I’ve mentioned before that I tend to carry 3D6 in my pocket when I am wandering around in life. Over the past week or so, I’ve found myself carrying 4DF as well. What’s going on with that?

Fudge Dice (or Fate Dice, as they have come to be known after they got appropriated by that game) have been around in my life since the late 1990s. FUDGE itself, the game system, entered my consciousness in 1996 and has stuck in my consciousness resolutely through all the years.

I always loved the descriptive FUDGE ladder – wherein seven levels of ability were rated with words – and the idea of rolling the dice to shift up or down that ladder as a mechanism for randomising outcomes. In recent months, however, the desire to play with rules behind the GM screen and to roleplay descriptively has brought this method back to the fore.

Carrying the dice was initially an almost subconscious call to reconsider how I play my RPGs. I say almost because there was a definite conscious decision to pick them up but I didn’t know why at first. As the days go by, I find myself increasingly drawn back to FUDGE as an approach for play.

And so I am playing solo with 4DF.

I have described my character in linguistic terms, using a modified FUDGE ladder, and I am seeing how far that simple mechanism can support a minimalist approach to rules in play. I am following the path of World first, methods second, and rules last. I definitely have rules in play but they are serving the exploration of the World.

In other words, folks, I’m fudging it.

Game on!