Balancing overpowered PC archetypes (Jedi, The Doctor, Buffy the Vampire Slayer) and customizing Fudge Points.

Sometimes you want to emulate a character or character class that's just plain better than the others. Stronger, faster, smarter, with special abilities not all of the other PCs have. For example, take this writeup of The Doctor from Doctor Who that I made a few years ago (based on the Matt Smith and David Tennant Doctors):

• Legendary Technobabble

• Superb Running (away)
• Legendary+1 Reputation
• Legendary Intimidate (to those familiar with his reputation)
• Superb Fast-talk
• Great Subterfuge
• Great Historical Knowledge
• Gift: Time Sense
• Fault: Often pacifist
• Fault: Numerous foes and enemies
• Trait: Loves humanity and sapient life
• Poor Empathy for mundane situations

How the hell do you balance that with the companions that travel with him? Easy. If you can't balance them in-character, balance them with metagame currency; Fudge points.

The exact specifics depend on how characters are created and how Fudge points are earned in your game, but let's look at how Buffy the Vampire Slayer did it with their Drama Point system.

Drama Points in BtVS can be spent to:

• Half all damage that's been taken (once per turn).
• Get a plot twist.
• Massively boost any one action.
• Boost all rolls during a fight (but they have to have a reason for being righteously furious).
• Bring a character back from the dead, with the cost depending on how long the delay is.

White Hats (PCs who act as assistants to the Heroes) start with 20 Drama Points, while Heroes start with 10. Drama Points do not regenerate on their own, but must be purchased or earned during play.

Characters can earn Drama Points as follows:

• Spending Experience Points. White Hats can buy Drama Points at the cost of 1DP per XP. The cost is doubled for Heroes.
• Making a witty quip, once per session.
• A heroic act; perform self-sacrifice for the good of others.
• Payment for the GM railroading them somewhere
• Roleplaying tragedy/depression.
• (For White Hats): help a Hero out of their tragedy/depression

Now the interesting thing here is that the Drama Points are chosen to incentivize the sort of actions you'd see on the show, but there's no reason your build of Fudge has to focus on the same things. As the GM, just make a list of actions you'd like to see from your players and reward them with Fudge Points.

For example, a Fudge game about playing low-level grunts in a bureaucratic post-apocalyptic dystopia might have the following ways to regain Fudge points:

• Perform a task for your Secret Society.
• Blackmail another citizen into doing something you want.
• Bootlick a superior shamelessly.
• Try to requisition useful resources from the bureaucracy.
• Use your mutant power to accomplish a goal.
• Deliberately misinterpret an order for your own benefit.
• Buy luxury goods or otherwise indulge in a status symbol of no real consequence.
• Delegate a dangerous task to someone lower-clearance, whether or not they're better qualified.

Even if you've never heard of the game in question (Paranoia) it paints a pretty clear picture of the intended play experience, no?

Fate does something similar (especially in the Dresden Files RPG). You can purchase Stunts and Extras with Refresh, which can make you more powerful but make it harder for your character to resist a Compel (GM Intrusion that costs a Fate Point to avoid). Fate Points are brought back up to your Refresh level at the beginning of every session. Fate Points can be earned whenever a character's aspect is Compelled by the GM and accepted by the player, and they are spent to boost rolls related to a character's Aspect.

Comparing Fate and Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG:

In Fate the way to earn metagame currency is chosen by each player during character creation, compared to Buffy where the metagame currency is already established as part of the setting.

Fate Refreshes every session while Drama Points don't refresh automatically.

Questions to ask yourself when balancing Fudge Points with powerful characters:

• Do you want to have Fudge Points refresh?
• Do you want the players to be able to choose what earns them FP?
• If not, what behaviors to you want to reward?
• Do you want players to be able to spend Fudge Points on anything, or only on certain behaviors?

Bringing this full circle, if I were to have a Doctor character in my games I'd probably give them extra character-building points to work with, with the restriction that combat skills can't go above a set limit (possible Mediocre or Fair). I'd give The Doctor ways of earning Fudge points like, "Demonstrate your superiority or when your noble traits overcome a problem." and "Voice a genuine optimism for humanity, seeing humanity in the best possible light." I'd have the companions stat themselves up as baseline humans and give them twice the Fudge Points the Doctor gets (or possibly more, depending on what playtesting revealed).