FRRpart4
The fourth (of five) part of the FATAL Review Rebuttal --Lord Knockwood the Mad
Also, you only gain more Skill Points when you go up a level. This was annoying enough in D&D3, Rolemaster, and countless other games, but at least those were usually sane in what you get (and how you can spend it).
FATAL, by contrast, gives most races like 75+1d100 Skill Points per level. That would allow you to probably get that Urination up to +100 right at 2nd level, but in another money shot for you sociopathic accountants, each skill can only have d10 points dumped into it per level (because "skills grow both at different rates for different characters"). And yes, you have to re-roll it each time. Worse, you can only spend points on skills you've been using or training...and let's face it: you probably haven't been working on the 8-175 or so different skills it might take to dump all your points. This is naturally another of those "Did he even PLAY this before he flung it our way?" moments. The entire thing is way too random to really be considered sane.
The number of points have been considered when compared to the number of skills. I certainly play the game, and the skill-based system seems realistic.
Burnout: Having play-tested FATAL thoroughly and had characters level-up, I know that with the number of skills it’s rather easy to dump all the skill points when leveling.
(On the upside, at least everyone of the same race gets the same treatment, SP-wise. In D&D3, it's always been annoying how, no matter how intelligent they are or how well-educated a background they might come from, a fighter or wizard can never have more skills than, say, a rogue. Yeah, I know, it's a game balance thing, but in-game, this has never made sense. I guess FATAL isn't much better - every human gets the same SP roll, regardless of background or education - but whatever.)
Because a character comes from a higher Social Class should not mean that they have more Skill Points. Instead, they will invest their SP differently.
The skill list isn't too bad, although there's about twenty more skills for divination than there should be - the author decided that it'd be a good idea to split up each individual method of divination, from horse entrails to candle wax to whatever the hell they came up with. I'm reminded of Rolemaster for some reason, although I've never seen that product in full.
Sartin: The skills are too narrow for my tastes (did "Weapon, General Type", "Weapon, Specific", and "Weapon, Mastery" all have to be separate skills?), but by this point, the problems with this game run far beyond such a matter of preference. Naturally, since this is FATAL, Hall doesn't miss too many opportunities to explain how skills like Intimidation, Wrestling, and Logic can be applied to rape and sucking.
Burnout: Actually most of the arguments in the review seem to be of preference.
Detail-wise, skills work by rolling d100 + (skill's Skill Points) + (average of listed sub-ability modifiers), and hoping the result is high enough. It's not the worst way to do it (if you can forget that whole ugly process of how skills increase), but Darren is right to be reminded of Rolemaster.
As a matter of fact, the batshit craziness gets turned down a little for the section on weapons, which goes into encyclopedic detail on various weapons and items and so forth. And it's perfectly normal, although you can buy a chastity belt if you happen to want to remind yourself that you're reading FATAL. (I did find out that you can use aged urine to put out fires, which sounds just crazy enough to be historically accurate.)
It is.
Burnout: Again, you notice Darren doesn’t actually know if it is or not, but just thinks it sounds crazy enough to be historically accurate. Such is the manner of this review.
Sartin: And I learned condoms can be made out of goat bladders and animal intestines, medieval dildos are made of stone, and the "rhythm method" can really work!
About the rhythm method...they thought it worked.
Combat. Ah, back to the bullshit craziness.
Okay, check this shit: This is your initiative roll:
(1d100) +/- (Reaction Speed Skill Modifier) - (Delivery Penalty).
In other words, you roll d100, then add on your speed modifier, then subtract your delivery penalty. Basically, the weapon that you're wielding determines when you move - so if you're carrying a broadsword, and all you want to do is run away, you're going to have to sit there while they peg on you until it's your turn to act. Doesn't matter that you're not using the broadsword; this is FATAL, not your nancy-pancy system that makes sense. The instant after we get a description of initiative, we immediately into rules for coma and death - including a lengthy discussion of the stages of putrefaction, invaluable for Call of Cthulhu but utterly irrelevant to the chapter at hand. If you want to role-play a decaying corpse, try All Flesh Must Be Eaten.
If Darren read FATAL, he'd know that Delivery Penalty is only included in Initiative when you intend to attack, hence the penalty to the delivery of the attack. Was Darren aware of "we immediately into"? I guess not.
The reason for the inclusion of putrefaction is that while playing other games, it is common to happen upon a corpse. However, the authors of other games seem incapable or unwilling to describe it, so that players can estimate the time of death, just in case they know anyting about putrefaction.
I want to go into detail about the combat system. I'd like to, but I keep finding myself idly gouging chunks of flesh out of my arm whenever I try to summarize it. It's not entirely bad; just overcomplicated and mechanical.
Burnout: So, it’s too complicated for Darren to understand and interpret. Well, trust me it is easy enough when you get used to the rules that apply to most combat. Although there are those few instances where you have to look something up for combat. I’ve been game-testing for a few years now and probably one or twice a session during combat we have to look something up.
Sartin: Overcomplicated is bad. Even with Age of Heroes (a game that all but admits that most gamers in this age of "light systems" will hate it), Gleichman tried to keep the math and die rolls to a minimum. Hall would have done well to follow that example.
I specifically wanted a detailed system, and have achieved one.
That said, FATAL combat didn't suck as absolutely as I was expecting. For the most part, it's a poor man's D&D3 stapled to that homebrew system everyone makes when they get drunk and realize Rolemaster doesn't go far enough. Sure, that's bad, even really bad, but it's not as sanity-wrackingly horrible as, say, Imagine combat. I guess that would be another one of those "on the bright side" vs. "you haven't been huffing butane" observations, though.
Anyway, everyone has a basic "Current Armor" number you have to roll over to hit them, and the number can be increased by agility and wearing armor. Current Armor is insanely low unless the target's armor's got serious nuts - two unarmored, evenly-matched 1st level humans will hit each other 90% of the time in this game (more, if they're using an actual Weapon Skill). So unless you just suck beyond all comprehension, you'll probably get to roll your weapon's damage.
Current Armor (CA) is realistically low. For example, let's imagine Darren and Jason brawling with each other. Most of the blows will connect. FATAL suggests 90%. Obviously, armor, weapons, size, and other factors affect CA. The AD&D idea of 1st level characters missing so much sounds like a bad western.
But don't worry too much about getting hit all the time. Unlike the D&D3 approach so far that this very much should not resemble, you can learn the Parry skill, which gives you an opposed roll against any attack, all round long, without costing you any penalties or actions. Just the thing for when you don't have Ceremonial Plate Mail or are facing some bastard who kept rolling a 10 for his Weapon Skill every level up!
Meanwhile, every armor also has different percentages that it can add or deduct from incoming Pounding, Hacking, Stabbing, Wind, Burning, Cold, Brawling, or ah fuck it I stopped caring damage. Yeah, that shouldn't be too annoying after my calculator gets thrown out the window (eh, I'd just use Stabbing weapons. Almost every armor is all but worthless against them). And if you have multiple attacks, you have to roll separate initiatives for each one. And Darren already mentioned the delivery penalty thing (but don't worry about that, either. If your weapon has more reach than your foe's, you automatically win initiative if you can keep backing up). And the time listed for bandaging wounds is "not in active combat", but casting a 10th level spell is "one week". Christ with a shitstick! Can't Hall at least pretend to think these things out?
Although casting a 10th level spell should be rare enough anyway, and casting one in combat is extremely inadvisable, it is listed here because of the other, lower level spells. Isn't that obvious? Jason is right about bandaging wounds though, and it will be redone.
Burnout: Also you can’t just keep backing up and getting the first attack as per initiative. It’s more like if you’re charging someone with a short sword and the opponent has a pole-axe. Than, obviously all the person with the pole-axe has to do is lower it and you have to somehow get by that to get an attack. But that only happens for the first combat round. By then most are in melee range so that range of weapons is not an issue.
There are other things - "smiting" (or, as most English-speakers would say it, "knocking down") a target when you damage it enough, called shots (hey! I can target someone's needle if it's "non-living and immobile"!), morale checks, breathing, falling, charging - but I'm tired now, and it's nothing you haven't seen 10,000 times in other fantasy games. Oh, well, at least your Life Points don't go up each level. And they're not so high it would be impossible to cleave an average human in half with one swipe from a two-handed sword. That may be the first glimpse of realism we've seen all game, and it only took 400 pages to find.
Actually, the falling chart also reveals that Hall has at least peeked inside a physics book. The acceleration formula was done correctly (at least for meters; Hall used 3 instead of the more accurate 3.28 when converting to feet), and the figure given for human terminal velocity (114.95 feet per second) is perilously close to the most commonly accepted figure (120 feet per second). So, wow. Two blatant nods towards realism!
Jason noticed that feet/second was incorrectly calculated from meters/second; it will be changed. Just when you think that Jason is coherent, though, he confuses 114.95 feet per second with miles per hour, and confirms his error with 120 feet per second. Actually, the speed of a falling body toggles between 110 and 120 mph, because it is not spherical and has continually shifting friction, etc. Therefore, 115 is the best answer. Just the same, thank you for noticing about the feet/second calculation.
Enjoy it while it lasts. Pitch hitting for criticals in FATAL are natural attack rolls of 90+, which give you a percent chance of scoring a roll on the relevant Crucial Damage table. But we'll get to that in a minute. Let's just say that Hall is about to put on his +5 Cockring Of What-The-Fucking, and he's got a solid Sperm Count roll lined up. (Oh, I forgot to mention FATAL's Sperm Count roll earlier? Silly me. Well, just mentioning it is all that needs to be said about it anyway.)
Skip through, skip through: Ah HAH! Here we have the meat of the situation. The hit charts have been written by somebody who hasn't got the foggiest idea of how damage actually works. Each hit chart lists a specific location on the body and what happens when it gets hit - but the problem is that it's broken down by the individual bone, so that you can break, say, the middle bone in your ring toe, but not sustain soft tissue damage, bruising, shock or excess bleeding. In addition, if you get hit with a sword, you're not going to sever only the common plantar digital nerve, but everything that covers the common plantar digital nerve. It does make for some interesting writing, though:
I think "Skip through, skip through: Ah HAH!" represents the overall method of Darren's review. He obviously did not read FATAL, but skimmed it for what he wanted to see, not what is. As detailed as the Crucial Damage system is, it avoids being overcomplicated. So, it represents realism better than other games, but I do not consider it reasonable to have a 900 page book detailing every possible result to every part of the body from every weapon by every creature. That said, FATAL is better than other RPG's. For now, I'll just defend Crucial Damage. If it were read by these reviewers, they would have noticed that it is noted that reason must be applied. If you do Crucial Damage to someone's hand with a maul, and determine that the damage was done to, say, the middle finger, then obviously this is only the central point of the blow, and the surrounding area should also be damaged. Bleeding is covered elsewhere, and crucial LP damage have not been considered by Darren.
As Jack rounded the corner, he came face to face with the high priest of the cult, blood from the sacrifice still frothing at his mouth. The two stared at each other, then struck simultaneously. Jack's sword cleaved through the cultist's chest, cleaving through the nipple, the xiphoid process - the lowest part of the sternum - and the shoulder blade. The cultist's blade only caused damage to Jack's appendix and his adrenal gland, somehow missing everything else in front of and in back of Jack's adrenal gland and appendix.
See above.
"Wait just a fucking minute - how the hell did our swords just do that?" said the cultist, idly scratching at his xiphoid process.
"Beats the shit out of me. FATAL, I guess," said Jack, and severed the cultist's uterus.
"I don't even have a uterus," protested the cultist.
"Again: FATAL," said Jack.
"Fucking FATAL," muttered the cultist.
While we're on the topic, I should point out that the wound tables are marked by the same painfully creepy obsession with sexual organs and defecation as the majority of FATAL. The individual parts of a woman's genitalia can be hit separately, including the clitoris, and of course the worst thing about it - as this piece of shit game suggests - is that she won't desire sex for 3d6 months. If you get hit in the ass, you actually roll to find out how many chunks of shit come out as a result.
Burnout: “Painfully creepy obsession with sexual organs” is that what it’s called when there is about a 3% chance per gender of hitting a sexual organ. That is, of course, assuming you crucial someone's torso, which there is a 30% chance of. So there is actually a .9% chance of hitting a sexual organ. Yes, now that’s definitely a painfully creepy obsession.
Sartin: In all fairness, the Crucial Damage section does have a sentence that says nonsensical results (like women getting their penises chopped) should be rerolled. (Oh, yeah, spoil my fun.) But still, it's an easy sentence to miss, and besides that, how damn hard would it have been to have double entries for these things?
Yes, double-entries is another way of doing it. The inferiority of the method selected by Jason is obvious when the reader considers that the severity of each location is organized from 1 (not very severe) to 100 (very severe). For example, if you hit both a male's and female's chest (assuming she has developed breasts) with your fist, then the attack on the female is more severe. Jason didn't seem to think about this very much.
You know, like "03: If male, your penis is crushed, blah blah blah intense swelling. If female, clitoris is crushed, blah blah blah worst of all doesn't want sex".
That would've been much better than how it has both male and female parts on different lines of the same chart (like "03: Testicles. Blah blah blah. 04: Clitoris. Blah blah blah") and adding yet another reroll to a process that's already had four or five die rolls (Weapon Skill roll, possible Parry roll, damage roll, percent roll to see if you scored Crucial Damage, hit location roll to see which Crucial Damage chart, actual Crucial Damage chart roll, reroll because the target's a man with a hacked clit...). But what the hell. Maybe FATAL's Crucial Damage was originally geared towards hermaphrodites, and Hall forgot to change it before he threw it into the world of boolean gender.
Burnout: Actually that’s what I call detailed. Even though it is a few die rolls, it is the most detailed system I have ever seen.
And yes, you've got to love those "Worst of all, she won't desire sex for *another die roll up your ass* months" bits. Unless I've missed one, those are on every single female genitalia hit. Yeah, babe, never mind that you just got a rapier or battle axe stuck in your clit or ovaries or vulva or vagina or uterus or fallopian tubes (and yes, these are all separate results on the charts) and now have to make a Health check to not pass out or some shit. The worst thing about it is that you won't want sex! But hey, since you women will be in one of those historically accurate worlds where half of all males are rapists or former rapists anyway, I guess you won't have to make that choice yourself.
Sounds crazy, but it seems like Jason's getting the idea.
Burnout: yeah, but he seems to be forgetting again that crucial damage will most likely kill a person. So the worst, is just “worst of all” for what the crucial area hit might be, not to mention that you’re probably dead.
And having to roll chunks of shit when you get hit in the rectum is a blast, too. Oddly, that's only on the Hacking Torsos chart - you just can't cause that effect with Stabbing or Pounding weapons, for some reason, so that's definitely something to keep in mind when you're selecting weapons. Even more oddly, "anus" occupies another place on the chart, so your rectum can get hit entirely separately from that...in fact, it's impossible to hit both rectum and anus with one attack (most of the organs on these charts suffer from this "ARGH! Even when I'm using a frigging battle axe, why can I only hit one little organ or part completely separately from everything in front of, beside it, or connected to it?!" problem, but we're on rectums right now, so cool it). And yes, you can also trigger the other half of this equation by getting someone's bladder.
See above. Obviously, you can hit the anus and rectum in one attack.
Burnout: It’s called “use logic when determining.”
Interestingly, unlike the Urination skill, none of these results even half-assedly take into account how much you've consumed or how much time has passed since your last pissing or crapping. It's nice to see that FATAL weapons possess such detailed, realism-invoking powers. You could keep making called shots on someone's rectum and keep them expelling waste all day!
I summon the 'nonsensical' rule, where this system, as any other, must be tempered by reason.
Burnout: I would really hate to be a gamer in these guys’ groups. “Logic has nothing to do with it. It’s not in the rules.”
Being as nothing is entirely bad, there's an interesting chart of crucial fumbles; and since this is entirely too good to be a coincidence, I suspect it to be ripped wholesale from Rolemaster, although I can't prove anything for sure.
I never knew that Rolemaster has a Crucial Fumbles system that is similar. I thought Darren said earlier that he's unfamiliar with Rolemaster. Does he contradict himself again?
Burnout: I believe he does.
Sartin: My first RPG was Rolemaster, so I'll field this one. Actually, the Crucial Fumbles don't resemble it that much...in fact, they might be the most sane part of combat.
There's only one chart instead of the billion Crucial Damage charts, and unlike everything else, no hard and fast rules are given. Instead, you'll roll something like "Punished by the gods" or "Environmental cause", look it up, and examples are given of how you could be fucked over in that way. This is good, because not only are a lot of stupid rules and results NOT running rampant as usual, but there's actually room to be creative and have some fun.
Admittedly, it doesn't make up for the horrible image I have in my head of a FATALite adventurer tying someone down, pounding them in the bladder and watching them urinate repeatedly, and screaming "GODFUCKIT! How do you DO that! I have to wait HALF A FUCKING HOUR! Oooh, speaking of which...", but you know. Credit where it's due and all that.
And there's rules for rape. Actual dice rolling to see if you can rape a woman.
In the Crucial Fumbles? Obviously not. Darren simply repeats himself.
I want to say that something should happen to the authors of this piece of trash, but I can't think of anything worse than being who they are. I can't.
Excellent, I am proud of who I am.
Sartin: Oh, I've suggested tons of things. Getting pissed on and set on fire, getting cancer and flesh-eating bacteria on the same day, being thrown into a vat full of fire ants, sliding down a greased razor blade, Deliverance 2 - damn, this is a violent review.
Ah, hell with it. He's right, people. None of those things would be worse.
Magic: Oh boy! This ought to be an eye-opening exploration of magic in Medieval Europe, including a sound magical theory and an impressive grasp of magic as it was conceived of by the people who lived at the time!
Oh, wait: Instead, it's a mishmash of unrelated information, discredited horsecrap and random stupidity. For example: On the first page of the chapter alone, there's a mention of ether as the binding force that holds everything together, the Void of the five elements. But ether was never a magical concept; it was designed, I believe, to account for the phenomenon of heat transference; it's been a while since I've taken History of Chemistry, but I'm pretty sure that's what it was about. You can say that you're just making something up and calling it ether, like Mage does - but oops, this is supposed to be the most historically accurate game out there. Odd.
About discredited horsecrap, since magic does not exist, is there anything that could be said where it is assumed to exist that would not be discredited? Darren should think before he writes. Ether was considered a magical construct. Concerning the Void, that originated with Democritus and Leucippus. In the Middle Ages, ether (or the Void) was considered to be the fifth element -- hence, the pentagram of magic. If the pentagram is inverted (meaning, the fifth element is on the bottom), then this has been used to represent Satan and Satanists. If not, then the symbol has represented 'normal' magic. So there you go, historically accurate, just as I claimed.
Burnout: That is why the five point star always stood for magic.
Oh, but "few who are educated and familiar with ether can argue against its existence." Yeah, unless you happen to have gone to high school and actually paid attention in science class, rather than carving images of sexual mutilation into the desk with the sharp end of a compass.<o:p>
Darren is proud of his high school science class, and I'm only mildly proud of my graduate science classes. However, they were fairly easy, so I'm not that proud. One supportive example is my nomination for a University Fellowship due to academic performance that was consistent and superior. Now, let's go back to Darren who paid attention in high school!
Anyways. The section on magic spends a lot of time bullshitting about what magic is and is not, how complicated it all is, what mana is defined is - utterly inconsequential, totally useless. For example, with my recaps in a weird purple color (For this re-post, in italics--Kwd):
Certain compounds or combinations thereof produce specific magical effects. Spells are good examples of magical effects, though exacting the specific effects may be difficult to impossible depending on the specific spell and the experience of the caster. For instance, the power or degree of the effect of many spells increases predictably with the experience of the caster. Conversely, some spells are favored for their unpredictable qualities, though usually these are never totally unpredictable, but limited by certain boundary conditions.
Spells are predetermined magical effects. Some of them increase in power as the mage gains experience. Others remain unpredictable.
So that my words are not confused with Darren's, he should have placed mine (Certain...coniditions) within quotes. Although I value parsimony, Darren's attempt at summarizing my words is shortsighted, producing problems due to ambiguity. For example, magical items also produce magical effects, and some FATAL creatures have innate magical powers. Then again, anyone who reads FATAL with the intent of playing a spellcaster or using magic should agree.
The duration of magical effects varies considerably, from split-second to permanent. For example, magical items are items that have been imbued with mana. The duration of these effects is not fully understood, but it quickly becomes a complicated topic. Sometimes the experience of the caster has a significant effect upon duration, but more often it is relative to the spell and its specific application.
The duration of magical effects varies widely. For some reason, I've decided to talk about magical items and their imbuing with mana. Look, a pretty butterfly. Whee! Sometimes things are one way, and then they're another way. Am I flying? Why does one side of my head feel sticky?
As most spellcasters become more experienced with magic, their accuracy and performance tends to improve. Typically, experience of the spellcaster extends the range and duration, expandsthe area, and increases the potency of the magicaleffects.
More experience = better magick. Derpty derp dee derpity do.
By the way, the "magick" with a 'k' is inappropriate because it is not historically accurate. The 'k' was added well after the 1300's.
I'm just going to close the door and walk away.
Something tells me, he'll be back.
Sartin: I probably should, too, but the fact that there's still more of this review proves one of us just can't leave well enough alone. Like most parts of FATAL, the magic system could be used to torture captives.
First off, the copyediting for this shit is even worse than Darren's making it sound, as it doesn't restrain itself simply to the Magic chapter. If you flip back to the Occupations chapter to read up on the magic-using classes (druid, mage, sorcerer, hierophant), you'll see that the Hierophant's description was accidentally duplicated in the front of the Druid entry. Which means you'll be wondering why a section that's supposed to be about druids is talking so much about priests that have nothing to do with druid culture, but trust me, it's an error. Of course, when you get to that Druid Circle equation Darren mentioned, you'll wish it would have stayed on the priest shit.
Jason, as usual, is wrong. Allow me to demonstrate his oversight, again. Druids and hierophants, for example, are both priests. Druids function as priests, as a subset of spellcasters. The beginning of the explanation of Druids in Chap. 7: Occupations is intentional. To conclude with the example for druids, the next page begins, "Perhaps the most educated of priests and adventurers, druids...".
To prove Jason's sloppiness as a reviewer, there are several occupations that are 'classes' or subsets of others. For example, gladiators and soldiers are classes of fighters. Assassins, pick pockets, and thugs are classes of thieves. If the reader observes the beginning of the descriptions of these occupations, they will see the introduction begins with a similar overview and becomes more specific later. I rest my case.
So you have to be one of the four aforementioned occupations to do magic, as they're the only ones that get spells or magic points (like 18+d12 or 38+2d20 or whatever per level, and thank Testosticles, because I wasn't thinking there was enough totally random crap at level up already). Mages are the magic-users who learn spells through intense study, sorcerers have spells through some innate power - oh, you've already seen this before? I'm sorry. Hierophants are priest-flavored sorcerers, and druids are totally-random-flavored sorcerers.
Burnout: Random seems much more accurate to me in gaming because it allows for a wider range of characters.
Then there are 10 levels of spells, each costing more spell points to cast than the last. So, do you get access to higher spell levels automatically as you get to certain levels? No way, that wouldn't be random enough! There's only a certain percent chance each level that you'll graduate to the next level of spells. So you might be casting level 2 spells right at 1st level, or you might keep blowing it every level until the chance finally hits 100%.
Think about it. If a character automatically gets more powerful spells as they level-up, this means that regardless of ability, all a spellcaster has to do is continue to cast spells, and they're guaranteed of magical greatness. The random roll reflects how much they've actually learned from experience. Therefore, spellcasters will advance at different paces, even if they share the same experiences. This is a step in the direction of realism, and supports the premises of FATAL.
If you don't like that, just be a druid. They don't have to put up with this "hey, maybe you'll get a new spell level this time!" shit. Instead, they just get d4-1 totally random spells. No, wait. If you can't trust your luck, that's even worse.
I'm sure the reader has guessed, but Jason is wrong again. If he looked at the top of the page that he referenced (where they get 1d4 - 1 spells), he would have seen that there is variance for druids as well regarding the acquisition of new spell levels. Experience, itself, is no guarantee, just as with a reviewer.
Of course, since we're still following AD&D/D&D3's lead pretty closely, there have to be schools/spheres for the spells to fit into. Ooops, I mean disciplines. Druids get access to five of them (but it doesn't really matter, since they have no control over what spells they get), mages get all ten, sorcerers get d8 of them (and each is rolled randomly on yet another table) - hooray! Yet another place where a die roll can make the difference between playability and total shit! - and hierophants, I think, get whatever the fuck the gods feel like giving them.
But wait! Here's something different! Magic is further divided into "ceremonial" and "chaos" magic. The text goes into confused explanations of the two, but all you really need to know is that ceremonial magic is for mages only, and isn't very involved with what you have to do. Chaos magic is for everyone else, and will drive players insane.
Actually, ceremonial magic is very involved with what mages have to do. I, for one, wouldn't want to attempt to tackle most of their chants (which are predetermined because they are, as you can guess, fully accurate, historically). For more information, see the source on Greek Magical Papyri.
And I mean the actual players of the game, not the characters. See, when you cast a chaos spell, there's a 75% chance that you will need a chant comprised of 3d10 syllables (and yes, there's a long random syllable chart you roll on for each one). And then there's a d100% chance (yes, you first have to roll d100 to see what the percent chance is, then roll d100 again to see if you got under it) of random ingredients being necessary (and remember, kids, FATAL's random ingredient chart is only slightly less worthy of inane infamy than its cock-clone, forehead-vagina-summoning random magical fumbles). And then there's a 10% chance per spell level of a hours- or days-long ritual being necessary.
Sure, what better way to represent chaos magic than with a higher degree of randomness. As far as casting times, I've read how rituals could take days or hours, so this seems better suited for higher-level, or more complicated spells.
And then you smear bacon grease on your naked crotch and dangle it in front of rabid pit bulls, because that would obviously be less annoying in the end.
Has Jason ever played a sorcerer in FATAL? I, as well as others have, and I have never considered it, or heard it to be, annoying. The random element keeps players on their toes and provides great entertainment.
Burnout: I have actually tried to tackle a spell caster twice. The first time I was very unlucky and only rolled one spell. So I actually had to do what I call “Role playing” to keep him alive. The other got caught in a bad situation without the ingredients to cast his spells. Needless to say I tried it anyway, and well, came to an untimely end at the hand of a random magical effect. All in all, it definitely keeps you on your toes and prepared for anything. If you want to live.
There's a bit more to FATAL magic, of course, but you'll forgive me for ending the discussion here. I'll need an entire bottle of Valium to overcome the fact that I can't find any rabid pit bulls.
Spells: Here's more fun for the entire family, provided that your family has been interbreeding for the last thousand years. It does derive a lot from historical spells, but they suffer from the fact that most medieval mages were about fifty cards short of a full deck, as well as flat-out stupid.
Historical accuracy is important. It's better to tell it like it is, then how you'd like it to be.
Sartin: Flat-out stupid, or obsessed with genitalia in many of their ingredients and rituals. Hmmmm...nah.
Explore the reference yourself. I was pretty surprised when I read the book. Again, this material is from a translation of Greek Magical Papyri.
For example, there's a spell listed entitled Against every Wild Animal, Aquatic Creature and Robbers. In the event that you are simultaneously attacked by a wild bear, Aquaman and the Hamburglar, this spell will have your back.
I know, this spell's not the most useful. Then again, I doubt that the Ancient Greeks anticipated its use here. Those poor people believed in magic.
Burnout: Again, I have to bring up the point it’s better to be accurate than useful. Being true to the premise.
Sartin: I know there's probably not an illustration here, but you'd be surprised.
Others are simply dull repetitions of the same theme, so you'll have page after page of "Bestow Age / Backache / Dislocation / Greater Harm / Ingrown Nail / Tooth Rot / Ulcer / Virus / Decade / Mad Impulse to Review FATAL" spells. You can also ejaculate a wide variety of substances, ranging from acid to blood to poison; and while I'm sure that White Wolf could make a remarkably interesting NPC out of that concept, here it's just an example for Beavis to use the word "ejaculate" in a role-playing product.
Burnout: Ok, so what he’s saying is it’d be good for one RPG but not for this one. Just a bit of a biased opinion.
Sartin: Yeah, I'm also overjoyed to see the various ejaculation spells are still around for this iteration of FATAL.
There is a spell called "Force Fart", of course, but you probably already knew that.
As a matter of fact, most of the spells are pretty much useless - for example, compare the utility of a spell like spider climb against a spell like "Greater Vulnerability to Ethicality", another spell that tries to force stupid behavior through the game's half-assed alignment system. There's at least twenty spells each that are repeated ad naseum, but with a new descriptor, like "mass protection again" or "vulnerability to" or "symbol of"; and the effects are pretty much like the last time you saw the spell mentioned, but with a new hat. Snore.
Sartin: The title spell, "Fatal", is interestingly appropriate, though. See, it's a level 10 spell that will annihilate all life on a planet, and by the time you get done reading this game, you won't feel like the end of all Earthly life would be a great loss.
"Have Her Cadaver": You can rape a corpse, but it'll feel like a real woman. Why do I have the feeling that this spell was created out of a real-life need on the part of the author?
Burnout: Actually, this spell was created purely for comic effect.
Sartin: Because it's probably true. Obviously, the dead can't toss a drink in your face or scream "Rape!", making them attractive to the average FATALite. (I don't know about that. If I were a corpse near a FATALite, I'd probably be making deals to return from the dead long enough to throw a drink and slap a face or two.)
There's a dozen love spells, all of which were most likely designed in real life, all of which do not say anything positive about the social attraction skills of the magi who created them; I mean, Jesus, these guys must have been the laughingstock of the medieval world. ("Looks like Barnaby's got another love potion. Okay, ladies, who wants to yank his pants down and make fun of him this time?")
Darren should have said the ancient, not medieval, world; the spells are from ancient Greece.
Burnout: But you notice he doesn’t spend any time talking about the fact there is love in FATAL. Hence the need for love spells.
Sartin: Yes, those of you who were already familiar with FATAL will be overjoyed to know that there are still far more spells for controlling/tormenting women than for men.
I'm unsure whether this is true overall or not; a count should be done and an itemized list presented for support. However, if we look at the ceremonial (the historical Greek) spells, there was obviously a historical bias against females. When seeking historical accuracy, this bias should continue to be represented in invented material as well. Therefore, I hope Jason's claim is true for the purposes of historical accuracy.
Burnout: I just checked out percentages. The percent of historically accurate spells for controlling/tormenting females is 19%, for males it’s 5%. As for the invented spells: for females it’s 17%, for males it’s 6%. I’d say that’s fairly close.
The magical items: Fuck you for making me read this. Just about every one of them is a minor masterpiece of juvenile sexual humor - and, for an extra kicker, the authors got the difference between a brazier and a brassiere confused, so that we have braziers of flattening, droopiness, staring and so forth. Idiots.
I stand corrected on the difference between a brazier and brassiere. I thank Darren, and it will be changed accordingly.
Sartin: And yes, ladies, wearing a "Brazier" of Droopiness will penalize your Bodily Attractiveness twice as much as being pregnant!
Of course, that's because it's a magical, not natural, effect.
You know, I felt kinda bad about making fun of the authors up until this point. I thought, "Well, I am being awfully hard on them; maybe they're just not terrifically bright, and just maladjusted rather than openly evil."
Burnout: More contradictions -- earlier in the review he said Fatalists were merely trying to be evil. Now he says Fatalists are openly evil.
Sartin: For me, the inner conflict was less complicated.
Sartin's Brain (Right Hemisphere): The FATAL guys are the ultimate paradox. On the one hand, they suck, but on the other, they really, really suck. So you could say they aren't a paradox at all. Hmmmm...I think this shit may have killed a lot of my cells.
Sartin's Brain (Left Hemisphere): Hey, we're reading FATAL! Are you sure we don't need a crack pipe for this? (The hemispheres in my brain just tried to eat each other. Lucky bastard, that Sartin.)
Even if I somehow felt bad, magic items are where FATAL amazingly gets even more lame than it already was.
Now I want them fed to rats. For this:
35. Jewy Jewbacca, of: Whosoever dons this armor will acquire a nose twice the size and a manhood half the size. Further, the wearer will become extremely greedy and fight to the death for one silver piece. Finally, the wearer acquires 2 inches of hair all over their body, resulting in halving their Facial Charisma and Bodily Attractiveness. While hairy, the wearer must bathe every 1d6 hours or smell foul. The armor may be removed at any time and the wearer will return to normal.
Big fucking rats, while we're on the subject.
50. Nigrous Nincompoopery, of: Whosoever dons this armor experiences a loss of 1d100 points from each sub-ability of Intelligence, Wisdom, and Charisma. The ass of the wearer will grow by 50% and be abnormally high. If the wearer is male, then those around him are 80% likely to believe that his manhood has increased, though it has not. The skin of the wearer becomes cursed and dark as night. Disposition turns to UI. Temperament becomes phlegmatic. The eyes of the wearer are visible 3 miles away at night. The wearer will have a body odor for 1d10 feet. On the bright side, the Physical Fitness of the wearer increases by 10%. The armor may be removed at will.
With the bubonic plague.
22. Gookums, of: Whosoever dons this armor experiences an increase of 1d20 points of Intelligence in each sub-ability and is reduced to 80% of natural Height. The eyelids of the wearer will swell as though hit with a maul, and Vision is reduced to 25%. Most importantly, the Manhood or Cup Size is reduced to 50%. Strangely, the ass of the wearer will shrink, drop, and droop.
And I want them fed feet-first.
23. Greasians, of: Whosoever wears this armor acquires hair that is greasy and dark, they lose half of their Drive subability, are reduced to 90% of natural Height, are 80% likely to beat their spouse if they have one, and will be magically unemployed for 1d100 days. However, if the wearer plays drums, the wearer gets a bonus of 1d100 to their skill check.
Then I want the rats fed to some other rats.
Sartin: See, told you it was racist. You have to wonder what would happen if someone who was already black put on - oh, wait, forgot! There are no dark-skinned humans in FATAL.
Personally, I'm not racist, though this may be going too far with humor. As far as no dark-skinned humans in FATAL, that was covered above, when I mentioned extracting or minimizing influences originating outside of Europe.
Burnout: I personally don’t think it’s going too far with humor. I just think it should be spread to a broader range, as to not leave anyone out. Say Posers, of: will think they have dark skin and act accordingly. Honkey, of: Can’t dance, has no ass, can’t jump, will be 3d20% likely to pick up a stringed instrument. You know, and so on.
The most pathetic thing is that Hall probably isn't even actually racist. He's just doing this because he needs more attention.
For the record, I enjoy controversial humor.
Meanwhile, he should have added one more armor suffix.
Extreme Suckocity, of: Whosoever wears this armor will suffer a decrease in their Common Sense to 1, believe their Intelligence (in all sub-abilities) is 100 points higher than it actually is, gain an extreme fascination with (though poor understanding of) rape, waste expulsion, and genitalia, and be preternaturally unable to use any social skill.
Actually, I may consider adding an armor that makes fun of my own race, or replacing this little section. Who knows? Time will tell.
This entire chapter, incidentally, will make wonderful, wonderful evidence during the inevitable trial.
This entire review is excellent evidence for a trial, all right.
Most of it is just a series of adjectives ripped off from AD&D, without a tenth of the use. Even a hundredth of the use. For example:
39. Immorality, of: Whosoever wields this weapon causes a loss of 1d20 points of morality regarding the disposition of the victim upon a successful attack.
Yeah. That's useful. A sword that makes you think the other person is immoral when you hit them. Good forward planning on the part of the authors, there.
If the sword "causes the loss of 1d20 points of morality regarding the disposition of the victim upon a successful attack" by the wielder, then the weapon does not cause the wielder to merely "think" the foe is more immoral, but actually causes them to 'be' more immoral. Darren's interpretation demonstrates his poor reading comprehension.
Sartin: It's truly hard to decide, but my favorite are the "Household Items, Seeds".
01-25 Demonseed: If a character swallows a demonseed, they will instantly become magically pregnant. An anakim will be born in 1d100 days. Upon birth, the bearer dies.
26-50 Rapeseed of Raping: If a character swallows this seed, they will attempt to rape the next member of the opposite sex in sight regardless of age.
51-75 Seed of Doubt: Whosoever plants a seed of doubt will grow a dark plant unknown to nature. The plant will grow regardless of the quality of the soil. The plant will grow to be 1d10 feet tall. The plant will grow to maturity in 1d100 days and will live for 1d1000 days, even without water. When the plant is mature, it will lower the PP of humans within 1d1000 feet by 10 PP for each foot of the plant. Somehow, those humans who lose all PP will believe they are slaves. A plant of doubt will produce a number of seeds of doubt equal to the number of feet of its height squared.
75-100 Seed of Hate: If this seed is planted in front of a home of a druid, the seed will grow into a tree of (100 + 1d100) feet in height and 5d20 feet in circumference. This tree will grow to full height in 3d6 days. This tree will grow regardless of moisture, climate, or light. This tree cannot be cut or burned down. The leaves will be black and the veins are red. This magical tree will cause all creatures, insects included, within 2d100 miles to hate the druid. The only way to kill a tree that resulted from this seed is for the druid to anally copulate with a specific type of living forest creature. The druid must ejaculate, thereby sowing a seed of love. The MM must roll percentile dice and consult the table below:
(snip!)
Oftentimes, the druid begins an anal frenzy attempting to thwart the tree. There is a 10% chance thereafter that the druid develops a bestiality fetish.
Great additions to any household!
Burnout: Sorry I couldn’t comment on the past few lines, I was laughing.
Actually, maybe my favorite is this charming item:
1-50 Jar of Jacking Off: Whenever a male opens this jar, they must pass a Drive sub-ability check at TH 80 or be compelled to force their fuckstick into the jar. Once inside, the jar will inexplicably grip it firmly and jerk it to completion, even against the will of the opener. Upon completion, the cummer must roll percentile dice. If the results are 01-10, then the jar becomes pregnant. If the jar is pregnant, it will not allow itself to be opened, but will care for the fetus within, which will be heard screaming by others within 1d100 feet day and night. After 9 months of fetal torture, the child will be born and the jar will break.
If the jar is broken during its pregnancy, then the dying and twitching fetus will explode after 1d6 rounds of twitching. The explosion will cause 1d4 Life Points of sonic damage to all within 1d4 miles. Baby parts are inexplicably everywhere.
When born, the baby will be Unethical Immoral, will serve the father loyally, will obsessively collect jars, and seem to be male but have no penis, but oversized testicles, which can never ejaculate. Therefore, this child will be forever frustrated. Any child of a jar will insist that others call them “Chucky.”
Man! How could I possibly say no? (Just watch. When the ass-rammers at FATAL Games get their "FATAL comments" section back up, that's so going to be quoted out of context.)
Obviously, what the reader reads is all in a perfectly unchanged context, and a link to the source is supplied in case of doubt.
But wait. We haven't had enough misogyny yet!
01-09 Chastity Belt of Cursed Impregnation: This cursed chastity belt will immediately and magically impregnate any woman who wears it. Worse, in a world where male children are desired, the child will be female.
Yeah, it sounds cold, but again, I remind you that half of all males in FATALworld are rapists, so you wouldn't want to bring a female into it, either.
I'm sure most people know that. Historically, most couples valued male children, and didn't value females. As sources in FATAL will show, many more female than male children were sold as slaves, abandoned, killed, etc.
