Quote from: Skarg;1023819I'm just wondering what fraction of the people understand what I posted above, since no one commented on it at all, but it seems to me kind of vital to have more than two possible types of results when you're trying to do something like attack someone but not kill them.

I didn't feel any need to comment on something that was correct and that naturally (and to me obviously) follows from a simple consideration of each of the cases associated with the action being attempted.

Thanks  for the replies,
        I think most people are on the same page here. In the 1st case it was AD&D 1E and I specifically said I was trying to knock out the guard. The only defence I have for the ref is that we weren't particularly experienced (16 years old? 4 years of play?) and the GM loved rolling on the crit tables from Dragon. I was pretty miffed though.

In the CoC case, I don't think the GM was wrong - and he gave the driver a drive check to see how bad the crash was. I'd have done the same thing, I think, I just wanted to throw it out there.

In the Star Wars case, it was pretty much against how the rules should have worked (Heroquest is a Conflict resolution system) but I wasn't too unhappy with how things turned out - it's one of the other players who brought up it when it happened. If it had happened to him, he'd have been unhappy. Just wondered how other people felt.

Cheers,
Spon

Quote from: Gronan of Simmerya;1024045Actually, that's how the referee is running the Pathfinder game I'm in.  It requires a referee who knows the rules inside and out, a lot of patience, and a good deal of trust.

OK, then please read my previous post as "I wouldn't have the patience to make it work like that". We are playing this way, but only when using much lighter and intuitiver systems.

Quote from: spon;1024129Thanks  for the replies,
        I think most people are on the same page here. In the 1st case it was AD&D 1E and I specifically said I was trying to knock out the guard. The only defence I have for the ref is that we weren't particularly experienced (16 years old? 4 years of play?) and the GM loved rolling on the crit tables from Dragon. I was pretty miffed though.

OK, I apologize for the misunderstanding, then! Though I seem to remember there was a steep penalty for dealing subdual damage. Or did you use a more suitable implement?

QuoteIn the CoC case, I don't think the GM was wrong - and he gave the driver a drive check to see how bad the crash was. I'd have done the same thing, I think, I just wanted to throw it out there.

Well, at least I got that one right;).

QuoteIn the Star Wars case, it was pretty much against how the rules should have worked (Heroquest is a Conflict resolution system) but I wasn't too unhappy with how things turned out - it's one of the other players who brought up it when it happened. If it had happened to him, he'd have been unhappy. Just wondered how other people felt.

Cheers,
Spon

You were playing Heroquest? Then yeah, what he did is against the rules, and I don't know why he/she would do that. That's why I specifically called "conflict resolution systems" in my first post in this thread.

(And I'm sure that Gronan will be here shortly to remind us his statement that "the rules can cure neither stupid nor asshole", and in this case, I'd agree...with the addendum "especially if you don't apply them in the first place"!)

As far as the first example... remember Gronan's THIRD law of gaming.

"Anything that happened when you, or the referee, were 14, does NOT constitute a need to change the rules."  Or in this case, 16.  Hey, he was 16, shrug and move on.

Generally speaking, it is extremely stupid to have a critical result in something punishing. The exception could be when a natural-20 could represent using an excess of force; I could MAYBE see it being justifiable to argue that if someone is trying to do non-lethal damage, a natural 20 could result in a hit with regular damage.

Quote from: RPGPundit;1024870Generally speaking, it is extremely stupid to have a critical result in something punishing. The exception could be when a natural-20 could represent using an excess of force; I could MAYBE see it being justifiable to argue that if someone is trying to do non-lethal damage, a natural 20 could result in a hit with regular damage.

In a RuneQuest game, a Great troll PC was riding a griffin and tried to use Torture to get it to go somewhere dangerous, but he rolled a 100, a fumble, neatly snapping its neck mid-flight. Fortunately, he had a Jumping spell and jumped up to another PC, riding a griffin, grabbing hold of the PC's leg. Now, the same PC had previous where the Great Troll had done something similar and they had fallen to their deaths, so he took out his sword, chopped his leg off and followed the troll to the ground, where he grabbed his leg, stuck it back on and flew off again.

Heal-6 is a handy thing to have...or should I say that without Heal-6 he wouldn't have had a leg to stand on?

Quote from: soltakss;1024913In a RuneQuest game, a Great troll PC was riding a griffin and tried to use Torture to get it to go somewhere dangerous, but he rolled a 100, a fumble, neatly snapping its neck mid-flight. Fortunately, he had a Jumping spell and jumped up to another PC, riding a griffin, grabbing hold of the PC's leg. Now, the same PC had previous where the Great Troll had done something similar and they had fallen to their deaths, so he took out his sword, chopped his leg off and followed the troll to the ground, where he grabbed his leg, stuck it back on and flew off again.

Yeah, that would be the other approach: if you're trying a soft touch, then a fumble would probably be the right way to result in too much force.

An idea has just occured, maybe a crit can result in the player having more narrative control over how things come out. With the example of shooting the cars tyre out it would have been perfectly valid to have the player narrate the car spinning out of control and hitting something while the driver staggers out in fit state to be interrogated.

Whether or not players or characters should or should not have any control of the game narrative, beyond what they specifically said they were attempting ("I shoot at the car's tires/tyres"), is probably a bigger decision than this specific example.

Quote from: spon;1024129In the 1st case it was AD&D 1E and I specifically said I was trying to knock out the guard. The only defence I have for the ref is that we weren't particularly experienced (16 years old? 4 years of play?) and the GM loved rolling on the crit tables from Dragon.

Then you should have known about, or the DM should have told you about, subdual damage. And AD&D1e still doesn't have criticals. The DM should have spent less time reading Dragon magazine and more time reading the DMG. If you don't even know what's in the basic rules, don't go adding shit. Get the basics right before you get fancy.

But you were 16, and as Gronan likes to say, dumb shit you did when you were 16 does not indicate a problem with the rules of AD&D1e, or indeed any game. You were 16.

So all this was about nothing after all.

Quote from: Altheus;1025263An idea has just occured, maybe a crit can result in the player having more narrative control

Hell NO!

Quote from: Kyle Aaron;1025370Then you should have known about, or the DM should have told you about, subdual damage. And AD&D1e still doesn't have criticals. The DM should have spent less time reading Dragon magazine and more time reading the DMG. If you don't even know what's in the basic rules, don't go adding shit. Get the basics right before you get fancy.

But you were 16, and as Gronan likes to say, dumb shit you did when you were 16 does not indicate a problem with the rules of AD&D1e, or indeed any game. You were 16.

So all this was about nothing after all.

Cant say the GM did a great job in this case but the attitude expressed in this post always cracks me up. Then idea that somehow the RAW are golden and any deviation from them is some kind of holy trek, only to be attempted by a 'true master'. Give me a break. Every set of rules I have ever read for over 40 years has made it a point to state they are 'guidelines', mean to help the players and GM have fun and that when in doubt, what the GM decides goes. We were altering the rules our first session of D&D out of the White Box for Gods sake and have been doing so ever sense. Sometimes you make a judgement that doesnt work out very well and you learn to do better in the future. Whoop.

As to the specifics of this thread a "Crit" should indicate you did whatever you were trying to do extremely well. THE END.

Only an idiot would interpret an amazingly positive roll of the dice as a negative result in the game. Thats what failure and specifically 'fumbles' are for.

I try to steer my horse around the corner and roll a crit = I maneuver really well, not that I break the fucking horse's neck. I mean, please.

I try to charm the guard and roll a crit = he does exactly what I hoped he would, not that he falls in love and now follows me around causing a major pain in my ass.

Its a simple concept really. Not sure how anyone could mishandle this.

Quote from: rgrove0172;1025723... Its a simple concept really. Not sure how anyone could mishandle this.

I think people tend to mess up when they think they can resolve a complex action in one roll, and end up accidentally creating problematic mechanics. And in general, it seems to me many GMs mishandle a lot of things fairly often without noticing.

It seems to me the OP's cases were mainly being noticed because the GM's idea of how to handle it didn't match the player expectation, and so the player got upset by the unexpected result and sudden reversal when they thought a 20 would mean they do what they wanted, roll a 20, and get told it was the opposite.

But it seems to me it's also possible to mess up in less obvious ways, particularly is a case like this where you're adding a different type of intent to a mechanic that already has a range of possible outcomes. The outcomes (and the chances they ought to have) become more complicated when adding something like an intention to attack in a particular way. If you add a meaning to one or more of the possible rolls, what are you doing to the overall odds of the other potential outcomes? If players have to discover that by playing until the GM shows them his way of resolving something, it may take a while to detect.

And sometimes it seems like there's a strong force of apathetic inertia and a desire for simplicity for some players/groups that drowns out interest in more accurate mechanics.