Encounter Tables and Fudge Dice

Recently, I decided to try out Fudge in person, as I had an idea for a one shot. It was originally going to be FIST, but then I read FIST and decided I could do better for this specific game. So I bought some fudge dice. After the game, I realized that I now had a bunch of dice for a game that I probably wouldn't actually play again. So basically, this post is coping.

What Makes a Fudge Die Unique

Fudge die are six sided die that have 3 faces: 2 negatives, 2 zeroes, and 2 positives. This makes Fudge as a game a little less variable (you typically roll 4 dice in any check) since each die has an average of 0. There are almost definitely other ways to achieve this, but the Fudge die makes it simple.

Spicing up the Encounter Table

Typically, my encounter tables are small: 1d6 tables in the vein of These from goblin punch. I like them small but easily actionable for my games, especially in my hex crawls. Personally, I'm also not a fan of 2d6 tables. They(purposely) generate the same few results a lot of the time. I much prefer a flatter curve, though it does have a big disadvantage: Sometimes, I want an entry to be rare. Previously, I just put all of my rare entries into the last number, 6, which did decrease their probability a little. I've already rolled rare twice in 5 sessions so far. Theoretically, adding in a Fudge die should help, right?

Adding in Fudge die, here's what I came up with:

  1. New Location

    1. A developing village

    2. Tomb to an ancient king

    3. Hideout of the Zardo

    4. Magical Shelter

  2. 2d6 troll-kin

    1. Hunting
    2. traveling to Sha with goods
    3. chasing chaos
    4. camping

  3. 1d10 Kua Toa(50% of mage also)

    1. looking for sacrifices
    2. taking cattle
    3. kidnapping sacrifices
    4. scouting

  4. 2d10 Hobgoblins

    1. Raiding
    2. Camping, running rat fights

  5. Sha Citizens

    1. 1d6 farmers, bringing a yield to the city
    2. a merchant with 1d6 bodyguards
    3. 2d6 ducks, carrying stones to the temple site
    4. A stone scribe returning to the city
    5. 2d10 migrants, coming to start a new life in Sha
    6. A hunter tracking down a great deer.

  6. 2d10 Giant Ants, carrying

    1. Feces
    2. human parts
    3. crops
    4. cattle

  7. 2d6 Dark Shedu

    1. Diplomats
    2. Spying
    3. Hunting Shedu
    4. capturing slaves

  8. Rare encounters

    1. The wyvern from mount arummu
    2. 2d10 Cyndiceans from the ziggurat, finally free (roll random cult)
    3. 1d50+20 zombies, approaching from the Northeast
    4. An owlbear
    5. 2d6 Frog Demons
    6. A freed chaos warrior, striving for challenge

In my mind, higher rolls should be more dangerous, and lower the opposite. Here, I've added new locations on a roll of 0 (1 on a d6 - 1 from a negative Fudge die roll) which may not always be helpful, but are fun. Eventually, I'll go back through and make a more functional random new location table, if it comes up.

For my most dangerous encounters, I just moved what was previously on my 6s down. I also made some of them even more impressive (the zombies were massively increased) with the new lesser probability. It also gave me the ability to add the Dark Shedu, which are my world's Drow that have recently become a leading issue for the party.

That's about it. I haven't done any actual math, so I'm just kind of assuming that I'm intuiting the probabilities correctly. You could expand this to higher dice, though going above a d10 seems to make things a little harder to roll than they ought to be.

I should be writing more posts soon, namely to keep finding uses for my new collecting of Fudge dice. Thieves skills/ skills in general are next in my mind, which theoretically should be easy to just rip out of fudge in general.