Failing to be Critical?

Barely a day goes by on online RPG discussion forums, Facebook, and other such avenues for people to spout drivel without someone, somewhere asking about how other DMs 'punish critical 1s' in combat.  This is often accompanied by a flurry of 'haha, weapon breaks, stab friend, fall over, etc etc', until someone sensible steps in, and calmly tells them..... "They don't."

A voice of reason, a rare delight on the internet.

Sadly this modicum of good sense then tends to be drowned out by a return of the vicious little kids screeching about 'crit fails being 'fun'', etc...

This is a perfect example of the problem with democracy, you see, 'punishing' a roll of 1, something that happens on 5% of rolls, something no player can do anything about, is just plain illogical.  The supporters of the concept most likely do not properly understand the impact, have not thought about it, or don't care.  But the cacophony of loud voices, and the effect of the pack, tend to overpower the thread of conversation, which carries the risk of the person asking the question being led to believe that Fumble rules are normal, even to be expected.  They are not, and there are good reasons why the vast majority of game designers avoid putting them in their Core rules.

Without going into anything deeper than very basic probability, here's why.

In every d20 system I've ever played, one of the benefits of gaining levels is getting better at what you do - be it casting spells, picking pockets, turning undead - or fighting.  Fighters fight, to get better they have to improve their fighting skills, and that usually means they get to attack more often.

More attacks = more chances to roll 1 = more opportunities to fumble.

Thus by getting better at fighting, they are also getting better at fucking up.

Now the predictable reply you often see to this is "But they get twice as many chances to roll a 20, so that cancels it out!"

No.

It doesn't.

Typically, most fumble tables employed by DMs have entries such as 'Fall over, miss a turn', 'Weapon breaks', 'Confused - penalty on next attack', 'Drop weapon, need to spend a round picking it up.'... Thus causing the Fighter to forego one or more attacks, because they dared to roll a 1.  And by foregoing these attacks they are suffering by MORE than a corresponding 20 would benefit them - especially as most DMs just go by "20 is double damage", which is nothing compared to the drawbacks of the 1.

And thus, as the Fighter gets better, they get more attacks, and the problem spirals yet further.

"But but It's the same for the monsters... they fumble as well!" - this argument for fumbles is even worse.  Stop, and think - an adventure is typically spread over several encounters, sometimes dozens.  With the exception of boss-type monsters, how many encounters will each typical monster take part in?  1, maybe 2 if they run away.  But the PCs?  All of them.

So if Goblin #3 breaks his bow during encounter #1, what impact does that have on the rest of the adventure?  None.  But if Haraldar the Huge blunts his axe on a big rock during encounter #1, what impact does that have?

I rest my case, it's a shit argument made by morons.

"Waaaaa, but but but, they're funny/fun"  (*delete as applicable).  Here I concede they can be, in the short term, once or twice, depending on the situation.  But the 3rd, 4th, 5th time?  Even the best DM starts to run short of original ways to say 'The Fighter looks like a twat and stabs his own toe".

Some systems have attempted to address the Fighter handicap through 'confirmation rolls' - a 2nd roll to confirm a critical hit or fail,and yes, this goes some way to alleviate the issue, but at at significant cost to game flow.  Because yes, extra dice rolls, extra maths, consulting more tables all SLOW the game down.  I play 1e/2e/5e and ignore 3e/4e for a variety of reasons, the main one though, game speed and simplicity.  Combat is meant to be faster in these versions... and if you're playing 3e/4e you probably don't care anywhere, as those versions appeal to numbers-obsessed power gaming types - 1 extra roll isn't going to have much impact on the already ball-achingly slow combat mechanics.

Back in the days of Dragon magazine, 1E types tried to address the crits/fumbles issue with an article entitled "Good Hits and Bad Misses" - it can be found in Best of Dragon Volume V, from May 1986.  Contributors to 1E forums often cite this article as a good solution.  Get real.   I'm not sure why this was in a 'best of' anything.  Essentially it based a chance of a crit or fumble on the different between the modified attack roll and the number required to hit.  So fighting an armoured but sluggish knight with AC2, will result in more fumbles than would fighting a highly dextrous Thief with AC5?  Plus the age old problem remained - more d20s rolled in combat meant more fumbles - thus getting better at fighting still gave you more chances to make a fool of yourself, or decapitate the party Wizard.

So what should you do with 1s?  Use them to inspire flavour, and create memorable comic moments if something immediately comes to mind - don't worry if it doesn't, we all get moments of mind blank.  If so, the attack fails, move on - nobody will curse you for it.  A little spontaneity can often create a running joke that people will look back on fondly for years.  AND THAT SHOULD BE THE LIMIT OF THE EFFECTS OF THE "1". Flavour text, nothing more.

Don't add mechanical 'punishments', because if you do, you don't understand basic d20 game mechanics and probability... and if you don't understand that, or don't consider it important, you probably should not be DMing.


Some games managed to do crits and fumbles well, but that's for another day...