McLennan and Sartin's Review of F.A.T.A.L.

• Main
• Wikipedia
• All Subpages
• Create New

As You Know, F.A.T.A.L. is known as the worst tabletop game ever written.

The story goes that author Byron Hall, along with his "contributors" Torturon, Burnout and Psychotic Messanger of Doom, trolled the forums at RPGnet, causing the community there to request a review as negative and abrasive as reviews can get. The result is an MST of the game's sourcebook, in which Darren McLennan and Jason Sartin savage FATAL, its creators, and its fans.

The McLennan/Sartin review can be found here. Hall and Burnout posted a rebuttal to the review, found here.

Tropes used in McLennan and Sartin's Review of F.A.T.A.L. include:

• All Women Are Lustful: As pointed out by McLennan:

McLennan: You will never, ever find a female character in this game who isn't a prostitute and/or proclaimed slut, because that's the only kind of women that exist in these dipshits' imagination.

• Applied Mathematics:

McLennan: Also, for x=(c)(number of words in review)*ycc+kill me you fucks kill me.

• Brain Bleach:

McLennan: (STOP PUTTING IMAGES IN MY HEAD THAT I CAN'T GET OUT LATER EXCEPT WITH A BULLET.)

• But Not Too Black:

Sartin: Meanwhile, the Skin Color roll runs the gamut from deathly pale to merely tan. No brown or dark or anything, though. Further evidence that FATAL is a white boy's club.

• Did Not Do the Research:
  • After finding that every aspect relating to prostitution is sourced by one book, Sartin looks into it and discovers that said book only covers prostitution in Southern France of the 1400s. He promptly calls out the game for extrapolating the culture of one time and place into an entire world.

Sartin: Yes, people, this is what passes for "research" and "historical accuracy" in FATAL.

• • Sadly, Sartin also falls to this trope once in the review, when he claims that it's impossible for a non-erect nipple to have no length whatsoever. In fact, there's a minor medical condition in which a person's nipples, while not erect, retract into the body. Still, you can't fault him for not wanting to examine every aspect of this "game" too closely.
• Don't Try This At Home: Sartin helpfully informs the audience that they are professionals, and that you should not try projectile-vomiting blood at home.
• Dumb Muscle: McLennan finds that "retard strength" is a thing in this game; one formula calculates the odds of getting a burst of strength, and the odds are inversely proportional to Intelligence.

McLennan: I hate the author. I really fucking do.

• Everybody Hates Mathematics: As Sartin points out, the most advanced mathematics any character can learn is "Geometry", putting this trope into effect in-universe.

Sartin: Huh. I had no idea Geometry is the highest math any character can understand.

• Improbably Low IQ:

McLennan: FATAL was written for FATALites, not you or me or anyone else whose IQ doesn't begin with a decimal point.

• Insult to Rocks: The self-advertised "best line of the review":

Sartin: So, basically, saying that this game should be burned is an insult to fire.

• Queer People Are Funny: Defied. McLennan is decidedly not amused when he discovers that the lowest possible rating for Vocal Charisma is "gay".

McLennan: Good for them, because I was just thinking "Wow, this game is complete shit and its authors are complete shit, but I wanted a soupçon of homophobia to go along with it.

• Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil: A view taken up by both McLennan and Sartin. They are utterly repulsed by the fact that the game so gleefully glorifies rape; even more so when its creators justify this stance with grossly misinterpreted research sources and statistics.
• Running Gag:

By the way, did I mention that this book is 900 pages long? 'Cause I'm going to be bringing it up as this review progresses. A lot.

• So Bad It's Horrible: The agreed upon consensus.
• Suckiness Is Painful: As the reviewers demonstrate throughout.
• Take That: Copious amounts, dished out at the creators and any fans of the game.