Fumbles

Why do so many GMs insist that a roll of 1 on a d20 must always be a ridiculous fuckup of astronomic proportions?

You hit yourself, you hit your ally, you drop your weapon and fall on your ass, you target yourself with the spell, you shoot down a chandelier ontop of yourself etc etc

I understand that once in a while yes that adds something interesting to the game, however, 1 in 20 of every experienced adventurers actions is a colossal cockup? That's absurd, and I've seen far to many GMs do this.

How does Veeky Forums feel about this?

How do you handles 1s, do you roll again and if it's also a 1 something awful happens, or do you ignore the roll most of the time and occasionally have it count or something else.

On a side note, this sort of GMing makes it nigh impossible to play a high level martial as every other turn you're floundering around killing yourself because the more experienced a martial is the more dice they roll.

Even upon explaining that it makes no sense that the more experienced a martial is the more mistakes he'll make is stupid I don't seem to be able to convince GMs like this.

It's in the rules and it makes sense.

Because players suck so much fun out of the game GMs have to amuse themselves with something while your half-dragon fae kitsune necromancer jerks themselves off.

Real Talk.

No it's not.
It's an optional rule at best, even in D&D and PF.

A turn in d&d is 6 seconds. I don't think it's unreasonable for a low level character to slip up, drop their weapon etc every 120 seconds of combat.

because you already just fail normally without hitting 1

if the roll difficulty is 10 and you get 8 you already just failed normally

if you get a natural 20, you shit off the fence
if you get a natural 1, you shit your pants
very simple system

We run it like critical hits in the opposite direction, if you roll a 1 you roll to confirm, if your roll wouldn't hit their ac it confirms the failure.

Right, however high level martial characters fuck up WAY more often, which is fucking stupid.

>1 in 20 of every experienced adventurers actions is a colossal cockup?
Fate makes fools of us all, my friend.

The correct way to handle this is that whatever happened to cause the fuckup wasn't the character's fault.

Also, NPCs are subject to this as well. It could actually help the players in combat.

Why don't you just storytime your session so we can understand why you're so assblasted?

I mean that's easily explained away by saying they're fighting tougher opponents, but yeah, it's kinda stupid. Confirming crits can help with it, but even then...

I have a player that keeps pushing for critical failures. He's a sperg who likes to play LOLRANDUM characters.
I used to love that kind of shit and then I grew up. Its fine if the entire game is comedy themed, but not if you are attempting anything remotely serious.

No session in particular, just a few GMs over the past couple of years.

I find is daft that 5% of everything you do in game is a catastrophe especially when PCs who have had nothing to do with the action taken been downed or even killed by these fumbles because it has to be something very bad that happens, 5% of the time..

Thrown weapons, minor enviromental hazards that really aren't a threat some how causing near death experiences for players, falling on dropped weapons, dropping weapons 40ft away... All manner of madness happening many times every single session.

Once in a while is fine sure, however in a party of 5 with a couple of martial, it happens almost every round. Combat is slowed down something shocking while the GM thinks something stupid up or rolls on a homebrew table.

And it always has to be something spectacular it's just too much.

Because DND doesn't do shit for rolls to be meaningful, so people desperatly use any excuse to do something just a tiny bit better than "you deal N hit point of damage".

In theory it could help, in practice, not nearly so much.

Remember, PCs make a shitload more rolls then NPCs ever do, because the PCs are constantly on screen making rolls. That's pure probability that the PCs will see a ton more crit-fails.

It's often enough that skill and attribute tests are taken by target number, say DC15, which means you have to hit that number or higher on a roll plus the relevant attribute score. Would and should a roll of 1 indicate a colossal failure even if the pertinent attribute is 14 or more which matches or even beats the target number? Of course, in that instance without contributing factors to increase the difficulty or otherwise complicate the roll, would the roll even need to be taken at all save to determine degrees of success if such a system is applicable?

Because they're fucking stupid, and didn't read the rules

Not in the way you think.

Hey Veeky Forums;

Why do players demand that a Nat 20 on any roll, regardless of the situation or circumstance, be an incredible or wacky super-success?

Why do they then turn around and say a Nat 1 shouldn't be a penalty? What's the logic behind having one but not the other?

Could it be that you're all inbred retards who only want things that are good for you but never want any consequences or failure to happen to your stupid character?

Could it be that you are strawmaning fuckwit? Why yes, I think it is.

Just a friendly reminder from your neighborhood Grognard here. In OD&D, a 20 and a 1 on a d20 meant nothing. There were no critical successes or fumbles. It was never explicitly part of the game, but something that GMs just added overtime for dramatic results.

In the long run both critical hits and fumbles hurt the players more than anything, because GMs roll far more attacks directed at the players than vice versa, which means more crits than the players will ever dish out in turn. Fumbles also mean more to players than random extras in the game. Food for thought.

kek

>Could it be that you're all inbred retards who only want things that are good for you but never want any consequences or failure to happen to your stupid character?

Hm? A nat 1 is a failure, if any mechanical chance for failure existed.

Failures are fine, the math of the game says where these are. No need to have the bottom 5% chance always be something dramatically retarded or the top 5% chance always be something totally wicked awesome.

Sorry for hurting your feelings.

Are you a liar or a moron?

Think critically. Instead of being stupid, try to think coherently. Strain, with all your might. Then you'll realize that a nat 1 impacts any attacker equally, except that the higher you go, the more rather than the less devastating it would be.

Why are you assuming we think that? If my character with 7 dexterity somehow rolls a 20 on some kind of check that requires finesse, I'd expect the 20 to mean "He accomplishes something," but definitely not "astounding and wholly unreasonable success."

Auto-success and auto-catastrophe on 20s and 1s is retarded.

>No need to have the bottom 5% chance always be something dramatically retarded or the top 5% chance always be something totally wicked awesome.

That's the fucking point you dense shit. Players demand that a Nat 20 do things, but don't want a Nat 1 to do things.

You either take both, or you take neither. There is no middle ground. The problem is, players demand one without the other.

No one actually thinks a natural 20 always succeeds you stupid fucking double nigger

>Players demand that a Nat 20 do things, but don't want a Nat 1 to do things.

Nobody's arguing that at all, try again.

I generally have them roll another d20.
10+, nothing really bad happens. Just a bit of flavour. (Your sword meets his and he pushes you away, you feel his immense strength overpower you for a moment.)

While a 5-9 might mean a minor disadvantage (you are pushed back a few feets after tripping)

And lower than that means something bad actually happens, like your sword slips out of your hands.

Could it be that nat one is auto fail and nat 20 is auto success and not whatever the fuck your down syndrome ass is talking about?

I like this actually, kinda like tiered fuck ups.

Not just "You land on your ass in a slapstick manner, crack your skull open and accidentally chuck your halberd through the ranger's head."

For every nat 1.

Some systems make crit fails variable. So for example, you roll a 1 on a d10, then you go to a crit fail table and roll again. 1-5 is nothing special, 6,7,8,9,10 are peculiar crit fails with the higher number ones being more devastating than the lower level ones. A 6 may be " you dropped your weapon", where a 10 may be " you accidentally hit your ally".

I think that systems like those have it right. It leaves most of the things you are complaining about at less than a percentile chance of happening.

Honestly the best explanation in this thread that will be posted

cause it's funny. Watch a jackie chan flick some time.

and it's usually played for laughs. if you can't handle that.... I've got bad news for you.

a roll of one misses and has a %chance of an enemy getting a free attack. LOL NAT ONE fuckery is gay. Even as eternal DM i hate it

/thread

have you tried not playing d&d?