Over at Treasure Tables I seem to be having a little bit of a disagreement with Don Mappin, who I don't know well but has always struck me as a pretty cool guy. Don is coming down on the fact that I use a Fumble Table in my Wild Times campaign, because such things tend to be hard on the PCs for no real gain. Three of my players read this blog, so I'd like to hear their opinions on how my funble houserules have been working out. Anyone else with an opinion on fumbles is welcomed to speak up, as usual. Back in the late 80's/early 90's I was using the Dragon article "Good Hits & Bad Misses" in my campaigns and the worst effect I can recall was Tom Novy's ranger losing an ear to a critical hit from a skeleton. His ranger started wearing a helmet after that, as one of the great features of those charts were that some of the results could be negated if the body part affected war armored. When that same group played MERP and Rolemaster we all avoided wielding morningstars because they had a high fumble rating and would send you straight to the critical hit charts. Has anyone lost a favored PC to a particularly egregious fumble result? That would suck.
EDIT TO ADD:
It just occurred to me one of the reasons why I might be so pro-fumble. Back when 2nd edition AD&D came out my good buddy Dave Dalley was the first guy in our group to run a lengthy, successful campaign with the new rules. His campaign was awesome, still ranking quite high in my mind as one of the best I've ever played. My PC, the ranger Bartholomew Bolt (a name swiped from a Citadel/GW miniature released at roughly the same time), and Chris Kaufman's PC, the swashbuckler Sir Ian Wulfric Belvedere, had this great lawful good boy scout/chaotic good bad boy chemistry going. And it was a fumble on Bart's first adventure that really created that 'boy scout' persona for him. He threw a handaxe into the melee, blew the roll, and hit an ally, nearly killing him. After the fight the rest of the party harangued him about being so reckless with the lives of others. Ol' Bart took that stern talking-to seriously and went on to develop a persona that was obsessed with minimizing unnecessary risks, always pursuing optimized pre-adventure preparations and especially always having the right equipment on hand. It was a great contrast to Sir Ian's fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants roguery. I don't think that great dynamic would have developed as easily had it not been for that fumble on our first adventure.
A Return to the Stars
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After a veeeeerrrryyyy long, and mostly unplanned, hiatus, Stuart and I got
together to play more Stargrave in recent days. It was good! It was also a
bit ...
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Posts
(2nd posting attempt)I was never one for the rollmaster tables where you "shoot yourself in the foot with an arrow."
ReplyDeleteIf you fumble in my games then you lose your next turn as you try to recover your flow in the fight. the way a boxer tries to psyche himself back up after taking a brutal beating in the last round.
to say that an experienced swordsman would stab himself in the vitals with his broadsword is just silly.
"to say that an experienced swordsman would stab himself in the vitals with his broadsword is just silly."
ReplyDeleteAgreed. It may be that the disagreement on Treasure Tables resulted simply because I like my gaming sillier than most.
I have mixed feelings.
ReplyDeleteIn Wild Times, it doesn't bug me. The game is light in tone, and the emphasis is on killing monsters and taking their stuff rather than on things like character integrity and development. Despite being very 3.5, it has a lot of old school D&Disms.
When playing in a game that has very intensive roleplaying, I am significantly less forgiving of completely randomized fumble mechanics.
It's always hard to piece out what someone is actually getting at on the web, and the structure of blog comments makes it even harder.
ReplyDeleteI certainly wouldn't take Don's disagreement with you on fumbles personally. Which it doesn't sound like you are -- I just wanted to bring it up. ;)
It sounds like fumbles in your sillier-than-"standard" campaign work just fine, but asking what your players thing is never a bad idea. I'm curious to see what they say.
Nah, Don's seems like a decent guy and I don't think he's going after me or anything. I started this thread over here to double check that I'm not simply dicking the players over for my own amusement. If Stuart says the fumbles in my game are okay, I trust that opinion. He's the guy in the group most into that crazy "serious" roleplaying stuff.
ReplyDeleteI just noticed this while scampering through my links on my blog.
ReplyDeleteRegarding my post, I don't tend to like fumbles in game that already lack a fumble mechanic. D&D doesn't inherently have a fumble mechanic because the tone of the game, by and large, supports "kill stuff and take their loot mentality." It's the same reason the Diablo computer game didn't have fumbles. Fumbling isn't cool in D&D.
However, in Rolemaster, fumbling -- as well as dealing with and understanding how it works -- is an integral part of that game. (Me a big RM fan, BTW.) Players sit down at the table knowing that fumbles happen and that they're bad. They may also pick their weapons based on their tendency to fumble.
Back to D&D and your game, ultimately you do what's right for your game. If your players enjoy it then more power to you. I just don't see how having a character lop off their own head with a halberd would be construed as "fun." I certainly wouldn't, as a DM, be proud of the fact that a fumble prematurely ended the life of one of my player's characters.
But, I suspect, there's more to it than that.
Game on!