Road to FATAL #2: Who?

We figured why I wanted to play FATAL, and while you’ll get more of that here, this post will be about who I will play as in FATAL. Yes, this will be a Stat It for FATAL. If anyone has heard of this game, you will know the horror stories of how hard character creation is. However, I’m going to try this step by step and see if I can even survive character creation.

The first thing we need to do, for obvious reasons, is to delete any adult content. Some may view this as bowdlerizing, but most of the stats might not be necessary. Like, do you really need to know the measurements of every aspect of my character? The only reason why sex is even there in the first place is because the game needed to be as realistic as possible.

Going with the old GNS system, this places this game on a heavy Simulationist end. Those who read my blogs know I lean more towards Narrativist games, though I have dipped my feet into Simulationist games. That said, I feel like not a lot will be lost if we simply take out this part of the game and replaced it with a fade to black, if it ever comes down to that.

Remember, I played The Beast after taking out every card referring to sex.

Road To FATAL #1: Why?

A while ago, I said how my 100^th session for Solo RPG Voyages is going to be FATAL, easily one of the worst RPGs in the world due to a variety of problems that so many other people have explained better. So, you may ask, if this is one of the worst RPGs in the world… why are you playing it?

Well, that’s going to be the topic for the first part of a four-part series called the Road to FATAL, where I prepare myself and my character for the game.  So, why FATAL? Do I have some sort of death wish? Do I just want to milk the fact that it’s bad for the cheap laughs? Well, no… somewhat.

Every 25 games, I do something called a Quarter Quell where I randomly determine my game, engine, and two Drivers to play with. This is basically a means to challenge myself and to mark milestones. However, for the big 100, I knew I had to do something very special. So, instead of randomly determining my toolbox for the session, I’ll instead pick the game, engine and drivers. I knew for #100, it had to be something momentous.

Enter FATAL, easily the most hated upon RPG in the world. People have made novels out of how bad this game is… Well, not novels, but the lengths of their reviews could rival some novellas. In a way, it’s badness is what drew my interest. Some years back, I took a look at the book and noticed how huge it is. Roughly 1000 pages of rules, charts, and math equations, all of which made to service one purpose: to make a realistic RPG.

On paper, this sounds great. However, there are thousands of problems with it, ranging from its needlessly complex system to content that is equal parts racist, ableist, sexist, and anything else ending in -ist. Again, other reviewers have pointed these flaws out. This game is to RPGs what Holy Terror is to comics. So, the entire reason for me trying to solo FATAL is one question:

Can this game be bearable without all that crap? And can this game be played solo?