From the moment I read the Basic Role-Playing pamphlets included in my copies of Stormbringer and Call of Cthulhu in the early 1980s, I was fascinated by the skill-based system, but it had one major flaw: common abilities started far below what would be normal for an average person in the real world. Skills reflecting ordinary communication, the senses, or knowledge of one's place of birth were extremely low and unlikely to improve unless they were used frequently (and at a slow rate at that). Granted, I normally do not require rolls for very easy tasks such as observing things, using common modes of transportation, remembering facts about one's local community, or doing things that any able-bodied person can reasonably be expected to do under normal circumstances, but for those cases that do warrant a skill check, I feel that characters ought to have a fair chance of succeeding without having to devote valuable character creation points to those standard abilities. And by a "fair chance" I mean a Fair chance.
Any heavily skill-based role-playing system that is burdened with unnecessary common skills (that is, skills that everyone has) can benefit from a little fudgification. Simply replace the score of any common skill (such as See, Listen, Drive, Climb, Swim, etc.) with an appropriate Fudge trait level. In most cases, make it Fair. If the character has an obvious disadvantage for whatever reason, make it Mediocre. If the character has an obvious advantage, make it Good. Use the normal action resolution rules for any other skills that are used, but whenever these common skills come into play, use the Fudge rules to resolve them. The distribution of results will be more realistic, and the player can spend more points on specialized skills (in systems that use that form of character creation).
In short, Fudge rules are not just for Fudge. If your favorite game flounders in some respect, fudgify it.
