I recently wrapped up a Dungeon World campaign. I’m returning to D&D as a player and I can’t help but feel a little wistful for some of the stories that spilled from DW.

Battles were rarely punch and counterpunch. There were attacks and dwindling hp, but we rarely spoke of them. It was dive tackles and eye gouges. Enemies yanked at armor and tumbled off cliffs. Weapons skittered away. Tongues were torn from mouths. Limbs were twisted clean off.

The fights felt wild and interesting. The rules helped the players step away from the math of the game and enjoy the story. One of the most important ways the game delivers this feeling is with the low roll mechanic.

Essentially, the players can do whatever they want. If they want to do something risky, they have to roll. If they roll low, the player gains xp and the GM gets to use a dirty trick. It’s a two-fold approach that really makes the game intereasting.

First off, the player gains xp. Failure is the best, quickest way to level. I’ve had players go up two levels in a single session by taking wild, interesting, difficult risks. They met a great deal of failure, but survived and thrived, growing that much stronger. It’s a funny way to powerlevel, but it puts an interesting spin on character design. Characters are rewarded, in a way, for cultivating a low stat. The idiot barbarian needs a little more xp to level? Spout lore a few times. You might stumble into an ambush, or get caught in a rockslide, but you’ll have some new abilities to enjoy when you’re healed.

Secondly, The dirty tricks. The GM peels off armor, shakes the earth, changes the weather, or forcibly splits the party. Maybe the giant steps on your leg, casually pinning your character to the ground. Maybe your weapon is stuck deep in the last foe you’ve slain and youll need to struggle to free it in time. This kind of thing helps break up tiresome fights.When I hear people complain about D&D being broken or unbalanced, it’s often because one player found a powerful combination of abilities. Now every fight goes the same way. The guy with the powerful combo uses his powers while everyone else just hangs out. All the bad things die and the party combs through loot. Rinse and repeat.

So what if we took the idea of the critical fumble and applied it to D&D? RAW, nothing special happens on a natural 1. Let’s add some flavor from Dungeon World to help spice it up. I propose an optional rule: Inspiration and Complication.

The first part is easy. If you roll a natural 1 on a d20, you gain inspiration. If your game is like mine, you always forget to hand out inspiration. This is a great way to get that mechanic into the hands of your players and help salve the wounds of a crap roll. Also, you can only have one inspiration at a time, so it’s silly to try and hoard it. You want the players to spend them freely and receive new ones often.

The second part is trickier. Dungeon World provides a nifty list of tricks that GMs can use. Each monster or environment also brings a couple new tricks to the encounter. There is a further complication in D&D. Monsters can roll natural 1s too. This doesn’t happen in DW. To this end, I think a specific set of fumble possibilities is needed.

I’m picturing a deck of cards, each with a different complication. They could be things such as a trip or disarm. It could be an environmental quality such as weather or spreading fire. You might even have morale effects like fear or blind rage. Only four cards are active at a time. You draw four and place them face up in the middle of the table. When a player rolls a 1, they gain inspiration and the GM picks a card to use. When an NPC rolls a 1, a player picks a card and uses it to their advantage.

This way, you get to inject some of the aspects of terror and fumbling, the critical mishaps, and the sheer buffoonery of bad luck without the constant nonsense of traditional fumble charts.

Ever had a GM that made you stab yourself everytime you rolled a natural 1? It always felt suspicious that master swordsmen would impale themselves 5% of the time, no matter what. With the cards, that might still happen, but it’ll be rarer as their will wil only be four different fumble choices available at a time.