Why is FATE more popular than Fudge?

[Rhedyn]

Is it the meta narrative storytelling mechanics? Is Fudge just "everything you need" for a traditional RPG, thus made for a good framework to build Fate on top of, but it's "everything you could want" which is why Fudge is relatively unpopular.

Any insights to this state of affairs?

[Knaight]

Is it the meta narrative storytelling mechanics? Is Fudge just "everything you need" for a traditional RPG, thus made for a good framework to build Fate on top of, but it's "everything you could want" which is why Fudge is relatively unpopular.

Any insights to this state of affairs?

My guess is that it ultimately came down to release date. Fudge was released in 1994 (then again in 1995, slightly more finished), before the indie scene had really picked up steam and before electronic publishing was big. It was then a modest success, building up a large player base - including the people who made Fate, with just about everything that would later make it distinct being published to the Fudge Factor ezine, most notably Aspects and the skill pyramid. Fate itself then came out in 2003, with later versions coming out that really caught people's attention (most notably Spirit of the Century). By then the indie community had built up enough to push the biggest indie games, and Fate happened to catch that wave. It'll pass - it's basically the same thing that happened to Savage Worlds, Fate's immediate hype-predecessor.

It's a shame too. Personally I like Fudge a lot better than Fate, and would probably consider it my favorite game.

[1of3]

The Fate1 and Fate2 aren't as meta as Fate3+. Fate 2 was a really nice toolbox to depict a setting of your choice. You basically had to make up a skill list and your done. Yes, characters had aspects instead of attributes, but that's just a nice simplification. Fate points existed, but they weren't used to invoke aspects. And nothing but characters had aspects. Fudge on the other hand gives you a dice mechanic and little else. So you have to put in more work to get a game going.

[Anonymouswizard]

Is it the meta narrative storytelling mechanics? Is Fudge just "everything you need" for a traditional RPG, thus made for a good framework to build Fate on top of, but it's "everything you could want" which is why Fudge is relatively unpopular.

Any insights to this state of affairs?

The narrative mechanics are a big part of it. Fate is a fairly traditional system with narrative mechanics bolted on, which makes it narrative enough that people find it refreshing, but not so narrative that people find it difficult to learn (the big mentally block is asking for Compels). Therefore it, asking with Apocalypse World, is one of the poster boys for narrative games, for better or worse.

Now in many, many ways Fudge is the better game, although I do have more difficulty getting a physical copy. But it does also have that larger overhead, which makes making a campaign that but harder (although I hack Fate enough is have no problem setting up a game of Fudge).

[Rhedyn]

...Now in many, many ways Fudge is the better game, although I do have more difficulty getting a physical copy...
Amazon sells the 10th Anniversary Edition in hardback.

[Cluedrew]

For me it was actually the rulebooks. FATE has its problems but I got to the combat chapter of the FUGDE rulebook and couldn't make it any further than that. (Sorry Knaight) Maybe I will try again some day, FUGDE did have some good stuff in it. They sent a lot of time telling you how to adjust the system up or down but I could never get a feel on what the baseline is. FATE's approach of giving you a complete base line and then telling you how to fiddle with it worked a lot better. Actually I got far enough that I think I might be able to comment on a more general reason.

FUGDE is more refined, but FATE is just more fun. Just consider the pictures, FUGDE shows two Roman gladiators facing off and FATE shows an anthropomorphic squirrel doing work on an ape's cybernetic arms. No contest there. Actually for me the real difference is Stunts. I can't actually recall if FUGDE had stunts (and my reader is being all weird, disadvantage of digital copies) but they certainly didn't catch my eye like the "sure, just do it" stunts in FATE.

[Anonymouswizard]

Amazon sells the 10th Anniversary Edition in hardback.

Sure, but that's about 60% harder to impulse buy than at my FLGS (it is, however, on the list of 'stuff I want for Christmas'). I try to avoid buying on Amazon because I don't have the space for more books.

[Knaight]

FUGDE is more refined, but FATE is just more fun. Just consider the pictures, FUGDE shows two Roman gladiators facing off and FATE shows an anthropomorphic squirrel doing work on an ape's cybernetic arms. No contest there. Actually for me the real difference is Stunts. I can't actually recall if FUGDE had stunts (and my reader is being all weird, disadvantage of digital copies) but they certainly didn't catch my eye like the "sure, just do it" stunts in FATE.

Fudge didn't have stunts per se - but the Gift/Fault system included some that were more stunt like.

As for Fate being more fun, they definitely frontload the gonzo a bit more. I'm not so sure that Fate actually leans into it more; for all that Fudge supports more grounded games it's pretty clear from subtext that the author uses it for some really gonzo stuff, especially in extended examples. Then there's the example character list (60 pages or so), and the sheer number of Watership Down style bunnies on it.

Then there's the example text. The combat example of someone punting a leprechaun, the recurring example character Captain Whallop of the Space Patrol, so on and so forth.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

A lot of it comes down to presentation and marketing. Evil Hat started putting muscle in with their Fate products, culminating in Fate Core and a bumper crop of supplements. More content = they become the household name in that niche, and thus so does Fate.

It's also presented well. Not only is the layout and art direction strong, but the writing is clear. Fate Core might be the only RPG I can see a total newbie picking up and running without experience, because it explains things so well, including copious teaching examples.

Mix in "most recent edition" bias (the most recent version of a game draws a particular amount of attention in most cases) and that all adds up.

[Rhedyn]

It's also presented well. Not only is the layout and art direction strong, but the writing is clear. Fate Core might be the only RPG I can see a total newbie picking up and running without experience, because it explains things so well, including copious teaching examples.Which is funny to me because it is so far the only RPG I can't grok from reading it.

Fudge just makes more sense to me than Fate Core.

[kyoryu]

Which is funny to me because it is so far the only RPG I can't grok from reading it.

Fudge just makes more sense to me than Fate Core.

That's not uncommon. I wrote about 10k words worth of posts when I was going through that process.

I find it's easier for people with less RPG experience to grok.

But that's also I think why Fate has been more successful - it offers a fundamentally different experience. That's an experience a lot of people don't get, or don't care for, but it's a clearer differentiator than FUDGE, which to my knowledge and experience (note: willing to be corrected) aims fairly closely at the same space that a lot of traditional games aim at.

FUDGE may be a "better mousetrap" than GURPS. Fate offers a different way of thinking about the issue of mice in your house, if that makes any sense. It's more "okay, if you do these things, you can train the mice to clean your floors". That's not a good answer if you're just looking for a mousetrap, and is a much different way of dealing with the issue of mice in your house.

[Juhn]

I can second the "I had a hell of a lot of difficulty trying to teach myself FATE out of the book" problem, although I may have had miscalibrated expectations given the number of people who'd described it to me as a "rules-lite" system, given the hundreds of pages of rules text in there.

[kyoryu]

It's incredibly common. There's a reason the "Book of Hanz" exists.

[Anonymouswizard]

I can second the "I had a hell of a lot of difficulty trying to teach myself FATE out of the book" problem, although I may have had miscalibrated expectations given the number of people who'd described it to me as a "rules-lite" system, given the hundreds of pages of rules text in there.

Yeah, it's 300 pages of rules and examples, Core is pretty definitively Rules Medium. FAE is rules light in presentation and quite a bit easier to grab.

I can also say that I misunderstood how to use Fate the first time I ran it, the second time went a lot better although my players were pretty FP starved due to not getting the 'asking for compels' element. The next time I'll be running The Aether Sea with FAE, hopefully that group won't be so hung up on D&D that they can't get 'take bad stuff to be awesome later' (planning to offer it to the group I'm currently running UA for).

[Juhn]

I had specifically been intending to use it as a rules-lite chassis for a few one-offs where I wanted the system to get in the way as minimally as possible, and the more I read the book the more I realized that while the system is fairly samey it's meant to be getting involved all the time (thanks to the Fate Point economy), and I put the book down after realizing it wasn't going to do what I'd picked it out for.

Maybe I'll pick it up again sometime later for something it's better-designed-for, but given that it's usually described to me as "Mostly good for one-offs and short games that'll be over before the sameyness starts to get grating" I'm not sure it's worth the effort.

I'm sure there's something good in there given how many people sing its praises, but I haven't figured it out yet.

[Beleriphon]

'm sure there's something good in there given how many people sing its praises, but I haven't figured it out yet.

Its good for shortish games (long on going are fine too) where you want the action and adventure to front and centre with a structure that follows the logic of an action/adventure movie. Basically a modern FATE game would look like Indiana Jones or Die Hard, while a fantasy game would like a lot like Conan stories.

[Earthwalker]

I can second the "I had a hell of a lot of difficulty trying to teach myself FATE out of the book" problem, although I may have had miscalibrated expectations given the number of people who'd described it to me as a "rules-lite" system, given the hundreds of pages of rules text in there.

I had a weird time with FATE.
It wasn't hard to learn, what was difficult was unlearning what I know about RPGs. I was basically trying to work from a how do I DND in this game... Which was in fact wrong (at least for me)

With help here and some good advice from kyoryu

Everything just seemed to click.

I can see how its easier for a newbie to pick up than someone with more experience.

[Knaight]

I can see how its easier for a newbie to pick up than someone with more experience.

It's not even a matter of more experience as much as more specific experience - there are a lot of other games which makes coming to Fate easier, and when Fate came out it was a reasonable expectation it would mostly pull players from those other games (e.g. The Shadow of Yesterday, which is all but forgotten now). Then Fate got huge for various reasons, and started pulling players from a different style of game that had learned what are in Fate bad habits.

[kyoryu]

That's fair.

But D&D is the 700 pound gorilla of the industry. And then there's a cluster of games that work off of similar concepts (Savage Worlds, BRP, GURPS, Champions, etc.) that make up a lot of experience.

And the habits that those games teach are not good Fate habits.

Fate has some of the blame for this, too. The Core book is really more of an SRD, and doesn't really teach you how to play the game very well.

[Rhedyn]

That's fair.

But D&D is the 700 pound gorilla of the industry. And then there's a cluster of games that work off of similar concepts (Savage Worlds, BRP, GURPS, Champions, etc.) that make up a lot of experience.

And the habits that those games teach are not good Fate habits.

Fate has some of the blame for this, too. The Core book is really more of an SRD, and doesn't really teach you how to play the game very well.
It doesn't help that people talk about Fate growing out of Fudge, when Fudge is basically a rules-light version of GURPS and still plays very much like a traditional RPG (Just with lots of GM-rulings).

I could easily see running any D&D module with Fudge. Idk how you would do that with Fate Core without a lot of work.

[Knaight]

It doesn't help that people talk about Fate growing out of Fudge, when Fudge is basically a rules-light version of GURPS and still plays very much like a traditional RPG (Just with lots of GM-rulings).

I could easily see running any D&D module with Fudge. Idk how you would do that with Fate Core without a lot of work.

I wouldn't consider this significant - Fudge is sufficiently unknown that this is more historical trivia than expectation setting for most people getting into Fate, and we talk about it precisely because Fate took a lot of mechanics and has been giving less and less credit with each new edition, even as it goes back and takes mechanics it originally removed.

That said, yeah, Fudge is pretty traditional. It plays like a rules light version of GURPS because it was written by a GURPS author as an alternative to GURPS because he felt GURPS was too crunchy.

[Anonymouswizard]

I wouldn't consider this significant - Fudge is sufficiently unknown that this is more historical trivia than expectation setting for most people getting into Fate, and we talk about it precisely because Fate took a lot of mechanics and has been giving less and less credit with each new edition, even as it goes back and takes mechanics it originally removed.

That said, yeah, Fudge is pretty traditional. It plays like a rules light version of GURPS because it was written by a GURPS author as an alternative to GURPS because he felt GURPS was too crunchy.

It's actually really annoying that Fate doesn't give Fudge the credit it's due.


Also, I'm going to agree that Fate Core is probably the worst way to learn Fate. FAE is much better when it comes to learning due to it getting straight to the point and not talking about things you don't need to know. As much as I like Fate trying to work out how it all fits together is horrible.

[Cluedrew]

It's actually really annoying that Fate doesn't give Fudge the credit it's due.This is why I am kind of insistent on calling the FUDGE Dice and not FATE Dice, and why I always write FATE to hint at the underlying acronym (Fudge Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment).

Still this little aside has given me another possible reason for FATE's popularity: Maybe FUGDE was just to close to what already existed. FATE took it just far enough away from the existing standard systems that it was now worth people's time to switch to it?

[Knaight]

This is why I am kind of insistent on calling the FUDGE Dice and not FATE Dice, and why I always write FATE to hint at the underlying acronym (Fudge Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment).

I don't bother with either acronym (FUDGE or FATE), as both have been dropped, but they are absolutely still Fudge dice. Taking the dice that Fudge developed and renaming them is probably the single most blatant example of not giving due credit, and I'm not particularly on board with going along with it.

[Rhedyn]

I don't bother with either acronym (FUDGE or FATE), as both have been dropped, but they are absolutely still Fudge dice. Taking the dice that Fudge developed and renaming them is probably the single most blatant example of not giving due credit, and I'm not particularly on board with going along with it.To be fair, the dice are slightly different. Fudge dice have "likes" on the opposite side, while Fate dice have "likes" adjacent to each other.

[Knaight]

To be fair, the dice are slightly different. Fudge dice have "likes" on the opposite side, while Fate dice have "likes" adjacent to each other.

On the one hand, technically yes. On the other hand Fudge developed the whole concept of the zero centered +/-/[blank] die, along with being the first published game (at least through any publisher that isn't tiny) to use the whole mirrored skill/difficulty system with a zero centered curve on the dice. Fate swiped all of that, and making some slight changes* to the dice doesn't really negate any of it.

I'm just going to head that off there, before getting into my hour long spiel about crediting your sources and how Fate is terrible about it.

*Downgrades.

[Cluedrew]

I don't bother with either acronym (FUDGE or FATE), as both have been dropped... Did FUDGE/Fudge drop it first?

I also enjoy the acronyms because it means that FAE stands for: Freeform Universal Do-it-yourself Gaming Engine Adventures in Tabletop Entertainment Accelerated Edition.

Anyways, maybe I should take another crack at getting through the FUDGE rule-book.

Random fourth point: I also like the name FUDGE dice because unlike most dice which represent a random value, it represents a random adjustment (or fudge factor) to a value.

[Knaight]

... Did FUDGE/Fudge drop it first?
Yes. Yes it did.

[Cluedrew]

Good, that makes me feel better about stopping that usage. Some day though I might get through the Fudge book.