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Monte Cook On Fumble Mechanics
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<blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 7695203" data-attributes="member: 4937"><p>Your no true Scotsman not withstanding, billd91 didn't answer me at all as he's going to have to explain how stabbing yourself or your neighbor in the foot is less of a complication than something else despite depleting more resources. </p><p></p><p>And second, well that doesn't sound like a very good challenge in the first place.</p><p></p><p>If you do contest something, resource depletion does in fact not only increase the challenge but in any system with character resources measures it. Maybe the extra challenge will not be much depending on how much resources are depleted, and maybe not enough to alter the ultimate outcome, but by a non-zero amount. Again, if it doesn't deplete resources to address the challenge then it is probably not a challenge, and likewise if it doesn't increase the resource depletion to deal with a complication it is probably not a complication. </p><p></p><p>As you yourself admit both now and earlier, if it doesn't deplete resources, it's not a good complication. You even talked about earlier how you meta-gamed to ensure resources would be stressed to a high degree. So you are wrong even under your own terms now and earlier when you tried to explain why polluted water was a bigger problem than an enemy guarding it. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Fine. Failing to find water in the desert, unless it results in the PC's immediate death, only depletes resources that potentially make future challenges more difficult. Resource depletion does increase the challenge, even on your own terms. Not that your terms are consistent. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>D&D is complicated by the fact that doesn't use completely unified mechanics, hence one of the reasons I said "normally". Even in 3e where it tries to introduce a single underlying mechanic, it still has plenty of exceptions and special cases. For example, 3e climb checks for example have the possible outcomes - "Success", "Failure", and "Fumble" where success means you go up the wall, failure means you don't, and fumble means you failed by 5 or more and fell off the wall. Balance checks have a similar mechanic, and Use Magical Device takes it further and has multiple degrees of fumble depending on what you rolled and by how much you failed. </p><p></p><p>Reaction checks have an even more complicated series of degrees of success and degrees of failure depending on the number of degrees of favor the target goes up or down. Ordinary failure though were nothing happens is still possible.</p><p></p><p>Many skills don't have "fumble on a failure of 5 or more" category, and only have success/failure including pretty much every skill that lets you take 20.</p><p></p><p>The same range of complications are generally true of opposed checks like 'pick pockets' or sleight of hand. Pick pockets ultimately implements a range that includes: failure (you didn't get anything), fumble (you didn't get anything and someone noticed), success (you got something), and success with complications (you got something but you got spotted). But the ordinary failure is still you didn't accomplish what you set out to do.</p><p></p><p>AD&D doesn't have skills per se, but has the same issues of diverging mechanics. Nonetheless, for many obvious cases, the normal result of a failed 'bend bars/lift gates' check or something of the sort was 'the bar doesn't bend' or the 'gate isn't lifted'. There was no expectation that if you tried to bend the bar and failed, that the act of trying and failing would make things worse (unless some feature of the preexisting fiction made that true, whatever it was). If you failed a hearing check, it didn't make the monster come into being and in general if you searched for traps failing to find one didn't create one. (I've actually seen exceptions, where DMs in AD&D did cause traps to come into existence if you searched for one, but that's not the intention of the rules but the predictable results of 'no myth'.)</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>That mechanic for hearing checks isn't replicated across the system. In D&D some skills can fumble and others can't. How the skill fumbles and what the consequences are vary from case to case.</p><p></p><p>But one thing that hasn't varied is I never find you particularly insightful or interesting or helpful. So goodbye.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Celebrim, post: 7695203, member: 4937"] Your no true Scotsman not withstanding, billd91 didn't answer me at all as he's going to have to explain how stabbing yourself or your neighbor in the foot is less of a complication than something else despite depleting more resources. And second, well that doesn't sound like a very good challenge in the first place. If you do contest something, resource depletion does in fact not only increase the challenge but in any system with character resources measures it. Maybe the extra challenge will not be much depending on how much resources are depleted, and maybe not enough to alter the ultimate outcome, but by a non-zero amount. Again, if it doesn't deplete resources to address the challenge then it is probably not a challenge, and likewise if it doesn't increase the resource depletion to deal with a complication it is probably not a complication. As you yourself admit both now and earlier, if it doesn't deplete resources, it's not a good complication. You even talked about earlier how you meta-gamed to ensure resources would be stressed to a high degree. So you are wrong even under your own terms now and earlier when you tried to explain why polluted water was a bigger problem than an enemy guarding it. Fine. Failing to find water in the desert, unless it results in the PC's immediate death, only depletes resources that potentially make future challenges more difficult. Resource depletion does increase the challenge, even on your own terms. Not that your terms are consistent. D&D is complicated by the fact that doesn't use completely unified mechanics, hence one of the reasons I said "normally". Even in 3e where it tries to introduce a single underlying mechanic, it still has plenty of exceptions and special cases. For example, 3e climb checks for example have the possible outcomes - "Success", "Failure", and "Fumble" where success means you go up the wall, failure means you don't, and fumble means you failed by 5 or more and fell off the wall. Balance checks have a similar mechanic, and Use Magical Device takes it further and has multiple degrees of fumble depending on what you rolled and by how much you failed. Reaction checks have an even more complicated series of degrees of success and degrees of failure depending on the number of degrees of favor the target goes up or down. Ordinary failure though were nothing happens is still possible. Many skills don't have "fumble on a failure of 5 or more" category, and only have success/failure including pretty much every skill that lets you take 20. The same range of complications are generally true of opposed checks like 'pick pockets' or sleight of hand. Pick pockets ultimately implements a range that includes: failure (you didn't get anything), fumble (you didn't get anything and someone noticed), success (you got something), and success with complications (you got something but you got spotted). But the ordinary failure is still you didn't accomplish what you set out to do. AD&D doesn't have skills per se, but has the same issues of diverging mechanics. Nonetheless, for many obvious cases, the normal result of a failed 'bend bars/lift gates' check or something of the sort was 'the bar doesn't bend' or the 'gate isn't lifted'. There was no expectation that if you tried to bend the bar and failed, that the act of trying and failing would make things worse (unless some feature of the preexisting fiction made that true, whatever it was). If you failed a hearing check, it didn't make the monster come into being and in general if you searched for traps failing to find one didn't create one. (I've actually seen exceptions, where DMs in AD&D did cause traps to come into existence if you searched for one, but that's not the intention of the rules but the predictable results of 'no myth'.) That mechanic for hearing checks isn't replicated across the system. In D&D some skills can fumble and others can't. How the skill fumbles and what the consequences are vary from case to case. But one thing that hasn't varied is I never find you particularly insightful or interesting or helpful. So goodbye. [/QUOTE]
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