Why is the nat 20 meme so widespread?

Like...?

Not him, but in nWoD, if you roll a 10 on any d10 in your dice pool, you get to reroll that die, and you get to reroll it as many times as you want, so long as you keep rolling 10's.

You also have a system that's basically a critical success, where if you roll 5+ successes for a roll, you get a bonus of some sort depending on the action that you're rolling for. You also have mechanics for 8-again or 9-again, where some abilities allow you to reroll if you get a 8-10 on a die or a 9-10 on a die respectively.

So even if you're only rolling one die for your action, you could theoretically end up rolling a critical success if you manage to set things up properly.

Shadowrun, the game that coined the term "chunky-salsa effect".

That actually has more to do with the way explosives work in SR, honestly, but the system does still feature exploding successes. They've been toned down a bit in later editions.

Because it makes for a great story.

>admits to thinking about OP huge, gaping anus
>calls the other a faggot

So, here's a thing this reminds me of for some reason: I know Critical Role is scripted, but do they actual use the results of their rolls?

Critical Roll.

*Role.

No it doesn't. It is just faggots being lolsorandumb

It's not all scripted, they do actually succeed and fail due to dice rolls. Mercer takes pictures of his dice and posts them on twitter in real time.

Mostly this. Also why is this a meme? Is everything memes? The nat20 has a purpose - you always have a chance to pull off something spectacular, and for most people, this is exciting and entertaining.

Always have a chance to SUCCEED. On attack rolls and saving throws only. And only attack rolls have anything else beyond that.

Savage worlds. Once had a player character without any social skill roll a d4-2 to lie to somebody and he rolled max, rerolled, rolled max again, etc., came out to about 2 or 3 full successes, that is over 8 or 12 points total result, I don't remember exactly now. Long story short it wasn't that the lie was amazing, just the person he was tricking was dumb, so they bought the credible lie.

>meme
Hmm
I wonder

They're not the ones that started this shit. People being jackasses about natural 20s are why critical hits were codified to begin with.

Savage Worlds for sure. We had a session where our combat guy was being fed vampire blood from the tap and was getting more and more addicted. Our alchemist found out and was trying to stop it before he was fully bonded to the vampire and succeeded in smashing the vials of blood the combat guy had stored to drink. They got into a huge fight and the combat guy nearly killed the alchemist. He then sealed himself off in his rented room and asked the vampire to bring him more blood. The alchemist, battered and nearly dead, waited for the vampire to show. He hacked a piece of wood from a table leg and made a makeshift stake. When he heard the vampire in the next room, he snuck up when they were both distracted and made a called shot to the vampire's heart. Barely hit, damage was likely to be minimal as he only had a d4 strength. Dice exploded like crazy. Got a 22 on 2d4. The vampire failed his save or die roll vs. the damage and exploded into ash. The table erupted into cheers. It was fucking amazing.

I thought this site was full of hackers, nazis, memes, and leaked celebrity nudes. Most overhyped beta website I have ever been to. Unforgivable.

mmmm

Are you that user that got absolutely livid about a week ago about "the 5%" deal?

Some GMS allow a nat 20 to be an automatic success, and not just automatic. A SUPREME success. Personally I think it's kinda gay, and should just act as a bonus. Something as simple as a +5, or perhaps make it explode. I've seen it at work, and it makes for some retarded shit.

Character role play, and player creativity makes for great story.

Nat 20s are just random and do nothing but enables "lel so random XD" if your story depends on a NAT 20 that is a 95% chance your story sucks dick.

I think it plays off of emotion. In general casual and new players are the ones to get excited about nat 20s and DMs get caught up in the moment, come up with something that is in the area of 'very successful', and sets the precedent.

Also, the concept of criticals in combat

>Nat 20s are just random and do nothing but enables "lel so random XD"

Nat 20 add a level of chaos to the game that can be fun to RP around.

It shouldn't be an auto-win like so many lazy DMs make it. But it should change something about the game. A character who never would have listened to the party is suddenly alittle more open. Or an opponent who was unbeatable, maybe exposes a small hole in their defences.
A nat 20 on an ability check should be like a nat 20 to hit. You don't autowin the situation. But you do something incredible.

I made it so a Nat 13 is the critical, and 20 = 13
That solves that problem quickly at the table

How is there any connections between auto winning and this Nat 20 meme?

The chance of success is based on how difficult the encounter is made by the DAM and failure equals failure.

Any situation that you have to roll a NAT 20 to win is retarded. Do you just sit there and roll the dice until it lands 20? Or just remake new characters and retry the campaign until you win at 5% chance?

You can add way more chaos with awell written script or creative players. The most chaotic things I've ever seen happen where based on players pushing their characters to do something within reason unforseen by the DM.

The plot should be based on the written story or the players creativity/character ability.

Like I said. Needing a Nat 20 to make your story good means your story sucks 95% of the time.

What if I don't make the hit with a 13? Is it still a crit? Like the AC is 22 and my attack bonus is only 4?

And dose that really change anything? I mean you still have that 5% chance thing going on?

As long as you reduced the relevance of the critical then you fixed it. But you did not do that.

Well, the argument on the other side is if nat 20 was never gonna be good enough, why bother making them roll

Because there is a % chance based on their characters ability and the provided situation that can be changed with role play or mechanics and without the role you don't have the % based chance of progress/change of situation/regress.

so if they didn't earn their chance, why make them roll?

Adding and auto win button to certain if not most situations can prevent the progression of story or make good player creativity irrelevant.

>behind DM screen
>place d20 in dice pool on desired result
> roll another d20 when the check happens, but ignore that result
>take photo of prefudged die

Then don't allow the roll.

Tell me about it. My ex-girlfriend (god, that's a surprise to say, especially since I'm engaged now too) went on a ten minute rant once about a game of D&D she played some time ago that had the dumb meme "a natural 20 means it happens" and how she tried to rob some city guard dude and when he caught her with the coin purse she said "It wasn't me, it was the evil penguin!" DM asked for a roll on bluff, nat 20 supposedly, boom! Evil penguin was behind her.

Fucking shit I hate people who do not understand that natural 20 are simply successes for saves and attacks (and remember kiddos, criticals only happen if the total attack equals or exceeds the target's AC. If not, you hit but do not get a critical damage roll).

yeah, but an admin who lets a 20 be an auto success isn't going to not let someone roll. The worst part about the 'nat 20=instant super success' is like when the DC is like 40 for say, an acrobatics check. At that point, if you're rolling anything below a +20. Everyone from the person who has a -5 modifier on acrobatics to the person who has a +19 ends up having the same 5% chance.

Hey, one does not exclude the other.
If anything, that would make it an expert opinion.

bleh, meant a GM. I don't know why I put admin there.

I get the feeling your not actually aurgeing what your saying. There are plenty of diceless systems and playing without dice with a good group of people is always an option. I have tried it a good few times and recommend to any good role player.

The NAT 20 dice system I fairly sure you actually love is retarded and harmful to the whole RPG community.

This.
Crits are meant to have a small bonus, not be the whole game or write the story.

Dice are shit story writers I promise.

I beg to differ

I feel like newfags won't understand this. Thank you for explaining it so well though. Here is a scenic pic, it's all I can do to thank you.

I want them all.

>There are plenty of diceless systems and playing without dice with a good group of people is always an option
Then you didn't allow the roll.

NAT.FUCKING.20

people are bored and make up hilarious stories to both entertain themselves and get some attention. wait, i just described Veeky Forums.

while fun-looking, dice ARE shit story writers. however, dice can be used to determine moments in which the dynamic of a scene shifts.

Because of the shitty greentext stories that came out of Veeky Forums

...

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Personally I don't mind them as long as the DM isn't a sperg. If you rolled a 20 while trying to jump 5 feet in the air and the DM said that you just jumped 500, then that's fucking gay.

I think they should be automatic successes and that the results should be extraordinary but not crazy. If you're trying to escape a grapple and you roll a 20, you should free yourself and maybe in your escape you completely barrel the guy over.

I don't think that you should let someone roll at all if it's not possible to succeed. It just feels like a trick because there's a 19 in 20 chance that you dont succeed, and then there's a 1 in 20 chance that you completely fuck it up.