Real life Fumbles? (martial arts, combat, war, etc.)

[Jon_Dahl]

Let's collect examples of fumbles that are (even remotely) RPG related. Meaning that they can happen in-game.

Shooting yourself dead with a bow:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2609345.stm

Fencing accident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXDY8bmnSck

[Morph Bark]

That first one is just horrible. D:

Why would you even post that like this? "Real life fumbles" has an air of being humorous, or humorous-sounding at least. Death is anything but.

[awa]

The problem with fumbles is they happen so rarely as to be statisticaly irelevent (assuming highly trained individuals such as pcs proffiecient in their weapons)

[Wyntonian]

Let's collect examples of fumbles that are (even remotely) RPG related. Meaning that they can happen in-game.

Shooting yourself dead with a bow:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/scotland/2609345.stm

Fencing accident:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXDY8bmnSck

It looks like he didn't even shoot himself, he probably unstrung it improperly and let it snap at him. With a bow with a draw of more than fifty or sixty pounds, that can be a real bitch.

Also, that fencing incident is ridiculous .

[CarpeGuitarrem]

I think that the "hurting yourself" fumbles are so incredibly rare that there's not necessarily a reason to have them in a game. Now, "dropping your sword" sort of fumbles...

Well, if every attack roll is an abstraction of the attacks and parries you're making during a combat round, that doesn't sound so unreasonable.

[awa]

the problem with the abstract rout is it give no reason why monks two weapon characters and archers (precise people who make lots of attacks) should dropping their weapons so much more then the screaming barbarian leaping psychotically at everything that looks at him funny (character making one really powerful attack)

edit i see im actually in the generic rpg section not the 3.5 so ignore that

[Bacon Elemental]

A better example of fumbles:

Every YouTube video with the words 'millitary' and 'fails' in the title.

[Slipperychicken]

With the probabilities you're looking at (1 in a billion? a trillion?) for something like the bow incident happening on any given action, using random generation to achieve them is really going to do little more than waste your time rolling more dice (or whatever method you use). If you do try to roll dice to accurately simulate this,

a) To get a one-in-a-billion chance, you'll need to roll something truly preposterous. In the range of hundreds or thousands of double-naughts on a d100.

b) You're going to roll your d100s' corners off before this happens.

[Vaz]

Freak accidents are more usually down to user failure to follow proceedure, as well as being in the wrong place at the wrong time; similar to how a Critical Hit regards to a dragon being in the wrong place at the wrong time taking an arrow through its eyeball at 300 yards while it is flying up, away and leftways to the shooter.

The better archer can increase his chances of such an occurence, as well as decrease chances of critical fumble; a master swordsmith is filing something down. He has been making blades for years; never suffered a worse injury than singeing the hair off his forearms; then one day his "Controller" rolls a fumble, sneezes, metal filings go into his hair. He finishes work, takes off his goggles, filings fall out of his hair, and go into his eye causing it to itch. rubbing his eye drags the filing across the eyeball, scratching it, causing possibly permanent blindness.

In regards to others; horses balking at jumps, martial "artists" hitting themselves in the gonads with nunchucks...

[Zahhak]

The problem with fumbles is they happen so rarely as to be statisticaly irelevent (assuming highly trained individuals such as pcs proffiecient in their weapons)

And yet in DND, there's a 5% chance of it happening for basically everything you do.

[awa]

well that is one way of doing fumbles its not the only one.

personally my fumble house rule is you need to get an end result of -1 or worse.

this means in practice fumbling is only going to happen when your stacking penalties. say trying to use a weapon your not proficient in while drunk or while heavily cursed.

The charge of the light brigade was a pretty bad roll (sense motive, listen, spot ? a combination of all 3?)

I think part of the thing that bother me about fumbles is it makes the pc look like hes in some kind of slapstick show. now if fumbles were you lose your balance on a puddle of blood take a small penalty to defense. or better yet your enemy pushes you off balance take a small penalty to defense.

but no its always got to be you shoot an arrow it bounces off a wall and you sneak attack your self.

Or your ubercharger swings his ax and accidentally explodes

[Slipperychicken]

And yet in DND, there's a 5% chance of it happening for basically everything you do.

In 3.5, critical fumbles are a houserule. Natural 1 on skill/ability checks isn't automatic failure. Only saving throws and attack rolls are automatic failure on nat 1, but by the rules this incurs no further penalty than automatically missing (or failing the save).


Outside of combat, one should regularly Take 10, to avoid failures from rolling low. Which is exactly what Take 10 is for; so the master locksmith doesn't waste resources and fail at building a lock.

[Kiero]

The problem with fumbles is they happen so rarely as to be statisticaly irelevent (assuming highly trained individuals such as pcs proffiecient in their weapons)

Depends what you mean by fumble. In my martial arts experience, someone over-committing to something or otherwise jeopardising their balance and ending up on their arse isn't that uncommon. I'd call that a fumble.

[awa]

Do you see your martial arts instructer fall down 5% of the time?
If they throw 100 punches do they fall over 5 times? if so the most common fumble system is not in play

worse most dms ive played with like fumbles to be spectacularly bad such as hitting your self for full damge or bare minimum droping your weapon.

Now in the more abstract system you can attribute some of that stuff to enemy action but in dnd it's ussualy just ends up that pepole have a 5% of drroping thier weapon every attack

[Asheram]

Diplomacy fumble? Charge of the light brigade.

[JoshuaZ]

a) To get a one-in-a-billion chance, you'll need to roll something truly preposterous. In the range of hundreds or thousands of double-naughts on a d100.

b) You're going to roll your d100s' corners off before this happens.

A is wrong but B is probably still right. The chance of rolling a specific number on a d100 is 1/100, and the chance of rolling k of them in a row is 1/100^k. So two double-zeros in a row is 1/10,000. Three in a row is 1 in a million. Four in a row is 1 in a 100 million. Five in a row is in 1 in ten biliion. (Using American not English billion here). Five is a lot smaller than hundreds. But the second point is valid since if one wants something to happen 1 in a billion times, you are going to need to do it about a billion times.

[nedz]

Ah, but the secret to the success of D20 systems is that: events with a probability of around one in a million, happen 10% of the time. This makes everything more exciting.

[awa]

i thought charge of the light birgade was more of sense motive listen or spot check faliure then diplomacy

[nedz]

i thought charge of the light brigade was more of sense motive listen or spot check failure then diplomacy

I thought that it was a fumbled Speak Language roll — poorly worded orders — but you can't fumble skill rolls.

[awa]

cant fumble anything in dnd
in dnd all fumbles are house rules

[Altair_the_Vexed]

When LARPing, I often got my sword caught in the vegetation, or hit the ceiling, or otherwise momentarily stuck.
When LARPing with modern weapons, I've experienced many a mis-fire (of blanks, toy caps, etc).

I think fumbles should be much more about the chance to leave yourself open to attack, or penalise your next attack, than the chance that you injure yourself.

[SoC175]

Grenade fail

[Yora]

Wii fumble

[Malimar]

Grenade fail

Related.

[Winter_Wolf]

With the probabilities you're looking at (1 in a billion? a trillion?) for something like the bow incident happening on any given action, using random generation to achieve them is really going to do little more than waste your time rolling more dice (or whatever method you use). If you do try to roll dice to accurately simulate this,

a) To get a one-in-a-billion chance, you'll need to roll something truly preposterous. In the range of hundreds or thousands of double-naughts on a d100.

b) You're going to roll your d100s' corners off before this happens.

I want to introduce you to my dice. They hate me, and will do everything in their power to destroy my characters. I could use your dice, and they'd have heard from my dice that it's okay to do everything in their power to destroy my characters.

Unless the character is subpar and I'm trying to kill it off in game. Then the dice will keep 'em alive forever. The character won't ever amount to much, but by gum they'll struggle along and stay alive the whole campaign.

For real life fumbles, I don't have a link handy (and I can never seem to find these things again when I need them), but I saw a few martial arts clips with people who were bested by mundane inanimate objects: bricks, boards, sticks, and the like. And by "bested" I mean "concussed, lacerated, broken, or otherwise visibly injured". If it wasn't Youtube, then it was probably Youku (China's wishes-it-was-Youtube).

[Zahhak]

When LARPing with modern weapons, I've experienced many a mis-fire (of blanks, toy caps, etc).

When firing real weapons, I've never had a misfire out of thousands of rounds, and I've only ever seen one weapon malfunctions that didn't get fixed with tap-rack-bang out of probably millions of rounds that I've seen fired.

[Slipperychicken]

When firing real weapons, I've never had a misfire out of thousands of rounds, and I've only ever seen one weapon malfunctions that didn't get fixed with tap-rack-bang out of probably millions of rounds that I've seen fired.

To be fair, real weapons are surely built to much higher standards. If a toy gun malfunctions in a game of dress-up cops and robbers, who cares? If a real weapon malfunctions in real combat, that could mean lives (not to mention the manufacturer's reputation and revenue).

[Zahhak]

My point was about weapon malfunctions on real weapons in reference to critical failures in game rules, which I maintain are a load of silly nonsense.

[Jon_Dahl]

I've been using own fumble tables since 2009 and for 80+ sessions, and they are very mild. I have never seen anything unrealistic happen because of them. High table rolls can have a bit radical results, but nothing severe.

The worst fumble ever was when paladin was in a tavern, wielding a two-handed sword in the middle of chairs and tables. He tried to block a longsword attack, stepped forward and tripped himself. He fell on his sword and cut himself in the neck. Then his opponent struck him while he was prone and almost killed him. Other PCs managed to save him.

The chances for such event are approximately 0.05% and it can ONLY happen under actual combat-stress.

[razorback]

When firing real weapons, I've never had a misfire out of thousands of rounds, and I've only ever seen one weapon malfunctions that didn't get fixed with tap-rack-bang out of probably millions of rounds that I've seen fired.

Personally, I've had 3 misfires in my life out of thousands.
I've seen at least 10 others happen, a couple I would attribute to an improperly cleaned weapon, but the rest were misfires.
Twice I've seen a round fired and ricochet and hit someone. Once the shooter of a SKS AK-47 knockoff had a round hit the target and deflected somehow and the jacket had deformed enough that it didn't penetrate but it left the skin lacerated and he had a pretty impressive bruise. The other was a 9mm that glanced off an observer's shoulder, tearing shirt and skin. Neither were terrible but if they had been less lucky, either shot to the face could have had permanent damage.
Two guys I train with in martial arts are both police officers, one a trainer and ex-SWAT. I asked them about this after reading this thread. Both have said that they have seen dozens of misfires but this is over span of about 15-20 years each, so I have no idea how small of a percentage this is since I'm assuming the have probably seen hundreds of thousands of rounds fired between the two of them, but it does happen.