Fumbles

[Aliquid]

I've always found the concept of "fumbles" in a RPG intriguing (as a player... not just as a DM)

It could add some slapstick humor to the game, or alternately add some dramatic tension with an "oh crap" moment. If you look at RPGs from a "storytelling" perspective, there are plenty of books or movies where things go completely sideways for the protagonist due to dumb luck, and then he/she overcomes things anyway.

BUT, from what I have seen from other posts, many people hate the concept of fumbles.

So, I have to ask: Is there a way to implement fumbles without pissing people off?

Things I have considered:

• It has to be rare. So not just rolling a 1 on a d20.
• A character with high skills should fumble far less often than one with low skills
• The majority of fumbles should be amusing, but minor and easy to recover from

[Grod_The_Giant]

No. There is not.

FAILURE is fine. Unexpected failures that are easy to recover from already exist-- they're called missing, and they can be described in as amusingly slapstick a fashion as fits the scene. If you miss a goblin, maybe it's because you slipped on some blood and almost stabbed yourself; if you miss a boss it's because he caught your sword in one hand. We all have stories about the luck of the dice letting a mook nearly murder the party, or a scary dude going down the first turn with a botched save.

Fumbles add NOTHING to that. All they do is punish the player for rolling. You already failed; there's no need to kick yourself in the face for it.

As for "oh crap" moments... Again, fumbles add nothing to that. Books get away with it because the narrative isn't random; the bad luck comes at a dramatically appropriate time. Fumbles do not. Complication/Hero Point type mechanics do a much better job of simulating that... if you need. Which you probably don't; players tend to do wonderful jobs of getting themselves into bad situations all by themselves, and it's so much better when it's your fault.

Tl;dr: Fumbles add nothing to the game that simply spicing up your descriptions doesn't already handle.

[Red Fel]

Building on what Grod said: Fumbles, as opposed to mere failure, are generally bad. However, there are contexts in which they may be appropriate.

For example, in an overly slapstick game where the outcomes are less important than the means, fumbles can be hysterical. I'm thinking a Toon-type game here.

Similarly, in a setting where a fumble doesn't mean "failure plus punishment" but rather "unintended consequences," a fumble could be very interesting. For example, in In Nomine, rolling three 1s is "divine intervention," while rolling three 6s is "infernal intervention" - which may or may not be a bad thing, depending on who your boss is. The kind of mechanic that allows the DM to do something other than "You fail, and also cut your foot off," creates more narrative fun. More options, not fewer.

Lastly, consider a game that allows you to take the hit in exchange for a future benefit. For something comparable, if not exactly on point, in FATE, you can choose to accept a compulsion - the DM mandating that you act in accordance with an aspect of your character - in exchange for a Fate point, which can be spent to your benefit later. Alternatively, you can spend a Fate point to resist it. To create something comparable, you can cause fumbles to represent a give-and-take of fortune, and anyone who fumbles receives a token good for something later on - or, alternatively, they can spend one of these tokens to erase the fumble. This turns a fumble from pure punishment into a choice, an opportunity - creating player agency instead of taking it.

[Karl Aegis]

When you roll your pigs, if both pigs are in an upright position with one stacked on top of the other one the game immediately ends. You pack things up and go home. Nothing else is fair.

[napoleon_in_rag]

So, I have to ask: Is there a way to implement fumbles without pissing people off?

Things I have considered:

• It has to be rare. So not just rolling a 1 on a d20.
• A character with high skills should fumble far less often than one with low skills
• The majority of fumbles should be amusing, but minor and easy to recover from

I remember the AD&D 1e PHB had a picture of a mage tripping and accidentally throwing his dagger into a fighters back as an illustration why a 3 Dex was a bad thing. I also remember in one early edition (2e?) of the game, if you fired a ranged weapon into combat between two people and hit, you had rolled to see which one you hit. Not very fun and generally ignored.

Like others have said, this kind of mechanic can take the fun out of the game. But to meet your criteria, you could something like this for combat:

When a player rolls a 1 on a 20 when making an attack, they then have to roll a 2d6. That roll is modified for things like:

• Ability modifier
• Weapon Skill (+3 for expertise, +1 for proficiency, -1 for non proficiency)
• Environment (-1 for fighting on loose footing, -3 for fighting on slippery ice, -5 for fighting blind)

Take the final number and compare it to this chart:

2 - Player hits a friend for full damage. If no friends in range, he hits himself.
3 - 4 - Player hits a friend for half damage. If no friends in range, he hits himself.
5 - 6 - Player drops weapon and slips (-1 AC, 1/2 movement next round).
7 - 8 - Player slips (-1 AC, 1/2 movement next round).
9+ - Automatic Miss.


That way the worse that could happen to a warrior with expertise in his weapon and a +3 in his ability is a slip. But a character with a -2 ability and no proficiency would be dangerous to be around. I would also make a similar chart for a critical hit to balance it out.

[Keltest]

No. There is not.

FAILURE is fine. Unexpected failures that are easy to recover from already exist-- they're called missing, and they can be described in as amusingly slapstick a fashion as fits the scene. If you miss a goblin, maybe it's because you slipped on some blood and almost stabbed yourself; if you miss a boss it's because he caught your sword in one hand. We all have stories about the luck of the dice letting a mook nearly murder the party, or a scary dude going down the first turn with a botched save.

Fumbles add NOTHING to that. All they do is punish the player for rolling. You already failed; there's no need to kick yourself in the face for it.

As for "oh crap" moments... Again, fumbles add nothing to that. Books get away with it because the narrative isn't random; the bad luck comes at a dramatically appropriate time. Fumbles do not. Complication/Hero Point type mechanics do a much better job of simulating that... if you need. Which you probably don't; players tend to do wonderful jobs of getting themselves into bad situations all by themselves, and it's so much better when it's your fault.

Tl;dr: Fumbles add nothing to the game that simply spicing up your descriptions doesn't already handle.

This depends entirely on the tone of the game and the group. For example, "you missed your shot so badly that it flew over the fighter you were shooting at and hit the wizard in the back of their group." would be hilarious at my table. As would (and has been) "you slip on some mud and hit your buddy with your sword by mistake". And every 100 fumbles or so, "you slip on some mud and hit yourself with your sword."

[kyoryu]

Add me to the "no, thanks" column.

Fumbles are, too often, part of the "incompetence porn" aspect of roleplaying, where pleasure is gained by laughing at the misdeeds of other PCs, and I have little use for that.

Fumbles don't happen nearly enough in actual life to be worth modeling, and they certainly rarely happen in fiction with any regularity. So I have a hard time justifying their addition.

The only time that they do occur is usually when there's an established character trait, which can be handled with an appropriate character widget. There's no need for a generalized rule.

Edit: If you're talking a game of Toon or something? Sure, why not. My response is aimed at mainline, action-adventure style games.

[Grod_The_Giant]

This depends entirely on the tone of the game and the group. For example, "you missed your shot so badly that it flew over the fighter you were shooting at and hit the wizard in the back of their group." would be hilarious at my table. As would (and has been) "you slip on some mud and hit your buddy with your sword by mistake". And every 100 fumbles or so, "you slip on some mud and hit yourself with your sword."

Even in such a context, I'd still argue that it's better and more fun to simply describe hilarious failures (that don't really have a mechanical effect) than it is to use set rules, be they simple "on a natural 1 you attack the wrong target" or dense weapon-specific fumble decks or tables.

[Aliquid]

Fumbles add NOTHING to that. All they do is punish the player for rolling. You already failed; there's no need to kick yourself in the face for it.

I don't get the whole "punishment", or "kick in face" concept. Why is failing seen as such a horrible thing?

For example, in an overly slapstick game where the outcomes are less important than the means, fumbles can be hysterical. I'm thinking a Toon-type game here.

I played a lot of Paranoia back in the day... so maybe that's why I see gaming like this too.

When you roll your pigs, if both pigs are in an upright position with one stacked on top of the other one the game immediately ends. You pack things up and go home. Nothing else is fair.

I know exactly what you are talking about. Never seen it happen though.

When a player rolls a 1 on a 20 when making an attack, they then have to roll a 2d6. That roll is modified for things like:

• Ability modifier
• Weapon Skill (+3 for expertise, +1 for proficiency, -1 for non proficiency)
• Environment (-1 for fighting on loose footing, -3 for fighting on slippery ice, -5 for fighting blind)

Take the final number and compare it to this chart:

2 - Player hits a friend for full damage. If no friends in range, he hits himself.
3 - 4 - Player hits a friend for half damage. If no friends in range, he hits himself.
5 - 6 - Player drops weapon and slips (-1 AC, 1/2 movement next round).
7 - 8 - Player slips (-1 AC, 1/2 movement next round).
9+ - Automatic Miss.

That's basically what I was thinking. If you roll a 1, you need to do an additional roll to see if it is a fumble, and as your skill level goes up, your ability to dodge the fumble goes up.

For example, "you missed your shot so badly that it flew over the fighter you were shooting at and hit the wizard in the back of their group." would be hilarious at my table.

What I find interesting is that so many people who I see opposing fumbles in other threads have the mindset that fumbles are HORRIBLE and nobody should use them. I don't get the anger, rather than "meh, not my thing"

Add me to the "no, thanks" column.

Fumbles are, too often, part of the "incompetence porn" aspect of roleplaying, where pleasure is gained by laughing at the misdeeds of other PCs, and I have little use for that.

I'm happy to laugh at my misdeeds too... but I guess it depends on if the other players are jerks about it or not.

[Jay R]

Lots of people play with fumble rules and enjoy it.

Lots of people don't like fumble rules and don't play with them.

Other people are allowed to disagree with you, because that's the exact same statement as saying you are allowed to disagree with them.

People are different, and like different things.

[veti]

Depends entirely on the group.

I'm fine with a reasonable fumble system. I enjoy a bit of slapstick. And the mortification of doing it to oneself is more than made up by the glee of seeing enemies do it to themselves.

But as this thread illustrates, some people start frothing at the mouth at the very mention of the idea. If you have any of those in your group, it's probably not worth the effort.

I would roll to confirm fumbles in the same way as criticals. That way, fumbling is automatically scaled to your skill and your opponent's AC, which seems fair to me. Then I'd have an open-ended roll for effects, with a wide area of "not too bad stuff" - -2 to AC, miss your next attack, minor damage to friendly target - but if you manage to explode your roll twice, then things start to get consequential. Weapon breakage or loss, temporary blindness, critting friendly targets, that sort of thing. The idea being to inject at least a moment of tension to every fumble.

[CharonsHelper]

Put me in the - "no thanks" column. I generally don't like things which make the game super swingy - largely because I enjoy the tactical elements of RPGs.

In addition to fumbles, I also don't like exploding dice (especially when they can also explode) or save or die abilities.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I don't get the whole "punishment", or "kick in face" concept. Why is failing seen as such a horrible thing?

Because that's literally what they are. A natural one is already a failure on two counts-- firstly because your total roll is probably too low (assuming you're facing something difficult enough to necessitate rolling at all), and secondly because a natural 1, at least in d20 games, is an automatic failure regardless of total. You've already failed; fumble rules exist for the sole purpose of making the failure worse. And usually embarrassing.

What I find interesting is that so many people who I see opposing fumbles in other threads have the mindset that fumbles are HORRIBLE and nobody should use them. I don't get the anger, rather than "meh, not my thing"

I've had them imposed on me too many times. It's a really common thing. Natural 1 fumbles in D&D, botches in White Wolf games, friggin fumble decks that mean I just crippled myself for a fight because the die came up wrong... I don't hate them in something like Toon or Paranoia, but I despise "serious" games where the dice show a "1" and the DM turns my calm and collected swordsman into a blithering incompetent.

[Aliquid]

You've already failed; fumble rules exist for the sole purpose of making the failure worse. And usually embarrassing.

I'm not saying this to be confrontational or anything... but so what? Back to my question, why is failing a horrible thing? I'm genuinely curious.

I might just be lucky that I have never played with a jerk DM though. So I'm going to put forward a theory.

• A good game for me (and I think many people) is a mix of success and failure.
• The ratio of those two things vary with different game styles
• There are annoying players that throw a tantrum if the ratio isn't extremely skewed to the "success" side
• There are jerk DMs who suck all fun out of a game by making the game extremely skewed to the "fail" side

Those "Jerk" DMs almost always enjoy "fumble" rules. Therefore the moment the word "fumble" is spoken, people immediately associate it with a DM who's sole purpose is to make the game hard and miserable for you. Even though that might not be the case.

I don't hate them in something like Toon or Paranoia, but I despise "serious" games where the dice show a "1" and the DM turns my calm and collected swordsman into a blithering incompetent.

But that's why I started the thread by literally saying "It has to be rare. So not just rolling a 1 on a d20"

[Grod_The_Giant]

I'm not saying this to be confrontational or anything... but so what? Back to my question, why is failing a horrible thing? I'm genuinely curious.

As I keep saying, it's not the failure that bothers me, it's the humiliating failure. Humiliating, and usually woefully out-of-character. In a very real sense, at least for me, "you accidentally stab your buddy" is a loss of agency, in a way that "you miss" isn't. It's taking control of my character to do something that does not fit my view of things. That's why I support the descriptive option. If I'm playing Star-Lord, then I can describe my natural 1 making me look like a goof; if I'm playing Gamora, I can describe it as my enemy blocking like a badass.

(I mean, I tend to be on the "make it not the player's fault" school of description to begin with; I prefer to blame an external factor when things go wrong-- a sudden gust of wind blows your arrow off-course, the climbing line snaps, you didn't realize the guard was divorced until you asked about his wife, that sort of thing. I want to root for my characters, root for my players, not make them look like fools.)

Those "Jerk" DMs almost always enjoy "fumble" rules. Therefore the moment the word "fumble" is spoken, people immediately associate it with a DM who's sole purpose is to make the game hard and miserable for you. Even though that might not be the case.

I'd like to agree with that, and I think there's certainly an element. But I've had some otherwise-good GMs who still light up with malicious glee when it comes to botches and such, though.

But that's why I started the thread by literally saying "It has to be rare. So not just rolling a 1 on a d20"

If they must exist, I suggest treating them like Compels in Fate. The GM brings them in deliberately, at a time when it would be appropriate, and offers the player a metagame reward for doing so-- and the player has the option to pay a metagame currency to avoid it, if they really don't want.

[NRSASD]

I personally like fumbles, but I grew up with them. We also use an expanded critical system, so it adds symmetry and provides a good incentive to have a backup weapon just in case something goes horribly, horribly wrong. We don't frame them as incompetence though, just as cripplingly bad luck striking all at once. Here's how we treat it.

On a natural 1
1: hit self
2: hit another target
3: drop weapon
4: break weapon
5: fall prone
6-20: miss

On a natural 20
1: Triple damage and DC 15 Con save, failure=death
2-3: Automatic called shot or triple damage
4-5: Triple damage
6-20: double damage

[Aotrs Commander]

I - and my group - largely started and still continue to play to this day (thought less frequently), Rolemaster, so fumbles are pretty much a given.

After much experimentation, our current system as it pertains to D&D is if you roll a natural 1 on an attack roll on your FIRST attack that round (after that a 1 is just a miss), you roll a D20 to see how bad it is (low is bad - by which I mean bottem-end single digits; anything else is just a bad miss) and then the DM decides (arbitarily) what happens, based on what would be the most amusing (or least harmful) at the time. We tried other things, but unlike with Rolemaster, it just doesn't work. (Skills-wise we use 1 = -10 and 20 = 30, but they are neither automatic success nor failure.)

(This applies, of course, equally to the monsters.)



Thing is... You remember the fumbles.

You remember the fumbles for YEARS.

I could list off the fumbles that have happened in lists - many of them in Rolemaster - (the time the Middle-Earth party nearly all fell off a cliff, the Battle of the Fumbles, the time the party collectively fumbled one after another, the time the basic skeleton effectively inflicted damage above and beyond what it ever could have been expected onto the 5-7th level fighter, that time that one PC shot another PC with his shotgun because he made the kistake oif firing at a skeleton at close range, that really disturbing one whee, the second time I ran that adventure in the exact same place where hsitory repeated and the mage got shot in the back of the head by another PC with a gun (only thr second incident was accidental)...

I can only remember specifically a couple of the criticals over the years (especially in D&D) that were of particular note by comparison. (Like the time the necromancer carved a barbarian in twain with his scythe and made all that time carrying it around and not having a familair totally worth it...!)

[Koo Rehtorb]

So, I have to ask: Is there a way to implement fumbles without pissing people off?

Frame them in a way that makes them bad luck, not incompetence.

[Aliquid]

As I keep saying, it's not the failure that bothers me, it's the humiliating failure. Humiliating, and usually woefully out-of-character. [snip]
I want to root for my characters, root for my players, not make them look like fools.)

Frame them in a way that makes them bad luck, not incompetence.

Ok, now these comments are bringing more clarity to this for me. You are acting out your character the way your visualize him/her. Then the DM not only takes that control from you, but makes your character look the fool in the process.

What if it were a system where you had to have character "flaws", and the "fumbles" were vague, such as - "your flaw caused you to fail in a way that puts you in a disadvantage (of x) for your next turn". Then it is up to the player to decide what happened. Maybe the character's ego caused him to get cocky and leave himself open. Maybe the character's impatience caused her to forget to 'look before you leap'... etc. It is up to the player to decide how it pans out.

There could be a mix of fumbles. Some where it is due to the character's flaw(s), and some fumbles would be due to environmental factors out of their control (bad luck)

I'd like to agree with that, and I think there's certainly an element. But I've had some otherwise-good GMs who still light up with malicious glee when it comes to botches and such, though.

As long as the GM was as amused with NPC botches, it wouldn't really bother me. But if it is focused on the PCs, then it is personal.

If they must exist, I suggest treating them like Compels in Fate. The GM brings them in deliberately, at a time when it would be appropriate, and offers the player a metagame reward for doing so-- and the player has the option to pay a metagame currency to avoid it, if they really don't want.

I've only played with metagame currency a couple of times, and I'm still trying to decide if I like the concept or not. But yes, that is definitely a viable alternative.

[OldTrees1]

No. There is not.

FAILURE is fine. Unexpected failures that are easy to recover from already exist-- they're called missing, and they can be described in as amusingly slapstick a fashion as fits the scene. If you miss a goblin, maybe it's because you slipped on some blood and almost stabbed yourself; if you miss a boss it's because he caught your sword in one hand. We all have stories about the luck of the dice letting a mook nearly murder the party, or a scary dude going down the first turn with a botched save.

Fumbles add NOTHING to that. All they do is punish the player for rolling. You already failed; there's no need to kick yourself in the face for it.

As for "oh crap" moments... Again, fumbles add nothing to that. Books get away with it because the narrative isn't random; the bad luck comes at a dramatically appropriate time. Fumbles do not. Complication/Hero Point type mechanics do a much better job of simulating that... if you need. Which you probably don't; players tend to do wonderful jobs of getting themselves into bad situations all by themselves, and it's so much better when it's your fault.

Tl;dr: Fumbles add nothing to the game that simply spicing up your descriptions doesn't already handle.

Interesting, let's test that theory.

I ran a campaign once where skill checks that were both failures and rolled a nat 1 (back then I did not factor in for frequency of rolls) would result in me thinking of a temporary effect on the spot. The effects were meant to be of negligible impact on balance, but of non negligible enjoyment. I was using the dice to randomize & limit when I came up with an idea as well as to ties the idea to some context. How would you convert this away from a fumble mechanic?

Concrete example: In the first session one PC rolled 2 nat 1 failures in a row while on watch. This inspired me to have them temporarily hallucinate 6 talking birds. They liked this enough that it became a permanent effect.

Honestly I liked the few outcomes enough that I designed an inverted bellcurve(1s and 20s were most frequent) so I could ask to use that next time I was playing a PC.


That said: I am a solid "no thanks" for attack or spellcasting fumbles.

[FreddyNoNose]

crits and fumbles don't help the players in the long run. That being said, if you want to allow them in your game that is great.

[Keltest]

Even in such a context, I'd still argue that it's better and more fun to simply describe hilarious failures (that don't really have a mechanical effect) than it is to use set rules, be they simple "on a natural 1 you attack the wrong target" or dense weapon-specific fumble decks or tables.

And you would be wrong, at least as pertains to my group.

[Knaight]

I've seen them work, but never in D&D - and even then, the golden standard is the glitch system for Shadowrun, which can involve fumbles but also involves succeeding with flaws (an example is getting some stuff caught on a barbed wire fence you're hopping).

[Glorthindel]

My opinion is they are a valid counterbalance to criticals. That said, I agree that it is preferable to simulate them as bad luck instead of incompetance.

However, I am firmly in support of hitting team-mates in the particular example of shooting into melee; it is a risky action, since you cannot account for movement the combatants have to make as part of their fight. So even if your aim is good, you can't account for your companion (who is likely back to you, so unaware of the incoming arrow/bullet) stepping in front of the shot while doing so to avoid a sword swing. If this mechanic is covered by the rules, thats fine, but if not, I'm happy to allow fumbles to handle the possibility.

[ExLibrisMortis]

My opinion is they are a valid counterbalance to criticals.

I really dislike this argument. Fumbles have nothing to do with balancing criticals. PC criticals are already balanced by monster criticals. Fumbles are a separate and - as Grod says - unneeded houserule.

Put me in the "no, never" camp. For me, taking a critical hit is enough of a 'bad luck' mechanic.

[Random Sanity]

But that's why I started the thread by literally saying "It has to be rare. So not just rolling a 1 on a d20"

The thing is, for a fumble effect to be rare enough to avoid shattering suspension of disbelief, that "safety system" you keep advocating would have to be several rolls deep to represent the actual odds of a professional (often a superhumanly-good one) screwing up to that degree. At which point your fail table comes up so rarely you're wasting your time writing it in the first place.

Fumble systems add complexity where it's completely unneeded, slowing down play for the sole purpose of humiliating the PCs with outcomes that would never happen outside of a Three Stooges film. There's simply no such thing as a well-implemented fumble mechanic.

[Red Fel]

I'm not saying this to be confrontational or anything... but so what? Back to my question, why is failing a horrible thing? I'm genuinely curious.

As others have noted, fumbles aren't just failure. They're failure plus punishment.

Going over to D&D 3.5 as an illustration, because fumble rules in that game are fairly well-known and fairly egregious, consider this. If a Wizard is attempting to manipulate cosmic energies to warp the nature of reality as we know it, and he rolls a one, he fails. There are not fumble rules for spells. Conversely, if a level 20 Fighter attacks his enemy, he is four times more likely than a level 1 Fighter to chop his own leg off.

That's because fumble rules, at least in 3.5 (which is what we're using for illustration) trigger on attack rolls, which once more penalizes martials over casters. And because they trigger off of each roll, a level 20 Fighter - whose iteratives give him four attacks - has four chances to fumble, as opposed to a level 1 Fighter, who only has one attack and thus one chance. Because fumbling triggers on a natural 1, it is unaffected by level of training. Thus, on a given attack, a level 20 Fighter is just as likely to fumble as a level 1 Fighter, despite the gulf between them, and on a full attack, has four chances to do so.

How I've heard it expressed is this: Take 100 martials (e.g. Fighters), place them in front of 100 training dummies, and have them full attack every round for one hour. If, at the end of that time, any of those martials are dead, your fumble rules are crap. Why? Because nobody gets killed by a training dummy.

And that's the problem. It's totally fine to fail. That's what the dice are there for. That's what a natural 1 reflects. Failure is part of the system.

The problem is (1) fumble rules penalize certain characters over others (i.e. martials vs. casters), (2) they fail to reflect levels of training or skill, and (3) they can result in a person dying from a training dummy.

Even when you set aside the "makes you look foolish" argument, it's just a bad, unfair, illogical, punitive mechanic.

As for the argument of "counterbalance to criticals," let's actually look at that. What is a critical? A critical is a damage multiplier. In other words, the effect of a critical is the same as you performing your attack a second time (or third time, with a 3x multiplier). What is the counterbalance to, numerically, receiving an extra attack? Well, that would be losing an attack. Which is what a natural 1 already does - it's a miss. You missed, you lost your attack. The counterbalance is already there. How is "Oh, and also you stab yourself," a counterbalance?

[Koo Rehtorb]

As for the argument of "counterbalance to criticals," let's actually look at that. What is a critical? A critical is a damage multiplier. In other words, the effect of a critical is the same as you performing your attack a second time (or third time, with a 3x multiplier). What is the counterbalance to, numerically, receiving an extra attack? Well, that would be losing an attack. Which is what a natural 1 already does - it's a miss. You missed, you lost your attack. The counterbalance is already there. How is "Oh, and also you stab yourself," a counterbalance?

I'm not particularly invested in fumble mechanics but I don't think this follows.

If a critical is getting you an extra attack then the counterbalance would be losing an extra attack. So this attack misses, and you can't make your next attack. Which I think is reasonable if that's how you want to go about things? You're off balance and have to spend an attack on recovering your positioning.

[CharonsHelper]

I'm not particularly invested in fumble mechanics but I don't think this follows.

If a critical is getting you an extra attack then the counterbalance would be losing an extra attack. So this attack misses, and you can't make your next attack. Which I think is reasonable if that's how you want to go about things? You're off balance and have to spend an attack on recovering your positioning.

That would not be super terrible. But it still adds extra complexity to the system for no added depth of play - which is my general rule for adding any complexity.

[napoleon_in_rag]

The thing is, for a fumble effect to be rare enough to avoid shattering suspension of disbelief, that "safety system" you keep advocating would have to be several rolls deep to represent the actual odds of a professional (often a superhumanly-good one) screwing up to that degree. At which point your fail table comes up so rarely you're wasting your time writing it in the first place.

This idea that professionals never get in accidents is just wrong. Every NASCAR driver is a far better driver than you or me will ever be. But they get in accidents all the time. They just do it at 200 mph, not while trying to parallel park in a tight spot.

The OP suggested that a fumble system has to be modified by skill. For an accurate system, I think a fumble system would have to take in account:

• Skill of person (Danica Patrick or someone who has never driven before?)
• Difficulty of Maneuver/ Feat (Straight road or windy road?)
• Condition of Person (Are they drunk or sober?)
• Condition of Equipment (Do the brakes work?)
• Condition of Environment (Is it snowing?)

That way Danica Patrick driving the speed limit on a sunny day would have no chance of an accident but a drunk Danica Patrick driving too fast on a windy road in a snow storm with no brakes would almost definitely get in accident.

Fumble systems add complexity where it's completely unneeded, slowing down play for the sole purpose of humiliating the PCs with outcomes that would never happen outside of a Three Stooges film. There's simply no such thing as a well-implemented fumble mechanic.

I think you can make a good "critical fail" mechanic. If the above factors are added to the mix, it will make the game more realistic, creating a bigger consequence for trying something you are not proficient in or when conditions are wrong. But I agree with you that such a system will likely add too much complexity to the game. I think it's better left out.

If the sole purpose of a fumble system is to humiliate the players, it definitely should not be included.