this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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Jesus. I thought Lamentations of the Flame Princess was bad...
I didn't even get into how the underlying system is abysmally bad even when you try to strip away all the gross shit.
Like, stats are generated by rolling 10d100/10-1. Yes, you read that correctly. Then there are five derived attributes generated as an average of four base stats, so if something modifies a base stat you have to recalculate the derived stat, but then those derived stats also set things like your carry weight, so you have to recalculate that and... It's exhausting.
Combat is atrocious. There are criticals, but they have no relation to each other, so you can cleave through someone's appendix and their belly button but leave everything in between untouched. Magic requires you to roll to see if you say the words correctly. The whole thing is an ungodly nightmare.
I hate this kind of realism for the sake of realism
FATAL is, somehow, simultaneously a masterclass in realism for the sake of realism, and also the most unrealistic game ever made. There is a specific stat for how many words per minute you can speak, a stat for the longest word you know, and a stat for how far back your earliest memory is. But also, the system uses the concept of "humors" as something that actually has real-world effects, has the aforementioned critical system where you can crit individual organs but leave the surrounding organs unscathed, the ability to roll up a 4 year old with B-cups, and all kinds of other absolutely deranged nonsense that has no business whatsoever calling itself realistic.
Oh, and if your character's intelligence is low enough, you get to roll to see if they have "R****d Strength". So that's great.
It's like one dark corner had a walkabout to poll all the other dark corners for ideas, Jesus Christ on a cracker
The one thing FATAL has going for it is how terrible it is. Any improvement would make it not so perfectly horrible, and thus not as good.