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[King Zultan]

Has anyone actually played FATAL or is the system so fucking stupid and over complicated that no one bothers?

[Kagus]

Has anyone actually played FATAL or is the system so fucking stupid and over complicated that no one bothers?

It's more or less impossible to actually play. People have attempted, but there are such a staggering number of modifiers and tables and rolls that even just *making* a character can take days. Actually playing with one will have everyone ripping their hair out as they try to determine the number of hours since last urination versus ounces drunk in order to work out how desperate they are.

Yes, that's part of an actual ingame mechanic and associated formula.


And yes, thousands of rolls is a pretty conservative estimate. Given that you have to roll [10d100 / 5] - 1 for each of the 20 sub-abilities (in the revised edition, the original was [4d100 / 2] - 1 I believe), and that there are some 400+ skills that need to have modifiers applied to them.

Alternatively, the spell flub that summons gay ogres to rape your character is pretty bad as well.

To be fair though, it doesn't actually specify that it's your character they're after. The structure of the effect makes it seem like they're perfectly happy going after each other. They simply want to "begin butt-plugging as if tomorrow will not exist".


You could also get reasonably unlucky with that random magical effects table (which is applied during more than just miscasts, unfortunately for all) and end up with a combination of not being able to defecate except while sprinting, plus the one that makes all your poops have a minimum length that could theoretically roll higher than your character's sprint distance. Good ol' Nordric the Never-Empty.

Why would you make a presentation on FATAL?!

Deranged teacher? A MainMaster?

This is my new question

I'm part of a Zoom beers group that starts off every gathering with a short (30-40 minute) presentation on some topic that the presenter finds interesting, then we send in suggestions and have a vote on what topic we'd like to see next. Followed by a couple hours of chatter.

At some point during the chatter, FATAL got briefly mentioned. People were curious. They thought they wanted to know more.

They don't know. They don't know. Don't know. They don't. Have to. I have to warn them. They don't know. Warn them.

[heydude6]

Has anyone actually played FATAL or is the system so fucking stupid and over complicated that no one bothers?

I’ve seen a few people try. Long story short, the rules collapse in on themselves like some sort of black hole. No matter what you do, the game almost immediately devolves into players and enemies trying to rape each other to death.

And do you know why? For some fucking god damn reason, the designers decided that when your player gets into fights, there’s a random chance that they’ll drop their weapons and try raping their enemies to death! Like What The Fuck?!

[King Zultan]

So it's basically everyone's secretly a rapist the game.

[Kagus]

So it's basically everyone's secretly a rapist the game.

An early review of the game said "So, basically, FATAL is the date rape RPG", to which the author infamously rebutted "Where is dating included?"

And do you know why? For some fucking god damn reason, the designers decided that when your player gets into fights, there’s a random chance that they’ll drop their weapons and try raping their enemies to death! Like What The Fuck?!

Y'know, I've heard this in a number of places, but I haven't been able to actually find it in the Combat section. Maybe there was a change between the original and revised editions, but I don't see anything specifically combat-related that implies that. It's an absolute bog to read through though, so I could easily have just missed it.

Now, there are plenty of mental illnesses or other status effects that can force a person to make the equivalent of a will save whenever they see an object of attraction, attempting to have sex with it(be sexually excited if they fail. And that can be anything from women to men to dwarves to amputees to insects and vomit.

[heydude6]

This is the story I was thinking of (actually it’s one of the comments)

It’s only text, but It’s still NFSW https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/18d80q/okay_everyone_wanted_more_detail_about_the_fatal/?utm_source=amp&utm_medium=&utm_content=post_body

It seems like forced rape is part of the grappling rules.

[TD1]

Why does changing my sleep schedule by even a few hours give me splitting headaches

Not every time, but often enough for it to not be a coincidence.

[Maximum Spin]

Why does changing my sleep schedule by even a few hours give me splitting headaches

Not every time, but often enough for it to not be a coincidence.

That's normal, because the human body can't handle sleep schedule changes of more than an hour naturally. Did... nobody tell you that? That happens to everyone (except people with non24 like me, but, uh, there are other downsides).

[Kagus]

FATALism

Presentation went... I can't tell if it was good or bad.

On the one hand, folks were doubling over with laughter at the absurdity and I got good feedback.

On the other, now several of them are wondering if it's possible to actually play FATAL. I feel the warning may not have worked as intended.

[Dunamisdeos]

On the other, now several of them are wondering if it's possible to actually play FATAL. I feel the warning may not have worked as intended.

*Takes additional notes*

And this brings me to the true point of my lecture: How to tell which among you are indiscriminately shameless sexual fetishists. Thank you. *bow*

[heydude6]

Maybe your friends should read the reddit post I linked. FATAL is a black hole of misery, it’s impossible to wring any fun out of it. Even ironically.

The post is filled with accounts of people trying to and ending up miserable.

[Iduno]

Yeah, it's good to know the strong points and weak points of any system you're going to play.

FATAL has just gone out of its way to ruin any strong points.

[methylatedspirit]

Call me uneducated, but I have a hunch that the best way to play FATAL is to have a scientific calculator to do your calculations for you, along with a long list of random numbers from 1 to 100 on hand. (4d100 / 2) - 1 reads like someone's attempt at a Gaussian distribution, but instead of, like, trying to make it remotely practical, they went ahead and produced that unholy abomination of an expression. d20 was good enough, why'd they go for a die that no reasonable person would own?

[Dunamisdeos]

Call me uneducated, but I have a hunch that the best way to play FATAL is to have a scientific calculator to do your calculations for you, along with a long list of random numbers from 1 to 100 on hand. (4d100 / 2) - 1 reads like someone's attempt at a Gaussian distribution, but instead of, like, trying to make it remotely practical, they went ahead and produced that unholy abomination of an expression. d20 was good enough, why'd they go for a die that no reasonable person would own?

Asking for a fetishist. I mean a friend. A friendishist.

Also goddamit now I need to look all this up so I can understand the kind of ridiculous rule tables you all are referring to.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

RPGs made by bad people rarely have good crunch. Though the inverse isn't true, as Eclipse Phase seems to be made by good people and it's got horrible crunch.