Idea: Nat 1s, don’t have to be a fail, (I mean they are, but lemme explain)
So like let’s say your rolling to intimidate, you roll a one, as a dm, you can say “well, they are so unintimidted in the slightest, that they let you pass” or “they’re so unintimidted, they don’t even wanna fight you”, just something to add some spice to your life
you roll a nat 1 on intimidate and the enemy goes
‘‘oh, actually… are you alright? i don’t really want to hurt you, you… you need a lift home or something?‘‘
LMAO
There’s a concept in DMing called ‘failing up.’* In essence, its about making NAt 1s more than just about ‘well you failed’ in such a way as the momentum of the story stops dead. Let’s say a thief, with proficency and levels and lots of skills, fails to pick a lock - a nat 1. The lock cannot be picked, the door cannot be opened, the narrative and momentum stops dead as the aprty has to stand around and discuss what happens next. In failing up, however, the DM changes the parametres so that a nat 1 becomes less about failure and more ‘success with consequences’ (similar to what Monster Of The Week has as a built-in mechanic’). The thief rolls a nat 1 - he picks the lock, but the lock breaks loudly enough to alert the guards, and sudden this stealth mission is turning pear-shaped. The fighter rolls a nat 1: he moves the heavy boulder, but he throws his back out, and the party has no time to stop and rest - for the next while he’s going to be disadvantaged on a lot of checks. The wizard rolls a nat 1 on their arcana - they know enough to read the spell, but not enough to pick-up the curse built into the text, and so on.
Failure should not be dead-end, narratively.
*Okay, the exact name escapes me for the moment and I’m having a damned hard time figuring out if my source was Matt Coville or The Angry GM or someone else, but failing up works just as well.
The concept of taking failures - even if it isn’t a nat 1 - and making them more than just “that didn’t work” i think is a huge improvement to the quality of games. It’s the next big thing I’m trying to tackle in my own GMing.
It’s not because I don’t want to allow my players to fail - I do, but if the only way to kove the story forward is ti succeed then failures don’t do a service to the game. Plus some failures do not translate properly to the players and they’ll continue to try and find other ways to get what they were trying for (if they roll extremely poorly to investigate a room in a dungeon for potential hazards, telling them they don’t see anything wrong doesn’t ACTUALLY convey to the players the fact that their CHARACTER would believe they have sufficiently searched the room and it is safe.)
Ways to handle failures that I think service both the game and the players better are
Failures that bring unintended benefits (you slide down the cliff you were attempting to climb, and catch yourself on the branch of a decently valuable plant. If you manage to gather some of this branch you could sell it for a nice sum)
Succeed with consequences (you successfully intimidate the leader of the bandits in letting you pass, but his followers get angry at you for your insolence and ransack you when you next make camp)
Succeed at something unrelated to your intent (you look the priest over to discern if he’s lying about the werewolves, and are distracted by the edge of a dark, coiling tattoo just barely visible at the collar of his robes)
Think you succeed, but have instead failed in an unexpected way (you hear a satisfying click as the last tumbler of the lock falls into place. As you stand up and grab the door knob the floor below you snaps open and you fall into a pit)
Succeed, but so not how you wanted (you attempt to seduce the inn keeper for some free rooms, and in pretty he lets you stay for free in the room his wife and kids are in because “you seem lonely son… I know what that’s like. Why don’t you stay with my family tonight, yeah?”)
Failure that creates a new problem - allowing another player to take the lead (you hear a strange chime as you wirk the tumblers of the luck, and suddenly a magical barrier ripples across the door as you trigger a secondary magical lock mechanism)
that in the Chinese version of Disney’s Mulan, the fake name she gives is “Ping”, but her family name “Fa” in English is “Hua” in Chinese, therefore her full name is “Hua Ping”, which is literally “Flower Vase”, and that’s why Shang is so bewildered because it’s a silly name.
but OP how could you not tell them the best part
“hua ping”/flower vase is chinese slang for “camp gay”
I—
Mulan, introducing her soldiersona: Hello yes it is me, a twink
Hi there! My name is Faye and I'm a 20-something-year-old bi, leftie feminist, nerd from Sunny Scotland!
On my blog you'll usually find: Dragon Age, Star Wars, Mass Effect, Supernatural, Avengers, Harry Potter, The Elder Scrolls, Vampire the Masquerade, daft jokes, equality rants and cute animal pictures.
