# Monte Cook On Fumble Mechanics



## TerraDave (Feb 16, 2016)

The mechanic he describes is interesting.

But the rational: oh, poor baby roll a 1...I mean why roll dice at all, just win everything always, that would be a good game.


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## lyle.spade (Feb 16, 2016)

In d20 games our house rule is if you roll a 1, you re-roll the die and something interesting happens if you roll a 1-5 on that second roll. I think this is where it's obvious that a good GM will seek to make things interesting and challenging for player through this, rather than just creating problems for them. As for frequency, think of this: if you have a decent firearm and use you at least decent ammunition, you will not get but a few jams, bad loads, or other issues in thousands of rounds fired. Always having fumble on a 1 is accepting that 5% of the time you are going to screw up royally. If I had a weapon that jammed on 1 of 20 rounds, I've got a piece of crap weapon and need a new one. This is why I ask for the second roll to confirm the fumble.

And no, I don't know what the probability is, overall, for fumbles through my house rule - that's not my gaming style. It feels okay; my players are cool with it; and it doesn't slow the game down.


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## JudgeMonroe (Feb 16, 2016)

TerraDave said:


> The mechanic he describes is interesting.
> 
> But the rational: oh, poor baby roll a 1...I mean why roll dice at all, just win everything always, that would be a good game.




That's not a very good characterization of the rationale at all. A roll of 1 on a d20 happens 5% of the time. In almost any RPG, the player characters are by definition exceptional people -- are they going to *fumble*, *screw the pooch*, *bollocks up the whole thing* 5% of the time? Probably not. They'll fail, and *sometimes* they will fail spectacularly, but if we're going to treat 1 in d20 as something special, better to make that something an interesting opportunity instead of some slapstick reversal, right?


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 16, 2016)

Fumble mechanics are ridiculous in a d20 system. If there was a 5% chance of a catastrophe whenever you used a skill, then most people would be dead by the end of the month.

Failure is its own punishment, just as success is its own reward. There's no need to shoe-horn extra special success/failure into a binary pass/fail system.


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## Mortellan (Feb 16, 2016)

I agree Dave,
If you allow crits, especially in a system with possible improved crit chances like D&D, I gotta have a counter balance. 3.5/Pathfinder is especially ridiculous. Criticalling on 1/4 of your attacks is easy to accomplish, but a measly 5% chance to goof up? Boo! 

No fumbles, then no crits.


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## Mortellan (Feb 16, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> Fumble mechanics are ridiculous in a d20 system. If there was a 5% chance of a catastrophe whenever you used a skill, then most people would be dead by the end of the month.
> 
> Failure is its own punishment, just as success is its own reward. There's no need to shoe-horn extra special success/failure into a binary pass/fail system.




Somewhat agree. The difference is skill checks in encounters are under duress so yes there should be screw ups. Skill checks in every day life are always going to be successful at least since 3e skill rules have been around.


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## aka_pg (Feb 16, 2016)

Reminds me of "6x - One Page RPG." For each roll of the die, the positive result is described by the player and a proportionate negative result is decided on by the GM.  4 levels of varying success/failure are agreed upon and the die is rolled.  The example given: 

Zuabi the thief wants to steal the purse of a particularly ostentatious gentleman in the crowd.
1. Success! Zuabi gets away clean with money for a year.
2. Success, but the purse is lighter than expected.
3. Success, but there’s a hole in the bag and a trail of gold leading to Zuabi, could be trouble later.
4. Slippery hands mean no gold, but at least he’s safe.
5. Failure and the constable has taken notice.
6. Failure! The man’s bodyguards seize the boy and drag him into an alley for his due punishment.

Might get tedious, but it really incorporates cooperative story telling.  Perhaps for key plot points, a GM and players might use a similar approach.


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## JudgeMonroe (Feb 16, 2016)

Mortellan said:


> Somewhat agree. The difference is skill checks in encounters are under duress so yes there should be screw ups. Skill checks in every day life are always going to be successful at least since 3e skill rules have been around.




In *skill checks* a natural 20 has no particular significance. All that matter is whether you hit the DC, regardless of how the die rolls. I don't know why you'd introduce a fumble mechanic into that rule.


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## TerraDave (Feb 16, 2016)

JudgeMonroe said:


> That's not a very good characterization of the rationale at all. ...




No, it is. He is talking about "Bruce's" feelings here. 

Yes, the % is high, though as noted in the thread, it is symmetric with critical hits. And its not a simulation, but a game where you want interesting stuff to happen pretty often.

But it was really more the tone. As I said, the actual mechanic is interesting.


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## Mortellan (Feb 16, 2016)

JudgeMonroe said:


> In *skill checks* a natural 20 has no particular significance. All that matter is whether you hit the DC, regardless of how the die rolls. I don't know why you'd introduce a fumble mechanic into that rule.




That's true! Monte doesn't make the distinction either though so I rolled with it.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 16, 2016)

JudgeMonroe said:


> In *skill checks* a natural 20 has no particular significance. All that matter is whether you hit the DC, regardless of how the die rolls. I don't know why you'd introduce a fumble mechanic into that rule.



Because some DMs enjoy describing the PCs as bumbling idiots, and they think that occasionally describing some super cool thing that doesn't matter (on a roll of 20) balances it out.

These DMs have either never _read_ the rules, or think that they can do better. (And if they implement this sort of thing, then they are clearly wrong on the second part.)


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 16, 2016)

I love a lot of what Monte Cook is doing and think the mechanic they have here is a fine one, but I kind of disagree with an underlying point in the article: that laughing at a PC when the player fails the roll will make the player feel bad. For some this may be true. People can have all kinds of reactions to things that go on in the game. But at a table of mature players who understand that 1 in 20 comes up 5% of the time and who don't take what occurs in the game personally, having Bruce's character do something laugh-worthy for the 1 result can be great fun (including for Bruce). Personally, as a player, when I get a very bad result and it leads to hilarity involving my character, I love it. 

Now I will agree with Cook that if you have a particularly sensitive player or the group just takes those kinds of moments too far (perhaps ribbing Bruce through the evening and actually making him feel bad) then by all means, working around it by having something else arise from the fumble would be a smart way to go.


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## Nytmare (Feb 16, 2016)

I've had an on again off again relationship with fumbles since I started playing D&D.  For the most part, when we used them, we preferred systems that weren't just friendly fire crit tables.  I think my favorite to run with was akin to what Monte was describing, when a character fumbled, I'd flip and invert the top card of the Everway fortune/tarot deck and use that as a jumping point to describe the new problem they had to deal with.



TerraDave said:


> But the rational: oh, poor baby roll a 1...I mean why roll dice at all, just win everything always, that would be a good game.




I think that's an oversimplification and exaggeration of what he was trying to say.  He's not cautioning against letting players fail, he's cautioning against treating that 1 in 20 chance as an invitation to ridicule someone.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Feb 16, 2016)

The way I see it, if you want the joy of a natural 20 in combat, you have to take the disappointment of a natural 1.

The dice give and the dice take. As much as we love it when the dice love us, a game where someone succeeded at everything takes away from the spectacular, against the odds successes (also, that person would probably be cheating). Having those lows makes the highs that much more exciting.

One way to get around the "we're all laughing at you" perspective is to let the PC decide what happens to them when they roll a 1, so that they still have some control their narrative. But that's not perfect, either, with some people really getting into it and others just playing lip service.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 16, 2016)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> The way I see it, if you want the joy of a natural 20 in combat, you have to take the disappointment of a natural 1.



A natural 1 is a failure, and that's bad enough already. If you want to get rid of critical hits, though, then that's no real loss. 



Ralif Redhammer said:


> One way to get around the "we're all laughing at you" perspective is to let the PC decide what happens to them when they roll a 1, so that they still have some control their narrative. But that's not perfect, either, with some people really getting into it and others just playing lip service.



This is a violation of the player's role as the character, and entirely inappropriate for any sort of serious Role-Playing Game. It would make more sense in one of those hippy story-telling games, like FATE.


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## Oofta (Feb 16, 2016)

I've always hated the automatic fumble on a 1.  Depending on the game and the build if your character has multiple attacks the odds are that a high level character will roll a 1 every 3-4 rounds (or more often depending on the system/type of attack).  A warrior at the pinnacle of skill should not be dropping his sword or be accidentally stabbing his buddy several times per minute.  
I like 5E's take on it.  A 1 is a miss and a 20 is a good hit, but not a fantastic one.


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## Pauper (Feb 16, 2016)

The big problem I have with this approach is that a 'complication' that only appears on a '1' and not on any other failure result still feels like bonus failure, rather than garden-variety failure. The mechanic relies on the DM being able to provide an interesting complication that doesn't feel like a tacked-on extra hurdle, and let's face it, if you were the sort of DM that could make up interesting yet non-burdening complications at a moment's notice, you wouldn't be running a Monte Cook game whose mechanics are all about making the players feel awesome without you having to do much other than set up the monsters and let the PCs knock them down. You'd be running one of those "hippy story-telling games" Saelorn is talking about.

In games like D&D 3.5 and Pathfinder, where an enterprising player can get his character's attack roll high enough so that a '1' might still hit, using the '1 is an auto-miss' rule seems appropriate and punishing enough. In D&D 4, I've come up with hazardous terrain that gets an extra 'oomph' in its ability to frustrate a PC if the player is unfortunate enough to roll a '1' on a skill check -- goblin alchemy labs and fungus-slicked tidal pools can be great vectors of unintentional comedy. In D&D 5, where bounded accuracy is largely going to enforce the '1' being a miss anyway and where skills and saves don't auto-fail on a '1', I'm OK just letting it be another number on the die.

--
Pauper


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## JudgeMonroe (Feb 16, 2016)

Oofta said:


> I like 5E's take on it.  A 1 is a miss and a 20 is a good hit, but not a fantastic one.




5E simplified the critical hit rules, but no version of D&D has had a fumble mechanic on a natural 1 in the core rules.


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## Banesfinger (Feb 16, 2016)

All arguments about how often (%) a fumble comes up are somewhat moot if the DM makes the monsters suffer the same consequences of rolling a fumble. Tactically, both sides of the combat should suffer the same amount of "1's".


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## Ralif Redhammer (Feb 16, 2016)

Giving my players more engagement and narrative co-op with the game has only increased the fun they're having. I can old-school with the best of them, but there's always room for experimentation and improvement.



Saelorn said:


> This is a violation of the player's role as the character, and entirely inappropriate for any sort of serious Role-Playing Game. It would make more sense in one of those hippy story-telling games, like FATE.


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## JudgeMonroe (Feb 16, 2016)

Banesfinger said:


> All arguments about how often (%) a fumble comes up are somewhat moot if the DM makes the monsters suffer the same consequences of rolling a fumble. Tactically, both sides of the combat should suffer the same amount of "1's".




In Monte's game, monsters don't roll, so all the 1s in a game session are coming off a player's palm as attack or defend actions. So in the context of the OP, the frequency of a 1-roll is very relevant and even more important to avoid the "1-is-fumble" house rule.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 16, 2016)

Banesfinger said:


> All arguments about how often (%) a fumble comes up are somewhat moot if the DM makes the monsters suffer the same consequences of rolling a fumble. Tactically, both sides of the combat should suffer the same amount of "1's".



No, because the consequences of a fumble can extend between encounters, and few monsters ever survive their first encounter with the PCs.

As an extreme example, I once played in a Pathfinder game where the GM house-rules that two consecutive 1s on an attack roll (confirmed with a failure on the third roll) would result in auto-decapitation. Over the course of the campaign, this happened to five enemies and three PCs. The enemies would have been dead in a few rounds anyway, though, and the PCs could otherwise have survived for months of play time.


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## JudgeMonroe (Feb 16, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> No, because the consequences of a fumble can extend between encounters, and few monsters ever survive their first encounter with the PCs.
> 
> As an extreme example, I once played in a Pathfinder game where the GM house-rules that two consecutive 1s on an attack roll (confirmed with a failure on the third roll) would result in auto-decapitation. Over the course of the campaign, this happened to five enemies and three PCs. The enemies would have been dead in a few rounds anyway, though, and the PCs could otherwise have survived for months of play time.




As an extreme example, that's definitely a stupid rule (albeit with odds somewhere south of 400:1 if I'm reading that correctly). Although I think I probably played a game of WFRP where that happened just as a matter of course.


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## Ralif Redhammer (Feb 16, 2016)

And then there's the old MERP fumble table. Never forget the invisible deceased turtle:

View attachment 74629


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 16, 2016)

JudgeMonroe said:


> As an extreme example, that's definitely a stupid rule (albeit with odds somewhere south of 400:1 if I'm reading that correctly). Although I think I probably played a game of WFRP where that happened just as a matter of course.



The third roll is just a basic miss on a normal attack roll, so it works out to roughly 1000:1 on every attack. Of course, this was Pathfinder, so some people were making six attacks per round, and I would roughly estimate 100 attack rolls total over the course of a session (for both sides). Almost negligible over the course of any single session, but multiply that out over a year and it's bound to happen eventually.


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## Chimpy (Feb 16, 2016)

I like the system in the latest Star Wars line of RPGs where rather than a fumble, a "threat" or "despair" roll can mean a narrative shift away from the player's favour in the scene. I like the idea of success or failure being a sliding scale with more possible outcomes, rather than just "yes or no".

(And yes, it happens to the NPCs too.)


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## Jer (Feb 16, 2016)

JudgeMonroe said:


> In Monte's game, monsters don't roll, so all the 1s in a game session are coming off a player's palm as attack or defend actions. So in the context of the OP, the frequency of a 1-roll is very relevant and even more important to avoid the "1-is-fumble" house rule.




Yes.  In a game system where the player always rolls the dice to attack and defend, fumble rules make the game less fun.  Sure you can incorporate crits on your defense to be opponent fumbles, but still the swingyness is more offputting than in a game where you're always rolling attacks.  (And skill check fumbles are generally uninteresting to me - attack rolls aren't a big deal because you make a lot of them, but you only make a relevant skill check with a particular skill a few times per session.  That makes a fumble even more annoying out of combat.)

I personally have stopped using "you fail" as an outcome for PC skill checks in general unless the immediate failure is dramatically interesting.  Instead the PCs almost always "fail up" in my games.  If you make the roll you get the outcome you want.  If you fail the roll and failure is boring you likely get the outcome you want too, it's just that something bad will also happen.  Possibly immediately, or possibly at some point down the road when a complication would be more interesting.  I store up bad karma tokens as a GM and spend them when I feel like it would make an interesting twist.  It makes the game less of a simulation of real life but more of a simulation of a drama and that seems to be a style that works.  Monte's article seems to be suggesting something similar, except that my reading of the Cypher system is that GM intrusion is supposed to be an immediate reaction to the player's bad roll, and I've found that that doesn't work well for me personally - I do better if I have more time to work in the complication.


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## Oofta (Feb 16, 2016)

Banesfinger said:


> All arguments about how often (%) a fumble comes up are somewhat moot if the DM makes the monsters suffer the same consequences of rolling a fumble. Tactically, both sides of the combat should suffer the same amount of "1's".




Not really.  Monsters typically max out at 2-3 attacks with many only having 1 while higher level fighters regularly have 4-6.  In addition, some character builds will have 1 big attack (such as rogues) which will only fumble 1 in 20 rounds where builds that are supposed to the penultimate fighters will fumble ever 3-4 rounds.

Add in classes that never have to roll to hit (e.g. wizards) and suddenly my 20th level two weapon fighter looks like a a bumbling fool that's more dangerous to his compatriots and himself than to the monsters.

At the end of the day, is it really fun to have a character singled out as the guy who regularly fumbles 2-3 times per combat?  Especially if the fumbles are significantly detrimental?

Don't get me wrong - every once in a while if someone is trying to do something very risky/difficult I'll warn them that failure may have dire consequences and go from there.  But it has to be appropriate to the scene.

[EDIT] Note that I'm specifically talking about D&D and it's variants here.  While fumbles have never been officially part of the rules, I've seen plenty of DMs that think they're "fun".


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## Umbran (Feb 16, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> It would make more sense in one of those hippy story-telling games, like FATE.





You might want to stop with the insulting language, like, yesterday.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 16, 2016)

Umbran said:


> You might want to stop with the insulting language, like, yesterday.



FATE is a great game for collaborative story-telling, if that's what you're into. I don't know why anyone takes that as an insult. It's apples-to-oranges with RPGs, though, and there's nothing wrong with that.


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## MReav (Feb 16, 2016)

I read that as "AI is not a fumble"


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## Xethreau (Feb 16, 2016)

As a huge fan of FATE, I think this is the way to handle things in a d20 system.
If you happen to also use 13th Age's "One Unique Thing" rule, (and equate Fate's "Evoke" with Numenera's "Intrusion") then that means that when somebody rolls a 1, you can quickly survey what is unique about this situation and escalate it.
Raising the stakes is pretty much always fun.


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## Psikerlord# (Feb 16, 2016)

I prefer fumbles in combat only in certain circumstances, such as when you're fighting on a bridge (check to fall off!), or when fighting the BBEG (check to not be disarmed) - for general monsters, and general situations, I ignore fumbled attacks for PCs. 

For monsters - assuming the PCs are higher level -  I let the PCs determine the result but limit it to simple things like the PC disarms the monster, or trips it over, or stuns it for a moment (loses it's next action, or PC gets adv on next attack - whatever).


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## delericho (Feb 16, 2016)

I mostly hate fumbles - the result of DMs who both used house rules that made them too common _and_ who went way over the top with the consequences of a fumble. If I'm fumbling 5% of the time (and with my dice, it's seems to be way more than that), I shouldn't be shooting myself in the foot every time.

The one method I do like is the Complications in Firefly (and Cortex+ generally) - if the dice come up a '1' then the GM can choose to pay the player a plot point and then generate a Complication, that then makes later actions more... interesting.


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## sstacks (Feb 16, 2016)

TerraDave said:


> The mechanic he describes is interesting.
> 
> But the rational: oh, poor baby roll a 1...I mean why roll dice at all, just win everything always, that would be a good game.




I agree. The mechanic is interesting, but the idea that we should never ever feel bad kind of gets on my nerves.

Some of the most memorable moments in gaming come from fumbles, just like with crits.

I also agree that if you eliminate fumbles, you should eliminate crits.

That being said, the GM intrusion mechanic itself is interesting and all fine and dandy. I just don't see an overwhelming need for it.


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## sstacks (Feb 16, 2016)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> And then there's the old MERP fumble table. Never forget the invisible deceased turtle:




My favorite fumble of all time.


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## JesterOC (Feb 17, 2016)

Chimpy said:


> I like the system in the latest Star Wars line of RPGs where rather than a fumble, a "threat" or "despair" roll can mean a narrative shift away from the player's favour in the scene. I like the idea of success or failure being a sliding scale with more possible outcomes, rather than just "yes or no".
> 
> (And yes, it happens to the NPCs too.)




This ^^^

In FFG's Star Wars last Friday we twice had both a despair and a triumph happen in the same roll. Triumphs and Despairs are close analogies to Crits and Fumbles. Also these happen regardless of the success or failure of the roll.  
It is fun for the whole table as the player (s) get to decide what they would want for the triumph and the GM gets to decide what he wants the despair to represent (both side must agree of course).


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## Kite474 (Feb 17, 2016)

I'm totally ok with no fumbles.  They never seem to serve anything of value even as a failure mechanism and since it happens 5% of the time it happens often enough to where its annoying.  That and the only reason they seem to be valued at tables is for the 5 seconds of stupid slapstick.


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## Illithidbix (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> Fumble mechanics are ridiculous in a d20 system. If there was a 5% chance of a catastrophe whenever you used a skill, then most people would be dead by the end of the month.
> 
> Failure is its own punishment, just as success is its own reward. There's no need to shoe-horn extra special success/failure into a binary pass/fail system.




Esp. when a lot of high level powers allow you to act quicker, and hence make more checks.

A high level fighter gets to attack multiple times per round... and hence has a higher chance of screwing up per round than a newbie.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Monte's rational is totally ridiculous.  Honestly, it's embarrassing reading this kind of stuff coming from a designer of his stature.  It's like he's writing unintentional parody.  Consider my intentional parody instead:

"Everyone’s sitting around the table, immersed in the Ninth World.  The whole party is in desperate trouble and likely to die in the following round, and unable to think of any other possible solution Bruce’s character is trying to get a strange numenera device with a legendary reputation to work.   The DM asks Bruce to roll versus his character's Insight skill.

Bruce rolls a 20. Everyone at the table woots!  The DM says, “The device suddenly begins to hum and the runes incised deep in its surface begin to glow.   A nimbus of azure light surrounds the whole party!"

It's an exciting moment and we've all been there, but it also has some negative connotations.  Bruce - the player, not the character remember - didn't actually do anything right.  Rolling a 20 isn't actually his fault, per se.  And if GM incorporates some sort of success into the narrative - that Bruce's character did something incredibly lucky or revelatory, Bruce feels a hollow sense of success that isn't really associated with anything he did. 

Which wouldn't be the end of the world if it only happened once..."

Seriously?  Why are we relying on random fortune to determine the outcome of actions in a story it all if we are really worried about whether Bruce's feelings might be hurt when he fails a dice roll, or that Bruce might feel a thrill of vicarious exhilaration when a mere dice roll determines he succeeds. 

And how are the two really any different?  Aren't they figuratively and perhaps even literally depending on our fortune mechanic, two sides of the same coin?  You lost the coin toss.  You won the coin toss.  If it is irrational to feel bad when you lose to random chance, surely it's equally irrational to feel good when you succeed.  And surely you cannot expect to have one without the other?

Monte declares: 



> "This is important because we don’t want to run games that “punish” players for rolling bad."




Wait... what?   Do we also not want to run games that reward players for rolling well?   How is that supposed to work anyway?  Why bother rolling the dice if we don't want to generate a spectrum that ranges from success to failure?   Surely sometimes if it is appropriate to determine whether someone succeeded or failed, it is also appropriate to determine whether someone dismally failed or spectacularly succeeded?  I mean if we are not stuck on a D20 mechanic and we've actually had vast experience with different sorts of game systems, then we have to know that many games aren't geared to creating binary pass/fail results, but rather do the idea of a degree of success as a matter of course.

I kind of understand where Monte thinks he's going with this because its really not discussing fumbles at all but his specific system and he's encouraging GMs to be more creative in determining what abject failure looks like in a way that is maybe less consistently denigrating toward the character/player, but I think fundamentally you can't avoid the idea of failure by calling it a 'complication'.   It's merely renaming something to make it sound less harsh without actually making any real difference in what it is.   Words like moron and imbecile were invented to be technical medical terms for stupidity in the hopes making them less stigmatizing, but then of course those words themselves became insults of great efficiency.  And likewise, mentally retarded was intended to replace those older clinical terms with a newer more clinical term, but now if someone wants to be insulting they are more likely to get verbal punch from their insults by naming someone mentally retarded than simply stupid.

Calling it a 'complication' rather than a fumble doesn't make GM insertion into the scene to create a special class of extreme failure anything other than what it actually is, nor is it any less ridiculous to think that it will be received as anything other than an especially dismal failure that makes everything worse.  Nor indeed is it any less ridiculous to think that we need to protect player's feelings from the dice delivering undesired failures to them, whether we call these failures fumbles or not.   Of course failure stings.  And of course, since it comes from a die roll, it's often not your fault and you can't do anything about it.

But are we a bunch of babies that can't deal with that fact?  I mean seriously, don't we all about age 5 outgrow the feeling that a game is unfair when it deals to us setbacks?   How do you manage to play Monopoly or Settlers of Cataan, much less an RPG if you aren't capable of dealing with the inherent unfairness of a random dice roll?



> "So in our interaction between Bruce’s character and the NPC, the 1 might indicate that some other NPC has suddenly shown up and called away the fellow with the device Bruce wanted to take a look at. Or maybe the NPC just wants Bruce to do a favor before he gives him what he wants. Or maybe the NPC shows Bruce’s character the device, but it’s not at all what Bruce was expecting. These aren’t fumbles, they’re complications, and they can open the door to even more interesting situations in the game."




No whatever spin you want to put on it, these are fumbles and they can open the door to even more interesting situations in the game.

Now, I grant that sometimes in gaming history there have been fumble tables or rules which are more ridiculous than helpful, and individual GMs that without guidelines still insert ridiculous complications on every fumble or failure even when they aren't running a game of Paranoia.  But that doesn't abuse the general concept, only specific applications thereof.  

And as for protecting a players feelings, in my experience players get themselves into ridiculous escapades and do things that make everyone else at the table laugh at their expense quite without the help of the dice.  If you haven't been that player that narrates a set of actions that ultimately result in more farce than the desired heroic moment of awesomeness yet, just give it a while - your turn will come.  Be the guy that laughs about it afterwards secure in at least you were entertaining and knowing you won't be the only one.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> No, because the consequences of a fumble can extend between encounters, and few monsters ever survive their first encounter with the PCs.




This is true but I think few people seem to talk about how its fundamentally true of critical hits as well.   For NPCs largely foreordained to be defeated anyway, whether the PC's do it in 2 rounds or 3 is hardly a matter of great consequence.   But for the PC's who most survive battle after battle, being subject to random critical hits can be hugely swingy and is generally equivalent to having a mechanic that introduces random deaths in to your game.  That the frost giant gets ganked by a PC is of no particular consequence.   When the frost giant turns a PC rather suddenly into jelly, then that's no less a "fumble" than if your game has a fumble mechanic that results in auto-decapitation. 

Yet people oddly tolerate one and not the other.  Indeed, players oddly advocate for one and not the other.   At this point, I can't even remove critical hits from a system because players enjoy them so much - quite against their own interests in my opinion.  Instead I have to introduce mechanics that unequally allow players to mitigate critical hits (and fumbles) more than the NPCs.

None of this is meant to justify actual results on a table that indicate self-decapitation at high enough odds we can calculate the chance, since this results in a silly game (unless of course a silly comedy game is exactly the intent).


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## chibi graz'zt (Feb 17, 2016)

High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do not fumble. Nuff said.


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## Curmudjinn (Feb 17, 2016)

We had a random happenings table , houserule of course, that contained a lot of minor things but the highest chance was for a 1 damage success with consequences. I love the You Succeed, But.. concept.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

chibi graz'zt said:


> High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do not fumble. Nuff said.




Hon Solo begs to differ.

Also, when it comes to gamifying the epic fantasy quest, if those high fantasy heroes can't fumble, they players also can't meaningfully succeed.


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## SkidAce (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> This is a violation of the player's role as the character, and entirely inappropriate for any sort of serious Role-Playing Game. It would make more sense in one of those hippy story-telling games, like FATE.




I like D&D and I like FATE.

I was born in the 60s, and hippy is not a derogatory term.


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## SkidAce (Feb 17, 2016)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> And then there's the old MERP fumble table. Never forget the invisible deceased turtle:
> 
> View attachment 74629




Thats a classic quote "invisible turtle", with our group.


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## Lanefan (Feb 17, 2016)

We have fumbles...have had since day 1*.  Crits too.  And you can fumble with anything requiring aim or co-ordination enough to force a d20 roll, which includes many spells.

But crits and fumbles each happen considerably less than 5% of the time, because each has a confirm roll attached.

For fumbles it's '1' on d20 (or higher if negative modifiers would bring it down to '1' or less) then '1' on d6 to fumble.

Then it's d% on a table with effects ranging from common and trivial (e.g. d4 damage to self) to less common but annoying (e.g. drop or throw weapon) to rare and bloody dangerous (e.g. full crit to self or friend)

* - though the effects table has been tweaked now and then, the base 1/d20 then 1/d6 fumble mechanic was one of the very first house rules our crew put into 1e - and it hasn't changed since.

Lan-"if people aren't laughing at me when I play this game I'm doing it wrong"-efan


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## Umbran (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> FATE is a great game for collaborative story-telling, if that's what you're into. I don't know why anyone takes that as an insult. It's apples-to-oranges with RPGs, though, and there's nothing wrong with that.





A few things - 

1) If you have questions about moderation, please take it to e-mail or PM.  People can get banned for arguing over moderation in-thread.  Please don't do it.

2) You really want us to believe that you honestly don't think calling it a "hippy story-telling game" was not intended to be disparaging?  Fine, I will play it your way.  Please listen to the moderators when they tell you that something *is* insulting, and adjust your approach, rather than argue with us about it.  Your readers find it insulting.  Please stop.

3) I believe you have been informed before, that the construction is effectively the same as the edition warrior's "Game X is not an RPG."*  You have been told that you are not actually an authority that gets to make such declarations.  Doing so comes across as both arrogant and judgmental.  The act of trying to define people and their games out of a realm is pretty darned rude.  On top of that, in terms of logical fallacies, it is actually a form of "no true Scotsman" ("no true roleplayer") - you are effectively hiding the rhetorical weakness of your position behind the emotional reaction you elicit from the reader.  



*Edition wars are actually a subset of the general case of "dichotomy war" - old school/new school, 3e/4e, sandbox/railroad, storytelling/RPG - all these are human-constructed, artificial dichotomies that are often discussed as if they are distinct black-and-white, polar opposites.  One more way to divide gamers into "us" and "them".  We are tired of it, and don't have much patience for it being used.  You *claim* it is apples and oranges, but you are incorrect - the games have more similarities than differences, you simply discount the similarities.


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## R_Chance (Feb 17, 2016)

One thing I have considered as opposed to a fumble per se is to give the target an action. Call it an "opening". A chance to counter attack, attempt a disarm, carry the attack off line (causing the original attacker to miss his next attack), move 5' without penalty (from the original attacker), etc. All requiring a die roll / check to succeed.  This could be considered "worse than a fumble", but it does require the opponent to attempt something (and they may, or may not, succeed). It also makes sense in the flow of combat. To me anyway. I haven't tried this, but the idea has knocked around my head for a bit. The opposite of this could replace the critical as well. One downside I can think of is the increased complexity of combat interaction. Of course some people might find that to be a good thing... additionally if the game you are playing has AoO it could get even more complex. Or just plain messy


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## wedgeski (Feb 17, 2016)

I don't have fumble tables or anything of the kind, but I must admit the temptation to throw a curve-ball at someone who rolls a nat-1 is impossible to resist, in the same way that turning a nat-20 into something memorable is impossible to resist.


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## wedgeski (Feb 17, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> No whatever spin you want to put on it, these are fumbles and they can open the door to even more interesting situations in the game.



Opening the box and finding something on fire when you expected to find gold is not the same as the whole table jeering at you when you roll a 1, and the DM gleefully unrolling his six page fumble table and demanding a d%. That's the difference the author is arguing, not some subtle point of definition.


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## Chimpy (Feb 17, 2016)

I think "Interesting Complications" are much better than detrimental fumbles. Also, complications can occur on any skill check, not just a combat one.


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## pemerton (Feb 17, 2016)

Ralif Redhammer said:


> The way I see it, if you want the joy of a natural 20 in combat, you have to take the disappointment of a natural 1.



I don't really see why.

In 1st ed AD&D a roll of 1 on a saving throw always fails, but there is no rule that a natural 20 always succeeds. Symmetry doesn't have any particular virtue in this domain that I can see.

Allowing a nat 20 in combat to be a critical hit is basically giving the damage output of attacks a non-linear range - it's mostly linear but with a spike at one extreme. Whether or not this is a good mechanic - and in my experience with it in 4e it doesn't seem to do any harm - is independent of whether or not there is some corresponding spike at the bottom of the "miss" range.

I've played a lot of RM (which is where the MERP table has its origins), and it is not symmetrical at all. In RM, nearly all successful attacks trigger rolls on a crit table, but only a small number of failed attacks trigger rolls on the fumble table.

I really don't think the symmetry you call for has any special significance in designing RPG mechanics.


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## delericho (Feb 17, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I don't really see why.
> 
> ...
> 
> I really don't think the symmetry you call for has any special significance in designing RPG mechanics.




Yep, I agree with this. Symmetry has a certain attraction to the bit of me that likes things neat and orderly, but I've seen enough to realise that "neat and orderly" isn't necessarily a virtue in game design.


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## Morrus (Feb 17, 2016)

delericho said:


> Yep, I agree with this. Symmetry has a certain attraction to the bit of me that likes things neat and orderly, but I've seen enough to realise that "neat and orderly" isn't necessarily a virtue in game design.




Me too. Symmetry is a perfectly normal human aesthetic preference, but that's all it is. Symmetrical things aren't necessarily the best things. Whatever works for the game, not whatever satisfies my need for symmetry!


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## Sadras (Feb 17, 2016)

delericho said:


> Symmetry has a certain attraction to the bit of me that likes things neat and orderly, but I've seen enough to realise that "neat and orderly" isn't necessarily a virtue in game design.




Exactly, Quadratic Wizards were fun....remember all that crazy talk about needing class balance, so much poppy-cock!


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## Cor Azer (Feb 17, 2016)

To be fair, there is symmetry - both PCs and NPCs can score critical hits.


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## Aldarc (Feb 17, 2016)

I find some of the harsh criticism of Monte Cook's article to be unwarranted, as the criticism seems divorced from the medium and context: i.e. a friendly, light-weight article on the MCG website meant to promote the MCG Cypher System design philosophy. It's not a scathing indictment of the critical fumble that people make it out to be. After all, the article begins with a prefacing note that "it’s a funny moment, and we’ve all been there" before also noting that the natural 1/critical fumble "has _*some*_ negative connotations," which it undoubtedly does. It may have been too absolute to say "Bruce feels bad" instead of "Bruce may feel bad." And one may say that he moved the argument to a position of feels, which some gamers likely believe to be irrelevant, but it is something which a smart party and GM should be cognizant about since it affects group dynamics. It does not affect everyone or every group the same way, but it should be monitored, especially if it has a long-term negative impact on player enjoyment. 

Also, one may argue that if the Natural 1 is no longer a critical fumble, then the Natural 20 should not be a critical or automatic hit. Okay. Well, perhaps it would help to know more about the Cypher System first, since a Natural 20 is _*not*_ an automatic success like it is in some systems. One can roll a Natural 20 and still fail to hit the Level 7+ monster. The only "automatic success" in the game is if you lower the difficulty rating of a check to 0, as in you don't have to bother rolling at all. And a Natural 20 is only a "critical" to the extent that it gives the player the option of either +4 damage or a major effect (temporary blind, disarm, etc.). But players also receive a +1 damage bonus on a Natural 17, a +2 damage bonus on a Natural 18, and a +3 damage bonus or minor effect on a Natural 19. There is no symmetry with the d20 roll in the Cypher System. 

Furthermore, rolling a Natural 1 is not a critical fumble/failure, nor should it be treated as one in the context of the Cypher System. A GM intrusion, however, represents a greater degree of narrative flexibility in convey that Natural 1. If all Natural 1s are critical fumbles and automatic failures, then that limits the narrative. But a GM intrusion can not only be a critical fumble but also a myriad host of other narrative complications. The player may even succeed at that skill check with that Natural 1, but in the process alert the attention of the guards.


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## Gargoyle (Feb 17, 2016)

I get what Monte is saying.  They aren't always fun for players or DMs, and they aren't always as fun as we remember them in hindsight.

Critical fumbles can be great fun and everyone has a story about how Joe the Barbarian accidentally cut off the head of Bob the cleric, or how Sheila shot Paul while shooting into melee, or how a botched spell caused the fireball to ignite on the party.  Good times.... at least, in nostalgia, maybe not at the time.  My problem is when they are too frequent or they are too damaging or both.  Players shouldn't be too upset to roll a 1 because over the course of a campaign they are going to roll at lot of them.  Also chances are, one player will roll worse than others and suffer most of the effects of fumbles, and depending on their personality it might be very annoying to them.

Five percent of the time is too often, as players typically roll a lot of attacks, especially the non casters.  Systems that require one to confirm the critical are better, but you run the risk of never seeing a fumble at higher levels when hitting is easy.  A saving throw or ability check to avoid the fumble might be better.  

The other problem is that of fumbles that are too damaging.  When limbs are being cut off, or player characters killed, it may raise a chuckle 10 years later, but at the time, it's often not as fun.  It's also jarring and non-heroic when hordes of orcs barely dent your group but your healer struggles to reattach the leg that just got cut off by an errant battle axe, or the super genius wizard never gets a spell to work all night.  Better to have those accidental hits strike NPC's or perhaps have weapons blunted to do less damage temporarily or some other less serious outcome, or for spells just add some wild magic style effect.

As a DM I neither embrace nor outlaw fumbles and go with rulings over rules.  If a player character rolls a 1 and I think of something interesting to happen, it happens.  Same with a roll like a 2 or 3.  I might let the make an ability check to avoid or mitigate the outcome.  Or I might just say "you miss" and move along.  The risk of course is that I might appear unfair, but I haven't had that complaint yet and it keeps things moving and still allows for some unpredictability, so it works for our table.  If an NPC rolls a 1, there is much more of a chance for a fumble, and certainly if I think of something entertaining.


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## steeldragons (Feb 17, 2016)

I'd really like to know how a player rolling a one is supposed to be see as equivalent to "GM intrusion"?

I also find the premise "we don't want to 'punish' players for rolling badly" to be flawed. Why not?! You give them extra special bonus goodies for rolling well. It's called a critical hit. Why shouldn't rolling badly have bad things happen? First of all, NEITHER is "the player rolling." It's a die roll. It's a game of chance. Random occurrance.

The "player" is no more responsible for it happening than the DM is "punishing" anyone by saying "X happens on a 1." 

Just more of this cockamamey world in which no one is ever supposed to lose and everyone is supposed to think that only good things happen and/or THEY, specifically and in all cases, are supposed to have "good things" happen to them.

And three, if one is necessary, it's a GAME! Thicken your damned skin and grow the hell up. The DM is not "punishing" you. The player is not "responsible" for the die roll. Not to mention, the CONSEQUENCES of that die roll...ARE. NOT. REAL.

This entire subject is nonsense overwrought thinking.


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## Panda-s1 (Feb 17, 2016)

I think my only beef with 1 = fumble was back in my 3.x days, every DM I had treated this as RAW. And being so widely believed, it was hard to convince any DM I knew otherwise :/ This wouldn't be so bad, but like Monte says this was largely an excuse to make fun of characters, and this combined with the commonly mistaken belief that you can only use a skill if trained, put them in some unrealistically slapstick situations (really there were a lot of rules misconstrued as RAW that made my early RPG days miserable, but that's another story...).

Like I understand the need to make things upsetting, you literally did the worst job possible, but if you roll a 1 and still pass the check I don't see why that has to fumble every time. Thankfully I know more sensible players these days, so rolling a 1 usually just means doing a poor job in my current game.


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## Maxperson (Feb 17, 2016)

TerraDave said:


> No, it is. He is talking about "Bruce's" feelings here.
> 
> Yes, the % is high, though as noted in the thread, it is symmetric with critical hits. And its not a simulation, but a game where you want interesting stuff to happen pretty often.
> 
> But it was really more the tone. As I said, the actual mechanic is interesting.




Cook also conflates consequence with punishment.  A fumble and the result is a consequence, not a punishment.  There is a difference.


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## Maxperson (Feb 17, 2016)

Oofta said:


> I've always hated the automatic fumble on a 1.  Depending on the game and the build if your character has multiple attacks the odds are that a high level character will roll a 1 every 3-4 rounds (or more often depending on the system/type of attack).  A warrior at the pinnacle of skill should not be dropping his sword or be accidentally stabbing his buddy several times per minute.
> I like 5E's take on it.  A 1 is a miss and a 20 is a good hit, but not a fantastic one.




What we did was that once you hit 6th level, you had to roll a second time with the result of 10 or under to fumble.  At 11th level that second roll had to be a 5 or under.  At 16th level you had to roll two consecutive 1's to fumble.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> And one may say that he moved the argument to a position of feels, which some gamers likely believe to be irrelevant, but it is something which a smart party and GM should be cognizant about since it affects group dynamics. It does not affect everyone or every group the same way, but it should be monitored, especially if it has a long-term negative impact on player enjoyment.




I don't find emotions to be irrelevant at all.  But what I would criticize the article for is seeming to validate a very immature emotional response.  Granted, it seems to want to do that in preference to some other equally immature emotional response - mocking your fellow players for failure - but going the other direction is probably no more functional, and in most cases the ribbing and teasing at the table tends to be rather good natured.  Failing to separate out good natured ribbing from ill-tempered or arrogant mockery fails to understand the problem, and more over attempting to fix a problem with the social contract by some mechanical in game artifice is just doomed to failure.  Problems in the game can be fixed with mechanics, but problems that are external to the game - like some player seeing the point of play being to express his superiority to the other people that are present and to abuse them emotionally - can't really be fixed by fiddling with the mechanics.   No end of problems at a table are owed to treating out of game problems with in game solutions, or in game problems with out of game solutions.



> Also, one may argue that if the Natural 1 is no longer a critical fumble, then the Natural 20 should not be a critical or automatic hit.




That's not at all what I'm arguing.  What I'm arguing is that success and failure are two sides of the same coin, and have to be accepted together in any sort of mature game.  There is nothing inherently bad about the idea of fumbling.  Indeed, there is nothing inherently bad about the idea of bumbling.  My example of Hon Solo was not chosen at random, as one of the things that marks his character (at least in the original trilogy) is that he's all the time fumbling and all the time dealing with failure.  He basically fails every 'fast talking' roll he ever tries.  He comes across as extremely competent at times and yet at other times he fails a Stealth check and gets backhanded in the face.  The exact mechanics of how a system does this are irrelevant to the point.



> Furthermore, rolling a Natural 1 is not a critical fumble/failure, nor should it be treated as one in the context of the Cypher System. A GM intrusion, however, represents a greater degree of narrative flexibility in convey that Natural 1. If all Natural 1s are critical fumbles and automatic failures, then that limits the narrative. But a GM intrusion can not only be a critical fumble but also a myriad host of other narrative complications. The player may even succeed at that skill check with that Natural 1, but in the process alert the attention of the guards.




All of which is just semantic gloss for the practical effect that rolling a 1 is a fumble in the system.  The nature of this fumble may be very broadly defined to basically anything that the GM may wish to invent, but it is a fumble nonetheless.   Indeed, it could be said that in general a player might find this system to be the most extreme sorts of fumbles imaginable - worse in some fashion than a table of results.  For even more so than a table of results, the mechanic ensures that a roll of 1 carries with it some reality warping jinx that creates complications in the fiction even where no complications were previously present in the stakes.


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## Morrus (Feb 17, 2016)

steeldragons said:


> I'd really like to know how a player rolling a one is supposed to be see as equivalent to "GM intrusion"?




I'm not sure I fully understand the question, but "GM Intrusion" is the name of a specific mechanic in the Cypher System. It's their name for a complication whereby the GM injects something new into the encounter.



> And three, if one is necessary, it's a GAME! Thicken your damned skin and grow the hell up. The DM is not "punishing" you. The player is not "responsible" for the die roll. Not to mention, the CONSEQUENCES of that die roll...ARE. NOT. REAL.




Calm down, please.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

steeldragons said:


> I'd really like to know how a player rolling a one is supposed to be see as equivalent to "GM intrusion"?




In the system in question, it is.  In the Cypher system, if you roll a 1, the GM may intrude into the fiction to create a complication of his devising.  Monte wants to assert that this isn't a fumble, and he wants to open up the idea that this intrusion need not always highlight the personal failure of the character but can take the form of bad luck of some sort.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 17, 2016)

As has been said by others, the problem Monte Cook is pointing out is there - but his justification is silly. 1/20 Fumbles are an issue, especially if you have multiple attacks for high skill.

Personally I've been using "Double or nothing" fumbles since 4e Dark Sun. If you roll a natural 1 it's a failure. But you then _may_ reroll simply because it's a natural 1. If on your reroll you succeed, you succeed. If on your reroll you fail then that's a fumble (in DS your sword breaks). Which means that if you're fighting 13th orc spear carrier you are probably playing it safe and you won't fumble. But if you're fighting a dragon and are pulling out all the stops then you are more likely to choose to take the extra risk. Choice is key to agency.

(Likewise crits work well the same way - on a 20 you can decide to take the hit or you can decide double or nothing.)


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Chimpy said:


> I think "Interesting Complications" are much better than detrimental fumbles. Also, complications can occur on any skill check, not just a combat one.




Well, it is certainly a term that is more attune with human psychology.  It's been shown repeatedly that you can take the exact same mechanic and depending on whether you call it a penalty or a benefit, people will respond to it completely differently.  Reading a history of World of Warcraft's fatigue mechanic could be informative here.


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## Xethreau (Feb 17, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> In the system in question, it is.  In the Cypher system, if you roll a 1, the GM may intrude into the fiction to create a complication of his devising.  Monte wants to assert that this isn't a fumble, and he wants to open up the idea that this intrusion need not always highlight the personal failure of the character but can take the form of bad luck of some sort.




Right. Some of the best examples of which are when a character or object has a special quality that is hard to quantify in game mechanics. For example, if you roll a 1 your Nausicaa-style wind glider may glitch up, or the bizarre mutterings of that creepy extra-dimensional mega owl might start to make sense and infect your brain. 

These things are of no fault of the player-character, but are certainly worthwhile consequences in every sense.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Xethreau said:


> Right. Some of the best examples of which are when a character or object has a special quality that is hard to quantify in game mechanics. For example, if you roll a 1 your Nausicaa-style wind glider may glitch up, or the bizarre mutterings of that creepy extra-dimensional mega owl might start to make sense and infect your brain.
> 
> These things are of no fault of the player-character, but are certainly worthwhile consequences in every sense.




I don't disagree with that, but they are also certainly fumbles in every sense as well.


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## delericho (Feb 17, 2016)

steeldragons said:


> This entire subject is nonsense overwrought thinking.




It's really not. Because player psychology impacts on their enjoyment of the game, and the more players enjoy a game the more likely they are to play it again and again. As game designers, then, Monte and his team are wise to consider such things.

As for critical fumbles, two things: firstly, they're really easy for people who want them to house rule them in; while secondly, people who don't like them seem to _really_ dislike them. That says to me the way to go is to leave them out, and then potentially offer an optional Fumbles deck (or just direct players at the Paizo one).


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## DEFCON 1 (Feb 17, 2016)

Every game is different.  Some probably work better without "fumbles", some are intricate to gameplay.  The D&D system with the 5% chance of rolling a '1' is probably not a great system to use critical fumbles, unless the "fumbles" are fairly minor just like critical hits are fairly minor in a bit extra damage.  Which explains why a lot of tables (as we have seen here) add extra rolls on top of the '1' to get true critical errors.

But there is definitely something to be said for game systems that incorporate fumbles directly into the game.  The Ghostbusters RPG is famous for that... for having the 'Ghost Die' that replaced the six with the Ghost logo symbol.  You always had to roll the Ghost Die as one of however many dice you were rolling for what you were doing, and when the ghost appeared (basically 1 in every 6 rolls), a complication was going to occur.  If you succeeded in your action while also rolling the Ghost, you did what you wanted but something odd also occurred... and if you rolled the Ghost and also failed, then something ridiculously bad went off.  Now, considering the RPG was a humorous game we're talking Bugs Bunny styled complications and fumbles (so for instance, Walter Peck getting drenched in marshmellow at the end of the movie would probably have been a failed dodge check plus a Ghost), but they were an expected part of the game and built directly into it.  So critical fumbles are not inherently a bad thing... they just have to be adjusted for the system they are used in and what kind of results a DM is looking to have for his players.


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## steeldragons (Feb 17, 2016)

delericho said:


> It's really not. Because player psychology impacts on their enjoyment of the game, and the more players enjoy a game the more likely they are to play it again and again. As game designers, then, Monte and his team are wise to consider such things.




Or ...is it more wise to consider that there is no "player psychology" that is quantifiable and formulaic in such a fashion. That tables are as likely (if, unfortunately, moreso in some places) to have a player who would flip their chair at the idea of the GM just making up something "bad" to happen to in the situation off the cuff vs. the GM saying "this action has this consequence that we all know about and agree upon" [i.e. a Fumble chart], as they are players who are fine with a GM "intruding" on the [player's side] fiction in such a manner instead of letting the dice dictate the outcome.


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## delericho (Feb 17, 2016)

steeldragons said:


> Or ...is it more wise to consider that there is no "player psychology" that is quantifiable and formulaic in such a fashion.




No. If playtests indicate that your players don't like a particular mechanic (for _any_ reason, and even if the maths show that it's a perfectly good mechanic), the designer should probably rethink what he's doing.

Things don't have to be quantifiable and formulaic to be real.


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## Aldarc (Feb 17, 2016)

steeldragons said:


> I'd really like to know how a player rolling a one is supposed to be see as equivalent to "GM intrusion"?



How is a player rolling a 1 equivalent of a critical fumble? It's simply an artificial mechanic of the game system. 



> I also find the premise "we don't want to 'punish' players for rolling badly" to be flawed. *Why not?!* You give them extra special bonus goodies for rolling well. It's called a critical hit. Why shouldn't rolling badly have bad things happen? First of all, NEITHER is "the player rolling." It's a die roll. It's a game of chance. Random occurrance.



Because they don't want that sort of punishment for their system. Why does it need to be more complicated than that? For the record, it's not called a "critical hit" in the Cypher System. Rolls 1 and 17-20 are simply called "special rolls." And rolling a Natural 1 can result in bad things happening as a consequence of the GM Intrusion. 



> Just more of this cockamamey world in which no one is ever supposed to lose and everyone is supposed to think that only good things happen and/or THEY, specifically and in all cases, are supposed to have "good things" happen to them.
> 
> And three, if one is necessary, it's a GAME! Thicken your damned skin and grow the hell up. The DM is not "punishing" you. The player is not "responsible" for the die roll. Not to mention, the CONSEQUENCES of that die roll...ARE. NOT. REAL.
> 
> This entire subject is nonsense overwrought thinking.



This seems hyperbolically hostile toward someone else's preferred game style and tone. It does not mean that no one should lose. If you think so, you may be reading too much into what Monte Cook is saying. A Natural 1, for example, may introduce a complication (e.g. more guards) that does result in a PK or other more severe complications other than a simple "critical fumble." 



Celebrim said:


> I don't find emotions to be irrelevant at all.  But what I would criticize the article for is seeming to validate a very immature emotional response.  Granted, it seems to want to do that in preference to some other equally immature emotional response - mocking your fellow players for failure - but going the other direction is probably no more functional, and in most cases the ribbing and teasing at the table tends to be rather good natured.  Failing to separate out good natured ribbing from ill-tempered or arrogant mockery fails to understand the problem, and more over attempting to fix a problem with the social contract by some mechanical in game artifice is just doomed to failure.  Problems in the game can be fixed with mechanics, but problems that are external to the game - like some player seeing the point of play being to express his superiority to the other people that are present and to abuse them emotionally - can't really be fixed by fiddling with the mechanics.   No end of problems at a table are owed to treating out of game problems with in game solutions, or in game problems with out of game solutions.



I would disagree that this article "is seeming to validate a very immature emotional response." Frustration is a natural feeling for players at the game table, and I don't think that it is an immature emotional response. I don't think that Monte Cook conflates "good natured ribbing" with "ill-tempered or arrogant mockery." _Again_, as Monte Cook in the article says early on, "It’s a funny moment, and we’ve all been there..." He clearly recognizes that there is often good-natured ribbing involved with the Natural 1. But game mechanics do affect the tone of the game and how they are played. Some game mechanics, particularly in some co-op board games (game vs. player), engender a sense of urgency. And this does impact the players themselves. For me, the GM Intrusion does not exist as a miracle cure-all for this ribbing, whether good- or ill-natured, but it is meant to shift the tone of _their game_ away from a particular cultural norm surrounding the d20 Natural 1 roll. 



> *That's not at all what I'm arguing.* What I'm arguing is that success and failure are two sides of the same coin, and have to be accepted together in any sort of mature game.  There is nothing inherently bad about the idea of fumbling.  Indeed, there is nothing inherently bad about the idea of bumbling.  My example of Hon Solo was not chosen at random, as one of the things that marks his character (at least in the original trilogy) is that he's all the time fumbling and all the time dealing with failure.  He basically fails every 'fast talking' roll he ever tries.  He comes across as extremely competent at times and yet at other times he fails a Stealth check and gets backhanded in the face.  The exact mechanics of how a system does this are irrelevant to the point.



I don't recall pointing fingers at anyone, Celebrim, nor did I intend to do so. So I apologize if you felt that my post was directly primarily at you. I read the thread, and I responded to a collective sense regarding some of the criticism, which I find to be unduly unfair to the system and the thrust of Monte Cook's argument. 

Failure is a part of the game. And one can fail in this game. It just does not have to be symmetrical, nor is success and failure symmetrical in this game. As I have said, there are no auto-successes (apart from the 0 TN) and there are no auto-failures. To that extent, success and failure are symmetrical. The only difference is that there are not corresponding penalties for low rolls (e.g. -3 points of damage or a minor failure effect for rolling a 2) as there are for high rolls (e.g. +3 points of damage or a minor effect for rolling a 19). 

Now, in your Han Solo example one could easily say that Han Solo's Natural 1 does not represent a critical fumble, but a complication introduced by a GM Intrusion. He attempted to open a blast door - rolled a 1 - but the GM decides that his tinkering instead caused a secondary blast door to also seal itself. It's also possible that Han Solo is not rolling Natural 1s and auto-failures in these occasions you list, but is simply failing his checks. Are you sure that Han Solo is rolling a 1? What if he is just rolling a 2? Is that not also a potential Stealth check failure that would get him noticed? 



> All of which is just semantic gloss for the practical effect that rolling a 1 is a fumble in the system.  The nature of this fumble may be very broadly defined to basically anything that the GM may wish to invent, but it is a fumble nonetheless.   Indeed, it could be said that in general a player might find this system to be the most extreme sorts of fumbles imaginable - worse in some fashion than a table of results.  For even more so than a table of results, the mechanic ensures that a roll of 1 carries with it some reality warping jinx that creates complications in the fiction even where no complications were previously present in the stakes.



You are welcome to call it a semantic gloss if it makes you feel better, but those "semantic glosses" matter as they impact the tone, narrative, and flexibility of the system. I'm not sure, however, how the GM Intrusion is a "reality warping jinx" anymore than the "critical fumble." You roll a one, resulting in you forgetting how to attack with your weapon and cause severe harm to another player? The GM Intrusion should be within the parameters of narrative verisimilitude. As I said before (as well as Monte Cook in his article says), a GM Intrusion in some cases may entail what amounts to a "critical fumble," if the GM deems that appropriate for the scenario. But the point that Monte Cook is making is simply that _within the rules of the Cypher System_, a Natural 1 is not inherently an automatic failure. And this rule assumption is, once again, in the same system in which a Natural 20 is not an automatic success either, as it is in other systems.


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## RotGrub (Feb 17, 2016)

> I remember one character accidentally shooting a fellow character in the back of the head and killing him.




That sounds like great fun.   That is the very kind of thing that makes D&D so much fun.   D&D is not limited to a typical heroic storyline, anything can happen to anyone at any time.   

My group has used fumbles since 1e.      I agree that 5% is a bit too high,  that's why my group usually requires an ability check or a saving throw on a natural 1.   Of course, we also use critical failures for skill checks too.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 17, 2016)

delericho said:


> It's really not. Because player psychology impacts on their enjoyment of the game, and the more players enjoy a game the more likely they are to play it again and again. As game designers, then, Monte and his team are wise to consider such things.
> 
> As for critical fumbles, two things: firstly, they're really easy for people who want them to house rule them in; while secondly, people who don't like them seem to _really_ dislike them. That says to me the way to go is to leave them out, and then potentially offer an optional Fumbles deck (or just direct players at the Paizo one).





How does one design an actual game if any mechanic that might result in losing is rejected because some players may have their enjoyment impacted? 

Based on that premise designing a game would be a nightmare.Imagine this conversation at Parker Brothers:

" In Monopoly we will have to change the rules to make going bankrupt impossible. In testing many players hated being eliminated from the game." 

" How else can the game end?" 

" Not sure about that. All I know is that we have a room full butthurt in there." 

Unless I missed something the Monopoly game continues to be popular. 



delericho said:


> No. If playtests indicate that your players don't like a particular mechanic (for _any_ reason, and even if the maths show that it's a perfectly good mechanic), the designer should probably rethink what he's doing.
> 
> Things don't have to be quantifiable and formulaic to be real.




What if you are trying to design a game and the reason that some players don't like certain mechanics is because such mechanics make the game a game? 

Suppose all poker hands held equal ranking? Ace high was as good as royal flush. How would you play? You have players who cannot stand anyone holding a hand that outranked theirs and this is the result. 

Rather than being forced to create mechanics that shield the fragile egos of those who cannot accept all outcomes of play why not just design games for those that enjoy them.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> You are welcome to call it a semantic gloss if it makes you feel better...




Irony.

And you are welcome to call fumbles complications if it makes you feel better, but it doesn't change fundamentally what is going on which is that the roll of a 1 just made the situation markedly worse in some fashion.  The roll of the 1 in some fashion empowers the GM to inject something into the fiction which changes the stakes for the worse.  



> Now, in your Han Solo example one could easily say that Han Solo's Natural 1 does not represent a critical fumble, but a complication introduced by a GM Intrusion. He attempted to open a blast door - rolled a 1 - but the GM decides that his tinkering instead caused a secondary blast door to also seal itself. It's also possible that Han Solo is not rolling Natural 1s and auto-failures in these occasions you list, but is simply failing his checks. Are you sure that Han Solo is rolling a 1?




Of course we can't perfectly equate action within a movie not created as a result of gameplay to action created as a result of any particular game system, so I can't be 'sure' that Han Solo rolls a 1 whenever he tries to hot wire the blast doors.  However, the example is I think still perfectly germane.  

Han Solo's player proposes to hot wire the blast doors.
The stakes are either the blast doors remain closed or the blast doors open.
The GM sets the difficulty of this action.
Han Solo's player rolls, but no only does he fail, he fails by some margin that indicates a fumble within the system.
The GM inserts a new complication.  Not only do the doors remain closed, but now "matters are worse" - a second set of blast doors closes.

This is I think a very good example of GM fictional intrusion in the event of a fumble.  In this example, it doesn't matter whether or not the second set of blast doors even existed prior to the fumble - the GM is empowered to create them in response to the fumble result.

And the situation is in context funny, and meant to be funny, and Han - the long suffering, often bumbling, sometimes tortured, sometimes inadvertent hero -  becomes to a certain extent the object of ridicule from the audience.  This is both the intention of the author - we are meant to laugh at his folly - and a rather unavoidable result of displays of incompetence.  But we are also meant to empathize with this 'regular guy' optimistically facing one new impossible challenge after the other without surrender - "Never tell me the odds!"   He has his moments of shining awesome to go along with his fumbles.

Now, if it makes 'Hans' player feel better to call his fumbles 'complications', that's fine I guess for marketing, but that's a nod to Han's player's immaturity who apparently wants to believe he only has shining moments of awesome and never bumbling stumbling steps along the way.  It's also a bit of self-deception on the part of the GM, who is busy creating fumbles but avoiding all 'negative' language as if somehow failure could be sufficiently padded as to never sting a little.  Indeed, if it is the goal to avoid that sting of failure and that sense of bumbling hero in a story that we get when Han makes the problem dramatically worse, one wonders why you have a 'introduce complications on a 1 rule' in the first place.  Far from shifting the tone away from a cultural norm surrounding the roll of 1 on a D20 roll, the system is in fact creating a cultural norm where none necessarily existed before.   For example, in my D&D 3.X game, it's not even necessarily true that a roll of 1 is anything other than success, and indeed obtaining a degree of skill that provides for autosuccess on simple actions is a rather important part of the game - the player is empowered to propose actions, even stunts, that can't fail.   And in many D20 games, rolling a 1 provides no special complication, as the GM is not empowered to intrude into fiction to turn that bad roll into a significant fiction altering event.   The roll of a 1 in D&D by default implies no more serious bumbling of an action than throwing up an air ball in a game of basketball.  

And yet this is the guy that says of his system:



> we don’t want to run games that “punish” players for rolling bad. A GM intrusion isn’t meant to be “punishment”—it’s meant to make things more interesting. But a fumble, for many people, just seems like a moment for everyone to laugh at them, and that’s not always fun




This is nonsense, both as it pertains to Monte's system specifically, and as it pertains to his claim that the roll of a 1 in his system is not a fumble and to the idea of fumbles generally.

Even games without fumbles still punish players for rolling bad.  You don't need to roll a 1 to fail a saving throw and die.  You don't need a roll a 1 to miss an attack.   My current campaign has a PC whose shtick is making magically enhanced attacks and then using True Strike to ensure that investment is not wasted.  Not unsurprisingly, his rolls of a 1 stand out especially - not because they generally lead to fumble - but because those 'rare' rolls waste all the investment in resources and preparation he put into the attack.   I don't know how many times he's muttered the mantra, "Not a 1... not a 1... not a 1...", only to throw that dreaded 1 and moan in agony.

Yet Monte seems to think that not only should a player not experience that, but in his game which explicitly creates a fumble mechanic on the throw of a 1(!!!), that the game isn't to punish players for bad rolls.   This is just epic levels of self-delusion.

You just can't separate out the idea of "punishment" with "making things more interesting" unless the thing that "makes things more interesting" in fact rewards the player.  If "makes things more interesting" is to mean in any sense, "Matters just got worse", then of course it punishes the player for failure... and that's perfectly OK!  And it's perfectly ok to laugh at failure as well, and to take some pleasure - even as the person enduring the failure - in the resulting consequences.   If Monte didn't actually believe that, he would have never created the "introduce complications on a 1" rule in the first place.  

To drill this down to the heart of the matter, what Monte is touching on but not actually saying is the idea of "fail forward" explicitly stated in other systems.   "Fail forward" is an extremely divisive issue in game design, in part because the term is used to mean slightly different things in different systems.   But the way it is often used in discussions of the concept of "complications" is exactly the incoherent way that Monte is doing when he says things like "we don’t want to run games that “punish” players for rolling bad."   You'll see advocates for "fail forward" taking it to the extreme of, "failure is bad, so games shouldn't have it".   And that's why Monte's essay is generating such controversy, because when you say something like "we don't want to run games that "punish" players for rolling bad", he seems to be validating that extreme "failure is bad, so it's wrong" position that both misunderstands what real problem "fail forward" was originally intended to solve and how essential failure is to an enjoyable game.

Monte's GM insertion mechanic is NOT a true "fail forward" mechanic.  It's a true fumble mechanic.  The whole, "it doesn't have to be a fumble, because we wouldn't want to have the audience (the other players) laughing at a characters missteps" thing is ridiculous.


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## delericho (Feb 17, 2016)

ExploderWizard said:


> How does one design an actual game if any mechanic that might result in losing is rejected because some players may have their enjoyment impacted?




Nobody is suggesting removing "any mechanic that might result in losing". Reductio ad absurdum isn't helpful here.



> What if you are trying to design a game and the reason that some players don't like certain mechanics is because such mechanics make the game a game?




Again, nobody is suggesting that. Unless you're going to contend that an RPG _must_ have a critical fumble rule or it's not a game?


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

tl;dr version:

If your GM intrusion ever has a chance to cause a player to say "Oh #@$#" then its a fumble and you'd be well served not to pretend otherwise.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

delericho said:


> Nobody is suggesting removing "any mechanic that might result in losing".




No but someone has suggested we shouldn't punish players for bad rolls.  How is that supposed to work?  More humorously, this essay for me is a critical fumble because the author suggested we shouldn't punish players for bad rolls while discussing a system that does exactly that.



> Reductio ad absurdum isn't helpful here.




That's what I'm saying, but I'm pointing at a different absurd claim.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

tl;dr version 2:

Monte Cook writes an essay about fumbles.  He rolls a '1'.  Everyone laughs at him.

I'm just waiting for him to stop in and say, "It's not funny!  Stop laughing, guys.  It could happen to you too!"


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## Barachiel (Feb 17, 2016)

TerraDave said:


> The mechanic he describes is interesting.
> 
> But the rational: oh, poor baby roll a 1...I mean why roll dice at all, just win everything always, that would be a good game.




That's the feeling I got from this. This "pampering" to the players victories. As if failure is never a possibility. Even spectacular ones. 

What we do is this, though. A 1 is a failure, but not a "critical failure." We have the player roll a "critical failure confirmation" roll. If that roll is also a failure (not just a 1, but say the to hit the AC required a 10 or more, than a confirmation crit failure would be anything 9 and below), then a critical failure occurs and we make a joke out of what is described afterwards.

That way it happens less often, but when it does it becomes memorable. Everyone suffers, the dice do not favor anyone.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 17, 2016)

delericho said:


> Again, nobody is suggesting that. Unless you're going to contend that an RPG _must_ have a critical fumble rule or it's not a game?




Nope. Neither crits nor fumbles are required. My issue is with the assertion that ANY reason a player might not like a mechanic is a good reason to scrap it. 

Well I like the attack roll rule because I like hitting monsters lets keep it. 

I don't like that PCs have AC scores because that means that they can be hit  so lets scrap that. 

The reasoning here is that the player doesn't like his character getting hit so he wants to remove a mechanic that makes this possible. 

This is simply taking a player getting hurt feelings over rolling a 1 to its logical conclusion.


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## Aldarc (Feb 17, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Irony.



Not sure how my post warranted snark in response.  



> And you are welcome to call fumbles complications if it makes you feel better, but it doesn't change fundamentally what is going on which is that the roll of a 1 just made the situation markedly worse in some fashion.  The roll of the 1 in some fashion empowers the GM to inject something into the fiction which changes the stakes for the worse.



It makes the situation more complicated, but the responsibility for that is not necessarily on the player's character who may have either succeeded or failed at their task based on the roll. That is the critical difference, so to speak. It's not that failure will never be on the player's character - which is not what Monte is saying at all - but that it doesn't always have to be, because the GM Intrusion shifts the emphasis to an intrusive complication into the narrative scene rather than mandating a failure of the player character. 



> Now, if it makes 'Hans' player feel better to call his fumbles 'complications', that's fine I guess for marketing, but that's *a nod to Han's player's immaturity* who apparently wants to believe he only has shining moments of awesome and never bumbling stumbling steps along the way. It's also a bit of self-deception on the part of the GM, who is busy creating fumbles but avoiding all 'negative' language as if somehow failure could be sufficiently padded as to never sting a little.



You may not care what I think, but I can't say that I particularly like your condescending insinuation here that groups or players who prefer this style of play lack maturity. 



> Indeed, if it is the goal to avoid that sting of failure and that sense of bumbling hero in a story that we get when Han makes the problem dramatically worse, one wonders why you have a 'introduce complications on a 1 rule' in the first place.  *Far from shifting the tone away from a cultural norm surrounding the roll of 1 on a D20 roll, the system is in fact creating a cultural norm where none necessarily existed before.*  For example, in my D&D 3.X game, it's not even necessarily true that a roll of 1 is anything other than success, and indeed obtaining a degree of skill that provides for autosuccess on simple actions is a rather important part of the game - the player is empowered to propose actions, even stunts, that can't fail.   And in many D20 games, rolling a 1 provides no special complication, as the GM is not empowered to intrude into fiction to turn that bad roll into a significant fiction altering event.   The roll of a 1 in D&D by default implies no more serious bumbling of an action than throwing up an air ball in a game of basketball.



I fundamentally disagree with this unfounded assertion. You want to cite your experience in 3.X? Fine. In my experience with Cypher System games, there has been a noticeable cultural shift when players roll a natural one. 



> And yet this is the guy that says of his system:
> 
> This is nonsense, both as it pertains to Monte's system specifically, and as it pertains to his claim that the roll of a 1 in his system is not a fumble and to the idea of fumbles generally.



It's not a fundamentally fumble. In American football, for example, a fumble involves the player dropping the ball. That is a fumble. Monte Cook argues that the GM Intrusion represents an additional complication or externality. The player can still catch the ball with a natural 1, but he may find that other players are now catching up to him. 



> *Even games without fumbles still punish players for rolling bad.*  You don't need to roll a 1 to fail a saving throw and die.  You don't need a roll a 1 to miss an attack.   My current campaign has a PC whose shtick is making magically enhanced attacks and then using True Strike to ensure that investment is not wasted.  Not unsurprisingly, his rolls of a 1 stand out especially - not because they generally lead to fumble - but because those 'rare' rolls waste all the investment in resources and preparation he put into the attack.   I don't know how many times he's muttered the mantra, "Not a 1... not a 1... not a 1...", only to throw that dreaded 1 and moan in agony.



That also includes Cypher System.

Overall, I can't help but get the feeling that a lot of the criticisms regarding this article come from people unfamiliar with or who haven't played the Cypher System.


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## Neonchameleon (Feb 17, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Seriously? Why are we relying on random fortune to determine the outcome of actions in a story it all if we are really worried about whether Bruce's feelings might be hurt when he fails a dice roll, or that Bruce might feel a thrill of vicarious exhilaration when a mere dice roll determines he succeeds.




This is nothing more than the fallacy of the excluded middle. "We want some randomness in task resolution therefore any and all randomness is automatically fine" - which makes about as much sense as "You like a little pepper on your food so I'm serving raw scotch bonnet chillies. What's the problem?" Some days and in some games I want to play the keystone cops. And in others I want to play competent professionals against overwhelming odds.

And the shorter the game the more randomness is a nice rather than an overwhelming spice. There were a lot of reasons Gygax did not include critical hits or critical fumbles. On the other hand the Firefly RPG has a _lot_ of fumbles built into the system - and is amazing fun for a two or three session game but I couldn't take a campaign of it.



> Wait... what? Do we also not want to run games that reward players for rolling well? How is that supposed to work anyway?




Fallacy of the excluded middle again. If we are playing a challenge based game should player skill be a factor at all? If what we are setting out to do is reward players for rolling well, why have character sheets at all? Why not just say "The higher you roll the better you do"?

What we want is a game with _some_ reward for rolling well and penalty for rolling badly. But we clearly don't want one where how you roll is the dominant factor in how well you do. This is why D&D as written by Gygax and Arneson had just the pass/fail metric. Because luck should matter but not be overwhelming.

And because the naive "Nat 1 fumbles" means that the fighter fumbles more often than the wizard.



> But are we a bunch of babies that can't deal with that fact? I mean seriously, don't we all about age 5 outgrow the feeling that a game is unfair when it deals to us setbacks? How do you manage to play Monopoly or Settlers of Cataan, much less an RPG if you aren't capable of dealing with the inherent unfairness of a random dice roll?




I play D&D rather than Snakes and Ladders _because I don't find snakes and ladders a fun game as there is no element of skill to it_. What gives you @_*Celebrim*_ the right to decide what is fun for everyone? 

And some days and with some groups I'm in the mood for Chess, which has precisely no luck. Others I'm in the mood for Cards Against Humanity which is approximately 90% luck (seriously, the blind draw wins ridiculously often). Why do you think that this is inherently wrong?


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## delericho (Feb 17, 2016)

ExploderWizard said:


> Nope. Neither crits nor fumbles are required. My issue is with the assertion that ANY reason a player might not like a mechanic is a good reason to scrap it.




Ah, but I didn't say any reason *a* player *might* not like it, I said any reason *your players don't* like it. The difference in emphasis is important: in one case it's one guy who might be grousing; in the other it's an actual problem that has been identified.


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## RotGrub (Feb 17, 2016)

IMO, success and failure are equally fun to role play.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> Not sure how my post warranted snark in response.




I felt the same, which is why I said "Irony". 



> It makes the situation more complicated, but the responsibility for that is not necessarily on the player's character who may have either succeeded or failed at their task based on the roll. That is the critical difference, so to speak. It's not that failure will never be on the player's character - which is not what Monte is saying at all - but that it doesn't always have to be, because the GM Intrusion shifts the emphasis to an intrusive complication into the narrative scene rather than mandating a failure of the player character.




It's a "critical difference" which in context is lacking in substance.

To continue your football example, let's say a fumble is a normal failure resulting from testing the stakes, "Hang on to the ball or not".  In Cypher System football, the roll of a 1 introduces a complication which is not necessarily the result of the player being particularly butter fingered or inept.   The ball was stripped from the players hands legitimately through no especial fault of the player, and the GM inserted consequences could be anything from the ball bounces out and straight into the hands of an opposing player who begins to run back for a touchdown or the player crashes into a trombone player that has inexplicitly marched out onto the field for solo performance.  As you say, the additional complication - in this case the trombonist or the alert opposing player - may not in fact be linked in the fiction to the character's special ineptitude or folly.  That is to say, in the fiction, the character's ball handling skills aren't in fact the cause of the trombonist marching out onto the field, and the audience at the stadium knows this is the case.

But the situation at the gaming table is different.  Regardless of the complication the GM introduces, the audience at the table knows the complication is resulting from the player having thrown a '1'.  So now the other players do know that the complication - whatever it was - is in fact linked to the player's agency: the trombonist only marched out onto the field and created the collision that knocked the ball lose because the player rolled a '1'.   And the player himself knows this happened only because he threw a '1'.  The additional complication is inextricably linked to the player having rolled the '1'.  This is inescapable.  

And somehow this is supposed to protect the player from being the object of laughter generated by the situation or having hurt feelings?



> You may not care what I think, but I can't say that I particularly like your condescending insinuation here that groups or players who prefer this style of play lack maturity.




Well, to be frank, I quite obviously don't usually care what people think of me and that's a correct assessment, but I think you are misreading me with regards to what I think shows a lack of maturity.  I don't think that there is anything immature about liking critical fumbles or not.



> I fundamentally disagree with this unfounded assertion. You want to cite your experience in 3.X? Fine. In my experience with Cypher System games, there has been a noticeable cultural shift when players roll a natural one.




You may disagree all you like, and you may call the assertion unfounded all you like, but you will find it inarguable that most D20 based systems don't by default have any special consequences on the roll of a natural 1 and that most D20 systems if you want critical fumbles you have to house rule them in.   I can think of exceptions that do have fumbles built in, but they are far from common or well known.  Yet, Cypher System does have fumbles built in.  So I think it's quite fair to assert that it is Cypher System that is promoting a cultural shift toward thinking of a natural one as being not merely especially bad in color, but especially bad mechanically and hence in color.   In fact, if that wasn't the case, I don't think that Monte would feel any especial need to address the issue.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

Neonchameleon said:


> This is nothing more than the fallacy of the excluded middle.




First of all, now I'm getting the feeling we aren't talking about the Cypher System.   

And secondly, where do you get the fallacy of the excluded middle out of this?  I'm talking about how the Cypher System actually works.  In point of fact, since the Cypher System allows for GM intrusion, it's actually the Cypher System (and not me) that is advocating that any and all randomness is available as a result of any and all stakes.  I for one would never design a system that relied on DM fiat for process resolution in such a high percentage of situations.  That isn't to say that I think you are wrong for liking such a system, just that I find it rather amusing when Monte both rues and denies (at the same time!) the consequences of a system he himself designed.

In contrast to your rant about the 'excluded middle', if you look at what I said whether in context or cut out in your little snippet, nothing about what I said had anything to do with extremes.  What I said was intended to hold true even in cases of simple failure and success without any references to 'critical hits and bad misses' at all.  I'm not appealing to the edge cases at all.



> And the shorter the game the more randomness is a nice rather than an overwhelming spice. There were a lot of reasons Gygax did not include critical hits or critical fumbles. On the other hand the Firefly RPG has a _lot_ of fumbles built into the system - and is amazing fun for a two or three session game but I couldn't take a campaign of it.




Ok, sure.  I agree with all of that.  What the heck does it have to do with this discussion?



> Fallacy of the excluded middle again. If we are playing a challenge based game should player skill be a factor at all? If what we are setting out to do is reward players for rolling well, why have character sheets at all? Why not just say "The higher you roll the better you do"?




Where are you getting any of that?



> What we want is a game with _some_ reward for rolling well and penalty for rolling badly. But we clearly don't want one where how you roll is the dominant factor in how well you do. This is why D&D as written by Gygax and Arneson had just the pass/fail metric. Because luck should matter but not be overwhelming.




I'm at a loss to know who you are having a discussion with here.  What part of that do you think I disagree with?



> And because the naive "Nat 1 fumbles" means that the fighter fumbles more often than the wizard.




Again, are we discussing the Cypher System or not?   Fighters and wizards having radically different mechanics and wizards not needing to make a fortune roll to cast spells is a D&Dism.



> And some days and with some groups I'm in the mood for Chess, which has precisely no luck. Others I'm in the mood for Cards Against Humanity which is approximately 90% luck (seriously, the blind draw wins ridiculously often). Why do you think that this is inherently wrong?




I have no idea what you are talking about.  And I know you have no idea what I'm talking about.


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## Umbran (Feb 17, 2016)

RotGrub said:


> IMO, success and failure are equally fun to role play.




The issue under discussion in the original piece isn't generic failure.  It is spectacular, disastrous failure, the archetype being a result imposed such that the player doesn't have any way to mitigate the impact.  Not just, "I fail to hit the orc," but, "in failing to hit the orc, I accidentally chop my teammate's leg off."


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## RafaelLVX (Feb 17, 2016)

TerraDave said:


> The mechanic he describes is interesting.
> 
> But the rational: oh, poor baby roll a 1...I mean why roll dice at all, just win everything always, that would be a good game.




Agreed. In fact the underlying rationale mentioned (that the player could feel bad for the fumble) almost made me discard the article outright. 

Interestingly, although in my group we love the laughs from fumble or critical misses, I ended up finding this article very useful. Several game situations just couldn't go _that_ wrong, as expected in a fumble, a "natural 1" (or the equivalent in other systems). Just yesterday playing Old Dragon, I fumbled an easy bow and arrow shot against an immobile piece of furniture, and all other characters were behind me, but because of a second dice roll, the DM ruled that somehow I managed to hit one of them. What a stretch. That comes from the fact that fumble results table told the DM *I* had to hit some other character. But using the intrusion mechanics, the DM could have gone on with the same outcome, only coming up with a more plausible bad-luck fumble where my shot ended up moving an engine from a trap (that was really there the whole time by the way) that hurt one of the characters behind me. Yes I rolled the 1, no not always I need to cause the damage, yes the damage must happen, but if it's implausible, the DM can always intervene with an almost divine display of my bad luck.

I know my example wasn't ideal, just recollecting a situation from a real game here.

I won't use the intrusion mechanics every time (I favor character-caused fumbles), but I'll definitely have that in mind for when nothing could wrong with a character's plan... unless something else was coming and nobody knew.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 17, 2016)

Many people have claimed that critical success and critical failure are two sides of the same coin, and to accept one must be to accept the other, but it occurs to me that the opposite would make more sense. If you're good enough at something that you _might_ do something super amazing, then that should also means that you're so good that you will _never_ accidentally kill your teammate by failing so hard.

In practice, this is something like how the skill system works in D&D (moreso in 3.x and 4E than in 5E). If you're at +11 on the check, then you _might_ occasionally succeed at a DC 30 stunt, but you'll never fail something that's DC 12 or lower. If you're at -1 to the check, then you could _sometimes_ fail to hit DC 0, but you'll _never_ accomplish anything that's DC 20 or higher.

And extending that out to combat, _every_ PC is both talented and skilled in the usage of one or more weapons (to various degrees, and barring extreme corner cases). Given that, it would make _more_ sense that they could _sometimes_ critically hit and_ never_ fumble (where a weak commoner might sometimes fumble but never critically hit).


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

RafaelLVX said:


> Just yesterday playing Old Dragon, I fumbled an easy bow and arrow shot against an immobile piece of furniture, and all other characters were behind me, but because of a second dice roll, the DM ruled that somehow I managed to hit one of them. What a stretch. That comes from the fact that fumble results table told the DM *I* had to hit some other character. But using the intrusion mechanics, the DM could have gone on with the same outcome, only coming up with a more plausible bad-luck fumble where my shot ended up moving an engine from a trap (that was really there the whole time by the way) that hurt one of the characters behind me. Yes I rolled the 1, no not always I need to cause the damage, yes the damage must happen, but if it's implausible, the DM can always intervene with an almost divine display of my bad luck.




First of all, everything is always up to GM judgment.  A GM should never let a ridiculous result stand just because rules.  I would like to think that GMs don't need to be especially empowered to do that or to at least reroll ridiculous results.

But more to the point, the result you achieved is a result of the naive simplicity and frankly poor design of the old 'Good Hits and Bad Misses' tables in Dragon.  While the idea in the article is awesome, and obviously its one of the most influential and well known articles ever published in Dragon, as a first draft implementation it is somewhat lacking.  Problems like you describe don't require GM insertion if you design the tables well.  For example, a 'Hit Ally' result can be made to not require GM fiat, if it is written with a reasonableness caveat like: "Ignore this result if no ally is adjacent to or interposing the target."   Indeed, virtually all fumbles of this sort require a reasonableness clause if you are using them without interpretation.  Obviously a result like, "Drop weapon in adjacent space.", probably needs a reasonableness clause like, "Ignore this result if you are using a natural weapon."   If it doesn't, you better be prepared for possibly unintended results like self-decapitation in the event of a head butt.


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## Maxperson (Feb 17, 2016)

chibi graz'zt said:


> High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do not fumble. Nuff said.




Except when they do.  Read some books.  High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do sometimes slip in blood, have weapons break, say the wrong thing, and so on. 

If you don't want to play that way, you don't have to.  Don't try to tell me that they "don't" fumble, though, because they do.


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## Maxperson (Feb 17, 2016)

wedgeski said:


> Opening the box and finding something on fire when you expected to find gold is not the same as the whole table jeering at you when you roll a 1, and the DM gleefully unrolling his six page fumble table and demanding a d%. That's the difference the author is arguing, not some subtle point of definition.




I've seen this sentiment several time here, including in Cook's article.  I don't like it, because they way it has been presented here is wrong.  People jeering at you, shaming you, laughing at you, and so on doesn't have squat to do with rolling a 1 and fumbling.  It just means that you play with jerks and should find a new game.


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## RafaelLVX (Feb 17, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> First of all, everything is always up to GM judgment.  A GM should never let a ridiculous result stand just because rules.  I would like to think that GMs don't need to be especially empowered to do that or to at least reroll ridiculous results.
> 
> But more to the point, the result you achieved is a result of the naive simplicity and frankly poor design of the old 'Good Hits and Bad Misses' tables in Dragon.  While the idea in the article is awesome, and obviously its one of the most influential and well known articles ever published in Dragon, as a first draft implementation it is somewhat lacking.  Problems like you describe don't require GM insertion if you design the tables well.  For example, a 'Hit Ally' result can be made to not require GM fiat, if it is written with a reasonableness caveat like: "Ignore this result if no ally is adjacent to or interposing the target."   Indeed, virtually all fumbles of this sort require a reasonableness clause if you are using them without interpretation.  Obviously a result like, "Drop weapon in adjacent space.", probably needs a reasonableness clause like, "Ignore this result if you are using a natural weapon."   If it doesn't, you better be prepared for possibly unintended results like self-decapitation in the event of a head butt.




I think you misunderstand some of my comment. First, I wasn't using anything "published in Dragon", we were playing the Old Dragon RPG, a d20 System variant.

More importantly, the poor design of the critical miss table wasn't supposed to be the point, and again I know this wasn't an ideal example. I just used the situation because it happened very recently and it would have had a much more plausible result should the DM have in mind the character rolling the natural 1 doesn't need to necessarily cause the bad outcome himself, with his own hands and his own lack of skill. As Cook's article suggests, the DM should be able to use just anything in the environment to cause a bad outcome if it's more plausible/interesting/fun.

As I tried to say, I like the idea that a natural 1 should cause some small catastrophe, but there are many situations where the catastrophe couldn't just possibly happen in that particular setup. That's when I think a DM intrusion is useful: the DM rules that you weren't as safe as you anticipated because... a hidden character was watching the whole time and now you're in trouble.


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## RafaelLVX (Feb 17, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> It just means that you play with jerks and should find a new game.



 Or gaming group.


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## Maxperson (Feb 17, 2016)

RafaelLVX said:


> Or gaming group.




That's what I meant.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 17, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Except when they do.  Read some books.  High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do sometimes slip in blood, have weapons break, say the wrong thing, and so on.



But they don't have their weapon break _as a direct result_ of failing to swing that sword.

It raises a question of what the die roll is actually modelling, when we make a check. Are we checking how well you swing your sword? Or are we checking everything in the world that could possibly intervene to prevent your task from succeeding?

Is it possible to swing a sword _so badly_ that it causes the enemy to have reinforcements arrive?


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## RafaelLVX (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> Is it possible to swing a sword _so badly_ that it causes the enemy to have reinforcements arrive?




Of course not. Oh wait. I can be pretty bad swinging a sword, in real life. Oh yes, that bad. Happened once. ;-P


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## Morrus (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> But they don't have their weapon break _as a direct result_ of failing to swing that sword.
> 
> It raises a question of what the die roll is actually modelling, when we make a check. Are we checking how well you swing your sword? Or are we checking everything in the world that could possibly intervene to prevent your task from succeeding?
> 
> Is it possible to swing a sword _so badly_ that it causes the enemy to have reinforcements arrive?




It's not a direct result of badly swinging a sword. It's a direct result of rolling a 1.  The characters in the fiction aren't rolling 1s.  Stuff is just happening. 

There could be other ways to tie in unlucky battlefield events (I've written articles on the subject), but associating it with the attacked roll is a decently simply approach which reduces excessive dice rolling.


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## Maxperson (Feb 17, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> But they don't have their weapon break _as a direct result_ of failing to swing that sword.




Nor do PCs who have weapons break over a fumble.  The sword was swung and something bad happened.



> It raises a question of what the die roll is actually modelling, when we make a check. Are we checking how well you swing your sword? Or are we checking everything in the world that could possibly intervene to prevent your task from succeeding?




Bad luck.  I've found that coming up with the form that bad luck takes is best done via DM fiat.  That way I can make sure that the effect matches the circumstances in both consistency and fairness.  Fumble charts don't take such things into consideration.



> Is it possible to swing a sword _so badly_ that it causes the enemy to have reinforcements arrive?



No, but that's not a fumble issue.  That's a consistency issue that some games and playstyles enjoy using.  Me, I'd almost never have a fumble cause that.  I say almost, because I can envision a fumble making a loud noise and alerting nearby creatures which could then come reinforce.  That would be an indirect consequence of the fumble, though, not the fumble itself.


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## Celebrim (Feb 17, 2016)

RafaelLVX said:


> I think you misunderstand some of my comment. First, I wasn't using anything "published in Dragon", we were playing the Old Dragon RPG, a d20 System variant.




Ok, cool.  I wasn't familiar with that variant.  

That being said, it looks like an OSR clone, so the connection to the Dragon magazine article may be more direct than you think.



> More importantly, the poor design of the critical miss table wasn't supposed to be the point, and again I know this wasn't an ideal example. I just used the situation because it happened very recently and it would have had a much more plausible result should the DM have in mind the character rolling the natural 1 doesn't need to necessarily cause the bad outcome himself, with his own hands and his own lack of skill. As Cook's article suggests, the DM should be able to use just anything in the environment to cause a bad outcome if it's more plausible/interesting/fun.




I got that part, however, I have two responses to that.

First of all, nothing guarantees that the DMs intrusion is necessarily more plausible, interesting, or fun than referencing a table.  When you require a GM to improvise a fiat fumble on a very regular basis, you run a rather high risk that the GM will create results with consequences no one - including the GM - is prepared for or finds fun or that in frustration the GM will throw up his hands and default to a small set of stock results that are easy to resolve.

Secondly, the reason I brought up the poor design of one particular very famous fumble table is that quite often, people with only the experience of badly designed fumble tables and resulting table arguments, will argue that GM intrusion is inherently superior and even necessary because fumble tables always produce unbalanced and illogical results.

UPDATE: And I see that as I was thinking about this, Maxperson posted this very claim in the post above mine.



> As I tried to say, I like the idea that a natural 1 should cause some small catastrophe, but there are many situations where the catastrophe couldn't just possibly happen in that particular setup. That's when I think a DM intrusion is useful: the DM rules that you weren't as safe as you anticipated because... a hidden character was watching the whole time and now you're in trouble.




Part of the reason that I'm not a big fan of fumbles as a system wide mechanic that potentially applies to any roll you make, is that quite often the stakes of a roll are such that there is no obvious catastrophe that can happen on failure.   In order for situations to occasionally go disastrously wrong regardless of what the situation is, the GM will have to retroactively insert or invent details about the game fiction.   An example would be you fail a check to open a lock, and as a result the lock doesn't merely remain closed but the DM invents on the spot a trap, or a second security feature, or a wandering patrol that arrives which didn't formerly exist in the fiction.  To me that feels like that opens up too much potential for unfair rulings by the GM, with players being punished for well conceived plans that simply go awry because of random chance.  

Now, that's not to say I'm opposed to catastrophic failure if the stakes of the situation demand it.   If a player wants to leap across a deep chasm, then obviously the stakes are, "Jump across or fall into pit."  If the player tries to get a wand to function, the stakes might be, "Wand functions, wand malfunctions, or nothing happens.", where the degree of success determines between the three results.  If the player tries to shoot a giant octopi that another player is grappling with, the stakes might be, "Hit octopus, miss entirely, or hit ally.", again with some mechanic based on degree of success to determine whether you succeed, merely fail, or catastrophically fail.   But systems that try to create a universal mechanic of failure, as Cypher and FantasyCraft do, leave me rather cold because as a GM I rather dislike systems that require routine GM intrusion.  The risk a player might have feelings hurt because he failed catastrophically (at least with my players) are insignificant compared to a player holding a grudge because he felt I made a wholly unfair fiat ruling.   Likewise, since I strive to be the GM I'd like to have as a player, as a player receiving consequences that can't be inferred from the proposition or the stakes strikes me as vastly reducing my agency as a player, as the world starts to behave cartoon world or narrative logic far beyond my ability to control or plan for.   That might be OK if we are playing 'Toon', where the whole point is to highlight the funny, but it doesn't necessarily make for good gaming in other genres or styles.

And of course, my personal feelings on whether fumbles are a good idea are not, is still tangential to the main points that whatever you call them, GM intrusions in Cypher are fumbles and bad rolls always punish the player (otherwise, in what sense are they 'bad'?).


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## Umbran (Feb 17, 2016)

Morrus said:


> There could be other ways to tie in unlucky battlefield events (I've written articles on the subject), but associating it with the attacked roll is a decently simply approach which reduces excessive dice rolling.




Reducing the number of dice rolled is nice.  However, doing this links "bad thing happening" with "attempt to do good thing".  In terms of training (humans are animals, and subject to being trained into behaviors) this is sub-optimal.

We've had other threads, discussing what to do with PCs who are gun-shy, unwilling to take risks.  If you couple "bad thing happens to you" to "you try to do stuff", that tends to increase the risk of taking action - and thus give a disincentive to taking action.  If bad things are going to happen whether or not the PC takes an action, you don't give a disincentive to the PCs engaging.


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## Morrus (Feb 17, 2016)

Umbran said:


> Reducing the number of dice rolled is nice.  However, doing this links "bad thing happening" with "attempt to do good thing".  In terms of training (humans are animals, and subject to being trained into behaviors) this is sub-optimal.




Optimal game design is a very subjective thing. I personally prefer a separate random battlefield event roll at the start of each round, but I can appreciate that some people find fewer die rolls to be a movement towards optimal.


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## Panda-s1 (Feb 17, 2016)

This Thread said:
			
		

> "This is important because we don’t want to run games that “punish” players for rolling bad" Does that mean players should never fail ever? omg Monte way to ruin RPG's forever




Okay I only decided to drop my one comment, but after reading for replies I guess I'll weigh in :/

I don't think having all 1s be failures is... good? Like if you roll a 1 and still pass the DC you should always suceed (as per RAW), and for roleplay purposes make the task barely succeed if you like that kind of thing. I just don't like it when GMs or players use it as an excuse to be sadistic, like Monte points out in the article, or like I said an excuse to devolve into slapstick behavior in what would otherwise be a serious campaign (on another note, I feel like critical successes for skill checks can seem a little silly). But if that's the tone everyone at the table wants, that's different, just understand not everyone likes that kind of tone. 

The exception, of course, would be games that are all about that tone, such as Paranoia, but then it's like "oh man Paranoia, what kind of shenanigans are we gonna get into?" "you slip on a banana peel that seems to have come out of nowhere and you fall carrying the 500 lb. computer, crushing yourself" "LOL", as opposed to "oh man D&D what sort of adventures are we gonna get into?" "okay Casanova, on your way to the dragon you try and cook but the pan catches on fire and the flames get in your face and you're horrifically scarred for the rest of your life, take a permanent -4 to your CHA" "wait what".

On a personal note, whenever critical fumbles come up I think about my real life and think "Man, how often do I actually catastrophically fail at things?" It's really not that often, and when I "roll a 1" doing stuff it's not usually something that ends in injury. This is a fantasy game, but I do like comparing core mechanics to real life to gauge how much sense they make.


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## pemerton (Feb 17, 2016)

steeldragons said:


> Just more of this cockamamey world in which no one is ever supposed to lose and everyone is supposed to think that only good things happen and/or THEY, specifically and in all cases, are supposed to have "good things" happen to them.





ExploderWizard said:


> How does one design an actual game if any mechanic that might result in losing is rejected because some players may have their enjoyment impacted?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Suppose all poker hands held equal ranking



Whose posts or blog are these meant to be replies to? I've read the blog, and I've read this thread, and no one is talking about players never failing. The discussion is about critical failures.

No edition of D&D has ever had critical fumble rules as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D has never been a game?

In contrast, every edition of Rolemaster (and its spin-offs like MERP and HARP) has had a critical fumble rule as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D players are cry-baby namby-pamby types, and only Rolemaster players are _real_ RPGers?

That whole way of framing a discussion of game design is just silly.



Umbran said:


> The issue under discussion in the original piece isn't generic failure.  It is spectacular, disastrous failure, the archetype being a result imposed such that the player doesn't have any way to mitigate the impact.  Not just, "I fail to hit the orc," but, "in failing to hit the orc, I accidentally chop my teammate's leg off."



I think it's not just _disastrous failure_ - it's disastrous failure that makes the player character look comically inept. And when Monte talks about "Bruce feel[ing] bad", he is not just talking about Bruce feeling disappointed about a bad roll - I think he is talking about Bruce feeling bad because he is identifying with his PC who has been painted as incompetent.



Celebrim said:


> If your GM intrusion ever has a chance to cause a player to say "Oh #@$#" then its a fumble and you'd be well served not to pretend otherwise.





Celebrim said:


> Of course we can't perfectly equate action within a movie not created as a result of gameplay to action created as a result of any particular game system, so I can't be 'sure' that Han Solo rolls a 1 whenever he tries to hot wire the blast doors.  However, the example is I think still perfectly germane.
> 
> Han Solo's player proposes to hot wire the blast doors.
> The stakes are either the blast doors remain closed or the blast doors open.
> ...



There are any number of ways this sort of event might occur in a RPG, depending on the mechanics of the system. For instance, maybe the player took a bonus die in return for staking a more severe failure.

Or the system might be one in which rolls are always opposed, and the GM rolled a critical success.

But Monte Cook's blog is not about whether or not it makes for good design to have systematic ways of injecting complications; or whether or not the players should sometimes not succeed. It is a criticism of one, particular, mechanic: the critical fumble in which a bad roll always results in the character performing incompetently.

Here's Jonathan Tweet expressing a broadly similar sentiment in his preface to the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge:

A simple but powerful improvement you can make to your game is to redefine failure as "things go wrong" instead of "the PC isn't up to the task." Ron Edwards, Luke Crane and other indie RPG designers have championed this idea, and they're exactly right. You can call it "fail forward" or "no whiffing."​
You can assert that there is no significant difference between the RM/MERP-style fumble rules and the sort of system that Cook and Tweet (and their predecessors Edwards, Crane, et al) are advocating. But I don't think that would be the experience of many of those who have played both sorts of system.


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## Umbran (Feb 17, 2016)

Morrus said:


> Optimal game design is a very subjective thing.




I think I was pretty clear and limited in focus with "in terms of training", as opposed to a very broad, general "optimal game design" statement.  Such that, if one is not concerned with what you're training your players to do or not do, then this is a non-issue.  I don't think it is appropriate to consider the statement without the qualifier I explicitly included to cover such objections


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## Celebrim (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> But Monte Cook's blog is not about whether or not it makes for good design to have systematic ways of injecting complications; or whether or not the players should sometimes not succeed. It is a criticism of one, particular, mechanic: the critical fumble in which a bad roll always results in the character performing incompetently.




To precise, Monte Cook's blog is about his own system, which is a critical fumble system and is described as such.  It is not a fail forward system, as his own discussion makes clear:

"In a combat situation, a GM intrusion can range from the opposing creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round, to reinforcements for the opposition showing up. It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did."

The open ended nature of a the GM intrusion system means that you could use it as a fail forward system simply because any time you insert GM fiat, you can do anything, but it would not in my opinion be a very good one.  (Which opens up the question not just of what a good fumble system looks like, but also what a good fail forward mechanic looks like.)  At the very least though, even if you start using the GM intrusion system to handle fail forward, it would still be in addition a fumble system, as again his own discussion makes clear.



> Here's Jonathan Tweet expressing a broadly similar sentiment in his preface to the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge:
> 
> A simple but powerful improvement you can make to your game is to redefine failure as "things go wrong" instead of "the PC isn't up to the task." Ron Edwards, Luke Crane and other indie RPG designers have championed this idea, and they're exactly right. You can call it "fail forward" or "no whiffing."​




To be blunt, I'm not sure Ron Edwards has been exactly right about anything.  But in any event, it is not an improvement to a game to redefine failure as "things go wrong" instead of "the PC isn't up to the task" if we are to apply that idea universally or to all games*, nor is it in practice anything but a semantic difference in most cases.   Things would not have gone wrong if the PC was up to the task is generally a fact of such systems.   Moreover, I consider there to be a very big difference between "fail forward" mechanics and "no whiffing" mechanics.    I likewise suggest that "fail forward" is best implemented as a scene based system to handle what you might call "scene failure" and not as a task based mechanic for handling "task failure".   And in any event, even if you can have a "fail forward" mechanic on task resolution, it's abundantly and undeniably clear that the mechanic in question is not a "fail forward" mechanic but a "fumble" mechanic because GM Insertion DOES NOT occur on mere simple failure, but extra complications are inserted in the event of catastrophic failures.   Likewise, the insertion of complications does not imply the story must go on in this system, however much you may want to kludge this into your pet theory.   The facts don't fit your case.



> You can assert that there is no significant difference between the RM/MERP-style fumble rules and the sort of system that Cook and Tweet (and their predecessors Edwards, Crane, et al) are advocating. But I don't think that would be the experience of many of those who have played both sorts of system.




I assert that there is a significant difference between RM/MERP style fumble rules and a proper fail forward system, but that the system in question is not a proper fail forward system because it is not meant to address the problems that a fail forward system addresses.   Again, if it did, why does it address tasks and not scenes,  why is not geared to advancing the story, and why does it only advance the story in the event of catastrophic failure rather than simple failure of the task?  "Opposing creature gains an additional chance to attack for the round" is not a fail forward style consequence, so stop acting like it is.  You can hammer your square pegs into narrativist jargony round holes all you want according to your usual pattern, but no matter how much you try the mechanic in question is not the same as the one Jonathan Tweet is talking about in the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge, nor is it "no whiff", nor is it "fail forward".

All Monte Cook said was simply "catastrophic failure doesn't always have to make the character look inept".   Even if I did agree with that, it's mainly his reasoning for getting there that undermines the argument.   But in point of fact, catastrophic failure unavoidably makes a character look inept so the whole point is silly.  And that's even before I get into the uses and misuses of "Fail Forward", which may well be informing Monte's thinking here, but which is utterly inapplicable to the actual rules system he's talking about.

*Let me just go ahead and prove that statement since I know it will get your britches in a wad:

a) If your task resolution system doesn't allow Han Solo to whiff, then your task resolution system doesn't allow you to recreate the fiction of Star Wars
b) If you can't recreate the fiction of Star Wars with the system, then its not well suited to being a system for a Star Wars inspired RPG.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2016)

ExploderWizard said:


> Suppose all poker hands held equal ranking?




It is common in modern fantasy to see supernatural or powerful creatures arise from the aggregate beliefs and actions of many normal humans.  Do you wish to see the birth of a new "super" hero:  Straw-man?  Imagine his power and wrath!

The issue isn't "never fail" as so many have said.  The question from the OP is whether, having drawn a poor poker hand, we should also have one of the cards slip from your fingers and gouge out the eye of someone else at the poker table.


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## Celebrim (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> There are any number of ways this sort of event might occur in a RPG, depending on the mechanics of the system. For instance, maybe the player took a bonus die in return for staking a more severe failure.




Side note.  I consider "ante up" mechanics like that to be quite functional and elegant in certain systems, but that is not what he happening here.   This is a GM insertion, not an opportunity for the player to narrate the stakes.   This is not "fortune at the beginning".   Again, I don't necessarily object to those mechanics depending on whether they fit what the system is trying to achieve in its gameplay.  Indeed, if you want to have something like a "no whiff" mechanic, doing it in the context of an "ante up" system makes a lot of sense - the player can then choose when it is dramatically appropriate to fail (or at least risk failure) and otherwise never "whiff".   

But you can't take my acceptance of a wholly different mechanic occurring in a wholly different game as evidence that this particular mechanic fits in to the narrow hole you try to hammer ever single system that you like regardless of its actual features.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Except when they do.  Read some books.  High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do sometimes slip in blood, have weapons break, say the wrong thing, and so on.
> 
> If you don't want to play that way, you don't have to.  Don't try to tell me that they "don't" fumble, though, because they do.




I missed where Luke slipped and fell in a fight with random mooks.  In fact, I'm kinda missing where the hero's weapon breaks in any situation other than a specific high tension one.  Han fails to open the doors to the Power Generator and the blast doors fall.  This has exactly zero consequence because two seconds later Chewie shows up to open the doors.  

The problem with Fumble Mechanics in D&D is that they obviously disfavor the players.  That's the long and the short of it.  It doesn't matter how often the baddies roll fumbles because the DM has unlimited numbers of baddies.  The baddies are _supposed_ to fail.  It's pretty rare to set up a scenario where the baddies are supposed to succeed because, typically, that means a TPK for the group and that's generally a bad thing.  Even arguments about the number of die rolls miss the point.  Sure, a PC might have more die rolls than any given monster, but, there's usually more monsters than PC's and, in the long run, since I have infinite monsters as the DM, I don't care if the baddies fumble.  In the long run, fumble mechanics only hurt the PC's.

The 3e crit rules suffer from the same issue.  Sure, everyone has the same chances of critting but, the results of those crits are different.  I have infinite monsters that are supposed to die.  That you kill them in 2 rounds instead of 3 doesn't really matter.  But, killing your PC with a random die roll is pretty much guaranteed in the long run.  All I've done is make the monsters stronger.

5e with its much less powerful crits removes the swinginess of crits.  Adding in some sort of fumble doesn't add tension, it just penalizes the PC's for no good reason.


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## Celebrim (Feb 18, 2016)

Umbran said:


> The issue isn't "never fail" as so many have said.  The question from the OP is whether, having drawn a poor poker hand, we should also have one of the cards slip from your fingers and gouge out the eye of someone else at the poker table.




If that is the question, neither the essay nor the system it is describing gives us the answer.

If that is indeed the question, to the OP I would say, "Well, are you playing the Itchy and Scratchy RPG, and do you find that scene funny?"

But I was of the opinion that the question was, "What are your thoughts on fumble mechanics?"

The short version would probably be, "They are mostly unnecessary, as simple failure will create risks of catastrophic failure all on its own without any need to rig the system.  However, you may want to define specific scenarios in which they occur where introducing them reduces tedium and increases the ability to imagine the scene less abstractly, and then provide some guidelines for handling those specific cases.  Examples might be things like catastrophic spell failure, or the rare disastrous attack action.  The extent to which things can horribly go wrong and the ways they go wrong will influence the atmosphere of your game.  So for example, really gruesome and significant catastrophic spell failures might well be appropriate for a horror based occult investigators game, but probably wouldn't be all that appropriate very often for heroic fantasy.  Silly, ridiculous results of combat actions might be appropriate for a slapstick comedy game, but not for a game of action heroes.  Fumbles should be used judiciously to avoid bogging down play and becoming a distraction in their own right, and care should be made to make sure the consequences of failure aren't so extreme or unpredictable that players are rewarded for never testing actions at all or otherwise encouraged to evade the system."


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## Connorsrpg (Feb 18, 2016)

Shouldn't the title be, "Monte says a 1 is not ALWAYS a fumble"? He doesn't rule them out entirely and this is a little misleading.

I love crit fumble charts as much as the next person, but I also think there are times when an even more obvious situation could arise (that won't be on the charts). For eg recently playing "Slave Pits of the Undercity" with fight above the cages. Obvious fumble there was falling into a cage.

I have also been playing Cypher for some time and have adopted the GM Intrusion rule. I really like it. Sometimes things come to you easily, sometimes I refer to the ideas given in the core books (for all creatures and PC focuses), and now and then I will still pull out my Fumble Charts and just roll. This system has just opened up more options for us and that has been good for our games.

I suggest people read a little further into the article (and the Cypher system) before lambasting "Monte's" view on fumbles.


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## chibi graz'zt (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Except when they do.  Read some books.  High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do sometimes slip in blood, have weapons break, say the wrong thing, and so on.
> 
> If you don't want to play that way, you don't have to.  Don't try to tell me that they "don't" fumble, though, because they do.



provide quotes my good man, or off ye go.
Did Gandalf accidentally dropped his staff at the bridge of Kazad Dhum? Did Aragorn fumbled and dropped Narsil? Bah to the lot of ye and your silly fumble charts, I will take the heroic road.


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## Connorsrpg (Feb 18, 2016)

> chibi graz'zt wrote: Did Aragorn fumbled and dropped Narsil?




Um, obviously 'someone' rolled a 1 when using Narsil


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## Von Ether (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> In contrast, every edition of Rolemaster (and its spin-offs like MERP and HARP) has had a critical fumble rule as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D players are cry-baby namby-pamby types, and only Rolemaster players are _real_ RPGers?





In those dark, early days of RPGing. There were tribe of gamers who did indeed insist on a rite of passage that was to symbolically lose a PC's limb or eye to a Rolemaster crit fumble table. 

Those days, we held our d20's high to light the way down darkened dormitory hallways and student apartment lairs.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2016)

Von Ether said:


> In those dark, early days of RPGing. There were tribe of gamers who did indeed insist a rite of passage was to symbolically lose a PC's limb or eye to a Rolemaster crit fumble table.



Sure (and I've been there, back in the day) - but no one would say it now with a straight face, would they! Except some posters in this thread?


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I missed where Luke slipped and fell in a fight with random mooks.  In fact, I'm kinda missing where the hero's weapon breaks in any situation other than a specific high tension one.  Han fails to open the doors to the Power Generator and the blast doors fall.  This has exactly zero consequence because two seconds later Chewie shows up to open the doors.




Yes, but Han _also_ stepped on a twig while sneaking up on the Scout Trooper earlier in the film, a fumble that lead directly to the speeder bike chase, the split party, and the Ewoks.

This is why Critical Fumbles must be banned: Harrison Ford rolled a '1' in 1983, and we've all been suffering _Ewoks_ ever since!


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> High fantasy heroes who save the world, rescue the sexy prince, and conquer the world do sometimes slip in blood, have weapons break, say the wrong thing, and so on.



Aren't those just failures, though? They don't seem to need a special "fumble" mechanic.

EDIT:



delericho said:


> Yes, but Han _also_ stepped on a twig while sneaking up on the Scout Trooper earlier in the film, a fumble that lead directly to the speeder bike chase, the split party, and the Ewoks.



Ewoks to one side, isn't that just another example of failure? I mean, what does a failed Move Silently roll amount to, in the fiction? It means you stepped on a twig, or sneezed, or . . . Again, I don't see the need for a special "fumble" mechanic to capture this.


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Ewoks to one side, isn't that just another example of failure? I mean, what does a failed Move Silently roll amount to, in the fiction? It means you stepped on a twig, or sneezed, or . . . Again, I don't see the need for a special "fumble" mechanic to capture this.




I don't think so. Because immediately after the *snap*, Han freezes up for a moment, allowing the Trooper to get the drop on him, and actually knock him down in turn. Instead of gaining surprise on his opponent he is, in effect, surprised himself.

For me, that goes beyond a simple failure and into fumble territory.

But YMMV, of course.


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## ExploderWizard (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> The problem with Fumble Mechanics in D&D is that they obviously disfavor the players.  That's the long and the short of it.  It doesn't matter how often the baddies roll fumbles because the DM has unlimited numbers of baddies.  The baddies are _supposed_ to fail.  It's pretty rare to set up a scenario where the baddies are supposed to succeed because, typically, that means a TPK for the group and that's generally a bad thing.  Even arguments about the number of die rolls miss the point.  Sure, a PC might have more die rolls than any given monster, but, there's usually more monsters than PC's and, in the long run, since I have infinite monsters as the DM, I don't care if the baddies fumble.  In the long run, fumble mechanics only hurt the PC's.




Supposed to fail? Supposed to succeed?  These types of thoughts are anathema to game play. If you throw game play out the window then just toss the dice out along with it because they are ultimately meaningless. 

A TPK is not a bad thing or a good thing, it is merely one possible result of playing. A team that loses a game can play again and win the next time.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I missed where Luke slipped and fell in a fight with random mooks.  In fact, I'm kinda missing where the hero's weapon breaks in any situation other than a specific high tension one.  Han fails to open the doors to the Power Generator and the blast doors fall.  This has exactly zero consequence because two seconds later Chewie shows up to open the doors.




And yet Luke does slip and Han does fail.  That another PC covers Han's fumble is beside the point.  



> The problem with Fumble Mechanics in D&D is that they obviously disfavor the players.  That's the long and the short of it.  It doesn't matter how often the baddies roll fumbles because the DM has unlimited numbers of baddies.  The baddies are _supposed_ to fail.  It's pretty rare to set up a scenario where the baddies are supposed to succeed because, typically, that means a TPK for the group and that's generally a bad thing.  Even arguments about the number of die rolls miss the point.  Sure, a PC might have more die rolls than any given monster, but, there's usually more monsters than PC's and, in the long run, since I have infinite monsters as the DM, I don't care if the baddies fumble.  In the long run, fumble mechanics only hurt the PC's.




And yet the fumble mechanics also favor the players.  That's also the long and the short of it.  If you are looking purely at mechanics, then you are right.  When you include story and what the fumbles add to the non-mechanical aspects of the game, I'm right.  What favors the players or not is subjective here and depends on what you personally prefer to look at.



> The 3e crit rules suffer from the same issue.  Sure, everyone has the same chances of critting but, the results of those crits are different.  I have infinite monsters that are supposed to die.  That you kill them in 2 rounds instead of 3 doesn't really matter.  But, killing your PC with a random die roll is pretty much guaranteed in the long run.  All I've done is make the monsters stronger.




The 3e crit rules favor the players by a very large margin.  The vast majority of monster crit only on a natural 20.  The vast majority of players crit ranges were much wider due to improved critical, keen, weapon crit ranges, etc.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

chibi graz'zt said:


> provide quotes my good man, or off ye go.
> Did Gandalf accidentally dropped his staff at the bridge of Kazad Dhum? Did Aragorn fumbled and dropped Narsil? Bah to the lot of ye and your silly fumble charts, I will take the heroic road.




You're right.  Aragorn did not fumble the sword that had to be reforged due to being, oh yeah, shattered.  The mighty weapon did break.  It's not as if Turin didn't accidentally kill his best friend Beleg.  Oh, wait.  Now let's talk about the mightiest fighter in Middle Earth history who faced down Morgoth himself.  How did Fingolfin lose?  He slipped and fell.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Aren't those just failures, though? They don't seem to need a special "fumble" mechanic.
> 
> Ewoks to one side, isn't that just another example of failure? I mean, what does a failed Move Silently roll amount to, in the fiction? It means you stepped on a twig, or sneezed, or . . . Again, I don't see the need for a special "fumble" mechanic to capture this.




Need has nothing to do with it.  It only matters whether it models failure or not.  If it does, and it does, then it's a useful system for people who like that sort of thing.  That there are other ways to model failure only has meaning if you prefer those ways.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Need has nothing to do with it.  It only matters whether it models failure or not.




As has been said many, many times in the thread - fumbles don't model failure.  Fumbles model things well beyond plain failure.  In the typical fumble system, stepping on a twig and being herd is not a fumble - it is just a plain failure.  On a fumble, he'd have tripped and put the stick through his eye.  

So, his point is relevant - whatever fumble mechanic the system had _would not have been engaged in that scene._ 

If you want to discuss fumbles and Star Wars, you probably have to go to Jar Jar Binks, and I don't think anyone in the thread wants that.


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> And yet the fumble mechanics also favor the players.  That's also the long and the short of it.  If you are looking purely at mechanics, then you are right.  When you include story and what the fumbles add to the non-mechanical aspects of the game, I'm right.  What favors the players or not is subjective here and depends on what you personally prefer to look at.
> 
> The 3e crit rules favor the players by a very large margin.  The vast majority of monster crit only on a natural 20.  The vast majority of players crit ranges were much wider due to improved critical, keen, weapon crit ranges, etc.




This is incorrect. It's discussed at length in the 3e and 3.5e DMG, and Angry DM usefully goes through it again here (about halfway down). Anything that adds randomness to combat favours the underdog, and since in D&D combats the monsters are the underdogs almost all the time, that means they work against the PCs.

Rationally, players should be opposed to the use of both critical hits and fumbles.

(Note: that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't use Fumbles. That's a matter of taste.)


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## RotGrub (Feb 18, 2016)

Umbran said:


> The issue under discussion in the original piece isn't generic failure.  It is spectacular, disastrous failure, the archetype being a result imposed such that the player doesn't have any way to mitigate the impact.  Not just, "I fail to hit the orc," but, "in failing to hit the orc, I accidentally chop my teammate's leg off."





Yes, I understand that, but I don't see any reason why a spectacular failure can't also be fun to role play.   

With that said, I don't recall any fumble system automatically chopping a teammate's leg off.  You would  have to add in a critical hit location system to make that happen.  Still, even if I was using the 2e critical hit system from the players options books, it's a highly unlikely event.   On the other hand, if the leg was cut off, I'd imagine far worse was occurring to PCs on a regular basis in that campaign.   I suspect the players of such a campaign wouldn't mind either.  If something bad happens they simply take a step back and consider how it will change their characters.  They would enjoy role-playing that process too; magical peg legs and psychological issues included.

From a realism standpoint, I've seen people get seriously hurt by their own team mates several times.  In fact, it happens all the time in hockey.   Wild swings do hit other people by accident.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

Umbran said:


> As has been said many, many times in the thread - fumbles don't model failure.  Fumbles model things well beyond plain failure.  In the typical fumble system, stepping on a twig and being herd is not a fumble - it is just a plain failure.  On a fumble, he'd have tripped *and put the stick through his eye.*




You keep trying to impose a necessary extreme  self infliccted/ally inflicted harm component to a fumble... but I think that may be your particular hang up around fumbles as opposed to how fumbles (houseruled and as part of a particular rpg) actually work...


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I missed where Luke slipped and fell in a fight with random mooks.  In fact, I'm kinda missing where the hero's weapon breaks in any situation other than a specific high tension one.  Han fails to open the doors to the Power Generator and the blast doors fall.  This has exactly zero consequence because two seconds later Chewie shows up to open the doors.




Well... there was that one time where Luke is fully aware there are sand people nearby and is actively looking for them... with advanced equipment...in a hiding place with a droid accompanying him... but is ambushed by a sand person literally a few feet directly in front of him and beaten senseless...  I could definitely see that being the result of a fumble on a PC's Perception roll...


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## RotGrub (Feb 18, 2016)

delericho said:


> This is incorrect. It's discussed at length in the 3e and 3.5e DMG, and Angry DM usefully goes through it again here (about halfway down). Anything that adds randomness to combat favours the underdog, and since in D&D combats the monsters are the underdogs almost all the time, that means they work against the PCs.
> 
> Rationally, players should be opposed to the use of both critical hits and fumbles.
> 
> (Note: that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't use Fumbles. That's a matter of taste.)




I love randomness because it allows the underdog (not the character with the maxed out scores) to shine once and a while.   

If you remove randomness, the players have no chance to do the impossible.  It's all those unbelievable events that are most memorable in my opinion.   We all remember the time the BBEG fumbled his spell and the mage crit him to death with his pocket knife....   IMO, that's D&D and I wouldn't have it any other way.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

Umbran said:


> As has been said many, many times in the thread - fumbles don't model failure.  Fumbles model things well beyond plain failure.




They do model failure.  Sure, it's an increased degree of failure, but it's still just failure.  If that's the degree to which your group wants failure to exist, then fumble rules can be a good thing.  If it's not the degree to which your group wants failure to exist, then it's probably a bad thing.



> In the typical fumble system, stepping on a twig and being herd is not a fumble - it is just a plain failure.  On a fumble, he'd have tripped and put the stick through his eye.




That's an excessive example.  Fumbles are not all about losing eyes and limbs.  Up a ways the example where Han not only stepped on that twig and lost his surprise round, but was also then surprised himself is a great example of a fumble that doesn't involve excessive silliness like losing an eye to the twig.



> If you want to discuss fumbles and Star Wars, you probably have to go to Jar Jar Binks, and I don't think anyone in the thread wants that.




Jar Jar who?  I seem to have a rather odd series of holes in my memory when it comes to some of the "Star Wars" movies.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

delericho said:


> This is incorrect. It's discussed at length in the 3e and 3.5e DMG, and Angry DM usefully goes through it again here (about halfway down). Anything that adds randomness to combat favours the underdog, and since in D&D combats the monsters are the underdogs almost all the time, that means they work against the PCs.
> 
> Rationally, players should be opposed to the use of both critical hits and fumbles.
> 
> (Note: that doesn't necessarily mean you shouldn't use Fumbles. That's a matter of taste.)




So you think that PCs being 3-5x more likely to crit than the monsters favors the monsters?


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

RotGrub said:


> If you remove randomness...




Again, nobody is arguing for randomness to be _removed_. It's a question of _how much_ randomness is appropriate.


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## Umbran (Feb 18, 2016)

Imaro said:


> You keep trying to impose a necessary extreme  self infliccted/ally inflicted harm component to a fumble... but I think that may be your particular hang up around fumbles as opposed to how fumbles (houseruled and as part of a particular rpg) actually work...




I am choosing those because the extent of the issue becomes obvious if it is physical harm.  And, historically, most people's first experience with fumble rules likely comes from combat, and there the results are frequently damage to the character or the character's allies.  Yes, one can construct fumbles with less outright physical damage done to a character, but the basic premise of fumbles is that the failure becomes a significant issue well beyond "I failed to do what I intended to do".  

The fact remains that stepping on a stick and being heard is a *basic* failure in a Move Silently check, not a fumble.  Basic failures should not be used as a reason for having fumble rules.


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> So you think that PCs being 3-5x more likely to crit than the monsters favors the monsters?




No, those are two different things.

The existence of critical hits _at all_ favours the monsters.

The fact that PCs get those expanded critical ranges is an artifact of them being so vastly superior to the monsters in the first place. Take away those options and they'd take something else and overwhelm them just the same.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

Umbran said:


> I am choosing those because the extent of the issue becomes obvious if it is physical harm.  And, historically, most people's first experience with fumble rules likely comes from combat, and there the results are frequently damage to the character or the character's allies.  Yes, one can construct fumbles with less outright physical damage done to a character, but the basic premise of fumbles is that the failure becomes a significant issue well beyond "I failed to do what I intended to do".
> 
> The fact remains that stepping on a stick and being heard is a *basic* failure in a Move Silently check, not a fumble.  Basic failures should not be used as a reason for having fumble rules.




Does a basic failure on stealth also give the enemy a surprise round?  a fumble probably would (but then so could a GM intrusion)...  The problem with discussing fumbles with your examples is that they are going to the extreme (not just hit point loss, but you loose a limb or an eye... really??)  and it makes them kind of ridiculous for a serious discussion.


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## billd91 (Feb 18, 2016)

RotGrub said:


> I love randomness because it allows the underdog (not the character with the maxed out scores) to shine once and a while.
> 
> If you remove randomness, the players have no chance to do the impossible.  It's all those unbelievable events that are most memorable in my opinion.   We all remember the time the BBEG fumbled his spell and the mage crit him to death with his pocket knife....   IMO, that's D&D and I wouldn't have it any other way.




There's definitely an element of both being right here. Looking back at the D&D I've played and DMed in the last 15 years, all of the PC deaths I've inflicted among one group have been because of critical hits - and some fairly harsh ones at that (x4 damage from a scythe-wielding cultist in 3.0, x3 damage from a greataxe wielding minotaur in 3.0, crit from a wraith in 5). Yet each of those events is also memorable. Hardly anybody remembers the fights that boiled down to nickel and diming the opponent until it dropped. We remember the more extreme results.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

For me personally I find the most interesting thing about GM intrusions (and the main difference between them and what most consider a fumble) something Monte seems to gloss over in his article, mainly that the player has the ability to buy out of them (similar to how compels can be rejected in FATE).  IMO this gives the player a way to signal to the GM what he does or doesn't want to accept in so far as consequences for a roll of 1 go... but because XP is a resource that must be managed by the player, it also does not allow him to escape the consequences of rolling a 1 indefinitely.  Since GM intrusions are for the most part used to make things interesting (which 99% of the time equates to more problems for the PC's), as opposed to helping the players attain their goals I do however consider them a subset of fumbles...


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## Celebrim (Feb 18, 2016)

Umbran said:


> The fact remains that stepping on a stick and being heard is a *basic* failure in a Move Silently check, not a fumble.  Basic failures should not be used as a reason for having fumble rules.




As I've said before, it's very difficult to talk about a fiction that isn't a product of a game system and say anything definite about how the same fiction would be produced by a game system.  But it's probably impossible to talk about a fiction that isn't a product of a game system and say anything definite about how it would be produced by a hypothetical game system.

We can't really say for sure whether Han stepping on the stick was a simple failure, resulting in him being heard and then losing initiative, or whether it was a catastrophic failure resulting in additional penalties.   For example, we don't know if in some hypothetical system, fumbles of a Stealth check also result in disadvantage of some sort to initiative.  This would indeed by a fumble, as the character is now subject to some additional penalty beyond having lost the stakes.  

Even in systems where it is possible, "Decapitate Ally" is not the normal result of a fumble.  I mean, theoretically speaking, "Decapitate Ally" is possible in my system.  The sequence of events though is highly improbable:

a) Attack an opponent while squeezing with an ally or while the opponent is grappled or clinching an ally.
b) Fumble and don't have some sort of fumble mitigation feat.
c) Confirm the fumble by missing the target with a second roll.
d) Attack the ally and hit.
e) Score a critical on the attack.
f) Confirm the critical by successfully hitting the ally with a second attack roll.
g) Do sufficient damage with the critical to drop the ally to 0 hit points or less.
h Roll against the traumatic injury table and obtain the 1 in 36 chance decapitation/crushed skull result.
i) Ally fails DC 15 fortitude save to avoid traumatic injury.

That's obviously a fumble in the fiction, but like 10 things had to go perfectly and unlikely wrong to achieve it.  Probably that sequence is so rare you'll never see it in a game.  Maybe 1 in 40,000 attacks would go that wrong and only in situations where it was obvious the attack carried risk.   

The more common results of fumbles wouldn't be so obvious 'on screen' in the movie version of the fiction.  They include things like loss of initiative order, becoming flatfooted for a round, stumbling and needing to make a balance check, yielding an attack of opportunity, loss of shield bonus for a round, having a weapon become unreadied, becoming fatigued, straining a muscle, and so forth.  These are all extra penalties and therefore fumbles, but they aren't necessarily large obvious results like accidently jabbing a stick through your own eye.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

delericho said:


> Again, nobody is arguing for randomness to be _removed_. It's a question of _how much_ randomness is appropriate.




Agreed.  That amount is not set, though.  Each group will have its own measure for it.  Crits and fumbles are 100% awesome for any group for which they are 100% awesome, and your dislike for that level of randomness doesn't affect that.


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

delericho said:


> No, those are two different things.
> 
> The existence of critical hits _at all_ favours the monsters.




In a white room where the existence of them was all that factored into things, sure.  In the real game where you have wide ranges that move the advantage from monsters to PCs, they no longer favor monsters.



> The fact that PCs get those expanded critical ranges is an artifact of them being so vastly superior to the monsters in the first place. Take away those options and they'd take something else and overwhelm them just the same.




So what.  They still have those options, so crits favor the PCs.


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Agreed.  That amount is not set, though.  Each group will have its own measure for it.  Crits and fumbles are 100% awesome for any group for which they are 100% awesome, and your dislike for that level of randomness doesn't affect that.




Of course. I certainly wouldn't argue otherwise.


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2016)

delericho said:


> I don't think so. Because immediately after the *snap*, Han freezes up for a moment, allowing the Trooper to get the drop on him, and actually knock him down in turn. Instead of gaining surprise on his opponent he is, in effect, surprised himself.
> 
> For me, that goes beyond a simple failure and into fumble territory.



I think this is another one of those cases where different mechanics can produce the same fiction. For instance, a failed Move Silently/Stealth check followed by the troopers winning an opposed Surprise roll (as per AD&D) or succeeding on _their_ Stealth check (in some other system) could produce the same outcome.

Or, in a "fail forward" or "stake-setting" system, the same thing could happen: in order to get the Stealth roll at all, Han's player stakes being surprised by other troopers.



Imaro said:


> Well... there was that one time where Luke is fully aware there are sand people nearby and is actively looking for them... with advanced equipment...in a hiding place with a droid accompanying him... but is ambushed by a sand person literally a few feet directly in front of him and beaten senseless...  I could definitely see that being the result of a fumble on a PC's Perception roll...



Or, again, it could just be failure on a surprise check, AD&D-style. Even rangers can be surprised on a 1 on 1d6. Or a failure on opposed Perception vs Stealth.



Maxperson said:


> let's talk about the mightiest fighter in Middle Earth history who faced down Morgoth himself.  How did Fingolfin lose?  He slipped and fell.



In a hit-point system, that looks like it might just be dropping to zero hit points. Especially in a more abstract system like AD&D's 1 minute rounds.



Maxperson said:


> Aragorn did not fumble the sword that had to be reforged due to being, oh yeah, shattered.  The mighty weapon did break.  It's not as if Turin didn't accidentally kill his best friend Beleg.  Oh, wait.



D&D is particularly unlikely to give "sword shattered" as an outcome of a die roll - there are certainly other systems that can give that outcome without needing a fumble system (eg Rolemaster via crits or via its parry rules; BW via its stake-setting-and-manipulation rules).

In the case of Turin and Beleg, once again that could easily be the outcome of stake-setting in the context of a cursed sword. Or, in D&D, there could be a sword which has the curse "on a roll of a natural 1, roll an attack against one nearby ally". That curse doesn't require general fumble rules to implement, and in fact becomes _less_ of a curse in a mechanical environment in which fumble rules are being used.


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## delericho (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I think this is another one of those cases where different mechanics can produce the same fiction.




That's certainly possible. But...



> Or, in a "fail forward" or "stake-setting" system, the same thing could happen: in order to get the Stealth roll at all, Han's player stakes being surprised by other troopers.




It was the same trooper. Hard to be surprised by the guy who's _right there_.


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## Celebrim (Feb 18, 2016)

Imaro said:


> For me personally I find the most interesting thing about GM intrusions (and the main difference between them and what most consider a fumble) something Monte seems to gloss over in his article, mainly that the player has the ability to buy out of them (similar to how compels can be rejected in FATE).




What I find most interesting about the article is that it appears to be another example of Monte being uncomfortable with what were apparently unforeseen consequences of his design that he wants to mitigate against.  Monte added critical fumbles to his system, and now that the system is out in the larger world he's getting some feedback on it that he didn't entirely expect or desire:

1) Most GMs when asked to imagine an additional consequence of the failure of a character's action very naturally color it as being the result of that character's action.  He isn't comfortable with how that always plays out, so he encourages the GMs to start coloring the consequences of the failure of a character's action as being at least most of the time... unrelated to the action itself.  This strikes me as rather incoherent, not just because it creates a disassociated mechanic, because at the level of the metagame players themselves will inevitably still associate the consequences with the player action.  

Because however you want to color it, as a point of fact, it still is.  If you didn't try to open the locked door, the guards wouldn't have come around to investigate.  Indeed, the gaurds might not have existed until you failed to open the door.   To me this creates the same sort of incentive you saw in 1e for the thief to avoid using his find/disarm traps ability whenever possible, because it was not reliable enough to depend on.   As a result, the skilled 1e thief found and disarmed traps as a player, and only fell back on character skill when he had no choice as a sort of saving throw.  If I thought there was a 1 in 20 chance of making matters significantly worse, I'd always treat my skills as unreliable.

Worse, thinking up good ways for something to go catastrophically wrong that aren't the natural results of the action is probably a much larger mental burden to impose on the GM than asking the GM to imagine how the player might have screwed up the action.  Leaving the system that open ended is going to give GM's serious choice fatigue in rather short order.

2) Most players when they fumble opt to buy out of the consequences because really, who wants to find themselves in a situation that is actually worse.  Monte seems to think this behavior is driven not by the player's reluctance to have the situation get worse, or by the player's reluctance to turn the situation over to capricious GM fiat, but by feelings of guilt or embarrassment or a desire to protect their character from the color of ineptitude.  I don't know a whole lot about human emotions, but I find that rather unlikely.  I think its just logical to want to buy out of any open ended long term consequence if you have the opportunity.  As such, rather than actually being a system that introduces new drama to the situation, in practice the penalty for rolling a 1 is deducting a metagame resource which greatly undermines his intention.

Lessons here: 

Game design is hard, even for the professionals.
There is no such thing as a free lunch.  Everything has a cost.
If you make your process too burdensome, your participants will try to find ways to make a new process.
DM fiat isn't actually a simple system.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I think this is another one of those cases where different mechanics can produce the same fiction. For instance, a failed Move Silently/Stealth check followed by the troopers winning an opposed Surprise roll (as per AD&D) or succeeding on _their_ Stealth check (in some other system) could produce the same outcome.
> 
> Or, in a "fail forward" or "stake-setting" system, the same thing could happen: in order to get the Stealth roll at all, Han's player stakes being surprised by other troopers.
> 
> ...




We're telling you what fictional events constitute a fumble in our minds...So then tell us, what defines an actual fumble in your mind?  Otherwise the back and forth is kinda pointless...

I mean you're using everything from 0 hp's = slipped and fell to a cursed sword did it to justify things.. at what point did the hero just have an extraordinary mess up?


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## Maxperson (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> In a hit-point system, that looks like it might just be dropping to zero hit points. Especially in a more abstract system like AD&D's 1 minute rounds.




It also looked like a fumble.  The point is, failure is what you make of it and what you want it to be.



> D&D is particularly unlikely to give "sword shattered" as an outcome of a die roll - there are certainly other systems that can give that outcome without needing a fumble system (eg Rolemaster via crits or via its parry rules; BW via its stake-setting-and-manipulation rules).




Dragon put out a fumble chart for 2e that involved swords shattering.  The party lost a few magic ones.  Easy come, easy go.  We loved that chart 



> In the case of Turin and Beleg, once again that could easily be the outcome of stake-setting in the context of a cursed sword. Or, in D&D, there could be a sword which has the curse "on a roll of a natural 1, roll an attack against one nearby ally". That curse doesn't require general fumble rules to implement, and in fact becomes _less_ of a curse in a mechanical environment in which fumble rules are being used.



I'm not arguing that there couldn't be other reasons that explain these things.  Fumbles explain them just as well, though.


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## edhel (Feb 18, 2016)

My house rule for 5e fumbles:
- You always lose consecutive attacks after the natural 1
- You get inspiration if you choose to fumble - if you do, draw a card from the fumble deck


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## pemerton (Feb 18, 2016)

Imaro said:


> I mean you're using everything from 0 hp's = slipped and fell to a cursed sword did it to justify things.. at what point did the hero just have an extraordinary mess up?



Have you read the Silmarillion recently? The sword was cursed (forged by Eol, the dark elf). That's why it killed Beleg.

And on 0 hp = slipped and fell, that's exactly the sort of thing that the hit point system is meant to encompass, at least according to Gygax in his DMG.  As I said, it is easier to read it that way in AD&D, with 1 minute rounds.



Imaro said:


> We're telling you what fictional events constitute a fumble in our minds...So then tell us, what defines an actual fumble in your mind?  Otherwise the back and forth is kinda pointless



For what it's worth, I don't think gritty fumbles make much sense in an abstract resolution system like D&D.

The reason they can work in RM/MERP is because the whole of that system, in its resolution, tries to break things down to that level of granular detail (hit locations; rules for parrying and weapon breakage, including whether a miss was blocked on the shield, or the weapon, or dodged; etc).

A system that I _could_ see working in D&D would be something equally abstract as its to hit and damage mechanics - eg roll a 1, and lose your inspiration token; or roll a 1, and your next roll suffers disadvantage or the next roll opposed to you gains advantage; etc.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2016)

ExploderWizard said:


> Supposed to fail? Supposed to succeed?  These types of thoughts are anathema to game play. If you throw game play out the window then just toss the dice out along with it because they are ultimately meaningless.
> 
> A TPK is not a bad thing or a good thing, it is merely one possible result of playing. A team that loses a game can play again and win the next time.




Really?  Your encounters are designed to be unwinnable?  You don't give your player's a fair chance in encounters?  Where "fair" in this sense means that the party, barring major catastrophe, is going to succeed in the encounter?  Heck, we've just had three or four lengthy threads about fudging dice *specifically* to ensure that extremes in the dice don't negatively impact the characters.

I'm really not sure what tree you're barking up, but, it has zero to do with actual game design or game play.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Does a basic failure on stealth also give the enemy a surprise round?  a fumble probably would (but then so could a GM intrusion)...  The problem with discussing fumbles with your examples is that they are going to the extreme (not just hit point loss, but you loose a limb or an eye... really??)  and it makes them kind of ridiculous for a serious discussion.




How was it a surprise round?  Han moves, fails his stealth roll vs Stormtroopers Passive Perception, initiative is rolled, Stormtrooper wins initiative, and buggers off on the bike.  No fumble required.  Three Stormtroopers (it was three IIRC) rolling initiative vs Han's one roll has a pretty decent chance of at least one Stormtrooper winning.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> In a white room where the existence of them was all that factored into things, sure.  In the real game where you have wide ranges that move the advantage from monsters to PCs, they no longer favor monsters.
> 
> 
> 
> So what.  They still have those options, so crits favor the PCs.




No, they absolutely do not.  The 3e DMG has an excellent little article on randomness in the game that sums it up nicely - crits favour the monsters.  Full stop.  Because it doesn't matter that you crit three times more often.  I have unlimited monsters.  I only have to crit a small amount of times to change the nature of the game.

Then again, since you were the one arguing very strongly that you change die rolls when they go extreme against the PC's, perhaps it isn't surprising that you would think crits favour the PC's.  That makes sense if you're simply fudging NPC crits away.  In a game where dice are not fudged, crits will always favour the monsters over the PC's because the monsters don't have to crit as often - the PC's have to get lucky every time, the monsters only have to get lucky once and you get a dead PC.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Really?  Your encounters are designed to be unwinnable?  You don't give your player's a fair chance in encounters?  Where "fair" in this sense means that the party, barring major catastrophe, is going to succeed in the encounter?  Heck, we've just had three or four lengthy threads about fudging dice *specifically* to ensure that extremes in the dice don't negatively impact the characters.



In the traditional role of the Game-Master, as world-builder and impartial adjudicator, it is improper to take the capabilities of the party into consideration at any point. The party isn't _supposed to_ defeat the dragon _or_ run away from the dragon _or_ even necessarily encounter the dragon. The PCs are free to do whatever they want, and the GM will narrate without bias, and any outcome that happens is valid.

If everyone dies, then so be it. If the party succeeds, then so be it. If the GM thinks that either is _supposed to_ happen, then that's an example of bias on the part of the GM, which must be ignored in order to uphold the duty of impartial adjudicator.

"Fair" means that it's set-up without bias. The dragon is what it is, without regard for who the PCs are. The GM doesn't throw in a young white dragon _because_ the party is high level and has tons of fire effects; and the GM doesn't make it an ancient red dragon _because_ it has the best chance of killing the party. The GM _disregards_ the existence of the PCs as meta-game information that cannot possibly matter, and figures out what kind of creature _makes the most sense _for this place in the world.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> How was it a surprise round?  Han moves, fails his stealth roll vs Stormtroopers Passive Perception, initiative is rolled, Stormtrooper wins initiative, and buggers off on the bike.  No fumble required.  Three Stormtroopers (it was three IIRC) rolling initiative vs Han's one roll has a pretty decent chance of at least one Stormtrooper winning.




No one said a fumble was required... but if you're going so far as telling me it's not a fumble there has to be some criteria you're using to determine a fumble vs. a normal failure, so what is it... otherwise the discussion is pointless.


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> In the traditional role of the Game-Master, as world-builder and impartial adjudicator, it is improper to take the capabilities of the party into consideration at any point. The party isn't _supposed to_ defeat the dragon _or_ run away from the dragon _or_ even necessarily encounter the dragon. The PCs are free to do whatever they want, and the GM will narrate without bias, and any outcome that happens is valid.
> 
> If everyone dies, then so be it. If the party succeeds, then so be it. If the GM thinks that either is _supposed to_ happen, then that's an example of bias on the part of the GM, which must be ignored in order to uphold the duty of impartial adjudicator.
> 
> "Fair" means that it's set-up without bias. The dragon is what it is, without regard for who the PCs are. The GM doesn't throw in a young white dragon _because_ the party is high level and has tons of fire effects; and the GM doesn't make it an ancient red dragon _because_ it has the best chance of killing the party. The GM _disregards_ the existence of the PCs as meta-game information that cannot possibly matter, and figures out what kind of creature _makes the most sense _for this place in the world.




OTOH, virtually nothing in D&D is ever set up that way.  There's a reason you don't have giants in Keep on the Borderlands, despite having an ogre.  There's a reason that random encounter tables, outside of the wilderness encounter tables in the AD&D DMG, are almost always designed based on the level of the party, and, in fact, DM's are advised to do so in many editions.  

Never minding that your "traditional role of the Game-Master" runs counter to the advice given in pretty much every DM's advice book in every edition.  Yup, DM's shouldn't be biased when adjudicating an encounter.  But, in the set up of that encounter?  Bias is not only unavoidable but is desirable.  No one, ever, designs an entire campaign from purely random encounters.  And, guess what, when you start designing scenarios, it's unavoidable that you will bias the scenario in favour of the PC's.

Otherwise, if encounters were actually "fair", you'd never get past 3rd level because the party would keep dying.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

pemerton said:


> For what it's worth, I don't think gritty fumbles make much sense in an abstract resolution system like D&D.
> 
> The reason they can work in RM/MERP is because the whole of that system, in its resolution, tries to break things down to that level of granular detail (hit locations; rules for parrying and weapon breakage, including whether a miss was blocked on the shield, or the weapon, or dodged; etc).
> 
> A system that I _could_ see working in D&D would be something equally abstract as its to hit and damage mechanics - eg roll a 1, and lose your inspiration token; or roll a 1, and your next roll suffers disadvantage or the next roll opposed to you gains advantage; etc.




So your issue is with granularity??  The less granular it gets the more it could fit any situation presented.  So now, going by your criteria, I'm really unclear on why the situations presented couldn't be the result of a fumble... not enough inspiration to succeed or disadvantage causing one to fail initiative or loose their balance... So again what differentiates a regular failure from a fumble fiction wise and mechanics wise for you?


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## Hussar (Feb 18, 2016)

Imaro said:


> No one said a fumble was required... but if you're going so far as telling me it's not a fumble there has to be some criteria you're using to determine a fumble vs. a normal failure, so what is it... otherwise the discussion is pointless.




Good grief.  FOUR people before me said EXACLTY the same thing as I did - that there's no reason we need that to be a fumble - the regular rules work perfectly well for that scene - but you choose ME to pick an argument with?  Look, when four people tell you the exact same thing, perhaps, just perhaps, you might want to consider that your argument might not be the work of beauty you think it is.

When a scene can be modelled without resorting to extraneous mechanics, why would I add extra mechanics to model the scene?  What's the point?  The argument was made that fumbles are common in genre fiction.  Han brings down the blast door, Han steps on a twig, apparently Luke stumbles and falls, swordsmen kill allied swordsmen all the time.  But, when proof is asked for - actual examples from genre fiction, suddenly it's shown that no, there's no need for fumble mechanics and in fact, fumble mechanics would actually make following genre conventions MORE difficult.  Because, outside of some very corner case examples, our heroes don't catastrophically fail in genre fiction.  Holmes doesn't botch his investigation role meaning that he contaminates the evidence allowing the killing to go free.  Luke doesn't slip on some greasy floor and hack off Han's hand.  Legolas doesn't skewer Gimli with a botched bow shot.  Bond's gun never explodes in his hand.


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## Imaro (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Good grief.  FOUR people before me said EXACLTY the same thing as I did - that there's no reason we need that to be a fumble - the regular rules work perfectly well for that scene - but you choose ME to pick an argument with?  Look, when four people tell you the exact same thing, perhaps, just perhaps, you might want to consider that your argument might not be the work of beauty you think it is.
> 
> When a scene can be modelled without resorting to extraneous mechanics, why would I add extra mechanics to model the scene?  What's the point?  The argument was made that fumbles are common in genre fiction.  Han brings down the blast door, Han steps on a twig, apparently Luke stumbles and falls, swordsmen kill allied swordsmen all the time.  But, when proof is asked for - actual examples from genre fiction, suddenly it's shown that no, there's no need for fumble mechanics and in fact, fumble mechanics would actually make following genre conventions MORE difficult.  Because, outside of some very corner case examples, our heroes don't catastrophically fail in genre fiction.  Holmes doesn't botch his investigation role meaning that he contaminates the evidence allowing the killing to go free.  Luke doesn't slip on some greasy floor and hack off Han's hand.  Legolas doesn't skewer Gimli with a botched bow shot.  Bond's gun never explodes in his hand.




No the problem is that since a fumble is a sub-category of failure... by definition a fumble will always entail a failure... until what differentiates a fumble from a regular failure is defined... there's no way to determine whether something is or isn't a regular failure or a fumble...

As for catastrophic failures... Luke gets his hand cut off in a lightsaber duel.. how do you model that?

EDIT: You like a few others here apparently have this notion that a fumble must entail granular physical harm either inflicted on ones self or on ones allies... but the problem is that's your very specific definition of what entails a fumble... and not one all posters are agreeing or acknowledging as truth.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 18, 2016)

Hussar said:


> OTOH, virtually nothing in D&D is ever set up that way.  There's a reason you don't have giants in Keep on the Borderlands, despite having an ogre.  There's a reason that random encounter tables, outside of the wilderness encounter tables in the AD&D DMG, are almost always designed based on the level of the party, and, in fact, DM's are advised to do so in many editions.



I'm not familiar with wilderness encounter tables other than the ones in the AD&D DMG, so I can't comment on those, but the ones cited are meant to impartially represent what you might encounter in an area.

A lot of it comes down to world-building, though. There aren't any giants in the Keep on the Borderlands, because it wouldn't make any _sense_ for one to be there, given the way that the world is organized (unless it's just poorly written, which I can't speak to because I don't play modules). One of the skills of a Game-Master is to create a world that is conducive to adventuring, which means you can't have ancient dragons _everywhere_ because nobody would get past level 3, to say nothing of the ecology of such a world!

Instead, regions tend to be fairly self-balancing. You don't run into level 19 dragons in the middle of a forest filled with level 2 beasts, because there's no reason why those dragons would evolve to be so big and strong if their only challenge to survival was overcoming level 2 beasts. Powerful demons are off on another plane of existence, and summoning one would require a powerful spellcaster, but powerful spellcasters are busy opposing _other_ powerful spellcasters instead of wasting their time with the PCs.

It's not that campaigns should subsist entirely on random encounters, so much as that the characters and creatures which inhabit the world (and which might eventually oppose the PCs) should exist independently of who the PCs are and what they can do. Ancient dragons should exist where it makes sense for them to exist, and not simply in the vicinity of level-appropriate PCs.


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## billd91 (Feb 18, 2016)

Imaro said:


> No the problem is that since a fumble is a sub-category of failure... by definition a fumble will always entail a failure... until what differentiates a fumble from a regular failure is defined... there's no way to determine whether something is or isn't a regular failure or a fumble...
> 
> As for catastrophic failures... Luke gets his hand cut off in a lightsaber duel.. how do you model that?




Critical success on Vader's part. Given how often lightsaber's hack off limbs, even of highly skilled practitioners, I'm going to give credit to Vader rather than try to convince myself that Luke bungled his defense.



Imaro said:


> EDIT: You like a few others here apparently have this notion that a fumble must entail granular physical harm either inflicted on ones self or on ones allies... but the problem is that's your very specific definition of what entails a fumble... and not one all posters are agreeing or acknowledging as truth.




This is not really idiosyncratic to Hussar. If you're going to have a distinction between failure and fumble terms, fumble needs to mean something distinct from just failing and that pretty much requires an effect that is even worse than failure. Traditional definitions of fumble suggest clumsiness, bungling, or making a mess of something and that too suggests more than simply not succeeding. So is it really controversial that people assume that a fumble somehow harms the PC or his allies?


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## Arilyn (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> OTOH, virtually nothing in D&D is ever set up that way.  There's a reason you don't have giants in Keep on the Borderlands, despite having an ogre.  There's a reason that random encounter tables, outside of the wilderness encounter tables in the AD&D DMG, are almost always designed based on the level of the party, and, in fact, DM's are advised to do so in many editions.
> 
> Never minding that your "traditional role of the Game-Master" runs counter to the advice given in pretty much every DM's advice book in every edition.  Yup, DM's shouldn't be biased when adjudicating an encounter.  But, in the set up of that encounter?  Bias is not only unavoidable but is desirable.  No one, ever, designs an entire campaign from purely random encounters.  And, guess what, when you start designing scenarios, it's unavoidable that you will bias the scenario in favour of the PC's.
> 
> Otherwise, if encounters were actually "fair", you'd never get past 3rd level because the party would keep dying.




Exactly. Especially in D&D. It is a level based system, which means that, of course, the GM is taking the party's level under consideration while designing adventures. How could it go any other way? I have never seen or been in a campaign that was created with no "recommended" levels or CRs or anything!

I am surprised to see Monte Cook's article spawning such controversy. His GM intrusions don't seem to warrant such a furor!  They are a typical example of mechanics found in more modern games.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 19, 2016)

Arilyn said:


> How could it go any other way? I have never seen or been in a campaign that was created with no "recommended" levels or CRs or anything!



The recommended level (or CR) could be _descriptive_ rather than _proscriptive_. It's not that the Necromancer is raising an army of CR 4 undead, and there's a CR 7 dragon involved, _because_ this adventure is recommended for characters of level 5-8; it's that this adventure is recommended for these levels _because_ these are the kinds of NPCs involved. They are who they are _regardless_ of whether the PCs are level 1 or level 20.

Note that these terms are _entirely_ external to the events of the game itself. The Necromancer isn't working with the level-appropriate dragon _because_ it's a game and the whole thing is designed for the party of a certain level; the Necromancer is working with _this_ dragon because lesser dragons couldn't help her and she is beneath the notice of more powerful dragons. Everything that happens in the game world must have an _in-game-world_ cause, and cannot be influenced be outside factors (without violating the GM's duty of impartiality).


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

That's awfully convenient [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION].  And tautological. There's absolutely no reason why that particular dragon and not one that is only somewhat larger say a jump from CR 7 to CR 11 is in this scenario except that a more difficult dragon would be too difficult for this party to overcome. 

Heck, even jumping two CRs would make the adventure too difficult possibly. So either the scenario gets changed - perhaps the party meets the dragon in a situation where the party has advantages - or the easier dragon gets used.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> There's absolutely no reason why that particular dragon and not one that is only somewhat larger say a jump from CR 7 to CR 11 is in this scenario except that a more difficult dragon would be too difficult for this party to overcome.



The GM looks at all of the possible worlds that could potentially exist, and selects one that will make for an interesting adventure. And while there are an infinite number of worlds to choose from, the one thing that they _all_ have in common is that they exist independently of who the PCs are.

It's not hard to avoid meta-gaming, as long as you're aware of it.


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## Holy Bovine (Feb 19, 2016)

Mortellan said:


> I agree Dave,
> If you allow crits, especially in a system with possible improved crit chances like D&D, I gotta have a counter balance. 3.5/Pathfinder is especially ridiculous. Criticalling on 1/4 of your attacks is easy to accomplish, but a measly 5% chance to goof up? Boo!
> 
> No fumbles, then no crits.




Now show how that high level 3E fighter with 4 attacks per round screws up 4 times as often as Bob the 1st level warrior.  Fumble rules just screw over exceptional PCs, glad we never used them.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The GM looks at all of the possible worlds that could potentially exist, and selects *one that will make for an interesting adventure*. And while there are an infinite number of worlds to choose from, the one thing that they _all_ have in common is that they exist independently of who the PCs are.
> 
> It's not hard to avoid meta-gaming, as long as you're aware of it.




Thank you for agreeing with me.  IOW, it has zero to do with world building and everything to do with creating adventures for the players who are supposed to succeed in those adventures.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Thank you for agreeing with me.  IOW, it has zero to do with world building and everything to do with creating adventures for the players who are supposed to succeed in those adventures.



No, I don't agree with you at all. These worlds need to be judged on their _inherent_ potential for adventure. If you base it on the players or their characters, then you are violating impartiality.

If you don't want to be fair, then feel free to ignore the rules, or play some other game that doesn't care about fairness. You can't take a biased starting position and then claim to be fair, though.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> In the traditional role of the Game-Master, as world-builder and impartial adjudicator, it is improper to take the capabilities of the party into consideration at any point.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> "Fair" means that it's set-up without bias. The dragon is what it is, without regard for who the PCs are. The GM doesn't throw in a young white dragon _because_ the party is high level and has tons of fire effects; and the GM doesn't make it an ancient red dragon _because_ it has the best chance of killing the party. The GM _disregards_ the existence of the PCs as meta-game information that cannot possibly matter, and figures out what kind of creature _makes the most sense _for this place in the world.



This whole issue is something as a tangent. But to me it seems relevant to the tangent that my Moldvay Basic Set included a module called Keep on the Borderlands which has been designed keeping in mind the capabilities of 1st to 3rd level PCs; and my Cook/Marsh Expert Set included a module called The Isle of Dread which has been designed keeping mind the capabilities of PCs above 3rd level.

It seems to me that the process of design of both modules was, in fact, first to think about the level of PCs that the module would be written for; then to think of a setting and a population for that setting that might provide suitable opposition for such PCs; and then to write a module that instantiates those ideas. 

I've got no view on whether or not either module is fair; but I think they are both pretty traditional, and yet the method of authorship is not the one that you describe.



Saelorn said:


> The recommended level (or CR) could be _descriptive_ rather than _proscriptive_. It's not that the Necromancer is raising an army of CR 4 undead, and there's a CR 7 dragon involved, _because_ this adventure is recommended for characters of level 5-8; it's that this adventure is recommended for these levels _because_ these are the kinds of NPCs involved.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> The Necromancer isn't working with the level-appropriate dragon _because_ it's a game and the whole thing is designed for the party of a certain level; the Necromancer is working with _this_ dragon because lesser dragons couldn't help her and she is beneath the notice of more powerful dragons.



This is confused. Your first post on this topic is about _fairness on the part of the GM_. The ingame motivation of imaginary beings has no relevance to that.

_In the fiction_, the reason the necromancer is working with the dragon is because  lesser dragons couldn't help her and she is beneath the notice of more powerful dragons._ But the reason the fiction has been authored this way_, by the GM, is because the whole thing is designed for a party of a certain level.

There is no tension or contradiction here.



Saelorn said:


> These worlds need to be judged on their _inherent_ potential for adventure. If you base it on the players or their characters, then you are violating impartiality.
> 
> If you don't want to be fair, then feel free to ignore the rules, or play some other game that doesn't care about fairness. You can't take a biased starting position and then claim to be fair, though.



Impartiality to whom? And fairness to whom?

No duties of impartiality or fairness are owed to possible worlds, or to imaginary people. Those duties may well be owed by the GM (a real person) to his/her players (other real people), but it's not at all clear to me how the GM violates any such duties by designing an adventure with the intention that it be fun for those people to play using their PCs.


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## pemerton (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> No the problem is that since a fumble is a sub-category of failure... by definition a fumble will always entail a failure... until what differentiates a fumble from a regular failure is defined... there's no way to determine whether something is or isn't a regular failure or a fumble...
> 
> As for catastrophic failures... Luke gets his hand cut off in a lightsaber duel.. how do you model that?



In D&D you can't. Unless Vader is wielding a very specific magical weapon, there is no mechanic for translating hit point loss into dismemberment. This is a consequence of the abstraction of D&D, which I have already mentioned a couple of time upthread.

In Rolemaster, or Runequest, or Burning Wheel, or plenty of other FRPGs, on the other hand, the combat mechanics are not abstract like D&D's, and they produce concrete results that include specific injuries.



Imaro said:


> what differentiates a regular failure from a fumble fiction wise and mechanics wise for you?



Nothing. I don't think there is any general concept of "failure" or "fumble".

It all depends on system.

In RM, for instance, attacks produce one of three results: a hit (which may deliver concussion hit loss and/or specific injuries or conditions via the crit tables); a "miss", which may be a dodge or a parry or a shield block (there are rules for determining this, and then for determining weapon/shield breakage if appropriate); or a "fumble", which is rolled on a table and generally leads to the attacker suffering some sort of adverse consequence (such as some damage or other debuff).

In RM, a non-attack skill check is generally resolved on a table which has different results depending on the overall result of the roll + bonus + situational mods. Each skill (or skill category) has a different table, but in general low results (eg -25 or down) result in some sort of adverse consequence for the PC and/or a debuff; mid-results (eg 06 to 75) leave the situation unchanged but typically (not always) permit a reroll, which in the fiction costs time; upper results short of outright success (eg 76 to 110) may allow a reroll with a bonus, or produce a change in the situation less than what the PC was hoping to achieve (eg jump 70% of intended distance); and then there are results that produce outright success.

There is no notion of a "fumble" for these non-attack skill checks, although d100 rolls below 06 are "open-ended low", meaning that the d% is rerolled and the result subtracted from the first roll to determine the die result before bonuses and mods are added.

RM also requires a roll for spell-casting. For non-attack spells, success occurs on a roll of 03 or up, but on a roll of 02 or 01 the spell is not cast as intended and a roll must be made on the spell failure table. The result of that roll can very from there being no additional consequence, through the caster suffering damage and/or debuff due to internalising the magic, through to the caster dying from the failed casting.

Burning Wheel also requires a roll for spell-casting, and if the roll fails requires another roll to determine the consequences of failure. Consequences can include no additional result; or a random magical effect generated; or an unwanted summoning occurring.

If someone at my table failed a BW spell-casting roll, and then the result of the failure roll was not _no additional result_ but rather was _unwanted summoning_, then I wouldn't be described if another player described that as a fumbling of the spell. But _fumbling_ here isn't a technical term.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> No, they absolutely do not.  The 3e DMG has an excellent little article on randomness in the game that sums it up nicely - crits favour the monsters.  Full stop.  Because it doesn't matter that you crit three times more often.  I have unlimited monsters.  I only have to crit a small amount of times to change the nature of the game.




Sure, in the white room you have unlimited monsters.  In the reality of game play, though, your monsters are highly limited.  You don't go anywhere near throwing unlimited monsters at the PCs.  If you did, they'd die no matter what.

Since it's a fact that the DM is going to limit the number of monsters PCs encounter, crits are going to favor the PCs since they crit many times more often.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Good grief.  FOUR people before me said EXACLTY the same thing as I did - that there's no reason we need that to be a fumble - the regular rules work perfectly well for that scene - but you choose ME to pick an argument with?  Look, when four people tell you the exact same thing, perhaps, just perhaps, you might want to consider that your argument might not be the work of beauty you think it is.




So then the answer is that you can't show how it's not a fumble.   You can only say it isn't required which isn't the same thing at all.



> When a scene can be modelled without resorting to extraneous mechanics, why would I add extra mechanics to model the scene?  What's the point?




Increased enjoyment is the point.



> The argument was made that fumbles are common in genre fiction.  Han brings down the blast door, Han steps on a twig, apparently Luke stumbles and falls, swordsmen kill allied swordsmen all the time.  But, when proof is asked for - actual examples from genre fiction, suddenly it's shown that no, there's no need for fumble mechanics and in fact, fumble mechanics would actually make following genre conventions MORE difficult.  Because, outside of some very corner case examples, our heroes don't catastrophically fail in genre fiction.



Irrelevant.  Need plays no part in this.  You aren't required to need fumbles for something to be modeled as a fumble.  Every last one of those examples is also an example of a fumble.  All of them.  You can model them as fumble or not, depending on how you want to play.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

pemerton said:


> In D&D you can't. Unless Vader is wielding a very specific magical weapon, there is no mechanic for translating hit point loss into dismemberment. This is a consequence of the abstraction of D&D, which I have already mentioned a couple of time upthread.




But it can be accomplished with fumble rules...



pemerton said:


> In Rolemaster, or Runequest, or Burning Wheel, or plenty of other FRPGs, on the other hand, the combat mechanics are not abstract like D&D's, and they produce concrete results that include specific injuries.




Yes but even those systems are probably (I'm unfamiliar with them... except for the Mongoose version of Runequest so I can't be 100% sure) lacking in certain areas and unable to recreate certain situations that arise in fiction. 



pemerton said:


> Nothing. I don't think there is any general concept of "failure" or "fumble".




If this is true how can you and others claim certain things that arise in the fiction aren't fumbles?  



pemerton said:


> It all depends on system.




Exactly... so depending on the system, if you want to model certain actions that arise in fiction (with the regularity that they occur in said fiction) it may be necessary to introduce a "fumble" mechanic.  Now whether this is a good or bad thing is entirely group dependent but to claim that fumbles are unnecessary is to assume you know what game experience any and every group playing a particular game is looking for...



pemerton said:


> In RM, for instance, attacks produce one of three results: a hit (which may deliver concussion hit loss and/or specific injuries or conditions via the crit tables); a "miss", which may be a dodge or a parry or a shield block (there are rules for determining this, and then for determining weapon/shield breakage if appropriate); or a "fumble", which is rolled on a table and generally leads to the attacker suffering some sort of adverse consequence (such as some damage or other debuff).
> 
> In RM, a non-attack skill check is generally resolved on a table which has different results depending on the overall result of the roll + bonus + situational mods. Each skill (or skill category) has a different table, but in general low results (eg -25 or down) result in some sort of adverse consequence for the PC and/or a debuff; mid-results (eg 06 to 75) leave the situation unchanged but typically (not always) permit a reroll, which in the fiction costs time; upper results short of outright success (eg 76 to 110) may allow a reroll with a bonus, or produce a change in the situation less than what the PC was hoping to achieve (eg jump 70% of intended distance); and then there are results that produce outright success.
> 
> ...




But we aren't speaking specifically to RM...



pemerton said:


> Burning Wheel also requires a roll for spell-casting, and if the roll fails requires another roll to determine the consequences of failure. Consequences can include no additional result; or a random magical effect generated; or an unwanted summoning occurring.
> 
> If someone at my table failed a BW spell-casting roll, and then the result of the failure roll was not _no additional result_ but rather was _unwanted summoning_, then I wouldn't be described if another player described that as a fumbling of the spell. But _fumbling_ here isn't a technical term.




There is still a limit here to the effects that can be produced by these failures... correct?  What this does is set the precedent for what a failure constitutes in these particular games... however if a group (for whatever reason) wants a wider variety of results, more severe results, or even to give the GM the power to decide a specific and more relevant result of failure... well then fumble rules could be introduced to take care of that and thus a "need" for fumble rules arises.

What I don't understand is how you and others like [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] are dismissing examples of "fumbles" when there is no default game system we are discussing to determine whether they can or can't be modeled without fumble rules?  Yes I'm sure somewhere for every example presented you can find a particular system that could model it without recourse to fumble rules... but the point is no system is capable of modelling all possibilities of these failures and thus the "need" as well as what constitutes a "fumble" is entirely group and rules system dependent.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

billd91 said:


> Critical success on Vader's part. Given how often lightsaber's hack off limbs, even of highly skilled practitioners, I'm going to give credit to Vader rather than try to convince myself that Luke bungled his defense.




You can't do this in D&D (which was the system being referenced) which was my point, a new system is necessary to model it(or are we now switching to another system to "prove" it's not a fumble?).  Now you could model it a some new type of critical success but it could also be modeled as a fumble... so you saying you would model it in a different way doesn't prove it's not a fumble...




billd91 said:


> This is not really idiosyncratic to Hussar.




Never claimed it was... in fact I specifically called out it was him as well as a few other posters... Still doesn't prove or disprove the correctness of making said assertion though...



billd91 said:


> If you're going to have a distinction between failure and fumble terms, fumble needs to mean something distinct from just failing and that pretty much requires an effect that is even worse than failure. Traditional definitions of fumble suggest clumsiness, bungling, or making a mess of something and that too suggests more than simply not succeeding. So is it really controversial that people assume that a fumble somehow harms the PC or his allies?




No it does not pretty much mean it "requires" an effect that is even worse than failure...  This is totally dependent on the system being used and what it's limitations are... which is why the arguing that these fictional examples aren't fumbles is so silly.  Until we agree upon what the system is and what a fumble constitutes in said system... both anything and nothing are valid as "fumbles".

While I agree with your traditional defintion of fumbles... I in no way see how clumsiness, bungling, or making a mess of something during an action must logically and in all situations lead to severed limbs, the gouging out of friends eyes and decapitations... That's how you and a few others personally choose to define a fumble but taht's all it is, your personal view of what a "fumble" is.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> No it does not pretty much mean it "requires" an effect that is even worse than failure...  This is totally dependent on the system being used and what it's limitations are... which is why the arguing that these fictional examples aren't fumbles is so silly.  Until we agree upon what the system is and what a fumble constitutes in said system... both anything and nothing are valid as "fumbles".




Correct.  There is no such thing as "worse than failure" with a fumble.  Fumbles are simply a degree of failure, not something worse.



> While I agree with your traditional defintion of fumbles... I in no way see how clumsiness, bungling, or making a mess of something during an action must logically and in all situations lead to severed limbs, the gouging out of friends eyes and decapitations... That's how you and a few others personally choose to define a fumble but taht's all it is, your personal view of what a "fumble" is.




It's fallacious arguing.  They have to point out the most extreme and absurd situations in order to feel right about their positions, even though such extremes are not at all required on any fumble chart.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> As for catastrophic failures... Luke gets his hand cut off in a lightsaber duel.. how do you model that?
> 
> .




That could have been a critical on Vader's part, not a fumble on Luke's.


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Holy Bovine said:


> Now show how that high level 3E fighter with 4 attacks per round screws up 4 times as often as Bob the 1st level warrior.  Fumble rules just screw over exceptional PCs, glad we never used them.




Fumble rules do screw the PC's, but not for the reason you cite.  You have in your mind a particular implementation of fumble rules, but that isn't the only way to organize them.

Consider the way criticals are handled in 3e.  Normally, you critical only when you throw a 20 on an attack roll.  But you don't automatically critical.  You only threaten to critical on a 20.  Your chance of actually hitting after throwing a 20 depends on your attack bonus.   The more likely you are to hit, the more likely you are to critical.  Moreover, as you increase in skill and a level, your expected chance of achieving a critical tends to increase as well.  You start threatening to critical on a 19 or 20.  Some of my player's character threaten to critical on a 12+ and basically miss only on a 2+.  A true mook would only critical them 1 time in 400, whereas they critical a true mook about 43% of the time.  

The same thing generally applies to fumbles.  The more skilled you are, the less likely each individual attack results in a fumble.  For example, there are a whole class of fumbles that provoke balance checks, and the consequences of the fumble - tripping, stumbling, or falling down - only happen on a failed skill check.  A skilled rogue (for example) is basically immune to fumbles of this class.  And there is a whole class of fumbles that provoke endurance checks, where the consequences of the fumble (becoming fatigued, being winded, pulling a muscle) only happen if you fail a constitution check.   This basically never happens to the stouter members of the party with their magically enhanced constitutions and Endurance feats.  All but the most serious ones they are immune to.   Likewise, there are several sorts of fumbles where you only fumble if a second attack roll at your full BAB would also miss.   This rarely happens to a skilled fighter.  

Despite all this, fumbles do hurt the PC's more than NPC's.  The simple fact of the matter is that most NPCs are going to lose anyway (however you rationalize it, that's true).  As such, it doesn't really change anything if an NPC fumbles occasionally.  The NPC just loses very slightly quicker.  But when a PC fumbles, it changes the dynamics.   The odds that a PC will experience a game changing run of bad luck that results in an unavoidable defeat increase.  

I certainly don't think that fumbles are for everyone.  The only reason I use them is that they add variety to D&D's sometimes overly abstract combat, which might otherwise not be marked by anyone imagining events happening at all, but rather only by the rolling of dice and the marking down of numbers in tally columns to see who won.   The occasional unexpected narratable event in a combat gives D&D combat more life.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> No, I don't agree with you at all. These worlds need to be judged on their _inherent_ potential for adventure. If you base it on the players or their characters, then you are violating impartiality.
> 
> If you don't want to be fair, then feel free to ignore the rules, or play some other game that doesn't care about fairness. You can't take a biased starting position and then claim to be fair, though.




You can't have it both ways.  Either you're building scenarios specifically for world building purposes or you are building scenarios that would be fun to play through.  You can't have both.  As soon as you decide "fun to play through" is a criteria, then world building considerations take a back seat.  IOW, your 6th level necromancer raising undead is 6th level, not because it makes world building sense, but because you are building a scenario for characters of a specific range of levels.  There's a reason the necromancer isn't 3rd level or 12th level and it has zero to do with "impartiality" and everything to do with building a fun scenario.


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> It's fallacious arguing.  They have to point out the most extreme and absurd situations in order to feel right about their positions, even though such extremes are not at all required on any fumble chart.




I agree that it is a wholly fallacious argument but I know where they are coming from, because I've seen it personally and heard of it second hand.

Many oldbies experience with fumbles and critical hits comes almost entirely from the Dragon article 'Good misses and bad hits'.  A few might have experience with Warhammer Fantasy or Rolemaster, which have their own issues, but this being primarily a D&D forum it's mostly going to be those old unofficially fumble and critical tables.  

That article had a lot of awesomeness to it, which is why it was so influential and popular, but it also had a lot of fail in it.  For the most part, the fumble and critical results on the tables weren't tested for reasonableness by the table itself.  Whatever the table said simply happened.  So for example, a non-magical sword was basically just as likely to break as a +6 holy avenger.   

One of the good things about the rules though was that the chance of you fumbling decreased as you got more skilled.  The rules presented by the article said that the chance of a critical was a percentage equal to the difference in your modified to hit roll and the number you needed to hit.  So for example, if your character needed a modified 14 to hit, and you rolled a modified 22, then you'd have an 8% chance of a critical.  On the other hand if you rolled a modified 6, you'd have an 8% chance of a fumble.  

That worked pretty well but it generated a ton of fumbles and criticals, and a lot of the results on the table were pretty extreme - critically hit self being an example.   D&D combat wasn't naturally very gritty, but if you threw in the fumble and critical rules from the article it would get pretty darn brutal in a hurry.  High level fighters - already arguably OP in 1e after Weapon Specialization was introduced - would generate critical hits on like 10-15% of their attacks, often ending the fight right then and there.

To make matters worse though, quite a few tables house ruled the article to simply it so that you always fumbled on a 1 and always had a critical on a 20.  That common house rule is actually the direct ancestor of the 3e critical hit rules.   But unlike the 3e rules, this wasn't just a threat to critical, but an automatic critical or fumble.  So if you had 2 or 3 attacks per round, every attack you made was a chance to roll a 1 and critically hit yourself or your ally.  Naturally, things like that would happen all the time.

If that is your whole experience with fumbles, then you probably automatically imagine those situations whenever you hear the word 'fumble'.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> You can't have it both ways.  Either you're building scenarios specifically for world building purposes or you are building scenarios that would be fun to play through.  You can't have both.  As soon as you decide "fun to play through" is a criteria, then world building considerations take a back seat.  IOW, your 6th level necromancer raising undead is 6th level, not because it makes world building sense, but because you are building a scenario for characters of a specific range of levels.  There's a reason the necromancer isn't 3rd level or 12th level and it has zero to do with "impartiality" and everything to do with building a fun scenario.




I don't think anything is this black and white. You can always blend things. You can design with an eye toward both, trying to keep them in balance, shifting from one to the other, etc. I love world building, and love designing believable worlds, but I don't ignore adventure potential and that is one of my top considerations as well. It isn't a matter of only being able to design toward one goal, it is more like you have a list of criteria you are weighing as you design.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Sure, in the white room you have unlimited monsters.  In the reality of game play, though, your monsters are highly limited.  You don't go anywhere near throwing unlimited monsters at the PCs.  If you did, they'd die no matter what.
> 
> Since it's a fact that the DM is going to limit the number of monsters PCs encounter, crits are going to favor the PCs since they crit many times more often.




Nope, they really aren't.  It doesn't matter how many monsters you kill, I have an unlimited supply of new ones that will never, ever run out.  And, no, PC's don't crit many times more often simply because the PC's attack far, far less than the monsters.

A group of 10th level 5e character, say 5 PC's, 2 fighter types, a cleric, wizard and thief are adventuring.  They get 7 attacks per round, presuming they attack every round and don't cast spells.  There might be some exceptions - feats, that sort of thing - but, by and large 7 attacks is all they get.  10th level party, I'll throw half a dozen troll at them.  Not an overwhelming encounter by any stretch right? Guess what?  I've got 12 attacks per round from those trolls.  Even if you crit twce as often, which 5e characters don't (only Champions get higher crit ranges), I've still got twice as may attacks per round as you.  I will crit more often than you will.  

In 3e, which is where this little sidebar started, it gets even worse.  Standard party is 4 PC's.  Monsters frequently have 3 attacks per round.  The party has, maybe, 5, 6 attacks per round.  The monsters can have easily twice, or even three times more attacks per round than the party with little difficulty.  Again, it doesn't matter what your crit range is.  I am guaranteed to crit more often, simply because no single character comes remotely close to the number of times that the DM rolls, and even the group combined still lags behind.


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## delericho (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Nope, they really aren't.  It doesn't matter how many monsters you kill, I have an unlimited supply of new ones that will never, ever run out.  And, no, PC's don't crit many times more often simply because the PC's attack far, far less than the monsters.




This. All the rest of the post, too.



> In 3e, which is where this little sidebar started, it gets even worse.  Standard party is 4 PC's.  Monsters frequently have 3 attacks per round.  The party has, maybe, 5, 6 attacks per round...




Yep. Plus the party is likely to have at least one PC casting spells which tend to require saves rather than attack rolls. So that cuts down on the number of crits, too.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> That could have been a critical on Vader's part, not a fumble on Luke's.





I agree... key points being...

1. That mechanic does not exist in D&D for crits and thus must be a new mechanic
2. It *could* be modeled as a fumble or as a crit... and thus could serve as an example of either one... (either way, in D&D the mechanic for modeling this does not exist and if we want to recreate it possibilities include creating a mechanic that lies at either the failure or success end of the spectrum)


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> /snip
> 
> 
> 
> ...




But, since the examples you presented don't actually require a separate system, then what's the point?  We differentiate a critical hit from a regular hit quite easily.  One does considerably more damage than another.  We know, both in game and out, when a critical hit has been scored.  There's no waffling going on here.  The crit deals more damage than the regular attack could.  

But, apparently, there's nothing to distinguish a critical failure from a regular failure.  They look exactly the same.  Well, why bother then?  Why have another system when the results are the same?  If Han stepping on a twig give the same results whether or not you treat it as a failure of a Stealth Check or a "Critical" failure of Stealth Check, then there's absolutely nothing being modelled here.  

Luke having his hand chopped off is not a failure on Luke's part but a critical success on Vader's.  Note, after the hand is chopped off, the fight is over.  Vader wins.  This is simply a perfect example of why HP does not equal meat.    This is a perfect example of a PC being reduced to negative HP.  

If two systems don't actually have any real difference, then what's the point of having two systems?  Why have a critical fumble system that gives you identical results to a simple fail system?  It's complexity for no purpose.  It adds zero to the game.  

What fumble results do you see arising that are not covered by simple failures?

And note, in the Han example, you cannot actually critical fumble skill checks in any edition of D&D.  D&D cannot, and has never been able to, give you a critical fail condition on a skill check.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> I agree... key points being...
> 
> 1. That mechanic does not exist in D&D for crits and thus must be a new mechanic
> 2. It *could* be modeled as a fumble or as a crit... and thus could serve as an example of either one... (either way, in D&D the mechanic for modeling this does not exist and if we want to recreate it possibilities include creating a mechanic that lies at either the failure or success end of the spectrum)




How, exactly, would this be modelled as a critical fumble check for Luke?  How does Luke's critical failure result in Vader cutting his arm off?  In none of the systems presented does a critical failure cause an enemy to kill/incapacitate you.


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

I'm not even sure you guys in the sub-thread arguing over how fiction that wasn't produced by a gaming process maps to vague hypothetical rules of a game know what you are arguing about.  

Because almost all games have a degree of DM fiat, and because we do not actually know the game state of a particular non-game fiction, we can't say for certain what is going on in game terms in any particular non-game fiction.  I hope that is obvious.  

Take for example Vadar slashing off the arm of Luke.  

This wasn't produced by a game mechanic.  It was written into a story by a writer not carrying about how it could be gamed.  But there are an almost infinite number of imaginable game mechanics that could have created that fiction.  It could have been a special effect of the weapon - maybe all lightsabers are defined has having the equivalent of the D&D 'sharpness' trait.  See for example the discussion of running a particular sharpness weapon in the 2e D&D module 'Axe of the Dwarven Lords'.  

It could be that the system being used had critical hits and one possible critical hit was remove limb at wrist.

It could be that the system in question had no hit points, but had hit locations and wound severity and that a wound of a certain severity to a the arm (however that severity was generated) indicated dismemberment.

It could be that this is a narrativist system of some sort, and that however it was determined Luke lost the scene and now is losing an arm as part of some well defined fail forward mechanic that ensures that regardless of whether Luke wins or loses his scene with Vadar, the plot goes on.

It could be a diceless system, and the players of Luke and Vadar negotiated this ending in some fashion before playing it out.

We can't know what system is in play.  We can only speculate how in a particular system that scene might be generated, or if it indeed could be generated.

As far as fumbles go, D&D by default doesn't have them and can't generate them with mechanical consequences (with very few exceptions, Use Magical Device skill checks being one example).  But any common failure can be colored as a fumble, and since we can't know the mechanics of the system used in the fiction in question (again people, it doesn't exist!), and we don't know the stakes because we don't know the counterfactuals the way we would in a game state, we can't know if for example a failure we see of a character in star wars represents color of a fumble or actual mechanical fumble consequences.  There is no point in arguing about the details of the game system being played in _ the movie_ Star Wars.  I only brought it up to serve as an illustration of true high action fantasy heroes bumbling through scenes and yet still being heroes.   

All we can say for sure is that if you want to create a fiction like the movie Star Wars, your heroes will have to be able to fail and have the color of failure.  How we implement that is a very broad topic with a wide range of options.  Fumbles aren't essential to it, but aren't ruled out by the fiction either, because the heroes do have serious missteps - many more than people are remembering I think.


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> How, exactly, would this be modelled as a critical fumble check for Luke?  How does Luke's critical failure result in Vader cutting his arm off?  In none of the systems presented does a critical failure cause an enemy to kill/incapacitate you.




The participants could be playing a system were NPCs - in order to speed play and in order to increase player agency - never actually make dice rolls.  In this hypothetical system, how well Luke does on his Hack and Slash skill check determines whether he gets hit, whether he hits the target, or whether nothing happens.  If this system has fumbles and criticals, then 'Take a Critical Wound' is the result of Luke's fumble (maybe failure to hit the target DC by 10 or more).  

Dungeon World has mechanics that aren't very different from that.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> But, since the examples you presented don't actually require a separate system, then what's the point?  We differentiate a critical hit from a regular hit quite easily.  One does considerably more damage than another.  We know, both in game and out, when a critical hit has been scored.  There's no waffling going on here.  The crit deals more damage than the regular attack could.




Where are the rules for severing limbs?   



Hussar said:


> But, apparently, there's nothing to distinguish a critical failure from a regular failure.  They look exactly the same.  Well, why bother then?  Why have another system when the results are the same?  If Han stepping on a twig give the same results whether or not you treat it as a failure of a Stealth Check or a "Critical" failure of Stealth Check, then there's absolutely nothing being modelled here.




I think you missed the entire point... the point was that a "fumble" does not have to equate with a stick through someone's eye... not that there shouldn't be a difference.  In a previous post I listed some differences but it's all system and user dependent... that's what you keep missing.  Han stepping on the twig doesn't give the result... as I remember you post Han has to step on a twig and loose initiative... so mechanically they are not the same thing even if they appear similar when described.  For that matter why have different weapons that do 1d8?  whether it can be wielded using strength or dexterity the result is the same... right?? Wrong the mechanics and details matter. 



Hussar said:


> Luke having his hand chopped off is not a failure on Luke's part but a critical success on Vader's.  Note, after the hand is chopped off, the fight is over.  Vader wins.  This is simply a perfect example of why HP does not equal meat.    This is a perfect example of a PC being reduced to negative HP.




Prove it?  Otherwise your assertion of it being a critical is no more or less valid than my assertion that it's a fumble on Luke's part... and in D&D crits don't sever limbs... so basically we're bith just making up systems to cover something colored by our aesthetic preferences.  Honestly my players would better take loosing a limb if they made a low roll than because an NPC made a high roll... but again that's the point it's preference.



Hussar said:


> If two systems don't actually have any real difference, then what's the point of having two systems?  Why have a critical fumble system that gives you identical results to a simple fail system?  It's complexity for no purpose.  It adds zero to the game.




Because how you get to the result is also important??   



Hussar said:


> What fumble results do you see arising that are not covered by simple failures?




All of the examples... what you've shown is that multiple failures at multiple checks can cause a situation to arise that mimics what happens on the single fumble roll... but what you haven't shown is how just from Han stepping on the twig (not also failing an initiative roll or a surprise check as well) the results that transpired come about.  Do you get the difference?



Hussar said:


> And note, in the Han example, you cannot actually critical fumble skill checks in any edition of D&D.  D&D cannot, and has never been able to, give you a critical fail condition on a skill check.




And you do realize people are talking about everything from D&D to RM to Numenera to BW... why do you keep assuming we're speaking to D&D? 

As to your actual assertion... it's incorrect.  In 5e DMG page 242 there is the "Degrees of Failure" & "Critical Success or Failure" options which very much allows a group playing D&D to have a "critical fumble"...


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> The participants could be playing a system were NPCs - in order to speed play and in order to increase player agency - never actually make dice rolls.  In this hypothetical system, how well Luke does on his Hack and Slash skill check determines whether he gets hit, whether he hits the target, or whether nothing happens.  If this system has fumbles and criticals, then 'Take a Critical Wound' is the result of Luke's fumble (maybe failure to hit the target DC by 10 or more).
> 
> Dungeon World has mechanics that aren't very different from that.




Surprisingly enough in Monte Cook's Numenera/The Strange/Cypher system the DM doesn't roll... only the players.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> How, exactly, would this be modelled as a critical fumble check for Luke?  How does Luke's critical failure result in Vader cutting his arm off?  In none of the systems presented does a critical failure cause an enemy to kill/incapacitate you.




In Monte Cook's Cypher system DM's don't roll... so the only way this could happen in that system is if the player rolls low...


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Surprisingly enough in Monte Cook's Numenera/The Strange/Cypher system the DM doesn't roll... only the players.




Cool.

You know, I just figured out what the long argument over what mechanics are in play during a scene in Star Wars was actually about.

The participants weren't arguing over what they players could be playing (if this was a game), but rather _what in their opinion they should be playing_.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Cool.
> 
> You know, I just figured out what the long argument over what mechanics are in play during a scene in Star Wars was actually about.
> 
> The participants weren't arguing over what they players could be playing (if this was a game), but rather _what in their opinion they should be playing_.




Lol... I was arguing the whole thing was a silly way to determine whether a "fumble" was "needed" or not since it all depends on what system you are using and what the preferences of you and your players are.  I don't think fumbles are inherently bad or good, they're good if you and your players enjoy them and bad if you all don't... irregardless of whether they do or don't affect them more or less, it's pretty simple IMO...


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> I agree... key points being...
> 
> 1. That mechanic does not exist in D&D for crits and thus must be a new mechanic
> 2. It *could* be modeled as a fumble or as a crit... and thus could serve as an example of either one... (either way, in D&D the mechanic for modeling this does not exist and if we want to recreate it possibilities include creating a mechanic that lies at either the failure or success end of the spectrum)




Critical do exist though, and I've certainly seem them used for lopping off limbs. It could also be handled as a ruling on the gm's part (i.e. a player tries to lop off an NPCs hand or vice versa, so the GM implements some on the fly way to implement that). D&D has always been a bit of an open system in that respect because it deals with damage pretty abstractly. There are games that have clear mechanics on maiming, but D&D doesn't usually deal directly with that kind of stuff (expect maybe as optional rules). It does depend on the edition though. 

I would argue though that in order to recreate that scenario, you do not need an explicit rule for cutting off peoples' hands. Again, especially with older versions of D&D, it is meant to be very open. Just because there isn't a specific rule for something it doesn't mean it can't be attempted or can't come up. Again though, there have long been games that do deal with these kinds of things if you want all that mapped out in the system.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> In Monte Cook's Cypher system DM's don't roll... so the only way this could happen in that system is if the player rolls low...




Good point. 

I have the Numenera book but haven't had a chance to play it yet (hoping to get at least a small campaign of it in this year between my other games). It seems like a system that is pretty friendly to Empire Strike back plot developments though (the whole GM intrusion mechanic seems designed to allow for interesting developments). Could the GM use GM intrusion, or some other rule or guideline in the book to have a hand get lopped off in that sort of situation?


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> I don't think fumbles are inherently bad or good, they're good if you and your players enjoy them and bad if you all don't




My opinion is similar.

I don't think any mechanical idea is necessarily good or bad, but that mechanical ideas can be badly implemented.   One of the goals of designers is to figure out how to implement any particular idea well.

I think that a mechanic ought to be judged on whether it succeeds in its intention and in the context of the game it is trying to create.  There is no one true game that is more fun than all others, and no one true mechanic that is right for every game.  To be blunt, any time you assert that there is one mechanic which would improve all games, it shows you have a lot of maturing as a designer left to do.

I largely agree with your claim that a mechanic ought to be judged on whether it is enjoyed, but I would add that I think the real test is whether it is enjoyed more than some other mechanic.  Plenty of mechanics can be both bad and fun, by which I mean that they are enjoyed but different untried mechanics might be enjoyed more.  Unfortunately the difficulty here is that alternative approaches are in the realm of unknown unknowns.  We can't always even imagine the different ways we could approach a game design problem.

Ultimately though, I think that the real lesson you learn as a designer is that every mechanic you introduce however interesting has a cost to it, and in the long run you may discover the costs outweigh the benefits.  Figuring out the costs and whether you want to bear them is very difficult to do ahead of time, as the real costs usually only show up after lengthy periods of play.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> Good point.
> 
> I have the Numenera book but haven't had a chance to play it yet (hoping to get at least a small campaign of it in this year between my other games). It seems like a system that is pretty friendly to Empire Strike back plot developments though (the whole GM intrusion mechanic seems designed to allow for interesting developments). Could the GM use GM intrusion, or some other rule or guideline in the book to have a hand get lopped off in that sort of situation?




It's bee a while since I last ran Numenera but I think it would certainly be interesting, so you could... but unless you have buy in from the player they will almost without a doubt (unless they don't have enough) spend the XP to buy out of that intrusion.  That's what I like about the system though, it's (IMO) a fumble mechanic that gives the players a say so in whether you are going too far or in a direction they don't like... while still allowing individual GM's to decide exactly what constitutes an intrusion in their game as opposed to having pre-determined tables (though I could see that working as well.).


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> Good point.
> 
> I have the Numenera book but haven't had a chance to play it yet (hoping to get at least a small campaign of it in this year between my other games). It seems like a system that is pretty friendly to Empire Strike back plot developments though (the whole GM intrusion mechanic seems designed to allow for interesting developments). Could the GM use GM intrusion, or some other rule or guideline in the book to have a hand get lopped off in that sort of situation?




I certainly agree that you could run a Star Wars game in the Cypher System.  In fact, certain aspects of the New Republic era where the players are trying to recover the lost secrets of the Jedi and exploring forgotten frontiers on alien worlds actually lend themselves to Numenera tropes.  

But part of the reason I think you could run Star Wars in the Cypher System is precisely because GM Intrusion can be and most naturally is, a fumble.


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## billd91 (Feb 19, 2016)

Imaro said:


> No it does not pretty much mean it "requires" an effect that is even worse than failure...  This is totally dependent on the system being used and what it's limitations are... which is why the arguing that these fictional examples aren't fumbles is so silly.  Until we agree upon what the system is and what a fumble constitutes in said system... both anything and nothing are valid as "fumbles".
> 
> While I agree with your traditional defintion of fumbles... I in no way see how clumsiness, bungling, or making a mess of something during an action must logically and in all situations lead to severed limbs, the gouging out of friends eyes and decapitations... That's how you and a few others personally choose to define a fumble but taht's all it is, your personal view of what a "fumble" is.




No, I think it pretty much connotes something worse than failure - if it doesn't, someone's misusing the term fumble and misunderstanding will ensue. That said, I don't think anybody requires it be sticking a sword in someone's eye or a decapitation selfie. It could be something like a broken bow string, a damaged weapon, or a follow-up penalty on the next turn. In pretty much all events, if it's no worse than a simple failure, someone's failing at the term fumble.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> That could have been a critical on Vader's part, not a fumble on Luke's.




It could have been, or it could have been a fumble.  That's the point.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Nope, they really aren't.  It doesn't matter how many monsters you kill, I have an unlimited supply of new ones that will never, ever run out.  And, no, PC's don't crit many times more often simply because the PC's attack far, far less than the monsters.




There are two possibilities.  One, you send a never ending stream of monsters at the PCs until they die (unlimited monsters).  Two, you don't do that and self-limit the number you use.  "Unlimited" is meaningless if you aren't ever going to use unlimited monsters. 



> A group of 10th level 5e character, say 5 PC's, 2 fighter types, a cleric, wizard and thief are adventuring.  They get 7 attacks per round, presuming they attack every round and don't cast spells.  There might be some exceptions - feats, that sort of thing - but, by and large 7 attacks is all they get.  10th level party, I'll throw half a dozen troll at them.  Not an overwhelming encounter by any stretch right? Guess what?  I've got 12 attacks per round from those trolls.  Even if you crit twce as often, which 5e characters don't (only Champions get higher crit ranges), I've still got twice as may attacks per round as you.  I will crit more often than you will.




12 attacks and on average zero will crit in a round, and only one will crit in two rounds.  7 PC attacks with improved critical/keen and we're talking crits every round on average, and more powerful ones, too.  PCs have more feats and such to modify their crit damage than most of the monsters do.



> In 3e, which is where this little sidebar started, it gets even worse.  Standard party is 4 PC's.  Monsters frequently have 3 attacks per round.  The party has, maybe, 5, 6 attacks per round.  The monsters can have easily twice, or even three times more attacks per round than the party with little difficulty.  Again, it doesn't matter what your crit range is.  I am guaranteed to crit more often, simply because no single character comes remotely close to the number of times that the DM rolls, and even the group combined still lags behind.




Er, no.  In the vast majority of instances, it takes a natural 20 for a monster to get a crit threat.  More attacks still means fewer criticals in combat due to the harshness of needing a 20.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> I agree that it is a wholly fallacious argument but I know where they are coming from, because I've seen it personally and heard of it second hand.




I have also experienced it first hand.  However, just because a tool has been used incorrectly, does not mean that the tool is a bad one or that such an incorrect use is what fumbles must look like.



> Many oldbies experience with fumbles and critical hits comes almost entirely from the Dragon article 'Good misses and bad hits'.  A few might have experience with Warhammer Fantasy or Rolemaster, which have their own issues, but this being primarily a D&D forum it's mostly going to be those old unofficially fumble and critical tables.
> 
> That article had a lot of awesomeness to it, which is why it was so influential and popular, but it also had a lot of fail in it.  For the most part, the fumble and critical results on the tables weren't tested for reasonableness by the table itself.  Whatever the table said simply happened.  So for example, a non-magical sword was basically just as likely to break as a +6 holy avenger.




Yes, that's true.  The DMs I experienced who used that table, including myself, generally took +6 holy avenger and the like into consideration.  



> One of the good things about the rules though was that the chance of you fumbling decreased as you got more skilled.  The rules presented by the article said that the chance of a critical was a percentage equal to the difference in your modified to hit roll and the number you needed to hit.  So for example, if your character needed a modified 14 to hit, and you rolled a modified 22, then you'd have an 8% chance of a critical.  On the other hand if you rolled a modified 6, you'd have an 8% chance of a fumble.
> 
> That worked pretty well but it generated a ton of fumbles and criticals, and a lot of the results on the table were pretty extreme - critically hit self being an example.   D&D combat wasn't naturally very gritty, but if you threw in the fumble and critical rules from the article it would get pretty darn brutal in a hurry.  High level fighters - already arguably OP in 1e after Weapon Specialization was introduced - would generate critical hits on like 10-15% of their attacks, often ending the fight right then and there.
> 
> ...




I remember, and I agree that if that's all you experienced, that's what you would initially imagine with fumbles.  However, that doesn't excuse keeping that outlook once people start explaining to you here that fumbles are not required to be that way.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

delericho said:


> Yep. Plus the party is likely to have at least one PC casting spells which tend to require saves rather than attack rolls. So that cuts down on the number of crits, too.




This is true.  Spellcasting PCs drastically cut down on the number of crits monsters can possibly get by eliminating them.  Spellcasting > melee.  By having PC spell casters, the number of PC crits vs. monster crits just becomes even more skewed in favor of the PCs.


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## Maxperson (Feb 19, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Luke having his hand chopped off is not a failure on Luke's part but a critical success on Vader's.  Note, after the hand is chopped off, the fight is over.  Vader wins.  This is simply a perfect example of why HP does not equal meat.    This is a perfect example of a PC being reduced to negative HP.




You have no proof of that.  It could just as easily have been a Luke fumble as a Vader crit.  That's the point that you are ignoring.  You are making gross assumptions and trying to pass those assumptions off as fact.



> If two systems don't actually have any real difference, then what's the point of having two systems?  Why have a critical fumble system that gives you identical results to a simple fail system?  It's complexity for no purpose.  It adds zero to the game.




Just because you don't like the purpose, doesn't mean that it has no purpose or that it doesn't add to the game.  Here's a fact.  Crit and fumble tables have both purpose and add considerably to my game.  Therefore, you cannot be right when you make an absolute statement like that.  You'd be better served to be speaking in terms of, "To me it has no purpose..." and so on.  At least you'd be correct, then.


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## Imaro (Feb 19, 2016)

billd91 said:


> No, I think it pretty much connotes something worse than failure - if it doesn't, someone's misusing the term fumble and misunderstanding will ensue. That said, I don't think anybody requires it be sticking a sword in someone's eye or a decapitation selfie. It could be something like a broken bow string, a damaged weapon, or a follow-up penalty on the next turn. In pretty much all events, if it's no worse than a simple failure, someone's failing at the term fumble.




I still disagree that it has to be worse (for whatever value we are placing on that here) than a regular failure.  Different than what happens with a normal failure, yes... but "worse" is again totally subjective.  As to a failure having to involve decapitations, self inflicted blinding and ally induced harm... from the posts earlier... that seems to be the lion's share of what's been presented as "fumble" worthy by certain posters so you would have to take that up with them.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 19, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> But part of the reason I think you could run Star Wars in the Cypher System is precisely because GM Intrusion can be and most naturally is, a fumble.




I wasn't weighing in on whether that was a fumble or not (seems like a good mechanic to me, and I have no issues with it). My only disagreement with the original article this came from, and one that I see as more of a quibble than a serious complaint, is that laughing at a character due to a hilarious fumble isn't the same as laughing at the player (that we can all laugh at what happened to Bruce's character and it isn't a big deal----we might even jokingly rib Bruce if he knows we aren't literally faulting him for the fumble). I'm totally fine with GM intrusion, and I think there are some good reasons why a GM might prefer it to a traditional fumble. My point was spectacular failure can be great fun even if your at the center of it. I don't need the system to protect me from embarrassment.


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## I'm A Banana (Feb 19, 2016)

A 1 isn't a catastrophic failure, but it IS an auto-failure.  I don't mind the intrusion mechanic, it's sort of a codification of something that happens at a lot of tables, and it basically says, "DM, make this failure fun." Generally, though, I'm fine with it being an auto-failure and moving on with life. You say "whoops" and pass the turn onto the next person, no reason to interrupt the flow.


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> My point was spectacular failure can be great fun even if your at the center of it. I don't need the system to protect me from embarrassment.




I agree, although that's not the end of my rejoinder to the original essay or the extent of my problems with it.

It seems I need to define 'fumble' as a technical term.

In a typical RPG system, the following process is at the heart of play.

1) The player makes a doubtful proposition regarding something they'd like their character to try to achieve.  The stakes of this proposition are implicitly, "Either this thing will happen or not."
2) The fortune for the proposition is set by the rules and determined by some randomizer (usually dice).
3) The consequences of the fortune are resolved by the GM based on the success of the proposition.  Either the thing happened or it didn't, and the results of that are narrated.
4) Return to step #1.

A game has a fumble mechanic if in step #3, there is an additional negative complication that can occur above and beyond simply not achieving the doubtful proposition based on having had extremely bad failure during the fortune step.  So not only did the thing not happen, but now there is some new problem the player has to cope beyond what one might expect from failure.  Note that this doesn't mean that simple failure can't be catastrophically bad, as for example proposing to jump a ravine usually has as its simple consequence of failure, "You don't jump across the ravine, therefore you fall in."  No, in the case of an actual fumble, something would happen worse than just the usual consequences of falling into the ravine.*

A game has a critical mechanic if in step #3, there is an additional positive result that can occur above and beyond simply achieving the doubtful proposition based on having had extremely good success during the fortune step.

Based on this definition - which I think a rather natural and good one - the GM Intrusion rule in Cypher is certainly a fumble mechanic.  It is an open ended fumble mechanic, which has good points (as you note) and bad points (as I've noted), but it is certainly a fumble mechanic.

One of my problems with the original essay is that the author tries to argue that his fumble mechanic isn't really a fumble mechanic, because the GM Intrusion could have the color of not being a result of character ineptitude.  But a fumble is still a fumble even if it is not in the fiction the result of the player's ineptness, and at some level it is always true that if the player had simply been more adept the fumble consequences would not have occurred.   So while it may be true that Luke lost his hand in the fiction more as a result of Vader's legendary skill with a lightsaber than his own ineptness, but at some level it is still true that that happened because Luke at the time was inadequately skilled.

Monte comes off as offering a potentially useful insight that he himself doesn't fully understand and can't adequately explain.  And his explanation is so bad, that taken literally it's probably worse technique than the problem the technique is trying to solve.

*Side note: It's impossible to determine in a non-gaming medium whether or not a failure was a fumble or a simple failure.  To do this, we'd have to know what would have happened had whatever happened in the story not happened.  That is to say, we'd also have to know what could have happened.  Since we don't normally know the 'what if' cases outside of a gaming medium, we can't say whether any particular action in say Star Wars was a fumble or an ordinary failure.  All we can say is that they are often pretty spectacular failures leading to all sorts of additional complications.  And for myself I can say that though I find the failures of the PC's humorous at times, it's precisely in overcoming the stacked against them odds, and precisely because they are heroes that retain their mortal stature, that I find myself rooting for the heroes and wooping for joy (ok, so I haven't done that since I was about 3) when they succeed.


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## Arilyn (Feb 19, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The GM looks at all of the possible worlds that could potentially exist, and selects one that will make for an interesting adventure. And while there are an infinite number of worlds to choose from, the one thing that they _all_ have in common is that they exist independently of who the PCs are.
> 
> It's not hard to avoid meta-gaming, as long as you're aware of it.




Okay, and what is the difference between that and tailoring your adventure to suit the player characters?  Unless, you are meditating to choose one world from many?  Sounds like "hippie storytelling" to me.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 19, 2016)

Arilyn said:


> Okay, and what is the difference between that and tailoring your adventure to suit the player characters?  Unless, you are meditating to choose one world from many?  Sounds like "hippie storytelling" to me.



The difference is impartiality. One of the most important duties of the GM is to be fair, and that means _not_ setting things up _for_ or _against_ the players.

If you set up a challenge (whether that's an adventure, or just a single encounter) that you think the party can overcome, then there's very little sense of accomplishment for the players, because the whole thing was set up in order for them to win. If you set up something that they _can't_ win, then that's not usually very satisfying for the players either, for other reasons.

You _might_ be able to put something together that isn't unbalanced one way or the other, where you actually have no idea what will happen, but that's a _lot_ of guessing and feels equally contrived. If you simply _ignore_ the PCs, then you can go ahead and design everything for what it is, and it's up to the players what they want to do about it; their choices have real meaning, because they know you're not just setting things up for them to knock down.


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## Bedrockgames (Feb 19, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The GM looks at all of the possible worlds that could potentially exist, and selects one that will make for an interesting adventure. And while there are an infinite number of worlds to choose from, the one thing that they _all_ have in common is that they exist independently of who the PCs are.
> 
> It's not hard to avoid meta-gaming, as long as you're aware of it.




Sounds a bit like Leibniz.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 19, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Impartiality to whom? And fairness to whom?



Fairness to the players. Setting up an adventure with the expectation that the PCs will triumph robs the players of their sense of accomplishment.

Likewise, the GM owes it to the _players_ to treat the NPCs the same as the PCs, because to do otherwise would demonstrate bias and diminish meaning. I mean, the players are here to take on their roles as real people (albeit interesting and powerful ones) who actually exist within the bounds of this made-up game-world. Treating them like _protagonists_ in some _story_ would defeat the whole point!


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## Celebrim (Feb 19, 2016)

As long as I'm defining things, let me take the conversation in a different direction regarding the Star Wars examples to illustrate a difference between Monte's open ended GM intrusion fumbles and typical fumble as process resolution you might see in say WFRP or RM.

In 'Empire Strikes Back' Chewbacka tries to use his repair skill to reassemble C3P0 after C3P0 botched earlier and got himself blasted by Storm Troopers.  Chewie manages to get C3P0 working again, but humorously puts his head on backwards.  

Now in normal process resolution we wouldn't think of this as a fumble.  Chewie has succeeded in getting C3P0 working, but not fully succeeded.  There is still a complication.  Normally in a process resolution this wouldn't be the worst case result of a fortune mechanic.  A fumble would normally be something like, "Not only did you fail, but botched the job and now C3P0 is ruined and retries won't work."  In this case we had "success with complication", which is a possibility we haven't considered that seems to lie somewhere between failure and success rather than beyond failure or beyond success.  One would normally think of this happening if the result of a fortune check was almost good enough to succeed or just barely good enough.

But since GM Intrusion is open ended, nothing prevents the GM from turning fumbles into partial successes.  It might not be a good idea and it might not be an obvious thing to do, but the option is there.

A mechanic where the GM always turns failures into partial successes is called "no whiff".  The stakes of a proposition then are not failure and success, but success and partial success.  Cypher does not fully implement "no whiff" because a) GM Intrusion doesn't happen on ordinary failure and b) nothing commands the GM to turn fumbles into partial successes.  Indeed, even in Monte's advice column, the notion of a partial success isn't one he strongly advocates for.  He still frames all the fumbles as failures.

Just as it is not possible to know whether the failures in Star Wars are fumbles or regular failures, we can't actually tell whether they are failures or partial success for the same reason.   Some of the failures don't naturally look like partial successes, but they could be shoe horned in as them with a bit of stretching.  Thus, we could potentially generate Star Wars fiction using a "no whiff" system if we were happy to accept color of failure and ineptitude (which most people who advocate for "no whiff" do not like) along with our partial success.  However, IMO, "no whiff" as a mechanic works best when paired with an "ante up" mechanic that allows the player to choose when he is willing to risk failure or even catastrophe in order to likewise risk incredible success.   That is, the player can buy into changing the stakes from "success/partial success" to "critical success/fumble".   If that were the case, then this hypothetical system would in my opinion also be well suited to producing Star Wars fiction.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

Bedrockgames said:


> I don't think anything is this black and white. You can always blend things. You can design with an eye toward both, trying to keep them in balance, shifting from one to the other, etc. I love world building, and love designing believable worlds, but I don't ignore adventure potential and that is one of my top considerations as well. It isn't a matter of only being able to design toward one goal, it is more like you have a list of criteria you are weighing as you design.




Oh, of course.  And I totally agree.  But, that's not what [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] was arguing before.  [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] was saying that the only consideration in scenario design is world building concepts and everything flows from that.  Later Saelorn claimed that designing a fun adventure was also a consideration, meaning that world building is not the only consideration.  

Which is the contradiction I was pointing out.


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## Hussar (Feb 19, 2016)

> Prove it? Otherwise your assertion of it being a critical is no more or less valid than my assertion that it's a fumble on Luke's part... and in D&D crits don't sever limbs... so basically we're bith just making up systems to cover something colored by our aesthetic preferences. Honestly my players would better take loosing a limb if they made a low roll than because an NPC made a high roll... but again that's the point it's preference.
> 
> Read more: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showth...Cook-On-Fumble-Mechanics/page19#ixzz40eucg6ft




cf. [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION]'s point of a Sword of Sharpness from AD&D.  Which would probably make better sense in the setting since nothing else other than lightsabers seem to cause limb loss.  Stormtroopers don't have their arms blown off by blasters after all.  Leia doesn't lose her arm after being shot.  But, we do see an awful lot of hand hacking in the movies.  

But, I'm still curious what fumble system you would foresee which would cause another character to hack my own arm off when I roll a critical fumble.


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## Arilyn (Feb 19, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The difference is impartiality. One of the most important duties of the GM is to be fair, and that means _not_ setting things up _for_ or _against_ the players.
> 
> If you set up a challenge (whether that's an adventure, or just a single encounter) that you think the party can overcome, then there's very little sense of accomplishment for the players, because the whole thing was set up in order for them to win. If you set up something that they _can't_ win, then that's not usually very satisfying for the players either, for other reasons.
> 
> You _might_ be able to put something together that isn't unbalanced one way or the other, where you actually have no idea what will happen, but that's a _lot_ of guessing and feels equally contrived. If you simply _ignore_ the PCs, then you can go ahead and design everything for what it is, and it's up to the players what they want to do about it; their choices have real meaning, because they know you're not just setting things up for them to knock down.




Well, we obviously have very different styles of adventure design! I never ignore my players while designing adventures. The backgrounds of the characters come into play a lot, as well as the preferences of my players. However, I do like a very narrative approach to gaming, so maybe this is where we are diverging?


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 19, 2016)

Arilyn said:


> Well, we obviously have very different styles of adventure design! I never ignore my players while designing adventures. The backgrounds of the characters come into play a lot, as well as the preferences of my players. However, I do like a very narrative approach to gaming, so maybe this is where we are diverging?



Probably. There has been a significant change, over the years, in games which bear the title of RPG. Back in the day, fairness was the highest duty of the arbiter. Nowadays, many games want the person running it to tell a story, along with the players.

It would be convenient if there was some way to distinguish between these two groups, but attempts to do so are met with controversy.


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## Hussar (Feb 20, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> Probably. There has been a significant change, over the years, in games which bear the title of RPG. Back in the day, fairness was the highest duty of the arbiter. Nowadays, many games want the person running it to tell a story, along with the players.
> 
> It would be convenient if there was some way to distinguish between these two groups, but attempts to do so are met with controversy.




Lol. Yes because no module ever stated a level range on the cover. Challenges in the dungeon were never tailored to dungeon level.  Monsters were never given an xp value that was based on the level of the monster. 

Oh wait...


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 20, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Lol. Yes because no module ever stated a level range on the cover. Challenges in the dungeon were never tailored to dungeon level.  Monsters were never given an xp value that was based on the level of the monster.



As a said, _descriptive_ rather than _proscriptive_. That Necromancer has exactly the same spells and minions, whether the PCs are level 1 or level 20. 

If the party is between levels 5 and 8, the outcome will be less certain, and the players might have more fun. That's just a description, though. It has zero bearing on anything actually in the module.


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## Maxperson (Feb 20, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Lol. Yes because no module ever stated a level range on the cover. Challenges in the dungeon were never tailored to dungeon level.  Monsters were never given an xp value that was based on the level of the monster.
> 
> Oh wait...




You ever see Undermountain?  It's not set up with tight ranges in level.  You can go from fighting some orcs to facing a lich or dragon.  The game doesn't need to be run with tight level ranges in mind.


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## Hussar (Feb 20, 2016)

Do you meet those liches and dragons when you are 1st level?  Or are they buried in the deeper levels of the dungeon?


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## Hussar (Feb 20, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> As a said, _descriptive_ rather than _proscriptive_. That Necromancer has exactly the same spells and minions, whether the PCs are level 1 or level 20.
> 
> If the party is between levels 5 and 8, the outcome will be less certain, and the players might have more fun. That's just a description, though. It has zero bearing on anything actually in the module.




Do you actually run that adventure when the party is 1st or 20tg level?  Or do you run it when the party is 5th to 8th level?


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## Maxperson (Feb 20, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Do you meet those liches and dragons when you are 1st level?  Or are they buried in the deeper levels of the dungeon?




If you want to go into undermountain at 1st level, yes you do.  They live inside the dungeon and you can wander into any part of it at any level.  Monsters of weak and great power are mixed together on all levels of the dungeon.  There is no need to wander down in levels to find those nasties.  There are higher concentrations of nasties on the lower levels, though.


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## Nytmare (Feb 20, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> Probably. There has been a significant change, over the years, in games which bear the title of RPG. Back in the day, fairness was the highest duty of the arbiter. Nowadays, many games want the person running it to tell a story, along with the players.
> 
> It would be convenient if there was some way to distinguish between these two groups, but attempts to do so are met with controversy.




Ways that work: "The focus of my game is the narrative and is role play heavy."  "My game is a character-driven, sandbox, exploration game."  "We play a hack and slash dungeon delve."

Ways that don't work: "Your game isn't really an RPG."  "Your game is hippy story-time garbage."  "If you want to do it that way, that's fine, but me and my friends would rather have fun."

Also, as soon as I fix my time machine, I'll be sure to thank Grimtooth and every other good-old-days, party-killer-bragging DM that I played with in the 70s and 80s that I appreciate their duty to fairness.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 20, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Do you actually run that adventure when the party is 1st or 20tg level?  Or do you run it when the party is 5th to 8th level?



I don't run published adventures. As Gygax pointed out long ago, the DM is supposed to come up with their own original material.

Edit: That's not to say that there's anything specifically wrong with using published material. Gygax had a particular preference, and his own reasons for it, and this just happens to be one of the few things I agree with him about.


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## Hussar (Feb 20, 2016)

[MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] you are ignoring the point. Do you run your Necromancer scenario when the pc's are 1st or 20th level or when they are roughly capable of succeeding in the scenario?

---

On thelightsaber thing. Are we arguing that the only way to chop off limbs is a critical fumble?  Obi Wan didn't critical the dude in the bar rather the dude botched some sort of roll?


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## Maxperson (Feb 20, 2016)

Hussar said:


> [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] you are ignoring the point. Do you run your Necromancer scenario when the pc's are 1st or 20th level or when they are roughly capable of succeeding in the scenario?
> 
> ---
> 
> On thelightsaber thing. Are we arguing that the only way to chop off limbs is a critical fumble?  Obi Wan didn't critical the dude in the bar rather the dude botched some sort of roll?




Speaking for myself, this is how it goes.  I set up the necromancer with this minions, abilities and such.  I know that it will be a challenge for lets say, 10th level PCs.  That necromancer is a part of the world when the PCs are first level and if they hear about him and decide to pay him a visit, they will be running into a powerful necromancer at a level where they have no chance of winning.  If they decide to go after him at around 10th level, it will be a challenge.  If they don't engage that hook until they are 18th level and decide then to back and clean up the necromancer, it will be an easy fight.


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2016)

Imaro said:


> You can't do this in D&D (which was the system being referenced) which was my point





Imaro said:


> it can be accomplished with fumble rules





Imaro said:


> why do you keep assuming we're speaking to D&D?
> 
> <snip>
> 
> the point was that a "fumble" does not have to equate with a stick through someone's eye... not that there shouldn't be a difference.



I'm having trouble following which system - actual, or hypothetical - you are referring to.

D&D, as part of its core system, has never had rules for specific damage via critical hit. Nor has it had rules for "fumbles" as anything distinct from its rules for determining whether or not a check succeeds.

There are plenty of RPG systems that _do_ have rules for specific damage at the heart of their combat system (RQ is the most famous, RM perhaps the most notorious, but obviously they're not the only ones). There are also RPG systems that have rules for consequences of failure that are more specific than simply "You don't get what you want" - the MERP fumble table is an example, and was posted upthread. Generally these "fumble" tables are designed to be used in resolving combat - I've personally never seen one designed for social interactions, for instance, though that's not to say that such a thing hasn't been published. In RQ and RM, the general effect of these tables is to penalise the fumbling character in respect of action economy, and/or to inflict damage. Part of the reason they mostly make sense in combat contexts is that most of these RPGs don't use any sort of tight action economy in non-combat resolution.

Having just had a look at the "Influence and Interaction" table for Rolemaster Classic, here is its result for -25 or down: "Your blatant attempt at coercion alienates your audience. They are influenced to do the opposite of what you were attempting to get them to do." Do you count that as a "fumble"? In the context of that system, it is just the most severe failure result on the table.



Imaro said:


> Where are the rules for severing limbs?



In D&D, there are only three I know of: the Sword of Sharpness can sever limbs as a special property of the weapon; and, in Gygax's DMG, the following two possibilities are put forward (pp 82, 110):

If any creature reaches a state of -6 or greater negative paints before being revived, this could indicate scarring or the loss of some member, if you [the GM] so choose. . . .

Now and then a player will die through no fault of his own. He or she will have done everything correctly, taken every reasonable precaution, but still the freakish roll of the dice will kill the character. . . . You [the GM] can rule that the player, instead of dying, is knocked unconscious, loses a limb, is blinded in one eye or invoke any reasonably severe penalty that still takes into account what the monster has done.​
Only the second of these options can generate the "Luke's hand is chopped off" scenario, though, because (per p 82) if a character's hp are reduced below -3 with a single blow s/he dies immediately.

When it comes to severing limbs in other systems, there could be any range of mechanical possibilities: in RM severing limbs requires a hit that triggers a roll on a relatively severe crit table (not uncommon vs unarmoured foes, but rarer vs heavily armoured foes) and then a roll on the relevant table in the 80s or 90s (depending on the details of the particular table); in RQ it requires a successful attack that is not dodged or parried, and then rolling high enough damage to do more than double its hit points to a limb (a sword in RQ does similar damage to a sword in D&D, and severing a limb would normally require close to max damage - armour will prevent this, but critical successes in RQ can ignore armour damage prevention).

I've personally never seen a system where having your arm chopped off would be the result of a failed roll by the defender, but I can easily imagine such a system. But D&D has never been such a system - apart from anything else, it does not have "active defence" as part of the system.



Imaro said:


> What I don't understand is how you and others like [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] are dismissing examples of "fumbles" when there is no default game system we are discussing to determine whether they can or can't be modeled without fumble rules?



As I read this thread, the Han Solo and Luke Skywalker examples were raised to show that fumble mechanics are a good way, even perhaps the best way, to have these sorts of fictional events occur in a RPG.

When it comes to the combat-type results (like Luke's dismemberment), I think the key issue isn't one of crits/fumbles but rather - as I indicated already upthread- of how (if at all) the combat mechanics generate specific results rather than the sort of abstract result that is typical of D&D.

In RM, RQ and BW - to name the three non-D&D FRPGs I have most experience with - all combat results are specific, and so a "critical success" system has no work to do in this respect. (RM doesn't have critical success on attacks; nor does BW; and as I already indicated for RQ, critical success is primarily about overcoming armour.) In a system like Roger Musson's "How to Lose Hit Points and Survive", which nearly 20 years later was given official imprimatur by WotC as "Wounds and Vitality", then most successful attacks do "abstract" damage (wearing down hp) but some special successes could be modelled as doing specific damage. And of course you have Gygax's endorsement of using a "GM Intrusion" to introduce a specific consequence short of death when a skilled player, through bad luck rather than bad play, suffers PC "death" from hp loss.

Any of these systems might work - but saying that a system has "crits" or "special successes" doesn't tell us anything concrete about it (eg RM doesn't have "special successes" at all, but generates specific results; whereas 3E D&D does have "crits" but, in its official rules, does not generate specific combat results other than death).

Turning to non-combat resolution, a "fumble" or "intrusion" mechanic might be a helpful addition to a system which has, as its generic failure result, "nothing happens". But in a system like RM's interaction mechanics (that I mentioned above), there is no need for a "fumble" mechanic because some failure results already generate outcomes other than "nothing happens". The same thing is true of traditional D&D reaction mechanics - low reaction results lead to hostile or attacking NPCs, not simply "nothing happens", and so a "fumble" or "intrusion" mechanic may not add a great deal to those games.

Likewise with the Han Solo example. In classic D&D, for instance, a failed Move Silently roll means that the character was heard (eg DMG p 10, "Do NOT inform the thief that his or her dice score indicated a lack of success at this attempted stealth, if that is the case. He or she thinks the movement is silent, and the monster or other victim will inform the character of his or her misapprehension soon enough.) This will produce events like those of RotJ without needing to layer on any sort of "fumble" mechanic.

But in a different system, where a failed Move Silently roll didn't result in being heard unless the "monster or other victim" also makes a successful Perception check, then maybe you might want a "fumble" system where a very poor Move Silently roll means that the monster or victim's Perception check succeeds automatically. (This would be a system analogous to RQ combat, with Perception as the attack and Move Silently as the parry - a successful "parry" means that even a successful "attack" doesn't help the attacker - but with a tweak that a fumbled parry makes the attack automatically successful.)

The range of mechanical options is pretty broad. But it seems fairly clear to me that when Monte Cook talks about fumbles, he is talking about PC incompetence (eg trying to persaude but instead speaking insults). None of the mechanics I've mentioned above have to produce that sort of outcome. The RM Interaction mechanics come closest, but even then there might be ways of influencing the audience in the way opposite to intended without being incompetent - eg maybe there is another factor in play that the character is not aware of, but that his/her words inadvertently trigger. The MERP/RM combat fumble mechanics can also come close to it - especially given their comedic tone - but can also be seen as reflecting the back-and-forth of battle in a highly granular resolution system (and - speaking from experience with those systems - the comedy then becomes a grim comedy of brutal combat rather than a slapstick comedy of incompetent warriors).



Celebrim said:


> As long as I'm defining things <snippage>





Celebrim said:


> It seems I need to define 'fumble' as a technical term.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I'm not sure that you get to criticise Monte Cook's blog on the basis of a definition that he is not using and that you are making up and then imputing to him.

Here is the passage where Monte characterises the sort of fumble mechanic that he rejects:

the GM actually incorporates some version of the joke into the actual narrative of the game—that is to say, that Bruce’s character said something foolish or untoward . . .​
Generalising that, he is rejecting a fumble mechanic in which a fumble results in the character suffering a comically adverse consequence due to ineptitude or foolishness.

It's obvious that his "intrusion" mechanic is something different from that, and hence not a _fumble_ mechanic as Monte is using that term.



Celebrim said:


> A mechanic where the GM always turns failures into partial successes is called "no whiff".



This seems to be another instance of you defining others' words in your own terms.

As used by those who coined the phrase (Ron Edwards et al), "no whiffing" means that the mechanical system does not produce outcomes that model incompetence. The paradigmatic example is that skilled warriors don't swing wild when trying to hit their foes. It has nothing to do with whether or not action declarations fail: in opposed contexts, such as (say) Glorfindel fighting the Witch-King, it is completely consistent with "no whiffing" for Glorfindel's player to suffer a complete failure (eg the Witch King cuts Glorfindel's head off). Because in this case Glorfindel has not manifested incompetence; it's just that he has been bested by one of the most powerful sorcerous warriors in Middle Earth.

Here's a post where Edwards talks a bit more about his notion of "whiffing", and what a no-whiffing system might look like:

As far as I'm concerned, whiffing is not the same thing as failing an action or having something go wrong. The latter things are quite desirable in role-playing situations, as far as I'm concerned. Whiffing refers, I think, more to the _sensation_ one has when playing through a series of failures, or failures that are handled descriptively and mechanically in a particular way.

One of the things that gives rise that sensation is a game in which a high score doesn't reflect much of a better chance than a low score except in the long run across many instances. Percentile systems like Rolemaster or Call of Cthulhu are very, very prone to this. . . .

Another situation that gives rise to the sensation is when failing the attempt doesn't make anything happen. So you either get something, or tread water. This is what leads to those horrible fights-that-never-end, weary, roll-miss-tune-out sessions.​
Here's another, earlier comment by him on the same matter:

Fortune-in-the-Middle as the basis for resolving conflict facilitates Narrativist play in a number of ways. . . . It preserves the desired image of player-characters specific to the moment. Given a failed roll, they don't have to look like incompetent goofs; conversely, if you want your guy to suffer the effects of cruel fate, or just not be good enough, you can do that too.​
In the context of AD&D combat, for instance, with its 1 minute rounds, a failed to hit roll might mean the PC sucks, or it might mean that there has been a titanic duel between two equally-matched opponents which still remains in the balance as attack and riposte are exchanged (like the Errol Flynn sword fights that Gygax has expressly mentioned as his vision  for what D&D combat might look like). Of course, the six second rounds and more detailed positioning rules of contemporary D&D reduce this fortune-in-the-middle component and make this sort of abstract relationship between mechanics and narration harder to preserve, but certainly not impossible (as I can attest from my own experience GMing 4e).

In the context of Monte Cook's _intrusion_ mechanic, it is the GM who is given custody of the "desired image of the player character". But it is clear why he is distinguishing it from a fumble mechanic - the character fails to achieve his/her goal in performing the action, but the reason for that failure need not be incompetence.


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> As a said, _descriptive_ rather than _proscriptive_. That Necromancer has exactly the same spells and minions, whether the PCs are level 1 or level 20.
> 
> If the party is between levels 5 and 8, the outcome will be less certain, and the players might have more fun. That's just a description, though. It has zero bearing on anything actually in the module.



This repeats the same confusion I mentioned upthread, which you did not address.

From _the in-fiction persepctive_, the capabilities of the PCs have no bearing on anything in the setting. That is just as true in the "hippy, storytelling" games as in GURPS or Runequest.

But when we look at the module in the real world - as a work of authorship - then the capabilities of the PCs _absolutely_ bear upon the content of the module. The module author has written the module so that it will provide a suitable play experience for some particular group of PCs. (In the D&D context, that has most often been _PCs of a certain level range_, but there have also been modules authored to be used for PCs of a certain class, or PCs of a certain race.)

If, for whatever reason, you don't want to talk about how and why GMs and module writers author setting material, that's your prerogative. But if you want to insist that it is somehow undermining the point of RPGing to do so, that seems wrongheaded to me.

One of the best RPG publications ever - Moldvay's Basic Set - is great in part _because_ it has a very lucid discussion of how and why a GM might author setting material in a certain way. Here are some choice extracts (pp B51, B60):

This section gives a step-by-step guide to creating a dungeon. . . .

*A. CHOOSE A SCENARIO* . . .

A good scenario always gives the players a reason for adventuring. The DM should also design a dungeon for the levels of characters who will be playing in it. A good scenario will also give the DM a reason for choosing specific monsters and treasures to put in the dungeon. . . .

The success of an adventure depends on the DM and his or her creation, the dungeon. . . . It is important that the DM be _fair_, judging everything without favoring one side or another. The DM is there to see that the adventure is interesting and that everyone enjoys the game. . . .

The DM should try to maintain the "balance of play". The treasures should be balanced by the dangers. . . . If the monsters are too tough, and if the parties are reduced by many deaths, then few characters will ever reach higher levels. . . . It should be very difficult for a character to attain [36th] level, but it should not be impossible.​
Moldvay is obviously accepting, as a basic proposition of setting design, that the GM is to have regard to the playability of the game (which is, in part, a function of PC level) and the enjoyment that play will generate (which depends upon such things as the fictional motivation/context for the adventure ("the scenario"), the balance of treasure vs danger, etc). The ingame motivations of NPCs, monsters etc are to be authored by the GM _so as to ensure_ that these goals of the game are achieved.

Again, for whatever reason one may not want to talk about these metagaming aspects of GMing. But as best I can recall you are literally the _only_ RPGer I have ever encountered who contends that a GM who follows Moldvay's advice is doing his/her job wrong.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 20, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Again, for whatever reason one may not want to talk about these metagaming aspects of GMing. But as best I can recall you are literally the only RPGer I have ever encountered who contends that a GM who follows Moldvay's advice is doing his/her job wrong.



As I've mentioned in other places, I started with AD&D (2E), so I have no direct experience with anything that came before. Taking everything at face value, though, it sounds like Moldvay's game has more in common with the wargaming roots of the hobby, and somewhat less in common with the living-world anti-meta-gaming craze that redefined the hobby in the late eighties and early nineties.

Or it could just be some degree of miscommunication, with different words trying to convey the same idea. More likely, it's a little bit of each.


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## pemerton (Feb 20, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> As I've mentioned in other places, I started with AD&D (2E), so I have no direct experience with anything that came before.



Which to me makes it all the more odd that you describe your approach as _traditional_.

Another oddity is that 2nd ed is the high-watermark for D&D adventures written to be meta-gamed - mostly via GM force used to railroad the players through them.


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## The Crimson Binome (Feb 20, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Another oddity is that 2nd ed is the high-watermark for D&D adventures written to be meta-gamed - mostly via GM force used to railroad the players through them.



If you want to suggest that the adventures from that era were poorly written, and out of touch with the rest of that edition, then I certainly would not disagree.


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## Celebrim (Feb 20, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I'm not sure that you get to criticise Monte Cook's blog on the basis of a definition that he is not using and that you are making up and then imputing to him.
> 
> Here is the passage where Monte characterises the sort of fumble mechanic that he rejects:
> 
> ...




Well, first of all, if that were true then it is Monte and not me that is injecting a novel definition of the word fumble, since such a definition would mean that a good portion of what we think of as fumbles in RPGs aren't fumbles.  While you sometimes see entries in a fumble table written in a comic fashion or describing foolishness, often they just represent additional complications - your sword breaks, you pull a muscle, you inadvertently drop your guard, etc.  

Secondly, his definition - if that is what it actually is - is subjective to the point of being useless.  There is almost no controlling what someone will find comic.  Elendil falling off his horse and shattering his own sword isn't meant to be a moment of light comedy, but in another situation presented with a different tone it certainly could be, and in particular at an RPG table where friends are used to ribbing and teasing each other and cracking jokes that it would be a scene of at least some mirth might be inevitable with some groups regardless of the GM's intention.  I can recall junior high kids crying when PC's died, but no such high emotion of tragedy in my adult groups.  This current group is a group that thought it rather funny when a critical hit to an NPC resulted in his spine being shattered.

Regardless then, if a character suffers adverse consequences, some might find it funny.  Apparently you - or in your words Monte - would define adverse consequences as being either a fumble or not a fumble depending on whether someone at the table snickers.  

That makes me snicker.



> As used by those who coined the phrase (Ron Edwards et al)...




I feel like I'm arguing over the implementation of Communism with Karl Marx when you say that sort of thing.   



> ..."no whiffing" means that the mechanical system does not produce outcomes that model incompetence.




Stop there.  That's enough definition to go on.   If that's the definition we use, then the definition is fine and congruent with what I just said.  

If you go trying to implement this thing as a mechanic rather than an actual idea, you'll end up very much with something like my idea of 'success with complications' or 'partial success'  *or else you won't actually implement it at all.*   In other words, much as Marx would prefer to say that he's proven Communism is historically inevitable, and that Communism is inherently superior, but would prefer not and is not actually able to describe in detail how is hypothetical theory would actually work, so to is Edwards prone to grand theorizing about things that have no practical implementation or which when implemented produce sensations that are nothing like he describes.  A case in point:



> The paradigmatic example is that skilled warriors don't swing wild when trying to hit their foes.




Fine.  That's still congruent with my definition, but then...



> It has nothing to do with whether or not action declarations fail: in opposed contexts, such as (say) Glorfindel fighting the Witch-King, it is completely consistent with "no whiffing" for Glorfindel's player to suffer a complete failure (eg the Witch King cuts Glorfindel's head off). Because in this case Glorfindel has not manifested incompetence; it's just that he has been bested by one of the most powerful sorcerous warriors in Middle Earth.




A situation that is indistinguishable in actual practice from incompetence.  Indeed, it's a situation that in practice is pretty much indistinguishable from a fumble by either definition, in that decapitation is a classic over the top 'you failed' result in RPGs, and I can imagine a table that laughs when Glorfindel is decapitated.   Moreover, if your definition devolves down to "you aren't incompetent, you are just a whole lot less competent than an NPC" then your definition of competence is meaningless.  

And how is being decapitated "failing forward", since you previously quoted someone equating the two?  

Bah.  Your words and definitions shimmy around to mean whatever you like at the moment.  If you want "no whiffing" to mean failing forward because that serves your argument, then it does, and if you want it later to mean being decapitated to serve some different purpose, then it does.  Of course, Ron Edwards is much the same, as his wholly unfunctional definition that you could never actually turn into a gaming mechanic proves:



> Whiffing refers, I think, more to the _sensation_...




A sensation?  Your mechanic depends on a player's sensation?   How the heck is that supposed to work? 



> Another situation that gives rise to the sensation is when failing the attempt doesn't make anything happen. So you either get something, or tread water. This is what leads to those horrible fights-that-never-end, weary, roll-miss-tune-out sessions.




If you put his abstract ideas together though, and say that to implement "no whiffing" your skills have to be reliable and have to produce a consequence on failure, you end up with something very like my definition.  You end up modifying the failure stake from being "no consequence" to something that looks a lot like "success with consequences" in some form.



> In the context of AD&D combat, for instance, with its 1 minute rounds...




So now we are back to your wobbly definitions and square pegs firmly hammered into round holes.  It's pretty easy to show that AD&D combat doesn't have the characteristics you suggest, regardless of how you try to narrate it.  It's quite possible, indeed rather likely, that both participants swing and miss with the result of nothing about the situation changes - directly contradicting even your own purposed definition of "no whiffing".  That's not "no whiffing".  That's not "failing forward".  Aren't we indeed rather near those "horrible fights-that-never-end, weary, roll-miss-tune-out sessions" we typically call "grinds", which for that matter isn't all that far from what 4e is famous for?

Despite all that, I think I know where you are coming from.  You are trying to say that there is a big difference in the color of failure.  As for example, in Rashomon both the Bandit and the Woodcutter recount the same fight with the same results, but one description of the fight appears heroic and the other appears marked by incompetence.  You could say that the bandit's story was produced by a system that implemented "no whiffing" and the woodcutter's story was produced by one that had "fumbles".   But the fundamental problem with that is that so much of the sensation aspect is beyond the control of the system or the storyteller.  The fiction exists fundamentally in the minds of the participants and each are going to experience it differently.   What strikes one as comic might strike another as tragic, and what strikes one as heroic might strike another as farce.  And you certainly are going to drop to the farce end of the spectrum eventually if you are trying to hold up this idea wholly through narration without substantial difference in how things actually work.

UPDATE: And interestingly enough, if you'd quote just a little bit outside of the carefully excised snippets you are quoting to "prove" your assertion, and get into the areas where we have to implement the idea you'd see that my definition is pretty darn congruent.  For example:

"...A more constructive way to interpret failure is as *a near-success or event that happens to carry unwanted consequences or side effects.* The character probably still fails to achieve the desired goal, but that’s because something happens on the way to the goal rather than because nothing happens."​


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## Mortellan (Feb 20, 2016)

Holy Bovine said:


> Now show how that high level 3E fighter with 4 attacks per round screws up 4 times as often as Bob the 1st level warrior.  Fumble rules just screw over exceptional PCs, glad we never used them.



In my experience, fumble rules keep fighters with 4 attacks honest. I've seen plenty of min/maxed fighters never miss a swing except on 1's. Should all their misses be fumbles? Probably not, but short of battling gods and dragons it is the only means of making some fights a challenge. I've played too much Warhammer to relish playing a battle that is mathematically over after initiative is rolled.


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## pemerton (Feb 21, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> That's enough definition to go on.   If that's the definition we use, then the definition is fine and congruent with what I just said.
> 
> If you go trying to implement this thing as a mechanic rather than an actual idea, you'll end up very much with something like my idea of 'success with complications' or 'partial success'  *or else you won't actually implement it at all.*
> 
> ...



A near-success is not a _success with complications_. A near-success is a failure; something short of success.

And your assertion to the contrary makes me wonder how much experience you have with "no whiffing" or "fail forward"-style mechanics.

There is a very long recent thread on this, here. A number of actual play examples have been menioned. Here are two, from my BW game:

(1) The PCs are travelling through the Bright Desert, heading to a ruined tower in the Abor-Alz which, up until 14 years ago, was the home of the PC mage and his (NPC) brother - they abandoned it when it was attacked by orcs and the brother, in an attempt to cast a might spell against the orcs, failed his casting and was possessed by a balrog. The elven ronin ranger PC is guiding them through the desert.

The elf's orienteering check fails. The consequence, as narrated by me (the GM): the PCs arrive at the waterhole at the foot of the Abor-Alz, but it has been fouled be a dark elf, and so there is no fresh water to be had. Another Forte test has to be made by each PC, resulting in more loss of Forte due to dehydration.

(2) Having arrived at the tower, the PCs are searching it, looking for a nickel-silver mace that the PC mage had forged some 14 years ago, and had abandoned in the tower. The Scavenging check fails. The consequence, as narrated by me (the GM): the PCs find that the mace is not in the tower, but they do discover something - in the ruins of what was the private workroom of the brother, they find cursed black arrows, identical to the broken arrow that the elven ronin carries on a cord around his neck, which was shot by an orc and killed his master. Up until this point the goal of the mage PC has been to free his brother from possession; now he is forced to consider that his brother may not be redeemable, and that his evil may have led to the balrog possession rather than vice versa.​
These are examples of "no whiffing". Failure does not lead to "treading water" - something changes in the fiction. Failure does not reveal the PCs as incompetent - they do not get lost in the desert, or overlook anything in the tower. In neither case do they succeed, however - they do not find fresh water, and they do not find the mace.

A third example also mentioned in that thread _does _exemplify "success with complication": in the first session of the campaign, the mage PC used aura reading to determine whether a feather being offered for sale as an angel feather really was such a thing. The check failed; and the consequence that I narrated was that the feather was indeed an angel feather, but it was also cursed.

But the idea that "fail forward" or "no whiffing" is always, or even typically, "success with complication" is simply not correct.


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## Celebrim (Feb 21, 2016)

pemerton said:


> A near-success is not a _success with complications_. A near-success is a failure; something short of success.




Yes, what constitutes 'partial success', 'near success', or 'success with complications' is a matter of perspective.  It's like I was trying to explain about mapping movies to mechanics - you can't do it accurate because you don't know the counterfactuals.  Your 'failure' form my perspective looks very much like 'success with complications'.  In fact, I would argue that even from your examples, what you describe is much closer to success with complications than it is to failure.  As usual, your description of your own play doesn't match the details of your play.  Just like you claim to be play 'no myth' when you describe prepping myth, so now you are describing 'success with complications' as something other than what it obviously is.

For example:



> (1) The PCs are travelling through the Bright Desert, heading to a ruined tower in the Abor-Alz...The elven ronin ranger PC is guiding them through the desert...The elf's orienteering check fails. The consequence, as narrated by me (the GM): the PCs arrive at the waterhole at the foot of the Abor-Alz, but it has been fouled be a dark elf, and so there is no fresh water to be had.




Now in normal procedural play, if you are making an orientation check the stakes are 'You get where you are going' or 'You don't get where you are going'.  So then the check is failed, and because you are playing 'no whiff' or 'fail forward' or whatever you want to call it, instead of getting the consequence 'You don't get where you are going' (presumably they become lost and don't get to the tower of Abor-Alz) they got the consequence 'You do get to the tower of Abor-Alz, BUT there is a complication'.  That is partial success.  That is success with complications BY THE BLOODY @#@$ing DEFINITION.  Whatever you want to call it, it's still a partial success.  They failed their orientation check AND STILL GOT WHERE THEY ARE GOING.  How can you not see that?

In any event, when the mechanical implementation is open ended like this, it's not possible to draw bright lines around 'partial success' or 'near success' or 'success with complications'.  They all shade off into each other.   When Chewy is trying to put C3P0 back together, and he puts his head on backwards, was that 'partial success', 'near success' or 'success with complications'?  One DM may say one thing, and one the other, because those things are basically different terms for the same freaking thing.


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## pemerton (Feb 21, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Now in normal procedural play, if you are making an orientation check the stakes are 'You get where you are going' or 'You don't get where you are going'.  So then the check is failed, and because you are playing 'no whiff' or 'fail forward' or whatever you want to call it, instead of getting the consequence 'You don't get where you are going' (presumably they become lost and don't get to the tower of Abor-Alz) they got the consequence 'You do get to the tower of Abor-Alz, BUT there is a complication'.  That is partial success.  That is success with complications BY THE BLOODY @#@$ing DEFINITION.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



Failing to find fresh water when navigating a desert looking for water is not success. It is failure - the noun _failure_ being cognate with the verb _failing_ in the phrase _failing to find fresh water_.

Success with complications would be (for instance) arriving at fresh water, but having to negotiate with a nemesis in order to gain access to the waterhole (in this case, perhaps, the desert raider Wasal who had earlier evicted the PCs from his camp).

If the party was equipped with a decanter of endless water (or spells to create water, etc), then what is at stake would obviously be different. But they weren't. Not dehydrating in the desert was (unsurprisingly, I think) key to what was at stake in this particular moment of play.

In the thread that I linked to,  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] gave an interesting actual play example: in order to defend the compound from assailants, the PC urges her tribe to help her build giant effigies to be carried to the walls to scare away their enemies; and the check failed, and so the tribe agreed to sacrifice the PC inside them, Wicker-man style, so as to scare away their enemies.

That's not "success with a complication". That's failure.

You could say that both chaochou's example, and the waterhole example, are "partial success" or "near success" - in one case, the effigies get made and the tribe has agreed to use them to try and drive away their enemies; in the other, the PCs do make it across the desert. But this only shows that "partial success" and "success with complications" are different things.

(In chaochou's case, _success with complications_ might mean - for instance - that the tribe builds the effigies and carries them to the walls of the compound, driving away the enemies, but attracting the adverse attention of the being of whom they are effigies.)


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## delericho (Feb 22, 2016)

Mortellan said:


> In my experience, fumble rules keep fighters with 4 attacks honest. I've seen plenty of min/maxed fighters never miss a swing except on 1's. Should all their misses be fumbles?




By the time that 3e fighter gets four attacks, his friend the Wizard is casting two spells a round, one or both of which might well end the battle before it starts, and with no chance of fumbling. Who keeps him honest?


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## chaochou (Feb 22, 2016)

delericho said:


> Who keeps him honest?




The Spell Fumble table!

Magic being wild and unpredictable, every single time a spell is cast, the caster has to roll an unmodified D20. Any roll equal to or less than the level of the spell being cast is a fumble. If a spell is fumbled, roll a D6:

1: The caster channels just the wrong amount of energy inwards and explodes, leaving nothing but a red smear on the floor and a gently spinning hat.

2. A slight miscalculation causes the caster to launch themselves beyond orbit at close to the speed of light. If outdoors the caster is dead, but primitive creatures witnessing the spectacle are so impressed by the fireworks that they grant the rest of the party safe passage. Same indoors, but with the addition of a smoky stain on the ceiling.

3: The rapid contortions required by the spell dislocate both the caster's shoulders and then they break their own neck as they fall over. 16d12 damage. Any creature nearby with a sense of humour has to save vs paralysis or laugh for 1d4 rounds.

4. The caster has discovered a hitherto unknown spell and has cast it perfectly! It is called "Summon brain eating beetles to dine on my brain!" The caster loses 16 points of INT and is now a Level 1 Barbarian.

5. The effort and energy of the spell causes the caster to shake themselves apart. Roll 1d6 for each leg, arm and head the caster possesses. On a roll of 1-4 it falls off. On a 5 it breaks for 2d6 damage. On a 6 it breaks for 2d6 damage, and then falls off.

6. Unable to stand the stresses and pressures of adventuring any longer the caster subconsciously modifies the spell to provide them camoflage and respite. They permanently become... (roll 1d4):

1) A goldfish, in a clear, cheap bowl filled with water (value 1sp)
2) A lemon meringue pie
3) Made entirely of wax
4) A 10-foot pole


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## Celebrim (Feb 22, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Failing to find fresh water when navigating a desert looking for water is not success.




They weren't navigating a desert looking for water.  They were navigating a desert looking for ruined tower of Abor-Alz.  And they found it.  That is success.  It happens that they were also expecting to find fresh water there.  They didn't.  That is a complication, one that in a different circumstance could probably be resolved by casting a spell like 'Purify Food and Drink' or 'Create Water' or an Alchemy skill check to create an antidote or distill pure water from the polluted source.  Failure would have been not finding the ruined tower of Abor-Alz.  

If in fact the orientation check was to find fresh water, then success would have been finding fresh water but not the ruined tower of Abor-Alz, since in that circumstances any fresh water would do.   But finding fresh water, while helpful, was not the party's primary goal which was to get to the tower.  And it's clear that getting to the tower was at least a partial success, since they were able to continue their plan having only had to spend a few game resources.   Whether this resource was Forte or Spell Slots doesn't really matter, they still enjoyed at least partial success by at least getting to the tower.  

The shear potential dysfunctionality of an orienteering check determining whether water is fresh or not, we'll leave to another time.



> It is failure - the noun _failure_ being cognate with the verb _failing_ in the phrase _failing to find fresh water_.




It's less than perfect success, but again, it's not complete failure since the primary goal of reaching the tower was in fact achieved.  They got what they wanted, but with complications.



> Success with complications would be (for instance) arriving at fresh water, but having to negotiate with a nemesis in order to gain access to the waterhole (in this case, perhaps, the desert raider Wasal who had earlier evicted the PCs from his camp).




This is functionally no different than getting to a waterhole and finding it polluted - both are 'success with complications' to an equal degree and both are 'partial success' to an equal degree.  In either case, they have to deal with a new complication.  In some cases, dealing with a polluted water hole might require spending fewer party resources or be easier to accomplish than dealing with a waterhole guarded by an enemy.  We can't necessarily say one is a higher degree of failure than another (except to the extent that the DM is metagaming against the party using his knowledge of party resources).



> If the party was equipped with a decanter of endless water (or spells to create water, etc), then what is at stake would obviously be different. But they weren't. Not dehydrating in the desert was (unsurprisingly, I think) key to what was at stake in this particular moment of play.




No.  What was key to the orienteering check was getting where you were going.  That again seems obvious.  If in fact merely 'getting water' was the main goal at stake, play would have been more seriously disrupted than it was and would have involved more trouble than marking off a bit of Forte.  Also, getting water could have been separated out as a separate roll, as someone could have made the equivalent of a Survival check to find a nearby water source other than the pool that happened to be where they were going.  ("While we are on our journey, I want to keep an eye out for geological formations that might indicate hidden or subsurface pools of water.  If we get the chance, I want to stop and collect additional water.")



> In the thread that I linked to,  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] gave an interesting actual play example: in order to defend the compound from assailants, the PC urges her tribe to help her build giant effigies to be carried to the walls to scare away their enemies; and the check failed, and so the tribe agreed to sacrifice the PC inside them, Wicker-man style, so as to scare away their enemies.
> 
> That's not "success with a complication". That's failure.




I'm not even sure how to categorize that, except to say that's a very good example of why I don't like open ended GM intervention.  Whether that was success with complications or a fumble, depends very much on the system in question and the perversity of the DM regarding how he views his job as DM.  



> (In chaochou's case, _success with complications_ might mean - for instance - that the tribe builds the effigies and carries them to the walls of the compound, driving away the enemies, but attracting the adverse attention of the being of whom they are effigies.)




I don't see how you can draw that as a bright line.  If the adverse attention is of a more powerful and dangerous being, is that success with complications or a fumble?   If the adverse attention is of a less dangerous being, is that not partial success?  In general, the terms 'partial success' and 'success with complications' are synonymous, and even when we can distinguish them it is only when all counterfactuals are known and prespecified and the results are therefore not open ended.  Otherwise, telling one apart is a matter of opinion.


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## Manbearcat (Feb 22, 2016)

chaochou said:


> The Spell Fumble table!




This is utterly unfair!  How does the old D&D adage go?

With unchecked cosmic power comes no responsibility?


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## Celebrim (Feb 22, 2016)

Manbearcat said:


> This is utterly unfair!  How does the old D&D adage go?
> 
> With unchecked cosmic power comes no responsibility?




It is a bit unfair, and it is a bit over the top, but I agree in principle that D&D needs better spell fumble rules.

I've never liked that the worst that can happen if you flub a spell is that you lose a slot, and I am working on my own spell fumble tables for my game.  So far it's only happened a couple of times, but its pretty fun when spells go occasionally pear shaped.


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## Connorsrpg (Feb 23, 2016)

We have always used spell fumbles and fumbles in general  Have charts.


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## pemerton (Feb 23, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> They weren't navigating a desert looking for water.  They were navigating a desert looking for ruined tower of Abor-Alz.  And they found it.  That is success.  It happens that they were also expecting to find fresh water there.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> What was key to the orienteering check was getting where you were going.  That again seems obvious.  If in fact merely 'getting water' was the main goal at stake, play would have been more seriously disrupted than it was and would have involved more trouble than marking off a bit of Forte.  Also, getting water could have been separated out as a separate roll, as someone could have made the equivalent of a Survival check to find a nearby water source other than the pool that happened to be where they were going.



First, you are actually wrong about the fiction - the waterhole in question is at the foot of the Abor-Alz. It is not related (except by a degree of geographic proximity) to the tower.

Second, how do you know with such authority what was at stake? I don't recall you being at the table! That they would make it to the tower was not at stake - that was taken for granted in the action resolution (in technical terms, that is "say yes or roll the dice" - the rolling of the dice was to determine survival en route). What was at stake was safely navigating across the desert. Which they failed to do, because the waterhole they travelled to was fouled by a dark elf.



Celebrim said:


> Whether that was success with complications or a fumble, depends very much on the system in question and the perversity of the DM regarding how he views his job as DM.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> If the adverse attention is of a more powerful and dangerous being, is that success with complications or a fumble?   If the adverse attention is of a less dangerous being, is that not partial success?



I'm pretty sure the system is Apocalypse World.

The reason that I suggest that the adverse attention of a powerful being is success with complications is because the PC (and player) achieve the immediate desired change in the situation - the enemies disperse in fear of the effigies - but find themselves in a new, difficult situation - namely, being subject to the attention of a powerful being. (I took it to be implicit that the being is not of no significance, power etc in relation to the PC - if that was so then there would be no complication.)

But ultimately it is  [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s play example. He has posted in this thread and will no doubt chime in if he thinks he has anything worthwhile to add!



Celebrim said:


> It's less than perfect success, but again, it's not complete failure since the primary goal of reaching the tower was in fact achieved.  They got what they wanted, but with complications.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



I didn't say it was a bright line. Not every X that is different from a Y is differentiated from Y by a bright line (_red_ and _purple_ are a trivial example of this).

But the absence of a bright line doesn't mean that there is no difference.

In the case of polluted water vs a nemesis guarding the waterhole, _I know_, as GM, that one is a failure (but not a complete failure - I didn't use that adjective) and the other a success with complications, because I know broadly what capabilities the PCs have for dealing with polluted water (very little) and what capabilities they have for negotiating with a nemesis (a good deal).

In narrating the waterhole as fouled, therefore, I am imposing a cost that they cannot overcome - roll for Forte tax - that would not be the case if the nemesis was present. Negotiating with the latter might consume some metagame resources, but those are able to be replenished on a (broadly) session-by-session basis, and so the _cost_ of that consumption, if it were to occur, would be very modest at the table, and non-existent in the fiction (the characters are no worse off for their players being slightly depleted in metagame resources for however much of the session remains after playing out the negotiations).

More generally, in the scenario as it played out the players (and PCs) did not get what they wanted - they didn't get safely across the desert, and had to suffer some Forte tax as a result. Whereas had they met their nemesis at the waterhole, then they would probably have succeeded, one way or another (via negotiation or stealth) in resolving the complication, and would have got what they wanted - making their way safely across the desert. That is one way of making clear the difference between _failure_ and _success with a complication_ in this particular instance.

Yet another option potentially on the table, had I not "said yes" to finding the tower, would have been to narrate - in response to the failed Orienteering - a dust storm and the PCs arrival at the pyramid in the middle of the desert, which they had heard rumours of. That would have been neither "success with complications" nor "failure but near-success" but "complete failure" - but nevertheless "dfail forward". But for various reasons - mostly around pacing, and the relationship between passage of ingame time and passage of at-table time - I had decided to "say yes" to finding the tower.



Celebrim said:


> In general, the terms 'partial success' and 'success with complications' are synonymous, and even when we can distinguish them it is only when all counterfactuals are known and prespecified and the results are therefore not open ended.  Otherwise, telling one apart is a matter of opinion.



They are not synonyms. At best, they both describe species of a genus - the genus being "fail forward".

In the absence of a bright line, telling one from another may well be a matter of opinion. That's true for a lot of things that are, nevertheless, different. It doesn't mean that there are no differences, or that discerning them is (i) arbitrary, or (ii) unimportant.

Managing the narration of consequences, and choosing between various options of complete failure, less-than-total failure, and success with complications, is an important part of the GM's job in a "fail forward" game. Just lumping them altogether obscures the sorts of considerations that a GM needs to have regard to. (For instance, suppose in the example of the mace that, instead of narrating that the mace is not in the tower but there are black arrows, I had narrated that the PCs find a cleft in the bottom floor of the tower, and can see a glimpse of nickel-silver at its bottom: that "success with a complication" would have completely different implications for pacing, for tone, for the focus of play, for relationships among the PCs and between them and key NPCs.)

The fact that you do lump them together makes me (again) wonder how much experience you have playing or GMing using these techniques.


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## CharlesRyan (Feb 23, 2016)

Hi, all--

First, full disclosure: I'm the COO at Monte Cook Games, and I game with Monte on a fairly regular basis. Given those facts, I don't usually jump into public conversations about MCG stuff, but this conversation has grown too interesting to resist!

I don't want to put words in Monte's mouth, but let me start by addressing posters that think Monte is advocating that PCs never fail, or that GMs should be all touchy-feely about their players' poor hurt feelings. In the article, Monte says, "It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare." I think he means both parts: That it should be rare, but also that it could certainly be a result that happens.

And I can personally attest to that. I've seen a character accidentally shoot a friend in one of Monte's games (I was fortunately not at either end of the exchange!), resulting from a GM intrusion that was triggered by the roll of a 1. I've also seen a zillion other interesting things happened when 1s were rolled, and overwhelmingly they didn't represent a moment of extreme incompetence on the part of the character.

(By the way, Monte's use of "Bruce" as his example wasn't coincidental. Bruce Cordell's ability to roll many, many 1s in a single game session is unparalleled.)

Which brings me to the crux of what I think is the disagreement here (or at least 70% of the disagreement): What does the word "fumble" mean?

To some people, it means "a result with more than routine negative consequences--something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players." If that's you, you can stop arguing against Monte: You agree with him. You're just using the word "fumble" differently.

But I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up." As in, rolling a 1 means your character did something that really screwed the pooch. You shot another character instead of the monster you were aiming at. Dropped your sword. Uttered a major faux pas in front of the Duke. Reached for the bottle of healing balm and accidentally grabbed (and applied) acid instead. The situation got worse because YOUR CHARACTER did something uncharacteristically incompetent.

If that's how you interpret the word "fumble," Monte (and the Cypher System rules generally) argue that you should broaden your horizon. Not that a 1 result is meaningless--in fact, the Cypher System codifies that it is always meaningful. (Note what I just said there: While 1=fumble is a common house rule for many games, in the Cypher System 1=escalated challenge _is actually part of the core rules_.) The GM introduces a twist, and that almost always means the situation becomes more challenging. This is the OPPOSITE of coddling the players or negating failure--it's making the players work harder to succeed. The point is that the increased challenge doesn't come (or rarely comes) from character incompetence.

So what does all this have to do with player feelings and "punishment?" If your ONLY way of introducing additional, randomly-triggered challenge escalation is via character incompetence--if a 1 represents a screw-up, and you have NO OTHER mechanic for introducing the many other ways things can go randomly wrong in a tense situation--I'd argue that you're being kinda mean to your players. You're loading all the unpredictability into a single narrative cause.

That's the not-fun part.


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## Aldarc (Feb 23, 2016)

CharlesRyan said:


> (By the way, Monte's use of "Bruce" as his example wasn't coincidental. Bruce Cordell's ability to roll many, many 1s in a single game session is unparalleled.)



This just makes me want to see Bruce Cordell and Wil Wheaton as players in the same RP campaign.


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## Celebrim (Feb 23, 2016)

CharlesRyan said:


> Hi, all--




Howdy.  Thanks for stopping by.



> Which brings me to the crux of what I think is the disagreement here (or at least 70% of the disagreement): What does the word "fumble" mean?
> 
> To some people, it means "a result with more than routine negative consequences--something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players." If that's you, you can stop arguing against Monte: You agree with him. You're just using the word "fumble" differently.
> 
> But I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up."




I think you are right about how most people use the word.  What I want you to notice is that "a major screw-up" and "something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players" are largely synonymous definitions.  When you screw up, it's because you make things worse for yourself.  I'm not sure it matters why that happens, per se, as for example we don't as an audience tend to distinguish Inspector Clouseau's extreme ineptness from the perverse manner the universe also seems to be out to get him and object's uncannily break whenever he touches them.  It's all fodder for the comedy.  More on that latter.

But I don't think the major source of disagreement is over what you think it is.  I fully understand that Monte is saying both that a 1 is a fumble by definition #1 and that the complication doesn't have to be a the result of character incompetence.   The source of the disagreement is somewhat different.

First, I deny that it's necessarily or even regularly better for the game that a complication resulting from a player proposition isn't fumbled as the result of character incompetence.  I deny that because I feel that disassociated mechanics are in general less satisfying and more problematic for the player than associated mechanics.   If I'm shooting an arrow at an orc, it's certainly possible that the worst case scenario is just as I let fly a hitherto unseen hurtling red dragon swoops out of the clouds between me and the orc and blocks my shot, and takes a certain umbrage at me shooting at him.  And yes, you might say, "Well that wasn't character incompetence.  These sort of things just happen; could have happened to anyone."  But then you are creating a world where the player and the character feel less in control of what happens than one where his own screw ups are in the range of possibility.  It's not like you are making the throw of the 1 less common by imagining disassociated random happenings happening.  The character still misses the shot just as often, and even when these things don't seem like they are the character's fault exactly, they still will seem like the sort of things that a more competent hero could have avoided.  I'd rather my character occasionally shoot himself in the foot than live in a bizarro world that twisted just because I threw a 1 when I tried something.  Nothing is meaner to a player than removing any sense that his actions have predictable logical consequences, which you eventually start throwing out the window if failures have to be blamed on something other than the player's relative ineptitude.   We went from being not quite competent enough to attempt something heroic, to cause not implying effect.  Welcome to Kragworld. 

And secondly, while you can disassociate the fiction from the proposition, I don't think you can disassociate the proposition from the game.  Everyone at the table still knows that red dragon swooped down just at that moment because your character threw a 1.  If we really should be worried about other players or the GM being 'mean' to us because our character fumbled, the surely we shouldn't be playing in a system where a 1 meant complications arose on failure.  Honestly, I think Monte's advice is only necessary because the only mitigation mechanic that makes such fumbles less rare involves an annoyance tax.  

I have no idea what is fun for other people.

But I'll take putting the droid's head on backwards, ending the conversation by blasting the microphone, stepping on the stick and getting backhanded, sticking my prong in the power socket, hotwiring the door and closing a second blast door, getting the hydrospanners dropped on my head while I'm trying to fix the hyperdrive I failed to fix right before the battle, and all the other goofy things that heroes do while they are saving the galaxy over a GM being empowered to introduce whatever out of fiction thing he can conjure out of the air to up the stakes.  All that unpredictability is the not-fun part.  Disassociated mechanics are stronger anti-player antagonism than major screw ups are, and do nothing to protect my wee little feelings from the stinging barbs of my fellow players when throwing the 1 causes whatever the heck its going to cause makes them laugh their heads off if in fact I'm going to get my ego bruised by something like that.

And as far as the notion of coddling goes, it wasn't the idea that the GM was making the players work less hard to succeed that struck me as coddling.  What struck me as coddling was the notion that the player should have this image of their own character as the type that never screws up regardless of the circumstances, and that the GM should go out of his way to help maintain that image.


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## pemerton (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> "a major screw-up" and "something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players" are largely synonymous definitions.



No. _A major screw-up_ may directly increase the challenge for the players; but need not. (Eg if the screw-up takes the form of self-injury or injuring an ally the impact may be resource depletion rather than a direct increase in challenge.)

But there are certainly many ways to _directly increase the challenge_ without a major screw-up. For instance, some 3rd party or force may inject itself into the situation. Or, to refer back to an earlier example, the PC's tribe may like the idea of effigies, but decide that they need to be set alight with the PC inside (Wickerman-style) in order to be effective.

There are any number of ways the situation can change so as to make things more difficult, without that involving any sort of screw-up, let alone a major one.


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## sheadunne (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> But I'll take putting the droid's head on backwards, ending the conversation by blasting the microphone, stepping on the stick and getting backhanded, sticking my prong in the power socket, hotwiring the door and closing a second blast door, getting the hydrospanners dropped on my head while I'm trying to fix the hyperdrive I failed to fix right before the battle, and all the other goofy things that heroes do while they are saving the galaxy.




Those seem to be the results of simply failing the check. When I think fumble, I think Wicket using the sling. Things get complicated on a failure and things get silly on a fumble, which is probably why I don't use fumbles anymore. I don't use critical success either, for similar reasons.


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## Imaro (Feb 24, 2016)

sheadunne said:


> Those seem to be the results of simply failing the check. When I think fumble, I think Wicket using the sling. Things get complicated on a failure and things get silly on a fumble, which is probably why I don't use fumbles anymore. I don't use critical success either, for similar reasons.




I've never seen fumbles as "silly".... they can be but IMO they just need to be a failure whose consequences are different from what the consequences of a normal failure in a particular game system would entail.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2016)

pemerton said:


> No. _A major screw-up_ may directly increase the challenge for the players; but need not. (Eg if the screw-up takes the form of self-injury or injuring an ally the impact may be resource depletion rather than a direct increase in challenge.)




Err... so depleted resources don't increase the challenge... yeah, I think we are done now.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2016)

sheadunne said:


> Those seem to be the results of simply failing the check.




I normally see the results of a failed check as 'nothing happens'.   For example, when you make an attack roll to hit a target, if you fail then you do no damage.   When you try to open a lock with a skill check, the lock remains locked.   Sometimes there are consequences to 'nothing happens', such as failing to make a Hide check to evade a hunting monster - in which case the thing that doesn't happen is that you are not seen and so the ordinary result (you are seen) happens instead.   But in general, failure refers to the case when things don't happen.  If failure normally referred to the case where something happened, we wouldn't need a concept like "fail forward".  

Additional complication is not normally the expectation of simple failure, at least if we are discussing most older 'traditional' game systems. 



> Things get complicated on a failure and things get silly on a fumble, which is probably why I don't use fumbles anymore.




I don't understand why a fumble should be silly.  It sounds like you are speaking from experience, but making fumbles be silly is more a matter of choice than a necessity (unless the system outright encodes for silliness, which is a valid choice if that's what you are going for).



> When I think fumble, I think Wicket using the sling.




But even more than I don't understand why a fumble should be silly, I don't understand why Wicket using the sling is in a different class of failure than R2D2 plugging his 'modem' into a power socket and frying himself, or Han Solo snapping a stick as he's sneaking up on Scout Trooper, or Han Solo's attempt to fast talk his way out of problems in the Death Star Detention center and failing so miserably he himself winces listening to himself and ultimately decides to just blast the microphone.  They are all potentially comic moments revolving around a protagonist majorly screwing up.  Whether you find them silly or not though is a bit subjective.


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## billd91 (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Err... so depleted resources don't increase the challenge... yeah, I think we are done now.




In many cases, a depleted resource won't increase the challenge. Think of 4 10th level PCs taking on an orc guarding a pie. One PC fumbling and doing 10 or even 20 points of damage to another depletes resources but doesn't really affect the challenge of the encounter.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2016)

billd91 said:


> In many cases, a depleted resource won't increase the challenge. Think of 4 10th level PCs taking on an orc guarding a pie. One PC fumbling and doing 10 or even 20 points of damage to another depletes resources but doesn't really affect the challenge of the encounter.




Sure, but by the same token, if 4 10th level PC's take on a 1 HD orc guarding a pie, and one fumbles resulting in a second orc showing up to defend the pie, this additional complication doesn't really affect the challenge of the encounter either.  This additional orc may well do far less depletion of resources than that 10 to 20 damage you site as not being an increase in the challenge.

I think it is futile to try to finely measure how much additional challenge is added by depletion of resources or any other added problem.   That is going to be highly circumstantial and subject to a great deal of opinion.  It's also going to be highly system dependent.  In D&D pretty much all challenges can be measured by how much you expect them to deplete resources, and certainly in 3e for example, the rules formally equate the two concepts.

The point is that it is an added problem and it does increase the challenge.  "Oh yeah, well it doesn't necessarily increase the challenge by much", doesn't strike me as particularly vital observation.


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## CharlesRyan (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim, thanks for your response. I think we're both on the same page in terms of the concepts; we differ on what we want to see happen in a game. And that's perfectly cool, of course.

Here's where I'll carry the conversation forward, though: You've drawn a bold line between "things that happen because the character screws up" and "GM whims that are completely arbitrary and unconnected to established events."



> If I'm shooting an arrow at an orc, it's certainly possible that the worst case scenario is just as I let fly a hitherto unseen hurtling red dragon swoops out of the clouds between me and the orc and blocks my shot.




I'd argue that there's a vast middle ground between your distinctions. In my experience in real life, no plan survives contact with the enemy, and while that's partially due to the enemy's unpredictable actions, and occaaaaasionally due to a screwup on the part of my team, it's usually some other factor in the situation.

I'll put my money where my mouth is: Based on your example, here are ten possible "on a 1" outcomes that are neither character incompetence nor "dragons out of the blue":


Remember that rainstorm yesterday? Looks like your bowstring got wet--it's snapped.
(Speaking of rain) It starts to rain. Everything gets a little bit harder.
You hit the orc. Unfortunatly, the damage is superficial--but the orc stumbles into your friend, who's knocked to the ground.
It turns out the orc is an unusually keen tactician (for an orc). He stares at you briefly from across the battlefield, then barks orders to his comrades. They all get a small bonus to their attacks for the rest of the encounter.
As you planted your foot for the shot, it tangled in some roots. If you want to move, you'll lose a turn untangling.
(Speaking of undergrowth) Holy cats! This brush is filled with stinging nettles! No damage, but the pain is super-distracting for the rest of the encounter!
Shaken by the unexpected arrow shot, the orcs move to a defensive posture. They all gain a bonus to their defense for a few rounds.
Apparently surprised by your shot, the orc shouts out that he surrenders. Genuine, or a ruse?
Surprise! Turns out there were two more orcs, just waiting for the right moment to jump into the fight. Your stray arrow shot flushed them from their hiding spot.
The ground is really unstable here. The cliff edge begins to crumble. (Or the dungeon floor begins to cave into the level below, or whatever.)

That's just off the top of my head. 

Sticking strictly to character incompetence to explain all the ways the challenge can escalate strikes me as limiting.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2016)

CharlesRyan said:


> I'll put my money where my mouth is: Based on your example, here are ten possible "on a 1" outcomes that are neither character incompetence nor "dragons out of the blue":




Sure.  Obviously, "dragons out of the blue" was meant as a humorous stand in for some actual likely complication to draw attention to what I thought the problem was.  



> [*]Remember that rainstorm yesterday? Looks like your bowstring got wet--it's snapped.




"Weapon breaks" is a pretty traditional fumble.   Is failing to maintain your equipment properly something you completely divorce from PC competence.  Tell a Marine drill sergeant about that theory.



> [*](Speaking of rain) It starts to rain. Everything gets a little bit harder.




Well, unless you are fighting a fire elemental... and what exactly does "everything gets a little bit harder" mean?  If you slip and fall in the mud, is that something that is completely divorced from PC incompetence?



> [*]You hit the orc. Unfortunatly, the damage is superficial--but the orc stumbles into your friend, who's knocked to the ground.




Is that result something you completely divorce from PC incompetence?  Do you think that in general, tables will separate attacking an orc, rolling 1, and knocking an orc into your ally sending him sprawling from other "funny" results that a player could be teased over?  Also this particular complication is one that IMO, will likely create hard feelings in a way that rolling a 1 and tripping over your own feet or even rolling a 1 and accidently hitting an ally wouldn't, because the ultimate target of this failure didn't get a chance to 'save' versus the result.   Again, if the goal is to protect the image player's have of their PC from the imputation of incompetence, this fails both for the player that rolled a one and for the player whose character is now sprawled on the ground.



> As you planted your foot for the shot, it tangled in some roots. If you want to move, you'll lose a turn untangling.




Is this something you completely separate from PC incompetence?   Wasn't the whole point of the article that we should be sheltering the player's image of their PC's competence so that failures didn't seem to be owed to a lack of competence on their part?

That's one category.  The other category is the disassociated mechanics where something happens because of metagame but is not theoretically the result of player action.  For example:



> [*]It turns out the orc is an unusually keen tactician (for an orc). He stares at you briefly from across the battlefield, then barks orders to his comrades. They all get a small bonus to their attacks for the rest of the encounter.




Is that related to your action?  If it isn't, would it have happened anyway, or did it only happen the orc was an unusually keen tactician because you tried to do something and failed.  In that case, wouldn't a player be "punished" for trying to do something, something the original article said we didn't want to do?



> Sticking strictly to character incompetence to explain all the ways the challenge can escalate strikes me as limiting.




And yet half your examples struck me as example of some degree of character incompetence in that a more competent character would have avoided the situation.  The remainder strike me as example of disassociated mechanics, which I'm not sure are better for the game than accepting a small amount of 'your character isn't actually a Marty Stu/Mary Sue' and will occasionally screw up.  And if we weren't willing to accept that in the first place, perhaps we would have been better off in a system without a fumble mechanic.

So while it might be somewhat limited, in that we have to forgo our lifelong wish to have players accidentally shoot passing dragons while aiming at orcs, I'm not sure it's actually a bad idea to keep the ideas associated even at the risk of occasional 'hurt feelings' (if that really is a serious risk at all, which in my experience, not so much).


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## sheadunne (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> I normally see the results of a failed check as 'nothing happens'.   For example, when you make an attack roll to hit a target, if you fail then you do no damage.   When you try to open a lock with a skill check, the lock remains locked.   Sometimes there are consequences to 'nothing happens', such as failing to make a Hide check to evade a hunting monster - in which case the thing that doesn't happen is that you are not seen and so the ordinary result (you are seen) happens instead.   But in general, failure refers to the case when things don't happen.  If failure normally referred to the case where something happened, we wouldn't need a concept like "fail forward".
> 
> Additional complication is not normally the expectation of simple failure, at least if we are discussing most older 'traditional' game systems.




Correct. I don't play those systems anymore though. In the games I play, success and failure are determined simultaneously. Failures complicate the scene while success make it easier.



Celebrim said:


> I don't understand why a fumble should be silly.  It sounds like you are speaking from experience, but making fumbles be silly is more a matter of choice than a necessity (unless the system outright encodes for silliness, which is a valid choice if that's what you are going for).




I find them silly in the same way that I find critical hits silly. They don't particularly add any drama to the scene, they just make light of the struggle. 

[







Celebrim said:


> But even more than I don't understand why a fumble should be silly, I don't understand why Wicket using the screen is in a different class of failure than R2D2 plugging his 'modem' into a power socket and frying himself, or Han Solo snapping a stick as he's sneaking up on Scout Trooper, or Han Solo's attempt to fast talk his way out of problems in the Death Star Detention center and failing so miserably he himself winces listening to himself and ultimately decides to just blast the microphone.  They are all potentially comic moments revolving around a protagonist majorly screwing up.  Whether you find them silly or not though is a bit subjective.




Wicket's sling scene is a fumble because it only effects him. It doesn't escalate the challenge. Han Solo's stick snap escalated the scene and made it more challenge for everyone, not just him. The same is true of R2D2. Same is true of Han Solo's talking problems. The "failure of the roll" made the scenes more complicated for everyone involved, not just the character who "rolled the dice." A fumble is a personal experience that only impacts that character directly. In my mind/experience that's silly.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2016)

sheadunne said:


> Correct. I don't play those systems anymore though. In the games I play, success and failure are determined simultaneously. Failures complicate the scene while success make it easier.




Sure, but that's a new and different definition of both 'success' and 'failure' that you have just introduced.   When I was defining success, I defined it as 'doing what you wanted to do'.  Whether or not your intended action would ultimately make things more or less easy isn't related to whether or not you succeeded in your action.   I'm pretty sure I can sustain that from examples from last night's play:

1) The party was in a fairly narrow canyon.  Ahead they saw a spring with a herd of herbivorous dinosaurs grazing and drinking water.  The party decided it would be easier to ferry the party over the herd using their one flying mount than to back track and try to find away around.   This plan was implemented successfully, but it made the situation worse because the low flying predatory mount ended up panicing the herd back toward where the party was hiding.  Also the flying mount scared off two small ambush predators (wood drakes) that had been hiding on the cliff top waiting suitable prey.  No disasters occurred as the party had been wary and everything worked out in the long run, but the successful plan didn't make the scene immediately easier.

2) The party found a hut suspended in midair high above the canyon floor.  They found themselves in a missile duel with the huts bow wielding inhabitants as part of a long running feud.  The party hunter began climbing up a stone spire from which the hut was suspended in order to gain a vantage point where the parties enemies wouldn't have partial cover, and possible to gain access to the hut itself.  While he was implementing this plan successfully, two other party members decided to implement a plan where they would bring the whole hut down by turning part of the stone spire into mud.  They ultimately implemented this plan successfully, but now the hunter's successful plan of being on the spire was complicating the scene, leading to some hijinks while he tried to get back down the stone spire and avoid getting buried in the literally hundreds of cubic feet of mud that was sloughing off the spire.

So by "success" I only mean that the players proposal succeeded.  Players may propose plans that get themselves into trouble, and even though their intention succeeds it won't necessarily make the scene easier.  Likewise, there are times when failures to implement a plan actually work out better in the long run.  As a DM and not a real god, I have no way of knowing exactly how the game is going to play out in the future, and thus don't trust myself to always accurate predict what things are going to make the scene come out more or less favorably.   For example, bringing the hut down was a very clever plan, but because it was destructive it made finding treasure harder, leaving the PC's with less loot than they might have otherwise obtained.  The very successful plan therefore in some sense complicated the scene.



> I find them silly in the same way that I find critical hits silly. They don't particularly add any drama to the scene, they just make light of the struggle.




I agree that this is sometimes true.  But during a fight with a tyrannosaur last night, that same hunter got a timely critical hit that might have saved the life of the party's sorcerer who at the time was about to be swallowed.  The player certainly enjoyed and was satisfied by that conclusion.  And while fumbles in my game rarely add to the drama directly, they do help create a visual mental record of the drama.  The same to some extent is true of criticals, because they stand out in the mind's of the participants.  



> Wicket's sling scene is a fumble because it only effects him. It doesn't escalate the challenge. Han Solo's stick snap escalated the scene and made it more challenge for everyone, not just him. The same is true of R2D2. Same is true of Han Solo's talking problems. The "failure of the roll" made the scenes more complicated for everyone involved, not just the character who "rolled the dice." A fumble is a personal experience that only impacts that character directly. In my mind/experience that's silly.




I'm not sure you can draw such a bright line in practice between what effects only you and what escalates the challenge.  For example, if the party had tried to flee the tyrannosaurus, it's possible that an ally would have stumbled and fell.  This was a personal failure, but if the rest of the party valued the ally enough to want to rescue him, the personal failure leads to a scene complication.   And that sort of thing happens all the time in my game even though my game only has the concept of "fumbles as personal experiences that only impact the character directly" and no concept of making the scene more complex, with players that are the focus of unfriendly attention requiring the party to take steps to keep them alive as much as defeat their enemy and thus making the scene more complex and requiring special actions that wouldn't otherwise be undertaken, like bullrushing undead away from fallen allies to prevent the undead from making coup de grace attacks.

The fact that my game only has the concept of what you call a fumble, and no mechanical implementation of what you call a failure, and yet frequently has fumbles escalate the challenge on the party as a whole suggests to me that your definition is flawed.


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## pemerton (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Err... so depleted resources don't increase the challenge



This was answered by  [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]. Your retort was that you can think of "GM intrusions" that don't increase the challenge either. To which my retort is, those don't sound like very good "GM intrusions".

As well as what  [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] said - which was a relatively extreme case of a high level character facing a single orc - there is a more typical way in which resource depletion doesn't increase the challenge. Unless the PCs are expected to exhaust the bulk of their resources in each challenge/situation, then depleting resources needn't increase the degree of present challenge. Rather, it makes future challenges potentially more difficult.



Celebrim said:


> I normally see the results of a failed check as 'nothing happens'.



This isn't typical in classic D&D:

*A failed reaction check in classic D&D  may leave the NPCs/monsters hostile.

*A failed climbing check often results in falling.

*A failed pick pockets check has a reasonable chance of being detected by the NPC whose pocket was to be picked.

*A failed check to open a lock means the lock can't be tried again until the next level is gained.

*A failed check to move silently means that the character is heard.

*Three failed hearing checks in a row require a 5 minute rest before another attempt can be made.

*A failed check to read a scroll can result in a mis-cast.​
There are probably other examples, too, that I'm forgetting.


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## Celebrim (Feb 24, 2016)

pemerton said:


> This was answered by  [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION]. Your retort was that you can think of "GM intrusions" that don't increase the challenge either. To which my retort is, those don't sound like very good "GM intrusions".




Your no true Scotsman not withstanding, billd91 didn't answer me at all as he's going to have to explain how stabbing yourself or your neighbor in the foot is less of a complication than something else despite depleting more resources.  

And second, well that doesn't sound like a very good challenge in the first place.

If you do contest something, resource depletion does in fact not only increase the challenge but in any system with character resources measures it.  Maybe the extra challenge will not be much depending on how much resources are depleted, and maybe not enough to alter the ultimate outcome, but by a non-zero amount.   Again, if it doesn't deplete resources to address the challenge then it is probably not a challenge, and likewise if it doesn't increase the resource depletion to deal with a complication it is probably not a complication.  

As you yourself admit both now and earlier, if it doesn't deplete resources, it's not a good complication.  You even talked about earlier how you meta-gamed to ensure resources would be stressed to a high degree.  So you are wrong even under your own terms now and earlier when you tried to explain why polluted water was a bigger problem than an enemy guarding it.  



> As well as what  [MENTION=3400]billd91[/MENTION] said - which was a relatively extreme case of a high level character facing a single orc - there is a more typical way in which resource depletion doesn't increase the challenge. Unless the PCs are expected to exhaust the bulk of their resources in each challenge/situation, then depleting resources needn't increase the degree of present challenge. Rather, it makes future challenges potentially more difficult.




Fine.  Failing to find water in the desert, unless it results in the PC's immediate death, only depletes resources that potentially make future challenges more difficult.  Resource depletion does increase the challenge, even on your own terms.  Not that your terms are consistent. 



> This isn't typical in classic D&D:




D&D is complicated by the fact that doesn't use completely unified mechanics, hence one of the reasons I said "normally".  Even in 3e where it tries to introduce a single underlying mechanic, it still has plenty of exceptions and special cases.   For example, 3e climb checks for example have the possible outcomes - "Success", "Failure", and "Fumble" where success means you go up the wall, failure means you don't, and fumble means you failed by 5 or more and fell off the wall.  Balance checks have a similar mechanic, and Use Magical Device takes it further and has multiple degrees of fumble depending on what you rolled and by how much you failed.  

Reaction checks have an even more complicated series of degrees of success and degrees of failure depending on the number of degrees of favor the target goes up or down.  Ordinary failure though were nothing happens is still possible.

Many skills don't have "fumble on a failure of 5 or more" category, and only have success/failure including pretty much every skill that lets you take 20.

The same range of complications are generally true of opposed checks like 'pick pockets' or sleight of hand.  Pick pockets ultimately implements a range that includes: failure (you didn't get anything), fumble (you didn't get anything and someone noticed), success (you got something), and success with complications (you got something but you got spotted).   But the ordinary failure is still you didn't accomplish what you set out to do.

AD&D doesn't have skills per se, but has the same issues of diverging mechanics.  Nonetheless, for many obvious cases, the normal result of a failed 'bend bars/lift gates' check or something of the sort was 'the bar doesn't bend' or the 'gate isn't lifted'.  There was no expectation that if you tried to bend the bar and failed, that the act of trying and failing would make things worse (unless some feature of the preexisting fiction made that true, whatever it was).  If you failed a hearing check, it didn't make the monster come into being and in general if you searched for traps failing to find one didn't create one.  (I've actually seen exceptions, where DMs in AD&D did cause traps to come into existence if you searched for one, but that's not the intention of the rules but the predictable results of 'no myth'.)



> *Three failed hearing checks in a row require a 5 minute rest before another attempt can be made.




That mechanic for hearing checks isn't replicated across the system.  In D&D some skills can fumble and others can't.  How the skill fumbles and what the consequences are vary from case to case.

But one thing that hasn't varied is I never find you particularly insightful or interesting or helpful.  So goodbye.


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## sheadunne (Feb 24, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Sure, but that's a new and different definition of both 'success' and 'failure' that you have just introduced.   When I was defining success, I defined it as 'doing what you wanted to do'.  Whether or not your intended action would ultimately make things more or less easy isn't related to whether or not you succeeded in your action.   I'm pretty sure I can sustain that from examples from last night's play:
> 
> 1) The party was in a fairly narrow canyon.  Ahead they saw a spring with a herd of herbivorous dinosaurs grazing and drinking water.  The party decided it would be easier to ferry the party over the herd using their one flying mount than to back track and try to find away around.   This plan was implemented successfully, but it made the situation worse because the low flying predatory mount ended up panicing the herd back toward where the party was hiding.  Also the flying mount scared off two small ambush predators (wood drakes) that had been hiding on the cliff top waiting suitable prey.  No disasters occurred as the party had been wary and everything worked out in the long run, but the successful plan didn't make the scene immediately easier.




How did the herd get panicked? Was it a result of a failed roll or because "DM says so"? For me only the failed result of a roll would have led to that chain of events.



Celebrim said:


> 2) The party found a hut suspended in midair high above the canyon floor.  They found themselves in a missile duel with the huts bow wielding inhabitants as part of a long running feud.  The party hunter began climbing up a stone spire from which the hut was suspended in order to gain a vantage point where the parties enemies wouldn't have partial cover, and possible to gain access to the hut itself.  While he was implementing this plan successfully, two other party members decided to implement a plan where they would bring the whole hut down by turning part of the stone spire into mud.  They ultimately implemented this plan successfully, but now the hunter's successful plan of being on the spire was complicating the scene, leading to some hijinks while he tried to get back down the stone spire and avoid getting buried in the literally hundreds of cubic feet of mud that was sloughing off the spire.




Again, dice rolls?



Celebrim said:


> So by "success" I only mean that the players proposal succeeded.  Players may propose plans that get themselves into trouble, and even though their intention succeeds it won't necessarily make the scene easier.  Likewise, there are times when failures to implement a plan actually work out better in the long run.  As a DM and not a real god, I have no way of knowing exactly how the game is going to play out in the future, and thus don't trust myself to always accurate predict what things are going to make the scene come out more or less favorably.   For example, bringing the hut down was a very clever plan, but because it was destructive it made finding treasure harder, leaving the PC's with less loot than they might have otherwise obtained.  The very successful plan therefore in some sense complicated the scene.




I'm not sure where you're getting all this planning from. When I'm talking about success or failure, I'm talking about the results of dice rolled to determine success or failure. For instance if the character flying the mount rolled a successful flying roll, then they succeeded. End of story. If the player failed the roll, then complications emerge such as the herd getting spooked or something else depending on the fiction and the intent of the action. If no dice are rolled then it's completely arbitrary whether success or failure has happened and doesn't much matter to me since I don't game that way. 



Celebrim said:


> I agree that this is sometimes true.  But during a fight with a tyrannosaur last night, that same hunter got a timely critical hit that might have saved the life of the party's sorcerer who at the time was about to be swallowed.  The player certainly enjoyed and was satisfied by that conclusion.  And while fumbles in my game rarely add to the drama directly, they do help create a visual mental record of the drama.  The same to some extent is true of criticals, because they stand out in the mind's of the participants.




That's great. Not so much for me. 



Celebrim said:


> I'm not sure you can draw such a bright line in practice between what effects only you and what escalates the challenge.  For example, if the party had tried to flee the tyrannosaurus, it's possible that an ally would have stumbled and fell.  This was a personal failure, but if the rest of the party valued the ally enough to want to rescue him, the personal failure leads to a scene complication.   And that sort of thing happens all the time in my game even though my game only has the concept of "fumbles as personal experiences that only impact the character directly" and no concept of making the scene more complex, with players that are the focus of unfriendly attention requiring the party to take steps to keep them alive as much as defeat their enemy and thus making the scene more complex and requiring special actions that wouldn't otherwise be undertaken, like bullrushing undead away from fallen allies to prevent the undead from making coup de grace attacks.




I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I'm not talking about personal failure. I'm talking about the complication only affecting the character as a  result of a fumble (in my game failure is failure, it doesn't matter if it's a 1 or not). Wicket made an attack roll, fumbled, and the sling wrapped around him and he fell down. Silly, but doesn't complicate the game in the slightest, except for Wicket, probably involving his next action in the scene. All your examples have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. They don't seem to be about fumbles at all, but rather dice roll failures that led to scene complications. For instance in my game, a failure in combat may result in wounds to the character, which might knock him unconscious. Or it might attract new enemies. Or it might start a fire because the dragon was defending himself. All these complicate the scene for everyone. The character dropping his sword leads to no such result. It's just silly. 



Celebrim said:


> The fact that my game only has the concept of what you call a fumble, and no mechanical implementation of what you call a failure, and yet frequently has fumbles escalate the challenge on the party as a whole suggests to me that your definition is flawed.




I haven't read anything you posted that disputed my definition in the slightest. You mention plans but haven't defined dice rolls that would indicate success or failure. I can only assume that dice are being rolled. In my games success means success and not, success but I'm going to complicate the scene because I want to. Failure complicates the scene, not success. Your examples seem to be the opposite of that. It's hard to tell since you didn't identify any points in which dice were rolled to determine success. Purely narrative complications (no dice are rolled) doesn't match my style of play.

A fumble, to use a classic example, of dropping one's weapon, doesn't complicate the scene, even if it endangers one character. It only demonstrates the incompetence of the character and for me, is silly. The same is true if a player gets a crit and slices off the head of the orc. Silly. Fumbles and criticals are defined by the difference from the normal circumstances of action that caused them, otherwise they're just a normal happening. I've never heard a critical narrated as "you stab him. he dies." It is most often described as an over-the-top death scene, which to me equals both silly and unnecessary. I have no problem with them, I'm just not interested in those narrations or the lack of drama they impose, for me at least. In my games, if the player succeeds in killing the orc, she can describe it any way she likes, including decapitating the orc, as long as it's genre appropriate and matches the feel of the game as decided by the table. I don't need criticals and fumbles to do what success and failure does just fine.


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## Imaro (Feb 24, 2016)

[MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] ... I'm curious, what game are you using for your examples?


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## Hussar (Feb 24, 2016)

Out of curiousity, what is essentially the difference between a fumble check causing a dragon to bomb the party and the spanner falling on my head while trying to fix the hyperdrive?

After all, failing to fix the hyperdrive or succeeding has nothing to do with HP.  I could see something like a short causing me to get shocked - that's directly related to my check "Fix Hyperdrive".  Why should I take damage from a completely separate source on a fumble?  And, note, the tool falls on my head, not due to my failure to fix the hyperdrive, but, my success.  So, I succeeded in my check - the Hyperdrive is fixed - but I still take damage?  Or, I fumbled and still fixed the hyperdrive (so, why did I bother making the check in the first place?) but, take damage from a completely unrelated source?

How is that not dissociated from the fiction?


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## Celebrim (Feb 25, 2016)

sheadunne said:


> How did the herd get panicked? Was it a result of a failed roll or because "DM says so"? For me only the failed result of a roll would have led to that chain of events.




I made a will save on the herd based on the declared plan to fly at only 50' above the herd in a hippogriff.  I rolled a '2'.  The "DM says" in this case, that's a low enough roll that it's reasonable that the herd, which had been established in the fiction as wary and prone to stampede, did in fact do so.  I then flipped a coin as to whether they would panic away from where the PC's were hiding or toward them.  It came up toward them.



> Again, dice rolls?




Again, dice rolls, although there was really no way of handling this situation but an ad hoc ruling as I hadn't planned for this case and wasn't about to break out my Statics text book and spend hours figuring out the exact design of the support structure.  I'd been rolling the whole way, but by the fourth application of 'Soften Earth and Stone' by the levitating Shaman, I set a fairly high probability that the structure would fall, rolled the dice, and it did.  Since I'm the sole authority on the % chance that the support system fails, that's only color of anything but DM fiat though.  However, before the plan began, the Shaman made an intelligence check to see if they could figure out the best way to bring the hut down by weakening the stone spire and rolled a natural 20.  It didn't seem reasonable that the plan that I then outlined (which seemed reasonable to me based on my IRL mechanical engineering) wouldn't work if enough resources were put into it.



> I'm not sure where you're getting all this planning from. When I'm talking about success or failure, I'm talking about the results of dice rolled to determine success or failure.




I am to.

I consider the normal process of resolution to look like this:

1) The player announces their intention to do something doubtful (the "plan" or "proposition").
2) A fortune is decided on and chanced.  The stakes are generally either the PC's plan works or it doesn't.
3) The DM narrates the results depending on whether the fortune was successful.
4) Return to step #1.

Now, not every game works exactly like that, and we can talk about how different (usually newer) games have varied that structure, but for the general case its no a bad outline.  Notably in the above structure, success is only that the player's proposition worked.  Success doesn't guarantee the situation in the scene got better or easier.  Failure doesn't guarantee things got worse.



> For instance if the character flying the mount rolled a successful flying roll, then they succeeded.




Flying in this case required no roll whatsoever.  He can successfully fly in ordinary flight without having to make any rolls at all.  End of story. Now, if he wants to undertake some aerial maneuvers, like a wing-over or a power dive or even something simple like a swoop maneuver, that might require a roll for the mount assisted by the rider's ride check.   And had he announced a plan with special caution to avoid spooking the herd, I probably wouldn't have even rolled.  But since the player's primary concern was only avoiding getting into the herds threat zone and the primary declared intention was to 'scout the other side', I decided to chance whether the herd was spooked.   Now, if the party had tried to walk past the herd, then that probably would have been tested with move silently and if the player's succeeded then the plan succeeded, end of story.  Or if the party had implemented a plan to try to provoke a stampede, that probably would have been automatically successful (like 'taking 0'), end of story.  Well not end of story, but back to step #1.



> That's great. Not so much for me.




Sure.  And I can see the down side of fumbles and criticals as well.  I don't insist that a system have them.  If D&D had a bit less abstract combat, I'd probably think it would be much better off without them.



> I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I'm not talking about personal failure. I'm talking about the complication only affecting the character as a  result of a fumble (in my game failure is failure, it doesn't matter if it's a 1 or not). Wicket made an attack roll, fumbled, and the sling wrapped around him and he fell down. Silly, but doesn't complicate the game in the slightest, except for Wicket, probably involving his next action in the scene. All your examples have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. They don't seem to be about fumbles at all, but rather dice roll failures that led to scene complications.






> For instance in my game, a failure in combat may result in wounds to the character, which might knock him unconscious. Or it might attract new enemies. Or it might start a fire because the dragon was defending himself. All these complicate the scene for everyone. The character dropping his sword leads to no such result. It's just silly.




First, as long as we are talking 'not for me', that would be the last time I'd play at your table.  I refuse to play in Bizarro world where the fiction is mutable to GM whim to that extent.  In such world's, the players have no incentive to propose anything and in my experience it's all illusion of the worst sort.

Secondly, if failure in combat resulting in wounds to the character complicates the scene for everyone, then surely fumbles in combat resulting in wounds to the character complicate the scene for everyone.  At the very minimum, if Wicket is an a D&D party, Wicket is losing actions the rest of the team is depending on to beat down the opponent quickly and conserve resources.  But if Wicket's fumble results in Wicket being unable to adequately defend himself from attackers (say he's now stunned and prone), then this is surely a complication for everyone to at least the same extent that it would be if Wicket was wounded by a monster directly.

And thirdly, what you don't seem to fully grasp is that all the scenes I described involved SUCCESSFUL die roles that complicated the scene.  No one was failing on their rolls.  For that matter, many of the propositions that a player can make are not disputed.  They have 0% chance of failure.  They just happen because they are actions that are trivially easy for such formidable and skilled characters.  To put it another way, I was just "saying Yes".  The players were successfully implementing their plans.  Yet the scene grew more complicated anyway simply as a result of the logical consequences of their successful actions.  That's one of the several reasons your definition is not describing what is going on in my game.



> A fumble, to use a classic example, of dropping one's weapon, doesn't complicate the scene, even if it endangers one character.




But surely to the same extent that being wounded can complicate the scene because it endangers the character, dropping one's weapon - say dropping one's magic bow over the side of a ship in the middle of the ocean while being attacked by a Sargasso spirit and a sea elf war party (something that actually happened and was an actual fumble) - complicates the scene as well.



> It only demonstrates the incompetence of the character and for me, is silly. The same is true if a player gets a crit and slices off the head of the orc. Silly.




Ok.  All I can say is my players enjoy occasionally doing extreme damage to their opponents, and don't seem to fear that occasionally their plans won't work out resulting in the appearance of incompetence for a moment.



> I've never heard a critical narrated as "you stab him. he dies." It is most often described as an over-the-top death scene, which to me equals both silly and unnecessary.




Strange that you both recognize this is silly and unnecessary and yet criticize the mechanic and not the GM.



> In my games, if the player succeeds in killing the orc, she can describe it any way she likes, including decapitating the orc, as long as it's genre appropriate and matches the feel of the game as decided by the table. I don't need criticals and fumbles to do what success and failure does just fine.




I keep seeing really narrow notions about what a critical or a fumble actually are that seem to be tied to very specific implementations.  Far more 'orcs' have been decapitated by ordinary successes than by critical hits in my game.


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## sheadunne (Feb 25, 2016)

Imaro said:


> [MENTION=27570]sheadunne[/MENTION] ... I'm curious, what game are you using for your examples?




My home-brew based off of Danger Patrol. 

Good question.


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## Celebrim (Feb 25, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Out of curiousity, what is essentially the difference between a fumble check causing a dragon to bomb the party and the spanner falling on my head while trying to fix the hyperdrive?




Believability?  
One has cause and effect within the fiction and the other links cause and effect only through the metafiction?
One is probably absurd and certainly was intended to be and the other occurs in a beloved piece of heroic fiction?



> After all, failing to fix the hyperdrive or succeeding has nothing to do with HP.




In siting examples from Star Wars, all I'm trying to suggest is that heroic fiction can contain heroes that fail - sometimes in a comic manner - and yet still be heroic.  There seems to be the suggestion that you can't have 'silly things' and 'heroic fiction' at the same time.  Yet most beloved fiction has moments of comedy and moments of drama.

I certainly wouldn't want to state that definitively this mechanic led to that situation in a Star Wars movie, since it wasn't produced by a game process.

But from my perspective the real fumble in this scenario is before the hydro-spanners fall on his head, back when on Hoth he's repairing the Falcon.  The fumble is that Han thinks he fixed it, but actually hasn't.  This mistaken belief is ultimately what leads to Han comically and frantically (but also tensely and with much audience excitement) trying to fix the Falcon while in a combat situation, leading the hydro-spanners landing on his head comically.



> How is that not dissociated from the fiction?




The hydrospanner's didn't fall on Han's head because of his failing a check at that moment.  The hydrospanner's fell on his head because the Falcon struck an asteroid, probably provoking something like a reflex save by the crew to avoid taking damage, and because Han was not strapped into a secure combat position he failed and the DM colored the failure as the hydrospanner's falling on his head because that was funny and appropriate to the myth the scene had established.  

Keep in mind.  I'm mostly running this process:

 1) The player announces their intention to do something doubtful (the "plan" or "proposition").
 2) A fortune is decided on and chanced. The stakes are generally either the PC's plan works or it doesn't.
 3) The DM narrates the results depending on whether the fortune was successful.
 4) Return to step #1.

I don't have an notion like, "Hydrospanners fall on your head as a result of a failed Repair check." or "Since a roll was failed, the scene should get more difficult."


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## sheadunne (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> . . . Insightful post. . .




I wanted to reply in greater detail but alas by 5 year old is fighting me on bed time right now. Let me just say a few quick things before running off.

For me, there's a difference between fumble and failure based on the way I use failure in my games. In games like D&D, there is no consequence of failure, unless specific to the mechanic being used (such as falling when making a climb check). There's certainly nothing wrong with narrating failure to introduce complications in the game, but the game isn't really designed that way (except for the skill challenge mechanics in 4e, maybe). Fumble seems to be an add on mechanic designed to introduce complications into the game, primarily for a specific character who fails. I don't think I've seen a D&D tack on fumble chart that incorporated fumble effects that went beyond the immediate character (for example, when narrating the fumble of the archer, the GM describes the creature dodging his attack and tearing down the sails creating a complication for the entire party). The effect is primarily attached to a specific character. A secondary effect of dropping the bow might mean that now it's harder for the characters to win the fight, it's just doesn't seem more complicated. There aren't more monsters. The character is for all intensive purposes fine and I assume he has other resources to bare on the encounter. He's not wounded in any meaningful way like twisting an ankle or breaking a finger (and wouldn't be with the D&D hp mechanic which doesn't have complications associated with taking damage). It's not clear on whether he has another bow or other equipment to use. Everything seems fine if not a little silly that an accomplished archer (assuming he is), would drop his bow*. It just doesn't feel complicated in any meaningful way to me. No one else is complicated as a result of his failure. It's not more difficult for them to fight or do other things. The scene hasn't changed at all. 

*I image a scene where Legolas is on top of the elephant shooting away, rolls a one and drops his bow. Gimli laughs and then rolls a one himself and gets stepped on by the elephant. haha


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## pemerton (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> AD&D doesn't have skills per se, but has the same issues of diverging mechanics.  Nonetheless, for many obvious cases, the normal result of a failed 'bend bars/lift gates' check or something of the sort was 'the bar doesn't bend' or the 'gate isn't lifted'.



Also, it cannot be attempted again. That matters in classic D&D, where retries are often permitted (the cost being ingame time, and hence wandering monster checks and torch depletion).



Celebrim said:


> As you yourself admit both now and earlier, if it doesn't deplete resources, it's not a good complication.



What I actually said, and what you quoted, is that if it doesn't escalate the challenge then it's not a good "GM intrusion" (which, in post 246 upthread, a designer for that system has equated with "escalated challenge").

I can think of all sorts of complications that don't deplete resources. I even gave two actual play examples upthread: mine, in which the PCs were looking for a mace but instead found black arrows; and [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s, in which the PC got put into the effigies that s/he had urged her followers to construct.



Celebrim said:


> If you do contest something, resource depletion does in fact not only increase the challenge but in any system with character resources measures it.



This is not universally true. It's not even universally true for classic D&D play, where a challenge may be very great, may be overcome by clever play, and as a result no resource is depleted  (". . . and we didn't even lose a hit point"). It's certainly not true in RPGs in which the characters (and hence players) have goals not defined in resource terms.

For instance, the challenge of dealing with the discovery of the black arrows may be very great - much greater than dealing with the fouled waterhole - although no resources are consumed in deciding how to respond to it.



Celebrim said:


> You even talked about earlier how you meta-gamed to ensure resources would be stressed to a high degree.  So you are wrong even under your own terms now and earlier when you tried to explain why polluted water was a bigger problem than an enemy guarding it.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Failing to find water in the desert, unless it results in the PC's immediate death, only depletes resources that potentially make future challenges more difficult.  Resource depletion does increase the challenge, even on your own terms.  Not that your terms are consistent.



Finding the water polluted doesn't escalate the challenge. But it does deplete resources. I never said that it escalated the challenge; in fact, as I think I explained upthread it has quite a different pacing implication. Escalating the challenge by having a nemesis guard the waterhole would increase the playtime spent on something that was somewhat peripheral to the main action (of getting to the tower so the PCs could rest and recuperate, and so - at the metagame level - some backstory issues could be brought to the forefront and addressed).

Although the fouled waterhole doesn't escalate the challenge, it is a bigger problem for the PCs then escalating the challenge would be, because of the immediate pressure it puts on a vital resource (namely, remaining points of Forte). That feeds into the choice of it as a failure result: it causes some immediate stress (by putting pressure on a vital resource); but it takes up relatively little time at the table (because it doesn't complicate the challenge); and it seeds a future conflict (with the dark elf) that ties into various PC beliefs, including most immediately the elven ronin's commitment to _always keeping the elven ways_.

There is no generalisable relationship between "bigger problem" andl "more interesting complication" or "better for play". Judging these things is part of the role of the GM.



Celebrim said:


> I never find you particularly insightful or interesting or helpful.



I'll ask again - how much experience do you have playing in and/or GMing "fail forward" or "no whiffing"-style systems? As I've said upthread, your insistence that "no whiffing" = "success with complications" = "partial success" = (it now seems) "resource depletion" suggests to me that you don't have a great deal of such experience. Because these different options all have different implications for pacing, for the way PCs are framed and engaged (in relation to and/or by reference to relevant flags), etc. You don't seem very sensitive to or interested in those differences, but they are pretty crucial in this sort of play.


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## pemerton (Feb 25, 2016)

With respect to the hyperdrive being fixed and the spanner then falling on a PC's head, I can think of at least three ways this can happen in a RPG.

(1) The GM narrates it as mere colour but it has no mechanical effect or consequences. It's just a chance to have a laugh at that character's expense.

(2) In 4e, in the context of a skill challenge, the player has offered a healing surge in exchange for a +2 to the check. The check succeeds, the GM narrates the hyperdrive kicking in, and also narrates the tools falling on the PC's head - hence the loss of a surge.

(3) In a game that allows for advantages triggered by fictional positioning, the player says "I do it in a hurry - I don't even put away my tools - so the drive can kick in and we can escape", and rolls with a bonus. On a success, the tools haven't been put away and so the GM is free to narrate the consequence that they fall onto the character's head. If the check failed and the ship is boarded by enemies, maybe the tools - not having been put away - get blown up by stray blaster fire in the ensuing firefight.

There are probably plenty of other ways too that this could happen.


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## Celebrim (Feb 25, 2016)

sheadunne said:


> I wanted to reply in greater detail but alas by 5 year old is fighting me on bed time right now. Let me just say a few quick things before running off.




LOL.  Totally been there.  Good luck. 



> For me, there's a difference between fumble and failure based on the way I use failure in my games. In games like D&D, there is no consequence of failure, unless specific to the mechanic being used (such as falling when making a climb check).




I agree.  Again, more with definitions.

Critical Success:  Not only did what the player propose to do happen, but he got some additional unusual benefit above and beyond what he expected. 
Success: What the player proposed to do happened.
Success with Complications: What the player wanted to happen, did happen, but additionally something that the player did not want to happen also happened.
Partial Success: What the player wanted to happen did happen.  However, the player only got part of what he wanted to achieve.
Near Success: What the player wanted to happen, didn’t happen.  However, the player did at least achieved something beneficial that prevents this from being complete failure.
Failure: What the player wanted to happened, didn’t happen.
Fumble: Not only did the player not get what they wanted, but the outcome is now considerably worse than we’d expect of a failure.

D&D has no unified mechanic.  Depending on what you are doing, you might have the outcomes "Critical Success/Success/Failure" or "Success/Failure/Fumble" or just "Success/Failure".   In some cases you might actually have differing degrees of success or failure, which is a whole other approach (See for example Gamma World 3e or Marvel Super Heroes).  

Some systems remove the "failure" option from the table.  You either get something positive, or else you get something else but you never get "no change".   An example would be a system where you announce your attention to attack a foe, and on failure you get damaged by the foe.  That's "success/fumble" as outcomes.  

All that is well and good if the stakes are known before hand, but some systems define the "failure" outcome (that is, your roll wasn't good enough) in an open ended manner.   The Cypher system doesn't quite do that, but it does define the fumble outcome (you threw a 1) in an open ended manner because on a fumble you get a 'GM Intrusion' where the GM is empowered to complicate the situation by introducing new fiction.  In the abstract, you can distinguish easily between "partial success" and "success with complications" and a "fumble".

But in general, if the system defines 'failure' as GM Intrusion, then the system becomes so open ended that in practice we won't be able to define failure.  'Failure' in this case will be a range of outcomes from 'Success with Complications' to 'Fumble', and it's a matter of rather subjective opinion which actually occurred.  

Let me give an example. 

Consider the case of rolling Athletics to determine whether a PC jumps a chasm.  A non-open ended system might define the consequences concretely like:

Critical Success: The PC not only jumps the chasm, but moves with such speed and power than they can add up to an additional 2 meters as a bonus to their intended move.
Success: The PC jumps the chasm.
Success with Complications: The PC jumps the chasm, but stumbles on the other side, ending their move at that point. (Unless perhaps a second check is made?)
Partial Success: In order to clear the jump, the PC was forced to lay out, resulting in them landing prone in their intended square and ending their move.
Near Success: The PC failed to clear the chasm, but came close enough that they may grab the edge (perhaps requiring a second check?).  They are as a result hanging off the edge of the chasm rather than at their intended point.
Failure: The PC failed to clear the chasm, and as a result fell in.
Fumble: The PC failed to clear the chasm or even to control their motion, resulting in them tumbling head over heels and landing on their head, taking more than the usual amount of damage.

We could probably hard define such a spectrum for almost any sort of check.  

This superficially seems like a straight forward spectrum from ‘best’ to ‘worst’.  But note we can probably always find edge cases where the above ‘Near Success’ was a better result than ‘Success with Complications’.  For example, if the ultimate intention was to charge a bow wielding assailant, the PC achieving only ‘near success’ might at least benefit from near complete cover from missile fire.   

If the system is open ended though, defining the clear cut case from 'best' to 'worst' becomes basically impossible, and if its all GM fiat, we can't begin to distinguish one case from another usefully.   One GM might imagine that ‘success with complications’ in fact is hanging off the side of the chasm, while another might imagine that ‘near success’ is coming just close enough to the chasm edge that you miss the top but instead land on a lower ledge and take only partial damage.  Or indeed, since the two GM’s can’t really compare notes, the reverse might be the case with a different group and a different GM ruling that a PC that achieved ‘success with complications’ is now clinging to ledge 10’ below the top of the chasm.  Someone might decide that partial success is clearing the chasm but twisting your ankle on the landing.  Someone might decide success with complications is clearing the chasm but landing in a hitherto unnoticed pile of shaving cream or perhaps even failing to clear the chasm but landing in a sufficiently deep pile of shaving cream that little or no damage is taken.  And what happens with the GM starts feeling empowered to metagame, taking into account how much of a complication any particular alteration to fiction might be to individual PC’s or to the party?   Now we have to deal with each GM’s own subjective sense of difficulty, fairness, and how antagonistic he should be.

As such, in any open ended system ‘near success’, ‘success with complications’ and ‘partial success’ are going to be synonyms.  Indeed, I’m not sure any open ended fiat system has actually tried to mechanically require differences between the terms.  Maybe there is a system out there were miss by 1 is "success with complications", miss by 2 is "partial success", and miss by 3-5 is "near success" but I haven't read the rules to such a system.  Typically they just note that the GM is empowered to treat the failure result as any one of those things according to what they think is best.



> I don't think I've seen a D&D tack on fumble chart that incorporated fumble effects that went beyond the immediate character (for example, when narrating the fumble of the archer, the GM describes the creature dodging his attack and tearing down the sails creating a complication for the entire party). The effect is primarily attached to a specific character.




This is because with the exception of 4e, D&D has generally avoided disassociated mechanics.  If a player announces his plan to fire an arrow at a target, the implied stakes are that you will hit with the arrow or you won't.  It's in the range of easily imagined possibilities that the arrow shot would be particularly poor or particularly good, but the cause "You tried to fire an arrow" and the effect "the monster tore down the sails" don't seem related.  In D&D, complications like your sails getting tore down, don't happen as a result of your failure directly.  They happen because the antagonist proposed to tear down the sails, and then you failed to thwart that plan and they succeeded.    

This is a very different sort of game than open ended DM fiat.  I'm running the antagonists, and they fumble as well.  Sometimes NPC's go down hard to unforeseen failures and any intention I had for the NPC's to have an aura of suaveness is thwarted.  I propose actions for the NPC's, without any certainty that the rules will allow those actions to succeed.  My antagonists have limited resources and those resources can be depleted, leaving them without good options.  My antagonists can only summon reinforcements if the established fiction says reinforcements are available.  The PC's can only become entrapped in hitherto unseen bramble bushes if unseen bramble bushes exist in the fiction.  I can't invent resources to complicate the scene.  Well, I mean I can, but I believe that doing so would be inherently bad GMing on my part because a big part of my job is giving the PC's a fair shake and I don't believe I will be able to do that if I have an excuse to intrude into the fiction in an open-ended manner.

For me as a player, when my missed bow shot allows an Orc to blow a horn to summon reinforcements from distant rooms, I'm ok with that.  But when my missed bow shot conjures a trumpet and a room of reinforcements into being, I just give up.  I'm no longer interested in playing that game.  I'm certainly not interested in running that game either.  For that matter, I know from experience I can't run such a game according to its intention.  I'm unable to run Paranoia (for example) as a wacky, gonzo, game where silly things happen.  I try to run Paranoia and my basic sense of fairness, and my sense of realism and ability to paint a world very granularly, and my sense of drama and characterization, and my general lack of a sense of humor, ends up turning it into an angsty dark dystopian horror game.


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## Umbran (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> But one thing that hasn't varied is I never find you particularly insightful or interesting or helpful.  So goodbye.





Ladies and gentlemen,

It is a fine thing for you to disengage from a conversation you find isn't constructive or pleasant for you.  We encourage you to not put yourself in situations that are aggravating.  We even give you functionality to help you avoid discussion you don't like.

It is less fine to give a really long, in-depth post that would call for response, and put at the end of it the fact that you're not going to be listening any more.  It comes off as a variant of winning by getting the last word, an sort of parting shot or a "golden flounce".  We should be more mature about it than to announce such things publicly.  

If you're going to disengage, do so with a bit of class and decorum, and just quietly stop responding.  Thanks.


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## RotGrub (Feb 25, 2016)

The fumble system I use models everything from a slight failure to a catastrophic event.  A roll of 1 is simply an indication that something might occur.  Subsequent ability checks can lesson or even nullify the event.

For example, in my system, a weapon can go flying off and kill companion.   Of course, a dex check, a direction check, another to hit roll, and a half damage roll is required, but it can happen.   And if I'm playing with a critical hit location system, an eye might be lost in the process.  

Therefore, I don't understand why some people are attempting to restrict the definition of a fumble.   Clearly,  that definition can be different at every table and the fumble system in use can spawn any number of situations to occur.


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## Aldarc (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> For me as a player, when my missed bow shot allows an Orc to blow a horn to summon reinforcements from distant rooms, I'm ok with that.  *But when my missed bow shot conjures a trumpet and a room of reinforcements into being, I just give up.  I'm no longer interested in playing that game.*  I'm certainly not interested in running that game either.  For that matter, I know from experience I can't run such a game according to its intention.  I'm unable to run Paranoia (for example) as a wacky, gonzo, game where silly things happen.  I try to run Paranoia and my basic sense of fairness, and my sense of realism and ability to paint a world very granularly, and my sense of drama and characterization, and my general lack of a sense of humor, ends up turning it into an angsty dark dystopian horror game.



This caricaturization seems like an unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction or misreading of the Cypher System and its GM Intrusion, as well as what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook have written. That may simply be because you have neither interest nor experience in running the Cypher System. If you have no experience, then you can hardly be faulted for your misunderstanding. If you have no interest, as you may naturally prefer another system, such as D&D 3E/Pathfinder or D&D 5E, then one certainly may have suspicions regarding your heated investment in this topic and why you feel compelled to interject your repeated aversions on the Cypher System and attempts to portray it as "bad-wrong-fun." 

What you describe in terms of a "basic sense of fairness, and [your] sense of realism" is precisely what the GM Intrusion attempts to encourage, according to the GM sections in every iteration of the Cypher rules thus far (i.e. Numenera, The Strange, Cypher System Rulebook). It's not about making things unfair. Or summoning things out of thin air. It's meant to provide an internally-consistent and in-narrative complication produced as a result of a Natural 1.


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## Celebrim (Feb 25, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> This caricaturization seems like an unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction or misreading of the Cypher System and its GM Intrusion, as well as what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook have written.




First of all, has anyone defending or describing the GM Intrusion system in particular or failure as "complications" actually denied that reinforcements arriving is an appropriate sort of complication?  Indeed, is it being said that having reinforcements arrive is generally a worse use of GM intrusion than producing a "fumble" as Monte defined it (failure with complications that produce the sensation of PC incompetence).  When I talk about reinforcements arriving as a complication, I'm not actually introducing an idea well beyond the realm of possibility or which the system doesn't provide for.

But ok, my general point doesn't at all depend on this specific case.  You say, "It's meant to provide an internally-consistent and in-narrative complication produced as a result of a Natural 1."   An orc blowing a trumpet and summoning reinforcements from elsewhere in the complex is internally-consistent and generally within the narrative.  The players in general will have no way of knowing whether or not that could happen, as they have only limited information about the environment.  And it's certainly possible that such things could happen.  But, ok, the reinforcement example offends you.

Let's examine some cases that were brought up by defender's of the system, where GM intrusion occurs as a result of a failed attack action, to see if I really am misreading and misunderstanding as you suggest:

1) "It starts to rain.": So if I'd hit with my arrow, would it not have started to rain?  Yes, it's certainly possible that it starting to rain at any moment is internally consistent, but unless rain was going to start anyway whether or hit or miss it's still summoning things out of thin air.  It may not be a dragon or another party of orcs, but the rain storm was invented as a result of me throwing a '1'.  

2) "It turns out the orc is an unusually keen tactician (for an orc).": In this case, the orc acquires a new ability or power to exercise as a result of me missing him.  Unless it was the case that the orc was already an unusually keen tactician before I shot an arrow at him, this too is conjuring something out of thin air.  Fundamentally, because I threw a 1, the creature acquired more hit points, more powers, more spells, or more abilities that it didn't have before.  Now again, this is also still internally consistent, as the PC's would have no way of knowing that the creature didn't have these abilities before they manifested and its conceivable that some orcs are unusually keen tacticians.  But if we can see behind the screen, as a GM can, we know that the ability has been summoned into existence.

3) "As you planted your foot for the shot, it tangled in some roots.": Was this hazard around before I threw a 1?  Or was it in fact conjured from thin air by the GM intrusion?  Yes, it may be true that this is a forest and some roots were around to get tangled in, and thus this is internally consistent - after all, who marks ever root on the battlemap?  But it is still true these particular roots became super entangling on the whim and at that moment.  There is really nothing the player could have done to foreseen the particular hazard of these roots and avoided them (indeed, at best doing so would have just invited different hazards).

4) "This brush is filled with stinging nettles!": Again, was this hazard around before I threw a 1?  At the start of the combat, did the DM secretly record that squares X, Y, and Z contained stinging nettles, with a certain percentage chance that if entered they would provide a painful distraction?  Yes, it's of course possible that hitherto unnoticed stinging plants are hidden around the field of battle.  We aren't breaking consistency to conjure them into being, but that makes them no less conjured out of thin air.

5) "The orcs move to a defensive posture. They all gain a bonus to their defense for a few rounds.": This is a variation on the orc battle-field technician where the foe gains powers and abilities on the fly.  Did they have the option to take this "defensive posture" before I fired a shot?  Is there no penalty or tradeoff involved in this posture that prevents them from taking it all the time?  Can I take this defensive posture as well?  Again, this is perhaps internally consistent, but it's none the less still conjured into being on the fly.

6) "Surprise! Turns out there were two more orcs, just waiting for the right moment to jump into the fight. Your stray arrow shot flushed them from their hiding spot." 

Wait.... didn't you just call this idea of reinforcements arriving as a "caricaturization seems like an unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction or misreading of the Cypher System and its GM Intrusion, as well as what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook have written."   Didn't you just claim that my statement that reinforcements could arrive as the result of a failed bowshot meant I have a "heated invested" and was "injecting repeated aversions" and "misunderstanding" and portraying it as "bad-wrong-fun"?  It was Charles Ryan that introduced that as an appropriate complication, so maybe I'm not actually the one that is misunderstanding, misreading, and being overly heated here or the one throwing around aspersions.   

Since it was Charles Ryan that endorsed reinforcements arriving as appropriate GM intrusion, perhaps you should take up your claim that this is a misunderstanding that indicates ignorance of the system with him.  I'll pop popcorn.

And I'm not even going to get into your repeated attempts to turn this from a conversation about the art of GMing, to a conversation about me.   I have no problems with the idea of GM intrusion per se, and in particular the intrusion system does have the sort of narrative balancing elements (you can buy out of it using resources) that I think indicate an overall well done holistic design.  I don't however think this latest article shows the concept in its best light, because in an attempt to fix a very minor problem Monte appears to be introducing far more serious ones.


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## RotGrub (Feb 25, 2016)

delericho said:


> No, those are two different things.
> 
> The existence of critical hits _at all_ favours the monsters.
> 
> The fact that PCs get those expanded critical ranges is an artifact of them being so vastly superior to the monsters in the first place. Take away those options and they'd take something else and overwhelm them just the same.




It really depends on how many monsters the PCs are fighting.   The more monsters (or # of attacks ) the more crits against the players.   By the same logic, the more monsters the more fumbles in the players favour.


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## Aldarc (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> First of all, has anyone defending or describing the GM Intrusion system in particular or failure as "complications" actually denied that reinforcements arriving is an appropriate sort of complication? Indeed, is it being said that having reinforcements arrive is generally a worse use of GM intrusion than producing a "fumble" as Monte defined it (failure with complications that produce the sensation of PC incompetence).  When I talk about reinforcements arriving as a complication, I'm not actually introducing an idea well beyond the realm of possibility or which the system doesn't provide for.
> 
> But ok, my general point doesn't at all depend on this specific case.  You say, "It's meant to provide an internally-consistent and in-narrative complication produced as a result of a Natural 1."   An orc blowing a trumpet and summoning reinforcements from elsewhere in the complex is internally-consistent and generally within the narrative.  *The players in general will have no way of knowing whether or not that could happen, as they have only limited information about the environment.*  And it's certainly possible that such things could happen.  But, ok, the reinforcement example offends you.



As a GM, do you tell your players everything about their environment and every piece of equipment that the orcs wear or have on their persons? Do you say tell them that the orc is wearing a healing potion at his belt when the orcs arrive at the scene or do you only bother to provide that piece of information when the orc simply decides to pull one out?  

The idea that players would ever be able to know the entire environment is implausible and unrealistic, whether as a player or as a GM. If an orc did pull out a horn in an attempt to summon reinforcements, it would not strike me as odd or "out of thin air" as a player. It would just be a part of the narrative. It's the GM's job to provide and maintain a plausible narrative for the game, and that would include narrating the GM Intrusion. And perhaps the complication introduced by the GM Intrusion is not at once. If the orc blew the horn, then perhaps the complication is not that orc reinforcements jump out of thin air but, instead, that other orcs in the area are alerted to the presence of the PCs. 

Let's keep in mind, for example, that a GM could decide - at their leisure - that an orc pulls out a horn that she blows for more reinforcements without the need of a Natural 1. The only difference is that the player himself that triggers the complication through the dice roll. In itself, it says nothing about whether the 1 is an automatic failure. It says nothing about whether its the result of character incompetence or a bumbling/major fumble. It simply says that the player's dice roll triggers a narrative complication of some sort. It could be as simple as, the orc finds an opportunity to knock the character prone. You can say that the character feels incompetent because "they created the opening" or "they fell prone" but one could also say that this Intrusion allows the orc to feel more menacing or more than just a mook. I think that this is particularly important given the nature of the Cypher System: i.e. the GM never rolls. When the GM does roll, those mooks can fumble, crit, disarm, and such, particularly if they are playing with a more simulationist rules set. This is less so in a number of more narrativist-leaning rules sets, like the Cypher System. I presume, so please correct me if I am wrong, that you prefer simulationism over narrativism. 



> Let's examine some cases that were brought up by defender's of the system, where GM intrusion occurs as a result of a failed attack action, to see if I really am misreading and misunderstanding as you suggest:





> Wait.... didn't you just call this idea of reinforcements arriving as a "caricaturization seems like an unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction or misreading of the Cypher System and its GM Intrusion, as well as what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook have written."   Didn't you just claim that my statement that reinforcements could arrive as the result of a failed bowshot meant I have a "heated invested" and was "injecting repeated aversions" and "misunderstanding" and portraying it as "bad-wrong-fun"?  It was Charles Ryan that introduced that as an appropriate complication, so maybe I'm not actually the one that is misunderstanding, misreading, and being overly heated here or the one throwing around aversions.
> 
> Since it was Charles Ryan that endorsed reinforcements arriving as appropriate GM intrusion, perhaps you should take up your claim that this is a misunderstanding that indicates ignorance of the system with him.  I'll pop popcorn.



You take all of this as examples of "out of thin air" or "incompetence" whereas I and others do not. What you seem to be repeatedly and blatantly missing is the key idea that the GM Intrusion should be internally consistent and appropriate for the narrative. If orc reinforcements are within the realm of possibility and realism for the narrative context at a given time, then they are not out of thin air. 



> And I'm not even going to get into your repeated attempts to turn this from a conversation about the art of GMing, to a conversation about me.   I have no problems with the idea of GM intrusion per se, and in particular the intrusion system does have the sort of narrative balancing elements (you can buy out of it using resources) that I think indicate an overall well done holistic design.  I don't however think this latest article shows the concept in its best light, because *in an attempt to fix a very minor problem Monte appears to be introducing far more serious ones.*



Your fear may be exaggerated given how the GM Intrusion more often than not plays out in practice.


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## Von Ether (Feb 25, 2016)

As for #3 and #4:
In Dungeon World, they suggest the practice of "leaving blanks on the map" and Fate does encourage hidden aspects to the scene that players can suss out. Both are practices I'd suggest using if one wants to use GM Intrusions in a more narrative sense. 

Not just because there's more "justification" for what happens narratively when a "1" is rolled, but because these a good tools to inpire the GM's improv when the "1" hits. 

Sometimes, as it is in our geeky nature, we get locked thinking that continuity and consistancy is the same thing when things would be easier on a GM if we were a bit more lenient on both.


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## pemerton (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> All that is well and good if the stakes are known before hand, but some systems define the "failure" outcome (that is, your roll wasn't good enough) in an open ended manner.   The Cypher system doesn't quite do that, but it does define the fumble outcome (you threw a 1) in an open ended manner because on a fumble you get a 'GM Intrusion' where the GM is empowered to complicate the situation by introducing new fiction.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



There seem to be at least three things going on here.

First, you seem to be saying that you don't play or run "fail forward"-style games. As I conjectured upthread. I think this helps me understand why your characterisation of the techniques used in those games seems out of touch with the actual practice.

Second, and elaborating on that "out-of-touchness" - you correctly point out that, in such a game, there is no universal or generalisable ordering of outcomes from "best" to "worst" for the PCs, but then incorrectly infer that, as a result, there is no difference between "near success", "success with complications", etc. This is not so. Actual play examples have been given upthread that illustrate that this is not so.

In any given moment of resolution, a range of different narrations for failure may be available to the GM (in the sense that all would fit with the established fiction, maintain the impetus of play, etc) - some may be success with complications (yes, the feather is an angel feather, but is also cursed); some may be partial success (you have reached the Abor-Alz, but the waterhole you were heading for is fouled); some may be total failure (the mace is not in the tower where you were hoping to find it; instead, you find black arrows apparently crafted by your brother). The GM's job is to choose between these. Making good choices is part of the skill of GMing this sort of game. (Somewhat comparably to the Gygaxian GM needing the skill of good dungeon design.) One of the things the GM will be having regard to is the way in which the outcome is success, or near-success (which is a form of less-than-total failure), or total failure - each of which has different potential consequences for the impetus of play. Another will be the degree of complication, and/or of escalation, introduced by an outcome - which matters to pacing, potentially to resource depletion, etc. Further relevant factors will be things like how many PCs a given outcome involves, connections between outcomes and player flags, etc.

The third thing you raise is at what point the stakes are set. On that matter, I'll speak to Burning Wheel. The rulebooks say that stakes are set before the dice are rolled. In his GMing advice (the Adventure Burner), Luke Crane notes that, at his table, he tends to ignore this rule and to leave the stakes implicit. He goes on to say that this works because he plays with people who know him and trust him, and so can appreciate the stakes implicit in the ingame situation. He goes on to encourage his reader to follow the written rules.

When I GM my BW game, it is for people whom I've known for over 20 years and who have all been RPGing with me as GM for most of that time. I therefore generally (not always) leave the stakes implicit. If I was GMing for comparative strangers I'd probably take a different approach.

You express concerns about GM antagonism/fairness. That's not really the relevant notion - or rather, the rulebook will answer it. In BW, for instance, the GM should basically _always_ be antagonistic, in the sense of pushing the players hard in relation to their PCs and their flags. But the GM should also always be maintaining the momentum of play, which means that dead-ends or arbitrary shut-downs are not in the repertoire. Rather than antagonism or fairness, the issues that confront GMs in this sort of system tend to be managing backstory in a consistent way - given that a lot of fiction, from the existence of the dark elf who fouls the waterhole, to the existence of the curse on the feather, to the absence of the mace but the presence of brother-manufactured black arrows in the tower, is being authored in the spot - and avoiding outcomes that a boring, unmotivating to the players, or shut-downs.

(These games also tend to have mechanical solutions to some of these problems. For instance, they tend to have more flexible and generalisable action-resolution mechanics - not unlike 4e's skill challenges - so that the propsect of any situation being a shut-down is reduced, because the players have highly flexible mechanical tools to try and impact the fiction.)


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## Celebrim (Feb 25, 2016)

Oh for crying out loud, do you ever get tired of moving those goal posts around?  

If you are going to reply to me, please do me the favor of at least having read what I said.



Aldarc said:


> As a GM, do you tell your players everything about their environment and every piece of equipment that the orcs wear or have on their persons?




Hint: Yes, it may be true that this is a forest and some roots were around to get tangled in, and thus this is internally consistent - after all, who marks ever root on the battlemap?​
So what do you think? 



> The idea that players would ever be able to know the entire environment is implausible and unrealistic, whether as a player or as a GM.




Did I ever say otherwise?

An orc blowing a trumpet and summoning reinforcements from elsewhere in the complex is internally-consistent and generally within the narrative. The players in general will have no way of knowing whether or not that could happen, as they have only limited information about the environment. And it's certainly possible that such things could happen.​


> What you seem to be repeatedly and blatantly missing is the key idea that the GM Intrusion should be internally consistent and appropriate for the narrative.




Seriously?  I must have discussed that like 10 freaking times in the post you are quoting.  If you can't be bothered to read, don't respond.   



> I presume, so please correct me if I am wrong, that you prefer simulationism over narrativism.




Considering how little I owe you at this point, I'm not even going to open that can of worms.  I will say however that at some level I feel this is like asking me whether I like Thai food or Mexican.  What I like is food that is well prepared.  What I don't like is someone who has heard that Kale is cool, or that Icelandic food is really awesome, or that everyone is cooking with Argula or that Unami is where it is at right now, and decides to go sprinkling his food heavily with those things without fundamentally understanding how those things work and what their limitations are as ingredients, or when they are appropriate and when they can be paired with other ingredients or techniques.  Too often what people call Narrativist is stupid or bad Narrativist (sort of like ordering Tex-Mex or Thai here in central Ohio) justified in some mistaken idea that just because some authority figure said Narrativist is real role-playing that you can dump ideas like that into your game higgly-piggly like some sort of magic seasoning that always makes your food taste better.  I would crawl through gravel to get some good experience under a very skilled Nar GM and some serious RPers in the same way that I would crawl through gravel for some really good Thai food or Tex-Mex.

But I'm certainly not going to get into an argument with you over something as controversial as GNS theory while you are huffing and panting running the goal posts down the field, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that one post ago you were saying reinforcements showing up as the result of a missed bow shot was "unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction" and now you've spun about and are telling me just how reasonable it is.  You're not even very good at paying attention to your own key ideas, so don't try to tell me what I'm "repeatedly and blatantly missing".


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## Aldarc (Feb 25, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> If you are going to reply to me, please do me the favor of at least having read what I said.
> 
> Hint: Yes, it may be true that this is a forest and some roots were around to get tangled in, and thus this is internally consistent - after all, who marks ever root on the battlemap?​
> So what do you think?



And that's my point, both here and with a number of your points in this post. A Natural 1 does not necessarily conjure these things into being as you said. That is the mischaracterization of the Cypher System that I find problematic, and I will get to that more below. 



> Considering how little I owe you at this point, I'm not even going to open that can of worms.  I will say however that at some level I feel this is like asking me whether I like Thai food or Mexican.  What I like is food that is well prepared.  What I don't like is someone who has heard that Kale is cool, or that Icelandic food is really awesome, or that everyone is cooking with Argula or that Unami is where it is at right now, and decides to go sprinkling his food heavily with those things without fundamentally understanding how those things work and what their limitations are as ingredients, or when they are appropriate and when they can be paired with other ingredients or techniques.  Too often what people call Narrativist is stupid or bad Narrativist (sort of like ordering Tex-Mex or Thai here in central Ohio) justified in some mistaken idea that just because some authority figure said Narrativist is real role-playing that you can dump ideas like that into your game higgly-piggly like some sort of magic seasoning that always makes your food taste better.  I would crawl through gravel to get some good experience under a very skilled Nar GM and some serious RPers in the same way that I would crawl through gravel for some really good Thai food or Tex-Mex.



Condescension aside, my point here with that line of questioning is merely that different games cater to different playstyles for groups. Regardless of your strong opinions about more Narrativist > Simulationist games, you do seem to prefer a particular style of game play for your pen 'n' paper RPs. And your preference does not seem to be what the Cypher System offers. But also, it seems as if your experiences and what you are criticizing seems detached from how the Cypher System plays out in practice. If the Cypher System is not for you, then great. Continue playing what you are playing. But it seems as if you are fighting for a cause that does not affect you since you are playing in other game systems with other play styles anyway. So what does an online debate regarding Monte Cook's article on fumbles and the GM Intrusion achieve for you? Why are you worried about what effects these new mechanics would produce in a game system you don't even play or imply that you would enjoy regardless of this mechanic? 



> But I'm certainly not going to get into an argument with you over something as controversial as GNS theory while you are huffing and panting running the goal posts down the field, apparently completely oblivious to the fact that one post ago you were saying reinforcements showing up as the result of a missed bow shot was "unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction" and now you've spun about and are telling me just how reasonable it is.  You're not even very good at paying attention to your own key ideas, so don't try to tell me what I'm "repeatedly and blatantly missing".



Right now the only person "huffing and panting" is you, and I respectfully suggest that you calm down. I have not moved goal posts. I have been consistent with my point of opposition in my reply, namely this idea that the "missed bow shot conjures the trumpet and reinforcements into being" as it seems to imply that they come out of "thin air" and not within the realm of narrative plausibility. 

The player rolls a Natural 1. In the Cypher System, this triggers a GM Intrusion. Obviously, this roll happens outside of the game narrative. The shot likely misses, but it's not an automatic miss in the Cypher System as it would be in some systems or house rules. The missed bow shot did not conjure the trumpet and reinforcements into being either. Although the in-narrative bow shot is tied to the out-of-narrative player attack roll, the complication is also attached to the Natural 1 as a sort of "organized chaos effect." It is not that the missed bow shot conjures these things into being, but, rather, the out-of-narrative Natural 1 triggers the introduction of an in-narrative complication *in addition to* the actions of the attack roll. The Natural 1, in some respects, represents the player unintentionally poking the GM to change their regularly-scheduled scenario. It's also worth noting here, as others have before me, that the player is free to spend 1 XP to reroll their dice, effectively negating the GM Intrusion and the in-narrative complication. 

It's not necessarily a fumble. It's not necessarily a comedy of errors for the player, as Natural 1s sometimes become. (I _have_ had my fair share of GM's who have conjured rocks from the sky that they have dropped on players' heads who have rolled Natural 1s.) It's not necessarily a bumbling goof. It's really more an opportunity that invites the GM-as-narrator to provide unforeseen narrative twists. And these are moments that we see in movies, shows, and books. The player can do things well, but sometimes the unexpected happens that lies outside of their competence or foresight. You may see this as splitting hairs or a case of semantics. That's fine. But semantics do impact the game, as we have discussed much earlier in this thread, and which was something that you seemed to tacitly agree with.


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## Celebrim (Feb 26, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> A Natural 1 does not necessarily conjure these things into being as you said. That is the mischaracterization of the Cypher System that I find problematic, and I will get to that more below.




Regardless of how you want to characterize it, the truth is that these complications - however plausible - are introduced into the fiction at that moment that action is attempted.  If these complications don't associate with the actor attempting the action or perhaps with the target of the action making a countermove, then they are indeed conjured out of thin air.  They are plausible within the narrative, and obviously agreeing to play in that style is agreeing to allow the fiction to be morphic and modified on a whim.

So yes they come from the realm of narrative possibility, but that is also out of thin air and indeed it is the missed bow shot that conjures them into being.

So you do not understand what I'm arguing or where I have a problem.  The problem I have is that Monte claims that it is better that usually the complication introduced by GM Intrusion be one which is not associated with the actor, or necessarily even with the target, but rather be like random coincidences invoked by some diabolic spirit that hates the number '1' or what you call "a sort of organized chaos effect".   But I don't agree that that is necessarily or even often a better approach, I think it one fraught with problems regardless of the system you are playing, and that the problem Monte is trying to solve here is not serious enough to warrant repeatedly using disassociated mechanics or repeatedly improvising antagonistic elements of the fiction.

Now, Monte has quite correctly given the player Narrative currency that he can spend to mitigate against the GM's call, but as I understand it, the Cypher system doesn't implement a separate narrative currency pool but instead the player has to spend XP to counter the DM's call.  And if the GM can call on roughly 1 in 20 rolls, then the intrusion should be relatively minor and inoffensive IMO.  So yes, it probably shouldn't belittle the PC, but it should probably not mostly be zany introductions to the fiction either.  

One way to handle this functionally in combat would be to have the monster make a move, preferably one that the monster could do.  So you might attack the orc, roll a 1 and the DM narrates this as the orc warrior catches the blow on your blade, locks swords with you, with its fang mere inches from your face, and with a roar the monster throws you onto your back!  Oh noes!!  Things of that nature are good combat calls by a GM.  Or you could have the monster use the established terrain of the fiction in some manner, bulrushes you and knocks you to the edge of a cliff, takes advantage of your poorly timed swing to pull a brazier of coals down on top of you and the straw on the floor of the room catches fire, knocks your sword spinning out of your hand, etc.  The GM should be creative with what the fiction has already established - that the orc is a strong and frenzied attacker, those things already present in the environment, and yes that the player - as the actor in the proposition - sometimes makes a big mistake is momentarily outmatched.

There are lots of ways to handle this well, but the Cypher system doesn't really have the narrative currency you need to build fiction together in a functional way and Monte's games don't normally play well as strictly Nar games because he has such strong Gamist and Simulationist sensibilities.  As someone else I heard comment said, "Monte makes games if you want to heroicly knock down the bad guys."  I don't think that he's getting peanut butter into his chocolate here, or even that he's dipping his nori in chocolate because fad.  I think he's using the wrong technique for the wrong reason.



> But it seems as if you are fighting for a cause that does not affect you since you are playing in other game systems with other play styles anyway. So what does an online debate regarding Monte Cook's article on fumbles and the GM Intrusion achieve for you? Why are you worried about what effects these new mechanics would produce in a game system you don't even play or imply that you would enjoy regardless of this mechanic?




Because these are general technique that aren't tied to any one system and there is this fad going on where people think that Nar techniques are just better regardless of how or when or why you use them.  And I don't think that's a very thoughtful approach here.   Besides which, I enjoy thinking about GMing techniques because regardless of what system I'm playing now, I'm GMing all the time.  I've been GMing for more than 30 years and I'm always learning about new approaches and ways of looking at things.  Right now I'm 6 years in to 3.X D&D campaign that probably has 2-4 years left in it to complete it's major story arc, but even in D&D 3e you can make calls and improvise new fiction.  It's just not a technique you want to do very often because it the system doesn't give the players tools to respond to that.  If you find yourself in 3e doing a lot of that, you are probably doing it wrong.

And in my opinion Cypher doesn't support introducing disassociated improvised fiction through the GM Intrusion mechanic very well.  XP is too high of a cost to counter it with; it's not fun for the player to pay that cost, which should be fun to 'bid' in a well designed Nar mechanic.  Cypher has more than one creative agenda going - it's got a wonderful exploration of setting theme going for example - so don't expect it to play pure Nar.



> It's not necessarily a fumble. It's not necessarily a comedy of errors for the player, as Natural 1s sometimes become.




Comedy of errors is being underrated here.  Heroes can bumble and fumble and still be big damn heroes (to quote Firefly) and the players can still have fun.  In fact, I've had players that signal that they very much enjoy that sort of thing.   And if I had a player that signaled strongly that they didn't, I'd try to meet him halfway.  And yes, there are ways to handle GM intrusion that aren't comedy of errors or even strongly color of PC incompetence (though there is IMO _always_ going to be some just because the players can see the metamechanic in action), but in general when roll is failed the results should always be strongly and clearly related to the act and the actor.   Otherwise you are running into a problem that the players aren't going to feel that they can control the game setting through their actions (and they'll be right) and the universe (and the GM) is perverse and illogical and out to get them.  And it's particularly bad to have this happening on a 'roll of a 1' because they know this is happening, and they don't have sufficient tools for saying 'No'.  



> It's not necessarily a bumbling goof. It's really more an opportunity that invites the GM-as-narrator to provide unforeseen narrative twists. And these are moments that we see in movies, shows, and books. The player can do things well, but sometimes the unexpected happens that lies outside of their competence or foresight.




Sure, but the bumbling goofs also happens in movies, shows, and books and we don't necessarily like the heroes the less for them.  And things that are unexpected and lie outside of any possible foresight will happen to PC's anyway, regardless of whether we have GM Intrusion as a mechanic or not, just because the player's themselves aren't omniscient (at least, not in this sort of game, and if you want to talk about a game I wouldn't actually like to play, a game with all the players omniscient would be an example).  



> You may see this as splitting hairs or a case of semantics. That's fine. But semantics do impact the game, as we have discussed much earlier in this thread, and which was something that you seemed to tacitly agree with.




I am the world's biggest semantic hair splitter.  You don't need to convince me semantics are important.  I just ask you to try to understand what I'm actually saying and why, which is sometimes difficult I grant you, because often what I'm saying is finely split and often as not I'm arguing because I haven't hit on exactly how to say it well.


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## Imaro (Feb 26, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Comedy of errors is being underrated here.  *Heroes can bumble and fumble and still be big damn heroes (to quote Firefly) and the players can still have fun.*  In fact, I've had players that signal that they very much enjoy that sort of thing.   And if I had a player that signaled strongly that they didn't, I'd try to meet him halfway.  And yes, there are ways to handle GM intrusion that aren't comedy of errors or even strongly color of PC incompetence (though there is IMO _always_ going to be some just because the players can see the metamechanic in action), but in general when roll is failed the results should always be strongly and clearly related to the act and the actor.   Otherwise you are running into a problem that the players aren't going to feel that they can control the game setting through their actions (and they'll be right) and the universe (and the GM) is perverse and illogical and out to get them.  And it's particularly bad to have this happening on a 'roll of a 1' because they know this is happening, and they don't have sufficient tools for saying 'No'.
> 
> Sure, but the bumbling goofs also happens in movies, shows, and books and we don't necessarily like the heroes the less for them.  And things that are unexpected and lie outside of any possible foresight will happen to PC's anyway, regardless of whether we have GM Intrusion as a mechanic or not, just because the player's themselves aren't omniscient (at least, not in this sort of game, and if you want to talk about a game I wouldn't actually like to play, a game with all the players omniscient would be an example).




Emphasis mine... this has been my biggest issue with the premise set forth for differentiation of fumbles and/or fumbles being bad wrong fun by some of the posters in this discussion such as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].  There are a ton of heroes who have moments of ineptitude... and they are still heroes, they are still competent and they still save the day.  I'm not sure where this idea arose that a competent protagonist never fails due to his own skills or abilities not being up to the task... perhaps there's a small subset of heroes who never fail due to their own inability to meet a particular challenge but it happens to numerous competent heroes of literature and movies and you're right, we don't enjoy their stories any less for it... in fact I would argue it creates a hero who is easier to relate to than the one whose only failures come from outside forces...

Note... I also think you are correct in your assertion that we shouldn't assume that these types of failures aren't fun for players or the group... IME, most people just don't take the game that serious.


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## Celebrim (Feb 26, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Emphasis mine... this has been my biggest issue with the premise set forth for differentiation of fumbles and/or fumbles being bad wrong fun by some of the posters in this discussion




Even more than saying fumbles are badwrongfun, what annoys me right from the original essay is that it takes what I consider an incidental, unessential, and subjective aspect of a well known game mechanic and defines that secondary trait - that they can be funny - as the core attribute of the mechanic itself.   

The essay then goes on to assume that being maybe the source of humor will likely make the player feel bad, and that he's perfectly right and reasonable for feeling so.

And then on top of that, the essay goes on to suggest that we should be mostly using improvised disassociated fiction insertion to resolve the fumbles in order to avoid the possibility of making a player feel bad, as if improvised disassociated fiction had absolutely no chance of going wrong or offending or annoying players or otherwise diminishing their enjoyment of a scene.

One small tiny area I will agree with pemerton on is that it takes an extremely skilled and experienced DM to improvise fiction disassociated from the actor or action and pull it off to good effect.  Someone experienced just tried to tell me how to pull it off well, and by my standards failed in every single example.  So yeah, don't try this stuff at home unless you have a very good reason.  I don't agree we can agree on how we ought to label every possible complication, but I do believe that it takes great skill to find good ones.

So on the whole this just seems like terrible bad GMing advice even if on some level I do understand where he's coming from and what problem he wants to solve, if for no other reason than there is all these other people in the thread that associate fumbles with silly results and mocking and belittling players and can't seem to imagine anything else, and he's got a game system with a fumble mechanic in it that some of those people are probably misusing.


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## delericho (Feb 26, 2016)

RotGrub said:


> It really depends on how many monsters the PCs are fighting.




Over the course of a campaign, you can be pretty sure there are more monsters than PCs. 



> By the same logic, the more monsters the more fumbles in the players favour.




That's not the issue. It's randomness that favours the underdog. Since almost all D&D encounters are designed with the intention that the PCs will win (or every session would end with a TPK), that means the monsters are almost always the underdog. Both crits and fumbles increase randomness, so they both favour the monsters.


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## Aldarc (Feb 26, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Regardless of how you want to characterize it, the truth is that these complications - however plausible - are introduced into the fiction at that moment that action is attempted.  If these complications don't associate with the actor attempting the action or perhaps with the target of the action making a countermove, then they are indeed conjured out of thin air.  They are plausible within the narrative, and obviously agreeing to play in that style is agreeing to allow the fiction to be morphic and modified on a whim.
> 
> *So yes they come from the realm of narrative possibility, but that is also out of thin air and indeed it is the missed bow shot that conjures them into being.*



And that's where I would continue to disagree with your point and see that as a mischaracterization of the Cypher System. If you are just going to repeat that line, then it's clear this conversation is not moving forward. 



Imaro said:


> Emphasis mine... this has been my biggest issue with the premise set forth for differentiation of fumbles and/or fumbles being bad wrong fun by some of the posters in this discussion such as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].  There are a ton of heroes who have moments of ineptitude... and they are still heroes, they are still competent and they still save the day.  I'm not sure where this idea arose that a competent protagonist never fails due to his own skills or abilities not being up to the task... perhaps there's a small subset of heroes who never fail due to their own inability to meet a particular challenge but it happens to numerous competent heroes of literature and movies and you're right, we don't enjoy their stories any less for it... in fact I would argue it creates a hero who is easier to relate to than the one whose only failures come from outside forces...
> 
> Note... I also think you are correct in your assertion that we shouldn't assume that these types of failures aren't fun for players or the group... IME, most people just don't take the game that serious.



And my counterpoint of emphasis would be what I wrote earlier: 


> It's not *necessarily* a fumble. It's not *necessarily* a comedy of errors for the player, as Natural 1s sometimes become. It's not *necessarily* a bumbling goof.



The problem is the bold. Moments of heroic bumbling goofs and ineptitude happen, and they can make for a compelling narrative, as Monte Cook himself says in his article, but the problem is when the Natural 1 is played *necessarily* as those things when there are a wider array of options available.


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## Psychometrika (Feb 26, 2016)

Great thread. I rarely like most fumble systems since the mechanics of the game often mesh poorly with the narrative of a character growing in skill. In basically all editions of D&D and many other systems, the number of rolls you make typically increases as the character gains experience. Thus, while it makes sense narratively that such an experienced character will land devastating critical blows with increased frequency, it does not follow that they trip over their own feet more often as well.

Why would a 20th level fighter (4+ attack rolls in a round), the greatest warrior in the land, be dropping their weapon more often than an untrained peasant who barely knows how to swing a weapon? A lot of fumble systems result in this, and this breaks immersion for me. 

Monty's take on it meshes the mechanics with the narrative in much more believable fashion than most any fumble system I have seen. I'll take immersion over mechanical symmetry any day.


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## Imaro (Feb 26, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> And my counterpoint of emphasis would be what I wrote earlier:
> The problem is the bold. Moments of heroic bumbling goofs and ineptitude happen, and they can make for a compelling narrative, as Monte Cook himself says in his article, but the problem is when the Natural 1 is played *necessarily* as those things when there are a wider array of options available.




Who is claiming these should be the *only* results?  In fact I've been in a back and forth with numerous posters (coming from the same viewpoint you seem to be advocating) about how they've chosen to narrowly define fumbles as ineptitude of character and/or "silly".  IMO it's these people who are most in danger of only using a subset of what a fumble could actually represent during play... and I also believe it's this inability to look beyond that which colotrs a big part of their disdain for fumbles...


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## Aldarc (Feb 26, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Who is claiming these should be the *only* results?  In fact I've been in a back and forth with numerous posters (coming from the same viewpoint you seem to be advocating) about how they've chosen to narrowly define fumbles as ineptitude of character and/or "silly".  IMO it's these people who are most in danger of only using a subset of what a fumble could actually represent during play... and I also believe it's this inability to look beyond that which colotrs a big part of their disdain for fumbles...



It's less that they should be the only results _as per ideal,_ but more of an issue that they often are _as per practice._ How Natural 1s play out in common practice is the critical issue. As a player I have often dealt with my share of GMs over the years who do interpret fumbles along those narrow lines of character ineptitude and silliness. The easy thing to do would be to just label them all bad GMs, but I think that the problem extends more from the wider gaming culture than just GM inexperience or ineptitude. It's why I find the GM Intrusion mechanic more narratively open and a breath of fresh air. It may have always been the case regarding Natural 1s in terms of what they represent, but sometimes it's the little things in the rules that make the difference.


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## Imaro (Feb 26, 2016)

Psychometrika said:


> Great thread. I rarely like most fumble systems since the mechanics of the game often mesh poorly with the narrative of a character growing in skill. In basically all editions of D&D and many other systems, the number of rolls you make typically increases as the character gains experience. Thus, while it makes sense narratively that such an experienced character will land devastating critical blows with increased frequency, it does not follow that they trip over their own feet more often as well.
> 
> Why would a 20th level fighter (4+ attack rolls in a round), the greatest warrior in the land, be dropping their weapon more often than an untrained peasant who barely knows how to swing a weapon? A lot of fumble systems result in this, and this breaks immersion for me.
> 
> Monty's take on it meshes the mechanics with the narrative in much more believable fashion than most any fumble system I have seen. I'll take immersion over mechanical symmetry any day.




Just wanted to comment on a few things...

If you are using a fumble system where the only result is "drop your weapon" whenever a 1 is rolled... your fumble system sucks.  How about your weapon breaks (redusing the damage it can cause),  You stumble in the (muck, ice, mud, foliage, etc.) and find yourself in an awkward position for your next attack so take disadvantage on your next melee/spellcasting attack roll... Your opponent catches you off guard with a feint that you never saw coming, giving your opponent a +2 on his next attack... and so on.  These are all things that happen to skilled warriors in fiction and even skilled martial artist in real fights... and guess what... they do happen to them more often over their lifetime because they are fighting & training more often against more skilled opponents than the untrained peasant... 

The untrained peasant going up against an average foe for a 20th level fighter is dead before he even gets to react to the attack... or his attack is so ineffective that ultimately if given the chance to continuously wail away at the opponent he will fumble more times than the 20th level fighter because the 20th level fighter will actually kill the opponent at some point.  I'm failing to see how this is immersion breaking in any way.

As for the Cypher system... let's not get Monte's preferences confused with the actual GM intrusion mechanic of the system.  I like the actual mechanic because it doesn't prescribe the way( except to say make it interesting for whatever value interesting is at your table) in which a GM intrusion has to arise, it allows any type of fumble/intrusion that the GM or group wants, whether that's a failure above and beyond due to the character's own ineptitude or failure above and beyond due to factors outside of the character's control.  That's it's greatest strength in that it doesn't force a particular play style on a group  (something I value more and more in the games I choose these days) but gives you a nice open ended mechanic and says hey... use this mechanic to suit your preferences...  IMO, it seems Monte is advocating for a mixture as opposed to either of the extremes being dominant and that's pretty much how I run Numenera but I also agree with [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] in that the GM intrusion for all practical purposes is just an open ended fumble system as opposed to something totally different... you could just as easily replace it with a table customized for your group that you roll on whenever a 1 comes up... as long as the results are interesting to your group.


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## Imaro (Feb 26, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> It's less that they should be the only results _as per ideal,_ but more of an issue that they often are _as per practice._ How Natural 1s play out in common practice is the critical issue. As a player I have often dealt with my share of GMs over the years who do interpret fumbles along those narrow lines of character ineptitude and silliness. The easy thing to do would be to just label them all bad GMs, but I think that the problem extends more from the wider gaming culture than just GM inexperience or ineptitude. It's why I find the GM Intrusion mechanic more narratively open and a breath of fresh air. It may have always been the case regarding Natural 1s in terms of what they represent, but sometimes it's the little things in the rules that make the difference.




Honestly I find it surprising that some of the posters in this thread have such a limited view on what a fumble can entail (and vehemently stick to their preconceptions even when their is no logical rationale to do so)... especially given the fact that they have (at least insofar as I can tell) a wealth of gaming experience in different games/systems and are much more avid fans of discussing game theory, techniques, etc. than I believe I am.  I don't think it's gaming culture per say... but I'm not sure what it is since even now there are people in this very thread who...

1. Don't like character ineptness based fumbles/"silly" results, but...
2. will vehemently argue a 1/fumble must be silly and must be framed in a manner similar to a character loosing his eye or beheading his ally through his own fault... 
3. There are actual table based fumble systems that use things outside the character's abilities to base fumbles on such as the environment, shoddy equipment, etc. to counter their limited examples.


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## Aldarc (Feb 26, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Honestly I find it surprising that some of the posters in this thread have such a limited view on what a fumble can entail (and vehemently stick to their preconceptions even when their is no logical rationale to do so)... especially given the fact that they have (at least insofar as I can tell) a wealth of gaming experience in different games/systems and are much more avid fans of discussing game theory, techniques, etc. than I believe I am.  I don't think it's gaming culture per say... but I'm not sure what it is since even now there are people in this very thread who...
> 
> 1. Don't like character ineptness based fumbles/"silly" results, but...
> 2. will vehemently argue a 1/fumble must be silly and must be framed in a manner similar to a character loosing his eye or beheading his ally through his own fault...
> 3. There are actual table based fumble systems that use things outside the character's abilities to base fumbles on such as the environment, shoddy equipment, etc. to counter their limited examples.



I don't think it's so much that these posters insist that fumbles must be interpreted in that manner, but, rather, that they recognize that fumbles are often interpreted in that manner. Again, this is theory vs. practice at work. In theory, this should not be the case or must be the case. In practice, however, it commonly is. Sure, that may be different when sitting at the table of an experienced GM who knows , but such "vets" are likely a minority of the overall GMs. 

But one does not exactly have to look far in terms of the wider culture of the d20 Natural 1 to see how this often plays out in practice. How many memes are out there on the internet mimicking "pet shaming" with notes, but about shaming d20s that roll a lot of Natural 1s? E.g., "I cause my owner to do nothing but chop off at their own leg or shoot arrows at their allies." The messages are often about low rolls, but just as many provide evidence regarding the common consequences of rolling Natural 1s in a lot of games. Sure the memes are comical, but they are also illustrative of what Natural 1s mean for a number of tables.


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## Imaro (Feb 26, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> I don't think it's so much that these posters insist that fumbles must be interpreted in that manner, but, rather, that they recognize that fumbles are often interpreted in that manner. Again, this is theory vs. practice at work. In theory, this should not be the case or must be the case. In practice, however, it commonly is. Sure, that may be different when sitting at the table of an experienced GM who knows , but such "vets" are likely a minority of the overall GMs.
> 
> But one does not exactly have to look far in terms of the wider culture of the d20 Natural 1 to see how this often plays out in practice. How many memes are out there on the internet mimicking "pet shaming" with notes, but about shaming d20s that roll a lot of Natural 1s? E.g., "I cause my owner to do nothing but chop off at their own leg or shoot arrows at their allies." The messages are often about low rolls, but just as many provide evidence regarding the common consequences of rolling Natural 1s in a lot of games. Sure the memes are comical, but they are also illustrative of what Natural 1s mean for a number of tables.




I don't think those show the "common" results... the reason they are funny is because they show the extreme result.  I mean if the common fumble result is beheading or loosing an eye and fumbles become more common as one rises in level... you'd think there'd be a multitude of stories about maimed and mutilated characters achieving the higher levels of the game... and yet they are strangely absent... 

Any way I don't believe there's a way for either of us to convince the other at this point and I do get your point, I just think in the wild it's not really as common (especially with the decline of adversarial DM'ing) as you might think it is.  I also think there are plenty of players who just don't think that a 1 showing their character being inept is that big of a deal.  Sometimes I think the internet rpg community is slightly out of sync with the wider realm of players... but then again this could just be my own experiences as opposed to being common.


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## Celebrim (Feb 26, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> And that's where I would continue to disagree with your point and see that as a mischaracterization of the Cypher System. If you are just going to repeat that line, then it's clear this conversation is not moving forward.




I don't frankly care that you continue to disagree since it has become abundantly clear that you aren't basing your disagreement on any point of reason.  First you claimed it was a gross mischaracterization that a missed bowshot could cause orc reinforcements to appear, even though that particular scenario was one endorsed by a proponent of the system who ought to know.  Unable to feel any embarrassment once I pointed that out, you've gone on to defend now how reasonable it is that orcs appear as a result of a missed bowshot and still persist in claiming I'm being unreasonable.  Yet you cannot actually point out where any of my claims are incorrect or how I am actually mischaracterizing the system.  I've not merely repeated that line; I've explained it.

If in fact the orc reinforcements aren't pulled out of the air, then it must be that they are part of the established myth of the fiction, so that there is a definite limit to the number of orc reinforcements available, and when those reinforcements are encountered and slain, further investigation of the complex will be *simplified* because areas which were formerly guarded will now be emptied.  That is to say these orc reinforcements have concrete existence in the myth prior to appearing that constrains the GM or which, more precisely, the GM allows himself to be constrained by.  This is what happens when orc (or norkers, or hill giants, or bandits, or whatever) reinforcements occur as a natural result of the orcs using their available defined and limited resources, as for example in classic modules like B2 Keep on the Borderlands (or Temple of Elemental Evil, or Forgotten Temple of Thardizun, or Steading of the Hill Giant Chieftain).   This is what happens when I write down in my prep that there are 57 Phanaton in the village and detail the spells, items, and weapons that they have access to.  I am limiting my own power to challenge the PCs during actual play to what I judge is fair and reasonable for the fiction, rather than trusting myself in the heat and stress of running a game to decide what resources are fair and reasonable.  

But its not what is happening in this case.  In this case the additional reinforcements are being written into the fiction at the time the '1' is thrown, invented on the spot, because the '1' is thrown and a complication is needed.  The reinforcements would not exist otherwise.  They are not being drawn from a limited pool of resources, but added to the fiction at that moment.  There was no possible way to spot or observe those 'hidden' orcs before they leaped out and no chance of them dying by being engulfed in flames that washed the area, because they weren't anywhere concrete until needed as a complication and would have just jumped out of somewhere else.  They appeared out of thin air wherever it was deemed plausible for them to appear at that moment.  They stepped out from behind the fig leaves having been added to the fiction just a moment before.  But you cannot admit those simple facts, because it would expose even to yourself how ridiculous your hyperventilating about me pointing out obvious facts about GM Intrusion as "unfairly hyperbolic misconstruction or misreading of the Cypher System and its GM Intrusion, as well as what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook have written" especially given that the example was very much along the lines of what Charles Ryan had actually written just a few posts earlier.  

The reason this conversation is going no where is that in an effort to not look like a clown, you just keep digging the hole you are in deeper.


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## Celebrim (Feb 26, 2016)

Imaro said:


> As for the Cypher system... let's not get Monte's preferences confused with the actual GM intrusion mechanic of the system.




Exactly.  I don't mind the mechanic, I just think Monte's claim that it is almost always better to insert the complication as something tangential or unrelated to the actor of the proposition is wrong, because for most groups the risk of disassociated mechanics eventually offending a player is probably higher than the risk that color of momentary incompetence would hurt a player's feelings.  And further, that if you are trying to avoid the color of momentary incompetence, nothing you can do is going to avoid that completely, and their are better approaches than dissociated mechanics anyway - namely having the target of the action make a believable countermove.  It's not like we expect heroes to wade through all mooks without difficulty. The mooks fight back regularly, thereby increasing the esteem we have for the hero because he overcame more serious opponents.  This is for example, why the Empire needed to win in the second movie, so that the eventual triumph would seem all the more worthy.

It's also why sometimes character's in a fiction winning against lesser more balanced odds can seem more exciting than winning against seemingly impossible odds.  Winning against 2:1 odds often is more exciting than winning against 50:1 odds.  Because when the heroes win against seemingly impossible odds, it feels like something the author did by fiat and not the character's he created by their skill and courage, or else that their foes were simply impossibly competent rather than the heroes actually being worthy.  Fearing to let the mooks fight back or gain the advantage for fear that the heroes might momentarily appear incompetent, merely diminishes the heroes in the long run.

My complaint would be for example, when Charles proposed counter-moves for the orcs, they once again felt added to the fiction and not well attached to it.  I mean one of the big things that traditionally has made fumble tables seem silly is that in some system they didn't pass a reasonableness test, resulting in things happening that didn't feel reasonable.  That same issue is going to be present when you ad hoc as well.  

If I was advising GM's playing the Cypher system how to run complications well, I'd spend a lot of time talking about Chekov's Gun and it's utility when scene framing.  I wouldn't be endorsing the idea that players are right to feel bad when their characters make mistakes and how we ought to be endorsing that approach to the game.


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## GMMichael (Feb 26, 2016)

Fashionably late.  And for those of you who TL;DR the above posts...

My preferred system doesn't pick on the 1 of a d20 by calling it a super-failure.  In fact, if the GM still manages to get a lower result than the PC, a 1 can be good!  If clarity is needed, the PC can re-roll against his first roll, and if the second roll is lower, yeah, something bad probably happens.

Or there's my current fixation: roll a 1, and "Wizard shot the food!"


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## Umbran (Feb 26, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> I don't frankly care that you continue to disagree since it has become abundantly clear that you aren't basing your disagreement on any point of reason.





Dude, you are done here.  Move on to a conversation where you can say something constructive, and not insult people.  Please don't post in this thread again.


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## pemerton (Feb 27, 2016)

Celebrim said:


> Regardless of how you want to characterize it, the truth is that these complications - however plausible - are introduced into the fiction at that moment that action is attempted.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> indeed it is the missed bow shot that conjures them into being.



This makes no sense. And the first sentence equivocates on the meaning of the word "action"

The bow shot is an action that occurs in the fiction, and the missed bow shot is an event that occurs in the fiction. These are, therefore, imaginary, imagined actions and events. They have no actual causal powers - but causal results can be imagined in the fiction, with extrapolation within the fiction being constrained by various imagined causal laws. Such results might typically include the arrow landing on the ground and breaking, or the arrow sticking in a tree next to the intended target, or the arrow hitting an unintended person, etc.

I doubt that there is a single Cypher System GM or player who has ever imagined that, within the fiction, the missed bow shot causes a trumpet to appear and be sounded.

Now, in the real world at the gaming table, an action occurs - namely, the roll of a d20. And that action has real causal powers and results in the occurrence of a real (not imaginary) event: the roll of a 1. The occurrence of this real event then leads the participants in the game to introduce certain new elements into the fiction. One of those elements is dictated by the rules: namely, the arrow misses. (I suspect the rules are silent on whether the miss means that the arrow lodges in a tree, or breaks on the ground, or . . . , but they clearly don't allow the miss to be narrated as the hitting of another person _simply in virtue of being a miss_.)

The second element that is introduced into the fiction is the GM's "incursion". What this is is not dictated by the rules, other than that (i) it must be a plausible extrapolation from the existing state of the fiction, and (ii) it must escalate the challenge in some fashion. (These rules therefore prohibit using, say, the Wand of Wonder table or the Wild Surge table for determining the nature of the incursion.)

It's almost beyond obvious that a significant number of RPGers don't particularly care for the ruleset just described, because they prefer that the only narration introduced into the fiction as a result of the die rolling action be an event that, in the fiction, can be imagined as being causally downstream of the imaginary action of making the attack. That is an aesthetic preference. (Sometimes this can be described as a preference for "immersion", or "actor stance", or "non-dissocated mechanics", or "process simulation". None of those descriptions has any magical power, but for different players or play-styles they can sometimes point to some interesting element of the aesthetic preference in question.)

But it is just wrong to try and affirm that preference by saying, of those who do not share it, that in their games missed bow shots cause trumpets to appear. Because that assertion assumes what is known to be false, namely (i) that they share the preference, hence (ii) that they treat all narration resulting from the die roll as concerning imagined events that, in the fiction, are causally downstream of the imagined action of making the attack, hence (iii) that, in their games, missed bow shots cause trumpets to appear from thin air.

There is no need to affirm false descriptions of other people's games, which are _known_ to be false, in order to express an aesthetic preference about game design and game play.



Celebrim said:


> Monte claims that it is better that usually the complication introduced by GM Intrusion be one which is not associated with the actor, or necessarily even with the target, but rather be like random coincidences invoked by some diabolic spirit that hates the number '1' or what you call "a sort of organized chaos effect". But I don't agree that that is necessarily or even often a better approach, I think it one fraught with problems regardless of the system you are playing



Again, this reiterates the false description of others' play (because the rolling of the number is an event in the real world, and is not part of the imagined fiction and hence has no imagined causal relationship to any event that occurs within the fiction).

Also, you haven't really articulated what these problems are. Upthread you have talked about GM antagonism, but haven't given any actual examples from actual play. What's an actual example of the GM Intrusion mechanic going haywire _because it doesn't mandate that the imagined causal origin of the incursion event be the imagined action whose outcome within the ficiton is being determined by rolling a die in the real world_?



Celebrim said:


> First you claimed it was a gross mischaracterization that a missed bowshot could cause orc reinforcements to appear, even though that particular scenario was one endorsed by a proponent of the system who ought to know.  Unable to feel any embarrassment once I pointed that out, you've gone on to defend now how reasonable it is that orcs appear as a result of a missed bowshot
> 
> <snip>
> 
> ...



All new elements introduced into the fiction are, in your sense, "pulled out of thin air". Once I roll the 1, for instance, and - per the rules - I am narrated as having missed my opponent, the narration of my opponent's catching of the arrow with his/her shield, or of his/her doging, or of my slipping slightly in the mud as I release my arrow, resulting in losing my aim, are equally conjured out of thin air.

Systems like RM try to narrow this down, by having the mechanics dictate dodge vs parry etc but even they are not total - eg does the shield catch the arrow because of the quick reflexes of the opponent or because a mosquito flies in front of my eyes right at the moment of shooting, delaying my shot and allowing the defender to move his/her shield into position? Even Rolemaster doesn't answer that question, so the relevant narrative is "pulled out of thin air".

However, it is not the missed bow shot that causes whatever narrative permitted by the rules to be pulled out of thin air. The missed bow shot is an imaginary event in the fiction. The authoring of the narrative is a real event in the real world. One cannot cause anything (though we can imagine it causing further imaginary things). The other has as its "cause" (I use quote marks because mental causation is an obvious minefield) the interaction between the players' knowledge of the ruleset, their knowledge of the existing state of the fiction, their knowledge that a 1 was rolled, and their imaginations as to what might be a feasible addition to the fiction).



Imaro said:


> I've been in a back and forth with numerous posters (coming from the same viewpoint you seem to be advocating) about how they've chosen to narrowly define fumbles as ineptitude of character and/or "silly".



The point is that this is how Monte Cook is using the term in his blog:

the GM actually incorporates some version of the joke into the actual narrative of the game—that is to say, that Bruce’s character said something foolish or untoward​


CharlesRyan said:


> I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up." As in, rolling a 1 means your character did something that really screwed the pooch. You shot another character instead of the monster you were aiming at. Dropped your sword. Uttered a major faux pas in front of the Duke. Reached for the bottle of healing balm and accidentally grabbed (and applied) acid instead. The situation got worse because YOUR CHARACTER did something uncharacteristically incompetent.
> 
> If that's how you interpret the word "fumble," Monte (and the Cypher System rules generally) argue that you should broaden your horizon.



If you agree with Monte, Charles and the Cypher rules that a fumble (nat 1) is not necessarily this sort of "major screw-up" then why are you arguing against those who are similarly expressing agreement, and/or who agree with you and Monte that "major screw-up" style fumbles don't make for particularly good RPGing?



Imaro said:


> Emphasis mine... this has been my biggest issue with the premise set forth for differentiation of fumbles and/or fumbles being bad wrong fun by some of the posters in this discussion such as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].
> 
> <snip>
> 
> perhaps there's a small subset of heroes who never fail due to their own inability to meet a particular challenge but it happens to numerous competent heroes of literature and movies and you're right, we don't enjoy their stories any less for it... in fact I would argue it creates a hero who is easier to relate to than the one whose only failures come from outside forces



Please quote me saying that fumbles are "bad wrong fun". That's right, you can't, because I haven't said that.

I actually doubt there is a regular poster on these boards who has played more RM/MERP than me. (Though RM/MERP fumbles aren't typically "major screw-ups".)

I've run two main lines of argument in this thread: (i) against those who define "fumble" in a way differently from Monte Cook and then criticise his essay on the basis of that imputed definition (and I note that my reading of Cook's use of "fumble" was confirmed by the post upthread by one of his co-designers); and (ii) against the contention that there is no interesting difference between success with complication, partial failure, fumble, etc.

It's obvious that GM intrusions will not be very popular among those who prefer that all newly narrated events have, in the fiction, some causal dependence upon characters/actions whose outcomes are going to be narrated on the basis of actual rolls made at the table. But that tells us nothing about GM intrusions as a mechanic except that it probably won't sell well among the diehard RM/RQ/3E crowd.

Given that we know what sort of mechanic it is - broadly speaking, it is a variant of a "no whiffing"/"fail forward" or what [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] calls "Nar techniques", let's talk about whether it is good for that purpose.

I'll nominate what I think looks like a problem with the mechanic (and I'd be interested in [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s thoughts, based on experience with the system): why should GM intrusions be rationed by reference to natural 1s? How does that improve the game?

As I've posted in some detail upthread, there are a range of reasons (pacing being one of the most important) that bear upon whether a GM might want to narrate a failed check as (in the fiction) total failure, or partial failure, or success with a complication, or escalation of the challenge, etc. Mandating the the GM must always escalate the challenge on the roll of a 1 seems to risk the GM being called upon to escalate the challenge when most of the reasons that apply would push in a different direction.


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## Imaro (Feb 27, 2016)

pemerton said:


> The point is that this is how Monte Cook is using the term in his blog:the GM actually incorporates some version of the joke into the actual narrative of the game—that is to say, that Bruce’s character said something foolish or untoward​
> If you agree with Monte, Charles and the Cypher rules that a fumble (nat 1) is not necessarily this sort of "major screw-up" then why are you arguing against those who are similarly expressing agreement, *and/or who agree with you and Monte that "major screw-up" style fumbles don't make for particularly good RPGing?*




Ok... just because Monte uses a term such as a "fumble" in a certain way, doesn't mean he is using it correctly (as shown by the different views in this very thread on what a fumble is)...  As to what you quoted Charles Ryan posting...

EDIT (Emphasis Mine): Don't do that, nowhere in this thread have I claimed that major screw-up style fumbles don't make for particularly good RPGing... oh and by the way... THIS... is that badwrongfun implication I talked about earlier rearing it's head again.



CharlesRyan said:


> But I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up." As in, rolling a 1 means your character did something that really screwed the pooch. You shot another character instead of the monster you were aiming at. Dropped your sword. Uttered a major faux pas in front of the Duke. Reached for the bottle of healing balm and accidentally grabbed (and applied) acid instead. The situation got worse because YOUR CHARACTER did something uncharacteristically incompetent.
> 
> If that's how you interpret the word "fumble," *Monte (and the Cypher System rules generally) argue that you should broaden your horizon.*




Emphasis mine... He actually seems to be saying that the definition of a fumble shouldn't be restricted to this narrow definition that many, including yourself are using in this thread... the same thing I've been saying for numerous posts now.

As to why I am arguing with certain posters... well there are a few points on a few things I disagree (either in part or wholly) with...

1. The term "fumble" being (IMO, and apparently Charles Ryan's as well) incorrectly/too narrowly defined.
2. The assertion that character driven fumbles are universally less fun or less enjoyable for all gamers.




pemerton said:


> I've run two main lines of argument in this thread: (i) against those who define "fumble" in a way differently from Monte Cook and then criticise his essay on the basis of that imputed definition (and I note that my reading of Cook's use of "fumble" was confirmed by the post upthread by one of his co-designers); and (ii) against the contention that there is no interesting difference between success with complication, partial failure, fumble, etc.




1. Again basing a premise on an incorrectly defined term... is going to have people call you out.  If I claim I don't like dogs on the basis of them being small and short haired and noisy... well it's perfectly correct for someone to call out that only specific breeds have these characteristics and I am incorrectly asserting that all dogs do.

2. That's not what the quote you posted shows at all... if anything he is stating that if you are narrowly defining the term fumble... you need to broaden your horizons on what a fumble is.  I think maybe you need to re-read that post.



pemerton said:


> It's obvious that GM intrusions will not be very popular among those who prefer that all newly narrated events have, in the fiction, some causal dependence upon characters/actions whose outcomes are going to be narrated on the basis of actual rolls made at the table. But that tells us nothing about GM intrusions as a mechanic except that it probably won't sell well among the diehard RM/RQ/3E crowd.




And we've hit another point of disagreement... there is no reason that a GM Intrusion can't be connected to the fiction with causal/dependence on character actions... the whole point is that they are open ended enough that if a DM wants them connected to the fiction in a causal/dependent way can easily do so.  While those that prefer not to don't have to and finally those like me who like a mixture are accommodated as well.  Quick question have you read or played any of the Cypher system games?  I'm asking because I want to understand whether this is experience with the actual rules and system talking or just assumptions being made off... well whatever it is you're making your assumptions off of... here are some actual excerpts from the Numenera book on GM Intrusions...

Pg. 17 "Special Rolls"... Rolling a natural 1 is always bad. It means that the GM introduces a new complication into the encounter.

pg. 88 "GM Intrusion"... GM Intrusion is explained elsewhere, but essentially it means something occurs to complicate a character's life... The character hasn't necessarily fumbled or done anything wrong (although perhaps she did).  It could just be that the task presents an unexpected difficulty or something unrelated affects the current situation.
  For GM intrusion on a defensive roll, a roll of 1 might just mean that the PC takes 2 additional points of damage from the attack, indicating that the opponent got in a lucky blow.  NOTE: This is surprisingly similar to the Vader chops Luke's hand of example earlier.

There is nothing in the rules, examples or advice for a GM Intrusion that prevents it from being tied  to causal dependence to character's actions... of course there's nothing that forces it either.  As I said in one of my earlier posts... the game gives you the mechanic and let's you use it how best fits your group.  



pemerton said:


> Given that we know what sort of mechanic it is - broadly speaking, it is a variant of a "no whiffing"/"fail forward" or what @_*Celebrim*_ calls "Nar techniques", let's talk about whether it is good for that purpose.




Is it? What about the examples or rules for GM Intrusions leads you to believe this?  Because my view on it, especially looking at the entire rules for GM Intrusions (not just those possible on a 1) doesn't seem to correlate with this assertion... 



pemerton said:


> I'll nominate what I think looks like a problem with the mechanic (and I'd be interested in @_*Aldarc*_'s thoughts, based on experience with the system): why should GM intrusions be rationed by reference to natural 1s? How does that improve the game?
> 
> As I've posted in some detail upthread, there are a range of reasons (pacing being one of the most important) that bear upon whether a GM might want to narrate a failed check as (in the fiction) total failure, or partial failure, or success with a complication, or escalation of the challenge, etc. Mandating the the GM must always escalate the challenge on the roll of a 1 seems to risk the GM being called upon to escalate the challenge when most of the reasons that apply would push in a different direction.




GM Intrusions don't happen exclusively on a 1... another reason that particular use of it (and the fact that the 1 roll is specifically called out in the rules as when something bad happens) seems to make a roll 1 GM Intrusion a fumble.


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## Balesir (Feb 27, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I'll nominate what I think looks like a problem with the mechanic (and I'd be interested in [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s thoughts, based on experience with the system): why should GM intrusions be rationed by reference to natural 1s? How does that improve the game?



I don't know what Monte thinks, and I don't have any experience of running the system, yet (although I have The Strange as a backer of the Kickstarter), but I'll hazard a guess at where I think it may have utility.

Contrary to what some seem to believe I don't think it ties into Intrusions being a "Nar technique". Others have mentioned Monte's historical affiliation with Gamist and Simulationist agendas and I think Intrusions make a good deal of sense from the point of view of the latter quite well. A plausible world has "stuff happening" - unexpected and effectively (from the point of view of most of the world's inhabitants) random occurrences that impact on their lives. Even rather large "Intrusions" - sudden avalanches, falling stars, other creatures passing by, changes in the weather - happen very frequently, even though each event, in itself, may be exceedingly rare.

It is obviously in keeping with a simulationist agenda to want to introduce such events in play; a world with them feels much more naturalistic and alive than one that has none. The problem then arises, how should they be introduced? Introducing them in response to dramatic needs brings in an agenda (deliberately created drama) that is alien to (and perhaps there is a worry that it might even be damaging to) the core, exploratory, world-imagining agenda of simulationism.

I can immediately identify two mechanisms that may suit sim that have been used to introduce such events. First is to periodically roll for them according to some sort of table. This is perhaps first seen in OD&D's "wandering monster" checks, but later systems (C&S, HârnMaster) expanded the tables to include other sorts of periodically occuring rare event. The second is essentially similar to the "GM Inrusion" discussed here; a die roll already being used for the routine resolution of the game's activity is given some specific result that calls for a rare event to be introduced. This latter has not been as common as the "encounter table" model, possibly because it seems to trouble some players when a random determination used to resolve uncertain outcomes in the game fiction is used to cover more than one duty (despite the fact that random chances can be readily combined and divided out of single instances of randomisation). Nevertheless, a rule known as "eyes of the gods" has been used in HârnMaster, where a roll of "00" on the percentile dice calls for something exceptional to happen, the in-game conceit being that one or more of the gods happened to be watching and decided to "spice things up a bit".

From this perspective, I think it's possible that Monte's motivation here might be to give some limited space for the GM to introduce some "story" elements of his or her choosing while keeping strictly within the control of a simulationist underpinning (becuase such is allowed only when the roll of 1 comes up). By "story" element here, I am thinking primarily of something chosen for aesthetic and instantaneous interest reasons, rather than a focussed introduction intended to speak to the players' thematic interests - although it might allow space for that, too, if there is some unrequited desire for it present, I guess.


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## pemerton (Feb 27, 2016)

[MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION], thanks for the reasoned response. I didn't know about Harn's "Eye of the Gods" rule.

 [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION], it would be great to hear your thoughts/perspective if you're able to post something.


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## pemerton (Feb 27, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Don't do that, nowhere in this thread have I claimed that major screw-up style fumbles don't make for particularly good RPGing



My apologies. I took you to be saying that when you said that such a conception of fumbles is overly narrow.



Imaro said:


> The term "fumble" being (IMO, and apparently Charles Ryan's as well) incorrectly/too narrowly defined.



See, here, you seem to be agreeing with Monte Cook also - because you are just repeating what Charles Ryan has said is the whole point of the blog - that treating nat 1 as a major-screw-up is not a good approach, and is too narrow a conception of what might happen on a (so-called) "fumble".



Imaro said:


> just because Monte uses a term such as a "fumble" in a certain way, doesn't mean he is using it correctly (as shown by the different views in this very thread on what a fumble is)...  As to what you quoted Charles Ryan posting...
> 
> <snip>
> 
> He actually seems to be saying that the definition of a fumble shouldn't be restricted to this narrow definition that many, including yourself are using in this thread... the same thing I've been saying for numerous posts now.



I'm having trouble following this.

You seem to be saying that Charles Ryan actually disagrees with Monte Cook. Whereas Charles Ryan presents his post as an explanation and defence of the blog.

As I read it, Monte has written a blog saying that a nat 1 shouldn't be a major-screw-up-style fumble. Charles Ryan has weighed in agreeing with him, saying that a nat 1 can be broader than that, including encompassing events that (in the fiction) are not causally related to the action that (at the table) had an outcome determined by rolling a d20 that came up 1.

The key issue in both Monte's blog and Charles Ryan's post is a question about game design and game play (what to do on a nat 1), not a question of semantics (about the best use of the word "fumble"). Clearly there can be multiple uses of the word "fumble", but I think it's very clear how Monte was using it, and this clear sense in which he was using it has been confirmed by Charles Ryan's post. 

So, to focus on the key issue: do you think Monte Cook and Charles Ryan are right, or wrong, when they say that nat 1=major-screw-up is not a good rule?



Imaro said:


> The assertion that character driven fumbles are universally less fun or less enjoyable for all gamers.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> there is no reason that a GM Intrusion can't be connected to the fiction with causal/dependence on character actions... the whole point is that they are open ended enough that if a DM wants them connected to the fiction in a causal/dependent way can easily do so.



I think that Monte Cook's claim (and Charles Ryan's agreement) is probably about what is _typically_ or _generally_ enjoyable, rather than to what is _universally_ fun and enjoyable.

As for the relationship between GM intrusions and imagined, ingame causation: I am relying on Monte Cook's and Charles Ryan's account of the system they design. I don't own it and don't play it. The posts I was engaging with were discussing GM intrusion as a device for introducing fictional events that are not, in the fiction, causally downstream of the PC's failure (eg following a missed bow shot, the arrival of reinforcements). This is also the sort of thing that the two designers were talking about. For instance, the blog says:


In a combat situation, a GM intrusion can range from the opposing creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round, to reinforcements for the opposition showing up. It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.​
Personally, I think it's fairly clear why Monte Cook and Charles Ryan make this suggestion: if the idea is that a nat 1 result should, in some way, _stand out_ from a typical failure, then something _bigger_ and more distinctive has to happen on a nat 1. But if that is not going to be a major-screw-up (which the designers think it shouldn't always, or even typically, be) then what is it going to be? And the natural answer is that it something that, within the fiction, is causally independent of the PC's action that fails. (As an aside: I assume that by "character driven" you mean _an event in the fiction that, in the fiction, is caused by the PC's failing at his/her action_.)

If, in fact, there is an interesting and expansive set of fictional events that are:

(1) Distinctive from ordinary failure;
(2) Not major screw-ups;
(3) Able to be imagined, in the fiction, as caused by the PC's failed action;​
then Monte Cook is wrong (and so is Charles Ryan in agreeing with him). Do you think there is such a set of fictional events?



Imaro said:


> there is no reason that a GM Intrusion can't be connected to the fiction with causal/dependence on character actions... the whole point is that they are open ended enough that if a DM wants them connected to the fiction in a causal/dependent way can easily do so.



But if there really were no such reason, then why would Monte Cook write a blog saying that "Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did"?

One possibility is that he misunderstands his own system and the possibilities inherent in it.

But what I think is more likely is that he is reasoning more-or-less along the lines I've just set out: that he wants a nat 1 to be a _big_ event, but _not_ a major screw-up, and that there are simply not enough infiction possibilities that satisfy both these desiderata while nevertheless being causally downstream of the failed character action.

Anyway, I think the question about whether Monte Cook and Charles Ryan are correct about this is much more interesting than arguing over what the canonical use of the word "fumble" should be.


----------



## Hussar (Feb 28, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Just wanted to comment on a few things...
> 
> If you are using a fumble system where the only result is "drop your weapon" whenever a 1 is rolled... your fumble system sucks.  How about your weapon breaks (redusing the damage it can cause),




Okay, random chance.



> You stumble in the (muck, ice, mud, foliage, etc.) and find yourself in an awkward position for your next attack so take disadvantage on your next melee/spellcasting attack roll...




Character is incompetent.



> Your opponent catches you off guard with a feint that you never saw coming, giving your opponent a +2 on his next attack... and so on.




Again, PC is incompetent.



> These are all things that happen to skilled warriors in fiction and even skilled martial artist in real fights... and guess what... they do happen to them more often over their lifetime because they are fighting & training more often against more skilled opponents than the untrained peasant...




Which is somewhat besides the point though.  Dropping your weapon happens too.  It's not like it comes completely out of nowhere.  And, isn't the point here to have a fumble mechanic that doesn't make the PC look incompetent?  Of the three options you outlined, two of them highlight PC incompetence.


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## Umbran (Feb 28, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Character is incompetent.
> 
> Again, PC is incompetent.




I think you overstate the term "incompetent".  Specifically, it seems for you that, "competent," means, "perfect."

Competent people still have things go wrong, and make mistakes.


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## Aldarc (Feb 28, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I'll nominate what I think looks like a problem with the mechanic (and I'd be interested in [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s thoughts, based on experience with the system): why should GM intrusions be rationed by reference to natural 1s? How does that improve the game?





pemerton said:


> [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION], thanks for the reasoned response. I didn't know about Harn's "Eye of the Gods" rule.
> [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION], it would be great to hear your thoughts/perspective if you're able to post something.



Sure, and here's a little added background of the rules. In the Cypher System, the GM can engage GM Intrusions without the need for a player to roll a Natural 1. In these cases, the GM informs the player of the Intrusion and how that the intrusion affects them and then offers them 2 XP. The player can accept the Intrusion (and the 2 XP) or they can reject the Intrusion (and the 2 XP) by spending 1 XP. If they accept the Intrusion, they get the 2 XP, but the player must then reward one of those 2 XP to another player, as they see fit. The GM Guide recommends maybe 1-2 GM-introduced Intrusions per session. 

Unlike above, if players roll a Natural 1, they do not receive the 2 XP for the Intrusion, though they can still spend 1 XP to re-roll their d20, effectively rejecting the GM Intrusion. 

As to why this latter variety of GM Intrusions should "be rationed by reference to natural 1s," I suspect that attaching this rule to the die roll this is meant to provide a greater story randomness to the narrative. In some respects, it does let the player to unintentionally push the narrative in unexpected directions. And it also lets the GM push the story in player-triggered moments.


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## pemerton (Feb 28, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> In the Cypher System, the GM can engage GM Intrusions without the need for a player to roll a Natural 1. In these cases, the GM informs the player of the Intrusion and how that the intrusion affects them and then offers them 2 XP. The player can accept the Intrusion (and the 2 XP) or they can reject the Intrusion (and the 2 XP) by spending 1 XP.
> 
> <snip>
> 
> Unlike above, if players roll a Natural 1, they do not receive the 2 XP for the Intrusion, though they can still spend 1 XP to re-roll their d20, effectively rejecting the GM Intrusion.



Thanks, interesting. So the nat 1 doesn't so much empower the GM to introduce an "intrusion", as let the GM do so while depriving the players of the normal bonus.

Does the GM have a cap on XP to be handed out? - in which case the nat 1 is like a budget booster. (I'm thinking of the way plot points and Doom Pool dice are rationed in Marvel Heroic RP, if you know that system.)

If not, then one way of looking at it is that rolling a nat 1 deprives the players of 2 XP - ouch!, but it's not a fumble in the traditional sense.

Does the same advice - escalate the challenge, don't focus too much on major screw-ups as the outcome - apply to non-nat 1 intrusions?


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## Von Ether (Feb 28, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Thanks, interesting. So the nat 1 doesn't so much empower the GM to introduce an "intrusion", as let the GM do so while depriving the players of the normal bonus.
> 
> Does the GM have a cap on XP to be handed out? - in which case the nat 1 is like a budget booster. (I'm thinking of the way plot points and Doom Pool dice are rationed in Marvel Heroic RP, if you know that system.)
> 
> ...




Pretty much. Which is what I guess prompted the original essay.

But at this point, I think it's in a lot of gamers DNA to think that natural 1=crit fail.

In thinking it over, I'm debating to move the triggering number to exact target number. It might happen less often, but for most players it will be psychologically different when you introduce narrative/fail forward elements.


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## Aldarc (Feb 28, 2016)

Von Ether said:


> Pretty much. Which is what I guess prompted the original essay.
> 
> But at this point, I think it's in a lot of gamers DNA to think that natural 1=crit fail.
> 
> In thinking it over, I'm debating to move the triggering number to exact target number. It might happen less often, but for most players it will be psychologically different when you introduce introduce narrative/fail forward elements.



Interesting house rule. The other benefit to that would be that it makes the non-TN dice numbers more significant as opposed to filler numbers, which they can be. So, for example, you don't just want to roll a TN 12, but aim for a 13+.


----------



## Imaro (Feb 28, 2016)

pemerton said:


> My apologies. I took you to be saying that when you said that such a conception of fumbles is overly narrow.




No worries, but no... I was saying that many posters in this thread had, IMO, a very narrow concept of what a "fumble" was... this was the part of Monte's essay that I was in agreement with.



pemerton said:


> See, here, you seem to be agreeing with Monte Cook also - because you are just repeating what Charles Ryan has said is the whole point of the blog - that treating nat 1 as a major-screw-up is not a good approach, and is too narrow a conception of what might happen on a (so-called) "fumble".




I disagree with your interpretation of what he is saying... that he's saying *ALWAYS* treating it as a major-screw-up (that is based on the character doing something wrong) is not a good approach.  He readily admits that Monte in running his games uses both approaches... see the quotes below...



CharlesRyan said:


> I don't want to put words in Monte's mouth, but let me start by addressing posters that think Monte is advocating that PCs never fail, or that GMs should be all touchy-feely about their players' poor hurt feelings. In the article, Monte says, "It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare." I think he means both parts: *That it should be rare, but also that it could certainly be a result that happens.*




See that is what I am advocating, that it still be a possible result while, and correct me if I'm wrong, you and @_*Aldarc*_ seem to be arguing that Monte is arguing for eliminating those types of fumbles entirely from the Cypher system...




pemerton said:


> I'm having trouble following this.
> 
> You seem to be saying that Charles Ryan actually disagrees with Monte Cook. Whereas Charles Ryan presents his post as an explanation and defence of the blog.




Nope... I'm saying you are mis-stating what Charles Ryan and Monte Cook are actually advocating for, see my post above. 



pemerton said:


> As I read it, Monte has written a blog saying that a nat 1 shouldn't be a major-screw-up-style fumble. Charles Ryan has weighed in agreeing with him, saying that a nat 1 can be broader than that, including encompassing events that (in the fiction) are not causally related to the action that (at the table) had an outcome determined by rolling a d20 that came up 1.




Again I read the article and Ryan's posts differently... they are stating that you shouldn't use that type of fumble all the time or even majority of the time but should mix it up... not claiming you shouldn't ever use fumbles and IMO this vibes with the Cypher systems



pemerton said:


> So, to focus on the key issue: do you think Monte Cook and Charles Ryan are right, or wrong, when they say that nat 1=major-screw-up is not a good rule?




That isn't what they are saying... they are saying over-using it, like nearly every technique, isn't a good idea.  Charles Ryan states that Monte uses these types of fumbles in his own game and even gave examples earlier...  This is what I am arguing against as it seems you and possibly @_*Aldarc*_ are promoting this idea that these types of fumbles should be removed from a "good" game and that isn't what they are saying. 



pemerton said:


> I think that Monte Cook's claim (and Charles Ryan's agreement) is probably about what is _typically_ or _generally_ enjoyable, rather than to what is _universally_ fun and enjoyable.




I disagree again, but I think the disconnect is that you aren't correctly parsing what their stand is.  I'm not arguing against Monte or Charles, I'm arguing against your interpretation of what they are saying.



pemerton said:


> As for the relationship between GM intrusions and imagined, ingame causation: I am relying on Monte Cook's and Charles Ryan's account of the system they design. I don't own it and don't play it. The posts I was engaging with were discussing GM intrusion as a device for introducing fictional events that are not, in the fiction, causally downstream of the PC's failure (eg following a missed bow shot, the arrival of reinforcements). This is also the sort of thing that the two designers were talking about. For instance, the blog says:
> 
> In a combat situation, a GM intrusion can range from the opposing creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round, to reinforcements for the opposition showing up. It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.​




How is a creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round not a candidate for ingame causation?  Accidentally shooting a friend (this is exactly the type of "fumble" you're claiming they are saying should be excised) can also be connected back to in game causation?



pemerton said:


> Personally, I think it's fairly clear why Monte Cook and Charles Ryan make this suggestion: if the idea is that a nat 1 result should, in some way, _stand out_ from a typical failure, then something _bigger_ and more distinctive has to happen on a nat 1. But if that is not going to be a major-screw-up *(which the designers think it shouldn't always, or even typically, be)* then what is it going to be? And the natural answer is that it something that, within the fiction, is causally independent of the PC's action that fails. (As an aside: I assume that by "character driven" you mean _an event in the fiction that, in the fiction, is caused by the PC's failing at his/her action_.)
> 
> If, in fact, there is an interesting and expansive set of fictional events that are:
> (1) Distinctive from ordinary failure;
> ...




Emphasis Mine: This is the first time I've seen you interpret what they are saying correctly...

Also I disagree with your assumption that a nat 1 is not supposed to be a major screw up... it's supposed to be a major screw up.  I have cited in the rules where rolling a 1 is called out specifically as something bad happening.  Don't confuse "a major screw up" with "a major screw up caused by/highlighting the ineptitude of the characters".



pemerton said:


> But if there really were no such reason, then why would Monte Cook write a blog saying that "Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did"?
> 
> One possibility is that he misunderstands his own system and the possibilities inherent in it.
> 
> But what I think is more likely is that he is reasoning more-or-less along the lines I've just set out: that he wants a nat 1 to be a _big_ event, but _not_ a major screw-up, and that there are simply not enough infiction possibilities that satisfy both these desiderata while nevertheless being causally downstream of the failed character action.




Or he understands his system, realizes that his system is open ended and is just stating his own preferences for how he applies it??



pemerton said:


> Anyway, I think the question about whether Monte Cook and Charles Ryan are correct about this is much more interesting than arguing over what the canonical use of the word "fumble" should be.




I think without a common understanding of terms... discussion is made exponentially more difficult.


----------



## Imaro (Feb 28, 2016)

Imaro said:


> If you are using a fumble system where the only result is "drop your weapon" whenever a 1 is rolled... your fumble system sucks.  How about your weapon breaks (redusing the damage it can cause)





Hussar said:


> Okay, random chance.




Ok...



Imaro said:


> You stumble in the (muck, ice, mud, foliage, etc.) and find yourself in an awkward position for your next attack so take disadvantage on your next melee/spellcasting attack roll...





Hussar said:


> Character is incompetent.




Wait... so now environmental factors highlight character incompetence?



Imaro said:


> Your opponent catches you off guard with a feint that you never saw coming, giving your opponent a +2 on his next attack... and so on.





Hussar said:


> Again, PC is incompetent.




Is the PC incompetent?  aren't feints, parries, etc. just a normal part of combat?  The PC didn't look silly or over the top... so why exactly does this highlight incompetence? 



Hussar said:


> Which is somewhat besides the point though.  Dropping your weapon happens too.  It's not like it comes completely out of nowhere.  And, isn't the point here to have a fumble mechanic that doesn't make the PC look incompetent?  Of the three options you outlined, two of them highlight PC incompetence.




I agree with [MENTION=177]Umbran[/MENTION] ... your threshold for a PC being incompetent seems to be extraordinarily high.


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## Von Ether (Feb 28, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Ok...
> 
> 
> 
> ...




There seems to some discussion between what's infallible vs humanly competent.


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## Maxperson (Feb 28, 2016)

Von Ether said:


> There seems to some discussion between what's infallible vs humanly competent.




Not that I've seen.  I've seen one person stating that a PC that is not infallible is incompetent, and everyone else refuting that.  No real discussion, because there's no reasonable position being taken by the one person.


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## Balesir (Feb 28, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Emphasis Mine: This is the first time I've seen you interpret what they are saying correctly...
> 
> Also I disagree with your assumption that a nat 1 is not supposed to be a major screw up... it's supposed to be a major screw up.  I have cited in the rules where rolling a 1 is called out specifically as something bad happening.  Don't confuse "a major screw up" with "a major screw up caused by/highlighting the ineptitude of the characters".



Is this simply some confusion of the meaning of the term "major screw up"?

I - and I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - interpret the term "screw up" to relate directly to the incompetence of the acting individual. You, it seems, do not? If an unfortunate set of circumstances cause something to go wrong - even disastrously wrong - I don't think of myself as having "screwed up"; I just think of myself as unlucky. Maybe it is because I am English, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is ( think) Australian and you are (I think) American that we have differing assumed meanings for the same phrase?


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## Hussar (Feb 29, 2016)

Ok, perhaps I was unclear.  Let me try it this way.

How does my character slipping in the mud or falling for a feint highlight my character's competence as a combatant?  In what way is that not a result of my failure of competence?  Perhaps it's a disagreement over the definition of incompetence?


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## Imaro (Feb 29, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Ok, perhaps I was unclear.  Let me try it this way.
> 
> How does my character slipping in the mud or falling for a feint highlight my character's competence as a combatant?  In what way is that not a result of my failure of competence?  Perhaps it's a disagreement over the definition of incompetence?




I thought our goal was to avoid highlighting incompetence... if our goal, in a fumble is to not only avoid highlighting incompetence... but to actually *highlight* competence... then I have to ask... why even have failures... much less fumbles?


----------



## Maxperson (Feb 29, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Ok, perhaps I was unclear.  Let me try it this way.
> 
> How does my character slipping in the mud or falling for a feint highlight my character's competence as a combatant?  In what way is that not a result of my failure of competence?  Perhaps it's a disagreement over the definition of incompetence?




Bruce Lee = highly competent.  Bruce Lee = someone who has fallen for feints.  He has also slipped.  Crap happens, even to highly competent people without making them incompetent.


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## Hussar (Feb 29, 2016)

I don't recall Bruce Lee in the movies slipping on a wet floor or patch of blood and landing on his ass. 

Failing to do something is not highlighting incompetence. No one is perfect. But when our high level hero is slipping or falling for a feint consistently ie. 1 time in 20 I'd say that's pretty incompetent. 

You certainly wouldn't go to a doctor with that fail rate. If my accountant was seriously screwing up 5% of the time I'd be looking for a new one. 

Note, a fumble is more than just a fail right?  It's fail with additional consequences. Or am I missing something?  If my high level fighter is falling down one round in five or six, that's kinda highlighting incompetence isn't it?


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## pemerton (Feb 29, 2016)

Balesir said:


> Is this simply some confusion of the meaning of the term "major screw up"?
> 
> I - and I think [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] - interpret the term "screw up" to relate directly to the incompetence of the acting individual. You, it seems, do not? If an unfortunate set of circumstances cause something to go wrong - even disastrously wrong - I don't think of myself as having "screwed up"; I just think of myself as unlucky. Maybe it is because I am English, [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is ( think) Australian and you are (I think) American that we have differing assumed meanings for the same phrase?



I am Australian, and English is my first language.

I take the phrase _major screw-up_ to refer to a situation where a person has _screwed something up_. (In Australia we would tend to say "stuff up" rather than "screw up" - in Australian English, "screw" is synonymous with "f***", and "screw-up" is therefore a little bit closer to "f***-up" and hence not quite as polite as "stuff up".)

And here is Charles Ryan using the phrase in the same way:



CharlesRyan said:


> I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up." As in, rolling a 1 means your character did something that really screwed the pooch. <snippage> The situation got worse because YOUR CHARACTER did something uncharacteristically incompetent.
> 
> If that's how you interpret the word "fumble," Monte (and the Cypher System rules generally) argue that you should broaden your horizon.



In other words, he is using "major screw-up" to mean "doing something that really screws the pooch" which is the same things as "doing something uncharacteristically incompetent that makes the situation worse". He then goes on to say that the point of Monte Cook's blog is to say that such a conception of what a fumble is, you need to broaden your conception of what a "fumble" is. And in his blog, Monte Cook explains what the broadening would consist in:

In a combat situation, a GM intrusion can range from the opposing creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round, to reinforcements for the opposition showing up. It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.​
Upthread I offered the following conjecture as to why he said this:

(1) he wants a nat 1 to be a _big _event, distinct from ordinary failure;

(2) He does not want a nat 1 to (typically) be a major screw-up by the character whose player rolled the 1;

(3) there are not enough infiction possibilities that satisfy(1) and (2) while nevertheless being able to be imagined, in the fiction,causally downstream of the failed character action.​
The contentious claim here, obviously, is (3): that Monte believes (1) and (2) is obvious enough from the blog and the subsequent elaboration by Charles Ryan.

*So, instead of debating semantics can we debate (3): is it true? (At all, in general, in the Cypher Systerm, in other FRPGs, . . .?)*


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## Imaro (Feb 29, 2016)

Balesir said:


> Is this simply some confusion of the meaning of the term "major screw up"?
> 
> I - and I think @_*pemerton*_ - interpret the term "screw up" to relate directly to the incompetence of the acting individual. You, it seems, do not? If an unfortunate set of circumstances cause something to go wrong - even disastrously wrong - I don't think of myself as having "screwed up"; I just think of myself as unlucky. Maybe it is because I am English, @_*pemerton*_ is ( think) Australian and you are (I think) American that we have differing assumed meanings for the same phrase?




I think... maybe so.  I figure a "major screw up" (irregardless of the cause) is just you failing to do something and the resulting consequences being (much) greater than just failure.  So your weapon breaking, a rock face crumbling, or even a surprise attack you didn't see coming... can all result in a major screw up.

EDIT: In other words, as I understand the meaning of it, someone can majorly screw up due to bad luck... however that's not incompetence on their part.


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## Imaro (Feb 29, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I don't recall Bruce Lee in the movies slipping on a wet floor or patch of blood and landing on his ass.
> 
> Failing to do something is not highlighting incompetence. No one is perfect. But when our high level hero is slipping or falling for a feint consistently ie. 1 time in 20 I'd say that's pretty incompetent.
> 
> ...




Annnnd.... we are back to square one... if you're using the exact same fumble result every time a 1 is rolled, then your fumble system sucks.


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## Maxperson (Feb 29, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I don't recall Bruce Lee in the movies slipping on a wet floor or patch of blood and landing on his ass.




Funny.  I recall Bruce Lee being on his ass all the time.  He got knocked on it more than any PC I've ever played.  I guess he was incompetent. 



> Failing to do something is not highlighting incompetence. No one is perfect. But when our high level hero is slipping or falling for a feint consistently ie. 1 time in 20 I'd say that's pretty incompetent.




You have unreasonable expectations.  When you are looking at a 95% success rate as incompetent, something is very, very wrong.



> You certainly wouldn't go to a doctor with that fail rate. If my accountant was seriously screwing up 5% of the time I'd be looking for a new one.



False Equivalence.  Math is not the same as fighting, and doctors misdiagnose things all the time.



> Note, a fumble is more than just a fail right?  It's fail with additional consequences. Or am I missing something?  If my high level fighter is falling down one round in five or six, that's kinda highlighting incompetence isn't it?



No a fumble is not more than a fail.  A fumble is only ever just an increased degree of failure.  It can't be more than failure.


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## Umbran (Feb 29, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Note, a fumble is more than just a fail right?  It's fail with additional consequences. Or am I missing something?  If my high level fighter is falling down one round in five or six, that's kinda highlighting incompetence isn't it?




Maybe, Hussar, you should just not use fumble systems?  Are you sure you're doing yourself or anyone else any good by trying to get folks to justify a system that you seem pretty dead set against?


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## Hussar (Feb 29, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Annnnd.... we are back to square one... if you're using the exact same fumble result every time a 1 is rolled, then your fumble system sucks.




But, earlier, the argument was against a player's die roll changing the setting.  A setting change based on a fumble roll is a bad thing right?  So, how does the cliff side crumble due to your fumble roll?  How is that different, other than in scale?



Umbran said:


> Maybe, Hussar, you should just not use fumble systems?  Are you sure you're doing yourself or anyone else any good by trying to get folks to justify a system that you seem pretty dead set against?




Just trying to figure out where the line gets drawn.  It's not good for a fumble system to highlight incompetence, so, dropping your sword, falling on your ass is bad, it's not good for a fumble system to change the setting, so, additional enemies arriving, weather changing, etc is off the table.

So, what's left?  We're not supposed to use fumbles to change the setting, nor should effects highlight incompetence, so, what's left for fumbles to do?


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## Maxperson (Feb 29, 2016)

Hussar said:


> Just trying to figure out where the line gets drawn.  It's not good for a fumble system to highlight incompetence, so, dropping your sword, falling on your ass is bad, it's not good for a fumble system to change the setting, so, additional enemies arriving, weather changing, etc is off the table.




Your major problem is that things such as falling or dropping your weapon does not equate to incompetence.  Until you realize that bad things happen to competent people, you're going to continue have this issue.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Your major problem is that things such as falling or dropping your weapon does not equate to incompetence.  Until you realize that bad things happen to competent people, you're going to continue have this issue.




If my character is falling or dropping his weapon or various other bad effects are happening every four or five rounds, how does this not equate to incompetence?  A decent level fighter gets 3 or 4 attacks per round.  That means that a fumble, note I'm talking about D&D here, will occur about 1 round in 5 or so.  That means that I'm dropping a weapon, falling, or various other things, nearly every encounter.

Nothing says competence like falling on my ass every encounter.  :/


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## Imaro (Mar 1, 2016)

Hussar said:


> But, earlier, the argument was against a player's die roll changing the setting.  A setting change based on a fumble roll is a bad thing right?  So, how does the cliff side crumble due to your fumble roll?  How is that different, other than in scale?




What point are you even addressing or proving now?  Just like with the example of mud,  I would assume the cliff face has been described as crumbling and pockmarked or something beforehand.  since we are not discussing a specific situation I thought the examples were pretty straightforward in being general examples of the environment as opposed to the hero being at fault... but perhaps the examples weren't clear enough... hopefully they are now.


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## chibi graz'zt (Mar 1, 2016)

Connorsrpg said:


> Um, obviously 'someone' rolled a 1 when using Narsil




Ha ha! But not Aragorn ;-)


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## Maxperson (Mar 1, 2016)

Hussar said:


> If my character is falling or dropping his weapon or various other bad effects are happening every four or five rounds, how does this not equate to incompetence?  A decent level fighter gets 3 or 4 attacks per round.  That means that a fumble, note I'm talking about D&D here, will occur about 1 round in 5 or so.  That means that I'm dropping a weapon, falling, or various other things, nearly every encounter.
> 
> Nothing says competence like falling on my ass every encounter.  :/




Fog of war.  Bad stuff happens pretty much every fight.  It's the competent person who can overcome it and succeed anyway.  Also, the same bad stuff doesn't happen each time, so it's not as if you're playing one of the three stooges.  That's your misconception of what fumbles are and represent.

Once again, Bruce Lee ended up on his ass almost every fight, often more than once.  He was highly competent.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Fog of war.  Bad stuff happens pretty much every fight.  It's the competent person who can overcome it and succeed anyway.  Also, the same bad stuff doesn't happen each time, so it's not as if you're playing one of the three stooges.  That's your misconception of what fumbles are and represent.
> 
> Once again, Bruce Lee ended up on his ass almost every fight, often more than once.  He was highly competent.




There's a significant difference between someone punching/kicking Bruce Lee and knocking him over and Bruce Lee slipping on a patch of mud or tripping on a chair.  The first you see all the time and aren't the result of fumbles.  The second is Three Stooges.

Note, there has to be a difference between simply failing and fumbles.


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## Maxperson (Mar 1, 2016)

Hussar said:


> There's a significant difference between someone punching/kicking Bruce Lee and knocking him over and Bruce Lee slipping on a patch of mud or tripping on a chair.  The first you see all the time and aren't the result of fumbles.  The second is Three Stooges.




Says who?

Player: I rolled a 1!  Fumble!
DM: As a result of being hit by the enemy, this time you get knocked on your ass.  Your highly competent PC falls over.

You're the one making yourself out to be incompetent.  Not any fumble result.


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## Hussar (Mar 1, 2016)

But I wasn't hit by the enemy. I fumbled on my turn. Not on his attack. Is it some sort of Schroedinger attack that hits me for damage and then later it knocks me down but only if I fumble?  How does that work in play?

I could see this in a system with defence rolls, but how would this work in DND?


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## pemerton (Mar 1, 2016)

Can we pull back a bit from the to-ing and fro-ing and look at the overarching question? (At least as I see it.) 

Is there a meaningful variety of ingame events that can occur on a roll of nat 1, and:


(1) are _big events_, distinct from ordinary failure;

(2) are not major screw-ups or incompetence by the character whose player rolled the 1;

(3) are able to be imagined, in the fiction, as causally downstream of the failed character action.​
I think that Monte Cook believes the answer to the question is No, and that's why (in his blog, and as elaborated in this thread by Charles Ryan) he embraces (1) and (2) but rejects (3). [MENTION=22779]Hussar[/MENTION] seems to agree with Monte in post 323 above.

Does anyone think Monte Cook is wrong? Can you give examples of events that satisfy (1), (2) and (3)?


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## Imaro (Mar 1, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Can we pull back a bit from the to-ing and fro-ing and look at the overarching question? (At least as I see it.)
> 
> Is there a meaningful variety of ingame events that can occur on a roll of nat 1, and:
> (1) are _big events_, distinct from ordinary failure;
> ...




I think your assumptions are wrong... especially #3 being the reason why Monte doesn't want a natural 1 to always be a character incompetence fumble... from the article...



			
				Monte Cook said:
			
		

> Bruce—the player, not the character, remember—didn’t do anything wrong. Rolling a 1 isn’t his fault, per se. The die just does that on its own. About 1 in 20 times, actually. *But if the GM actually incorporates some version of the joke into the actual narrative of the game—that is to say, that Bruce’s character said something foolish or untoward—Bruce feels bad.*
> Which wouldn’t be the end of the world if it only happened once. Or rarely. But a lot of dice get rolled in a session. A lot of 1s come up. A person can have a great idea or plan for their action, and have it result in a roll of a 1. *That’s why the Cypher System rules don’t say that a 1 is a fumble. It’s the trigger of a GM intrusion. An intrusion is a complication, but it’s not necessarily a complication arising from someone doing anything wrong.*







			
				Monte Cook said:
			
		

> It [an GM Intrusion on a 1] could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.
> 
> *This is important because we don’t want to run games that “punish” players for rolling bad*. A GM intrusion isn’t meant to be “punishment”—it’s meant to make things more interesting. *But a fumble, for many people, just seems like a moment for everyone to laugh at them, and that’s not always fun.*




From my reading of the article... nowhere does Monte claim or even infer that there aren't enough results to meet your 1 & 2 criteria... he's arguing from the position that in  framing the fumble/intrusion around character incompetence too often... it may make players feel bad or the game less fun.  So I guess the reason I'm not discussing your position is because it doesn't accurately reflect what I think the views of Monte or Charles are...  IMO, maybe you should rethink the conclusion you've drawn from the article...

EDIT: In fact I'd argue against your #1 & #2 based on some of the examples he gives cited above in the quote from the article (slipping and falling, dropping a weapon, shooting a friend)... While I agree with your assertion that they should be distinct from regular events... how big or how small they are (as long as they complicate things) is totally GM reliant and the Numenera rules support this view.  And he outright states these types of intrusions are fine as long as they are not so frequent as to cause the players and/or GM to have less fun while playing.  Of course this threshold is going to be different for each group.

EDIT2: I actually think when viewed from my perspective the message isn't all that controversial... find the threshold for character incompetence fumbles your group has fun introducing, and make up the rest with bad things that aren't based around character incompetence... the Cypher system gives you the tools to do that.  If anything I think Monte was reaching out to people who may not have considered natural 1 rolled bad things that don't stem from character incompetence and bringing the possibility of such to their attention.


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## Imaro (Mar 1, 2016)

Hussar said:


> But I wasn't hit by the enemy. I fumbled on my turn. Not on his attack. Is it some sort of Schroedinger attack that hits me for damage and then later it knocks me down but only if I fumble?  How does that work in play?
> 
> I could see this in a system with defence rolls, but how would this work in DND?




Maybe you should have specified the system when asking the question since we have been citing a multitude of systems throughout this discussion and fumbles are system dependent... but again I have to ask, what is your point around fumbles with this tangent discussion that admittedly seems to be going in circles (We've hit the whole "depends on the system" point much earlier in this thread and now here we are again)?


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## Maxperson (Mar 1, 2016)

Hussar said:


> But I wasn't hit by the enemy. I fumbled on my turn. Not on his attack. Is it some sort of Schroedinger attack that hits me for damage and then later it knocks me down but only if I fumble?  How does that work in play?
> 
> I could see this in a system with defence rolls, but how would this work in DND?




It's all in description.  Combat is not one side just stands there drooling while the other side moves.  It's a fluid thing where both sides are moving and swinging at each other simultaneously.  The NPC can "hit" as in contact the PC on the PC's turn, causing the PC to fall on his rear.


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## pemerton (Mar 1, 2016)

Imaro said:


> From my reading of the article... nowhere does Monte claim or even infer that there aren't enough results to meet your 1 & 2 criteria... he's arguing from the position that in  framing the fumble/intrusion around character incompetence too often... it may make players feel bad or the game less fun.



Right. Those are his reasons for affirming my (2) - that is, for wanting nat 1s to not be (primarily, or typically) major screw-ups by the failing character.

Hence the question I asked - are there events that satisfy (1), (2) and (3). I don't think Monte thinks there are - which is why he argues for "external" intrusions like reinforcements.


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## Imaro (Mar 1, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Right. Those are his reasons for affirming my (2) - that is, for wanting nat 1s to not be (primarily, or typically) major screw-ups by the failing character.




1. I think confusion is arising because you are either purposefully or accidentally mis-stating his stance depending on what particular post we look at.  Claiming he is totally against something as you do here...



pemerton said:


> (2) are not major screw-ups or incompetence by the character whose player rolled the 1;




is different from adding the qualifiers that you do above....  In fact Monte doesn't even claim they shouldn't primarily or typically be major screw-ups by character incompetence... unless the player isn't having fun... that's the basis of why he wants to limit them... not because there aren't events that satisfy (1), (2) & (3)...  Your other reasons fall down because...    

Reason (2) Again... GM Intrusions are not necessarily big events... the only requirement for an intrusion (on a 1) is that it is a "bad thing" and it complicates things for the character... this could be something as simple as a weapon jamming.  You've created this criteria but it has no basis in the Cypher rules or in what Monte or Charles have stated.

Reason (3) Not sure why this wouldn't be the case (especially in a game of weird science-fantasy like Numenera, and really is not a point I have seen Monte or Charles make anywhere (my biggest issue with your claim here)... if you believe this fine, but then it's based on assumptions you've made that IMO are faulty at best.  the worse being that a GM Intrusion on a 1 must be some big event... which it doesn't have to be... it's only requirement is that it be a bad complication.  




pemerton said:


> Hence the question I asked - are there events that satisfy (1), (2) and (3). I don't think Monte thinks there are - which is why he argues for "external" intrusions like reinforcements.




His argument is based on player enjoyment... it's pretty clear in the article that he is arguing for this because he believes at some point basing "fumbles" entirely on character ineptitude will cause the player to stop having fun... can you post some quotes or excerpts from the article or the Cypher rules that actually back up this assertion you are making... I did in the previous posts I've made...


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## Balesir (Mar 1, 2016)

Imaro said:


> 1. I think confusion is arising because you are either purposefully or accidentally mis-stating his stance depending on what particular post we look at.  Claiming he is totally against something as you do here...



I can't tell if you are being wilfully obtuse, here, or trying to pull off some sort of obfuscatory argument technique or something, but it seems really simple, to me:

1) [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] is saying that GM Intrusions on a roll of 1 have to be distinct from simple failed rolls because, well, otherwise they would be just failed rolls. If they weren't different from simple failure, they wouldn't have separate rules.

2) Monte is saying that GM Intrusions on a roll of 1 should not _always_ be examples of PC incompetence. They might very well sometimes be, but he is saying they ought often to not be. Thus, there will be cases (if you follow Monte's advice) where they won't be, and we must account for those cases.

3) *You* said (*not* Monte) that GM Intrusions on a roll of 1 should only ever flow causally from what the character is trying to do when the roll is called for as a means of resolution.

 [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]'s point is that he doesn't see (and, incidentally, neither do I) that it is possible to have all three conditions true at once. "Proof" that you can have (1) and (3) without (2) on the grounds that Monte doesn't say you must _always_ have (2) is irrelevant; if you are to have ANY GM Intrusion (i.e. not a simple failure: 1) that follows Monte's advice (of sometimes having an Intrusion not caused by PC incompetence: 2) you are going to have to have it arise from some factor other than the PC's action (i.e.: 3) unless you can find *some* cases that are different from a normal failure (1), are not the result of character incompetence (2) and flow causally from what the character is rolling for (3). In other words, if you follow Monte's advice, you must have GM Intrusions that are not caused by the character's action - or you must simply not follow Monte's advice (a perfectly admissible course, even if arguably not playing the game as the creator intended you to).


----------



## Imaro (Mar 2, 2016)

Balesir said:


> I can't tell if you are being wilfully obtuse, here, or trying to pull off some sort of obfuscatory argument technique or something, but it seems really simple, to me:




How about you give me the benefit of the doubt and I'll give you the same... I'm not understanding how @_*pemerton*_ arrived at his conclusion and I stated why...



Balesir said:


> 1)  @_*pemerton*_ is saying that GM Intrusions on a roll of 1 have to be distinct from simple failed rolls because, well, otherwise they would be just failed rolls. If they weren't different from simple failure, they wouldn't have separate rules.




I don't disagree with what you are saying here.... however different events and big events are not synonyms... and I assume @_*pemerton*_ uses the word "bigger" for a reason. No one is disputing a GM Intrusion (on a 1) should be different from a regular failure but I'm not agreeing it has to be some big event... it doesn't and nothing in the article or rulebook supports this.  Slipping in mud isn't some big event and an extra monster or two joining the fray isn't some big event... does that clear things up?   



Balesir said:


> 2) Monte is saying that GM Intrusions on a roll of 1 should not _always_ be examples of PC incompetence. They might very well sometimes be, but he is saying they ought often to not be. Thus, there will be cases (if you follow Monte's advice) where they won't be, and we must account for those cases.




Agree to a point... Monte is using the qualifier of them not being fun to determine what frequency they should be used with.  He's not making a general statement about them in the article without reference to the qualifier that your player(s) doesn't/don't find them fun... this is key because it gives his reasoning for wanting to reduce them... the exact question @_*pemerton*_ is asking. 



Balesir said:


> 3) *You* said (*not* Monte) that GM Intrusions on a roll of 1 should only ever flow causally from what the character is trying to do when the roll is called for as a means of resolution




When did I say this?... I've said previously in this thread I use a blend of the two when running the Cypher system.  I'm disagreeing with @_*pemerton*_'s claim of Monte's reasoning for wanting to reduce character ineptness fumbles... <sarcasm>Now whose either being wilfully obtuse, here, or trying to pull off some sort of obfuscatory argument technique or something... </sarcasm>



Balesir said:


> @_*pemerton*_'s point is that he doesn't see (and, incidentally, neither do I) that it is possible to have all three conditions true at once. "Proof" that you can have (1) and (3) without (2) on the grounds that Monte doesn't say you must _always_ have (2) is irrelevant; if you are to have ANY GM Intrusion (i.e. not a simple failure: 1) that follows Monte's advice (of sometimes having an Intrusion not caused by PC incompetence: 2) you are going to have to have it arise from some factor other than the PC's action (i.e.: 3) unless you can find *some* cases that are different from a normal failure (1), are not the result of character incompetence (2) and flow causally from what the character is rolling for (3). In other words, if you follow Monte's advice, you must have GM Intrusions that are not caused by the character's action - or you must simply not follow Monte's advice (a perfectly admissible course, even if arguably not playing the game as the creator intended you to).




And I disagree that this is Monte's position or reasoning for wanting to reduce character ineptness driven fumbles.  Now if you and @_*pemerton*_ believe this to be true, that's ok and I'm willing to discuss whether I believe what you two think has merit but I don't agree with the premise that Cook's reasoning lies along the same line so I'm not going to start a discussion with the assumption that Cook's reasoning lies along the same lines as yours since I don't believe it does....


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## Imaro (Mar 2, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Is there a meaningful variety of ingame events that can occur on a roll of nat 1, and:
> 
> (1) are _big events_, distinct from ordinary failure;
> 
> ...






Balesir said:


> @_*pemerton*_'s point is that he doesn't see (and, incidentally, neither do I) that it is possible to have all three conditions true at once. "Proof" that you can have (1) and (3) without (2) on the grounds that Monte doesn't say you must _always_ have (2) is irrelevant; if you are to have ANY GM Intrusion (i.e. not a simple failure: 1) that follows Monte's advice (of sometimes having an Intrusion not caused by PC incompetence: 2) you are going to have to have it arise from some factor other than the PC's action (i.e.: 3) unless you can find *some* cases that are different from a normal failure (1), are not the result of character incompetence (2) and flow causally from what the character is rolling for (3). In other words, if you follow Monte's advice, you must have GM Intrusions that are not caused by the character's action - or you must simply not follow Monte's advice (a perfectly admissible course, even if arguably not playing the game as the creator intended you to).




 @_*pemerton*_ & @_*Balesir*_... The easiest example I can think of to disprove what you are claiming are equipment (armor, weapon, cyphers, vehicles, tools, etc.) failures and malfunctions... especially in Numenera where the technology is supposed to be poorly understood and re-jiggered to purposes it was never originally intended for.  Flows causally, has nothing to do with PC incompetence and can have different effects than a normal failure...


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## pemerton (Mar 2, 2016)

Imaro said:


> If anything I think Monte was reaching out to people who may not have considered natural 1 rolled bad things that don't stem from character incompetence and bringing the possibility of such to their attention.



Well, quite. My claim is that he is going further, though, and pointing out that - once you try and do that - you find that you have to narrate "bad things" that, in the fiction, are not causally downstream of the failing character's action.



Imaro said:


> I think confusion is arising because you are either purposefully or accidentally mis-stating his stance depending on what particular post we look at.  Claiming he is totally against something as you do here.



Because obviously I've got nothing better to do with my time that post purposeful misstatements of Monte Cook on the interwebs!



Imaro said:


> How about you give me the benefit of the doubt and I'll give you the same



You haven't really given me the benefit of the doubt - you've accused me of purposefully misstating Monte Cook's stance! But anyway, I'll repeat, again, the key passage from Monte Cook's blog, and will bold a key phrase:

[T]he Cypher System rules don’t say that a 1 is a fumble. It’s the trigger of a GM intrusion. An intrusion is a complication, but it’s not necessarily a complication arising from someone doing anything wrong.

In a combat situation, a GM intrusion can range from the opposing creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round, to reinforcements for the opposition showing up. It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. *Far more often*, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.​
Here we see Monte indicating:

(1) That a nat 1 is not just a fail. It's a trigger for something more than a failure - what, upthread, I called a "big" or distincitve event. Something other than "nothing happens".

(2) That _typically_, even _primarily_, such events ought not to be due to major screw-ups by the failing character (_not something "wrong" that the character did)_.

(3') Following on from (2), that _far more often_ these events should be _external circumstances_ such as reinforcements, rather than events that (in-fiction) are causally downstream of the failing character's action.​
And _I_ am asking the question: why (3')? My conjectured answer (_not_ an assumption) is that there are simply not enough events that are possible _within the fiction_ that satisfy (1) and (2), yet nevertheless _are_ causally downstream of the failing character's action.



Imaro said:


> His argument is based on player enjoyment



This is his reason for affirming (2), yes. But on it own it tells us nothing about (3) or (3'). And that is what I am interested in.



Imaro said:


> I disagree that this is Monte's position or reasoning for wanting to reduce character ineptness driven fumbles.



I'm not even talking abot his reason for wanting to reduce ineptness-driven fumbles! I'm asking why, given that he wants to do this, is he moved to say that they should be mostly external circumstances?



Imaro said:


> Monte doesn't even claim they shouldn't primarily or typically be major screw-ups by character incompetence



What do you think, then, is the meaning of the phrase _far more often it should be some external circumstance_? Which is used to _contrast _with such screw-ups as accidentally shooting a friend or dropping a weapon?

But this is a secondary point (as  [MENTION=27160]Balesir[/MENTION] has pointed out not very far upthread). Even if he thinks that incursions should, _typically_, be major screw-ups, he nevertheless contrasts _major screw-ups_ with _external circumstances_ that are not, in-fiction, causally downstream. Why? Why are these the two options he puts on the table?



Imaro said:


> GM Intrusions are not necessarily big events



I think you misunderstand what I mean by "big event". I used the phrase in post 302 upthread, which was a reply to you:

if the idea is that a nat 1 result should, in some way, _stand out_ from a typical failure, then something _bigger_ and more distinctive has to happen on a nat 1.​
Otherwise, what is the point of the intrusion-triggered-by-nat-1 mechanic?



Imaro said:


> different events and big events are not synonyms



Can we please move on from semantics! In post 302 I made it clear what I am meaning by the phrase "big event" - I mean something different from a normal failure, that stands out enough to make the mechanic worth having at all. If you don't like the phrase I've chosen to use, fine - I'm not wedded to it, I just wanted something to pithily express the point.

But I'm pretty sure my choice of phrase isn't the most interesting thing to talk about - as opposed to Monte's reasons for saying that incursions should, _far more often_, be external circumstances. I'm interested in why his rejection of major screw-ups leads him to this particular claim. It's not self-evident, and in fact - in light of the whole "dissociated mechanics" debate - I would have thought is very controversial. There are certainly many posts upthread which have rejected Monte's suggestion, on grounds that "external circumstances" mean the GM is making things up out of thin air, etc.



Imaro said:


> Reason (3)



In the post you have quoted I am not stating _reasons_. I am interpreting Monte Cook's blog, and offering a conjecture as to why he says the things that he says. In the post of mine that you quoted, (1) to (3) are not reasons but properties/attributes of narrated events. I am conjecturing that there are not very many possible in-fiction events that exhibit all three properties, and that this is why Monte - in affirming that intrusions should satisfy (1) and (2) - is led to say that, _far more often_, they will not exhibit (3) but instead (3') - that is, will be events which, in fiction, are _not_ causally downstream of the failing characer's action.



Imaro said:


> Not sure why this wouldn't be the case (especially in a game of weird science-fantasy like Numenera, and really is not a point I have seen Monte or Charles make anywhere (my biggest issue with your claim here)





Imaro said:


> The easiest example I can think of to disprove what you are claiming are equipment (armor, weapon, cyphers, vehicles, tools, etc.) failures and malfunctions... especially in Numenera where the technology is supposed to be poorly understood and re-jiggered to purposes it was never originally intended for.  Flows causally, has nothing to do with PC incompetence and can have different effects than a normal failure...



OK, so this is the sort of thing I actually was hoping to talk about!

What does the equipment failure flow from, in in-fiction causal terms?

If it flows from the PC's _misuse_, then we are getting back into the territory of _major screw-ups_ or _a compication from someone doing something wront_.

So presumably we are talking, here, about failure that follows simply from _use_.

Is there an important difference between (i) the GM deciding, on a nat 1, that a piece of equipment has worn out or malfunctioned from use _even though the cause of that (eg metal fatigue, drained power supply, etc) was not a hitherto-established element of the shared fiction_, and (ii) the GM deciding, on a nat 1, that another enemy turns up _even though the presence of that enemy just slightly off-screen was not a hitherto-established element of the shared fiction_?

If (i) draws support and in-fiction plausibity from the idea that, in Numenara, technology is poorly understood and jury-rigged, can (ii) be given support and in-fiction plausibility by having the GM emphasise that , in his/her gameworld, things are often not as they seem and foes rarely show their hand all at once?

And conversely, and relating this to some of the concerns express someway upthread: if (ii) becomes a less plausible move in a game in which the PCs do a lot of scouting and other intelligence gathering, what happens to (i) if the PCs have very high repair skills, spend a lot of time emphasising how well they are maintaining their equipment, etc?


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## Imaro (Mar 2, 2016)

pemerton said:


> Well, quite. My claim is that he is going further, though, and pointing out that - once you try and do that - you find that you have to narrate "bad things" that, in the fiction, are not causally downstream of the failing character's action.




He isn't saying that... and you've provided no quotes where he does.



pemerton said:


> Because obviously I've got nothing better to do with my time that post purposeful misstatements of Monte Cook on the interwebs!




Or you're so hung up on supporting your own view you're incorrectly reading intent that hasn't been stated.  External does not equate to not causally linked to the character's actions...



pemerton said:


> You haven't really given me the benefit of the doubt - you've accused me of purposefully misstating Monte Cook's stance! But anyway, I'll repeat, again, the key passage from Monte Cook's blog, and will bold a key phrase:
> [T]he Cypher System rules don’t say that a 1 is a fumble. It’s the trigger of a GM intrusion. An intrusion is a complication, but it’s not necessarily a complication arising from someone doing anything wrong.
> 
> In a combat situation, a GM intrusion can range from the opposing creature gaining an additional chance to attack for a round, to reinforcements for the opposition showing up. It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare. *Far more often*, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.​
> ...




No... again external circumstances does not necessarily equate to "not causally linked".  The external circumstances could wholly have come about because of your actions and that, IMO, is the flaw in your argument.

Oh, and I haven't given you the benefit of the doubt because you've continually chosen to attribute your own conclusion to Monte and Charles when nothing they've said equates to what you are claiming.



pemerton said:


> And _I_ am asking the question: why (3')? My conjectured answer (_not_ an assumption) is that there are simply not enough events that are possible _within the fiction_ that satisfy (1) and (2), yet nevertheless _are_ causally downstream of the failing character's action.




First time I've seen you state that it's your conjectured answer without invoking Monte's name...



pemerton said:


> This is his reason for affirming (2), yes. But on it own it tells us nothing about (3) or (3'). And that is what I am interested in.




If you're interested in that fine but then why keep claiming it's what Monte and Charles are stating/concluding? When you have no proof of that?  



pemerton said:


> I'm not even talking abot his reason for wanting to reduce ineptness-driven fumbles! I'm asking why, given that he wants to do this, is he moved to say that they should be mostly external circumstances?




Because internal circumstances are the fault of something within the character and that has the potential to makes players feel bad, embarrassed and/or the game less fun...  What you're missing is that external does not equate to non-causal.  it just means something internal to the character didn't cause it...



pemerton said:


> What do you think, then, is the meaning of the phrase _far more often it should be some external circumstance_? Which is used to _contrast _with such screw-ups as accidentally shooting a friend or dropping a weapon?




See my answer above...



pemerton said:


> But this is a secondary point (as  @_*Balesir*_ has pointed out not very far upthread). Even if he thinks that incursions should, _typically_, be major screw-ups, he nevertheless contrasts _major screw-ups_ with _external circumstances_ that are not, in-fiction, causally downstream. Why? Why are these the two options he puts on the table?




He (Monte) never used the words non-causal... see how you do that, you are mis-stating what he said... he used the word external... not non-causal.



pemerton said:


> I think you misunderstand what I mean by "big event". I used the phrase in post 302 upthread, which was a reply to you:
> if the idea is that a nat 1 result should, in some way, _stand out_ from a typical failure, then something _bigger_ and more distinctive has to happen on a nat 1.​
> Otherwise, what is the point of the intrusion-triggered-by-nat-1 mechanic?




To complicate things... doesn't mean it has to be "bigger" than missing and not killing your opponent this round (which would win the fight and make you a hero!!),  just different from not causing damage... 



pemerton said:


> Can we please move on from semantics! In post 302 I made it clear what I am meaning by the phrase "big event" - I mean something different from a normal failure, that stands out enough to make the mechanic worth having at all. If you don't like the phrase I've chosen to use, fine - I'm not wedded to it, I just wanted something to pithily express the point.




In what language are big and different synonyms... it's not semantics it's being unclear in what you are expressing... but yes now that we've established you use different and big interchangeably we can move on...



pemerton said:


> But I'm pretty sure my choice of phrase isn't the most interesting thing to talk about - as opposed to Monte's reasons for saying that incursions should, _far more often_, be external circumstances. I'm interested in why his rejection of major screw-ups leads him to this particular claim. It's not self-evident, and in fact - in light of the whole "dissociated mechanics" debate - I would have thought is very controversial. There are certainly many posts upthread which have rejected Monte's suggestion, on grounds that "external circumstances" mean the GM is making things up out of thin air, etc.




It is self-evident and pretty simple if you don't equate the word  "external" to mean "non-causal"... as you have continuously done, or is this more examples of semantics and these two words actually have the same meaning (like big and different apparently do) ? 



pemerton said:


> In the post you have quoted I am not stating _reasons_. I am interpreting Monte Cook's blog, and offering a conjecture as to why he says the things that he says. In the post of mine that you quoted, (1) to (3) are not reasons but properties/attributes of narrated events. I am conjecturing that there are not very many possible in-fiction events that exhibit all three properties, and that this is why Monte - in affirming that intrusions should satisfy (1) and (2) - is led to say that, _far more often_, they will not exhibit (3) but instead (3') - that is, will be events which, in fiction, are _not_ causally downstream of the failing characer's action.




And I still believe you are mis-stating his stance in confusing something being external having to be the same as non-causal...  It;s not semantics and words matter, especially when your whole argument rests on equating two words that don't mean the same thing with each other.




pemerton said:


> OK, so this is the sort of thing I actually was hoping to talk about!




That's great and I would have happily conversed about it if it hadn't been prefaced with your own interjections on why Monte believes something that you've not yet proven to be true.  If instead you had said hey... *I pemerton * think there aren't enough... X to accomplish Y... we'd have been discussing it already.  Instead you tried to draw on Cook for support of your argument, and when you do that I'm going to ask you to back your assertion up with proof.



pemerton said:


> What does the equipment failure flow from, in in-fiction causal terms?
> 
> If it flows from the PC's _misuse_, then we are getting back into the territory of _major screw-ups_ or _a compication from someone doing something wront_.
> 
> So presumably we are talking, here, about failure that follows simply from _use_.




One of the "world" conceits of Numenera is that technology is poorly understood, scavenged from a mostly unknown past (along with aliens, other dimensions, etc.), haphazardly rejiggered for purposes it wasn't originally intended for and often dangerous in unknown ways. 




pemerton said:


> Is there an important difference between (i) the GM deciding, on a nat 1, that a piece of equipment has worn out or malfunctioned from use _even though the cause of that (eg metal fatigue, drained power supply, etc) was not a hitherto-established element of the shared fiction_, and (ii) the GM deciding, on a nat 1, that another enemy turns up _even though the presence of that enemy just slightly off-screen was not a hitherto-established element of the shared fiction_?




The difference is that in choosing to play Numenera you have already accepted the conceit that unknowable (to your character) causes can affect technology and equipment in weird and dangerous ways.  You haven't by default accepted the conceit that random, totally undetectable creatures (assuming they don't have some weird power to justify this) can appear out of thin air... 



pemerton said:


> If (i) draws support and in-fiction plausibity from the idea that, in Numenara, technology is poorly understood and jury-rigged, can (ii) be given support and in-fiction plausibility by having the GM emphasise that , in his/her gameworld, things are often not as they seem and foes rarely show their hand all at once?




IMO the second example strains credibility alot because it's too vague and too broad.  Also what is the actual in-game reason here?... there is an in-game reason for why the technology in Numenera is poorly understood and at times dangerous...what would be the in-game reason for the fact that enemies hold back their forces and perfectly hide them?


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## Balesir (Mar 2, 2016)

Imaro said:


> No... again external circumstances does not necessarily equate to "not causally linked".  The external circumstances could wholly have come about because of your actions and that, IMO, is the flaw in your argument.



So, you are reading Monte as saying the non-incompetence related complication must be causally related to the action the character was rolling for, but external to... what, exactly? I just read "external" as meaning "external to the character's action". You, apparently, have some other externality in mind?



Imaro said:


> The difference is that in choosing to play Numenera you have already accepted the conceit that unknowable (to your character) causes can affect technology and equipment in weird and dangerous ways.  You haven't by default accepted the conceit that random, totally undetectable creatures (assuming they don't have some weird power to justify this) can appear out of thin air...



Funny - I live in a world where random, undetected (by me) creatures frequently come to my attention nearby. OK, not generally "out of thin air" (when did _that_ get added as a requirement?) - usually from around a corner, or out from under some sort of cover. Our cats often pop up without me having previously realised they were about. Is there some special reason why roleplaying characters are immune to ever having this sort of thing happen?



Imaro said:


> IMO the second example strains credibility alot because it's too vague and too broad.  Also what is the actual in-game reason here?... there is an in-game reason for why the technology in Numenera is poorly understood and at times dangerous...what would be the in-game reason for the fact that enemies hold back their forces and perfectly hide them?



Because said "enemy" was in another room (or just over a nearby rise or behind some nearby building) and unaware that some ne'er-do-well murder hobo was about to attack their friends and/or family? 

Or maybe a herd of wild cattle that were out of sight but not out of earshot got spooked by the din of combat and stampeded? Or maybe a dragon or chimaera was flying overhead when it noticed that some tasty morsels might become available as a result of that fight down there - especially if the carrion-to-be were given some "assistance" in dying...

In short - there are hundreds of plausible reasons why happenstance might bring unexpected friends (from either side) into the situation. Maybe the "Intrusion on a 1" mechanic will only occasion a subset of those (friends of the PCs' opponents turn up), but other Intrusion mechanics exist that might trigger the rest.


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## Imaro (Mar 2, 2016)

Balesir said:


> So, you are reading Monte as saying the non-incompetence related complication must be causally related to the action the character was rolling for, but external to... what, exactly? I just read "external" as meaning "external to the character's action". You, apparently, have some other externality in mind?




No... I don't think he's making a comment on whether it should be causally linked or not... only that the intrusion should at times be external to the character (if internal ones aren't fun for the players)... in other words not caused through his own ineptness (in whatever area is being rolled for)... since that is an internal (to the character) trait.  As to whether they should or shouldn't be causally linked... that's for the individual GM to decide.  As I said earlier I have used both.



Balesir said:


> Funny - I live in a world where random, undetected (by me) creatures frequently come to my attention nearby. OK, not generally "out of thin air" (when did _that_ get added as a requirement?) - usually from around a corner, or out from under some sort of cover. Our cats often pop up without me having previously realised they were about. Is there some special reason why roleplaying characters are immune to ever having this sort of thing happen?




Sooo... you fail your perception test... alot.  That seems internal to me.

A world of extraordinarily hidden creatures is not a premise of Numenera... one uses the Perception skill to determine whether one does or does not detect creatures... thus if you don't detect a creature it is an internal intrusion (auto fail on perception).



Balesir said:


> Because said "enemy" was in another room (or just over a nearby rise or behind some nearby building) and unaware that some ne'er-do-well murder hobo was about to attack their friends and/or family?
> 
> Or maybe a herd of wild cattle that were out of sight but not out of earshot got spooked by the din of combat and stampeded? Or maybe a dragon or chimaera was flying overhead when it noticed that some tasty morsels might become available as a result of that fight down there - especially if the carrion-to-be were given some "assistance" in dying...
> 
> In short - there are hundreds of plausible reasons why happenstance might bring unexpected friends (from either side) into the situation. Maybe the "Intrusion on a 1" mechanic will only occasion a subset of those (friends of the PCs' opponents turn up), but other Intrusion mechanics exist that might trigger the rest.




You're loosing me here... what was your point again?  I never said this type of intrusion couldn't be justified... it's basically an auto-failure on perception, which of course is internal to the character (something we were trying to avoid) or it's not causally related to the action taking place... my contention is that it's not the same as an equipment malfunction in the world of Numenera... where the character is using the equipment and thus it is causal but it cannot be his character's fault in an internal way because the malfunction has nothing to do with his own abilities.  Furthermore I addressed @_*pemerton*_'s question about a character who trains and builds up his knowledge of equipment (introduced as a counterpoint to the character's who have exceptionally high perception scores). by pointing out the fact that (as unlikely as it is he could understand all the myriad forms of tech in the Ninth World, and the fact that I'm not sure it's possible to build such a character by the rules) he still may not understand the device...through no fault of his own but through the genre/world conceits of playing in the Ninth World.  There is no genre conceit that beings will appear from around corners and buildings and above you without any chance to detect them...if there is please cite the pages where they talk about this aspect of the Ninth World...


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## Maxperson (Mar 2, 2016)

Balesir said:


> So, you are reading Monte as saying the non-incompetence related complication must be causally related to the action the character was rolling for, but external to... what, exactly? I just read "external" as meaning "external to the character's action". You, apparently, have some other externality in mind?




I read it as external to the character.  The PC slips would not be external to the character.  The PC is the one slipping.  The sword breaks is external to the PC.  The PC is not the one breaking the sword.  That was just bad luck.  Both can be linked to causally to the attack, though.


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## Hussar (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> I read it as external to the character.  The PC slips would not be external to the character.  The PC is the one slipping.  The sword breaks is external to the PC.  The PC is not the one breaking the sword.  That was just bad luck.  Both can be linked to causally to the attack, though.




That's some pretty fine hair splitting.  It is the character's sword after all and it is the character's action which directly leads to the sword breaking.  Character attacks, misses, hits the sword on something else (shield, ground, wall, whatever), and breaks the sword.  I'm not really convinced that's external to the character, or, if it is, just barely.

I would have thought that external means exactly that - not linked in any way to the character.  Thus, the fumble might cause more enemies to arrive - completely external to the character's actions.


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Hussar said:


> That's some pretty fine hair splitting.  It is the character's sword after all and it is the character's action which directly leads to the sword breaking.  Character attacks, misses, hits the sword on something else (shield, ground, wall, whatever), and breaks the sword.  I'm not really convinced that's external to the character, or, if it is, just barely.
> 
> I would have thought that external means exactly that - not linked in any way to the character.  Thus, the fumble might cause more enemies to arrive - completely external to the character's actions.




There is no hair splitting involved.  External is external.  Period.  If a PC fireballs a hut, his action caused an external explosion and damage to the hut.  The damage to the hut isn't internal to the PC.  The result is all that matters when it comes to internal or external.  Not the action.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> There is no hair splitting involved.  External is external.  Period.  If a PC fireballs a hut, his action caused an external explosion and damage to the hut.  The damage to the hut isn't internal to the PC.  The result is all that matters when it comes to internal or external.  Not the action.



I thought this conversation was talking about internal vs external as it relates to the _action_, rather than to the _character_.

Because there's a huge difference between critically failing and breaking your sword, vs critically failing and it turns out there were more guards in the next room who come rushing in. It's a significant distinction that the narrative result is something which follows from the action which was failed, rather than a bad thing happening that's totally unrelated to the action at hand.

If your critical failure is either you stab yourself _or_ you stab an ally, then that doesn't seem like a useful distinction. The outcome logically follows from the action, in either case.


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> I thought this conversation was talking about internal vs external as it relates to the _action_, rather than to the _character_.
> 
> Because there's a huge difference between critically failing and breaking your sword, vs critically failing and it turns out there were more guards in the next room who come rushing in. It's a significant distinction that the narrative result is something which follows from the action which was failed, rather than a bad thing happening that's totally unrelated to the action at hand.
> 
> If your critical failure is either you stab yourself _or_ you stab an ally, then that doesn't seem like a useful distinction. The outcome logically follows from the action, in either case.




I believe you're speaking to causal fumbles/failures (where whatever happens follows, in some logical fashion, from the action taking place)... I take external to mean outside the province of the character's abilities/aptitudes as the driving force causing it to happen.

EDIT: This line from the article sums it up for me...  




			
				 Monte said:
			
		

> Far more often, it should be some external circumstance that arises, and not something “wrong” that the character did.




IMO he's saying as opposed to character X shooting his friend in the arm/dropping his weapon (something he did) his weapon could jam/malfunction (an external circumstance)... Now whether the external circumstance follows causally from the action or not is, IMO, a different discussion... the example above does, but I could just as easily replace it with one that doesn't... such as a hitherto unnoticed cut above your eye begins to bleed profusely clouding your vision... or the sound of combat has drawn a strange creature from the edge of the forest nearby to investigate the noise...


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> I thought this conversation was talking about internal vs external as it relates to the _action_, rather than to the _character_.
> 
> Because there's a huge difference between critically failing and breaking your sword, vs critically failing and it turns out there were more guards in the next room who come rushing in. It's a significant distinction that the narrative result is something which follows from the action which was failed, rather than a bad thing happening that's totally unrelated to the action at hand.
> 
> If your critical failure is either you stab yourself _or_ you stab an ally, then that doesn't seem like a useful distinction. The outcome logically follows from the action, in either case.




Right, but the difference between stabbing someone accidentally and a weapon breaking accidentally is that the PC has no control and is not in any way responsible for the weapon breaking.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Right, but the difference between stabbing someone accidentally and a weapon breaking accidentally is that the PC has no control and is not in any way responsible for the weapon breaking.



I don't quite follow. The PC is responsible for swinging the weapon. The player/PC decided to swing the weapon, and the outcome - in either case - is a direct result of _extremely poor_ execution of that action. Either the PC whiffed so badly that their momentum carried through and hit someone else, or they whiffed so badly that their momentum carried through and into a stone wall which caused the weapon to break. It's the same thing.


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> I don't quite follow. The PC is responsible for swinging the weapon. The player/PC decided to swing the weapon, and the outcome - in either case - is a direct result of _extremely poor_ execution of that action. Either the PC whiffed so badly that their momentum carried through and hit someone else, or they whiffed so badly that their momentum carried through and into a stone wall which caused the weapon to break. It's the same thing.




How did the swing create the flaw in the weapon that finally caused it to break?  It didn't.  The PC had zero to do with why the weapon broke.


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> I don't quite follow. The PC is responsible for swinging the weapon. The player/PC decided to swing the weapon, and the outcome - in either case - is a direct result of _extremely poor_ execution of that action. Either the PC whiffed so badly that their momentum carried through and hit someone else, or they whiffed so badly that their momentum carried through and into a stone wall which caused the weapon to break. It's the same thing.




Or it's a direct result of the sword having been forged incorrectly or with shoddy materials... or normal wear and tear (not even swords ast forever), or... in other words the sword breaking does not have to be related to the skill or proficiency of the user whatsoever.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> How did the swing create the flaw in the weapon that finally caused it to break?  It didn't.  The PC had zero to do with why the weapon broke.



How did the swing create the flaw in the ally, which caused them to die after being struck? It's the same thing. 

It doesn't require a previously-undetected flaw in order for a weapon to break. You just need to whack it _really hard_ against a big rock. (If the GM describes the sword breaking by making up a new fact that it apparently had an undetected flaw, then that would be the same sort of internal-vs-external issue as spontaneously conjuring a swarm of guards.)



Imaro said:


> Or it's a direct result of the sword having been forged incorrectly or with shoddy materials... or normal wear and tear (not even swords ast forever), or... in other words the sword breaking does not have to be related to the skill or proficiency of the user whatsoever.



If that was the case, then it would be true regardless of what I rolled for my attack. It's impossible for the act of _swinging the sword_ to cause it to have been forged incorrectly in the first place. That just plain violates causality.


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> If that was the case, then it would be true regardless of what I rolled for my attack. It's impossible for the act of _swinging the sword_ to cause it to have been forged incorrectly in the first place. That just plain violates causality.




Why? do you think all flawed swords break on the first hit upon something every time?  Do you think the majority of swords that broke in history were because they were perfectly forged of the best materials and when they broke it was the first time they happened to hit something really really hard (with no external reasoning behind why after numerous uses they broke at this particular moment?)... think about that for a moment.

EDIT: The rolling of a 1 when performing the act of swinging the sword is the reason you happened to strike it at the weak point where it broke (ie a fumble or intrusion, these are the rules of the game we are talking about here)... it doesn't create the flaw in the sword (no sword is perfect).  Causality is maintained because the fumble/intrusion still happens due to your action and yet it's cause is an external circumstance (being forged badly, of shoddy material, having a weak point, etc.).


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Why? do you think all flawed swords break on the first hit upon something every time?  Do you think the majority of swords that broke in history were because they were perfectly forged of the best materials and when they broke it was the first time they happened to hit something really really hard (with no external reasoning behind why after numerous uses they broke at this particular moment?)... think about that for a moment.



That's not what an attack roll is, though. An attack roll is explicitly a check for how well you swing the sword. It's not a check for what else in the world could possibly go wrong to interfere with your swing, or what circumstances might have surrounded the creation of this weapon at some point in the past.

If you want to track weapon integrity as a separate factor, with its own set of checks involved, then go ahead. That's not part of the attack roll, though.


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> That's not what an attack roll is, though. An attack roll is explicitly a check for how well you swing the sword. It's not a check for what else in the world could possibly go wrong to interfere with your swing, or what circumstances might have surrounded the creation of this weapon at some point in the past.




Uhm... no.  In the Cypher system any roll of a 1 is a GM intrusion without the benefit of an xp award.  A GM intrusion has been explained in previous posts in this thread if you need a reference... but one thing a roll of 1 is not... is explicitly a check for how well you swing the sword (though it could easily be that if you want it to).  A roll of 1 is very much permission to decide what else could possibly interfere with your swing or what circumstances might have surrounded the creation of this weapon at some point in the past(as well as much, much  more). 



Saelorn said:


> If you want to track weapon integrity as a separate factor, with its own set of checks involved, then go ahead. That's not part of the attack roll, though.




We are talking about GM intrusions... they are triggered by rolling a 1 (on any roll, not just attacks)... that is what this entire article Monte wrote is about...


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> How did the swing create the flaw in the ally, which caused them to die after being struck? It's the same thing.




That's a joke, right?  The only way that makes any kind of sense in response to what I said is as a joke.



> It doesn't require a previously-undetected flaw in order for a weapon to break. You just need to whack it _really hard_ against a big rock. (If the GM describes the sword breaking by making up a new fact that it apparently had an undetected flaw, then that would be the same sort of internal-vs-external issue as spontaneously conjuring a swarm of guards.)




So what.  It's utterly, entirely and 100% irrelevant if a flaw is required for it to break or not.  Only the narrative of the fumble matters.  Your last sentence is also utter bupkis.  An undetected flaw that was there the entire time and finally broke the weapon isn't even remotely close to spontaneously conjuring up guards.



> If that was the case, then it would be true regardless of what I rolled for my attack. It's impossible for the act of _swinging the sword_ to cause it to have been forged incorrectly in the first place.




Um.  That's the point.  It's not the PC that caused it to break.  It was the fumble.  However, the swing is still causally linked to the breaking since the sword would not have broken without the swing.


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> That's not what an attack roll is, though. An attack roll is explicitly a check for how well you swing the sword.




It's not explicitly a check for that at all.  It's explicitly a check to see if you hit or miss.  Period.  You can hit with a crappy swing and miss with a very skilled swing.  How well you swing is irrelevant.



> It's not a check for what else in the world could possibly go wrong to interfere with your swing, or what circumstances might have surrounded the creation of this weapon at some point in the past.




A fumble is.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> So what.  It's utterly, entirely and 100% irrelevant if a flaw is required for it to break or not.  Only the narrative of the fumble matters.  Your last sentence is also utter bupkis.  An undetected flaw that was there the entire time and finally broke the weapon isn't even remotely close to spontaneously conjuring up guards.



If a previous flaw is required for the break, and that flaw isn't established until you make the attack, then it's in exactly the same category as conjuring up guards - the category of outcomes which cannot possibly be follow from the action which causes them. Swinging a sword cannot cause a flaw to have existed before you swung it, just like swinging a sword cannot cause guards to appear where previously none existed. They are the same gross violation of causality.



Maxperson said:


> Um.  That's the point.  It's not the PC that caused it to break.  It was the fumble.  However, the swing is still causally linked to the breaking since the sword would not have broken without the swing.



Fumbles aren't real things, within the game world. You can't ascribe blame to the fumble itself. The poor outcome of the swing _is_ the fault of the PC who swung so poorly. It's the fault of the PC that they were _such_ a terrible fighter that they managed to break their sword against a rock. Everyone _within_ the world can see it, and see how the outcome followed logically from the action.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Right, but the difference between stabbing someone accidentally and a weapon breaking accidentally is that the PC has no control and is not in any way responsible for the weapon breaking.



The PC has _exactly_ as much control over accidentally hitting an ally as they have over accidentally breaking their weapon - they chose to attack an enemy, knowing full well that they might hit an ally or break their weapon, and then they decided to go through with it anyway.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Imaro said:


> We are talking about GM intrusions... they are triggered by rolling a 1 (on any roll, not just attacks)... that is what this entire article Monte wrote is about...



The article was talking about both, and suggesting that intrusions are preferable to fumbles because they paint the character in a better light (unlucky, rather than incompetent). He neglects to mention that many players prefer that the outcome follow causally from the action at hand, and why that would be one reason to prefer fumbles over intrusions, but presumably anyone who signs up to play Cypher system knows what they're getting themselves into.

The OP made it seem like Monte's point applied more generally than that, but upon reading it again, it does seem limited to only those game with heavily abstracted checks (goal-based rather than process-based).


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The article was talking about both, and suggesting that intrusions are preferable to fumbles because they paint the character in a better light (unlucky, rather than incompetent). He neglects to mention that many players prefer that the outcome follow causally from the action at hand, and why that would be one reason to prefer fumbles over intrusions, but presumably anyone who signs up to play Cypher system knows what they're getting themselves into.




I still think you're misunderstanding the article as well as what a GM Intrusion is in relationship to a "fumble"...  In the Cypher system as written there is no specific "fumble", it is (as Monte is choosing to use the term in his article) a subset of GM Intrusions but the distinction is not made in the system itself.  A roll of a natural 1 in the Cypher system is a GM Intrusion where something bad happens.  

Now to the issue of causality and the sword breaking.  There is causality in the breaking of the sword because it directly arises from the sword being used in the example action we are discussing... plain and simple that is causality.

Assuming that all swords in whatever game you are speaking too... are made perfectly and all flaws are detectable by those who wield them (as opposed to smiths) and swords in your hypothetical world never suffer wear and tear in your games (which in my opinion is way more disassociated than assuming no weapon forged by a man is perfect), but given all that... 

I was specifically speaking to the Numenera game, in which the conceit that weapons, vehicles, equipment, technology, etc. is made from advanced/past/alien/trans-dimensional/etc. materials and knowledge that is poorly understood, re-jiggered for purposes it was never meant for and often dangerous to use.  This means the fact that a sword might break due to some unknown weakness in it's strange materials or some alien flaw in it's design it has that you are unaware of has been established as part of the world itself.  In agreeing to play Numenera you are agreeing to play in a world where this is fact and thus not created out of thin air. 



Saelorn said:


> The OP made it seem like Monte's point applied more generally than that, but upon reading it again, it does seem limited to only those game with heavily abstracted checks (goal-based rather than process-based).




Well the OP isn't the article and Monte makes it clear in the article that he is speaking to his own system/games.


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The PC has _exactly_ as much control over accidentally hitting an ally as they have over accidentally breaking their weapon - they chose to attack an enemy, knowing full well that they might hit an ally or break their weapon, and then they decided to go through with it anyway.




False.  The PC knows that if he swings or fires into a chaotic melee, hitting an ally is a possibility.  He has chosen to take that risk.  He does not know that there is a flaw and that his weapon might break in this fight.  He has less control.


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## Maxperson (Mar 3, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> If a previous flaw is required for the break, and that flaw isn't established until you make the attack, then it's in exactly the same category as conjuring up guards - the category of outcomes which cannot possibly be follow from the action which causes them. Swinging a sword cannot cause a flaw to have existed before you swung it, just like swinging a sword cannot cause guards to appear where previously none existed. They are the same gross violation of causality.




You can keep repeating it, but it's not at all in the same category.  The flaw proceeds directly from the action and is related to it.  The guards are not.



> Fumbles aren't real things, within the game world. You can't ascribe blame to the fumble itself. The poor outcome of the swing _is_ the fault of the PC who swung so poorly. It's the fault of the PC that they were _such_ a terrible fighter that they managed to break their sword against a rock. Everyone _within_ the world can see it, and see how the outcome followed logically from the action.




Fumbles are a real thing within the game world.  They may not be called "fumble", but bad luck is a thing.  It exists.  The PCs know it exists.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 3, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> False.  The PC knows that if he swings or fires into a chaotic melee, hitting an ally is a possibility.  He has chosen to take that risk.  He does not know that there is a flaw and that his weapon might break in this fight.  He has less control.



Why does the PC know that he might hit an ally (and possibly kill them), but not know that he might hit an adjacent stone wall (and possibly break the sword)? Those both seem equally (un)likely as outcomes for swinging a sword. I mean, that's a really weird premise, for him to be aware of one possibility but not aware of the other possibility. Does he not know that sometimes swords can break, if you hit a wall?


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## Balesir (Mar 3, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Sooo... you fail your perception test... alot.  That seems internal to me.
> 
> A world of extraordinarily hidden creatures is not a premise of Numenera... one uses the Perception skill to determine whether one does or does not detect creatures... thus if you don't detect a creature it is an internal intrusion (auto fail on perception).



This doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. By this measure, it is a "failure of perception" that we don't know the location of every other creature on the planet - this is obviously false. Perception isn't about being aware of some creature or not - it's about _*when*_ you become aware of a creature that may interact with you. If I have no idea if my neighbour across the road is at home or not, that's not a "failure of perception". If I miss them leaving via their front door, it's more a matter of happenstance whether I happen to be stood by a window that overlooks their front door than any skill on my part. If I miss them coming in *my* front door (while I am in the house), on the other hand, the claim of "failed my perception" would hold considerably more weight.

For the reinforcements, nothing so far said (as far as I can tell) suggests that they have to pop up in close or even melee range of the PCs. They might be 30 or 40 yards away or more, emerging from a wood or a nearby village, or closer but emerging through a door that they have just opened. The "perception" question I usually resolve by having the players roll against Perception - the results dictate how far away the reinforcements set up. Poor rolls means as close as they might conceivably have got while remaining out of sight; good rolls mean some way away, with possible opportunities for ranged attacks on the way in (if the characters can spare the time from dealing with the enemies already in contact with them...)



Maxperson said:


> I read it as external to the character.  The PC slips would not be external to the character.  The PC is the one slipping.  The sword breaks is external to the PC.  The PC is not the one breaking the sword.  That was just bad luck.  Both can be linked to causally to the attack, though.



By that measure, wouldn't the PC missing because the opponent ducked be "external"?

As an aside, most if not all plausible ways I can think of for a sword to actually break arise directly from the interplay of moves by the fighters - in other words, they do very much depend on the relative skills.


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## Hussar (Mar 3, 2016)

I guess my question would be, would there be any way to detect that flaw in the sword beforehand?  IOW, did the flaw actually exist in the game world before that fumble was rolled?


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## Balesir (Mar 3, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I guess my question would be, would there be any way to detect that flaw in the sword beforehand?  IOW, did the flaw actually exist in the game world before that fumble was rolled?



I wasn't thinking so much that, but a sword that has survived everyday handling and use (practice and so on) is not going to break merely by being whipped out of the scabbard a bit fast 

You don't really aim to put your own weapon under much stress in a fight at all - it's your opponent who will try to stress it while bashing it out of the way or trying to wrest it from your grasp or leverage it against you in some sort of 'lock'. Getting into any of these situations is at least partly your own fault (with the possible exception of the hard parry - you might actually be trying to draw that to set up a closing move).


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Balesir said:


> This doesn't really hold up to scrutiny. By this measure, it is a "failure of perception" that we don't know the location of every other creature on the planet - this is obviously false. Perception isn't about being aware of some creature or not - it's about _*when*_ you become aware of a creature that may interact with you. If I have no idea if my neighbour across the road is at home or not, that's not a "failure of perception". If I miss them leaving via their front door, it's more a matter of happenstance whether I happen to be stood by a window that overlooks their front door than any skill on my part. If I miss them coming in *my* front door (while I am in the house), on the other hand, the claim of "failed my perception" would hold considerably more weight.
> 
> For the reinforcements, nothing so far said (as far as I can tell) suggests that they have to pop up in close or even melee range of the PCs. They might be 30 or 40 yards away or more, emerging from a wood or a nearby village, or closer but emerging through a door that they have just opened. The "perception" question I usually resolve by having the players roll against Perception - the results dictate how far away the reinforcements set up. Poor rolls means as close as they might conceivably have got while remaining out of sight; good rolls mean some way away, with possible opportunities for ranged attacks on the way in (if the characters can spare the time from dealing with the enemies already in contact with them...)




I said this earlier and I'll say it again... you're loosing me here... what exactly is this discussion we are having about?  Let me review for you...

I stated that a conceit of the Ninth World (Numenera) was that technology, weapons, vehicles, cyphers, artifacts, etc. were constructed of poorly understood materials, knowledge, etc. from various past epochs, dimensions, alien races, etc. and rejiggered for the purposes they were now being used on the planet.  Thus an unknown flaw, malfunction, short, jam, etc in equipment at anytime is something the player buy into when agreeing to play Numenera...  

pemerton asked if creatures always holding forces back could be accepted as a "fact" about the world if a GM played all creatures as tacticians who held their forces back and I stated that IMO it was to vague & broad (there are specific Numenera creatures who just wouldn't do this whether due to lack of intelligence, contrary instincts or being loners) and  that even if the DM plays in this manner there is no in-world justification, as there is for equipment.

So with that recap out the way... what exactly is your point?  Are you claiming it's not too broad or vague for all of the creatures in the Ninth World to behave in such a manner?  Are you claiming there is an in-world justification for it?  If not what exactly are you even talking about?


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## Imaro (Mar 3, 2016)

Hussar said:


> I guess my question would be, would there be any way to detect that flaw in the sword beforehand?  IOW, did the flaw actually exist in the game world before that fumble was rolled?




Please re-read the conceits of the Ninth World... I have posted them numerous times.  Now it's possible to try and limit one's weapon to say... a known material (though even then the book is clear that the substance you pick may only look like what you think it is) and take a skill related to what you think this material is... but you can never be 100% sure it's the material you think it is or that your forging techniques didn't leave a flaw in it of some kind.  Technology never really being fully understood is a conceit of the world... in the same way that a human dominated world is a conceit of most sword and sorcery fantasy...


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## Maxperson (Mar 4, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> Why does the PC know that he might hit an ally (and possibly kill them), but not know that he might hit an adjacent stone wall (and possibly break the sword)? Those both seem equally (un)likely as outcomes for swinging a sword. I mean, that's a really weird premise, for him to be aware of one possibility but not aware of the other possibility. Does he not know that sometimes swords can break, if you hit a wall?




That's moving the goal post.  Nobody is talking about a wall.  There's no reason to expect the sword to break in normal usage, and normal usage is all that we're discussing.


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## Maxperson (Mar 4, 2016)

Balesir said:


> By that measure, wouldn't the PC missing because the opponent ducked be "external"?




Sure.  Internal and external are basically decided by the narrative.  It's all in how the DM describes what happens.



> As an aside, most if not all plausible ways I can think of for a sword to actually break arise directly from the interplay of moves by the fighters - in other words, they do very much depend on the relative skills.




Skill has nothing to do with flaws in the sword.  That's at a minimum one plausible way for a sword to break that doesn't involve skills, relative or otherwise.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 4, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> That's moving the goal post.  Nobody is talking about a wall.  There's no reason to expect the sword to break in normal usage, and normal usage is all that we're discussing.



I don't expect to hit an ally during normal usage. Both things are equally extreme to me.


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## Aldarc (Mar 4, 2016)

Imaro said:


> pemerton asked if creatures always holding forces back could be accepted as a "fact" about the world if a GM played all creatures as tacticians who held their forces back and I stated that IMO it was to vague & broad (there are specific Numenera creatures who just wouldn't do this whether due to lack of intelligence, contrary instincts or being loners) and  that even if the DM plays in this manner there is no in-world justification, as there is for equipment.
> 
> So with that recap out the way... what exactly is your point?  Are you claiming it's not too broad or vague for all of the creatures in the Ninth World to behave in such a manner?  Are you claiming there is an in-world justification for it?  If not what exactly are you even talking about?



The thing is though: every bestiary entry in the Ninth World (not to mention the Strange and CSR) comes with a suggested GM Intrusion as well as info on combat styles.


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## Imaro (Mar 4, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> The thing is though: every bestiary entry in the Ninth World (not to mention the Strange and CSR) comes with a suggested GM Intrusion as well as info on combat styles.




I think you're supporting my assertion here... The suggested GM Intrusions given for the monsters are much more varied than "held back forces to attack later"... now unless we're going to make that (holds back forces in reserve) an intrinsic nature of every creature in the Ninth World... and thus changing the canon nature of numerous creatures as they are written in the book... I'm not sure how this can be a conceit of the Ninth World... and that's with it still lacking an in-world justification. 

Now in bringing the suggested Intrusions for opponents to my attention I think (and because of the Cypher system's rule that only players roll dice) you've helped me establish another category of GM Intrusions (on a rolled 1 ) that satisfy @_*pemerton*_'s 3 criteria 



pemerton said:


> (1) That a nat 1 is not just a fail. It's a trigger for something more than a failure - what, upthread, I called a "big" or distincitve event. Something other than "nothing happens".
> 
> (2) That _typically_, even _primarily_, such events ought not to be due to major screw-ups by the failing character (_not something "wrong" that the character did)_.
> 
> (3') Following on from (2), that _far more often_ these events should be _external circumstances_ such as reinforcements, rather than events that (in-fiction) are causally downstream of the failing character's action.​




I think that almost any (there are a few I've seen that circle back to a failure on the character's part... like the failure to notice more of them) GM Intrusion based around an opponent (after the player rolled a 1) will meet all of these criteria... do you agree?

EDIT:   Some examples of of the GM Intrusions I am talking about...

Creature: Sarrak
GM Intrusion: The sarrak acting out of turn takes control of a device that the character is about to use against it.  The sarrak deactivates the device or perhaos turns it against it's owner.

Creature: Ravage Bear
GM Intrusion: In it's rage, the beast makes an extra attack with a +2 bonus.

Creature: Ghost Crab
GM Intrusion: A PC damages or removes one of the Ghost Crab's front claws, causing the creature to quickly spin a new one.  The new claw is nearly twice as large as the first, increasing damage to 8 points.

Creature: Dread Destroyer
GM Intrusion: The dread destroyer activates an energy surge that repairs 1d6+4 points of it's own damage and makes an electrical attack that inflicts 20 points of damage on a single target.

These are all...
1. events outside normal failure.
2. not due to any major screw up by the character
3. are or can be easily made causally related to the actions taken by the PC.


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## Neonchameleon (Mar 4, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> The PC has _exactly_ as much control over accidentally hitting an ally as they have over accidentally breaking their weapon - they chose to attack an enemy, knowing full well that they might hit an ally or break their weapon, and then they decided to go through with it anyway.




And this comes back to the natural 1 = fumble problem. You should be able to go in while being more autious - and both how you go in and your level of skill should influence the probability of such blowback (a good swordsman will be able to protect their blade as well as everything else).


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## Imaro (Mar 4, 2016)

Neonchameleon said:


> And this comes back to the natural 1 = fumble problem. You should be able to go in while being more autious - and both how you go in and your level of skill should influence the probability of such blowback (a good swordsman will be able to protect their blade as well as everything else).




Unless of course the "good swordsman"  is fighting a superior or even equal opponent... or the "good swordsmen" (as opposed to a weapon smith) is unaware of the flaws in his weapon in the first place... or the "good swordsmen" has a string of bad luck... or the "good swordsmen" has an opponent who specializes in breaking weapons... or the "good swordsmen" is beset by numerous opponents... in other words just claiming that a "good swordsmen" should have less chance of breaking his sword/hitting an ally than a less skilled one is ignoring all of the other factors at play... especially in rpg's where the challenges tend to escalate with the improvement in skill.

EDIT: Personally I don't think there is a "problem" with fumbles if everyone is on board for it and if not... it's easy enough to choose not to institute them in your particular game (another advantage to a simple 1=fumble abstraction... very easy to eliminate from a game. ).  It's a case where I'd rather have a simple abstraction 1=fumble than to have to figure out all the modifiers and bonuses that add up to what exactly the chance of a fumble should be for each combat and for each individual character.


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## Maxperson (Mar 4, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> I don't expect to hit an ally during normal usage. Both things are equally extreme to me.




Oh.  Are you one of those people who think that D&D combats involve figures that just stand there static and don't do anything out of turn at all?  Because that's not how combat works.  In a combat, the participants are always moving, turning, dodging, parrying, thrusting, and so on, no matter whose turn it is.  When you have 3 or more figures in close proximity all moving, dodging, etc., it's pretty easy to imagine a few of them moving in an unexpected manner and someone accidentally hitting an ally.


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## Neonchameleon (Mar 4, 2016)

Imaro said:


> Unless of course the "good swordsman" is fighting a superior or even equal opponent... or the "good swordsmen" (as opposed to a weapon smith) is unaware of the flaws in his weapon in the first place... or the "good swordsmen" has a string of bad luck... or the "good swordsmen" has an opponent who specializes in breaking weapons... or the "good swordsmen" is beset by numerous opponents... in other words just claiming that a "good swordsmen" should have less chance of breaking his sword/hitting an ally than a less skilled one is ignoring all of the other factors at play... especially in rpg's where the challenges tend to escalate with the improvement in skill.




In every single one of those situations except the unknown flaw in the weapon you have added a condition that the good swordsman is better able to overcome than a bad swordsman would be - and even that situation is dubious because one of the skills with weapons is taking care of them so they serve you better.

And because all those situations will affect a mediocre swordsman more than a good one you've quite literally had to re-write the world to balance out the effectiveness of the PCs, making character skill pointless. And even then have arguably failed.



> EDIT: Personally I don't think there is a "problem" with fumbles if everyone is on board for it and if not... it's easy enough to choose not to institute them in your particular game (another advantage to a simple 1=fumble abstraction... very easy to eliminate from a game. ). It's a case where I'd rather have a simple abstraction 1=fumble than to have to figure out all the modifiers and bonuses that add up to what exactly the chance of a fumble should be for each combat and for each individual character.




As I said right at the start of the thread, I use the 1= possible reroll option tweaked from 4e Dark Sun. You can choose to play it safe and not take the reroll - or you can take the risk by rerollinkg, knowing you fumble if you fail to hit on the reroll. It's much more interactive, much more evocative, and it's more fun on both sides of the table.


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## Imaro (Mar 4, 2016)

Neonchameleon said:


> In every single one of those situations except the unknown flaw in the weapon you have added a condition that the good swordsman is better able to overcome than a bad swordsman would be - and even that situation is dubious because one of the skills with weapons is taking care of them so they serve you better.
> 
> And because all those situations will affect a mediocre swordsman more than a good one you've quite literally had to re-write the world to balance out the effectiveness of the PCs, making character skill pointless. And even then have arguably failed.




Yes but the mediocre or bad swordsman in those same positions will be dead... that's why they don't fumble as much... they get killed and probably pretty quickly... in other words they suffer the worst fumble ever, death.

EDIT: And knowing how to properly maintain something doesn't equate to having deep knowledge about how it was created... I know how to properly maintain my car... but that doesn't make me a mechanic.

2nd edit: More experienced fighters tend to learn and try more complicated and riskier moves... which in turn means a greater chance to screw the pooch. However it's their experience that (sometimes) allows them to recover from it and keep going in the fight.  



Neonchameleon said:


> As I said right at the start of the thread, I use the 1= possible reroll option tweaked from 4e Dark Sun. You can choose to play it safe and not take the reroll - or you can take the risk by rerollinkg, knowing you fumble if you fail to hit on the reroll. It's much more interactive, much more evocative, and it's more fun on both sides of the table.




more evocative, interactive and fun for you and your table maybe... which is fine but please don't assume you know what is all those things for everyone else who plays roleplaying games.


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## pemerton (Mar 4, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> An undetected flaw that was there the entire time and finally broke the weapon isn't even remotely close to spontaneously conjuring up guards.





Saelorn said:


> If a previous flaw is required for the break, and that flaw isn't established until you make the attack, then it's in exactly the same category as conjuring up guards - the category of outcomes which cannot possibly be follow from the action which causes them.



I don't agree with Saelorn about the _importance _of correlating ingame, imagined causality with the real-world, at-the-table causality of rolling dice and applying mechanics to those rolls.

But I do agree that, whether the intrusion leads to narration of a flaw or narration of a guard, there is an absence of such correlation.

And if we say that the character's attack still mattered somewhat, because that is what caused the flawed weapon to break, well likewise the character's attack still mattered in the guard scenario also, because the guard has come to see what all the noise of combat is about.



Hussar said:


> I guess my question would be, would there be any way to detect that flaw in the sword beforehand?  IOW, did the flaw actually exist in the game world before that fumble was rolled?



I already raised this same point upthread, when I asked in post 341 upthread whether it is an obstacle to the GM using the weapon-breakage "intrusion" if the PCs have very high repair skills, spend a lot of time emphasising how well they are maintaining their equipment, etc?

I didn't get an answer.


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## Imaro (Mar 4, 2016)

pemerton said:


> I don't agree with Saelorn about the _importance _of correlating ingame, imagined causality with the real-world, at-the-table causality of rolling dice and applying mechanics to those rolls.
> 
> But I do agree that, whether the intrusion leads to narration of a flaw or narration of a guard, there is an absence of such correlation.
> 
> And if we say that the character's attack still mattered somewhat, because that is what caused the flawed weapon to break, well likewise the character's attack still mattered in the guard scenario also, because the guard has come to see what all the noise of combat is about.




So the guard has a chance to notice the PC's... but the PC's have absolutely zero chance to hear or notice the guard... why?

EDIT: Remember you've now added certain assumptions to the scenario which were not part of it before... the guard is in hearing range and close enough to reach the PC's.  At that point the PC's should have had a chance of noticing or hearing him as well.  So this now becomes a failure on the part of the PC's in not detecting the guard...



pemerton said:


> I already raised this same point upthread, when I asked in post 341 upthread whether it is an obstacle to the GM using the weapon-breakage "intrusion" if the PCs have very high repair skills, spend a lot of time emphasising how well they are maintaining their equipment, etc?
> 
> I didn't get an answer.




I thought I addressed your question, my bad... but here's my answer in a reply to Balesir



Imaro said:


> Furthermore I addressed @_*pemerton*_'s question about a character who trains and builds up his knowledge of equipment (introduced as a counterpoint to the character's who have exceptionally high perception scores). by pointing out the fact that (as unlikely as it is he could understand all the myriad forms of tech in the Ninth World, and the fact that I'm not sure it's possible to build such a character by the rules) he still may not understand the device...through no fault of his own but through the genre/world conceits of playing in the Ninth World.  There is no genre conceit that beings will appear from around corners and buildings and above you without any chance to detect them...if there is please cite the pages where they talk about this aspect of the Ninth World...




Now my question is why does this matter?  My purpose was to show that there are cases of Intrusions that meet your criteria... technically I would assume PC's have a way to minimize or eliminate all forms of fumbles if given unlimited resources, and unrestrained abilities... theoretically (it's the Batman fallacy).  But the fact of the matter is that for some percentage of X PC's (even if they have repair skills and the GM totally throws out the conceits of the Ninth World in making all technology, understandable, common and relatable with the correct application of said skills.) will not have the skills or will lack them in certain areas thus making this type of fumble valid and meeting all 3 of your criteria.

I have also, in case you didn't notice it brought up another type of fumble/Intrusion that seems to meet all of your criteria and that is one based around the opponent as opposed to the character... which I talked about in a previous post.


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 4, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> Oh.  Are you one of those people who think that D&D combats involve figures that just stand there static and don't do anything out of turn at all?  Because that's not how combat works.  In a combat, the participants are always moving, turning, dodging, parrying, thrusting, and so on, no matter whose turn it is.  When you have 3 or more figures in close proximity all moving, dodging, etc., it's pretty easy to imagine a few of them moving in an unexpected manner and someone accidentally hitting an ally.



I think that the mechanics for resolving a combat are accurate _enough_ to represent the situation that's going on, or else there would be no point to any of it. There's plenty of extraneous movement that doesn't get narrated, sure, but I still don't expect to hit an ally when I aim my sword or bow at an enemy. If there was a significant chance of hitting a wrong target, then there would be a rule for that somewhere. Since there isn't, then every fighter in the world knows that such an event is unlikely (probably as a result of the 5-foot-square approximation), or at least not significantly _more_ likely than breaking your weapon - which is another event that everyone knows _could_ happen, but which is so incredibly rare that it doesn't bear mention within the rules.


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## Balesir (Mar 4, 2016)

Imaro said:


> I said this earlier and I'll say it again... you're loosing me here... what exactly is this discussion we are having about?  Let me review for you...
> 
> I stated that a conceit of the Ninth World (Numenera) was that technology, weapons, vehicles, cyphers, artifacts, etc. were constructed of poorly understood materials, knowledge, etc. from various past epochs, dimensions, alien races, etc. and rejiggered for the purposes they were now being used on the planet.  Thus an unknown flaw, malfunction, short, jam, etc in equipment at anytime is something the player buy into when agreeing to play Numenera...



Thanks for the condescending cheap shot, but that is the discussion between you and [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] and nothing to do with what I was responding to.



Imaro said:


> pemerton asked if creatures always holding forces back could be accepted as a "fact" about the world if a GM played all creatures as tacticians who held their forces back and I stated that IMO it was to vague & broad (there are specific Numenera creatures who just wouldn't do this whether due to lack of intelligence, contrary instincts or being loners) and  that even if the DM plays in this manner there is no in-world justification, as there is for equipment.



This is tangentially related to what  Iwas responding to, because the representation of what was originally asked and your response was not quite like this. What I was responding to was these comments about the possibility of "unexpected reinforcements":



Imaro said:


> You haven't by default accepted the conceit that random, totally undetectable creatures (assuming they don't have some weird power to justify this) can appear out of thin air...





Imaro said:


> what would be the in-game reason for the fact that enemies hold back their forces and perfectly hide them?





Imaro said:


> A world of extraordinarily hidden creatures is not a premise of Numenera... one uses the Perception skill to determine whether one does or does not detect creatures... thus if you don't detect a creature it is an internal intrusion (auto fail on perception).





Imaro said:


> I never said this type of intrusion couldn't be justified... it's basically an auto-failure on perception, which of course is internal to the character (something we were trying to avoid) or it's not causally related to the action taking place...



My "point" is that all of this is a great big strawman, because the appearance of additional foes during a fight does not necessarily imply or require "totally undetectable creatures" that "can appear out of thin air", forces that are "perfectly hidden" or an "auto fail on perception".

Sure, unexpected reinforcements should not be used too often - but that applies to *all* types of intrusions, I would think. But creatures - even hostile ones - hoving into view is a perfectly natural part of real life, many types of fiction and several roleplaying games (apart from yours, apparently).



Imaro said:


> So with that recap out the way... what exactly is your point?  Are you claiming it's not too broad or vague for all of the creatures in the Ninth World to behave in such a manner?  Are you claiming there is an in-world justification for it?  If not what exactly are you even talking about?



No, I'm reacting to what I read you saying. I'm not even trying to follow your overarching "point", since it seems to mutate according to what arguments are made against you. You adhere well to the dictum "attack is the best means of defence", but your "defence" appears to be just ignoring any points that counter your thrusts. To be honest, I expect the same again.


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## Imaro (Mar 4, 2016)

Balesir said:


> Thanks for the condescending cheap shot, but that is the discussion between you and  @_*pemerton*_ and nothing to do with what I was responding to.




So reviewing the conversation that you jumped into the middle of and responded too is condescending.  I can't even...



Balesir said:


> This is tangentially related to what  I was responding to, because the representation of what was originally asked and your response was not quite like this. What I was responding to was these comments about the possibility of "unexpected reinforcements":




Context is everything... thus the recap... you jumped in the middle of a conversation between me and @_*pemerton*_ and apparently didn't understand the context of the discussion going on... and now instead of admitting that, you've created a separate conversation around posts taken out of their original context... the point of which only you seem to have known (I guess I should have read your mind and realized it was a separate tangent). 




Balesir said:


> My "point" is that all of this is a great big strawman, because the appearance of additional foes during a fight does not necessarily imply or require "totally undetectable creatures" that "can appear out of thin air", forces that are "perfectly hidden" or an "auto fail on perception".




It does if you take away the ability for said creature to be detected... but somehow the creature in turn detected and surprised the PC's.  We (I and @_*pemerton*_ were talking about a specific situation/circumstance (Ninth World) in a specific system (Cypher)) you on the other hand are discussing the "I just make up anything situation" and the "no one knows what system"... so yeah I'm sure you can create some specific circumstance where the creatures were perfectly hidden... the PC's shouldn't have even gotten a chance to notice them... and yet they have suddenly appeared within a close enough range of the PC's to complicate whatever they are doing.  If that's your goal you win, I guess... but that wasn't what we were discussing.



Balesir said:


> Sure, unexpected reinforcements should not be used too often - but that applies to *all* types of intrusions, I would think. But creatures - even hostile ones - hoving into view is a perfectly natural part of real life, many types of fiction and several roleplaying games (apart from yours, apparently).




Again... you missed the point.  there was a comparison going on between two different types of Intrusions or "fumbles" but yeah you keep on arguing... or you could actually go back, catch up and understand the discussion you've jumped into.

EDIT: I also stated earlier in the thread that I use causal and non-causal Intrusions in my game... so yes I have used this Intrusion before but I recognize it as the bad thing being that the PC's failed to notice these extra enemies... thus an auto-failure on Perception.  This was one of the points, IMO, that violates the 3 criteria that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] set out for the particular type of fumble we were discussing.



Balesir said:


> No, I'm reacting to what I read you saying. I'm not even trying to follow your overarching "point", since it seems to mutate according to what arguments are made against you. You adhere well to the dictum "attack is the best means of defence", but your "defence" appears to be just ignoring any points that counter your thrusts. To be honest, I expect the same again.




So you're not following my overarching point... yet you somehow believe you know that it mutates... That makes perfect sense... wait no it doesn't, not at all.  

I haven't "attacked" anyone, I've been explaining why I believe certain things about the article... you're the one who came in all full of snark, uninformed about the current discussion and are now having what amounts to a forum temper tantrum because your point is incoherent and I called you on it.

If you're not addressing my overarching point... then expect me to ignore your "counters" since by your own admission they aren't countering or addressing my point.  You're arguing something else, the crux of which I still don't seem to understand.  Is it that having enemies appear from nowhere on an Intrusion is... what exactly?  

Not a failure of the character?  Because it most certainly is... they didn't perceive them in time.
A conceit of the Ninth World?  Because it's not mentioned in my rule book.
Believable?  No one said it wasn't.

So tell me because I asked earlier and all you've done is everything but clearly state what it is you are arguing for... What is the point you are trying to make?


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## Maxperson (Mar 4, 2016)

Saelorn said:


> I think that the mechanics for resolving a combat are accurate _enough_ to represent the situation that's going on, or else there would be no point to any of it. There's plenty of extraneous movement that doesn't get narrated, sure, but I still don't expect to hit an ally when I aim my sword or bow at an enemy. If there was a significant chance of hitting a wrong target, then there would be a rule for that somewhere. Since there isn't, then every fighter in the world knows that such an event is unlikely (probably as a result of the 5-foot-square approximation), or at least not significantly _more_ likely than breaking your weapon - which is another event that everyone knows _could_ happen, but which is so incredibly rare that it doesn't bear mention within the rules.




There are rules for hitting an ally and breaking weapons.  They're called fumble rules.  Not all tables play with them.


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## Balesir (Mar 4, 2016)

Balesir said:


> To be honest, I expect the same again.



And whaddaya know - I was right!


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## Imaro (Mar 4, 2016)

Balesir said:


> And whaddaya know - I was right!




So tell me because I asked earlier and all you've done is everything but clearly state what it is you are arguing for... What is the point you are trying to make?  Or is this question so hard to answer because ultimately you don't even know what it is?


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## The Crimson Binome (Mar 4, 2016)

Maxperson said:


> There are rules for hitting an ally and breaking weapons.  They're called fumble rules.  Not all tables play with them.



As long as they're in the rulebook, and I've seen the rulebook, and know which rules we are using and which ones we are not, and my character knows that those are both possibilities for choosing to make an attack, then I have no room to complain about either result.

But if the fumble table includes an entry for adding a wandering monster to the fight, then I'm probably not going to play that game, since the outcome does not logically follow from the action which caused it. (And that's important to me.)


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## Aldarc (Mar 7, 2016)

Imaro said:


> I think you're supporting my assertion here... The suggested GM Intrusions given for the monsters are much more varied than "held back forces to attack later"... now unless we're going to make that (holds back forces in reserve) an intrinsic nature of every creature in the Ninth World... and thus changing the canon nature of numerous creatures as they are written in the book... I'm not sure how this can be a conceit of the Ninth World... and that's with it still lacking an in-world justification.
> 
> Now in bringing the suggested Intrusions for opponents to my attention I think (and because of the Cypher system's rule that only players roll dice) you've helped me establish another category of GM Intrusions (on a rolled 1 ) that satisfy @_*pemerton*_'s 3 criteria



I don't think that this is an either/or scenario in regards to the debate. Middle ground does exist. It would not be appropriate for every creature to have more show up for reinforcements. It is appropriate for some, but not all. And to say that some do does not mean that they come "out of thin air." 

For example, here is the GM Intrusion recommended for Margr (basically goat-headed orcs): "GM Intrusion: There are more margr! 1d6 reinforcements arrive." But there's another GM Intrusion from the preceding creature entry that would also be potentially appropriate: "GM Intrusion: The laak is tougher and more tenacious than others of its kind. It has 4 extra health and inflicts 1 additional point of damage." I.e., you don't make more troops come out of nowhere, but you up the difficulty of the preexisting NPCs on the table. This is to say, much to the surprise of the GM and the players, the NPCs were tougher than originally imagined. The appropriateness of such a GM Intrusion, however, is connected to the setting and narrative, which is consistent what others have been saying as well. 



> I think that almost any (there are a few I've seen that circle back to a failure on the character's part... like the failure to notice more of them) GM Intrusion based around an opponent (after the player rolled a 1) will meet all of these criteria... do you agree?



I tentatively agree that many GM Intrusions are based around the opponents. I think that is often since the GM has no real control over the NPCs in the manner that players have over their PCs, unlike in other systems. So the GM Intrusion allows the NPCs to "crit" or do extraordinary things themselves. 



> EDIT:   Some examples of of the GM Intrusions I am talking about...
> 
> These are all...
> 1. events outside normal failure.
> ...



I can see the case for that.


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## Imaro (Mar 7, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> I don't think that this is an either/or scenario in regards to the debate. Middle ground does exist. It would not be appropriate for every creature to have more show up for reinforcements. It is appropriate for some, but not all. And to say that some do does not mean that they come "out of thin air."
> 
> For example, here is the GM Intrusion recommended for Margr (basically goat-headed orcs): "GM Intrusion: There are more margr! 1d6 reinforcements arrive." But there's another GM Intrusion from the preceding creature entry that would also be potentially appropriate: "GM Intrusion: The laak is tougher and more tenacious than others of its kind. It has 4 extra health and inflicts 1 additional point of damage." I.e., you don't make more troops come out of nowhere, but you up the difficulty of the preexisting NPCs on the table. This is to say, much to the surprise of the GM and the players, the NPCs were tougher than originally imagined. The appropriateness of such a GM Intrusion, however, is connected to the setting and narrative, which is consistent what others have been saying as well.





It's an either or debate only because we are comparing it to the same type of intrusion as a technological malfunction in Numenera.  My contention is that Numenera and the Ninth World make this type of GM Intrusion widely applicable and causal because there is a baked in reason in the setting while there is no baked in setting reason for creatures always being hidden and/or in reserve or creatures that get tougher.  Yes this might be applicable to individual creatures (or groups of creatures) but is is not in and of itself a conceit of the Ninth World as a whole.

I have never made the claim that this type of Intrusion isn't or shouldn't be in Numenera or the Ninth world... only that it does not meet [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]s 3 criteria and that it is not the same (neither broadly applicable nor justified through the conceits of the world as the tech malfunction/flaw intrusion would be).  That's it, that's my assertion and I think you agree with it.  

As to why I keep saying "out of thin air"... well because it's the truth.  When using a GM intrusion to manifest these extra creatures the GM is pulling them out of thin air.  They were not established before and there was no chance the PC's could detect them... what else is that but the GM pulling them out of thin air?  I'm not even sure why it's a contentious assertion for me to make since the GM Intrusion specifically grants you the right to do this but let's not pretend it's.... causal in any way or not a failure on the part of the PC's to notice something... because it's both.




Aldarc said:


> I tentatively agree that many GM Intrusions are based around the opponents. I think that is often since the GM has no real control over the NPCs in the manner that players have over their PCs, unlike in other systems. So the GM Intrusion allows the NPCs to "crit" or do extraordinary things themselves.
> 
> I can see the case for that.




I disagree with part of this statement... the GM has just as much control over the NPC's as a player has over his character in Numenera, the only difference is who rolls the dice. However I do agree with the last part... the GM's chance to do extraordinary things with his NPC's relies instead on the player rolling a 1 as opposed to him rolling it himself.

Now again it seems the point of this discussion is being lost, I was asked to provide Intrusions that meet pemerton's criteria and I believe many of these (though not all) do because...

1. All are different from regular failures on the part of the character
2. Many/most are not a result of the character being incompetent in an area
3. They are causal from the behavior/characteristics/etc. of the creature

Do you agree with this?


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## Aldarc (Mar 7, 2016)

Imaro said:


> It's an either or debate only because we are comparing it to the same type of intrusion as a technological malfunction in Numenera.  My contention is that Numenera and the Ninth World make this type of GM Intrusion widely applicable and causal because there is a baked in reason in the setting while there is no baked in setting reason for creatures always being hidden and/or in reserve or creatures that get tougher.  Yes this might be applicable to individual creatures (or groups of creatures) but is is not in and of itself a conceit of the Ninth World as a whole.
> 
> I have never made the claim that this type of Intrusion isn't or shouldn't be in Numenera or the Ninth world... only that it does not meet [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION]s 3 criteria and that it is not the same (neither broadly applicable nor justified through the conceits of the world as the tech malfunction/flaw intrusion would be).  That's it, that's my assertion and I think you agree with it.



This still seems like an incredibly muddled (and unproductive) conversation, to be honest.  



> As to why I keep saying "out of thin air"... well because it's the truth.  When using a GM intrusion to manifest these extra creatures the GM is pulling them out of thin air.  They were not established before and there was no chance the PC's could detect them... what else is that but the GM pulling them out of thin air?  I'm not even sure why it's a contentious assertion for me to make since the GM Intrusion specifically grants you the right to do this but let's not pretend it's.... causal in any way or not a failure on the part of the PC's to notice something... because it's both.



Then I will disagree with you on the same grounds on which I disagreed with Celebrim on that point, as I do not believe they are "out of thin air." Certainly no more than the original NPCs were "out of thin air" before the reinforcements. 



> I disagree with part of this statement... the GM has just as much control over the NPC's as a player has over his character in Numenera, the only difference is who rolls the dice. However I do agree with the last part... *the GM's chance to do extraordinary things with his NPC's relies instead on the player rolling a 1 as opposed to him rolling it himself.*



Ummm...that's my point. (Except if the GM decides to interject an Intrusion of their own volition.) 



> Now again it seems the point of this discussion is being lost, I was asked to provide Intrusions that meet pemerton's criteria and I believe many of these (though not all) do because...
> 
> 1. All are different from regular failures on the part of the character
> 2. Many/most are not a result of the character being incompetent in an area
> ...



Seems legitimate.


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## Imaro (Mar 7, 2016)

Aldarc said:


> This still seems like an incredibly muddled (and unproductive) conversation, to be honest.




Eh, I can see that... especially when the conversation degenerated into a debate over of my choice of using the term "out of thin air"... which really was incidental to my overall point.  Either way I think there are enough GM Intrusions that...

1. Are different from regular failure
2. Do not arise from character incompetency
3. Are causal 

That the GM is not unduly constrained by the lack of such intrusions being readily available and I continue to disagree with the idea that the lack of these intrusions was the driving factor behind Monte's preference in the aricle for GM Intrusions that are not based on character incompetence...



Aldarc said:


> Then I will disagree with you on the same grounds on which I disagreed with Celebrim on that point, as I do not believe they are "out of thin air." Certainly no more than the original NPCs were "out of thin air" before the reinforcements.




I'm not sure where you disagrees with Celebrim at so it's hard for me to understand the basis of your argument.  Were these reinforcements established in the fiction beforehand?  Did the PC's have a chance to detect them before they appeared?  I guess I'm asking... if they weren't created out of thin air at the moment of the Intrusion... where did they come from?  Why didn't my character notice them (or at least have a chance too?).  Ultimately though this wasn't a major point to me... my point was in debunking that MOnte prefers external GM Intrusions because there aren't enough that satisfy the 3 criteria pemerton put forward that are causal.  This is at best a minor tangent and at worse a distraction from the original discussion.  I also don't see how this is anymore productive than the original argument since all it is is perspective.  I see them as being pulled out of thin air (which as I said before is perfectly legitimate per the rules for GM Intrusons.), and you don't.    



Aldarc said:


> Ummm...that's my point. (Except if the GM decides to interject an Intrusion of their own volition.)
> 
> Seems legitimate.




My disagreement was with your statement that they don't have control over NPC's like players have over PC's.  When I've GM'd I've controlled my NPC's just as the players have controlled their characters.  For me the difference is in how I as DM interact with the mechanics, not in control over said NPC's.  They roll, I don't.  If that's what you are saying then yes, I agree.


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