I’ve been working on updating the logo for Polar Blues Press. The new one looks something like this. It’s a first step in a planned refresh of the art across my various book. But don’t hold your breath, this is going to be a very slow process.
Polar Fudge Adventures, and the games based on this engine, have a quirky initiative system. I goes like this:
At the start of each round the GM rolls 1d6.
Repeat until one side is defeated, driven off or both sides come to an amicable understanding.
Together with the Minion Machine, I consider this one of the signature mechanics of the game. It makes combat more unpredictable and dramatic as the tide of can battle turn, and then turn again based on the initiative roll results.
However, because it is team-based, it does get increasingly unbalanced the more player characters in the party. The way this initiative system works means that often one side will get to act twice in a row before the other gets to react. This gives a significant advantage (or disadvantage) when you have a small party. With a large number of player characters, this can be devastating.
This variant might be useful for larger parties.
At the start of each round the GM rolls 1d6.
Like in the original rules, there are no guidelines for what order the player characters should act, the players can decide this among themselves. If necessary, you can set individual initiative in reverse alphabetical order of the players’ middle names.
Fair warning, this concept hasn’t been put to the test. It’s just a thought experiment but I seemed worth documenting and sharing.
Hi guys
Hope you’re all thriving.
I have a question for the UKRPDC hive mind: I’m planning to use this site to advertise my new game (card not RPG), and I was wondering how you create separate pages for diffeent games, such that they appear as as a drop-down menu under you publisher name.
Anybody able to help me with this?
Cheers
Leo
This is new for Polar Blues Press. Of late, rather than working on my own games, I’ve been working on illustrations for the new edition of The 23rd Letter by The Late Gaming Company. It’s been a real change of pace but very exciting.
The 23rd Letter is a dystopian sci-fi game about psychics and conspiracies. I got to do the chapter headers. It was quite a challenge to keep a consistent style as the subject matter of some of the chapters was quite abstract, covering things like the rules, while over chapters were more descriptive, focusing more on the setting. Here’s a sample of the work I did for this book.
Introduction
Espers
Heat
Enemies and Encounters
2023 has been the year of Polar Fudge Medieval Adventure for me. I released this in February, but the “playtest” phase just carried on, turning into a very fun ongoing campaign. Which underlines the point, I write these games to play them; sharing them, I do just for sport.
That said, downloads for Polar Blues Press keep on being healthy. People keep finding this site and downloading one game or another. I have no idea how many people go on to actually play these games, but thousands of you all around the world have grabbed one of these games. I hope you enjoyed what you found.
So, to all my unknown customers, and why not, everyone else, a very merry Christmas.
Polar Fudge Adventures doesn’t do stuff. Money only has narrative value. Most equipment is classed as “Free Stuff” meaning that characters can have whatever makes sense for them to have. And any really special items are governed by Gifts, which are in turn tied to character progression.
So what do you do if you want to present a reward as part of an adventure, or include some form of treasure in an area you expect the characters to explore?
The cleanest way to handle this is with one off items. These provide something genuinely useful to the players without unduly unbalancing the game.
The following are ten example magical items for Polar Fudge Medieval Adventures to illustrate the concept.
| # | Name | Usage |
| 1 | Firebird Egg | Like the Nuke power |
| 2 | Fairy Dust | Puts the target to sleep, like the Paralysis power |
| 3 | Healing Potion | Like the Heal power |
| 4 | Ninja Smoke Bomb | Like the Fog power |
| 5 | Invisibility Powder | Like the Invisibility power |
| 6 | Wizard’s Mushroom | Eat to gain a temporary Think Point to spend within 1 hour |
| 7 | Berserker’s Venom | Gain 2 additional actions that turn, take 1 Hit Point damage |
| 8 | Cursed Arrow | A +3 damage arrow |
| 9 | Enchanted Figurine | Like the Summon power |
| 10 | Seeds of Doom | Creeping vines that entangle the target, like the Grab power |
Using a potion is an action and uses up your turn during combat. Note drinking Berserker Venom is an action but it instantly gives you two actions.
Items that require targeting a foe (like Firebird Eggs or Fairy Dust), require a Fix vs Defence test. Depending on the circumstances, the case can be made for using different Attributes in the test, but Fix should be considered the default as it is the Attribute for both mechanical aptitude and manual dexterity.
Get Polar Fudge Adventures, Polar Fudge Medieval Adventures and other free Polar Blues Press games here: https://ukrpdc.wordpress.com/2017/12/03/polar-blues-press-downloads/.
Introducing Polar Fudge Medieval Adventures, the fantasy adaptation of Polar Fudge Adventures. The pdf is free to download here:
https://ukrpdc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/02/polarfudgemedieval-001.pdf
The game is set during the Zombie Prince Duncan Rebellion, a fierce civil war between the forces of King Roderick “The Craven” and his elder, deceased brother brought back to life as a zombie by his supporters. From the common folks perspective only one thing is clear, whichever side wins, they lose.
The setting is very loosely based on medieval England, drawing more from Ivanoe, the Arthurian legends or even Robin Hood than Tolkien and Conan. Or you can just ignore the setting and use it for a different fantasy setting, the game is versatile that way.
Polar Fudge Medieval Adventures features the same fast-playing, flexible system found in all Polar Fudge games and comes with tools for GM who like to improvise content during play. Additionally, it also features:
Bloodthirsty mutants, outlaw desperados and crazed cyborg warlords; the Atomic Wastelands is home to the toughest, meanest, downright dangerous varmints the world’s ever seen.
You should know, you’re the one who hunts them for a living.
Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands is a fast-playing action-packed, post-apocalyptic roleplaying game. It draws as much from classic westerns as from science fiction B-movies. It is available now, entirely free.
Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands – Fudge
In Bounty Hunter of the Atomic Wastelands you play bounty hunters (in the Atomic Wastelands). Inside you will find:
Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands – the Polar Fudge Adventures Edition – is an update on the 2014 release of the game, which was originally based on Fate. While the new edition is not substantially different from the original, adapting the game to Polar Fudge Adventures seemed a great opportunity to make the game leaner and punchier.
Here’s a little add-on to make running Polar Fudge Adventures even easier. The PDF below contains all the Powers from Polar Fudge Adventures in card format, for easy reference. Just print and cut out. There is a reverse side image in the PDF you can use if your printer supports duplex printing.
https://ukrpdc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/polar-fudge-powers-cards.pdf
You can get Polar Fudge Adventures is available as a free download from here: https://ukrpdc.wordpress.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/10/polarfudgeadventures-02-2.pdf
…or you can use these cards with other versions of Fudge.
Polar Fudge Adventures is a simple, multi-genre variant of the Fudge roleplaying game, similar to that used by other Polar Blues Press games such as Cyberblues City and Lawmen v Outlaws.
The tagline for Polar Fudge Adventures, “free, prefab Fudge Roleplaying Game for any occasion” says it all. Polar Fudge Adventures is:
In just under 40 pages, Polar Fudge Adventures provides:
Also, did I mention, it’s free?
So grab a copy, have a go and if you like it you can always leave a message on this page!
Here is what our fans say about Polar Fudge Adventures!
“I really thought it was going to be about polar bears.” – Brenda M.
“It didn’t actually read it, but I looked at the pictures. They just used the same pictures from the cover.” – S. Botticelli
“All that talk about Fudge dice just made me hungry.” – Raul V.
UKRP Design Collective 