Musings about PCs and Prisoners

[ExLibrisMortis]

The fiction layer should always control. If there are possible outcomes of the randomizer that don't fit the fiction established prior, those results don't happen. A rule may say that you can swing off a chandelier by making a <Y check>. But if there's no chandelier around...you can't do it.

Interesting that you should say that, because I would say it should be the other way around. The mechanics are "in control" (the independent variable, that the experimenter can alter), and the plot emerges as you play (the dependent variable, that the experimenter records). The use of randomization is that you get to places you wouldn't get if you were just writing a story; the mechanics dictate what happens, and because they are partially random, you can end up with surprising stories. Planning a story ahead is more like a weather forecast: accurate for the current scene, a decent spread for next week, no clue what's going to happen in three months (but probably a different season). An experienced forecaster is more often right than wrong, but you're never quite sure.

Your example of "lack-of-a-chandelier" is not an example of randomization. What would be an example of "possible outcomes of the randomizer that don't fit the fiction established prior" is something like "You may roll to swing from the chandelier. You roll an 18, which means that you succeed. However, I'm going to ignore that result, because it doesn't fit the story". Which is weird and stupid. I imagine that isn't what you meant, though, and if we change the example to "You roll a 1, which means you're all dead. However, I'm going to ignore that result", then we're all in agreement that it's probably for the best. It's bad to ignore the dice, but it's worse to disappoint the players that much (assuming they are disappointed--I understand Paranoia runs on the hilarity of this sort of thing).

In general, if you let something get to the RNG stage, you have to be prepared to accept all outcomes. You can decide not to roll (DM call, fair enough), you can decide what to roll and with what caveats (DM call, fair enough), you can in extremis decide to retcon a certain roll that really bums everyone out (as with the TPK above), but you can't decide you don't like the result and do something else "because that's not the story".

The corollary is: Anything you allow to get to the RNG stage must be chosen so as to produce outcomes you are prepared to accept. Because, of course, you're not stupidly consulting your random tables and hoping a plot emerges. You choose the mechanical descriptions for the actors that drive the plot-to-be-built in such a way that they'll produce a range of acceptable results, and then play it out to see which specific plot emerges. You don't equip an NPC with a mechanic that causes a roll for TPK (unless the plot demands) anymore than you allow a PC to roll to become Old Man Henderson (unless the plot demands... which by definition it doesn't ).

Of course, this is the ideal case, and even if you're really good at choosing your mechanics, you may need to adjust things on the fly to keep everyone happy. But that's not so much "the fiction layer is in control" as it is "player enjoyment is in control". You might adjust the mechanics to rescue a plot, but you might equally adjust mechanics to produce more wild variation.

[icefractal]

Interesting that you should say that, because I would say it should be the other way around. The mechanics are "in control" (the independent variable, that the experimenter can alter), and the plot emerges as you play (the dependent variable, that the experimenter records).

The terms are used somewhat inconsistently, but how I've generally heard it fiction != plot.

The fiction is the world that you're playing in and its internal logic, which will sometimes clash with the mechanics. When this happens, you have to conform one to the other. So for example, you're playing Fate, one PC has "Last Son of Krypton" as an aspect, and they're in an arm-wrestling contest (an important one, maybe this is for the key information they need). The mechanics (an aspect is worth +2) conflict with the fiction (Superman has zero chance to lose at arm wrestling). You can resolve it three ways:

1) Restrict fiction to mechanics:
GM: "You can't be Superman as an aspect, aspects are for more subtle/variable things like being really determined."

2) Conform fiction to mechanics:
GM: "You lost the roll, so how does that happen?"
Player: "Maybe with my super-senses I noticed that the guy I'm arm wrestling has dangerously high blood pressure and if he pushed any harder he might have a stroke, so I intentionally lost."

3) Conform mechanics to fiction:
GM: "There's no roll, you win automatically."

[PhoenixPhyre]

The terms are used somewhat inconsistently, but how I've generally heard it fiction != plot.

The fiction is the world that you're playing in and its internal logic, which will sometimes clash with the mechanics. When this happens, you have to conform one to the other. So for example, you're playing Fate, one PC has "Last Son of Krypton" as an aspect, and they're in an arm-wrestling contest (an important one, maybe this is for the key information they need). The mechanics (an aspect is worth +2) conflict with the fiction (Superman has zero chance to lose at arm wrestling). You can resolve it three ways:

1) Restrict fiction to mechanics:
GM: "You can't be Superman as an aspect, aspects are for more subtle/variable things like being really determined."

2) Conform fiction to mechanics:
GM: "You lost the roll, so how does that happen?"
Player: "Maybe with my super-senses I noticed that the guy I'm arm wrestling has dangerously high blood pressure and if he pushed any harder he might have a stroke, so I intentionally lost."

3) Conform mechanics to fiction:
GM: "There's no roll, you win automatically."

Yeah. That's what I mean.

I differentiate three layers of every TTRPG:

1. The player layer. This is where the actual people are, sitting around a computer screen or table or whatever. At this layer, you have access to the game ui, but not directly the fiction. Everything is filtered through the words and images presented by the DM (in standard D&D-esque games) or by other players. Planned plots happen at this level.

2. The mechanics/UI layer. This is a translation shim between the player layer and the fiction layer. It's entire job is to provide a fun set of tools to translate player decisions into fiction events and back. But it's both lossy and incomplete by necessity. It's a toolbox for the one(s) driving things. It's not in command of anything and can and should be overruled when it would make decisions/demand outcomes that the table is not happy with or that are incompatible with the fiction layer. Randomization happens at this level, to represent all the fuzz that happens below the abstraction level of the game. Basically it's to resolve uncertainty, nothing else. If there's no uncertainty, there's no need to invoke randomization. And random tables and dice rolls, being generated for the general case, can't know about all the specifics of any situation and will always need active intervention.

3. The fiction layer. This is the representation of everything inside the fictional world. At this layer are the actual characters, living and existing in some world with all its laws (which go way beyond what can be represented mechanically). It has weight--previous events can make certain future events impossible or overwhelmingly likely, and that should (IMO) override anything that the game mechanics say--you shouldn't even invoke mechanics in those conditions, and if a general random table says otherwise, it gets ignored for that case.

So for every player action in a D&D game, the DM has to establish a few things.
1. Is that a possible action/outcome based on the established facts of play (the fiction layer)? If not, stop there. It doesn't happen, no matter what the mechanics say. E.g. walking up to a king out of the blue and demanding his crown. No, your Charisma (Persuasion) roll, no matter how high, can't get that result. At least not without setup to change the facts on the ground inside the fiction layer.

2. Is that action/outcome in significant doubt based on the fiction layer? If not, just let it happen. No need to make a check (invoking mechanics) for tying your shoes, unless something is really strange in-universe.

3. Is it worth making a check for. That is, would failure change the fiction layer in an interesting way? Are there complications that mean it can't be easily retried until complete? Generally, if not, just let it happen. At most make one check to determine how long it takes (if that's an interesting parameter in the situation).
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4. At this point, you probably need a check of some type. Use the normal process to determine what kind of check and what the failure and success conditions are.

The same thing goes for random table use--unless something is demanded by the fiction layer (e.g. wasting time in a place where wandering monsters are an established fact, activating a wand of wonder), those sorts of things should happen off-camera, during prep. And the results used as inspiration, as input to the planning process, subject to the normal flow of building scenarios for your particular play style and game. No matter what, random tables should never be allowed to cause disruption to the fiction. If dragons don't exist, no random encounter table can have dragons on it. Or use a general one and prune those results when they occur (whichever you prefer). They violate setting and fiction constraints, so they never get inserted into the database. They're no-ops.

[PhoenixPhyre]

And what I meant about the "lack of a chandelier" being a randomization failure was as follows:

A character has a feature that lets them make a DC X Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to swing from a chandelier (specifically mentioned in the feature text), dealing +2d6 damage to a foe they land on.

They attempt to use this feature in the middle of a forest, roll the check, and beat the DC. Are they able to use the feature?

The fiction says no--there are no chandeliers. The mechanics say yes--if (result) > X, then you swing off a chandelier. Now you can just say "oh, well, that part about the chandelier is fluff, he's swinging off a branch." But that's not what the ability says. It specifically says chandelier. Does it create a chandelier even if there isn't one and couldn't be one? That would be the mechanics superseding the fiction, with absurd results. The other option is "no, that ability isn't useful here, you don't have a chandelier to swing off of." That's the fiction controlling the mechanics. The fictional facts establish which mechanical results (whether of randomization or not) are allowed.

Basically, all randomizer results have to be filtered based on the established facts. Any that don't fit or that would create absurdities get rejected. Rolled a gargantuan creature for an encounter in a kobold warren? Roll again, that one didn't happen. Roll a 30 on a Charisma (Persuasion) check? You're still not going to get that dragon to let you walk out with half his hoard unmolested. Rolled a 1 on that Dexterity (Acrobatics) check? You still can walk down the stairs just fine (and why did you roll that again?).

I find most of the "absurd" results come from players jumping the gun and rolling things that weren't called for or DMs calling for rolls where they shouldn't (where the outcome was either not in doubt or failure wasn't interesting). The solution is to...stop doing that.

[Pex]

And what I meant about the "lack of a chandelier" being a randomization failure was as follows:

A character has a feature that lets them make a DC X Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to swing from a chandelier (specifically mentioned in the feature text), dealing +2d6 damage to a foe they land on.

They attempt to use this feature in the middle of a forest, roll the check, and beat the DC. Are they able to use the feature?

The fiction says no--there are no chandeliers. The mechanics say yes--if (result) > X, then you swing off a chandelier. Now you can just say "oh, well, that part about the chandelier is fluff, he's swinging off a branch." But that's not what the ability says. It specifically says chandelier. Does it create a chandelier even if there isn't one and couldn't be one? That would be the mechanics superseding the fiction, with absurd results. The other option is "no, that ability isn't useful here, you don't have a chandelier to swing off of." That's the fiction controlling the mechanics. The fictional facts establish which mechanical results (whether of randomization or not) are allowed.

Basically, all randomizer results have to be filtered based on the established facts. Any that don't fit or that would create absurdities get rejected. Rolled a gargantuan creature for an encounter in a kobold warren? Roll again, that one didn't happen. Roll a 30 on a Charisma (Persuasion) check? You're still not going to get that dragon to let you walk out with half his hoard unmolested. Rolled a 1 on that Dexterity (Acrobatics) check? You still can walk down the stairs just fine (and why did you roll that again?).

I find most of the "absurd" results come from players jumping the gun and rolling things that weren't called for or DMs calling for rolls where they shouldn't (where the outcome was either not in doubt or failure wasn't interesting). The solution is to...stop doing that.

I agree with you. Really , but not intending to start the usual infamy of you know what how do you teach players and DMs to stop doing that because apparently the DMG saying the same thing of not rolling for trivial stuff isn't working. To teach the players the DM can do it at least by virtue of authority of being the DM running the game. For the players to teach the DM it's not reciprocal. They lack the authority. Only DM willful acceptance to change his ways because the players want him to can work. Otherwise the DM can easily dismiss them as munchkins/whiners who hate failure. The players either give in or walk, achieving nothing.

[Satinavian]

Oh, #5 got cut out of my previous post.

#5: Fumbles can also dissuade players from attempting actions which they have no business taking (for example an uneducated farmer attempting to reprogram an alien super-computer). Although this is probably a bad thing if you are running more of a pulp adventure style game, it helps in a game where you want people to take things more seriously and consider the consequences of their actions.

They are not useful for that as fumbles tend to happen in easy tasks as often as in difficult ones.

If you want to discourage that, use cost of attempt (time, materials ect.) or degree of failure (if you really have no clue what you do, you might make it worse).

As for disagreeing with four, are you saying that nobody ever has an emotional reaction to a fumble? Not laughter, despair, or even frustration? You must play with really stoic groups then if the only reaction you can ever get is eye-rolling.

I wouldn't say never, but it is rare that a fumble produces much emotion. Either it fits the situation than it is what it is. Or it doesn't and most are mildly annoyed for the disturbance of versimilitude. But i do tend to play with people who value versimilitude most.

For number one, it baffles me how people can disagree with this. In real life, I frequently fumble something. I injure myself playing sports and doing physical labor, I ruin my materials when crafting, I have accidents while driving, I offend people while talking, etc. Likewise, it is my understanding that even experts mess up bad now and again, athletes have season or even career ending injuries, doctors and lawyers get sued for malpractice, etc.

And how often have people serious mishaps every week or every day ? In the time played out, there tend to be a lot of rolls.

Even 3.X D&D, which doesn't have formal fumble rules, acknowledges that there is a difference between making no progress and making things worse, for example falling when falling a climbing check by five or more. PF2 has taken this one step further, using it to allow for situations where something bad can happen but is uncommon, for example if you roll bad enough poison can kill a character, but most of the time it will just make them sick. To me, this seems both extremely realistic and good for gameplay.

Degree of failure rules are very different from fumble rules.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Spoiler: icefractal quote

Show

The terms are used somewhat inconsistently, but how I've generally heard it fiction != plot.

The fiction is the world that you're playing in and its internal logic, which will sometimes clash with the mechanics. When this happens, you have to conform one to the other. So for example, you're playing Fate, one PC has "Last Son of Krypton" as an aspect, and they're in an arm-wrestling contest (an important one, maybe this is for the key information they need). The mechanics (an aspect is worth +2) conflict with the fiction (Superman has zero chance to lose at arm wrestling). You can resolve it three ways:

1) Restrict fiction to mechanics:
GM: "You can't be Superman as an aspect, aspects are for more subtle/variable things like being really determined."

2) Conform fiction to mechanics:
GM: "You lost the roll, so how does that happen?"
Player: "Maybe with my super-senses I noticed that the guy I'm arm wrestling has dangerously high blood pressure and if he pushed any harder he might have a stroke, so I intentionally lost."

3) Conform mechanics to fiction:
GM: "There's no roll, you win automatically."

Ah, right, thanks. Fiction is the world as sensible, consistent place. Good to know.

Your example shows why you should pick the mechanics (aspects, in this case) carefully. If "zero chance to lose" cannot be represented by a +2, that mechanic shouldn't be chosen to represent that character trait (option 1, essentially), and if you do it anyway, you end up with (2). I don't like (3).

And what I meant about the "lack of a chandelier" being a randomization failure was as follows:

A character has a feature that lets them make a DC X Dexterity (Acrobatics) check to swing from a chandelier (specifically mentioned in the feature text), dealing +2d6 damage to a foe they land on.

They attempt to use this feature in the middle of a forest, roll the check, and beat the DC. Are they able to use the feature?

The fiction says no--there are no chandeliers. The mechanics say yes--if (result) > X, then you swing off a chandelier.

I get your point now. If you phrase it like that, it's a weird and problematic ability. According to the principle of "don't allow a mechanic that produces results you aren't prepared to accept", it shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Rephrase it to "if there is a chandelier, you can make a check to swing from it". But yeah, if you catch a mechanic like that during the game, you'll have to adjust it there and then.

If I've got it right, what you are saying is that the mechanics shouldn't threaten internal consistency of the world by producing absurd results. I agree with that. However, my preferred approach is to curate the mechanics, not the results. I don't like the idea of deciding internal consistency on an ad hoc basis. If that's how real life worked (still the best model for a consistent world we have), nuclear fusion wouldn't be a thing--that **** is unbalanced. Joking aside, there are problems with my approach (e.g. overseeing all possible results is basically impossible), so I take your point.

What I wrote earlier was about a separate category of "absurd" results that are absurd in the sense that they don't match player expectations/descriptive text. To illustrate the difference: In 3.5 (because I'm a one-game sort of person and all my examples have to be 3.5), a lot of the game descriptions--and thus, (new) players--tactitly assume that wizards are horrible in melee all of the time. It's actually rather straightforward to make a wizard good in melee, and nothing in-universe is absurd about "I turn into a literal giant and smash his face in" (I mean, what did you think was going to happen?), but it's still sometimes considered absurd, and people do actually nerf things for that reasons, which is a pet peeve of mine. Hence the post and all.

(I imagine everyone on these forums has heard of 3.5 and its wacky casters, but you can find people who haven't elsewhere.)

I find most of the "absurd" results come from players jumping the gun and rolling things that weren't called for or DMs calling for rolls where they shouldn't (where the outcome was either not in doubt or failure wasn't interesting). The solution is to...stop doing that.

I agree, and yes, it is. I've played a few sessions revolving around Perception rolls to advance the plot, which is just... ugh.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I get your point now. If you phrase it like that, it's a weird and problematic ability. According to the principle of "don't allow a mechanic that produces results you aren't prepared to accept", it shouldn't be allowed in the first place. Rephrase it to "if there is a chandelier, you can make a check to swing from it". But yeah, if you catch a mechanic like that during the game, you'll have to adjust it there and then.

It was intentionally absurd to make a point, but I've had people argue similar things--that because "the rules say the DC for X is Y, I can do X even if the fictional setup doesn't make that possible and no matter how absurd (in universe) that would be right now because rules say so". And for me, that's painful. The world comes first. It's internal logic is what it is, and anything mechanical that threatens that gets ignored (for cases where it makes sense normally, but not right now) or changed (for cases where it never makes sense).

If I've got it right, what you are saying is that the mechanics shouldn't threaten internal consistency of the world by producing absurd results. I agree with that. However, my preferred approach is to curate the mechanics, not the results. I don't like the idea of deciding internal consistency on an ad hoc basis. If that's how real life worked (still the best model for a consistent world we have), nuclear fusion wouldn't be a thing--that **** is unbalanced. Joking aside, there are problems with my approach (e.g. overseeing all possible results is basically impossible), so I take your point.

What I wrote earlier was about a separate category of "absurd" results that are absurd in the sense that they don't match player expectations/descriptive text. To illustrate the difference: In 3.5 (because I'm a one-game sort of person and all my examples have to be 3.5), a lot of the game descriptions--and thus, (new) players--tactitly assume that wizards are horrible in melee all of the time. It's actually rather straightforward to make a wizard good in melee, and nothing in-universe is absurd about "I turn into a literal giant and smash his face in" (I mean, what did you think was going to happen?), but it's still sometimes considered absurd, and people do actually nerf things for that reasons, which is a pet peeve of mine. Hence the post and all.

(I imagine everyone on these forums has heard of 3.5 and its wacky casters, but you can find people who haven't elsewhere.)

I separate it into two cases.

Things that never make sense in this particular world. This means you should make global houserules/changes to randomizer/mechanics results. Ie dragons don't exist in this world, so any table that says "insert dragon encounter" must change. Or resurrection isn't a thing, so all res spells go bye bye. Or there are no gods, so clerics need to be gone or faiths/philosophies. Etc.

Things that don't make sense right now, but sometimes do. This can have situational edits to randomizer outcomes where consistency isn't all that important. If this particular NPC cannot ever be bullied (5e's Charisma (Intimidation)), then any attempt to do so just fails. Don't even roll. Or if this particular NPC can't be persuaded to do X, then any attempt to get him to do X fails. If <culture Y> has an aversion to crossbows (for example), you can either create a custom random loot table that doesn't have crossbows (lots of work) or just re-roll any crossbow results that occur on your generic ones. Etc.

A lot of these changes are things that are invisible to the players because they happen at prep time rather than table time. I, for one, hate rolling on random encounter/loot/etc tables at runtime. Because I hate slowing things down, and tables are a major source of slow. So I prefer to push all of that to prep time.

The rest should be clear from the stated facts on the ground--if there's a question, the DM didn't set up the scene properly and needs to re-explain stuff.

I agree, and yes, it is. I've played a few sessions revolving around Perception rolls to advance the plot, which is just... ugh.

Agreed. And "roll to turn the door knob...oh, you failed? Too bad." stupidity. DMs who think you need to roll for everything...sigh.

[Talakeal]

They are not useful for that as fumbles tend to happen in easy tasks as often as in difficult ones.

If you want to discourage that, use cost of attempt (time, materials ect.) or degree of failure (if you really have no clue what you do, you might make it worse).

Degree of failure rules are very different from fumble rules.

We might be having a terminology failure then. In my mind fumbles are synonymous with degrees of failure; in effect, a normal failure means nothing happens, a fumble means you fail so badly you make the situation worse.

How do you differentiate the two?

And how often have people serious mishaps every week or every day ? In the time played out, there tend to be a lot of rolls.

Serious mishaps? Not very often. But fumbles don't have to be serious.

I would say I have a minor mishap such as burning a meal, or pulling a muscle at work, or tripping and breaking something atleast once a week.

I wouldn't say never, but it is rare that a fumble produces much emotion. Either it fits the situation than it is what it is. Or it doesn't and most are mildly annoyed for the disturbance of versimilitude. But i do tend to play with people who value versimilitude most.

For me, fumbles enhance verisimilitude. In real life, people make mistakes, and there are a plethora of outcomes, both good and bad, for any action.

[icefractal]

We might be having a terminology failure then. In my mind fumbles are synonymous with degrees of failure; in effect, a normal failure means nothing happens, a fumble means you fail so badly you make the situation worse.

How do you differentiate the two?

Most fumble rules I've seen in D&D are based on rolling a natural '1', not on how much you failed by.

So a veteran soldier firing a bow from a battlement (no enemies personally threatening him) and a drunk guy with no combat experience using a spiked chain (for the first time ever) in a chaotic brawl have the exact same chance to fumble.

Per attack, that is. Per minute, the veteran soldier fumbles considerably more.


Pet Peeve, btw: Fumbles that involve anything like dropping weapons, hitting the wrong target, etc are not the inverse of critical hits. You know what critical hits do? One extra attack's worth of damage (or sometimes a bit less). So an actually corresponding fumble to that would be:

If you roll a natural '1', make another attack roll. If that misses, you are off balance and will automatically miss the next attack you make.

That's it, no other effects. Yes, there are improved criticals, but nobody is going to make a weapon that's extra-likely to **** up, or do special training (aka a feat) to **** up more. Maybe if someone is using a non-proficient weapon they could have extra fumbles, that's about the only case it makes sense.

[Talakeal]

Pet Peeve, btw: Fumbles that involve anything like dropping weapons, hitting the wrong target, etc are not the inverse of critical hits. You know what critical hits do? One extra attack's worth of damage (or sometimes a bit less).

How is doing a single attack's worth of damage to an ally not the inverse of doing a single attack's worth of damage to an enemy?

[OldTrees1]

We might be having a terminology failure then. In my mind fumbles are synonymous with degrees of failure; in effect, a normal failure means nothing happens, a fumble means you fail so badly you make the situation worse.

How do you differentiate the two?

How to differentiate? Consider skill checks for a moment.

A kid in gym class has a +2 to acrobatics.
A gymnast has a +12 to acrobatics.
The DC for climbing this rope is DC 10.

Fumble
Fumble: If either of them rolls a nat 1, they fail, and have extra fumbling consequences.
The kid has 5% chance of a fumble, 30% of a fail, and a 65% chance to succeed.
The gymnast has a 5% chance of a fumble, and a 95% chance to succeed.

Degrees of failure
Degree of failure. Fail the DC by 5 or more and get extra consequences.
The kid has 15% chance of a extra bad fail, 20% of a fail, and a 65% chance to succeed.
The gymnast has a 100% chance to succeed.

That is the difference. With Fumbles everyone is equally incompetent per task, which means the experts get the extra bad consequences more per second than the amateurs. With Degrees of failure the consequences are tied to your performance, which means experts get the extra bad consequences less than amateurs.

[Talakeal]

How to differentiate? Consider skill checks for a moment.

A kid in gym class has a +2 to acrobatics.
A gymnast has a +12 to acrobatics.
The DC for climbing this rope is DC 10.

Fumble
Fumble: If either of them rolls a nat 1, they fail, and have extra fumbling consequences.
The kid has 5% chance of a fumble, 30% of a fail, and a 65% chance to succeed.
The gymnast has a 5% chance of a fumble, and a 95% chance to succeed.

Degrees of failure
Degree of failure. Fail the DC by 5 or more and get extra consequences.
The kid has 15% chance of a extra bad fail, 20% of a fail, and a 65% chance to succeed.
The gymnast has a 100% chance to succeed.

That is the difference. With Fumbles everyone is equally incompetent per task, which means the experts get the extra bad consequences more per second than the amateurs. With Degrees of failure the consequences are tied to your performance, which means experts get the extra bad consequences less than amateurs.

So what games actually have rules for "fumbles" by that definition?

I don't think I have ever played one that meets that definition.

[OldTrees1]

So what games actually have rules for "fumbles" by that definition?

I don't think I have ever played one that meets that definition.

D&D...

PS: I gave explanatory examples, not definitions. Is that the issue? Nah, you can handle explanatory examples.

[icefractal]

How is doing a single attack's worth of damage to an ally not the inverse of doing a single attack's worth of damage to an enemy?

The PCs damage and the enemy's damage are often not the same, for one thing. Also, most fumble mechanics I've seen make it an auto-hit, ignoring that said ally might very well have better defenses.

If a critical hit let you say "Instead of this goblin I'm attacking, the enemy caster in the back with the Mirror Image spell takes auto-damage" that might be more equivalent.

So what games actually have rules for "fumbles" by that definition?

I don't think I have ever played one that meets that definition.

I'm going to turn that around - what games are you talking about that have these "good fumbles"? Because I know this isn't a D&D-specific forum, but most people in this thread are talking about D&D, and I have no idea what games you're referencing.

[Satinavian]

So what games actually have rules for "fumbles" by that definition?

I don't think I have ever played one that meets that definition.

D&D has at least autofail for any rolled one with attacks and saves regardless of DC or bonus. And there are lots of variations that extend that to skills or add even worse consequences.

TDE has 0.7% chance for every roll. Shadowrun has in all editions fumble rules and chances that are a complicated function of the number of dice used but ignore difficulty otherwise. Splittermondhas 3% over the board but at least provides a play-it-safe option for avoiding any fumble chance for lower overall results. And i could go on and on but admittedly can't remember all the exact chances for the various systems.

Systems without fumble rules are rare compared with systems that have them imho.



Degree of failure seems to be something that has become more popular in the last decade in game design as far as i can see. People did handwave extra bad results for extra bad rolls before but it rarely had a firm place in the rules.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I've informally done a few different types of rolls:

Binary: roll as normal. Succeed or fail. No reward for rolling especially well, no extra punishment for exceptionally poor. Or at most a purely descriptive "great success" or "great failure". Note: Automatic failure on rolling a 1 (5e D&D's Critical Miss) falls under this category. Yes, you miss, but no other effects. This is my default because it's really easy.

Graduated Success and/or failure: Some kind of difference for rolling better and/or worse. A critical hit (double dice) falls under this category, but there's lots of options here. Most common (outside of attack rolls) for social checks. This covers what most people call degrees of success and failure.

Degrees of success: I've always used that term (probably non-standardly) to mean "you can't really fail, but you're rolling to see how much you get". Most of my knowledge checks are like this. You always know something, but a good roll can give you more/hidden information. Picking locks is also this way--the roll is to see how long it takes, not whether you succeed. Because if you can retry it, you're going to succeed sooner or later.

Degrees of failure: Also non-standard. This is when you can't succeed and I could just say "no, you fail", but there are a range of possible consequences. So you're rolling to see whether you can get a less-bad consequence. Ie: no matter what you say, the king is going to deny your request (because you're asking for something he won't do no matter what). But if you roll well, he'll laugh it off and kick you out, where if you roll poorly he'll try to have you arrested. That sort of thing.

[Talakeal]

D&D...

If you are trying to misunderstand, you will surely succeed.

PS: I gave explanatory examples, not definitions. Is that the issue? Nah, you can handle explanatory examples.

Maybe not, I tend to take people very literally.

When people give me anecdotes and examples, I tend to focus on the wrong thing.

The PCs damage and the enemy's damage are often not the same, for one thing. Also, most fumble mechanics I've seen make it an auto-hit, ignoring that said ally might very well have better defenses.

I am not sure if it possible to perfectly mirror rules, but imo, an enemy takes extra damage equal to your normal damage, and an ally takes extra damage equal to your normal damage are about as mathematically symmetrical as possible, far more so than something like making you miss your next turn.

The ally might have worse defenses as well, especially considering they are likely not going to expecting a friendly fire accident and thus not actively defending against it like they would an enemy blow.

From a simplicity and mathematical symmetry though, once you have confirmed a critical hit, you will do an extra attacks worth of damage, likewise once you have confirmed a fumble (and games should have confirmation rolls for fumbles) you will do an extra attacks worth of damage is about as straightforward as you can get.

I'm going to turn that around - what games are you talking about that have these "good fumbles"? Because I know this isn't a D&D-specific forum, but most people in this thread are talking about D&D, and I have no idea what games you're referencing.

Ok, so I typically define "fumble" as something where you roll so poorly you make the situation worse than if you had done nothing at all.

Of the games I am familiar with:

AD&D had an optional rule called fumble where if you roll a natural 1 on an attack you lose your next turn.

3.X had the same optional rule, but added a DC 10 dex check to avoid the consequences and gave the DM latitude to change the result. It also had an optional rule called critical failure where if you roll a natural 1 on a skill test you roll again to confirm your failure for something bad happens. I think this is the distinction most people on this forum use?

Shadowrun has glitches where if half your dice pool or more come up natural 1s something bad happens.

Most White Wolf games have botches where something bad happens if either you have more natural 1's than successes or you have natural ones and no successes, depending on the edition.

Most d100 games have something bad happen if you fail while rolling doubles or roll a natural 00. The two I have most recently played, Zweihander and Delta green, call this mechanic critical failure and fumble respectively.

Pathfinder, iirc, does not have fumbles in the rule book, but sells an optional deck of fumble cards which you draw if you roll a natural 1 and then confirm the miss, and suffer whatever whacky mishap the card says.

Pathfinder two has the worst degree of failure if you fail a roll by 10 or more, and it uses both the terms Critical Failure and Fumble to describe this.



IMO AD&D and attacks in 3.X are the only ones where character skill doesn't help, and I agree that the full attack action increasing your chance to fumble as you gain levels is bad design. I also think that the d100 mechanic, while elegant, is a bit too frequent and random for my tastes.

But yeah, if your definition of fumble relies on it being regardless of skill, that seems to be a minority of systems (and not a definition shared by game designers as both Delta Green and Pathfinder explicitly use the term fumble for things that are dependent upon character skill) than I agree with you that they are bad and the game is probably better off without them.


But when I initially brought them up, it was in a statement about players who didn't like them because they made their character look bad and took that as a blow to their pride.

[Kardwill]

D&D...

Which one, though? Most D&D edition I GM'd have "autofail on a 1", but no critical failure rules in the rulebook. Quite often, the presence of fumbles in a D&D (or many other) game is a houserule decided by the DM who "imported" them from another game like the Basic system (Runequest and Call of Chtulhu), or from another GM.

And I think it's a BAD houserule. In many cases, it's either because the GM is unwilling to have failures that have impact, or to diminish chaos/unpredictability in the game ("Oh, you failed? Err, okay, at least it was not a fumble, so you can reroll later") or the need to have an excuse to make fun of the player ("Sure, I described your paladin as an idiotic buffoon who throws his sword away, but it's because you rolled a fumble. Not my fault!")

[OldTrees1]

Maybe not, I tend to take people very literally.

When people give me anecdotes and examples, I tend to focus on the wrong thing.

I am going to stick with examples but I will explain those examples a bit more:
If rolling a natural 1 has an extra consequence (even if just an automatic fail regardless of total), that is an example of a fumble mechanic.
If failing the DC by X or more results in extra consequences than a normal fail, that is an example of degrees of failure.

So, if you want to avoid fumbles, don't check the raw number on the die, check their total vs the DC. That is a good rule of thumb.

For dice pool systems where your dice pool size is based on your skill, it gets a bit dicier.

But when I initially brought them up, it was in a statement about players who didn't like them because they made their character look bad and took that as a blow to their pride.

You can have that problem with degrees of failure, but it is less prone to that issue than fumbles. Fumbles decide to treat the character as if they were bad regardless of whether they were or not. Excessive degrees of failure can make the character look bad. If failing to climb a wall by 1 point meant a nearby country got nuked, that would be excessive.

Which one, though? Most D&D edition I GM'd have "autofail on a 1", but no critical failure rules in the rulebook. Quite often, the presence of fumbles in a D&D (or many other) game is a houserule decided by the DM who "imported" them from another game like the Basic system (Runequest and Call of Chtulhu), or from another GM.

And I think it's a BAD houserule. In many cases, it's either because the GM is unwilling to have failures that have impact, or to diminish chaos/unpredictability in the game ("Oh, you failed? Err, okay, at least it was not a fumble, so you can reroll later") or the need to have an excuse to make fun of the player ("Sure, I described your paladin as an idiotic buffoon who throws his sword away, but it's because you rolled a fumble. Not my fault!")

The autofail on a nat 1 is a fumble mechanic, although the term is more commonly used to describe more severe rules/houserules.
5E has fumble rules for death saves (nat 1 = 2 fails).

[GrayDeath]

Oh, no, that's not what I meant either.

I meant most players, OOC, resent an NPC who tells their character what to do, and their character likely also resents that NPC IC.

Going to read the rest of the thread, but first, let me answer this:

Doing a Capture/Prison Scenario depends on the PLAYERS being aware that it hapüpens (when the Adventure starts with it).
Thats the only way you can expect it to be accepted. And the only way I would do it at all.

Then there are (sadly many of the 90ies) the "Characters are captured/Coerced to Do X, because Plot.
Thats what many a player, including myself, abhors. It removes agency, it is often unecessary, it is expected to work by fiat or so laughably overwhelming numbers the rest of the adventure makes much less sense.

These things CAN, if you trust your DM, be at least done better (you still mostly get to point the Missiles that are the players exactly qwhere you want) if youa dapt the scenario very well to the preexisting Characters.


An example from my personal experience.

This happened in a group where we had been palying the same Characters for a huge Module and some elsser Adventures. Comparing to D&D we were around level 10-12, ergo we where well known (most of that my Wizard who had reinvented an ancient, superior, way to cast certain spells and just taught the Mage Guild that, receiving much WOW), we were respected (more in case of the War Mage with a Captains poatent in the alrgest army of the continent, less so in case of the Thief God Priest that officially was only a very rich trader).

And then the Adventure demandss the largest Countries "Secret Police" to arrest you on trumped up charges, and only offer you 2 ways out: 5 years of prison (and they have antimagic prisons) or following the Army as "secret agents" under a gaes to follow their orders.

That was the original Adventures way to do it.

However, aside from the shady assassin, all of our Characters actually had easy ways out.
The Captain was well known and repsected and knew 2 generals, the "Trader" could ahve bribed ANY judge, and my Wizard was both easily powerful enough to simply teleport away and actually a "Big Guy" of the Mag guild.

So our DM, who aside from a slightly too big admiration of "really hard encounters" was excvellent, adapted as follows:
The trader got a 5 year Tax Exemption, the shady assassin got his "you cant prove it" activities removed, the Captain promised a promotion to Colonel, and my Wizard offered a removal of the (partially stupid, partially sense making) restrictions on what Wizards were allowed to own/wear (Weapons and a castle in this case).

And voila, you ahve the exact same result, but your Players will not (unless they are idiots^^) make a fuss.

[GrayDeath]

1: They increases verisimilitude and realism.
2: They increases variety and introduces a bit of novelty.
3: They provides mathematical balance to critical successes.
4: They give the Game Master a great tool to alter the mood (I think this is the reason why most people object to them)

Disagree on 1, 2 is correct, if "something unexpected hcan happen any time" is something you want (none of my palyers/DM`s does, unless we play a purely fun, Cracky Beer and Pretzel round^^), dont like critical/Autosuccesses either, I much prefer smooth degrees of success and faiulure.
4 is true (if you replace "great" with "in some situations adequate"^^), but not something I enjoy (or see a need for).


What makes me, and most people I ahve talked in eprson about it, dislike fumble rules are the following:

1.: No (or not enough, or in some cases invererse!") adaption of the degree of likeliness to fumble depending on how competent you are.

That includes things like "nat 1" or "2 nat 20" or "if half your rolled dice are 1" and similar.

It makes no difference if youa re Reed Richards doing routine maintance on the Fantasticar, or me trying to wrap my head around a higher Quamntum mechanics equation, if either of us rolls one of the above, we fumble.

I dont think I have to explain why that is bad Design?


Now if we are talking "bad things start to happen if you fail by 5 and more, and if you fail by 11 and more the worst logically possible thing happens" then I am all for it.
This truly serves as a reminder not to try your hand at things you are not competent at (which in my view is what many SAY fumbles do, but they rarely achieve).

Sorry for the double post, wanted to make a clear distinction between the 2 things I focussed on.

[Talakeal]

Disagree on 1

It still blows my mind how people can say this. I seriously don't know how people think that a world where nobody ever makes a mistake is more realistic.

What makes me, and most people I ahve talked in eprson about it, dislike fumble rules are the following:

1.: No (or not enough, or in some cases inverses!") adaption of the degree of likeliness to fumble depending on how competent you are.

That includes things like "nat 1" or "2 nat 20" or "if half your rolled dice are 1" and similar.

It makes no difference if youa re Reed Richards doing routine maintained on the Fantasticar, or me trying to wrap my head around a higher Quantum mechanics equation, if either of us rolls one of the above, we fumble.

I don't think I have to explain why that is bad Design?

I agree that excessively random fumbles are a bad implementation of a solid concept.

The only system I have seen where player skill / difficulty doesn't matter is the AD&D / 3E implementation where it is just "if you roll a 1". But, do keep in mind, this is an optional rule that hasn't really been fleshed out in over thirty years and is no longer included in modern editions afaik.

In all of the other systems I have seen, player skill matters. For example, in the Shadowrun example above, the size of your dice pool is determined by your skill, and as the dice pool gets larger the chance of rolling half ones gets exponentially smaller. I believe that the tasks difficulty also factors into the dice pool size (I know it does in NWoD) but I don't recall Shadowrun well enough to verify.

Now if we are talking "bad things start to happen if you fail by 5 and more, and if you fail by 11 and more the worst logically possible thing happens" then I am all for it.
This truly serves as a reminder not to try your hand at things you are not competent at (which in my view is what many SAY fumbles do, but they rarely achieve).

Sorry for the double post, wanted to make a clear distinction between the 2 things I focussed on.

I agree.

That being said, a lot of people seem to dislike ANY implementation of fumbles because it makes their character look bad, which was really what I was trying to address.

[GrayDeath]

It still blows my mind how people can say this. I seriously don't know how people think that a world where nobody ever makes a mistake is more realistic.

And I cant for the heck of it understand how someone equates Fumble Rules with the ONLY valid way of "people make mistakes".

Its simply the worst, least detailed and most annoying (and hence most noticable?^^) way to implement them.

As an example: The System I built with another Long Time Player is much less random than most, but in contrast punishes having low skills/Attributes much earlier than msot.

it is, in its core, a System where you want to face an enemy in an area where your ability outstrips his, so that he makes mistakes, for you to win.

So Im not saying i dont want Characters to be able to make mistakes, rather the opposite, I just want it to have good, concise, nonslapstick, non "oh my, the randomness" Rules. ^^

I agree that excessively random fumbles are a bad implementation of a solid concept.

The only system I have seen where player skill / difficulty doesn't matter is the AD&D / 3E implementation where it is just "if you roll a 1". But, do keep in mind, this is an optional rule that hasn't really been fleshed out in over thirty years and is no longer included in modern editions afaik.

In all of the other systems I have seen, player skill matters. For example, in the Shadowrun example above, the size of your dice pool is determined by your skill, and as the dice pool gets larger the chance of rolling half ones gets exponentially smaller. I believe that the tasks difficulty also factors into the dice pool size (I know it does in NWoD) but I don't recall Shadowrun well enough to verify.

Sadly, no. White Wolfs original Vampire/Mage/etc Rules made it MORE likely to fail catastrophically as you got more dice.
Because rolled ones "ate" rolled Successes, and only having fails was ....lets just say mostly deadly, and no fun whatsoever.

As for SR: Nope. lets assume you roll for standard difficulty, ergo must roll a 4 for a success.
Lets say you have 4, 6 or 10 Dice.

Each Dice has a chance of 1/6 to show only a one. That does in no way change as you roll more dice, and since statistics does not have a memory, while you are more likely to succeed, you are just as likely to fumble (not linearly, no, so overall its still coming ahead a bit, but xyou shouldnt be almost/just as likely to fumble if you are better, but be able to almost totally ignore the chance, so yeah, I dont like em fumblings^^).

Also, please for the love of all people arguing with you, stop assuming that what you deem "logical and making sense" has in any way form or shape effects on how other people see it.

it will help you avoid stuff like this thread once you realize that just about anyone can (and will^^) see things differently than you.

Once you internalized that, and try to go at a "imagined" problem totally fresh, often (not always, there are people that are simply totally incompatible regarding their preferences :) ) it will become much easier to see where people see things differently, and why, and let us avoid misunderstandings.

Additionally, PLAYER SKill should never have any influence over how good their Characters Roll, but I know I am one of the few who are always tripped up by people making that mixup. ^^

I agree.

That being said, a lot of people seem to dislike ANY implementation of fumbles because it makes their character look bad, which was really what I was trying to address.

Talakael, your Posts, this thread less so than your earlier ones but still, tend to come across alà "I have looked at dozens of systems, they all do it the way I see it, and if people dont see it that way, I will argue semantics/etc until they do".

I am quite sure you are not doing that intentionally, but please, just try to take a few steps back, take a deep breath, and then recheck the many many assumptions you make, and you will understand why pother people beg to differ (I hope I am not coming across to aggressively, I was afflicted by a similar blindness to other options/need to explain that I was right in my first 2-3 years of DMing, and it cost me a friend...).

Honestly, simply being of the opinion that YOU like/need something does never equal "people should need/like/Understand that".
Sadly, or e all would have a much easier time getting along.




Summing it up:

I prefer systems similar to this:

Add Skill to Ability, roll 3D6 on top of that, compare to Target number/opposing Roll.
1-4: normal Success, 5-9 great Success, 10-12: fantastic Success, 13+: devastating/epic success

and

failire -1 to -4: normal, you simply dont accomplish what you tried, -5 to -10: big failure. You dont accomplish what you intended and will likely ruin the project/be worse of next turn in the battle, 11+: You dont want to fail THIS hard.

But if Icant play in a syystem I made, then i prefer Systems that do not offer "worse failure" or "Autofailure" (or autosuccess for that matter) at all.

[Talakeal]

And I cant for the heck of it understand how someone equates Fumble Rules with the ONLY valid way of "people make mistakes".

Its simply the worst, least detailed and most annoying (and hence most noticable?^^) way to implement them.

As an example: The System I built with another Long Time Player is much less random than most, but in contrast punishes having low skills/Attributes much earlier than msot.

it is, in its core, a System where you want to face an enemy in an area where your ability outstrips his, so that he makes mistakes, for you to win.

So Im not saying i dont want Characters to be able to make mistakes, rather the opposite, I just want it to have good, concise, nonslapstick, non "oh my, the randomness" Rules. ^^

Could you please give some examples?

At the end of the day, most RPG's use dice as a resolution mechanic, so I can't think of a good way to implement in character mistakes that don't ultimately come down to a dice roll, but I would love to hear about it.

Sadly, no. White Wolfs original Vampire/Mage/etc Rules made it MORE likely to fail catastrophically as you got more dice.
Because rolled ones "ate" rolled Successes, and only having fails was ....lets just say mostly deadly, and no fun whatsoever.

As for SR: Nope. lets assume you roll for standard difficulty, ergo must roll a 4 for a success.
Lets say you have 4, 6 or 10 Dice.

Each Dice has a chance of 1/6 to show only a one. That does in no way change as you roll more dice, and since statistics does not have a memory, while you are more likely to succeed, you are just as likely to fumble (not linearly, no, so overall its still coming ahead a bit, but xyou shouldnt be almost/just as likely to fumble if you are better, but be able to almost totally ignore the chance, so yeah, I dont like em fumblings^^).

I'm sorry, but that's just mathematically incorrect.

If you run the numbers, you will find that larger dice pools are less likely to fumble in both systems, unless of course you get into a situation where the target number is 6 in SR or 10 in WoD (the latter of which they removed as a possibility in later editions).

Talakael, your Posts, this thread less so than your earlier ones but still, tend to come across alà "I have looked at dozens of systems, they all do it the way I see it, and if people dont see it that way, I will argue semantics/etc until they do".

I am quite sure you are not doing that intentionally, but please, just try to take a few steps back, take a deep breath, and then recheck the many many assumptions you make, and you will understand why pother people beg to differ (I hope I am not coming across to aggressively, I was afflicted by a similar blindness to other options/need to explain that I was right in my first 2-3 years of DMing, and it cost me a friend...).

Honestly, simply being of the opinion that YOU like/need something does never equal "people should need/like/Understand that".
Sadly, or e all would have a much easier time getting along.

I can't speak for other threads, but I am not the one arguing semantics here.

People were telling me that I was using "fumbles" wrong and that it is distinct from degrees of failure, and then asked me what games I am playing, and so I dug through my RPG collection to provide evidence for my position.

I prefer systems similar to this:

Add Skill to Ability, roll 3D6 on top of that, compare to Target number/opposing Roll.
1-4: normal Success, 5-9 great Success, 10-12: fantastic Success, 13+: devastating/epic success

and

failire -1 to -4: normal, you simply dont accomplish what you tried, -5 to -10: big failure. You dont accomplish what you intended and will likely ruin the project/be worse of next turn in the battle, 11+: You dont want to fail THIS hard.

But if I cant play in a system I made, then i prefer Systems that do not offer "worse failure" or "Autofailure" (or autosuccess for that matter) at all.

That is pretty damn close to my preference is as well, which is why I am kind of confused about why you are disagreeing with me so vehemently.

[GrayDeath]

Because you are treating Fumbles, a specific way to rule very specific (and usually either slapsticky or very deadly) way of ABSOLUTE failures that in most systems do not appear once you´ve failed a roll by massive amounts, but on a set rolled number (or multiples of these) as "the way to implement any mistakes characters may make".
And react with overblown "Do you allw ant your palyers to always suceed" rethoric when people dont agree with that.

Imagine just saying "Of the ways to implement degrees of failure, I kind of like fumbles", which I think is what you actually intended to say, woulkd maybe make SOME people still argue with you, or ask why, but most of the thread wouldnt have been necessary.


As for the math, I`m tired. I`ll answer that part tomorrow or at the weekend.

Lets jsut sum up that "it is slightly less likely to totally fail when your Dice number almost doubles" is not what I see as an even remotely In-world logical or at all good way of ruling it.
But then again, there are reasons SR and White WOlf Systems have had at elast 2 total overhauls since the mechanics we are discussing, so ^^

[icefractal]

4: They give the Game Master a great tool to alter the mood (I think this is the reason why most people object to them)

This one I don't get, at all.

Fumbles are random, even when they're based on margin of failure. They're just as likely to go against the mood the GM is trying for as to help it.

A tavern brawl! Some wacky fumbles would be great here! ... but nobody rolls one.
An abandoned prison where you've been building up a creepy atmosphere. The unjustly-hanged revenant who straggled everyone else finally makes his appearance ... and promptly stumbles and falls down the stairs.

Is the point that you can make the game more slapstick when the players aren't interested in that?
Well for one thing, it would be better to get on the same page OOC.
But for another, you don't need fumbles for that, just make the foes pixies / gremlins / poltergeists or whatnot.

It still blows my mind how people can say this. I seriously don't know how people think that a world where nobody ever makes a mistake is more realistic.

IRL, people do get eaten by sharks. It would be incorrect to say that it never happens. On the other hand, it happens very rarely (one fatality per two years in the US, for example).

So a game where you have 0% chance to be eaten by a shark while swimming at the beach wouldn't be quite accurate, but it would be a lot more accurate than one where 5% or even 1% of people who swim at the beach get eaten by sharks.

If a system produces results like "a squad of soldiers shooting from cover will end up killing most of themselves from friendly fire in ten minutes" or "about 5% of airline flights crash", then I would say that's less accurate than "people never fail spectacularly, just ordinarily".

[ExLibrisMortis]

And I cant for the heck of it understand how someone equates Fumble Rules with the ONLY valid way of "people make mistakes".

I'm going to echo this.

Any time a given creature gets hit by an attack, they have, in a sense, "made a mistake". Any time a creature misses with an attack, they have likewise "made a mistake". Any roll that doesn't succeed as much as the average, doing-it-properly result (e.g. a roll of 5 compared to take 10) could be considered a "mistake", even though it might not be bad enough to ruin everything. I don't understand why you wouldn't just narrate those mistakes when the mood calls for it, instead of introducing a new mechanic that, as icefractal notes, will likely work against you as often as it works with you.

You can rename "failure" to "mistake", but that's just labelling. Fact is, any game that allows failure already has a "people make mistakes" mechanic.

[Darth Credence]

The only time the odds get worse when rolling more dice is when you go from even to odd (or odd to even, if you round up). Otherwise, they get better.
Let's say you are using six sided dice, and you always have even numbers. With two dice, you need one failure. The possible combinations of dice are:
[1][1], [1][2], [1][3], [1][4], [1][5], [1][6],
[2][1], [2][2], [2][3], [2][4], [2][5], [2][6],
[3][1], [3][2], [3][3], [3][4], [3][5], [3][6],
[4][1], [4][2], [4][3], [4][4], [4][5], [4][6],
[5][1], [5][2], [5][3], [5][4], [5][5], [5][6],
[6][1], [6][2], [6][3], [6][4], [6][5], [6][6].
11/36 give you half of them as 1s, or a 30.6% chance of getting half of the dice as 1s.

Make the same table for 4d6, and you find that 171 out of 1296 possible combinations give half or more 1s, or 13.2%.

Again, for 6d6, and it is 2906 out of 46656 possible combinations, or a 6.2% chance. 3.1% for 8d6, 1.5% for 10d6, and so on.
Double the dice, slightly less than half as likely to get half of the dice as a 1.

If one were using 20 sided dice, then those numbers are 2d20=9.75%, 4d20=1.4%, 6d20=0.22%, 8d20=0.037%, and 10d20=0.006%.
These are pretty big changes in likelihood as we increase the number of dice.

Edit - I have no dog in the fight of fumbles - just doing the math of how the likelihood of half of the dice being a 1 changes with more dice. And I did not make tables for everything, I used the binomial distribution function.

[OldTrees1]

just doing the math of how the likelihood of half of the dice being a 1 changes with more dice. And I did not make tables for everything, I used the binomial distribution function.

I appreciate the math. Apparently there is more context http://www.wetware80.net/dice/wod-old-diceroller.html

So for extra math fun:
X d10s. For each die
1: +1 fail, +1 one
2 to X-1: +1 fail
X to 10: +1 success
If ones > success => Botch
If ones + fails > successes => Fail

So your conclusion, applies to a d6 version of the botch math. I think we can conclude it also applies to the d10 version too. But fails are a new wrinkle.