this post was submitted on 17 Oct 2025
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[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 131 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (14 children)

There are people here who've probably never seen the greatest review of the worst RPG of all time.

There is no God, and the proof of this can be found in a .pdf file from Fatal Games.

And for those who don't have time, the only thing you need to know about FATAL is this; it's an RPG made by the kind of people who stormed the capitol on Jan 6. Horrifically racist, sexist and queerphobic, and designed by people so fundamentally stupid and lacking in curiosity that they can't get even the most basic of design concepts right, but so utterly obsessed with the idea of their own intellectual superiority that they keep trying to reinvent every single wheel.

Some friends and I once got drunk and made FATAL characters. After 4 hours we gave up. We still weren't done. There's no decisions to make, character gen is 100% random roll. It's just so badly designed that even rolling your base attributes takes forever.

By the point where we stopped the dice had informed me that I was playing an 8 year old lesbian prostitute, and understanding how that's even possible reveals the depths of the awfulness at work here.

My character was 8 because you have to roll for age, and these morons decided it was a good idea for people to be able to random roll adventurers who are literal babies. Yes, 0 years old is an option. Newborn barbarian warrior, off to save the world.

My character was a lesbian because the dice said she was a girl, and the system said I had to roll for sexual characteristics, like breast size. Gross. Of course, the system also applied a massive downward adjustment to her breast size for being, y'know, an actual child. So she was an A cup. For those of you wondering how an 8 year was an A cup, it's because these geniuses remembered to include an age adjustment but didn't remember to actually include an option on the table for "I haven't fucking hit puberty yet you disgusting perverts."

Anyway, the reason we're talking about this hypothetical child's hypothetical breast size (thanks FATAL, God you suck so much) is because you then have to roll for sexuality, and for women this is modified by breast size! I am not shitting you, this is how unbelievably fucking awful this game is. Every big titted lesbian you've ever met doesn't actually exist according to FATAL. I swear to God even the Rimworld guy had more brains than this.

And she was a prostitute because you roll for your career, but the careers all have stat minimums. Don't meet the minimum, roll again. And being 8 gave her huge penalties to her stats, so the only career in the entire book she actually qualified for was prostitution.

If you feel like throwing up right now I completely understand.

[–] faltryka@lemmy.world 53 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thanks for the write up, it sounds like it’s maximum value is as kindling…

But what’s wrong with the RimWorld dev, am I ootl here?

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 55 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (9 children)

Rimworld was originally coded so that all women were at least slightly bisexual, if not fully gay, while all men were either gay or straight. According to the creator - who vociferously defended this stance claiming it was based on "research" - bisexual men like me don't exist.

That's honestly just the start of the rabbit hole. The game was hardcoded so that men always prefer younger partners and women always prefer older partners. Also women were eight times less likely to be willing to hit on someone. This is, to be clear, supposed to be a scifi game set in the future, but modelling sexual politics apparently taken from 1980's TV.

There's an amazing breakdown of the whole thing here; https://www.rockpapershotgun.com/rimworld-code-analysis

You can find the creator of Rimworld in the comments defending all of his nonsense and making a total ass of himself in the process. Unfortunately the rest of the comments are a total shit show because the average gamer simply does not have the mental maturity needed to handle critical analysis deeper than "graphics bad".

I'm told they eventually changed some of this stuff after enough backlash, years later, for whatever that's worth. Maybe the creator actually did some learning and growing, and if so, good for them.

[–] altkey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 21 points 6 days ago

"How RimWorld's Code Defines Strict Gender Roles", it's catnip power words for the polar outrage mafiosi camps.

That weird comment, my sides.

I don't know why I haven't heard about it, but it's very fascinating to see dev's biases leaking into their product just like that.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Based on the fact that all that nonsense was removed even before the release, and that I've never heard about him being weird like that, I want to believe he grew as a person since then, and pulled a reverse Notch.

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

And if you can show me even one time that he actually apologized and admitted he was wrong on this, I'll happily agree.

I want to see people be better. But I'm smart enough not to assume it without evidence.

[–] Nalivai@lemmy.world 1 points 4 days ago

I'm not in on the drama, I don't know if he apologised or not.
But at this point I would take quitely sweeping bullshit under the rug over going all in on being an asshole.

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[–] rambling_lunatic@sh.itjust.works 25 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Is that the one where you roll for anal circumference?

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 24 points 6 days ago

It is, and that's somehow one of the least offensively bad things about it.

[–] RaivoKulli@sopuli.xyz 7 points 6 days ago

That's pretty funny

[–] spittingimage@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago

Thank you for throwing yourself on that grenade for us.

[–] A_Union_of_Kobolds@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Jesus. I thought Lamentations of the Flame Princess was bad...

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 15 points 6 days ago (1 children)

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.

[–] Bane_Killgrind@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Magic requires you to roll to see if you say the words correctly.

I hate this kind of realism for the sake of realism

[–] Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works 12 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

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

[–] Archpawn@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago

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.

[–] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 9 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

My favorite thing about fatal is that you can read several reviews of it, all will be summed up vety similarly, but it induces a verbose disgust that leads to every review being a distinct archive of points where each reviewer got sufficiently pissed off at the creator of the game for publishing it.

For all I hear of the misogyny, of which I trust the reviewers is abundant, every review leaves me thinking that this man believes things about men that should offend the entire human species.

[–] MourningDove@lemmy.zip 7 points 5 days ago

I miss the person I was prior to having read this.

Thank you Mr Abyss, for staring back at me.

[–] edgemaster72@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

What a terrible day to be literate

I read this in the voice of Mr. Cody. That was the only way I could get through it.

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[–] RickyRigatoni@retrolemmy.com 42 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's not even a fucking rpg since everything is a diceroll. It's like pen and paper progress quest.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 9 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Roll for the pen. Also roll for the paper.

[–] Quetzalcutlass@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Could you clarify your instructions? I'm smashing two small loaves of bread together but nothing's happening.

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[–] dwemthy@lemmy.world 23 points 6 days ago

Shouldn't the labels be swapped? Is common decency keeping F.A.T.A.L. from pursuing players? F.A.T.A.L. is antithetical to common decency. Decency keeps players away from F.A.T.A.L.

[–] Gigdragon@lemmy.world 28 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It's ALWAYS a horror show with FATAL. I've blocked EVERY group that invites people to fatal and my life is better for it. Mr Lake and Mr Foot? (no first names) Rot in prison you creepy fuxks.

I would make a joke about kissing my ass, but discussions about FATAL often include a need for anal circumference. No thanks.

[–] vithigar@lemmy.ca 17 points 6 days ago

There are groups that actually play FATAL? Terrifying.

[–] Sanctus@lemmy.world 24 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Honestly FATAL isnt even fun to read its just mad cringe. Like the most in depth look into the mind of an incel.

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[–] LibertyLizard@slrpnk.net 18 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I was tragically born without any common fucking decency (or maybe this is from being an unsupervised child on the early internet) but I’ve also heard the game is just horribly bad and unfun from a game design perspective.

[–] Malgas@beehaw.org 12 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Zigmenthotep on YouTube covered F.A.T.A.L as part of their "Let's make us a character" series. It took four episodes, in a format that is usually one-and-done.

However bad you've heard the game is, I assure you it's worse.

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[–] burntbacon@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Just know that character creation is reminiscent of the oldest D&D types, where you'd roll randomly. It is possible (I read a review of the game, not the system itself, thank god) to have a negative circumference of the anus.

Brb, rolling a new character called Paul th' Prolapsed

5th dimensional bussy

[–] pyre@lemmy.world 8 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

i just looked it up and holy fucking shit how are most comments here about its mechanics rather than how it's apparently Violent Misogyny: The Game

[–] FreddiesLantern@leminal.space 10 points 6 days ago (1 children)

At this point I feel the rpg culture should be firmly separated again from the mainstream only to have the mainstream stand between itself and this kind of awfulness.

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[–] tgirlschierke@lemmy.blahaj.zone 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I have a morbid fascination with it, and one of the things that keeps dragging me back to it is the very weird ways in which it is, surprisingly, progressive. FATAL makes a distinction between sex and gender (though throws it away), and also recognises asexuality as valid (despite not understanding it).

[–] DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social 5 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's a racist, sexist rape fantasy simulator.

It sure is, but the author had a very particular type of bigoted worldview combined with a very particular type of pseudo-academic obsession. Without that, it would be an utterly unremarkable cookie-cutter grimderp RPG from the 2000s. The exact, half-baked layout of the trainwreck presenting as high-speed rail is what makes FATAL into FATAL.

[–] BlameTheAntifa@lemmy.world 5 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

The Cypher system is one of the most ingenious, elegant, immersive, and flexible TTRPG systems ever created and I will die on this hill. If you want to escape D&D, Cypher is the way to go.

[–] Kolanaki@pawb.social 6 points 6 days ago (1 children)

How about some RIFTS? 😈

[–] Jarix@lemmy.world 5 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (4 children)

I absolutely love the world(books) from RIFTS™. The system itself is.... Painful.

Though playing Palladium RPG did help me to understand how it was supposed to be functional, in some ways anyway.

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[–] acockworkorange@mander.xyz 4 points 5 days ago

Dude. Just try Torchlite or Ironsworn.

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