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?

 

[Celebrim]

Failing to find fresh water when navigating a desert looking for water is not success.

They weren't navigating a desert looking for water. They were navigating a desert looking for ruined tower of Abor-Alz. And they found it. That is success. It happens that they were also expecting to find fresh water there. They didn't. That is a complication, one that in a different circumstance could probably be resolved by casting a spell like 'Purify Food and Drink' or 'Create Water' or an Alchemy skill check to create an antidote or distill pure water from the polluted source. Failure would have been not finding the ruined tower of Abor-Alz.

If in fact the orientation check was to find fresh water, then success would have been finding fresh water but not the ruined tower of Abor-Alz, since in that circumstances any fresh water would do. But finding fresh water, while helpful, was not the party's primary goal which was to get to the tower. And it's clear that getting to the tower was at least a partial success, since they were able to continue their plan having only had to spend a few game resources. Whether this resource was Forte or Spell Slots doesn't really matter, they still enjoyed at least partial success by at least getting to the tower.

The shear potential dysfunctionality of an orienteering check determining whether water is fresh or not, we'll leave to another time.

It is failure - the noun failure being cognate with the verb failing in the phrase failing to find fresh water.

It's less than perfect success, but again, it's not complete failure since the primary goal of reaching the tower was in fact achieved. They got what they wanted, but with complications.

Success with complications would be (for instance) arriving at fresh water, but having to negotiate with a nemesis in order to gain access to the waterhole (in this case, perhaps, the desert raider Wasal who had earlier evicted the PCs from his camp).

This is functionally no different than getting to a waterhole and finding it polluted - both are 'success with complications' to an equal degree and both are 'partial success' to an equal degree. In either case, they have to deal with a new complication. In some cases, dealing with a polluted water hole might require spending fewer party resources or be easier to accomplish than dealing with a waterhole guarded by an enemy. We can't necessarily say one is a higher degree of failure than another (except to the extent that the DM is metagaming against the party using his knowledge of party resources).

If the party was equipped with a decanter of endless water (or spells to create water, etc), then what is at stake would obviously be different. But they weren't. Not dehydrating in the desert was (unsurprisingly, I think) key to what was at stake in this particular moment of play.

No. What was key to the orienteering check was getting where you were going. That again seems obvious. If in fact merely 'getting water' was the main goal at stake, play would have been more seriously disrupted than it was and would have involved more trouble than marking off a bit of Forte. Also, getting water could have been separated out as a separate roll, as someone could have made the equivalent of a Survival check to find a nearby water source other than the pool that happened to be where they were going. ("While we are on our journey, I want to keep an eye out for geological formations that might indicate hidden or subsurface pools of water. If we get the chance, I want to stop and collect additional water.")

In the thread that I linked to, [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION] gave an interesting actual play example: in order to defend the compound from assailants, the PC urges her tribe to help her build giant effigies to be carried to the walls to scare away their enemies; and the check failed, and so the tribe agreed to sacrifice the PC inside them, Wicker-man style, so as to scare away their enemies.

That's not "success with a complication". That's failure.

I'm not even sure how to categorize that, except to say that's a very good example of why I don't like open ended GM intervention. Whether that was success with complications or a fumble, depends very much on the system in question and the perversity of the DM regarding how he views his job as DM.

(In chaochou's case, success with complications might mean - for instance - that the tribe builds the effigies and carries them to the walls of the compound, driving away the enemies, but attracting the adverse attention of the being of whom they are effigies.)

I don't see how you can draw that as a bright line. If the adverse attention is of a more powerful and dangerous being, is that success with complications or a fumble? If the adverse attention is of a less dangerous being, is that not partial success? In general, the terms 'partial success' and 'success with complications' are synonymous, and even when we can distinguish them it is only when all counterfactuals are known and prespecified and the results are therefore not open ended. Otherwise, telling one apart is a matter of opinion.

 

[Manbearcat]

The Spell Fumble table!

This is utterly unfair! How does the old D&D adage go?

With unchecked cosmic power comes no responsibility?

 

[Celebrim]

This is utterly unfair! How does the old D&D adage go?

With unchecked cosmic power comes no responsibility?

It is a bit unfair, and it is a bit over the top, but I agree in principle that D&D needs better spell fumble rules.

I've never liked that the worst that can happen if you flub a spell is that you lose a slot, and I am working on my own spell fumble tables for my game. So far it's only happened a couple of times, but its pretty fun when spells go occasionally pear shaped.

 

[Connorsrpg]

We have always used spell fumbles and fumbles in general Have charts.

 

[pemerton]

They weren't navigating a desert looking for water. They were navigating a desert looking for ruined tower of Abor-Alz. And they found it. That is success. It happens that they were also expecting to find fresh water there.

<snip>

What was key to the orienteering check was getting where you were going. That again seems obvious. If in fact merely 'getting water' was the main goal at stake, play would have been more seriously disrupted than it was and would have involved more trouble than marking off a bit of Forte. Also, getting water could have been separated out as a separate roll, as someone could have made the equivalent of a Survival check to find a nearby water source other than the pool that happened to be where they were going.

First, you are actually wrong about the fiction - the waterhole in question is at the foot of the Abor-Alz. It is not related (except by a degree of geographic proximity) to the tower.

Second, how do you know with such authority what was at stake? I don't recall you being at the table! That they would make it to the tower was not at stake - that was taken for granted in the action resolution (in technical terms, that is "say yes or roll the dice" - the rolling of the dice was to determine survival en route). What was at stake was safely navigating across the desert. Which they failed to do, because the waterhole they travelled to was fouled by a dark elf.

Whether that was success with complications or a fumble, depends very much on the system in question and the perversity of the DM regarding how he views his job as DM.

<snip>

If the adverse attention is of a more powerful and dangerous being, is that success with complications or a fumble? If the adverse attention is of a less dangerous being, is that not partial success?

I'm pretty sure the system is Apocalypse World.

The reason that I suggest that the adverse attention of a powerful being is success with complications is because the PC (and player) achieve the immediate desired change in the situation - the enemies disperse in fear of the effigies - but find themselves in a new, difficult situation - namely, being subject to the attention of a powerful being. (I took it to be implicit that the being is not of no significance, power etc in relation to the PC - if that was so then there would be no complication.)

But ultimately it is [MENTION=99817]chaochou[/MENTION]'s play example. He has posted in this thread and will no doubt chime in if he thinks he has anything worthwhile to add!

It's less than perfect success, but again, it's not complete failure since the primary goal of reaching the tower was in fact achieved. They got what they wanted, but with complications.

<snip>

This is functionally no different than getting to a waterhole and finding it polluted - both are 'success with complications' to an equal degree and both are 'partial success' to an equal degree. In either case, they have to deal with a new complication. In some cases, dealing with a polluted water hole might require spending fewer party resources or be easier to accomplish than dealing with a waterhole guarded by an enemy.

<snip>

I don't see how you can draw that as a bright line.

I didn't say it was a bright line. Not every X that is different from a Y is differentiated from Y by a bright line (red and purple are a trivial example of this).

But the absence of a bright line doesn't mean that there is no difference.

In the case of polluted water vs a nemesis guarding the waterhole, I know, as GM, that one is a failure (but not a complete failure - I didn't use that adjective) and the other a success with complications, because I know broadly what capabilities the PCs have for dealing with polluted water (very little) and what capabilities they have for negotiating with a nemesis (a good deal).

In narrating the waterhole as fouled, therefore, I am imposing a cost that they cannot overcome - roll for Forte tax - that would not be the case if the nemesis was present. Negotiating with the latter might consume some metagame resources, but those are able to be replenished on a (broadly) session-by-session basis, and so the cost of that consumption, if it were to occur, would be very modest at the table, and non-existent in the fiction (the characters are no worse off for their players being slightly depleted in metagame resources for however much of the session remains after playing out the negotiations).

More generally, in the scenario as it played out the players (and PCs) did not get what they wanted - they didn't get safely across the desert, and had to suffer some Forte tax as a result. Whereas had they met their nemesis at the waterhole, then they would probably have succeeded, one way or another (via negotiation or stealth) in resolving the complication, and would have got what they wanted - making their way safely across the desert. That is one way of making clear the difference between failure and success with a complication in this particular instance.

Yet another option potentially on the table, had I not "said yes" to finding the tower, would have been to narrate - in response to the failed Orienteering - a dust storm and the PCs arrival at the pyramid in the middle of the desert, which they had heard rumours of. That would have been neither "success with complications" nor "failure but near-success" but "complete failure" - but nevertheless "dfail forward". But for various reasons - mostly around pacing, and the relationship between passage of ingame time and passage of at-table time - I had decided to "say yes" to finding the tower.

In general, the terms 'partial success' and 'success with complications' are synonymous, and even when we can distinguish them it is only when all counterfactuals are known and prespecified and the results are therefore not open ended. Otherwise, telling one apart is a matter of opinion.

They are not synonyms. At best, they both describe species of a genus - the genus being "fail forward".

In the absence of a bright line, telling one from another may well be a matter of opinion. That's true for a lot of things that are, nevertheless, different. It doesn't mean that there are no differences, or that discerning them is (i) arbitrary, or (ii) unimportant.

Managing the narration of consequences, and choosing between various options of complete failure, less-than-total failure, and success with complications, is an important part of the GM's job in a "fail forward" game. Just lumping them altogether obscures the sorts of considerations that a GM needs to have regard to. (For instance, suppose in the example of the mace that, instead of narrating that the mace is not in the tower but there are black arrows, I had narrated that the PCs find a cleft in the bottom floor of the tower, and can see a glimpse of nickel-silver at its bottom: that "success with a complication" would have completely different implications for pacing, for tone, for the focus of play, for relationships among the PCs and between them and key NPCs.)

The fact that you do lump them together makes me (again) wonder how much experience you have playing or GMing using these techniques.

 

[CharlesRyan]

Hi, all--

First, full disclosure: I'm the COO at Monte Cook Games, and I game with Monte on a fairly regular basis. Given those facts, I don't usually jump into public conversations about MCG stuff, but this conversation has grown too interesting to resist!

I don't want to put words in Monte's mouth, but let me start by addressing posters that think Monte is advocating that PCs never fail, or that GMs should be all touchy-feely about their players' poor hurt feelings. In the article, Monte says, "It could mean that the character accidentally shoots a friend, or drops her weapon, or slips and falls, but those should be rare." I think he means both parts: That it should be rare, but also that it could certainly be a result that happens.

And I can personally attest to that. I've seen a character accidentally shoot a friend in one of Monte's games (I was fortunately not at either end of the exchange!), resulting from a GM intrusion that was triggered by the roll of a 1. I've also seen a zillion other interesting things happened when 1s were rolled, and overwhelmingly they didn't represent a moment of extreme incompetence on the part of the character.

(By the way, Monte's use of "Bruce" as his example wasn't coincidental. Bruce Cordell's ability to roll many, many 1s in a single game session is unparalleled.)

Which brings me to the crux of what I think is the disagreement here (or at least 70% of the disagreement): What does the word "fumble" mean?

To some people, it means "a result with more than routine negative consequences--something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players." If that's you, you can stop arguing against Monte: You agree with him. You're just using the word "fumble" differently.

But 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. Not that a 1 result is meaningless--in fact, the Cypher System codifies that it is always meaningful. (Note what I just said there: While 1=fumble is a common house rule for many games, in the Cypher System 1=escalated challenge is actually part of the core rules.) The GM introduces a twist, and that almost always means the situation becomes more challenging. This is the OPPOSITE of coddling the players or negating failure--it's making the players work harder to succeed. The point is that the increased challenge doesn't come (or rarely comes) from character incompetence.

So what does all this have to do with player feelings and "punishment?" If your ONLY way of introducing additional, randomly-triggered challenge escalation is via character incompetence--if a 1 represents a screw-up, and you have NO OTHER mechanic for introducing the many other ways things can go randomly wrong in a tense situation--I'd argue that you're being kinda mean to your players. You're loading all the unpredictability into a single narrative cause.

That's the not-fun part.

 

[Aldarc]

(By the way, Monte's use of "Bruce" as his example wasn't coincidental. Bruce Cordell's ability to roll many, many 1s in a single game session is unparalleled.)

This just makes me want to see Bruce Cordell and Wil Wheaton as players in the same RP campaign.

 

[Celebrim]

Hi, all--

Howdy. Thanks for stopping by.

Which brings me to the crux of what I think is the disagreement here (or at least 70% of the disagreement): What does the word "fumble" mean?

To some people, it means "a result with more than routine negative consequences--something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players." If that's you, you can stop arguing against Monte: You agree with him. You're just using the word "fumble" differently.

But I think most people interpret the word "fumble" to mean "a major screw-up."

I think you are right about how most people use the word. What I want you to notice is that "a major screw-up" and "something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players" are largely synonymous definitions. When you screw up, it's because you make things worse for yourself. I'm not sure it matters why that happens, per se, as for example we don't as an audience tend to distinguish Inspector Clouseau's extreme ineptness from the perverse manner the universe also seems to be out to get him and object's uncannily break whenever he touches them. It's all fodder for the comedy. More on that latter.

But I don't think the major source of disagreement is over what you think it is. I fully understand that Monte is saying both that a 1 is a fumble by definition #1 and that the complication doesn't have to be a the result of character incompetence. The source of the disagreement is somewhat different.

First, I deny that it's necessarily or even regularly better for the game that a complication resulting from a player proposition isn't fumbled as the result of character incompetence. I deny that because I feel that disassociated mechanics are in general less satisfying and more problematic for the player than associated mechanics. If I'm shooting an arrow at an orc, it's certainly possible that the worst case scenario is just as I let fly a hitherto unseen hurtling red dragon swoops out of the clouds between me and the orc and blocks my shot, and takes a certain umbrage at me shooting at him. And yes, you might say, "Well that wasn't character incompetence. These sort of things just happen; could have happened to anyone." But then you are creating a world where the player and the character feel less in control of what happens than one where his own screw ups are in the range of possibility. It's not like you are making the throw of the 1 less common by imagining disassociated random happenings happening. The character still misses the shot just as often, and even when these things don't seem like they are the character's fault exactly, they still will seem like the sort of things that a more competent hero could have avoided. I'd rather my character occasionally shoot himself in the foot than live in a bizarro world that twisted just because I threw a 1 when I tried something. Nothing is meaner to a player than removing any sense that his actions have predictable logical consequences, which you eventually start throwing out the window if failures have to be blamed on something other than the player's relative ineptitude. We went from being not quite competent enough to attempt something heroic, to cause not implying effect. Welcome to Kragworld.

And secondly, while you can disassociate the fiction from the proposition, I don't think you can disassociate the proposition from the game. Everyone at the table still knows that red dragon swooped down just at that moment because your character threw a 1. If we really should be worried about other players or the GM being 'mean' to us because our character fumbled, the surely we shouldn't be playing in a system where a 1 meant complications arose on failure. Honestly, I think Monte's advice is only necessary because the only mitigation mechanic that makes such fumbles less rare involves an annoyance tax.

I have no idea what is fun for other people.

But I'll take putting the droid's head on backwards, ending the conversation by blasting the microphone, stepping on the stick and getting backhanded, sticking my prong in the power socket, hotwiring the door and closing a second blast door, getting the hydrospanners dropped on my head while I'm trying to fix the hyperdrive I failed to fix right before the battle, and all the other goofy things that heroes do while they are saving the galaxy over a GM being empowered to introduce whatever out of fiction thing he can conjure out of the air to up the stakes. All that unpredictability is the not-fun part. Disassociated mechanics are stronger anti-player antagonism than major screw ups are, and do nothing to protect my wee little feelings from the stinging barbs of my fellow players when throwing the 1 causes whatever the heck its going to cause makes them laugh their heads off if in fact I'm going to get my ego bruised by something like that.

And as far as the notion of coddling goes, it wasn't the idea that the GM was making the players work less hard to succeed that struck me as coddling. What struck me as coddling was the notion that the player should have this image of their own character as the type that never screws up regardless of the circumstances, and that the GM should go out of his way to help maintain that image.

 

[pemerton]

"a major screw-up" and "something that doesn't just maintain the status quo, but directly increases the challenge for the players" are largely synonymous definitions.

No. A major screw-up may directly increase the challenge for the players; but need not. (Eg if the screw-up takes the form of self-injury or injuring an ally the impact may be resource depletion rather than a direct increase in challenge.)

But there are certainly many ways to directly increase the challenge without a major screw-up. For instance, some 3rd party or force may inject itself into the situation. Or, to refer back to an earlier example, the PC's tribe may like the idea of effigies, but decide that they need to be set alight with the PC inside (Wickerman-style) in order to be effective.

There are any number of ways the situation can change so as to make things more difficult, without that involving any sort of screw-up, let alone a major one.

 

[sheadunne]

But I'll take putting the droid's head on backwards, ending the conversation by blasting the microphone, stepping on the stick and getting backhanded, sticking my prong in the power socket, hotwiring the door and closing a second blast door, getting the hydrospanners dropped on my head while I'm trying to fix the hyperdrive I failed to fix right before the battle, and all the other goofy things that heroes do while they are saving the galaxy.

Those seem to be the results of simply failing the check. When I think fumble, I think Wicket using the sling. Things get complicated on a failure and things get silly on a fumble, which is probably why I don't use fumbles anymore. I don't use critical success either, for similar reasons.