What is an RPG?

[HoloDust]

I've been playing Space Wreck lately (my backlog is massive, so just got around it), really liking it for what it is (old school iso CRPG with interesting setting and a lot of options how to play), but what quite surprised me is that they used FUDGE as resolution mechanics.

FUDGE is quite old TTRPG system (more of an engine), dating back to 1992, which has special 6 sided dice, labeled on 2 sides with + sign, on 2 sides with - sign and 2 sides are blank. So whenever the skill check is initiated, 4 dices are rolled (known as 4dF), plus and minus signs cancel each other, and what is left is added to your skill.

The thing about FUDGE dice is, chances to get equal or better result than your skill is ~62%...but to get only 1 better result chance drops to ~38%, 2 better to ~19%, 3 better to ~6% and 4 better to just ~1%...so rolling 4dF very much weighted toward average result, making chance of getting -1, exactly your skill or +1, 63% of all rolls. While this makes it more consistent of what to expect how you perform (since difference in totals between two opponents is treated as levels of success), it does makes for individual steps very crude - in something like DnD, +1 means 5%, here +1 is 24% difference for that first step - and it's one of the things that it's most criticized for.

However, there is homebrew variant (I always play with it) that introduce Skill+ and Skill- steps and instead of 4 same colored dice, you roll 3 of the same color and one of different color...so if you have + in some skill (say your Sword and Shield skill is Great+), you would roll 3 normal dice and 1 dice would be treated as not having - signs (thus making it 4 blanks and 2 + signs), and vice versa for skills with -. This reduces steps of FUDGE to around 8%, which is much finer "resolution", so to speak.

Anyway, happy to see the game based on TTRPG engine, hope we get more such games.