Monte Cook On Fumble Mechanics

Fumble mechanics have been part of the tabletop RPG experience for decades. Even where games don't have a fumble mechanic, many players house rule them in. A fumble is the opposite of a critical hit (or critical success) - its most common manifestation is a roll of 1 in a d20-based game (with a roll of 20 being the critical). Veteran game designer Monte Cook has some thoughts on fumble mechanics, and talks about them and how his Numenera RPG (and all of the Cypher System line) use an "intrusion" instead.

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It can be a divisive issue. If you're like me, you've experimented with fumble mechanics of various kinds over the years. When I was 12, I remember one character accidentally shooting a fellow character in the back of the head and killing him. Monte Cook's thoughts on the matter are that "we don’t want to run games that “punish” players for rolling bad. A GM intrusion isn’t meant to be “punishment”—it’s meant to make things more interesting. But a fumble, for many people, just seems like a moment for everyone to laugh at them, and that’s not always fun."

If you look around, you'll find dozens of fumble house rules for most games. They clearly provide a draw to those who like to tinker with their games. But many games deliberately do not include any such rule.

You can read the rest of Monte's article here. What are your thoughts on fumble mechanics?

 

[Imaro]

The participants could be playing a system were NPCs - in order to speed play and in order to increase player agency - never actually make dice rolls. In this hypothetical system, how well Luke does on his Hack and Slash skill check determines whether he gets hit, whether he hits the target, or whether nothing happens. If this system has fumbles and criticals, then 'Take a Critical Wound' is the result of Luke's fumble (maybe failure to hit the target DC by 10 or more).

Dungeon World has mechanics that aren't very different from that.

Surprisingly enough in Monte Cook's Numenera/The Strange/Cypher system the DM doesn't roll... only the players.

 

[Imaro]

How, exactly, would this be modelled as a critical fumble check for Luke? How does Luke's critical failure result in Vader cutting his arm off? In none of the systems presented does a critical failure cause an enemy to kill/incapacitate you.

In Monte Cook's Cypher system DM's don't roll... so the only way this could happen in that system is if the player rolls low...

 

[Celebrim]

Surprisingly enough in Monte Cook's Numenera/The Strange/Cypher system the DM doesn't roll... only the players.

Cool.

You know, I just figured out what the long argument over what mechanics are in play during a scene in Star Wars was actually about.

The participants weren't arguing over what they players could be playing (if this was a game), but rather what in their opinion they should be playing.

 

[Imaro]

Cool.

You know, I just figured out what the long argument over what mechanics are in play during a scene in Star Wars was actually about.

The participants weren't arguing over what they players could be playing (if this was a game), but rather what in their opinion they should be playing.

Lol... I was arguing the whole thing was a silly way to determine whether a "fumble" was "needed" or not since it all depends on what system you are using and what the preferences of you and your players are. I don't think fumbles are inherently bad or good, they're good if you and your players enjoy them and bad if you all don't... irregardless of whether they do or don't affect them more or less, it's pretty simple IMO...

 

[Bedrockgames]

I agree... key points being...

1. That mechanic does not exist in D&D for crits and thus must be a new mechanic
2. It could be modeled as a fumble or as a crit... and thus could serve as an example of either one... (either way, in D&D the mechanic for modeling this does not exist and if we want to recreate it possibilities include creating a mechanic that lies at either the failure or success end of the spectrum)

Critical do exist though, and I've certainly seem them used for lopping off limbs. It could also be handled as a ruling on the gm's part (i.e. a player tries to lop off an NPCs hand or vice versa, so the GM implements some on the fly way to implement that). D&D has always been a bit of an open system in that respect because it deals with damage pretty abstractly. There are games that have clear mechanics on maiming, but D&D doesn't usually deal directly with that kind of stuff (expect maybe as optional rules). It does depend on the edition though.

I would argue though that in order to recreate that scenario, you do not need an explicit rule for cutting off peoples' hands. Again, especially with older versions of D&D, it is meant to be very open. Just because there isn't a specific rule for something it doesn't mean it can't be attempted or can't come up. Again though, there have long been games that do deal with these kinds of things if you want all that mapped out in the system.

 

[Bedrockgames]

In Monte Cook's Cypher system DM's don't roll... so the only way this could happen in that system is if the player rolls low...

Good point.

I have the Numenera book but haven't had a chance to play it yet (hoping to get at least a small campaign of it in this year between my other games). It seems like a system that is pretty friendly to Empire Strike back plot developments though (the whole GM intrusion mechanic seems designed to allow for interesting developments). Could the GM use GM intrusion, or some other rule or guideline in the book to have a hand get lopped off in that sort of situation?

 

[Celebrim]

I don't think fumbles are inherently bad or good, they're good if you and your players enjoy them and bad if you all don't

My opinion is similar.

I don't think any mechanical idea is necessarily good or bad, but that mechanical ideas can be badly implemented. One of the goals of designers is to figure out how to implement any particular idea well.

I think that a mechanic ought to be judged on whether it succeeds in its intention and in the context of the game it is trying to create. There is no one true game that is more fun than all others, and no one true mechanic that is right for every game. To be blunt, any time you assert that there is one mechanic which would improve all games, it shows you have a lot of maturing as a designer left to do.

I largely agree with your claim that a mechanic ought to be judged on whether it is enjoyed, but I would add that I think the real test is whether it is enjoyed more than some other mechanic. Plenty of mechanics can be both bad and fun, by which I mean that they are enjoyed but different untried mechanics might be enjoyed more. Unfortunately the difficulty here is that alternative approaches are in the realm of unknown unknowns. We can't always even imagine the different ways we could approach a game design problem.

Ultimately though, I think that the real lesson you learn as a designer is that every mechanic you introduce however interesting has a cost to it, and in the long run you may discover the costs outweigh the benefits. Figuring out the costs and whether you want to bear them is very difficult to do ahead of time, as the real costs usually only show up after lengthy periods of play.

 

[Imaro]

Good point.

I have the Numenera book but haven't had a chance to play it yet (hoping to get at least a small campaign of it in this year between my other games). It seems like a system that is pretty friendly to Empire Strike back plot developments though (the whole GM intrusion mechanic seems designed to allow for interesting developments). Could the GM use GM intrusion, or some other rule or guideline in the book to have a hand get lopped off in that sort of situation?

It's bee a while since I last ran Numenera but I think it would certainly be interesting, so you could... but unless you have buy in from the player they will almost without a doubt (unless they don't have enough) spend the XP to buy out of that intrusion. That's what I like about the system though, it's (IMO) a fumble mechanic that gives the players a say so in whether you are going too far or in a direction they don't like... while still allowing individual GM's to decide exactly what constitutes an intrusion in their game as opposed to having pre-determined tables (though I could see that working as well.).

 

[Celebrim]

Good point.

I have the Numenera book but haven't had a chance to play it yet (hoping to get at least a small campaign of it in this year between my other games). It seems like a system that is pretty friendly to Empire Strike back plot developments though (the whole GM intrusion mechanic seems designed to allow for interesting developments). Could the GM use GM intrusion, or some other rule or guideline in the book to have a hand get lopped off in that sort of situation?

I certainly agree that you could run a Star Wars game in the Cypher System. In fact, certain aspects of the New Republic era where the players are trying to recover the lost secrets of the Jedi and exploring forgotten frontiers on alien worlds actually lend themselves to Numenera tropes.

But part of the reason I think you could run Star Wars in the Cypher System is precisely because GM Intrusion can be and most naturally is, a fumble.

 

[billd91]

No it does not pretty much mean it "requires" an effect that is even worse than failure... This is totally dependent on the system being used and what it's limitations are... which is why the arguing that these fictional examples aren't fumbles is so silly. Until we agree upon what the system is and what a fumble constitutes in said system... both anything and nothing are valid as "fumbles".

While I agree with your traditional defintion of fumbles... I in no way see how clumsiness, bungling, or making a mess of something during an action must logically and in all situations lead to severed limbs, the gouging out of friends eyes and decapitations... That's how you and a few others personally choose to define a fumble but taht's all it is, your personal view of what a "fumble" is.

No, I think it pretty much connotes something worse than failure - if it doesn't, someone's misusing the term fumble and misunderstanding will ensue. That said, I don't think anybody requires it be sticking a sword in someone's eye or a decapitation selfie. It could be something like a broken bow string, a damaged weapon, or a follow-up penalty on the next turn. In pretty much all events, if it's no worse than a simple failure, someone's failing at the term fumble.