ability to locate your conduit to the Power and to prepare it for use. Failure on this roll simply means that you didn't bring up the Power this round; you can try again next round. Critical failure means you won't be able to bring up the Power for a little while; roll 1d6 for the number of rounds (or take one round for every level you missed your roll by). Out of combat, use minutes instead of rounds. On a critical success, you bring up the Power immediately.
The Talented character rolls against his Talent skill this turn as well. This is a 0 time action, and the Talent gains a base Gate of 1 for every two levels in his Power Manipulation skill, plus 1 for every three levels in the Talent skill. No further increase in Gate is possible for a Talent, and the Talented character must throw his effect at the end of this turn, as a Talent may not maintain the Power up from one turn to the next. [More discussion about Talents will eventually follow.]
Second turn: roll against the Alliance(s) involved. Difficulty is Fair, modified by circumstances, stress, and so on. Alliance rolls are effectively immediate, and each provides Gate equal to 1 per two full skill levels in the Alliance, rounded down (in other words, 0 for Terrible, 1 for Poor or Mediocre , 2 for Fair or Good, and so on). This represents trying to grasp the Power of your Alliance; if you fail this roll, it means you failed to grasp it, and can try again next round (the Power stays up in this case); if you critically failed this roll, the Power goes down, but you can try again next round. Critically succeeding here provides double the effective Gate for the skill roll (double the halving; Terrible skill in your Alliance still provides 0 when doubled.)
Third turn (or the turn after all Alliance skill rolls are made): Roll against the magical skill(s) required. It takes a full round to roll against each one of these as well. The difficulty is one level per three points of mana (round up) in the final casting, (in other words, a 9 casting cost spell would be Mediocre difficulty, 14 would be Good difficulty, and so on) applied to each of the skill rolls. You can further increase your Gate by rolling against your skills multiple times, up to a maximum of four times the total number of skill levels in your Power (thus, if you had Great Power skill, you could increase your Gate to a maximum of 24). Each skill roll adds one to Gate for every two full skill levels in the skill (as for Alliances). Failing this roll can be dangerous; you are actually working the Power into its final form, and failing in the midst of this can range from painful to devastating, depending on the degree of failure. A normal failure might mean that the spell didn't reach its target before going off, had reduced or opposite effect, or "burned the caster's fingers" as it were; a failure by a large degree may mean that the spell failed and caused significant damage to the character, though defenses may come into play; a critical failure means that the Power overwhelmed the character, much like attempting to drink from a firehose -- the full brunt of the spell hits the character, inside any defenses he may have; the spell could take effect at an increased level (possibly damaging the character and draining his mana reserve) or if the spell was beneficial (a healing spell, blessing, and so forth) something bad happens -- the character may be damaged, catch some kind of disease, be cursed, etc. GMs may wish to reduce the severity of failures, but keep in mind that Magic Is A Dangerous Profession. Critical success in a magical skill roll doubles the base effect of the spell without having to spend any extra mana points (or extra Gate requirements).