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Message: <blockquote data-quote="sheadunne" data-source="post: 7695211" data-attributes="member: 27570">How did the herd get panicked? Was it a result of a failed roll or because "DM says so"? For me only the failed result of a roll would have led to that chain of events.Again, dice rolls?I'm not sure where you're getting all this planning from. When I'm talking about success or failure, I'm talking about the results of dice rolled to determine success or failure. For instance if the character flying the mount rolled a successful flying roll, then they succeeded. End of story. If the player failed the roll, then complications emerge such as the herd getting spooked or something else depending on the fiction and the intent of the action. If no dice are rolled then it's completely arbitrary whether success or failure has happened and doesn't much matter to me since I don't game that way. That's great. Not so much for me. I think you misunderstood what I wrote. I'm not talking about personal failure. I'm talking about the complication only affecting the character as a  result of a fumble (in my game failure is failure, it doesn't matter if it's a 1 or not). Wicket made an attack roll, fumbled, and the sling wrapped around him and he fell down. Silly, but doesn't complicate the game in the slightest, except for Wicket, probably involving his next action in the scene. All your examples have nothing to do with what I'm talking about. They don't seem to be about fumbles at all, but rather dice roll failures that led to scene complications. For instance in my game, a failure in combat may result in wounds to the character, which might knock him unconscious. Or it might attract new enemies. Or it might start a fire because the dragon was defending himself. All these complicate the scene for everyone. The character dropping his sword leads to no such result. It's just silly. I haven't read anything you posted that disputed my definition in the slightest. You mention plans but haven't defined dice rolls that would indicate success or failure. I can only assume that dice are being rolled. In my games success means success and not, success but I'm going to complicate the scene because I want to. Failure complicates the scene, not success. Your examples seem to be the opposite of that. It's hard to tell since you didn't identify any points in which dice were rolled to determine success. Purely narrative complications (no dice are rolled) doesn't match my style of play.A fumble, to use a classic example, of dropping one's weapon, doesn't complicate the scene, even if it endangers one character. It only demonstrates the incompetence of the character and for me, is silly. The same is true if a player gets a crit and slices off the head of the orc. Silly. Fumbles and criticals are defined by the difference from the normal circumstances of action that caused them, otherwise they're just a normal happening. I've never heard a critical narrated as "you stab him. he dies." It is most often described as an over-the-top death scene, which to me equals both silly and unnecessary. I have no problem with them, I'm just not interested in those narrations or the lack of drama they impose, for me at least. In my games, if the player succeeds in killing the orc, she can describe it any way she likes, including decapitating the orc, as long as it's genre appropriate and matches the feel of the game as decided by the table. I don't need criticals and fumbles to do what success and failure does just fine.</blockquote>

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