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View Full Version : Does Failing at Fialure equall success?



Vistol
2010-06-25, 11:15 AM
A bit of an odd rules question.

Short version: when trying to be terrible at something, say perform or diplomacy, does rolling a "1" mean you actually did a good job?

Long Version (4e): Our party was at a gladiatorial arena, run by a rather shady fellow upon whom we wanted to inflict maximum harm, both financial and physical. The bard decides to try play-by-play commentary and myself a semi-insane dwarf wizard, who likes to abuse ghost sound, jumps in with to do color. Our stated goal is to be annoying as possible; angering fans, participants and especially the owner. Being 4e the DM tells the Bard diplomacy check and for me to roll a DC 10 dip check to assist. (The role play here was great by way; I was doing my best John Madden “the way to win the fight is to stab the other guy more times then he stabs you”, and the bard was being brutal with terrible puns).

Then both of us hit natural 1’s for our checks, this left all hands at the table rather perplexed. The DM decided that we were awesome for coming up with this wonderful new idea of fight commentary and the patrons loved it. We got lots praise and even a few copper in tips.


We had a long chat about this after and wrote it off as "it's so bad it's good" kind of thing.

Any ideas on what should be done when something like this comes along?

Wonton
2010-06-25, 11:20 AM
Here's an idea: to represent the PC intentionally trying to fail, have them roll 1d10 instead. Then, even with the best roll, their performance will just be mediocre, while the possibility of an awful one is more likely.

The Glyphstone
2010-06-25, 11:23 AM
While amusing, I would have just had the crowd fail to react at all. You failed at your intended goal (upsetting the crowd), but failure isn't necessarily the opposite of your intended goal, it's just the lack of it. A natural 1 on Use Rope doesn't cause you to tie yourself up in knots, though it might mean the rope breaks. A natural 1 on a Jump check can't give you a Burrow speed.

nedz
2010-06-25, 11:45 AM
Double 1's
I think you have to interpret this kind of thing creatively.

Eg.
The crowd pick up on the fact that you are a double act, doing some improv. comedy.
Or
Your actions actually help the shady guy's plan in some unexpected way, perhaps one of the gladiators who was doing well gets distracted and loses allowing the shady character to win a large side bet.
Or
...

Snake-Aes
2010-06-25, 11:47 AM
"Failing", in your interpretation, is actually trying to cause a negative change. A high roll means you really upset them. A low roll means you passed for a harmless moron.

Kurald Galain
2010-06-25, 11:58 AM
Any ideas on what should be done when something like this comes along?

Sounds like a good solution. Double-1s are rare enough that they should be an impressive result.

mucat
2010-06-25, 12:09 PM
"And we never failed to fail / It was the easiest thing to do."
- Crosby, Stills, and Nash


I agree with the others here that, by default, failing to fail doesn't do anything very impressive. You were trying to anger and distract people, but instead they just ignored you.

However, double-1's are rare, so if the DM wants to do something more fun, he can certainly go ahead. If I were the DM, I might well have people think you were hilarious, in an Ed Wood, "so bad it's good" way, and want to hire you to do this at every match.

I'm reminded of Life of Brian, where Brian is trying to lay low and escape attention, and instead ends up with a crowd of rabid followers hailing him as messiah.

Ah, and of course, it's pretty much mandatory for someone to quote douglas adams here: "Flying is easy. You just have to throw yourself at the ground and miss!"

Vistol
2010-06-25, 12:36 PM
Thanks for the feedback, the I will now refrence this as the "Ed Wood rule".

Also @Mucat, call me next time you're at a noisy bar in Avalon.

nedz
2010-06-25, 12:43 PM
Anyone remember the movie "The Producers" ? :smallbiggrin:

Snake-Aes
2010-06-25, 12:46 PM
Thanks for the feedback, the I will now refrence this as the "Ed Wood rule".

Also @Mucat, call me next time you're at a noisy bar in Avalon.

That works. A good interpretation of skill checks with gradient rates of success is to just translate what is written. Diplomacy for example has "failures for up to -4 are bland. Failures past -5 means something bad happened"

You could just switch the "something bad happened" for "unwanted reaction". Like the Life of Brian guy, to a lesser extent.

Zeta Kai
2010-06-25, 01:00 PM
I dunno, I've never "fialed" before. :smallwink:

Nero24200
2010-06-25, 01:02 PM
Failing something is generally alot easier than passing. In RL getting someone to like you is always harder than getting them to not like you - Don't want them to like you? Insult, act crude and in general don't play nice. On the other hand, you could be the most pleasent person in the world, and you're still going to have people who do not like you.

I think failing a test like this shouldn't require a roll, just go for it. Let them describe how they try to annoy, and adjust accordingly. You wouldn't use the Jump skill for trying to stay on the ground, so don't use Diplomacy to try and make someone hate you.

DracoDei
2010-06-25, 02:29 PM
I certainly think it is worth rolling for, and I think that the GMs solution was a good option.

As an example, I would definitely make a character roll diplomacy to get an enemy to strike the first blow in a situation where that it going to get combat significant bystanders (such as the city watch) to join the PC in attacking them. Same thing for goading someone into accepting an honor duel.

mostlyharmful
2010-06-25, 03:09 PM
Spring time for Hitler and GEEEErrrrrrMMannnyyyy.... Winter time for Poland and FRAAAAnnnccceeeee....

Nero24200
2010-06-25, 03:46 PM
As an example, I would definitely make a character roll diplomacy to get an enemy to strike the first blow in a situation where that it going to get combat significant bystanders (such as the city watch) to join the PC in attacking them. Same thing for goading someone into accepting an honor duel.

Hmm...I can kinda see where you're comming from here. I would definately call for a check there. Rethinking what I said...I suppose I wouldn't consider it "failing" a check, just attempting an out-of-the-norm result. Having said that, it would still require house-rules for use with a diplomacy check (though I don't think anyone would find such house-rules unreasonable).

Nihb
2010-06-25, 05:13 PM
Funny, but something like this happened to me last week. My character has a low Charisma score and decided to Perform (Dancing) in front of a crowd. 3 - 1, and the people left us. The plan? Find some way to do some "secret" investigation without too many people watching us. Failing was part of the plan.

The result would have been weird had I roll a 20. But heh, sometime, you must fail.

Optimystik
2010-06-25, 05:16 PM
Surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

http://shamusyoung.mu.nu/images/comic_lotr74b.jpg

Mystic Muse
2010-06-25, 05:20 PM
Surprised nobody mentioned this yet:

http://shamusyoung.mu.nu/images/comic_lotr74b.jpg

I was just about to.

mucat
2010-06-25, 05:35 PM
Also @Mucat, call me next time you're at a noisy bar in Avalon.
I tried....

FMArthur
2010-06-25, 08:10 PM
This just reminds me of someone here once saying that a monk can use his unarmed strike to hover (or avoid falling damage) by trying to attack the ground with his whole body and missing.

Which of course should have just resulted in him passing through the dirt until he hits bedrock, taking falling damage and then being crushed to death.

Mystic Muse
2010-06-25, 08:11 PM
This just reminds me of someone here once saying that a monk can use his unarmed strike to hover (or avoid falling damage) by trying to attack the ground with his whole body and missing.

Which of course should have just resulted in him passing through the dirt until he hits bedrock, taking falling damage and then being crushed to death.

Easy. The attack misses but he still "Hits" the ground.

PersonMan
2010-06-25, 08:40 PM
Easy. The attack misses but he still "Hits" the ground.

The ground has -100% miss chance, maybe?

Solophoenix
2010-06-26, 09:43 AM
I think the ground just has enough armor to explain a 1 on the attack roll. You hit the ground, just not well enough to do any damage.

Rothen
2010-06-26, 09:56 AM
I dunno, I've never "fialed" before. :smallwink:

Seems like the OP failed to fail to fail.

Aeromyre
2010-06-26, 09:59 AM
A bit of an odd rules question.

Short version: when trying to be terrible at something, say perform or diplomacy, does rolling a "1" mean you actually did a good job?

Long Version (4e): Our party was at a gladiatorial arena, run by a rather shady fellow upon whom we wanted to inflict maximum harm, both financial and physical. The bard decides to try play-by-play commentary and myself a semi-insane dwarf wizard, who likes to abuse ghost sound, jumps in with to do color. Our stated goal is to be annoying as possible; angering fans, participants and especially the owner. Being 4e the DM tells the Bard diplomacy check and for me to roll a DC 10 dip check to assist. (The role play here was great by way; I was doing my best John Madden “the way to win the fight is to stab the other guy more times then he stabs you”, and the bard was being brutal with terrible puns).

Then both of us hit natural 1’s for our checks, this left all hands at the table rather perplexed. The DM decided that we were awesome for coming up with this wonderful new idea of fight commentary and the patrons loved it. We got lots praise and even a few copper in tips.


We had a long chat about this after and wrote it off as "it's so bad it's good" kind of thing.

Any ideas on what should be done when something like this comes along?

I think the DC should be the same, but you can apply your modifier as a negative modifier, therefor if you had a +5, when trying to fail it would be treated as a -5 and a 1 would result in failure as normal. The reason you can apply it as a negative modifier is because you have enough comprehension of the skill that you know how to do most everything right, so therefore you can easily do things just as wrong as well. Rolling a 20 in this case would succeed in in the diplomacy check IMO.

TurtleKing
2010-06-26, 10:59 AM
What if failing at failing could mean a nat 1 is not a crit fail but just a numerical 1 plus your modifers. Example being a homebrew domain my DM made where the divine caster fails at failing. The only way to access this domain is to be a member of the associated race that tends to fail alot.

The reason I no longer play that character anymore is because he is now a deity.:biggrin:

shadowmage
2010-06-26, 11:14 AM
This just reminds me of someone here once saying that a monk can use his unarmed strike to hover (or avoid falling damage) by trying to attack the ground with his whole body and missing.

Which of course should have just resulted in him passing through the dirt until he hits bedrock, taking falling damage and then being crushed to death.

See that's what he did wrong. you do not pay attention to the ground and attack it you have to get distracted at the last moment and forget the law of gravity exist, then you fly.

742
2010-06-27, 06:00 AM
the spectacular nature of your failure was in direct proportion to the awesomeness of your idea, at least in the eyes of your DM. i think TV tropes calls it the "rule of cool".

Makiru
2010-06-27, 06:13 AM
I did this in my last campaign for laughs. The PCs were trying to force a door open, and asked the NPC, who they just found out was a slaad, to help. His goals were to hinder their progress, but still act helpful, so I rolled to NOT open the door, reasoning to myself that he was holding back and success would be an indicator that he pretended to hit the door and failed to move it.

Nat 1 happens. I rolled it in front of the players, so they were expecting something wacky. Slaad trips, slams his head against the stone door and shatters it with the force of an explosion.

So, it's all DM call what happens. You could just say nothing happens, or you could get creative and make things interesting for your players.

prufock
2010-06-27, 09:41 AM
Sounds like your DM inverted the diplomacy table for this purpose, which is perfectly reasonable, and what I would do. Higher numbers should represent success. So, for example, if they were indifferent, and you wanted to make them unfriendly, the DC would be 15. To go from indifferent to hostile would be 30.

The assisting character (dwarf) rolling 1 has no real effect - he just doesn't provide a bonus for aiding.
The bard's 1 should have his diplomacy bonus added; skill checks aren't auto-fail on 1. Even using the 1 = -10 variant, a bard could still end up with a positive number on the check. Going from indifferent to friendly, with the inverted table, would require a total check below 1. Most likely effect is nothing happens, unless the total check is still higher than 15.

I don't know the starting attitude of the crowd, so I've just used indifferent as an example.