In The Dark Eye, you always roll three d20s, not just one. As a result, the chance of rolling a fumble is only one in 8,000 rather than 1-in-20.

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 21, 2023, 08:48:07 PM
I am definitely in the camp that thinks fumbles, as they're usually played, are immersion-breaking in their silliness. I competed in Olympic fencing for over a decade, and have done plenty of HEMA and other kinds of mock battle. I don't think I've ever seen someone accidentally throw their weapon, and I can count maybe a handful of times I've seen someone unintentionally drop a weapon without being actively disarmed. Accidentally hitting an ally with a melee weapon is marginally more common, but not by much. The only way I've seen it happen is if in a chaotic melee someone actually mistakes friend for foe.

I've also can't recall having ever heard or read a historical account of any of these things happening. Though I'll concede I might have.

On the other hand, the idea of a roughly 5% chance of something going catastrophically wrong in in the chaos of battle does make sense to me, so I tend to regard fumbles as something to be fixed rather than discarded.

I agree with your logic here - but your tables still have a 1% chance of dropping a melee weapon. I'd think you've seen far more than 100 attacks given your experience, and you say you've never seen it. (Given that there are many attacks on either side in a match, and you've seen/participated in a lot of matches.)

I think both "critical" and "fumble" mechanics tend to greatly expand luck, beyond reality or especially fantasy fiction. I've considered some mechanics that throw in complications, but more as random circumstances than fumbles. (I like the card mechanics from Torg, for example, though I haven't used them much.)

I do like degree of success mechanics like James Bond 007 "Quality Rank" or Savage Worlds "raises" -- especially where it has them be affected greatly by skill. A skilled master should regularly get a success better than a beginner.

Crits are much more necessary to emulate Appendix N fiction than fumbles, BTW.

Think of Conan killing foes with one blow, or the death of Smaug, etc.

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 22, 2023, 02:07:45 PM
Crits are much more necessary to emulate Appendix N fiction than fumbles, BTW.

Think of Conan killing foes with one blow, or the death of Smaug, etc.

For those kind of finishing blows I think the crit range needs to be 3-20, because those are one in a million shots, which as everyone knows, succeed 9 out of 10 times. 

Now if the odds were 1,000,001 to 1-never gonna happen.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on September 22, 2023, 02:49:28 PM

Quote from: Eric Diaz on September 22, 2023, 02:07:45 PM
Crits are much more necessary to emulate Appendix N fiction than fumbles, BTW.

Think of Conan killing foes with one blow, or the death of Smaug, etc.

For those kind of finishing blows I think the crit range needs to be 3-20, because those are one in a million shots, which as everyone knows, succeed 9 out of 10 times. 

Now if the odds were 1,000,001 to 1-never gonna happen.

Conan killing foes in one blow sounds more like just damage mechanics that take into account PC skill and ability.

Killing Smaug is better emulated by stuff like Savage Worlds bennies or Unisystem Drama Points, rather than having a rare roll at just the right moment.

Quote from: Exploderwizard on September 22, 2023, 02:49:28 PM
For those kind of finishing blows I think the crit range needs to be 3-20, because those are one in a million shots, which as everyone knows, succeed 9 out of 10 times. 

Now if the odds were 1,000,001 to 1-never gonna happen.

Unless one is eating weird smelling mystery sausage on a bun

Quote from: Scooter on September 22, 2023, 04:11:37 PM

Quote from: Exploderwizard on September 22, 2023, 02:49:28 PM
For those kind of finishing blows I think the crit range needs to be 3-20, because those are one in a million shots, which as everyone knows, succeed 9 out of 10 times. 

Now if the odds were 1,000,001 to 1-never gonna happen.

Unless one is eating weird smelling mystery sausage on a bun

Well there are exceptions of course.

Critical hits are generally good because they increase the tactile feedback the system gives, but they can be implemented poorly. The systems where they cause problems typically sell themselves as having tight balance and do not give players good ways to absorb damage. IMO, RPGs are something that fundamentally can't be balanced that tightly and the problem of crits killing PCs is not actually a problem with the crit; it's a problem with overdoing making crits powerful, which is probably because the crit is too rare. In other words, the core damage and health mechanics are making crits too rare, too powerful, and not giving the players leeway to deal with a crit or crit-string as a result.

There are two key problems with fumbles. They slow the game down as you consult a table, and they get caught in a catch-22 where rare enough to feel realistic feels pointless, and common enough to feel impactful breaks immersion. Fumbles should get cut from most games because they do not work.

Forge-related trigger warning: the better way to do fumbles is for an antagonist crit to have an option to force a fumble onto a PC. This means that the GM can manually tune the mechanic to go for damage and danger or for flavor and to go easy on the player characters.

Quote from: jhkim on September 22, 2023, 01:02:42 PM

Quote from: ForgottenF on September 21, 2023, 08:48:07 PM
I am definitely in the camp that thinks fumbles, as they're usually played, are immersion-breaking in their silliness. I competed in Olympic fencing for over a decade, and have done plenty of HEMA and other kinds of mock battle. I don't think I've ever seen someone accidentally throw their weapon, and I can count maybe a handful of times I've seen someone unintentionally drop a weapon without being actively disarmed. Accidentally hitting an ally with a melee weapon is marginally more common, but not by much. The only way I've seen it happen is if in a chaotic melee someone actually mistakes friend for foe.

I've also can't recall having ever heard or read a historical account of any of these things happening. Though I'll concede I might have.

On the other hand, the idea of a roughly 5% chance of something going catastrophically wrong in in the chaos of battle does make sense to me, so I tend to regard fumbles as something to be fixed rather than discarded.

I agree with your logic here - but your tables still have a 1% chance of dropping a melee weapon. I'd think you've seen far more than 100 attacks given your experience, and you say you've never seen it. (Given that there are many attacks on either side in a match, and you've seen/participated in a lot of matches.)

The underlying logic would be that a clumsy attack leaves you open to being disarmed, but you're still right. It might be better to have that roll give the opponent an option to make a disarm check. If I was going to put this table into practice, I'd want to adjust the probabilities, or I might institute some kind of confirmation roll for fumbles (like what some games have for criticals). I don't mind a 5% chance for an attack that will always hit. That basically represents a "puncher's chance". But yeah even a 1% chance to get disarmed is probably too high. 

EDIT: I should probably add that I don't actually use that table in play. I usually just go with a standing rule that rolling a 1 (or a 20 if the goal is to roll low) automatically gives the target a free counterattack. It's simple, avoids silliness, and speeds combat along without unduly punishing the players. In my Dragon Warriors campaign I allowed the players to let their weapon or shield make a saving throw in lieu of taking the counterattack. I also made it so that critical hits didn't do extra damage; instead they damaged the opponent's armor, reducing its protection by one point until repaired.

Quote from: JeremyR on September 21, 2023, 06:56:04 PM
EGG pointed out that criticals and fumbles will end up affecting player characters far more in the long run and why he didn't include them in D&D.

Whether PCs can get critical hits and whether NPCs can do it to PCs are two entirely separate things. There's no reason that monsters should have the ability to do critical damage to PCs even if PCs can do critical damage to monsters. Which is why EGG's conclusion is nonsense.

Personally, I give each monsters a "Special Attack" which activates when that monster rolls a critical. So Zombies have a grab, Goblins have a Infiltrate (i.e. moving through the PC to attack from behind next round), etc. PCs can either do double damage (i.e. rolling twice as many damage dice) or they can activate any skill they have learned such as disarm, push, grapple throw, etc.

Criticals and Fumbles area a chance to add spice to combat, so its not just two guys beating on each other.
I have Criticals give the player a free stunt in addition to their damage. Player Fumbles give enemy a free stunt.

The funny thing about MERP was that they had all these elaborate and lethal crit tables, but then the powerful NPCs like Gandalf, Galadriel, etc. all literally had "plot armor" in the form of unique magic items that negated various crits.  So even if, say, you wanted to have one of those characters fight a big bad like Shelob, or a Ringwraith or whatever, they probably could not be killed anyhow.  Meanwhile, half our party was walking around maimed.  And those were the ones who weren't just killed outright.  But we had tons of fun playing.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 22, 2023, 08:25:19 PM

Whether PCs can get critical hits and whether NPCs can do it to PCs are two entirely separate things. There's no reason that monsters should have the ability to do critical damage to PCs even if PCs can do critical damage to monsters. Which is why EGG's conclusion is nonsense.

EGG believed that what is good for the goose is good for the gander and would think that allowing crits for players and not monsters was nonsense.

Quote from: hedgehobbit on September 22, 2023, 08:25:19 PM
Personally, I give each monsters a "Special Attack" which activates when that monster rolls a critical. So Zombies have a grab, Goblins have a Infiltrate (i.e. moving through the PC to attack from behind next round), etc. PCs can either do double damage (i.e. rolling twice as many damage dice) or they can activate any skill they have learned such as disarm, push, grapple throw, etc.

Speaking of nonsense why would a learned skill or ability only be useable when a crit is rolled? The idea of something cool and off the wall happening to make crits more interesting than just extra damage is a great idea but only getting to use learned abilities on a crit seems strange. Unless you mean these actions take place as a free bonus on a crit and would otherwise need to be declared as a main action.

I like crits and fumbles.  They add a little more excitement and tension to the game, which is always a good thing.  In my AD&D days, a natural 20 was double damage, and a natural 1 meant roll a d10 for a result on a table.  I don't recall the details, but it was something like
1 hit self
2 hit friend
3 drop weapon
4 throw weapon
5-7 various other stuff
8-10 no effect

I didn't include break weapon on the chart because that's too harsh when magic weapons are involved.

Quote from: Mishihari on September 23, 2023, 12:45:54 PM
I like crits and fumbles.  They add a little more excitement and tension to the game, which is always a good thing.  In my AD&D days, a natural 20 was double damage, and a natural 1 meant roll a d10 for a result on a table.  I don't recall the details, but it was something like
1 hit self
2 hit friend
3 drop weapon
4 throw weapon
5-7 various other stuff
8-10 no effect

The point is charts like this are beyond stupid.  I never hit myself when fencing with a saber.  Never dropped or threw the weapon either.  If a friend weren't right in front of me standing next to my opponent I would have never hit him/her either.  And I was only what the game rules would call a 0 level fighter.