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Monte Cook On Fumble Mechanics
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<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7694545" data-attributes="member: 42582"><p>Whose posts or blog are these meant to be replies to? I've read the blog, and I've read this thread, and no one is talking about players never failing. The discussion is about critical failures.</p><p></p><p>No edition of D&D has ever had critical fumble rules as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D has never been a game?</p><p></p><p>In contrast, every edition of Rolemaster (and its spin-offs like MERP and HARP) has had a critical fumble rule as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D players are cry-baby namby-pamby types, and only Rolemaster players are <em>real</em> RPGers?</p><p></p><p>That whole way of framing a discussion of game design is just silly.</p><p></p><p>I think it's not just <em>disastrous failure</em> - it's disastrous failure that makes the player character look comically inept. And when Monte talks about "Bruce feel[ing] bad", he is not just talking about Bruce feeling disappointed about a bad roll - I think he is talking about Bruce feeling bad because he is identifying with his PC who has been painted as incompetent.</p><p></p><p></p><p>There are any number of ways this sort of event might occur in a RPG, depending on the mechanics of the system. For instance, maybe the player took a bonus die in return for staking a more severe failure.</p><p></p><p>Or the system might be one in which rolls are always opposed, and the GM rolled a critical success.</p><p></p><p>But Monte Cook's blog is not about whether or not it makes for good design to have systematic ways of injecting complications; or whether or not the players should sometimes not succeed. It is a criticism of one, particular, mechanic: the critical fumble in which a bad roll always results in the character performing incompetently.</p><p></p><p>Here's Jonathan Tweet expressing a broadly similar sentiment in his preface to the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge:</p><p></p><p style="margin-left: 20px">A simple but powerful improvement you can make to your game is to redefine failure as "things go wrong" instead of "the PC isn't up to the task." Ron Edwards, Luke Crane and other indie RPG designers have championed this idea, and they're exactly right. You can call it "fail forward" or "no whiffing."</p><p></p><p>You can assert that there is no significant difference between the RM/MERP-style fumble rules and the sort of system that Cook and Tweet (and their predecessors Edwards, Crane, et al) are advocating. But I don't think that would be the experience of many of those who have played both sorts of system.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7694545, member: 42582"] Whose posts or blog are these meant to be replies to? I've read the blog, and I've read this thread, and no one is talking about players never failing. The discussion is about critical failures. No edition of D&D has ever had critical fumble rules as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D has never been a game? In contrast, every edition of Rolemaster (and its spin-offs like MERP and HARP) has had a critical fumble rule as part of its core system - does that mean that D&D players are cry-baby namby-pamby types, and only Rolemaster players are [I]real[/I] RPGers? That whole way of framing a discussion of game design is just silly. I think it's not just [I]disastrous failure[/I] - it's disastrous failure that makes the player character look comically inept. And when Monte talks about "Bruce feel[ing] bad", he is not just talking about Bruce feeling disappointed about a bad roll - I think he is talking about Bruce feeling bad because he is identifying with his PC who has been painted as incompetent. There are any number of ways this sort of event might occur in a RPG, depending on the mechanics of the system. For instance, maybe the player took a bonus die in return for staking a more severe failure. Or the system might be one in which rolls are always opposed, and the GM rolled a critical success. But Monte Cook's blog is not about whether or not it makes for good design to have systematic ways of injecting complications; or whether or not the players should sometimes not succeed. It is a criticism of one, particular, mechanic: the critical fumble in which a bad roll always results in the character performing incompetently. Here's Jonathan Tweet expressing a broadly similar sentiment in his preface to the 20th anniversary edition of Over the Edge: [indent]A simple but powerful improvement you can make to your game is to redefine failure as "things go wrong" instead of "the PC isn't up to the task." Ron Edwards, Luke Crane and other indie RPG designers have championed this idea, and they're exactly right. You can call it "fail forward" or "no whiffing."[/indent] You can assert that there is no significant difference between the RM/MERP-style fumble rules and the sort of system that Cook and Tweet (and their predecessors Edwards, Crane, et al) are advocating. But I don't think that would be the experience of many of those who have played both sorts of system. [/QUOTE]
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