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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Ovinomancer" data-source="post: 8123958" data-attributes="member: 16814">This does not equate to fun.  I could institute a rule that PCs only hit on a natural 20 and this would make the game more challenging and have more tension (presumably), but it's not a good rule at all.My being incompetent if I roll a 1 doesn't tell me anything about how my opponent is more challenging.  This is the point -- if I'm playing a competent swordsman, having a 5% chance per attack to drop my sword or hit a friend doesn't feel like I'm competent.  If I'm a master lockpick, with lots of character build resources dedicated to be competent in lockpicking, having a flat 5% chance that I look incompetent isn't a good feel.  Unless I like the farce of it, that is.  But, then, I really am not terribly invested in being competent if I'm looking for the farce.This can be solved in many ways other than fumbles, so it's not an argument in support of fumbles but an argument that you've picked altering PC side probabilities to solve what you think your problem is.  I used to have this same problem, now I don't, and I didn't use fumbles at all.  I spend way less time picking enemies, and I don't run a game that's soft at all.  I have tactically proficient players -- almost all wargamers that make combat efficient characters and work well together -- and I still don't have a problem with this.  Oh, and I tend to rack up PC deaths just fine.  Heck, my current game has a rule that PCs don't die unless the player says so, but I get to level consequences if they would have, and I'm up to 5 PC 'deaths' already -- they're level 9 and started at 5th.You've chosen a different path, which is fine, but it's not an argument in support of fumbles, it's an argument that you picked fumbles instead of other options.You have no actual data to support this, and this level of use has been discussed by a poster in this thread.  Don't claim a position that supports your argument is the norm when you cannot prove it and especially when there's already evidence to contravene it.As an aside, if I was a 20th level fighter, I'd feel dropping my sword every 5-6 combat rounds on average would be pretty impactful and against the concept I'm the pinnacle of martial prowess.I've yet to see a well implemented critical fumble solution -- they all punish competence by introducing a flat chance to be incompetent.  That you laugh at results of fumbles underscores my point that it's the farce that's memorable, and if that's your thing, go for it.  But, it's a hard hill to climb to argue that critical fumbles aren't a vehicle for farce.  They could be, but I don't see that argument being made, and I don't think it's terribly workable, either.I don't use fumbles, but there's plenty of unexpected happening in my games.  I don't script encounters often, and run exploration with blank areas quite often, so failures can lead to interesting things because I don't ask for rolls unless there's a consequence to failure and I leave myself room to have lots of interesting consequences to failure.  Pairing a failure with either success at cost or fail forward techniques (not the same thing) and you have lots and lots of room for memorable results due to failures that don't rest on narrating PC incompetence.</blockquote>

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