That one guy that always rolls a 1

In your party (any campaign, setting, game, whatever), do you have a person that is absolutely cursed to roll a natural 1 at the worst possible time?

I'm currently playing in two different Pathfinder campaigns, and there is a guy in the group we all call "Fumbles." Fumbles is great at role-playing, but his dice rolls are hilariously bad. The very first time I played with this group, he rolled SIX 1s, that I counted, at the worst possible time.

Last night's 1 was a doozy. So, my group is in the middle of the ocean, and we decided our ship is tiny, we want to steal the floating fortress of a ship we see on the horizon. We go up to it, and initially kill much of the crew on deck with a nasty contagion, and take out a good portion of their cannons. While I take a quick restroom break, the other players decide "hey, let's invade the ship ourselves, screw this magic nonsense."

Next thing I know, we 're using a catapult to launch ourselves one by one onto the deck, since our magic users are concentrating on some other tasks. I, a dwarf, make it over OK, though I was terrified out of my mind.

Most of us make it over just fine, and commence to have the fight of our lives. HERE COMES FUMBLES: He's playing a bugbear, and could be a real asset in combat on this ship. He doesn't use his float spell properly, so it takes a while for him to get over to the ship. When he's getting close, he decides he doesn't need to float anymore, despite still being fairly high in the air. DM tells him to roll for his safe landing. Of course, this is all taking the place of roughly two rounds. FUMBLES ROLLS A FUCKING ONE. He lands so awkwardly, his leg snaps (compound fracture) which leaves his broken shin bone sticking up like a spike. Of course he's not done falling. The exposed shin bone/spike impales his skull, going up through his jaw and stabbing into his brain, killing him instantly.

Do you have a Fumbles in your campaign? Give me some Natural 1 horror stories.

Once me rolling a nat1 caused an almost TPK
Another time me rolling a 1 (not nat1 because skills but still being the only way for me to fail the roll) caused another TPK

luckily Fumbles hasn't done that yet. We make him bring his own dice though, he's not cursing any of ours.

Yes.

It's me.

Have you tried playing a dice pool system?

The first one
>Group of mercenaries seem to be the bad guys
>We cause them great losts so we don't stumble into them for several ingame months
>We go to a seer because the mentor of my monk is being targeted by a curse
>Oldman seer offers everybody to enter in the cave of dreams and have prophetic dreams about their destiny
>I refuse because my char doesn't believe in destiny, he believes you are the one who makes every choice not a supreme being or whatever
>Stays behind
>While everybody is having prophetic mary sue dreams (really, one turned to be a half celestial, another a half ifrit, etc)
>4 of the mercenary leaders appear before me
>"Fuck"
>I scream for help but faggets are still in the cave tripping balls
>Seer refuses to help
>"Fuck me"
>Arrogantly one of the leaders says he's enough to beat me and asks the rest to not intervene
>"Well, this will buy them time"
>Have like 10 on Ini but I roll poorly so he goes first
>Turns out to be a rogue
>Attacks and hits
>Deals 8 damage
>"That's kinda underwhelming knowing that I'm 7th level"
>GM says that I should roll Fort
>I have a 14 on Fort
>Roll Nat1
>Paralyzed against DC 12
>"Fuck me sideways on top of a volcano"
>They use me as hostage
>They ask for my mentor
>My mentor goes with one of them in exchange of them not attacking us
>Once my mentor and one of them teleports away they attack us, well, them because I'm paralized in the ground
>Brutal fight
>When I stop being paralized I'm the only one alive from my party members, and from the liutenants there's only one who turns invisible and escapes

No, but that might help. This guy's luck is the worst. Natural 1s all day, unless we need a low roll, then he gets nat 20s.

hahaha, shit!!!

Second one in a different game
>4th level Party is captured and thrown in a max security jail don't remember the reason
>We manage to escape from the compound but the jail seems to be inside of a big ass crater with only one door and the leveler is on top of the crater
>"Fuck"
>Only my char can actually climb reliabily
>+8 to climb
>We didn't have time to pick all our equipment only our weapons and armors
>Climb
>DC seems to be 15
>Either climb or stop for a long time
>this makes the guards almost reach my party
>Last turn of climbing
>1
>8+1= 9
>Which is 5+ lower than the DC
>Which means I fall
>Roll fall damage
>Insta death
>Group is trapped
>Guards kill them

Those are the most blatant ones, but in my group I'm know as the bad luck guy, one of our players is a mathematician and he even started to question what he studied after playing with me for several years

No horror stories, but we did get a player who got more 1s than the rest of the party.

I'm not superstitious, so I think we must have dice which are slightly different shapes. There must be dice which aren't designed to be cheating dice but which produce more 1s than average, or more 20s. Not quite cheating. The Mana Weaving of TTRPGs.

Anyway, this guy was playing a 5e Bard, with maxed Charisma, and proficiency with Charisma saves, AND an item that boosted his saving throws. He was hit with a polymorph effect and needed to make a Charisma save. He uttered the immortal words "don't worry, I can only fail on a natural 1".

His character spent the rest of the session as a bear. He was pretty stoic about it, his character was PISSED.

Nat1 on saves is the stupidest thing ever, the great majority of my char's deaths in 3.PF if due nat1 on saves

That's actually how Fumbles wound up being a female Bugbear. He was originally an elf, but failed to sae against a polymorph effect, apparently. This is what the group told me anyway, I only just recently joined.

I reeeeally don't like killing PCs, but I'll do pretty much anything short of that.

One PC was fighting a (landed) sea serpent as part of a challenge from his god. The sea serpent bit him. 20, 18. He rolled for the hit. 1, 3. I seriously debated killing him, but in the end he lost his hammer arm at the shoulder, in a setting where nothing could bring it back.

>I reeeeally don't like killing PCs

pussy

My games are lighthearted, and the guy in question is the newest member of the party. The quest from his god was my attempt to put him in the spotlight for once.

>I reeeeally don't like killing PCs

read that as "I reeeeeally will never punish my players for bad decisions or rolls."

if you put them in a 'disadvantageous' situation, it just means that they'll escape it later and nothing of value was lost. death is the only punishment that will be remembered, and even then, there are several means to circumvent that punishment as well

by not actually punishing poor decisions, they'll never learn. by not actually punishing poor rolls, they'll never care

Our DM is strict, but fair. Fumbles argues a lot, though, makes dumb decisions, and has amazingly terrible luck with his rolls. My character is a solid tank, so luckily Fumbles' death wasn't the worst thing ever. Death by own shin bone through the brain was a pretty hilarious death. Even Fumbles laughed his ass off.

I think you missed the part where the guy lost his good arm permanently.

>by not actually punishing poor rolls, they'll never care

And by punishing players for something completely out of their control, they'll quickly learn to stop caring about your games and play with someone else instead.

if you're so naive as to think that bad rolls are completely out of a players control and they should never be punished for playing the game as it was meant to be played, with chance and luck, then stop playing TTRPG's, they're clearly not meant for you.

Not a nat 1, because it was Black Crusade and it's a percent system, where rolling a 1 is auto success and 100 is 'fuck you and die'.

My first game of BC, I played an ex Dark Angel with a heavy Plasma Cannon, as I'm heavy weapons guy.

First combat is against a swarm of Cherubs. Between the modifiers and aiming, I had to roll under an 88 to hit the swarm, but a miss would guarantee the plasma cannon would Overload rather than just "You miss"

So it overloads, and with PEN and damage modifiers against my armor and Space Marine toughness, if I roll snake eyes on 2d10, I'll survive with 4 wounds.

2 10's. Maximum damage, fluffed as my Plasma cannon exploded like a Fallout mini-nuke.

Okay, I'll bite...
In what way are rolls not entirely out of the players' control?
What if they do absolutely everything right in terms of preparation, creating advantageous battlegrounds for themselves, but that natural one occurs(or the enemy's natural twenty)?
This happened to me.
>Pathfinder game
>party finds itself confronted with a Minotaur, but it's not paying attention we've got the drop on it
>mage hand it's great axe away from it and have Mage armor active. Also fighting defensively
>Minotaur gets its turn, moves over and picks up its axe
>charges, critical hit, max damage
>one shots my spellsword, instant death.

I'll add that of my group I have the most character deaths, all because of natural 1 saves or natural 20 critical hits.

OP here. I really miss playing in the 40K setting. I was in a Deathwatch group for a while. Played a Blood Angel that had on screaming armor, due to some really odd rolls.

>read that as "I reeeeeally will never punish my players for bad decisions or rolls."
And nothing else obviously.

Our party face managed to roll 1 on 3/4 of our last play session's persuasion checks. In the end, mostly because of his really shitty rolls at explaining a sudden death that happened in our vicinity to the guards, half of our party is now in jail until bailed.

And the only persuasion check he passed was a really simple one to let some mortician let us check up on some bodies, which we didn't even get to do in the end.

Oh god, bugbear got destroyed. That's brutal.

Currently GMing a D6 dice pool based game, customized version of OpenD6 Fantasy. The party's sneaky stabber type is scouting a little ahead in a dungeon, and sees one of the big guys I have prepared. Big guy is turned around doing something, his weapon laying off to his side. Sneaky stabber uses a special ability to increase the pool on his stealth roll, bringing his stealth roll up to 9D6. He rolls....and they're all fucking 1. Every single one of them. Naturally the sneakthief trips over a pile of metal cans and glass jars, and falls right next to the big guy, who proceeds to beat the shit out of mr sneakthief.

What the hell are the odds someone rolls all 1's on a dice pool of 9D6? It's become one of those legendary moments we reference all the time now.

Rolled 17 (1d20)

Depends on the players. If PC death is the only thing that motivates them, then so be it. My players are more privy to consequences such as crippling disadvantages and the character's goals being thrown off track. Guess it depends on whether you're running a traditional DnD style campaign or a narrative heavy one.

The odds are 1/10,077,696.

Less than one in ten million.

Dude I swear, unless it's the dice themselves some people just seem to be statistical anomalies.

Hooooolllly fucking shit. I've gotta tell him, this is hilarious.

perhaps saying that rolls are withing the players control is the wrong choice of words. what i was trying to say is that by choosing to play TTRPG's, you are choosing to accept the ultimate fate of the dice. when you gamble in Vegas, the house doesn't give you a refund if you roll a natural 1 for example. by playing the game, you must accept the consequences of your actions AND the dice rolls.

the way I see your story, it sounds like despite the best preparation of the party, the Minotaur was still a great beast that managed to fell a party member in one swoop. this makes for an epic story if you ask me, and adds to the tension of the game.

as i said before, if this isn't your fancy, then don't use a system that uses chance for success. this is what differentiates role-playing games from writing books.