Regardless of how you want to characterize it, the truth is that these complications - however plausible - are introduced into the fiction at that moment that action is attempted.
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indeed it is the missed bow shot that conjures them into being.
This makes no sense. And the first sentence equivocates on the meaning of the word "action"
The bow shot is an action that occurs in the fiction, and the missed bow shot is an event that occurs in the fiction. These are, therefore, imaginary, imagined actions and events. They have no actual causal powers - but causal results can be imagined in the fiction, with extrapolation within the fiction being constrained by various imagined causal laws. Such results might typically include the arrow landing on the ground and breaking, or the arrow sticking in a tree next to the intended target, or the arrow hitting an unintended person, etc.
I doubt that there is a single Cypher System GM or player who has ever imagined that, within the fiction, the missed bow shot causes a trumpet to appear and be sounded.
Now, in the real world at the gaming table, an action occurs - namely, the roll of a d20. And that action has real causal powers and results in the occurrence of a real (not imaginary) event: the roll of a 1. The occurrence of this real event then leads the participants in the game to introduce certain new elements into the fiction. One of those elements is dictated by the rules: namely, the arrow misses. (I suspect the rules are silent on whether the miss means that the arrow lodges in a tree, or breaks on the ground, or . . . , but they clearly don't allow the miss to be narrated as the hitting of another person
simply in virtue of being a miss.)
The second element that is introduced into the fiction is the GM's "incursion". What this is is not dictated by the rules, other than that (i) it must be a plausible extrapolation from the existing state of the fiction, and (ii) it must escalate the challenge in some fashion. (These rules therefore prohibit using, say, the Wand of Wonder table or the Wild Surge table for determining the nature of the incursion.)
It's almost beyond obvious that a significant number of RPGers don't particularly care for the ruleset just described, because they prefer that the only narration introduced into the fiction as a result of the die rolling action be an event that, in the fiction, can be imagined as being causally downstream of the imaginary action of making the attack. That is an aesthetic preference. (Sometimes this can be described as a preference for "immersion", or "actor stance", or "non-dissocated mechanics", or "process simulation". None of those descriptions has any magical power, but for different players or play-styles they can sometimes point to some interesting element of the aesthetic preference in question.)
But it is just wrong to try and affirm that preference by saying, of those who do not share it, that in their games missed bow shots cause trumpets to appear. Because that assertion assumes what is known to be false, namely (i) that they share the preference, hence (ii) that they treat all narration resulting from the die roll as concerning imagined events that, in the fiction, are causally downstream of the imagined action of making the attack, hence (iii) that, in their games, missed bow shots cause trumpets to appear from thin air.
There is no need to affirm false descriptions of other people's games, which are
known to be false, in order to express an aesthetic preference about game design and game play.
Monte claims that it is better that usually the complication introduced by GM Intrusion be one which is not associated with the actor, or necessarily even with the target, but rather be like random coincidences invoked by some diabolic spirit that hates the number '1' or what you call "a sort of organized chaos effect". But I don't agree that that is necessarily or even often a better approach, I think it one fraught with problems regardless of the system you are playing
Again, this reiterates the false description of others' play (because the rolling of the number is an event in the real world, and is not part of the imagined fiction and hence has no imagined causal relationship to any event that occurs within the fiction).
Also, you haven't really articulated what these problems are. Upthread you have talked about GM antagonism, but haven't given any actual examples from actual play. What's an actual example of the GM Intrusion mechanic going haywire
because it doesn't mandate that the imagined causal origin of the incursion event be the imagined action whose outcome within the ficiton is being determined by rolling a die in the real world?
First you claimed it was a gross mischaracterization that a missed bowshot could cause orc reinforcements to appear, even though that particular scenario was one endorsed by a proponent of the system who ought to know. Unable to feel any embarrassment once I pointed that out, you've gone on to defend now how reasonable it is that orcs appear as a result of a missed bowshot
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If in fact the orc reinforcements aren't pulled out of the air, then it must be that they are part of the established myth of the fiction, so that there is a definite limit to the number of orc reinforcements available, and when those reinforcements are encountered and slain, further investigation of the complex will be simplified because areas which were formerly guarded will now be emptied.
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But its not what is happening in this case. In this case the additional reinforcements are being written into the fiction at the time the '1' is thrown, invented on the spot, because the '1' is thrown and a complication is needed. The reinforcements would not exist otherwise. They are not being drawn from a limited pool of resources, but added to the fiction at that moment. There was no possible way to spot or observe those 'hidden' orcs before they leaped out
All new elements introduced into the fiction are, in your sense, "pulled out of thin air". Once I roll the 1, for instance, and - per the rules - I am narrated as having missed my opponent, the narration of my opponent's catching of the arrow with his/her shield, or of his/her doging, or of my slipping slightly in the mud as I release my arrow, resulting in losing my aim, are equally conjured out of thin air.
Systems like RM try to narrow this down, by having the mechanics dictate dodge vs parry etc but even they are not total - eg does the shield catch the arrow because of the quick reflexes of the opponent or because a mosquito flies in front of my eyes right at the moment of shooting, delaying my shot and allowing the defender to move his/her shield into position? Even Rolemaster doesn't answer that question, so the relevant narrative is "pulled out of thin air".
However, it is not the missed bow shot that causes whatever narrative permitted by the rules to be pulled out of thin air. The missed bow shot is an imaginary event in the fiction. The authoring of the narrative is a real event in the real world. One cannot cause anything (though we can imagine it causing further imaginary things). The other has as its "cause" (I use quote marks because mental causation is an obvious minefield) the interaction between the players' knowledge of the ruleset, their knowledge of the existing state of the fiction, their knowledge that a 1 was rolled, and their imaginations as to what might be a feasible addition to the fiction).
I've been in a back and forth with numerous posters (coming from the same viewpoint you seem to be advocating) about how they've chosen to narrowly define fumbles as ineptitude of character and/or "silly".
The point is that this is how Monte Cook is using the term in his blog:
the GM actually incorporates some version of the joke into the actual narrative of the game—that is to say, that Bruce’s character said something foolish or untoward
I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up." As in, rolling a 1 means your character did something that really screwed the pooch. You shot another character instead of the monster you were aiming at. Dropped your sword. Uttered a major faux pas in front of the Duke. Reached for the bottle of healing balm and accidentally grabbed (and applied) acid instead. The situation got worse because YOUR CHARACTER did something uncharacteristically incompetent.
If that's how you interpret the word "fumble," Monte (and the Cypher System rules generally) argue that you should broaden your horizon.
If you agree with Monte, Charles and the Cypher rules that a fumble (nat 1) is not necessarily this sort of "major screw-up" then why are you arguing against those who are similarly expressing agreement, and/or who agree with you and Monte that "major screw-up" style fumbles don't make for particularly good RPGing?
Emphasis mine... this has been my biggest issue with the premise set forth for differentiation of fumbles and/or fumbles being bad wrong fun by some of the posters in this discussion such as [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION].
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perhaps there's a small subset of heroes who never fail due to their own inability to meet a particular challenge but it happens to numerous competent heroes of literature and movies and you're right, we don't enjoy their stories any less for it... in fact I would argue it creates a hero who is easier to relate to than the one whose only failures come from outside forces
Please quote me saying that fumbles are "bad wrong fun". That's right, you can't, because I haven't said that.
I actually doubt there is a regular poster on these boards who has played more RM/MERP than me. (Though RM/MERP fumbles aren't typically "major screw-ups".)
I've run two main lines of argument in this thread: (i) against those who define "fumble" in a way differently from Monte Cook and then criticise his essay on the basis of that imputed definition (and I note that my reading of Cook's use of "fumble" was confirmed by the post upthread by one of his co-designers); and (ii) against the contention that there is no interesting difference between success with complication, partial failure, fumble, etc.
It's obvious that GM intrusions will not be very popular among those who prefer that all newly narrated events have, in the fiction, some causal dependence upon characters/actions whose outcomes are going to be narrated on the basis of actual rolls made at the table. But that tells us nothing about GM intrusions as a mechanic except that it probably won't sell well among the diehard RM/RQ/3E crowd.
Given that we know what sort of mechanic it is - broadly speaking, it is a variant of a "no whiffing"/"fail forward" or what [MENTION=4937]Celebrim[/MENTION] calls "Nar techniques", let's talk about whether it is good for that purpose.
I'll nominate what I think looks like a problem with the mechanic (and I'd be interested in [MENTION=5142]Aldarc[/MENTION]'s thoughts, based on experience with the system): why should GM intrusions be rationed by reference to natural 1s? How does that improve the game?
As I've posted in some detail upthread, there are a range of reasons (pacing being one of the most important) that bear upon whether a GM might want to narrate a failed check as (in the fiction) total failure, or partial failure, or success with a complication, or escalation of the challenge, etc. Mandating the the GM must always escalate the challenge on the roll of a 1 seems to risk the GM being called upon to escalate the challenge when most of the reasons that apply would push in a different direction.
