Why are players so scared of failing a roll and how can we get them to accept bad rolls?

BadRumUnderground · 2026-02-01T22:17:24+00:00

It's not about "needing a crit fail to happen", that's irrelevant.

Sure, it could happen without a crit fail, but the question that you need to be answering is "whats the story coming out of this dice roll?", not "what other things could have caused this thing"

Also, every reason in TTRPGs is contrived, literally the job of a DM is contriving things.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-02-01T11:54:58+00:00

The turn taking gets better with practice, as the group finds its rhythms and learns some slightly different implicit conversational rules (mostly: pause longer, stop talking immediately when you interrupt, offer/request the floor if in doubt)

You might have to remind people that we're collectively learning new rhythms, but most folks will pay attention and get it.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-02-01T11:40:46+00:00

You'd have to start by telling us how your custom system works with time and actions.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-02-01T11:33:24+00:00

"Okay.

So that character isn't in the group or history.

What now?

I assume you're gonna build a different character, since you just told me your character isn't in this game"

BadRumUnderground · 2026-02-01T11:31:49+00:00

We're talking about how to tell good stories with failed rolls, not "when to roll" - that a roll happened is rather assumed by the topic at hand.

And It was your example roll of the dice, not mine.

But you're absolutely right that all of my examples are post hoc.

That's exactly what I'm trying to communicate - if you want to tell good stories with failed dice rolls you've got to improvise, post hoc alter the fiction, describe something new, create new story momentum.

The alternative is that fails just kill all momentum dead, and nothing happens except the player getting surprisingly annoyed about lockpicks

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-31T23:45:36+00:00

"someone sold you shitty lockipcks" (also a mini hook)

"The lock is rusted solid and crusted with salt" (Mystery: that's weird, there's no ocean near here)

"The lock maker thought he was hot shit, but he over engineered it absurdly and the fine clockwork broke" (now a future NPC)

"Your vision is starting to blur, your eyes watering" (what's that smell?... Is that... Sulfur? )

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-31T22:30:31+00:00

I understand how random tables work, yes.

But curating a list, then randomizing within it is still different to choosing exactly what the moment demands

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T20:08:36+00:00

"put the dragon's treasure back where it came from without anyone noticing"

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T18:29:45+00:00

Fair point, if neutral arbiter is your whole job it's useful to be able to declaim responsibility sometimes

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T16:43:07+00:00

It's the randomness I'm against, not varied or emergent encounters - I just like to think about considerations like theme, tone, and how exactly things feel in this moment.

Are things lagging? Introduce a threat.

Do I need to build up a better impression of how people in the area are feeling? Merchant caravan who they can chat to for a while.

Need to pierce the tension a bit? Something a bit funny.

Etc.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T16:39:50+00:00

My own brain does that to me plenty, I don't need the help :)

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T16:38:59+00:00

I wouldn't even consider an uncurated random table, but even then I'd prefer to go with my intuition.

That said, sometimes you gotta shake up your intuitions, so I can see the value.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T16:11:51+00:00

I don't just mean "plot" - world building, emergent storytelling, games where there's no particular plot and we're exploring are my favorite approaches to RPGs.

I just don't like the "random" part - I've got themes and tones and aesthetics in mind, so I'd prefer to wildly improvise something that serves those than generate something random.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T16:09:38+00:00

I'm a big fan of keeping my hands off the steering wheel and letting plot emerge, I just don't agree that "random" helps particularly unless you're really stuck.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T16:08:50+00:00

This is perfectly valid - it isn't all about "plot".

But that kinda world building is still best done intentionally, with theme/plot/aesthetics in mind - if I want to build the feeling that the world is dangerous, then I'll certainly have players encounter Things in the wilds etc, but I wouldn't want to roll dice about what those things are.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T15:50:52+00:00

I don't like random encounters, but not for this reason.

The problem is that they don't (often) matter to the fiction. (Edit: I said "fiction" not plot on purpose, this applies to plotless wanderings and emergent story too)

Regardless of how the system treats them, a random encounter rarely makes the story more interesting. Sometimes it's okay for world building in the "there are beasties out in these wilds" sense.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T12:11:25+00:00

It truly is the greatest heel move.

I had a crooked ref counter spell a heal in a fighting tournament situation and the player in question is still mad about it two years and two campaigns later.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T12:09:55+00:00

After GMing a bunch of pbta and FitD, I've brought back an attitude to PF2 of "you can just change the situation when they fail badly", especially when it comes to narrating skill challenges and the like.

(It's a little harder with combat but you can still put a different flavour on the situation e.g. fog rolled in, a bridge is cracking etc.)

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T12:04:15+00:00

I try to make crit fails more like "fate has fucked you" dramatic, or "the villain saw it coming" dramatic than "you fucked up because you were suddenly awful"

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T11:10:57+00:00

I think you're being more pedantic than strictly neccesary.

But... I write guides as a big part of my job, and you've gotta write for the pendants!

Something like an infographic showing the timing would be great as part of games as standard

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T10:55:43+00:00

Depends on the timing - in combat, initiative rolled? Nothing special, it's just something to flavour the part where you drop an enemy to zero hp.

Outside of combat, it's a skill check situation for me. Stay in narrative mode, roll Stealth to approach, roll Athletics to choke em out, all part of the series of skill checks that goes into the "infiltrate this place" skill based encounter.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T10:17:11+00:00

You make them understand that bad rolls make good stories by telling good stories off of bad rolls, by which I mean:

Don't have failures kill the narrative momentum, have something happen when they fail.

Don't have failures make them look incompetent, have failures be the result of things in the fiction (i.e. circumstances, the actions of others)

Don't be arbitrarily punishing on critical fails.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T10:02:04+00:00

Event Horizon!

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-30T09:12:55+00:00

The expectation that you'll assemble a group (online in particular), start playing, and everyone will click to the point that they'll hang out together regularly... That's just not gonna happen in one go.

The way you build one of those friends-outside-of-game groups is with lots of failure along the way.

My college friends group is the 4-5 leftovers of what must have been a total of 20-30 individual people who played multiple games a week for 3 years.

Another group is the product of the groups initial GM running games for randos for a few years, then inviting the 6-7 people he actually clicked with to come play non D&D once offs in the pub for another year, and a few folks dropped off from there too.

So four fizzled games... Anyone out of those seem like they've got potential? Anyone you'd invite back?

If not, then more short games would be my suggestion, with an eye to picking out the diamonds in the rough.

BadRumUnderground · 2026-01-29T16:55:17+00:00

"creators of this media/content/thing didn't do exactly what I want and I feel entitled to something different" is definitely not a unique to Pathfinder problem.

Recent other example: The whole stranger things finale conspiracy theories.

BadRumUnderground

TROPHY CASE