Fumble!

[Carlobrand]

Let's discuss failure. If the player doesn't make his roll, he fails. Straightforward. But:

MT Referee's Manual:
"Exceptional Failure: If the player’s task roll fails, and is less than what is needed by 2 or more, then exceptional failure has occurred. ..."

Okay, he fails badly. And that means - what?

If it's "Safe", nothing unless he fumbles (rolls exactly 2 regardless of DMs), and then its superficial ("superficial damage on some device/vehicle involved in the task and/or 1D wounds to the character.")

If it's "Hazardous", a 2D roll on the Mishap table, or a 3D roll if he fumbled.

It it's neither safe nor hazardous - what happens? On a fumble, "If the task roll is exactly 2 (disregarding DMs), a fumble mishap occurs ... If a mishap occurs, roll 2D on the Mishap Table." And if it's not a fumble, nothing special happens? Do I understand correctly that the only difference between a normal and safe task is that the fumble outcome is different?

And then there's that fumble result: "Automatic Failure: If the task roll is exactly 2 (disregarding DMs), a fumble mishap occurs On a hazardous task, a mishap occurs on exceptional failure. On a fateful task, a mishap always occurs when the task does not succeed (whenever any level of failure occurs)."

I look around for some examples of skills in action. I see:

"To prepare a jump drive during pre-jump: Routine, Engineering, Edu, 2 min."
Routine=7+, presumably the engineer has a bit of skill and education, maybe 4+ or 5+ then - and once in 36 tries, he goes to the mishap table, where a 2 is a reroll, a 3-6 (14/36) is, "...superficial damage on some device/vehicle involved in the task and/or 1D wounds to the character," a 7-10 (18/36) is, "...minor damage and/or 2D wounds," and an 11 or 12 (3/36) is, "major damage and/or 3D wounds."

Then there's engaging the jump drive. Same rolls.

5.5% statistical chance of either the prep or the jump attempt resulting in a fumble. More than 1 in 20 ships attempting to jump just sit there and make a funny noise while the captain curses out his engineer and the engineer scrambles to replace a fuse or realign some matrix. And a bit under a 1 in 200 chance that the ship's going to have to put in for repairs.

No matter his skill, 1 in 20 times he hurts himself or damages the drive. 1 in 200ish times, it's major damage. Kinda reminds me of the coal-fired steam era: ships did their jobs, but they hurt a lot of coal shovelers and they occasionally found themselves sitting in the water while the crew fixed something. Low odds - until you figure the traffic at Regina might mean this happens to someone every day.

Am I understanding that right? It's a very different picture from what I'm used to with CT, where you could pretty well count on the ship jumping when you made a routine jump. Feels like flying the Millenium Falcon on a bad day.

Then there's fuel scooping - Starship Operator's Manual gave us that. Skimming a gas giant: routine/hazardous. Once in 36 times, no matter the skill of the pilot something very nasty happens: a 3-6 (20/212) is, "superficial," a 7-10 (88/212) is, "minor," a 11-14 (88/212) is, "major", and a 15+ (20/212) is "destroyed." Once in about 360 tries no matter the skill of the pilot, the scooping ship is destroyed. One begins to see why a capital ship prefers not to do the scooping itself, but given that fuel shuttles might have to make hundreds of passes to fuel up a dreadnought, it's statistically likely they're going to lose a shuttle and probably a crew every time they do it.

That last one seems - kinda deadly. No matter how skilled the person is, same chance of fumble? Same outcomes? No last ditch chance to use his skills to mitigate the oncoming disaster? Heck, even just applying his skills to the mishap role would be a major help. Could be the difference between life and death.

 

[aramis]

This should clear things up...

Type	Fail	ExFail	Fumble
Standard	retry if time allows	Determination Task to retry	2d mishap determination to retry
Safe	retry if time allows	Determination Task to retry	superficial mishap determination to retry
Fateful	2d mishap	2d mishap determination to retry	2d mishap determination to retry
Hazardous	retry if time allows	2d mishap determination to retry	3d mishap determination to retry
Hazardous & Fateful	3d Mishap retry if time and condition allows	3d mishap determination to retry	3d mishap determination to retry
Safe Fateful	Superficial Mishap retry if time allows	Superficial Mishap Determination Task to retry	superficial mishap determination to retry

Note: The Determination Tasks are mentioned on RM 14,

 

[mike wightman]

You don't have to decide every action is governed by a task throw.

You can just rule that a properly maintained ship can operate its jump drive and it just works - every time.

Introduce the task roll only if a ship misses its annual maintenance.

Similarly lots of other actions just happen, no roll required. Just like in CT.

You have highlighted my main complaint with a lot of rpg systems - requiring a roll for everything.

 

[rancke]

In reality there are tasks, even hazardous&fateful tasks, that succeed a lot more often than 35 times out of 36. Very few trapeze artists would make it to adulthood if it were not so.


Hans

 

[Hyphen]

This should clear things up...

Thanks Wil! Is that one of your MT ref's tables?

 

[aramis]

Thanks Wil! Is that one of your MT ref's tables?

No, but it should be!

I'd internalized that so long ago that it was second nature... I had to look to make certain I wasn't mucking it up...

So, I pulled up the MT PDF and double checked it all... pages 8-16. That table is the result.

 

[Carlobrand]

Yeah, that's pretty useful! Thanks!

You don't have to decide every action is governed by a task throw.

You can just rule that a properly maintained ship can operate its jump drive and it just works - every time.

Introduce the task roll only if a ship misses its annual maintenance.

Similarly lots of other actions just happen, no roll required. Just like in CT.

You have highlighted my main complaint with a lot of rpg systems - requiring a roll for everything.

In reality there are tasks, even hazardous&fateful tasks, that succeed a lot more often than 35 times out of 36. Very few trapeze artists would make it to adulthood if it were not so.


Hans

It's the "Routine" and "Simple" that gets me. I get where if you're stretching your skills or there's some sense of risk or pressure, you should have a chance of a fail or a fumble, but I've yet to fail a driving roll in my car after 38 years of driving.

Maybe limit the need for rolls to those situations where the character is under pressure or testing his limits or, as Mike says, facing some unroutine challenge like a drive overdue for maintenance? The routine jump is fine, but the jump while someone's shooting at you leaves you a bit distracted? I'd have thought to use the "cautious" rule to mitigate the problem, but that one reads like a 6-year old is trying to do the task: "Concentraaaate, concentra - SQUIRREL!"

And then there's the fumble bit. I know it happens in life; we read about some poor schnook who electrocutes himself or gets killed under his car while fixing it, but that's rare enough to make the news. Does anyone recall ever actually fumbling a real-life task, as opposed to simply failing? I can't recall a time in my life when I fumbled anything, even when I was doing something I didn't know how to do. I'd just keep the car manual or the electrical handbook handy and proceed with great caution - being mindful not to get distracted by the squirrels. The trapeze artists Hans mentioned: they do fall, but it's nothing like that rate, and it's usually when they're stretching their skills or trying something unusual. How do you folk usually handle that rule to keep things interesting without slamming the players?