Where do crits come from?

[Asmor]

I was laying on the couch playing Pokémon Battle Revolution when something occurred to me...

Critical hits are pretty much ubiquitous in gaming, whether you're talking RPGs, video games and hell, war games and even many board games. However, when you think about it critical hits aren't really an "obvious" thing; that is, I don't think that crits are something that have spontaneously come up time and time again so much as people borrow the idea from some other game. This is particularly evidenced by the fact that most games use the same terminology-- "critical hits." They're so ubiquitous that you take them for granted, and they blend into the background.

So I'm sure that crits have been apart of D&D as long as dragons and dungeons have, but where did crits originally come from?

I know that this is probably like asking where chess comes from, but I figure that there's gotta be a few grognards 'round these parts who can shed some light on the etymology of this term and the history of the mechanic.

And I don't want to hear "When a mommy crit and a daddy crit love eachother very very much..."

 

[frankthedm]

Probably some pre-D&D wargame. I'd bet one that used a 2d6 or 3d6 resolution system where rolling all ones or all sixes had a devastating effect on the unit being attacked.

 

[jmucchiello]

And I don't want to hear "When a mommy crit and a daddy crit love eachother very very much..."

Well if you don't learn it here you'll have to sit through "The Talk" from one of your parents. Far better to hear about here on streets.

.... They probably came from the same place most combat stuff comes from, D&D's wargame roots. Some wargames allow greater success results on certain die rolls. A critical hit is worse than a serious, moderate or light hit (cf. healing). Attacks of opportunity are similarly founded in the tactical movement systems of wargaming.

Criticals also add to the fun factor. When playing out a round of a wargame, you get a lot of "hit, miss, miss, miss, hit, miss, hit, hit, miss, miss, hit, miss, miss, hit, hit, hit, miss, miss, hit, hit...." Interspersing a few "Crit!!"s into the stream breaks up the monotony. Of course, in an RPG you don't control 30+ units on a battlefield so the monotony is already broken up by the attacks being distributed among your 4 other friends at the table.

So I'm sure that crits have been apart of D&D as long as dragons and dungeons have, but where did crits originally come from?

You do know that there are plenty of RPGs whose entire body of research was made up of reading other RPGs, don't you?

 

[Scott_Rouse]

Wikipedia didn't turn up anything.

I would guess it came from war or hunting, the lucky shot that drops the target in one shot or hit.

 

[Asmor]

That's about what I was figuring.

Along a similar note, I'm curious how many older RPGs used crits, and if they were "borrowed" from D&D or evolved in parallel. Also wondering when the first video game usage of critical hits was...

 

[Asmor]

Wikipedia didn't turn up anything.

I would guess it came from war or hunting, the lucky shot that drops the target in one shot or hit.

Huh, it never occurred to me that it might have such literal roots as a critical wound in an actual person/animal. Interesting thought!

 

[Doug McCrae]

In roleplaying, Arduin Grimoire 1977. Though probably some wargame had them first.

 

[Glyfair]

Along a similar note, I'm curious how many older RPGs used crits, and if they were "borrowed" from D&D or evolved in parallel. Also wondering when the first video game usage of critical hits was...

They certainly weren't borrowed from D&D, since they weren't officially part of the game until pretty late in the game. The first published D&D crit hits were probably fan variations either from Dragon or perhaps an APA.

Runequest had critical hits & fumbles. They were supposed to represent the sort of things that were "realistic" because they were the sort of thing that happened to them on the fields of SCA events (as if comparing seasoned fighters with guys hitting each other every few weekends was realistic). It states this in the rulebook.

It was my least favorite part of the RQ rules. Too many adventurers accidentally decapitated themselves during play.

 

[Someone]

It was my least favorite part of the RQ rules. Too many adventurers accidentally decapitated themselves during play.

The RQ fumbles tables were filled with all sort of horrible things happening to friends (it was "friends" in our translation) close to the fumbling combatant. Hence the famous cry at our table of "I'm not his friend and I'm not close to him!"

 

[Nepenthe]

Huh, it never occurred to me that it might have such literal roots as a critical wound in an actual person/animal. Interesting thought!

That's the way MERP, my first RPG, reasoned them. IIRC, it had all those tables for actual critical hits and what their particular effect (bleeding, reduced movement etc.) was.