Fudge is a generic role-playing game system for use in freeform role-playing games. The name "FUDGE" was once an acronym for Freeform Universal Donated (later, Do-it-yourself) Gaming Engine and, though the acronym has since been dropped, that phrase remains a good summation of the game's design goals. Fudge has been nominated for an Origins Award for Best Role-Playing Game System for the Deryni Role-Playing Game.
Rather than being a rigidly pre-defined set of rules like d20 System or GURPS, Fudge offers a customizable toolkit for building the users' own specialized role-playing game system. Such things as what attributes and skills will define characters are left to be determined by the Game Master and players, and several different optional systems for resolving actions and conflicts are offered. Fudge is not tied to any particular genre or setting and world builders are encouraged to invent appropriate attributes and rules tailored to the campaign.
In Dino Night, characters are trapped in a mall by dinosaurs and other threats from Earth's distant past. Can the characters manage to survive the night? Dino Night is intended as a one-shot adventure, but can be used as a campaign introduction as noted at the end.
From the author:
I have always loved the Marvel Super Heroes game from TSR, and over the years I have often considered it to be a good superhero game for my style of gaming. However, while many of the mechanics have held up as a decent RPG-light system, there are weird sub-rules and needlessly complex systems built into the game that are just too quirky for my tastes nowadays. Meanwhile, I’ve been familiar with Fudge for a decade now and liked the idea of it, but it also had some weirdly complex areas that seemed unnecessary and kept me from really trying out the system. A couple of years back, a public domain game called 4C was released. It was a more streamlined version of my favorite superhero system, but it went in a different direction, focusing more on the numbers than the...