Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="EzekielRaiden" data-source="post: 9669088" data-attributes="member: 6790260">95% of the time it doesn't. Which is...literally the point. It's a rule that makes a cool thing happen only quite rarely.No, it isn't. You can keep asserting this all you like--it is simply not true.When some aspects of mitigating the odds result in "you just succeed" (whether that is "you cannot roll low enough to fail" or "you cannot roll high enough to succeed"), it is not and cannot be "at its heart a gamble". Doubly so because you want that word to mean something much, much stronger than the facts of the matter support: specifically, you are quite clearly using "a gamble" to mean something along the lines of "you have no idea whether you'll succeed or fail, so stop worrying about it". This is simply, flatly untrue, unless the DM labors rather a lot to force it to be true.I mean, the principle of explosion certainly does mean everything makes sense. But that "everything" is literally EVERYTHING--all possible statements, no matter how ridiculous, follow from a contradiction. If we embrace something that is fundamentally not true, all results from that conclusion are suspect. (Not necessarily wrong, but unjustified--the whole "a stopped clock is right twice a day" thing, where some coincidentally right answers will still happen.)---------As for the thread topic itself:If the DM does in fact make a Special Thing out of nat 1s and nat 20s, e.g. a critical roll on a skill is especially or uniquely beneficial, I could allow that as a relatively crude narrative mechanic. Likewise if a fumble (nat 1) is especially or uniquely bad. The frustrations (mostly on the DM side) that arise from the nat-20 permitting a frustrating or weird action, and those that arise (mostly on the PC side) from fumble rules, are evidence enough of the crudeness of this technique, but in the sense that it shapes the in-the-moment...I'm not sure what to call it. "Process" isn't quite the right word, and "narration" feels a bit strong...but I guess that's the closest thing. It shapes the in-the-moment narration and creates the unexpected.I agree that it's a little weird that (from my perspective) a huge swathe of old-school DMs absolutely adore things like fumble tables and special results on a nat 20 (or for 6 on 1d6 or various other things), and then make signs against evil at even the slightest bit of narrative mechanics. But this is rather in keeping with a great deal of D&D tradition: venerate that which was laid down by the Great Masters, repudiate anything that was not. Accept, even glorify, the weird and the unusual that the Great Masters added in the Dawn Times; reject, even vilify, the weird and the unusual that came after. People wanting to play a dragon-person? GOD IN HEAVEN, WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO D&D????? But people wanting to explore a crashed UFO to steal laser guns and power armor? F--- yeah, sign me up for the Barrier Peaks yesterday!!!</blockquote>

Verification