FATAL Critical Failures!

For a blog I'm doing research for (will edit link in here after I post it) I was researching other games systems, ones that did things poorly or horribly, and what they did that I should avoid for my own. During the process, I encountered some interesting (and shocking.. NSFW.. I mean for the average non roleplayer its Extremely NSFW in which writing I found my self cringing and re-writing this blog) roleplay systems, amongst the complaints from standard systems, Often people would cy...

At Least its not F.A.T.A.L!

Oh, and Gang Rape was the
plot for character
team building / formation.

For those not in the know.. FATAL is a system, created by Byron Hall, who probably didn't do a lot of market research into making RPGs, but did a lot of research into medieval environments, much of which seems to be D&D, medieval movies from the 80s, maybe some shlock horror, the Rutger Huer Movie "Flesh & Blood", typical teenage basement dwelling humour.

Whats not surprising is the amount of flak he got for daring to publish his ideas (well, a PDF at any rate). As it stand FATAL is listed as the worst, for all time so far, worst RPG system ever..

So of course I had to download it.

I downloaded the first version : Fantasy Adventure To Adult Lechery

The title gives away main reason why people hate it.

This the 2nd version cover..
The More safe for work version

Its a Great big overly detailed, and I mean comparative to Rolemaster or GURPS overly detailed, list of so many things a Gamesmaster should consider (and then discard what doesn't match their system) when designing their own system, Its just that FATAL included ALL of them.. 900 pages of rules and rules and rules..

Now, there are some glaring problems with it.. Layout, Design, 900 pages, tables of tables.. It could be salvageable, if it had some kind of underlying something to it worth salvaging. The book goes into great detail about diseases, phobias, psychological traits, aspects of dealing with life as a medieval peasant. Occupations, Skills and Equipment.. all before telling me how to play the Friggin game.

And Oh, My Gawd is it overdone.. 4 lines to explain what water is, another 4 for milk!.. If players need a Thesaurus of common terms, maybe you have the wrong kind of players..

So I'm not going to go any further, (as much fun as it could be) into picking apart a bad system, Discussing how, splitting it into Standard rules, Gamesmasters rules and the Adult material could have helped, nor how the Structure or format needed to be more player friendly..no, others have done before me. I'll focus instead on what a lot of people have focused on.. poorly.. the Adult Lechery.

If you read the reviews and counter reviews of the author, you'll come across how the bulk of people focus on the fact that your character can have an [here it is... no.1 reason for its ranking ] anal circumference, because, if and when you get raped, you need to know how much pain you're going to be in.

In comparison to the size of this blog.. that one line represents the percentage of filth in the book. But for 900+ pages, thats still 20 odd pages of filth.. and another 100 pages of dubious material.. And for typical human reasons, its the only thing anyone will ever remember of it.

So Why Write about this filth?

Normally I might read up on hundreds of pages of articles, double check my references, make sure what I'm writing about has plausible credibility to it.. I do the same for my own system. I might never point out some things I read, because its not what I like to share with others..

Yet like a car accident, We imagine how it might have been us.. and I looked back at my earlier works and wondered... would I have been so unlucky if I published in 1998?

Total 100% accurate of how players
Act in game, but real life?

Then, while travelling by train across south Russia these last few days, I had some pdfs in my tablet I could read, and one of them was Critical Failures. .. About a DM who has the power to send his a group of players, who are behaving like the worst players you could get, to the fantasy world they're playing in, when their behavior gets them into trouble, time and time again...

I didn't feel like I was reading something that someone had made up, I know people that behave that way.. I don't roleplay with them, and probably never would, but I remember being 12 and sorta maybe acting that way. So I could identify easily with who they were

The writing of Critical Failures is poor, language badly chosen, some serious flaws in the style, but heck, its better than mine half the time, and at least the guy wrote it and made it available for download.

But the funniest part for me, I didn't feel like they were playing D&D, even though that's the parody the author went for. No, I felt that they were playing FATAL.. and Byron Hall was the DM, and the RPG Net were the players... and then I took a look back at the RPG environment of the 80s and 90s and felt sorry for the Author of FATAL.. because it looks like that's what he's gone and done.. Made the RPG for the audience that has since, grown up, while the Author had not.

In the 80s all manner of things, with 20/20 hindsight, seems racist, sexist, misogynist immature and just plain wrong. RPGs were not immune, depending on the system & Gamesmaster, Characters would typically devolve into murder hobos, ultra powerful bad guys, or all manner of worse. Half of today's memes are based on 80s RPG fail.

So FATALs Author seems to be a GM whose inclusiveness went over board.  instead of putting down his foot and saying.. "hey guys,too much.. this is never going to be popular on the market.." no, instead the author thought that all roleplayers were like his group.. raping and pillaging across his game world.. so he added more rules to match all the consequences..

I got out of the standard roleplay scene when this seemed to be happening around me. Players were joining the brand new Vampire games, where killing and raping innocents became part of the norm. The teenage angst of lack of control in the real world bleeds into the control they need to exert in the roleplay world, lashing out at anything that offends them, and with power, allows them to avoid or beat back any social problems that may arise.

Lessons to be learnt

It asks the question, Why do we roleplay? Is its the Escapism? to get away from this world that we lack the skills and control needed to be successful and the desire to be so? To go to a place (even if its in our minds) to be able to be skilled, powerful and in control?

Is this an immature desire? I've had maybe a few handfuls of 'adults' in my life try to tell me that roleplaying is a childish thing, and that I should grow up. Now that I'm 40, a dad, I've researched what games are, what play is, what is a roleplay game, and how roleplay has a very critical aspect of learning about it. Gamification is mired in roleplay, Schools actually teach us to role play scenarios out, in order to solve problems.

"Train A is headed from the West at 20km an hour, Train B from the East at 30km an hour, they start 100km apart, at what point do they crash?"

Albiet, your not playing a Train, but the puzzle is set in a way that allows the student to visualize the problem in real terms, which is one of the cores of what a roleplay game is.

The Concept of Games & Play has been coming up in my discoveries over the last few years, and I'm quite seriously considering my PhD in this field. How much of the desire to roleplay is the desire to escape our own mundane vs the playground of the mind to learn?

Conclusion

My Own system went through stages, Complex, Simplified, Improvements, Mess, Restructuring. If I had published at any stage prior, I'd expect to be ripped to shreds by the RPG community for attempting to publish anything less than a half decent set of rules.

The current 'popular' RPG seems to be rules lite, narrativity styled RPGs, possibly due to the influx of females to the gaming industry over the last 20 years, So attempting to bring a new system, more complex than most, is bound for failure, let alone adding sexuality (No, mum, not that kind of roleplay), obfuscated layout, and adult themes (plus, claiming its all historically accurate).

Yet I have a complex system, So I guess I have empathy for this guy.. he thought that his differentiation, that 'thing' which would make his game interesting, is the first person to publish a game which dealt with the smut & puerile humour that many games devolve into. To cater to those teenagers and their angst at a lack of sexual experience. Not realising, that is the worst kind of roleplay, and the community as a whole would rather pretend it never existed, than admit that yes, once, they too tried to 'get it on' with a barmaid, and the teenage GM asked to roll for penetration.

Post Script

Further topics on this to come:

* Will Roleplaying games of the future be boring, or will Roleplay become obsolete, if we get too politically correct?

* How to Use failed roleplay systems, and identifying failure within successful systems, to build a better system. (Building a better mousetrap?)

* What IS roleplay, and what IS a roleplay Game? Does a conversation about a vorpal sword working on a Jabberwickerbasket count?


p.p.s. I Always thought it would be fun to run a roleplay group of evil (i.e. bastard) characters, while several other roleplay groups of good guys were hunting them...

[Thoughts] Roleplay Gamers, World Simulation Vs / And Story

I wrote this topic several moths back, after discussion online about Simulation vs Story, then recently someone pointed me in the direction of the GNS Theory from Ron Edwards and Aaron Hoffmans opinion of it. Yes, it seemed to match up with my Simulation vs Story theories, but introduced the third Gamist (which I always thought of as a immature board gamer who disrupts the real RPGers)  to the table.. So now I've had to re-write this blog notes:

Arguments of World-Simulation vs Story-Roleplayer, now add Board Game Geek and maybe a Gamificator for good measure! 

Are you a board gamer, a war gamer or a listener?

My Initial foray into the psychology of roleplay was about the two. Simulationist vs Storyteller. This was aimed more at GMs, I felt that often a Storyteller was more railroady. The Players make some choices that follow the story that the GM (or for World of Darkness, the actually storyteller) has in mind, and provided the GM is the wolf and the players are sheep, they all get to have their own kind of fun.

Can you tell that I'm a Simulationist?

I have/had/will have again players who care not for their character sheet, level progression, bonuses, etc, they want to act out their part, partake in the story and enjoy themselves. They ask the rules lawyers what would be the best choice in their character progression. My own system was designed to guide these players to make it easier for them, the player is a fighter? he fights? he gets experience as a fighter and his fighting skills get better. He knows he's a fighter and feels like a fighter, so there is no need for him to care about min/maxing his skill set with a stealth attack or a spell, and besides, he's probably forget to use them, because when a creature walks into the dungeon, the fighter grabs his weapon and fights.

https://xkcd.com/393/

Then there are the rules lawyers, they study their own numbers with meticulous care, and make sure that they have their stats just perfect, balanced in the best way possible. and I'm covered there, because I think that way myself. (I think that to be a half decent game designer, you sorta need to be a rules lawyer to GM)

But when I encountered board gamers, I was always under the impression, they had just not yet learnt how to roleplay, and like a child in school who just doesn't get the lesson, they lash out in ways to 'make the game fun' or 'amp up the excitement' I never once thought that this was a sub-group unto itself.

GNS Theory

Firstly, While a long time reader of Psychology profiling, Personality Bartle Tests, GNS is new to me, so forgive me for the errors in interpretations, this is my own take on what 've read so far.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNS_Theory

So Gamism is when you make the decisions based on extrinsic motivators. You form a party, and you are instantly friends, because that's the way the game is played. You go to the tavern and talk with the old man, to get the quest and then you complete the quest and get the gold and the girl/boy/victim and save the day. Because its a game, man! Meta Gaming could be considered gamism, checking on your friend in another room because you know that he just fell in a pit of acid, but you state.. "I haven't seen GunThar in a bit, I might just go check on him. "

Board Games that mimic roleplay (Descent, Heroquest, Talisman) are very Gamist, its practically the definition of a Gamist Game. So Often when I was balking at D&D and Pathfinder, It wasn't that those games suck, it was because they cater to the Gamism mentality, which I like some of, but as a Simulationist, I can't cope with. [I re-wrote the rules to Heroquest just months after I got it for my 14th Christmas to include XP]

Narrativism is roleplaying. Special voices, being angry or sad at appropriate moments, making sure you make choices, not based on if its the smartest thing to do, or the most efficient, but because its what my character would do. Well, maybe that's the simulationists perspective on Narrativism.

I've noticed alot of games are pushing towards Narrativism recently, which I applaud when done well, but they seem to be pulling away from the other end of the spectrum(s) Games coming out with little to no rules, arbitrary decision making, the GM is more like, telling a story, and the players are like, following along.. like Vampire, but without a character-sheet and experience points.

Simulationism is a Virtual world, Immersion by the players is achieved by making sure nothing outside of the parameters of the world, and rules, is broken (except the occasional 4th wall for humour). The game rules ensure that the world and its 'defined bubble of physics' is kept whole, so the players can make decisions quickly to create a fun experience.

Now, its pretty true that not many games can achieve this, and the ones that do are sometimes so grey/bland across their system, that takes away from the game play itself. I've read from some posts, players quoting how little fun it is to create a character and then get killed in the first session, because of realism. GMs are expected to fudge the dice to keep players alive long enough for the plot to become apparent, then if the player makes a stupid move, its his own fault after that.. Not every tavern would have an old man, and not every quest should be tailored for the players level.

Now, while I tend to lean towards the Simulation, I am trying as hard as possible to find the middle ground in all three. Or.. possibly, if I was to follow other theories.. all four:

http://www.whatgamesare.com/2011/12/the-four-lenses-of-game-making.html