There is a genre of dungeon-crawling games that relies on high-simulation elements, such as Rolemaster United (RMU), and in a roundabout way, Dungeon Crawl Classics with its rudimentary "crit charts" for warriors and other classes. A few other games try to walk the realism route, but none does it as well as GURPS. Where RMU models weapon attacks versus armor, GURPS models damage types after they penetrate armor. RMU requires a chart for each weapon and a crit table for each damage type.
GURPS is less descriptive but just as deadly. Still, it is not hard to make up descriptions of damage types and special effects, especially if the damage goes overkill. Hits to the arm or hand may cause someone to make a DX roll to avoid dropping a held item. Face hits may damage teeth, eyes, ears, or the nose. Blood may get in an enemy's eyes. A hit to the leg could cause a target to lose balance.
Most crit charts can be replaced with imaginative referee rules.
These rulings will be more logically consistent and appropriate than a chart will force on you.
Your crit effects will be better than the ones in the book and will also reflect the reality you are trying to make happen in your game. Doing slapstick comedy? The orc's pants drop and reveal underwear with hearts all over it, and he trips and falls over. Doing gritty realism? You stab the orc in the eye.
It is the same with "magical mishaps" in many of these games, and being forced to roll on corruption charts that could have tentacles popping from the wizard's body. Dungeon Crawl Classics, Shadowdark, and Warhammer FRP all do this. In GURPS, you can critically fail a spell roll. Guess what? Make up an effect.
You can and will do better than any of these charts.
90% of the time, the corruption or mishap effect will be better than anything you can find on a chart in these games. You will miss out on the WTF ones that don't make sense, but if you open up your imagination and think just a little, you could do better than any of the charts in these games.
You could go subtle, like townspeople start acting strangely around your wizard, or you could go freak-gonzo and have your caster grow demon horns. You could roll a reaction roll to see how subtle or severe the effect will be, if you don't have a clue. You could even do things not on the charts, like warp reality and move a door from one side of the hall to another, and mess with the player's minds. When the characters exit the dungeon, they will find that the entire dungeon has moved 1,000 miles to the north. Maybe a group or retainers they never hired is waiting for them outside the dungeon and asking for a treasure cut. Perhaps the town they came from, they went back to, and discovered it was destroyed 100 years ago.
I told you that you can do better than the charts that ship with these games.
Your imagination is 1,000 times better. Don't buy games primarily intended for people who don't have vivid imaginations, and expect the book's limited subset of random chart results to be better than yours.
And trust yourself.
If your "crit result" or "corruption effect" does not seem "as good as one in a book," then tell yourself that your imagination will always be better than what someone else can come up with. If you doubt your idea, roll one die, and make it a 50-50 chance you use it or come up with something else. Come up with two and roll between them; it is either a bleed effect of the leg, or you cut the orc's boot laces off, and a piece of footwear flies off (possibly hitting a nearby goblin in the face).
None of the charts in these other games likely have that boot crit, but that happens in combat. I just made it up. It is just as valid a result as anything in those games.
Some of the charts in these games are interesting, such as random tavern names and other miscellanea. Those are mostly useful and fun idea generators. Charts that affect gameplay or limit critical effects and failures to a subset of results should be scrutinized as possible replacements for your imagination.
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