Monte Cook On Fumble Mechanics

Hussar said:

I guess my question would be, would there be any way to detect that flaw in the sword beforehand? IOW, did the flaw actually exist in the game world before that fumble was rolled?

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Please re-read the conceits of the Ninth World... I have posted them numerous times. Now it's possible to try and limit one's weapon to say... a known material (though even then the book is clear that the substance you pick may only look like what you think it is) and take a skill related to what you think this material is... but you can never be 100% sure it's the material you think it is or that your forging techniques didn't leave a flaw in it of some kind. Technology never really being fully understood is a conceit of the world... in the same way that a human dominated world is a conceit of most sword and sorcery fantasy...

Saelorn said:

Why does the PC know that he might hit an ally (and possibly kill them), but not know that he might hit an adjacent stone wall (and possibly break the sword)? Those both seem equally (un)likely as outcomes for swinging a sword. I mean, that's a really weird premise, for him to be aware of one possibility but not aware of the other possibility. Does he not know that sometimes swords can break, if you hit a wall?

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That's moving the goal post. Nobody is talking about a wall. There's no reason to expect the sword to break in normal usage, and normal usage is all that we're discussing.

Balesir said:

By that measure, wouldn't the PC missing because the opponent ducked be "external"?

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Sure. Internal and external are basically decided by the narrative. It's all in how the DM describes what happens.

As an aside, most if not all plausible ways I can think of for a sword to actually break arise directly from the interplay of moves by the fighters - in other words, they do very much depend on the relative skills.

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Skill has nothing to do with flaws in the sword. That's at a minimum one plausible way for a sword to break that doesn't involve skills, relative or otherwise.

Maxperson said:

That's moving the goal post. Nobody is talking about a wall. There's no reason to expect the sword to break in normal usage, and normal usage is all that we're discussing.

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I don't expect to hit an ally during normal usage. Both things are equally extreme to me.

Imaro said:

pemerton asked if creatures always holding forces back could be accepted as a "fact" about the world if a GM played all creatures as tacticians who held their forces back and I stated that IMO it was to vague & broad (there are specific Numenera creatures who just wouldn't do this whether due to lack of intelligence, contrary instincts or being loners) and that even if the DM plays in this manner there is no in-world justification, as there is for equipment.

So with that recap out the way... what exactly is your point? Are you claiming it's not too broad or vague for all of the creatures in the Ninth World to behave in such a manner? Are you claiming there is an in-world justification for it? If not what exactly are you even talking about?

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The thing is though: every bestiary entry in the Ninth World (not to mention the Strange and CSR) comes with a suggested GM Intrusion as well as info on combat styles.

Aldarc said:

The thing is though: every bestiary entry in the Ninth World (not to mention the Strange and CSR) comes with a suggested GM Intrusion as well as info on combat styles.

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I think you're supporting my assertion here... The suggested GM Intrusions given for the monsters are much more varied than "held back forces to attack later"... now unless we're going to make that (holds back forces in reserve) an intrinsic nature of every creature in the Ninth World... and thus changing the canon nature of numerous creatures as they are written in the book... I'm not sure how this can be a conceit of the Ninth World... and that's with it still lacking an in-world justification.

Now in bringing the suggested Intrusions for opponents to my attention I think (and because of the Cypher system's rule that only players roll dice) you've helped me establish another category of GM Intrusions (on a rolled 1 ) that satisfy @pemerton's 3 criteria

pemerton said:

(1) That a nat 1 is not just a fail. It's a trigger for something more than a failure - what, upthread, I called a "big" or distincitve event. Something other than "nothing happens".

(2) That typically, even primarily, such events ought not to be due to major screw-ups by the failing character (not something "wrong" that the character did).

(3') Following on from (2), that far more often these events should be external circumstances such as reinforcements, rather than events that (in-fiction) are causally downstream of the failing character's action.​

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I think that almost any (there are a few I've seen that circle back to a failure on the character's part... like the failure to notice more of them) GM Intrusion based around an opponent (after the player rolled a 1) will meet all of these criteria... do you agree?

EDIT: Some examples of of the GM Intrusions I am talking about...

Creature: Sarrak
GM Intrusion: The sarrak acting out of turn takes control of a device that the character is about to use against it. The sarrak deactivates the device or perhaos turns it against it's owner.

Creature: Ravage Bear
GM Intrusion: In it's rage, the beast makes an extra attack with a +2 bonus.

Creature: Ghost Crab
GM Intrusion: A PC damages or removes one of the Ghost Crab's front claws, causing the creature to quickly spin a new one. The new claw is nearly twice as large as the first, increasing damage to 8 points.

Creature: Dread Destroyer
GM Intrusion: The dread destroyer activates an energy surge that repairs 1d6+4 points of it's own damage and makes an electrical attack that inflicts 20 points of damage on a single target.

These are all...
1. events outside normal failure.
2. not due to any major screw up by the character
3. are or can be easily made causally related to the actions taken by the PC.

Saelorn said:

The PC has exactly as much control over accidentally hitting an ally as they have over accidentally breaking their weapon - they chose to attack an enemy, knowing full well that they might hit an ally or break their weapon, and then they decided to go through with it anyway.

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And this comes back to the natural 1 = fumble problem. You should be able to go in while being more autious - and both how you go in and your level of skill should influence the probability of such blowback (a good swordsman will be able to protect their blade as well as everything else).

Neonchameleon said:

And this comes back to the natural 1 = fumble problem. You should be able to go in while being more autious - and both how you go in and your level of skill should influence the probability of such blowback (a good swordsman will be able to protect their blade as well as everything else).

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Unless of course the "good swordsman" is fighting a superior or even equal opponent... or the "good swordsmen" (as opposed to a weapon smith) is unaware of the flaws in his weapon in the first place... or the "good swordsmen" has a string of bad luck... or the "good swordsmen" has an opponent who specializes in breaking weapons... or the "good swordsmen" is beset by numerous opponents... in other words just claiming that a "good swordsmen" should have less chance of breaking his sword/hitting an ally than a less skilled one is ignoring all of the other factors at play... especially in rpg's where the challenges tend to escalate with the improvement in skill.

EDIT: Personally I don't think there is a "problem" with fumbles if everyone is on board for it and if not... it's easy enough to choose not to institute them in your particular game (another advantage to a simple 1=fumble abstraction... very easy to eliminate from a game. ). It's a case where I'd rather have a simple abstraction 1=fumble than to have to figure out all the modifiers and bonuses that add up to what exactly the chance of a fumble should be for each combat and for each individual character.

Saelorn said:

I don't expect to hit an ally during normal usage. Both things are equally extreme to me.

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Oh. Are you one of those people who think that D&D combats involve figures that just stand there static and don't do anything out of turn at all? Because that's not how combat works. In a combat, the participants are always moving, turning, dodging, parrying, thrusting, and so on, no matter whose turn it is. When you have 3 or more figures in close proximity all moving, dodging, etc., it's pretty easy to imagine a few of them moving in an unexpected manner and someone accidentally hitting an ally.

Imaro said:

Unless of course the "good swordsman" is fighting a superior or even equal opponent... or the "good swordsmen" (as opposed to a weapon smith) is unaware of the flaws in his weapon in the first place... or the "good swordsmen" has a string of bad luck... or the "good swordsmen" has an opponent who specializes in breaking weapons... or the "good swordsmen" is beset by numerous opponents... in other words just claiming that a "good swordsmen" should have less chance of breaking his sword/hitting an ally than a less skilled one is ignoring all of the other factors at play... especially in rpg's where the challenges tend to escalate with the improvement in skill.

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In every single one of those situations except the unknown flaw in the weapon you have added a condition that the good swordsman is better able to overcome than a bad swordsman would be - and even that situation is dubious because one of the skills with weapons is taking care of them so they serve you better.

And because all those situations will affect a mediocre swordsman more than a good one you've quite literally had to re-write the world to balance out the effectiveness of the PCs, making character skill pointless. And even then have arguably failed.

EDIT: Personally I don't think there is a "problem" with fumbles if everyone is on board for it and if not... it's easy enough to choose not to institute them in your particular game (another advantage to a simple 1=fumble abstraction... very easy to eliminate from a game. ). It's a case where I'd rather have a simple abstraction 1=fumble than to have to figure out all the modifiers and bonuses that add up to what exactly the chance of a fumble should be for each combat and for each individual character.

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As I said right at the start of the thread, I use the 1= possible reroll option tweaked from 4e Dark Sun. You can choose to play it safe and not take the reroll - or you can take the risk by rerollinkg, knowing you fumble if you fail to hit on the reroll. It's much more interactive, much more evocative, and it's more fun on both sides of the table.