Roll natural 1

>average professional adventurer will swing their sword hundreds of times in their life
>1/400 of those swings will result in them accidentally impaling and killing themselves

Whew, and I thought the dangerous part of being an adventurer was supposed to be the monsters.

If you want to do stupid stuff like that you should make it 3 1s in a row since that's actually 1/8000.

>Not recognizing the story.

Yes. You are no fun. You are not allowed.

No fun. Not allowed. No Fun. NOT ALLOWED. NO FUN. NOT ALLOWED NO FUN NOT ALLOWED NO FUN NOT ALLOWED NO FUN NOT ALLOWED NO FUN NOT ALLOWED NO FUN NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT ALLOWED NOT FUN NOT ALLOWED DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE DIE.

Because after all, this is important, right?

crit fails are fucking cancer

GM: Roll again
>Roll natural 1
thisposter dies

I hope it was all the heads, because it would suck if rolling three 20s in a row just fucked you over harder.

I had to leave the other two knocked out party members as I ran out of the dungeon

I do it like this:
>Player rolls nat 1
>Your attack is deflected by the enemy, throwing you off balance. The next attack against you gets a bonus.

>Player rolls nat 20
>You crit. Double your rolled damage. Your sword reflects the blazing sun into your target's eyes. They are effectively blinded until their next turn

I feel like stuff like that adds a bit of flavor to combat.

>GM: Roll again
>Roll natural 1
GM: Everything in the immediate city block comes back as a zombie. Roll again.
>Roll natural 1
GM: The sounds of zombies rising from their graves attracts more zombies

Do your experience with critical success/failure is fully based on Veeky Forums shitty jokes from a decade ago?

>Jokes

If only it were so easy

Okay, I roll to get drunk.
>natural 1
You drink the entirety of the nation under the table feeling not even the slightest buzz.

Rolled 851 (1d999)

Leave this to me.

nigga

The King lies beaten and defeated at your feet. What do you do?
>I kill him.
Roll for it.
>Rolls a 1
You miss, roll again.
>1
The King is healed to his full health. Roll.
>1
The King is now immortal. Roll.
>1
The swing drained all your levels and now the King is even stronger. Roll.
>1
You undo all the progress you've made overthrowing the king. Roll.
>1
You're forever gone, you never existed. Roll up a new character.
>1
Leave and never return.

I remember the first time I played dnd I rolled a 1 on my attack roll and the GM said my sword flew out of my hand and I had to spend my next turn pulling it out of the mud.

It was pretty annoying but it seemed even sillier when I realised that meant a veteran with like 4 attacks is 4 times more likely to do something retarded than a peasant with a ladle.

>GM: Roll again
>Roll natural 1
The zombies seem to have converged into a large ball of zombies.

>things that never happened for 500

This is why I rule and fluff crit-fails as the worst action that might happen for an individual of that skill level.
A Master Swordsman who crit-fails misread his opponent's stumble as a feint and slashed the air embarrassingly, giving his opponent the advantage.
Timmy the squire might have to go digging for his sword in the mud.

>GM: Roll again
>Roll natural 1
The sound of the zombies converging into balls of zombies attracts more zombies.

At least you didn't die a coward.
Because you didn't die, you coward.

This is why 5e is okay.
If you roll at disadvantage and get a 1 while the other attack would be a miss, you crit fail.

No extra time spent rolling, no silly fails every session.

Every time a player rolls a natural 1 on an attack, I have them roll again to "confirm" it.
There's no table, but I consider the amount they rolled and weight that against the situation and concoct an appropriate critical failure based on what they rolled. A 1 is always a self attack, and a 20 is always an incredibly unlikely accidental success, and everything in between runs the gamut from provoking an AoO to provoking free trip or disarm attempts.

I have my players roll to confirm crit fails and I had one player roll a 1 1 1 2 for a triple crit fail. I had him fall down on his weapon for a normal attacks worth of damage.

>player rolls a 1
>they slip up drawing their sword, accidentally throws it at target
>narrowly misses, but target is understandably scared shitless
>excuses herself and leaves the store immediately
I like humiliating my players a little while still having a positive outcome happen.

>Rogue rolls to attack.
>1
>"Alright, the dagger flies out of your hands and hits... [Cleric]. Roll to hit."
>1
>"... The dagger hits the wall, the magical enchantment detonating. Everyone roll reflex."
>Everyone is fine, save for me, the Cleric.
>1
>"Alright, so that crit you. Roll for damage."
>10
>Health is only 10.
>First character death ever is due to the worst set of natural 1s possible.

>195
newfag

>good GMing
I can't believe I found some in Veeky Forums

crit fails are a good idea in skill checks because they allow you to take into account shit that can go wrong if you are very good at something. Crit fails in combat are a bad thing

This is how to do it 1000%
It acknowledges that shit happens in the chaos of combat without making your pcs feel like fucking idiots

>He doesn't kill himself IRL on the spot when he rolls three natural ones in a row

Fucking casuals.

Crit fails can be all right so long as they are relatively subtle, believable, and not incredibly crippling. Combat is a chaotic and unpredictable thing to go through, after all, and when two fuckers flailing lethal sharp bits at one another meet up, often things happen that neither of them predicted.

Things like swinging your sword to a tree and losing initiative as you pull it out, accidentally crashing together with your opponent into a grappling range when you're wielding a polearm and he a dagger, finding yourself imbalanced for a minor penalty for the next round, chopping up a curtain and having it fall on a random person in the fight, or your opponent's missed attack being turned into a hit or perhaps ending up cutting away half your precious pompadour.

These are all good ideas. Crit fails don't have to involve death or grievous injury.