How should I play out critical failures as a GM?

just as regular misses, no additional effects unless it's a one off campaign with a silly theme.
if you really want to add an additional effect make the attacker lose 2 AC until his next turn.

If this is 5e, just have them grant advantage against them and be done with it. By the way, skill checks can't critically succeed, so they don't critically fail, either. That shit pretty much only applies to attack rolls, and even then it's only an obscure alternate rule in the sense that no one who ever uses such systems actually know how they work.

Honestly if you need "lel so wacky" critical failures for the game to not be boring then there is a problem.

There's plenty of wiggleroom between "you miss" and "LOL YOU CUT OFF YOUR DICK HAHA DICKLESS DENNIS"

Agreed

Snoozefest is That GM who spends a minute trying to describe in precise detail every single meaningless attack roll.
I've got an imagination that's better than theirs and I don't have time for that mundane shit.

Lock pick fail - pick breaks and piece flies into eye. Penalty to perception.

Listen to door fail - trip and crush ear against door. Ptp.

Walking fail - roll ankle. Penalty to movement.

Eating fail - choke. Roll to save. Keep taking damage until save.

When I DM, the every day mundane is a battle for survival.

Also, roll a 1d100 every turn. If you get a 1, you spontaneously combust.

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>How should I play out critical failures as a GM?
Say "you missed" and move on with the rest of combat.

Even if there was, I'm sure most people would prefer it if they simply whiffed the action than watching the DM trying to hold back a chuckle as their character momentarily loses their mind and hurts themselves in confusion.

It's already bad enough rolling a 1, it's even worse when you roll a 1 on top of getting fucked by either a table or how sadistic the DM is feeling that day.

> Is a result of 1 on a d20
You don't. In fact, in some cases, it is deeply unrealistic that it should even BE a failure.

> Is a result of 3 on 3d6 OR a result of 1 on a d20 when other rolling options are available and using a d20 is recklessness
You have a bit of leeway here. Sword jammed in whatever was near the target, tripping and falling over... Anything short of harming oneself is fair play.

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in combat, you need to be consistent and make apparent the consequences of failure to the players so they understand the rules you're going for.
If the players try to do something during a mechanically defined encounter that is outside the clearly defined mechanical rules of the system, you can be creative to a degree, mainly utilizing those rules to put them at a disadvantageous position. Like, if a player wants to swing from a chandelier and they fail their roll to jump and grab, they fall and become prone or something, maybe take minor damage (or a small injury, if the system goes into such details) or something simple as, their next action is harder to make, like less movement, worse chance to hit, etc

if it's almost entirely outside a system defined environment, party dependent, sure, but very little restrictions. If the game is serious/realistic-ish, the failure should make sense, for instance, a player tries to pass off as a VIP, fails the bluff, so you can go that the guard has seen/worked for that person before and knows these little mannerisms about them and he tells that VIP person and the players now have a worse relationship. or, if it's a more lighthearted/slapstick game, you can go so far as the VIP person suddenly jumps out from behind and his bodyguards start wrestling the party

I tend to make them funny. Not usually the fault of the PC, but a kind of bad luck. Like:

> "You hurl the grenade at the enemy, but it riochets from his armor as he flinches aside. It rebounds, and clatters to the ground at your feet."

>How should I play out critical failures as a GM?
When possible, I like the attempted action itself to technically succeed, but the ramifications are the opposite of what the player hoped to achieve.

For example, say the party is sneaking through a guarded area and they have to get past a guard without alerting anyone. One player gets the bright idea to throw a rock at the guard's head to knock him out. On a critical failure, the guard gets hit lightly on the shoulder and turns around to shout a warning just as three other guards are passing by and now all four of them are engaged in combat with the PCs.

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>5e is the only rpg

You know I've been really digging the "Choice" consequences that Fate uses lately.

When my player's land that Nat 1, I normally give the player two terrible options for their character. Then the player chooses between the two.

Even though you make up the two options the players of-course always pick the one they can roll with more, but they always blame themselves for the choice... It`s a prefect trap that I love.

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>Implying this isn't the best way to handle critical fumbles

>the EU hub will never happen again

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As long as crits are just always a hit, with no extra damage.

5e players don't want that because they just want their mary sues to win all day

>As long as crits are just always a hit, with no extra damage.
You realize that enemies can roll crits too right? In fact, an enemy rolling a crit is about as bad as you rolling a critical fumble, which is why NAT 1's only make you miss but NAT 20's allow you to hit and roll extra damage.

I cry every time.

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You realize that enemies can roll fumbles too right?

Add some small flavor. I find it a bit annoying when DMs heavily penalize something that happens 5% of the time. It’s also worth noting that casters require no such checks when weaving complex spells in the heat of battle. But a well trained swordsman can still trip on his dick and drop his sword? Please

I realize that enemies can miss, yes.

You realize that enemies don't have to live with the consequences of fumbling right? Most of them aren't even going to live past the encounter they introduced and when it is someone important, the last thing most people are going to want is for the Big Bad to kill themselves because they rolled a 1 before anyone in the party even had a chance to play out their turn.

At least with auto-miss, the result is bad but it doesn't make the campaign become an episode of fucking looney toons.

I use critical failures as a chance to introduce complications not normally covered by the game rules, like equipment failure. The trick, really, is to not make critical failures look like stupidity. The PCs are seasoned enough not to stab themselves in the eye or insult the local lord by accident. When a critical failure is the environment or circumstance making things a bit more difficult, I've found players very receptive to it. They're forced to be just a bit more adaptive.

I also work this both ways. Critical success throws in some sort of circumstantial boon.

Fumbles aren't inherently wacky or silly. They don't need to even be caused by the characters ineptitude.

My GM always has someone get injured or something damaged. Personally I'd prefer a simple 'humiliating failure' sort of thing where you just describe how something stupidly easy got messed up

Which is, again, why auto-miss is the best way to handle it. Even the best swordsman is going to miss, especially when it's against any opponent that's worth a damn and it's a worst case scenario that won't call the swordsman skill into question when it happens 5% of the time.

Meanwhile, if I see a supposed swordsman lose his grip, stab himself in the toe, or bean himself in the head with his own pommel 5% of the time, I'm going to either hire another swordsman or dedicate my spell slots to summoning monsters so we don't have a frontliner who will self-destruct every so often.

Or maybe his fumble is him overextending, leaving himself vulnerable to his opponent counter-attack (small bonus to hit next turn).
Or maybe his attack is evaded in such a way it leave him in a bad position to attack efficiently again (small malus to hit next turn).
You have room between "same as a 2" and "falling on your own sword".

>"same as a 2"
It's not the same as "rolled a 2" though. If your bonuses would still allow you to hit on a 2, you still manage to hit the enemy regardless of how low you rolled. If you roll a 1, you automatically miss, regardless of your bonuses and whether or not you would still be able to hit them because of it.

Hell, the only way to undo a critical fumble is through abilities that allow you to reroll a die, which is much rarer and expensive to do than adding a few modifiers to your roll at the last moment.

it definitely shouldn't be something wacky and improbably 5% of the time. critical misses should be "confirmed" the same way critical hits are.

you've got a 1/400 chance to roll a 1 twice in a row. i think that that point it's not unreasonable to say your sword broke or got stuck in the other guy's armor or whatever. that shit did happen IRL. (fighter trips over his dick and decapitates another party member, no, probably never happened.)

and it's fair to say that if you're going to give a fighter a chance to break his sword every time he swings it then the mage better be rolling some kind of chance for a critical miss with his spells, too.

I usually let the enemy get an attack on the attacker.

Punch the fucker right in his face.
Clock him so hard he'll beg the dice to not fuck up next time

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This t b h. Also take a page from the DW GM rules but apply them to failures and critical failures:

Use a monster, danger, or location move
Reveal an unwelcome truth
Show signs of an approaching threat
Deal damage
Use up their resources
Turn their move back on them
Separate them
Give an opportunity that fits a class’ abilities
Show a downside to their class, race, or equipment
Offer an opportunity, with or without cost
Put someone in a spot
Tell them the requirements or consequences and ask

Remember that normal story pattern requires a goal followed by conflict generated from opposition followed by disaster to move the story forward and create a new goal. Crit failures can be that disaster.

The only critical failure is playing games with critical failures.