Re: (TFT) Critical Spell Failures

[ErolB1@aol.com]

In a message dated 2/22/2004 1:40:19 PM Central Standard Time, pvk@oz.net 
writes:

> Personally, chances for things to go wrong seem much closer to reality. 
> Sometimes, reality is a comedy of errors, and those tend to be moments of 
> interest, challenge, and yes, humor.

Yes, *sometimes*, but not always - that's why those moments of real-life 
comedy are *noteworthy*. They don't happen all that often. 

>
> Real weapons do get dropped and broken in combat. Even devices like modern 
> firearms and flashlights and cars and computers and ... practically 
> everything ... can and do fail and behave unpredictably at times. 

Yes. *at times* -  NOT"all the time" The problem is that almost all fumble 
system have those "go wrong" events happening ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE more 
frequently in the game than they would in real life. 

If you like that sort of thing, that's fine. Mileage varies, as I said in an 
earlier post to the list - obviously a lot of people like to see lots of 
criticals and fumbles in their game. 

But if you do use "fumble" rules, please at least understand what the 
statistics and long-term results are. Don't be like that GM Prophesor mentioned:

DragonQuest: GM says, "Kur'ua'mor has a legion of 200
undead troopers."  I say, "200 at three rolls a piece
is 600 rolls, about six critical fumbles."  GM says,
"Ah... yeah.  He was lucky."

["Lucky." Heh. The probability of making 600 rolls without any critical 
fumbles is 0.0024]

And above all, *please* don't try to tell me that it's "more realistic" to 
have Bad Shit happen ten or a hundred or a thousand times more often than would 
happen in real life. A breakage rate of 1 per 216 attacks for weapons of 
ordinary decent quality is no more realistic than the infamous exploding cars of 
Hollywood chase scenes. 

Erol K. Bayburt
Evil Genius for a Better Tomorrow
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