Hello everyone! I have a question regarding the Screamer on page 177 of the Core Rule book. It says there that the GM should role a secret Tech-Use test to set the device up and this determines how well the device works ... Well, how would you interpret this? The device has a Perception of 75, but what happens if you fail the Tech-Use test? It simply does not work or the Awareness test of the Screamer gets modified (let's say -10 x DoF) or the Stealth test of a person opposing the Screamer gets modified (let's say +10 x DoS)? Do DoS on the Tech-Use test make sneaking past the Screamer harder? I would like to hear your opinions, thanks!

If you're doing something more interesting than it works / does not work (good on you), degrees of success mean the action the player took was more effective at whatever it was they were doing or had extra, tangential benefits, and degrees of failure mean they did poorly or created complications. If they were trying to place the device stealthily, many successes might mean the bad guys can't find the damned thing, while failure might mean the device goes off while still in the character's hand, giving them away. Or you can translate these into test modifiers (kinda boring, IMO).

Before any potentially important roll I like to ask the group 1) what does the best case scenario look like here? and 2) what is the worst thing that could possibly happen here. The first one is usually some Rube Goldberg-esque series of events in the players' favor and the second is always hilarious since my players like to cause problems for each other.

This is all a long way of saying do whatever is most interesting.

Indeed, I should just do what's most interesting for the story, thank you.