Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Aldarc" data-source="post: 7695295" data-attributes="member: 5142">And that's my point, both here and with a number of your points in this post. A Natural 1 does not necessarily conjure these things into being as you said. That is the mischaracterization of the Cypher System that I find problematic, and I will get to that more below. Condescension aside, my point here with that line of questioning is merely that different games cater to different playstyles for groups. Regardless of your strong opinions about more Narrativist > Simulationist games, you do seem to prefer a particular style of game play for your pen 'n' paper RPs. And your preference does not seem to be what the Cypher System offers. But also, it seems as if your experiences and what you are criticizing seems detached from how the Cypher System plays out in practice. If the Cypher System is not for you, then great. Continue playing what you are playing. But it seems as if you are fighting for a cause that does not affect you since you are playing in other game systems with other play styles anyway. So what does an online debate regarding Monte Cook's article on fumbles and the GM Intrusion achieve for you? Why are you worried about what effects these new mechanics would produce in a game system you don't even play or imply that you would enjoy regardless of this mechanic? Right now the only person "huffing and panting" is you, and I respectfully suggest that you calm down. I have not moved goal posts. I have been consistent with my point of opposition in my reply, namely this idea that the "missed bow shot conjures the trumpet and reinforcements into being" as it seems to imply that they come out of "thin air" and not within the realm of narrative plausibility. The player rolls a Natural 1. In the Cypher System, this triggers a GM Intrusion. Obviously, this roll happens outside of the game narrative. The shot likely misses, but it's not an automatic miss in the Cypher System as it would be in some systems or house rules. The missed bow shot did not conjure the trumpet and reinforcements into being either. Although the in-narrative bow shot is tied to the out-of-narrative player attack roll, the complication is also attached to the Natural 1 as a sort of "organized chaos effect." It is not that the missed bow shot conjures these things into being, but, rather, the out-of-narrative Natural 1 triggers the introduction of an in-narrative complication in addition to the actions of the attack roll. The Natural 1, in some respects, represents the player unintentionally poking the GM to change their regularly-scheduled scenario. It's also worth noting here, as others have before me, that the player is free to spend 1 XP to reroll their dice, effectively negating the GM Intrusion and the in-narrative complication. It's not necessarily a fumble. It's not necessarily a comedy of errors for the player, as Natural 1s sometimes become. (I have had my fair share of GM's who have conjured rocks from the sky that they have dropped on players' heads who have rolled Natural 1s.) It's not necessarily a bumbling goof. It's really more an opportunity that invites the GM-as-narrator to provide unforeseen narrative twists. And these are moments that we see in movies, shows, and books. The player can do things well, but sometimes the unexpected happens that lies outside of their competence or foresight. You may see this as splitting hairs or a case of semantics. That's fine. But semantics do impact the game, as we have discussed much earlier in this thread, and which was something that you seemed to tacitly agree with.</blockquote>

Verification