Fatherfog’s creator loves scary fairy tales to bits

It makes sense to assume that the name for Tuesday Knight Games’ latest tabletop RPG, Fatherfog, is a joke. This is the same studio that designed and published space horror sensation, Mothership, after all. But lead designer (and psychology professor) Alan Gerding assured Rascal, po-faced, that it is as sincere as a game’s title can be.“Until now, I've been wholly ignorant that anyone would think it to be a gag title. I should probably be used to a question like this considering I came up with the titles Two Rooms and a Boom, [and] That's Not Lemonade, and had a hand in the development of World Championship Russian Roulette,” Gerding told Rascal via email.

Fatherfog trades its sibling’s science fiction predilections for fairy tales without losing the horror. Its world is smothered by an unnatural fog of unknown origin that spawns monstrous creatures and other inexplicable phenomena that terrorize local populations. Gerding decided against calling the RPG “The Fog” as it evoked too much John Carpenter and ghost pirates. He also didn’t want to include “fairy tale” in the title and unintentionally advertise the wrong tone. This is a game of mystery and suspicion, not happy endings and bright fantasy. 

So, Fatherfog. Gerding is partially trading on the name recognition of Mothership, of course, but it long ago diverged on its own path. The designer said he and Sean McCoy were playtesting a tabletop RPG Gerding created “as my compliments and criticisms to Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay”, which he considers a big inspiration. That early version used a d100 system, limited character attributes, and leaned hard on the consequences for failing dice rolls — which were meant to be "frequent but fair.”