In the meantime, I'm actually getting confident enough with this retarded-ass system that I think I could actually run a game of this and give mankind the first ever FATAL game in recorded history. From what I've read online, there are a handful of anecdotal claims to have run a game of FATAL, and all of them reek of bullshit to me ("oh man, it took THREE HOURS just to roll our characters"... yeah, right. There's no way anyone rolled FATAL characters that quickly).
Okay, so a couple conditions.
- It has to be play-by-post, whether on this forum or elsewhere. The game will progress slowly, but there's no way I'm gonna schedule a time to play live only to have everyone sitting around for the 40 minutes it takes me to calculate whether or not a character's hat fits comfortably and whether or not he fumbles putting it on and gets struck by lightning because the gods are displeased. This game absolutely will not work live.
- It's gonna be a really really short and simple quest, which will probably take an eternity under FATAL rules anyway.
And some choices that any volunteers will have to decide on before we proceed. What would you prefer we do?
Character Generation
Option A - Go Ultra-Fatal. Totally randomise everything, and probably have the party try to race-war each other the minute the game begins.
Option B - Try to make this bullshit workable. Humans only, choose your age, but randomised occupations, which is something the rulebook actually suggests.
Option C - Try to fix Fatal. I could fuck around with the chargen to get a stereotypical D&D-style six-man adventuring band for you to pick characters from, with whatever the FATAL equivalents for Fighter, Ranger, Rogue, Bard, Wizard, and Cleric are.
Game Mechanics
Option A - Go Ultra-Fatal. Play by the book. Follow the rules to the letter, even when they're obviously broken and impossible. Make you roll to see if you succeed in walking from point A to point B without fucking it up. Deliberately try to find ridiculous rolls to make you perform for every action you attempt. Check forehead circumferences every time you try to wear a hat, etc.
Option B - Try to make this bullshit workable. Follow the rules, but skip the worst unnecessary rolling, and I'll use my judgement to get around anything that's obviously broken and unworkable.
Option C - Try to fix Fatal. I'll ignore all unnecessary autism-rolls and I'll introduce houserules to handwave and ignore stupid shit as it occurs.
Game Theme
Option A - Go Ultra-Fatal. My only goal will be to GM exactly as I think Byron Hall would GM, and constantly attempt to have everyone's characters raped and cannibalised by monsters, and to reward you only with the stupidest, racistest, sanity-defyingest magical items available.
Option B - Try to make this bullshit workable. I'll throw a couple of rapists and retarded magical items at you occasionally to remind you that it's still FATAL we're playing, but I'll keep it as a 'nod' to the overall theme, not the single and only driving point of the game.
Option C - Try to fix Fatal. I'll ignore all the crazy rape-fetish shit and not give you any of the fucktarded magical items. Your character can still try to molest a milkmaid or something, if you want, but I'll probably try to have the village guards (or the rest of your party) kill you for it.
My personal choice would be Option A on all counts, since if we do anything less, we're not really playing FATAL, and haven't really made history in the stupidest saddest way possible. But it could be even more interesting to try and make FATAL actually work. I'll leave it up to anyone who wants to participate to decide.