Fudge or Barbarians of Lemuria --or both!

[Chugosh]

Looking over games and how to use them, sort of a hobby in itself alongside playing the games, I came to looking over some implementations of the Fudge rules and a particular one being worked on for the sword and sorcery genre. It had a few ideas taken recognizable from other games I love to think about running or playing, Barbarians of Lemuria. BoL uses just four attributes, four combat skills and four careers to start. These plus a few advantages and disadvantages and you have your character all ready to go. I got to thinking why not make a character like a BoL character, but then take it to the Fudge table?

Your basic skills test for shooting someone, for instance, could be as high as a +8, if you were to zero all three other attributes and all three other combat skills, so is pretty well paid for. That is pretty big, when you put it up to a dice result of -4 to +4, the worst you will get is a +4. That bonus goes for a lot of negative modifiers or even just soaking a great defensive roll on the opponent.

Could be done, is all I'm saying.

The effects of the advantages and disadvantages would be a bit trickier to adjudicate, but it would be possible as well.

The main difference between the two systems is the effects of mooks, minions, or faceless troops. I'm not sure how well I could get Fudge to handle the troop of nameless bad guys that are between the good guys and the main baddie on the other side of the room holding the princess in one hand and a particularly ugly dagger in the other. Maybe this simply means that every one of these bad guys really actually means something.

[Knaight]

Are you talking about Blood Sweat and Steel or Cinepic by any chance?

Also, as far as adaptations to Fudge go, it's pretty simple. Off the top of my head:
Character Creation
Keep the attributes and the combat skills, set them to Fair and provide two bonus points to the attributes and none to the combat skills (note that dropping two skills from Fair to Poor would let you pump one up to Legendary. I'd probably institute the cap at Superb, but depending on how BoL you like your Fudge you might not want the cap). Then just treat the careers as skills.

Rules
For any given roll an attribute, a combat skill, or a career is rolled. These are not added together. If you really want to use attributes, then use a dice pool system. You have 4 dice in your pool at a Fair attribute. Every point above adds 1, take the best 4. Every point below adds 1, take the worst four. This makes attributes useful, but they don't actually change the range for skills.

Minions are handled through a simplified wound box method. RD 1 corresponds to Hurt, RD 2 to Very Hurt, RD 3 to Incapacitated, and RD 4 to dead. Minions don't get scratches. If you want them even flimsier than this, reduce them to RD 1 Hurt, RD 2 Incapacitated or RD 1 Incapacitated, where Incapacitated can also mean dead depending on if the players try to kill them.

Magic
Keep the magnitudes. However, instead of using the spell point system, simply have a variable Magic trait. It maxes out at their Magician career level, and can be decreased by casting. Whenever a spell is cast, a Magic roll* is made against the difficulty: Cantrips are Good, First Magnitudes Great, Second Magnitudes Superb, and Third Magnitudes Legendary. If the Magic roll succeeds, Magic doesn't change. If it fails, it is reduced by the margin of failure. If magic ever falls below Abysmal, a point of maximum magic is taken. A point of magic is recovered daily, at noon or midnight.

Variant: If you want to simulate the taxing effects of 2nd and 3rd Magnitude spells more directly, something similar to a wound system can be used. You add a Magic wound track, with magnitude boxes for 1st Magnitude and 2nd Magnitude spells. Fill in one box per RD, and have a penalty to Magic equal to the number of boxes filled in. Cantrips and 1st Magnitude spells fill in Low Magnitude boxes, everything else High Magnitude boxes. Low Magnitude boxes heal as described above. High Magnitude boxes heal monthly.

Variant: A Magician roll can be used instead of a magic roll to cast spells., but a Magic roll creates a depleting resource. It is also worth noting that if magic hits Abysmal all spells become impossible to cast, which handles complete depletion. Magician is more useful in a more magic heavy game, so it depends on what you favor.

Fudge is easily the system I've played most, and is still my go-to system for most things, so if you want other mechanics or explanations I can whip something up.

[Chugosh]

Legends of Steel by the Evil DM HERE (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/81748/) is the product I mean.
It looks like I may get to play Blood Sweat & Steel, though, and I am very stoked to do so.

All your pointers would work great. For the combat, there is the combat by the scene or whatever that has the action done in a very abstract manner-- that would handle the casts of thousands.

[Knaight]

Legends of Steel by the Evil DM HERE (http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product/81748/) is the product I mean.
It looks like I may get to play Blood Sweat & Steel, though, and I am very stoked to do so.

All your pointers would work great. For the combat, there is the combat by the scene or whatever that has the action done in a very abstract manner-- that would handle the casts of thousands.

By scene is probably what I'd use for whole militaries (other than Fudge Factor stuff, but that particular ezine vanished a while ago and took basically the best stack of Fudge homebrew with it), but simultaneous works quite well with the rest of it.

Also BS&S is amazing. I've been helping with it for almost six years.

[Chugosh]

I have my character sheets all printed for BS&S and I hope to get my stern eyed barbarian or sturdy sailor ready.

Now the funny part is I'm going to get to play Fudge for the first time (that I can remember) and it is going to be in this barbarians setting, while the first time I will be playing Barbarians of Lemuria, it will be in a pulp setting. How weird is that?

I kind of like the idea of rolling the attribute in extra fudge dice you mentioned elsewhere on the Fudge Forumshere, (http://www.fudgerpg.com/community/forums/topic.html?id=170) and I think it work pretty good. And your guess is right that I am MikeHH on there.