What do you think? Are 1s and 20s unofficial "narrative mechanics" in D&D (especially 5e)? Do you give those results extra weight (beyond critical hits in combat)? How does it square with how you perceive games with explicit "narrative mechanics"?
It's not an official rule but 5.0 DMG definitely mentions the possibility of treating 1 as a critical failure and 20 as a critical success. In addition, it also mentions you can treat a near-miss* (failure by 1 or 2) or hitting the DC exactly as a success with a setback, and failing by 5 or more as a failure with additional costs.
All these ideas are not only presented as optional, but the DMG doesn't even explicitly recommend being consistent. While I can imagine many players demanding consistency (particularly when theorycrafting out of game), at the table I just try to read the mood. You can tell some players get excited when rolling a 20 or a 1, so when I feel like it, I go along with it and come up with a small extra on the outcome, good or bad, but I don't go too far with it, and I don't care for doing it all the time, because 10% is a lot of times, and too much rollercoasting makes you sick.
Some additional thoughts:
- the DMG examples* actually include attack rolls and saving throws (just saying...), but I have never given additional critical success/failures with them, I think combat is too strictly regulated for me to do that, while out-of-combat is open-ended
- I don't go overboard with the additional narrative: falling prone, dropping or breaking an item are ok, losing HP is already too much for me.
- Generally, I use the option when the game is light-hearted, and that is not usually my choice, but rather something that comes up: if I see players creating a jovial atmosphere, I will toss in some slapstick fumble or funny lucky strike in the narrative. If the choose to play seriously, it probably won't even cross my mind
- I don't think I ever let the players narrate the additional degrees of success or failure; I don't see this necessary, and I don't play particularly cooperative storytelling games (for me the usual social contract is, players create the story by the fully free will of their PC, and the DM completes it by narrative all the outcomes)
- I very often allow players automatic success without a roll when they just have the right intuition; this wouldn't work well for a DM who wants natural 1s and 20s to always yield a special result (because obviously if you don't roll you don't have 1s and 20s)
I like games with metacurrency and I also enjoy OSE, Level Up and Shadowdark. We are in partial agreement over good games!
