Coffee Review: Fatherfog (Zero Edition)

#25 - Searching for the Light in the Fog. In-depth review of the new Fairytale Horror Roleplaying game by Alan Gerding of Tuesday Knight Games

I love Mothership. I mean, I haven’t played as much of it as I wanted to but all my one- and few shots have been memorable. I adore the work of Sean McCoy and his team, who put out one of the leanest, clearest, easiest to understand rulebooks I’ve ever seen, dripping with SciFi horror atmosphere with an elegant system. It’s no coincidence that their Warden’s Operations Manual is hailed as a fantastic starting point for any GM.

The amazing core set includes incredibly interesting, creative, and versatile adventures and game aids, and we mustn’t forget just how large, active, helpful, and successful the Mothership 3PP community has become. Some of the creators there directly inspired the very existence of our indie studio, Golem Productions. And even though I’ve been frustrated by TKG’s sluggish communication and the seemingly endless delays of their crowdfunding projects, they are definitely among my favorite publishers, and Mothership is one of my favorite games.

Having said that, this article is not a review of Mothership, but of TKG’s new Zero Edition of Fatherfog, created by Alan Gerding (there seems to be no official account to link to?). Sometimes labeled as a “Fantasy Mothership,” the game is clearly modeled on the Panic Engine (rule system) and the design and gameplay principles of its famous predecessor, but it forges its own path in some areas. Nevertheless, this review will frequently draw comparisons between the two games, simply because of their similarities.

Fatherfog by Alan Gerding and published by Tuesday Knight Games. Image Source: Golem Productions.

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First impressions of a foggy world

Already when I opened the first page of the new zine, the transparent map beside the table of contents on the right intrigued me. It seems to hint at a concrete setting, a game world - something I’m not used to from Mothership, with its rather implicit setting. Although it piques my curiosity (personally, I love captivating lore and settings), we find no further information about this map anywhere in the zine.

How can that be? Like Mothership before it, Fatherfog was released as a “Zero Edition,” a preview version, so to speak, to be followed by a complete first edition. The PDF version is currently available for free, which is why I’m taking the liberty of posting a few screenshots. TKG is obviously aiming to introduce the game to the world.

Fatherfog: Zero Edition comes as 64-page staple-bound zine in A5. Visually, Fatherfog is striking. The entire zine leans into a foggy, desaturated fairy-tale aesthetic with detailed black-and-white illustrations, sometimes with a third color, decorative borders, and moody layouts that immediately establish atmosphere. The artwork is consistently excellent, full of twisted forests, lonely travelers, and uncanny objects that feel pulled straight from a dark folklore anthology. At the same time, the layout clearly inherits a lot from Mothership: strong typography, compact information blocks, and highly readable tables. Still, Fatherfog is noticeably denser and more ornamental, with the text running a little small. Even so, the overall presentation gives the game a very distinct visual identity.

The basic premise of the Fatherfog is this: A medieval, fairy-tale-like world is suddenly engulfed by a mysterious fog inhabited by terrifying creatures, which transforms the land and is generally dangerous. Many plants and animals die, and humanity adapts. Strangely enough, “Foghouses” also appear - lighthouses that offer food and shelter. The player characters seek hope for their communities (whatever that means) and know just as much about fairy tales and folklore as their human players.

The latter instance of breaking the fourth wall sounds like an interesting, well-thought-out concept. Though, here, a recurring weakness of Fatherfog’s current version immediately becomes apparent, one that will hopefully be addressed in the first edition: The zine provides no explanations or examples of what the intended effect of this concept is supposed to be, what one can or should do with it at the table, or what kind of player experience it is meant to achieve. Of course, I have my own ideas on the matter, but I would expect a core rulebook to explain itself (as Mothership does).

That’s my repetitive main issue with Fatherfog, and we’ll see more of it later on. For example, I also don’t like the fact that the “Foghouses” still seem weird for the sake of being weird, with no example location, no story hints, no explanations, and no other directly playable content.

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A setting or no setting, what will it be?

That said, there are some wonderful examples of how the setting is hinted at or specified here as well: for instance, a culture of colored cloaks (à la Little Red Riding Hood) has taken root; these allow wearers to be seen through the colorless fog and have become a fashion statement. Several very atmospheric tables, such as 100 Brooches (Patches in Mothership) or 100 Legacy Artifacts (enchanted magical items offering many creative possibilities for use in adventures, that can be passed on to the next player character even if the current one dies), inspire reflection on one’s own character and the world, which seems to be oriented toward Grimm’s fairy tales.

There are some nice details hidden in the zines: many crops and livestock have died out in the fog’s perpetual twilight, making horses priceless and limiting food supplies to only certain items. The landscape is constantly changing, yet gorges and rivers remain constant. So while there are no longer any reliable maps, boating could play a key role in reaching important landmarks. I’d like to learn more about this in the future. It’s just a shame that the booklet doesn’t offer a single sample adventure to make this generally interesting setting a bit more tangible.

While the artifacts are fantastic, I’m irritated by the fact they “mysteriously transfer” from one character to the other in case of PC death. What kind of immersion-breaking writing is this!? On the other side, I love the idea that they are rolled in secret during character creation. Players won’t know what kind of fun gadget the rest of the party have up their sleeves. That’s why that table can be found in the zine’s GM section (black pages).

I absolutely adore the Coin table, something I haven’t seen anywhere before: During character creation everyone rolls on the table to learn with how many Coins their characters start the game. Additionally, the table gives short stories somethimes referring to known fairytales, that explain how the character obtained that exact amount, and sometimes even grant the character additional skills. What a brilliant innovation! And just as I mentioned earlier that the game often fails to provide enough explanation for many aspects it also consistently shines with its truly innovative additions to the world of role-playing, particularly through clever mechanics and features like these.

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Four Against the Fog

While Fatherfog is not a Panic Engine game, it’s clear its system was derived from Mothership’s rules-light system. Going through its fast and easy character creation feels very much like in its predecessor. You roll on three base Stats (Strenght, Intellect, Will), three Saves (Body, Mind, Spirit), and choose one of four classes (Worker, Philosopher, Stranger, Hunter), which will affect some Stats and Saves, but also give you predetermined Skills or Skill Points as well as a Class Trait.

The four classes feel familiar and new at the same time, and seem carefully designed and reasonably balanced with one another. I won’t go into further detail on this, because I lack the experience of a longer campaign of Fatherfog, which would certainly inform me better on how they actually feel at the table. Overall, I’m looking forward to seeing them used in play.

The Skill Tree gives access to an interesting variety of 56 skills (Common, Expert, or Master Skills), while the game also includes rules to create your own (called Unnatural Abilities). After that, you roll for a Rucksack (a set of starting gear), Cloak, a Brooch, a personal Trinket, and some Coin. All of the classes, skills, items, and tables without exception feel very atmospheric, well-designed, and thoroughly playtested. In fact, I would even say that the ~40-page player section of Fatherfog overall is very strong.

This includes, beyond character creation, the basic rules on how to roll dice (d100 roll under for Stat Checks and Saves), the usage and training of Skills, as well as rules on travel, rest, improvement, combat, other possible perils (very minimalistic so far), healing, death, and of course Hope & Despair.

While Mothership used a (or kind of mirrored ALIEN RPG’s) system of building up Stress points that might lead to devastating Panic rolls, Fatherfog - which also calls itself a horror game after all - lets you start with 100 Hope points that PCs will loose when something bad happens. I remember well how Mothership feels like bad things pile upon each other until they just become too much. No idea, though, how Fatherfog will feel in this regards. Loosing too much Hope might let you fail a Hope Save, and thus Despair. The GM section contains 49 different Despair states - all of them interesting and well written - that are told the player privately, when their character despairs, which will make for some fun effects and roleplaying.

Summing up, I’d like to highlight the following impressions in comparison to Mothership, even though I haven’t tested it thoroughly myself: Overall, it seems a bit easier to regenerate Health and Hope in the fog than in outer space. The notes on travel are interesting, and the resting system is downright ingenious: At each rest stop, players choose which of the 5 Resting Activities their character will perform, which results in both positive and negative effects.

Related to the above: It seems much faster to level up characters and have them learn new things. Maybe even too fast. I’m confused by the advice the zine gives that a usual session of Fatherfog will be about 2 hours long. Is this supposed to be kind of quick and easy Pen&Paper party game? I don’t mean that in a negative way; I just think the game doesn’t explain its intentions, so I really don’t know.

On the other hand, the combat system is even faster and deadlier. The game even recommends that players create two characters right from the start - a main character and a backup. I know some of my recurring players won’t find that very amusing and will likely be put off by such a “death threat.” Anyway, the zine includes a good combat example, four sample enemies, as well as a remarkably innovative player-facing dice system that uses a single roll to determine multiple effects. Here, the so-called “Bit” – the ones digit in a d100 roll – is used to determine additional effects.

Example: A player character tries to evade an enemy, rolls for a Save, in which they have 35 points, rolls a 54, and thus fails. The “Bit” is the “4” from the rolled 54. The opponent may now deal 4 points of damage (“Bit damage”) or 14 (for “10+Bit damage”). But instead of dying, you can also strike a deal with the Grim Reaper to return to life with some interesting side effects. Interesting!

All in all: it’s fascinating, well thought out, and I can’t wait for an adventure where I can try it all out.

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Lost in the Fog

As much as I feel overly positive about the player section described above, I’m rather disappointed with the GM section (they’re called Guide in this game). What’s in there, I do like: some of the great advice for running games and listening to players already knows from Mothership’s Warden’s Operations Manual, advice on dealing damage to characters and on how to run monsters and combat, as well as the Legendary Artifacts and Despair states that I praised before. I also like the game’s narrative approach, where combat is meant to be part of the story but not the story itself, which is why it can be resolved so quickly. Tactical depth is achieved through the engaging storytelling of all the characters involved.

But that’s not nearly enough for me to know what to do with this game. Look, I understand Zero Edition is a beta build. Still, it feels like I am missing 10-20 pages that should be there for me to run a few satisfying test sessions of Fatherfog. right now, I still struggle to fully understand what kind of experience the game actually wants me to create at the table.

The Guide section contains good advice, but it never really explains the game’s design principles, intended gameplay loop, or what a typical Fatherfog session is supposed to feel like in practice. There’s no example adventure, no example location, no actual-play style guidance, no generators, and—notably for a game so heavily inspired by folklore—not even a single example fairy tale to anchor its themes. That’s a strange omission for a game whose greatest strength is clearly its specific atmosphere.

Final Thoughts

Honestly, I think it’s a mistake that Fatherfog launches without an introductory adventure that demonstrates its setting and vision in play. Mothership succeeded not just because of its rules, but because adventures like The Haunting of Ypsilon 14, Dead Planet, and later A Pound of Flesh and Gradient Descent, immediately showed referees what the game could be. They provided a shared language of play rooted in strong genre touchstones from horror cinema and science fiction. Fatherfog, by contrast, still feels like a beautiful fog hiding something I can’t quite see yet.

So for now, my recommendation is simple: keep an eye on it. There is potential here, and I absolutely want to play it. I could even see me publishing a 3PP module for it. But personally, I’d probably wait for the first official adventure module and hope it’s as brilliant and defining for Fatherfog as the early modules were for Mothership.

What do you think about Fatherfog?

P.S.: All our our goods from the Ravaged by Storms Kickstarter have finally arrived at our fulfillment center and fulfillment is going to start very soon.

“From pebble to monolith—your journey matters. The Golems have spoken.”

Alexander from Golem Productions