Musings about PCs and Prisoners

[NigelWalmsley]

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.

It blows my mind that you seem to think "fumbles" are the only way to model mistakes. Why do you need a separate mechanic for "you failed because of a mistake" instead of "you failed because of bad luck" or "you failed because the task was really hard". If you roll a 12 when you need a 15 or three hits when you need five, you could say that that was a "mistake" in-world if that happened to fit with the story and circumstances. Why do we need anything more than that?

[Talakeal]

On my phone, so forgive my inability to chop up the quotes properly.

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.


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".

Its not about fighting for tonal control with the players or making the game a comedy.

Look, I take gaming pretty seriously, and I would give you ten to one odds that when I sit down to a gaming table I want a comedy game less than anyone else at the table. But that doesn't mean I don’t enjoy an occasional laugh.

Not that fumbles are only good for comedy, they are a gray area in the rules that allows the DM to ramp the tension up or down as they see fit, and can introduce most any emotion.

As for the sharks thing, I agree that finding a good ratio is important, and many systems fail at that and would be better off without fumbles. But I was merely asked what are some reasons to include fumbles, not lets debate the exact ratio of fumbles and weigh the pros vs the cons.

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.

Maybe I shouldn't have said made a mistake, thats inaccurate and potentially misleading.

Replace it with “potentially make the situation worse” or “have multiple degrees of failure”.

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.

Ok, I never said players shouldn't ever fail. First off, fumbles apply to NPCs as well, second, its about degrees of success / failure, not passing vs. failing.

What you call “semantic arguments” I call clarifying terms. In my mind, fumble and degrees of failure are synonymous, and you (and other posters) seem to imply that there is a distinction, and I really want to understand the distinction.

I am legitimately not being obtuse, for me the words are synonymous, and this argument is like saying “I like sofas, just nit when they are couches” to me.

[Talakeal]

It blows my mind that you seem to think "fumbles" are the only way to model mistakes. Why do you need a separate mechanic for "you failed because of a mistake" instead of "you failed because of bad luck" or "you failed because the task was really hard". If you roll a 12 when you need a 15 or three hits when you need five, you could say that that was a "mistake" in-world if that happened to fit with the story and circumstances. Why do we need anything more than that?

I shouldn't have said mistake. That was a mistake :)

I meant make a situation worse, whether this is due to incompetence, external circumstance, dumb luck, or some combination of the above isn't really my concern.

[NigelWalmsley]

I meant make a situation worse, whether this is due to incompetence, external circumstance, dumb luck, or some combination of the above isn't really my concern.

Why do you need a special mechanic for that? Let alone one that is, as fumbles typically are, baked into the core mechanics of the game. Look at something like a combat encounter. It's easy to imagine ways that people might make things worse by simply making tactical decisions that don't work out or are based on poor information, without ever need to invoke "fumbles".

[Talakeal]

Why do you need a special mechanic for that? Let alone one that is, as fumbles typically are, baked into the core mechanics of the game. Look at something like a combat encounter. It's easy to imagine ways that people might make things worse by simply making tactical decisions that don't work out or are based on poor information, without ever need to invoke "fumbles".

You don’t need them, I just prefer them because:

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).

[NigelWalmsley]

You don’t need them, I just prefer them because:

Yes. I saw that post earlier. But we where talking about wether they actually do those things. In this case, about whether having individual tasks having appreciable rates of catastrophic failure was a good or necessary tool for increasing verisimilitude. It seems to me that it is not, and in fact that there are many cases where we would want to decrease failure rates to increase verisimilitude. Think about the tasks you do in your daily life. How many of them have a real chance of "failure", let alone catastrophic setbacks? When you go to put on your shoes in the morning, do you end up not wearing pants once a month? Do you end up destroying a meal a week in a horrible culinary mishap?

[KineticDiplomat]

Of course, most reasonably risk free things are not what we roll dice for in RPGs. We don’t roll dice to go up the stairs, so there is a 0% chance of breaking your neck on that event.

What we do roll dice for is dangerous and unpredictable things - things where there are potential for significantly bad events beyond just “not succeeding”. If you’re trying to scale the seaside cliffs barehanded, there are possible consequences besides “well, nope, have to find a different way”. And while not striking your opponent in combat is a failure, it is perfectly reasonable to assume that him getting his shield in the way is normal, but a bit of kriegsluck like your foot slipping on a loose stone which leaves you overextended might be a fumble.

[zinycor]

Am pretty lost on this discussion. How do fumbles relate to mind control or prisoners again?

[Satinavian]

What you call “semantic arguments” I call clarifying terms. In my mind, fumble and degrees of failure are synonymous, and you (and other posters) seem to imply that there is a distinction, and I really want to understand the distinction.

I am legitimately not being obtuse, for me the words are synonymous, and this argument is like saying “I like sofas, just nit when they are couches” to me.

Fumble rules rely only on the outcome of the dice roll. And depending on the system that usually means that difficulty is irrelevant for fumble chance (yes, that is true for all versions of Shadowrun as well) and that skill is irrelevant as well (this is not true for Shadowrun).

Degrees of failure don't care for the details of the dice roll, only about how much is missing to beat the DC or to reach the success. Obviously this takes automatically both difficulty and skill into account.

And yes, AD&Ds optional 1=fumble rule is a fumble rule, not a degree of failure rule. Because even a lv 20 fighter would miss a barnyard in 5% of cases and be distracted enough to lose another attack. That is probably why "fumble" is established as the word for automatic extrabad results for particular rolls.

And as far as i can telll, you are the only poster in this whole thread for whom fumbles and degrees of failure were synonymous.

That is likely because of the games you are familiar with. : That is a big list of fumble mechanics. But aside from certain WoD versions, those games all don't care much about difficulty when deciding if a fumble occurs.

It seems you have not yet played a single game with a proper degree of failure mechanic. Only games with fumbles. And now you are trying to use fumbles for something they are not good at.

[Telok]

Am pretty lost on this discussion. How do fumbles relate to mind control or prisoners again?

I think it went to fumbles from spectacular failures from it taking a spectacular failure to get captured. I mean, I can see both sides and I've been in both.

In RL with computer programming if I push out an app patch without testing I could fix things that I didn't even know were wrong, I could fix what I was trying to fix, I could fix nothing, I could break the app and annoy all the users, and if I went really wrong maybe crash the whole server and frag the database (this is why we test things first). So the whole thing about degrees of success and failure is true, for some things. I really don't have any expectation of suddenly producing a five course banquet or blowing up my house when I'm just cooking some pasta and veg. Likewise an expert marksman is not expected to accidentally shoot the guy behind him at the range on a regular basis.

It comes down to a sort of range of variation in results. I can get a wider range of results writing a computer program than I can just driving 20 minutes to work in the morning or cooking dinner. Many "fumble" mechanics don't capture that. In fact the d20 system is probably about the worst way to try it because of the flat 5% chance per side thay crams everything into a narrow range where all results equally possible or impossible. Although some games from the 80's and early 90's obviously didn't have anyone check their math. You can royally screw up with any dice scheme.

I have, almost jokingly, suggested playing D&D combat using it's "social" rules. In pretty much any edition that would be... interesting. That could easily lead to imprisonment on a regular basis.

[Satinavian]

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.

Was it "Jahr des Greifen" ?

[zinycor]

I think it went to fumbles from spectacular failures from it taking a spectacular failure to get captured. I mean, I can see both sides and I've been in both.

In RL with computer programming if I push out an app patch without testing I could fix things that I didn't even know were wrong, I could fix what I was trying to fix, I could fix nothing, I could break the app and annoy all the users, and if I went really wrong maybe crash the whole server and frag the database (this is why we test things first). So the whole thing about degrees of success and failure is true, for some things. I really don't have any expectation of suddenly producing a five course banquet or blowing up my house when I'm just cooking some pasta and veg. Likewise an expert marksman is not expected to accidentally shoot the guy behind him at the range on a regular basis.

It comes down to a sort of range of variation in results. I can get a wider range of results writing a computer program than I can just driving 20 minutes to work in the morning or cooking dinner. Many "fumble" mechanics don't capture that. In fact the d20 system is probably about the worst way to try it because of the flat 5% chance per side thay crams everything into a narrow range where all results equally possible or impossible. Although some games from the 80's and early 90's obviously didn't have anyone check their math. You can royally screw up with any dice scheme.

I have, almost jokingly, suggested playing D&D combat using it's "social" rules. In pretty much any edition that would be... interesting. That could easily lead to imprisonment on a regular basis.

Personally, I hate whenever a roll is the thing that leads to big consecuences and molds entire sessions. For me something such as a fumble is something that is very bothersome at the moment but not so horrible to change the way the campaign is going. For example, if you are shooting at someone and roll a 1, your weapon might jammed, but not more besides that.

For me all those disastrous consecuences are a better fit for bad choices the players take.

But, that very well might be because I play these games for the chance to make choices, die rolls are something I merely put up with.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I think it went to fumbles from spectacular failures from it taking a spectacular failure to get captured. I mean, I can see both sides and I've been in both.

In RL with computer programming if I push out an app patch without testing I could fix things that I didn't even know were wrong, I could fix what I was trying to fix, I could fix nothing, I could break the app and annoy all the users, and if I went really wrong maybe crash the whole server and frag the database (this is why we test things first). So the whole thing about degrees of success and failure is true, for some things. I really don't have any expectation of suddenly producing a five course banquet or blowing up my house when I'm just cooking some pasta and veg. Likewise an expert marksman is not expected to accidentally shoot the guy behind him at the range on a regular basis.

It comes down to a sort of range of variation in results. I can get a wider range of results writing a computer program than I can just driving 20 minutes to work in the morning or cooking dinner. Many "fumble" mechanics don't capture that. In fact the d20 system is probably about the worst way to try it because of the flat 5% chance per side thay crams everything into a narrow range where all results equally possible or impossible. Although some games from the 80's and early 90's obviously didn't have anyone check their math. You can royally screw up with any dice scheme.

I have, almost jokingly, suggested playing D&D combat using it's "social" rules. In pretty much any edition that would be... interesting. That could easily lead to imprisonment on a regular basis.

For me, the dice rolls represent circumstances beyond your control. Of luck (and the other person's reactions, at least in the case of attack rolls). Pushing to prod without testing is a failure, to be sure. But it's not a failure of luck. It's an "I did the wrong thing" failure. Fumbles would be "5% of the time, even properly tested code frags the database for even the most skilled developer and the most robust system. Nothing you can do about it, no change possible. You're just out of luck based on the whims of the RNG." And that's bad. Now not all patches will work, but "not completely fix the problem" and "crash catastrophically" are two very different situations.

Regular automatic fails (5% of the time, your patch doesn't work because of things you couldn't control) only make sense in contested situations--sometimes the enemy gets a lucky block or zigs when you were expecting a zag. In cases where only luck is in play, only a slapstick game would (IMO) have luck have such a huge variance in outcomes.

Only roll for things that are carefully balanced between success and failure. Things that are destined to fail or destined to succeed should just do so. Degrees of success/failure are useful, because they allow skill to matter. But they're also more expensive (table-time and prep-time) to implement, since you have to first decide on those extra consequences and make them fit the situation[1] and then you have to implement the branching at table time and deal with the fallout. But that's often a cost worth bearing IMO.

I did have one "fumble" mechanic for a game that worked--a PC had acquired a special ability. When an opponent rolled a 1 on a saving throw vs one of their spells, a wand of wonder effect was triggered with the target as the center of the effect and all other effects decided randomly. It only rarely triggered, and the results were always something interesting. Including one that made it look like the target's head exploded into a fireball because he was insulted so badly (vicious mockery, rolled a 1, got the "fireball" result). Scorched the party, but he was the last enemy in a arena-style fight where showmanship was key. And that was certainly showy. This ability also fit the character--he was a goblin bard named Oopsie. The dice often have a sense of the dramatic IMX.

[1] IMO, these extra consequences, both good and bad, have to be carefully calibrated to the situation at hand. I've had too many crit hit/crit fail decks that resulted in absurdities because they didn't (and couldn't) take into account the facts on the ground beyond "making a ranged attack" vs "making a melee attack".

[NigelWalmsley]

In RL with computer programming if I push out an app patch without testing I could fix things that I didn't even know were wrong, I could fix what I was trying to fix, I could fix nothing, I could break the app and annoy all the users, and if I went really wrong maybe crash the whole server and frag the database (this is why we test things first). So the whole thing about degrees of success and failure is true, for some things. I really don't have any expectation of suddenly producing a five course banquet or blowing up my house when I'm just cooking some pasta and veg. Likewise an expert marksman is not expected to accidentally shoot the guy behind him at the range on a regular basis.

But is that really something you'd model as a single Programming check? Maybe in a game like Vampire, where programming was your day job and the actual action was somewhere else, but in those cases having it be a binary "good release/bad release" is fine. However if programming is meant to be a major focus of the game, you wouldn't model an app release as a single Craft (Programming) check that might have fumble. It'd be an extended test, or series of related checks, or Skill Challenge with subtasks like "develop new feature", "update test suite", "check for regressions", and "push to servers". And then the individual successes or failures of those checks would contribute to an overall good or bad result. But you wouldn't want or need fumbles.

[Telok]

How I'd actually model a coding job in a game mechanic would be with a dice pool or other bell curve producing system. Probably a system like roll X dice, keep Y (where Y is less than X) dice, sum the kept dice and add/subtract any special personal modifiers, compare the total to a DC based on task difficulty, using degrees of success/failure. For the actual task I'd do a programming roll, testing roll, modify bonuses or DC based on new knowledge, repeat. The actual stress/threat would come from the player having a limited amount of time (of course each attempt takes time) to produce working code or make a social interaction roll to explain and ask for more time. It would end up looking more like a variable time multi-roll challenge than a one-off roll.

With a failure rate less than 50% and no consequenses for trashing the test platform (well, actually additional time required to recover the test platform if it's a pretty spectacular failure) each iteration of attempt-then-test reduces the possibility of all types of failure on the final result. That's for a proper skilled coding project. If you have an emergency, no possible testing, and very limited time you could only get one roll. Then is it possible to get a result that's worse than doing nothing and automatically failing at the basic level.

Edit: I should stress that the baseline for this isn't a simple program. It's a mulitlayer integrated solution across three servers, two databases, multiple firewalls, additional security layers, and a small public-facing website.

[Talakeal]

Personally, I hate whenever a roll is the thing that leads to big consecuences and molds entire sessions. For me something such as a fumble is something that is very bothersome at the moment but not so horrible to change the way the campaign is going. For example, if you are shooting at someone and roll a 1, your weapon might jammed, but not more besides that.

For me all those disastrous consecuences are a better fit for bad choices the players take.

But, that very well might be because I play these games for the chance to make choices, die rolls are something I merely put up with.

As someone said earlier, dice stop the game master from just dictating a story to the players.

I prefer the players, the game master, and the dice to all have roughly even impact over the final story

Am pretty lost on this discussion. How do fumbles relate to mind control or prisoners again?

I compared people who will not let their character get captured because it hurts their ego to people who don't like fumbles because it can make their character look bad.

Fumbles are one of those topics, like dmpcs, kender, or how modern d&d is like an mmo that people have very strong opinions about and can derail any thread. I should have known better :)

Fumble rules rely only on the outcome of the dice roll. And depending on the system that usually means that difficulty is irrelevant for fumble chance (yes, that is true for all versions of Shadowrun as well) and that skill is irrelevant as well (this is not true for Shadowrun).

Degrees of failure don't care for the details of the dice roll, only about how much is missing to beat the DC or to reach the success. Obviously this takes automatically both difficulty and skill into account.

And yes, AD&Ds optional 1=fumble rule is a fumble rule, not a degree of failure rule. Because even a lv 20 fighter would miss a barnyard in 5% of cases and be distracted enough to lose another attack. That is probably why "fumble" is established as the word for automatic extrabad results for particular rolls.

And as far as i can telll, you are the only poster in this whole thread for whom fumbles and degrees of failure were synonymous.

That is likely because of the games you are familiar with. : That is a big list of fumble mechanics. But aside from certain WoD versions, those games all don't care much about difficulty when deciding if a fumble occurs.

It seems you have not yet played a single game with a proper degree of failure mechanic. Only games with fumbles. And now you are trying to use fumbles for something they are not good at.

No, I almost exclusively play games with degree of failure mechanics, and much prefer them. I honestly think that you are better off not having any degree of failure rules at all than the outrageously random fumbles you get in D&D or PF.

The problem here is terminology, most games I am familiar with use the terms critical failure and fumble interchangeably; d100 systems alternate terminology from book to book and pathfinder second edition uses the terms interchangeably within the same book.

[zinycor]

Anyway, leaving the fumble talk aside...

I believe that for most players, in order for them to accept their character to be a prisoner or be mind controlled, the GM has to convince them that this will be a fun and temporary adventure.

The GM has to be open and sincere on this, there are too many nightmare GMs for the player to just assume everything will be alright when relinquishing control.

[NigelWalmsley]

I prefer the players, the game master, and the dice to all have roughly even impact over the final story

One of these things is not like others.

[PhoenixPhyre]

One of these things is not like others.

Yeah. The dice are a tool. One without agency and without accountability. The DM (and the players) should use the dice to generate potential outcomes to influence the story (to resolve uncertainty about how the situation resolves), but the dice have no direct role in the story. They're a game UI issue, not a fiction-level thing. Unless your characters are playing dice.

[GrayDeath]

Was it "Jahr des Greifen" ?

Yeah.

Got to be really interesting/we were able to find a lot to enjoy later on, but man was the start dumb for....just about any even remotely well known and NOT criminal Character.
And most of the beginning Army stuff was strange for us as well (given only one Character was truly focussed on anything remotely Rondrian and combat focussed,.....well^^)

Oh, you probably could have also gotten anyone not into civilization by dint of them not having contacts/knowledge how to resist in such a situation.

PS: thought you might know and play DSA/TDE given your Nick.

[Arbane]

Of course, most reasonably risk free things are not what we roll dice for in RPGs. We don’t roll dice to go up the stairs, so there is a 0% chance of breaking your neck on that event.

Oh, sure, if you're some WIMP who doesn't play Rolemaster.

[ExLibrisMortis]

Yeah. The dice are a tool. One without agency and without accountability.

It can be useful to consider the dice, players, and DM as generalized "things with agency", as in actor-network theory. I myself have never applied ANT to anything, but I know a few people with PhDs who have, and they all assure me it's very good.

Actants denote human and non-human actors, and in a network take the shape that they do by virtue of their relations with one another. It assumes that nothing lies outside the network of relations, and as noted above, suggests that there is no difference in the ability of technology, humans, animals, or other non-humans to act (and that there are only enacted alliances). As soon as an actor engages with an actor-network it too is caught up in the web of relations, and becomes part of the entelechy.

Note that "agency" does not imply "sentience" or "intentionality". The easiest way I've heard it explained is with speed bumps. Speed bumps are not sentient and do not "try" to do anything in the conventional sense. In terms of their behaviour and effect within a network, however, they very much act as if they try to slow down cars on the streets they're on. (Of course, the speed bump was put there by someone, which also has a place in ANT, but let's not go there. Once in place, the speed bump simply "acts".)

In the case of D&D, the dice definitely have agency, in that they change the behaviour of humans within the network. I would argue that dice change the story independently of the humans' intent, as well. Dice may not be part of the fiction, but they have a part in shaping the story that is on par with the players and DM (who are also not part of the fiction).

[Quertus]

It can be useful to consider the dice, players, and DM as generalized "things with agency", as in actor-network theory. I myself have never applied ANT to anything, but I know a few people with PhDs who have, and they all assure me it's very good.

Note that "agency" does not imply "sentience" or "intentionality". The easiest way I've heard it explained is with speed bumps. Speed bumps are not sentient and do not "try" to do anything in the conventional sense. In terms of their behaviour and effect within a network, however, they very much act as if they try to slow down cars on the streets they're on. (Of course, the speed bump was put there by someone, which also has a place in ANT, but let's not go there. Once in place, the speed bump simply "acts".)

In the case of D&D, the dice definitely have agency, in that they change the behaviour of humans within the network. I would argue that dice change the story independently of the humans' intent, as well. Dice may not be part of the fiction, but they have a part in shaping the story that is on par with the players and DM (who are also not part of the fiction).

In this sense, I would argue that the dice - and the *rules* - definitely have agency. And, IMO, should have more agency than the humans involved. IME people disagree with this stance more in RPGs than they do for Chess or Monopoly or MtG. Or, more accurately, more people acknowledge and advocate for the ability to apply other approaches - and, in the process, often advocate the exclusive "correctness" of alternate approaches - for RPGs than for other games.

Which ties well into a discussion about taking PCs prisoner, because many objectionable ways of doing so remove agency from the dice and the rules, let alone from the players.

[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.

Ok, so I am still curious about this.

So, you are saying that the "fumble" is a mechanic that causes auto failure, regardless of skill or difficulty, on a certain dice roll? And that is is disconnected from the bad consequences of a roll?

So, D&D's "Auto miss on a natural 1" is a fumble mechanic, but its "Fail a climb test by five or more and you fall" is not?

Is this correct?

If not, what am I still missing?

If so, where did this terminology come from? As I said, afaict most games do not make that distinction, and some, such as PF and BRP seem to use the terms interchangeably. D&D does not call auto 1 on a failure a "fumble" but rather has two optional rules for consequences on a confirmed natural 1 in the DMG, the attack variant listed as fumble and the skill variant as critical failure. Is it a European thing? As I notice a lot of people making this distinction seem to be referencing German (iirc) games like TDE and splittermond.

[Satinavian]

Ok, so I am still curious about this.

So, you are saying that the "fumble" is a mechanic that causes auto failure, regardless of skill or difficulty, on a certain dice roll? And that is is disconnected from the bad consequences of a roll?

So, D&D's "Auto miss on a natural 1" is a fumble mechanic, but its "Fail a climb test by five or more and you fall" is not?

Is this correct?

If not, what am I still missing?

I would add that in most games a fumble has worse consequences than regular failure.

As I notice a lot of people making this distinction seem to be referencing German (iirc) games like TDE and splittermond.

Not really. German games use Geman terminology. "Fumble" comes from the Anglosphere and most likely from some widespread old games.

[Vahnavoi]

I'm fairly sure the idea of fumbles as spectacular failures was codified and spread by Rolemaster and its derivatives. Its critical success and critical failure tables were legendary.

[OldTrees1]

Ok, so I am still curious about this.

So, you are saying that the "fumble" is a mechanic that causes auto failure, regardless of skill or difficulty, on a certain dice roll? And that is is disconnected from the bad consequences of a roll?

So, D&D's "Auto miss on a natural 1" is a fumble mechanic, but its "Fail a climb test by five or more and you fall" is not?

Is this correct?

If not, what am I still missing?

D&D's auto miss on a natural 1 is a fumble mechanic.
D&D's fall if you fail a climb by 5 or more is a degrees of failure mechanic.

If rolling an unmodified ___ on a check has a negative consequence, that is probably a fumble mechanic.
If your modified total on a check has a negative consequence based on how far it undershot the DC, that is probably a degree of failure mechanic.

Quiz: If a new RPG called Examples & Exits has you explode if you roll a natural 13 on a stealth check and you freeze to death if you fail a knowledge check by more than 7, which is an example of which?

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Answer:
The explosion on a natural 13 is a fumble mechanic
The freezing if you fail by 7 or more is a degree of failure mechanic
In this example both are badly designed to inject some humor.

If so, where did this terminology come from? As I said, afaict most games do not make that distinction, and some, such as PF and BRP seem to use the terms interchangeably. D&D does not call auto 1 on a failure a "fumble" but rather has two optional rules for consequences on a confirmed natural 1 in the DMG, the attack variant listed as fumble and the skill variant as critical failure. Is it a European thing? As I notice a lot of people making this distinction seem to be referencing German (iirc) games like TDE and splittermond.

The word "fumble" comes from people (presumably in the USA) playing 1st edition D&D (I think it is a consumer made word rather than one originating in the rulebook). If you want to trace its origins further, that is where you could start.

[PhoenixPhyre]

In this sense, I would argue that the dice - and the *rules* - definitely have agency. And, IMO, should have more agency than the humans involved. IME people disagree with this stance more in RPGs than they do for Chess or Monopoly or MtG. Or, more accurately, more people acknowledge and advocate for the ability to apply other approaches - and, in the process, often advocate the exclusive "correctness" of alternate approaches - for RPGs than for other games.

Which ties well into a discussion about taking PCs prisoner, because many objectionable ways of doing so remove agency from the dice and the rules, let alone from the players.

It can be useful to consider the dice, players, and DM as generalized "things with agency", as in actor-network theory. I myself have never applied ANT to anything, but I know a few people with PhDs who have, and they all assure me it's very good.

Note that "agency" does not imply "sentience" or "intentionality". The easiest way I've heard it explained is with speed bumps. Speed bumps are not sentient and do not "try" to do anything in the conventional sense. In terms of their behaviour and effect within a network, however, they very much act as if they try to slow down cars on the streets they're on. (Of course, the speed bump was put there by someone, which also has a place in ANT, but let's not go there. Once in place, the speed bump simply "acts".)

In the case of D&D, the dice definitely have agency, in that they change the behaviour of humans within the network. I would argue that dice change the story independently of the humans' intent, as well. Dice may not be part of the fiction, but they have a part in shaping the story that is on par with the players and DM (who are also not part of the fiction).

Dice and rules cannot have agency, because they cannot make decisions or experience consequences. Both of which are sin qua non elements of agency. Dice cannot choose to act differently, because they cannot choose to act at all. They merely exist. And the numbers printed on them require interpretation by people, who have agency to decide on their own interpretations. Dice and rules are tools, created and used by people who have agency.

And simply altering someone else's behavior is not agency--that's just being there. Everything changes behavior. And if everything has agency, then that word is meaningless. Agency requires choice, consequences, and knowledge (not perfect knowledge, but enough to know that there's a difference between the choices).

And RPG rules are fundamentally different (in intent, construction, and implementation) from those of Chess, MtG, or any other such card/board game. One big thing--RPGs are generally not competitive. They're also open-ended, unlike those games where every possible interaction is either in the rules or not allowed.

RPG rules are a framework for automation of resolution of commonly-encountered situations (where common is relative to the intended playstyle of that game). They are a default set of settings which the developers claim will work well together and act as a fun UI to facilitate interactions between the fiction layer and the player layer. They have only utility value, not intrinsic value. "Following the rules", even when it's dumb or produces bad results, is not an inherently good thing. I'd say it's a bad thing. In any conflict between the fun of the table and the rules, the rules lose. The rules are not the game. The rules do not even constrain the game. They're a toolbox to make the underlying thing (free form roleplay) easier (less work) and more reliable/consistent (so that you can have groups that aren't totally on the same wavelength, at least at first). They do this at a cost, however. They do not (or should not) claim any authority or power, because they have none.

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Taking people prisoners without recourse or (player) consent is a violation of their agency. The rules and dice have no cause (or ability) to complain. The offense is against the people only, and needs to be redressed at that level.

[Talakeal]

D&D's auto miss on a natural 1 is a fumble mechanic.
D&D's fall if you fail a climb by 5 or more is a degrees of failure mechanic.

If rolling an unmodified ___ on a check has a negative consequence, that is probably a fumble mechanic.
If your modified total on a check has a negative consequence based on how far it undershot the DC, that is probably a degree of failure mechanic.

Quiz: If a new RPG called Examples & Exits has you explode if you roll a natural 13 on a stealth check and you freeze to death if you fail a knowledge check by more than 7, which is an example of which?

Spoiler: Answer

Show

Answer:
The explosion on a natural 13 is a fumble mechanic
The freezing if you fail by 7 or more is a degree of failure mechanic
In this example both are badly designed to inject some humor.

The word "fumble" comes from people (presumably in the USA) playing 1st edition D&D (I think it is a consumer made word rather than one originating in the rulebook). If you want to trace its origins further, that is where you could start.

I get what you are saying, I have just never heard fumble used that way before. You seem to have a very specific definition of it that runs contrary to how I use it or how any of the rule books I am familiar with use it.


Not only am I not familiar with anyone ever using the term "fumble" to refer to D&Ds "nat 1s always miss nat 20s almost hit," I don't think I have ever seen anyone upset by those rules before; it is slightly annoying that it ignores player skill, but that is the smallest unit the d20 can measure, and I think most people like having that sliver of hope and randomness in every encounter.

Taking people prisoners without recourse or (player) consent is a violation of their agency.

I wonder where you draw the line about recourse and what exactly you consider a player's agency to me.

Not that I don't mostly agree with you, I just find it odd that most players would rather wreck the game and kill their characters or just not play at all than go along with a scenario that results in the PCs capture, whether it is a natural outcome of the events in game or the premise of an adventure.

[OldTrees1]

I get what you are saying, I have just never heard fumble used that way before. You seem to have a very specific definition of it that runs contrary to how I use it or how any of the rule books I am familiar with use it.


Not only am I not familiar with anyone ever using the term "fumble" to refer to D&Ds "nat 1s always miss nat 20s almost hit," I don't think I have ever seen anyone upset by those rules before; it is slightly annoying that it ignores player skill, but that is the smallest unit the d20 can measure, and I think most people like having that sliver of hope and randomness in every encounter.

{Scrubbed}

I have been using the common meaning of the word {Scrubbed}

{Scrubbed}