History of Fudge Bunnies

My wife thinks I’m having a mid-life crisis. I’ve got into bunnies. Embarrassingly these are not Playboy Bunnies but RPG adventurers. You see my six year old daughter has just discovered Peter Rabbit on TV. She loves the bunny adventures. And by coincidence I’ve just discovered that Steffan O’Sullivan, my hero for creating the Fudge RPG, is also author of “Gurps: Bunnies & Burrows”. And Steffan has been running Fudge Bunnies games since 1992. I’d like to bring these threads together and use Fudge RPG to run a bunnies game for my daughter (maybe when she is seven).

So, for those interested, here is a bit of a history of Fudge Bunnies. Incidentally it also forms a bit of an annotated bibliography for the genre.

Lily Bobtail, Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny
Lily Bobtail, Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny

Original B&B

Sustare, B. D., and Robinson, S. (1976). Bunnies & Burrows: The Fantasy World of Intelligent Rabbits. Fantasy Games Unlimited.

Fantasy Games Unlimited published the original “Bunnies & Burrows” (B&B) in 1976. B&B is fantasy role-playing game (RPG) based on the novel Watership Down. In the game the players characters are intelligent rabbits facing dangers mirroring those in the real world. By the way B&B came out only two years after the first role-playing game Dungeons & Dragons (D&D). Fantasy Games Unlimited published a second edition of B&B in 1982.

Sustare, B. D (1979, June–July). Different Worlds Present the World of Druid’s Valley: A Bunnies & Burrows Campaign. Different Worlds, 1 (3). Chaosium. [Available on-line at RPG Geek]

Dennis Sustare published his Druid’s Valley campaign for B&B.

Gurps B&B

O’Sullivan, S. (1992a). Gurps: Bunnies & Burrows. Steve Jackson Games.

In 1992 Steve Jackson games published a Gurps Third Edition supplement called “Gurps: Bunnies & Burrows” (1992a). The author was Steffan O’Sullivan who also wrote a few other Gurps supplements. This book is essential for anyone thinking about running a Bunnies RPG game, regardless of the rules. You get the PDF from Warehouse 23. And it is cheap too; it was only US$6.15 when I bought it.

GURPS Bunnies and Burrows
GURPS Bunnies and Burrows

Fudge Bunnies

O’Sullivan, S. (1992b). Fudge Bunnies.

About the same time as Gurps B&B hit the shops Steffan created his own universal role-playing game called Fudge. It seems Steffan immediately ported his Gurps B&B to Fudge as evidenced by the Fudge Bunnies Characters on his website, dated 1992. These example bunny PCs are the Fudge equivalents of those in the Gurps supplement.

O’Sullivan, S. (1995). Fudge 1995 Edition. Grey Ghost.

The Fudge RPG surfaced in the public domain as the Fudge 1995 Edition. I think this has always been a PDF. The game includes an example PC that is a bunny (“Chicory”). Despite the chronology “Chicory” looks like an even earlier version of his thinking on Fudge bunnies than the collection of bunnies he published in 1992. The way the character “Chicory” is designed seems very close to Gurps in style.

O’Sullivan, S. (1998, 23 July). Fudge Bunny Skills and Combat.

In 1998 Steffan published, again on his website, some notes on Fudge Bunny Skills and Combat. These notes are basically to ease translation from Gurps B&B to Fudge Bunnies.

O’Sullivan, S. (2000). Fudge Expanded Edition. Author.

A hardback version of the game with some extra bits but I haven’t seen it. I’m guessing “Chicory” is in there

O’Sullivan, S. (2010). Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition. Grey Ghost.

2010 saw the publication of the Fudge 10th Anniversary Edition. However the core rules are unchanged from the 1995 version. In fact “Chicory” appears again, unchanged.

O’Sullivan, S. (2011). VG Fudge Bunnies.

In 2011 Steffan announced his Very Good (VG) Fudge (see also myVG Fudge page). At the same time he updated his example bunny PCs to VG Fudge Bunnies.

O’Sullivan, S. (2011). VG Fudge Bunnies Blank.

And last but not least, Steffan provided a blank VG Fudge Bunny Character Sheet. This is similar to, but not identical to, the format of the VG Fudge Bunnies above.

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