Eshka Kas'Elah stood at the edge of the woods she knew so well. The familiar scent of wild greenery filled her Bothan snout, but the acrid tinge of smoke and blood lurked beneath it all. Though they were kilometers away from the burned-out farmstead, the violence there had tainted the air for leagues. The raiders had retreated before her strike team had arrived, but they hadn't been gone long. Eshka and her team needed to find them before they struck again.

Every minute that passed, their quarry slipped further away, but they were new in this area. Her skills honed over years, Eshka was well able to follow the smallest of trails and find the most hidden of prey. The raiders hadn't even bothered to hide their tracks. There was no possible way for these brigands to escape her team and her wrath.

…

Until she utterly fails to follow the simple path. Adventure over.

Anyone who has been roleplaying for any amount of time should be all too familiar with this situation. The bad guys are getting away, be they Slavers, Orcs, or Nazis. The GM put this tracking check in place specifically so that the best tracker in the world could easily find the trail. And then the tracker botches the roll. The GM, having no alternate plans, has the pathfinder of the group roll the check again, who promptly botches again. Someone else in the group with no real skill tries but, of course, fails. The rest of the party tries to default their tracking check, but no one succeeds. The GM either allows them to succeed by fiat or there is no adventure.

This situation is as common as it is because no planning was put into this part of the adventure. Of course the Ranger succeeds. They always succeed. It's just a throw away moment to allow that character to feel useful. It's there because it's supposed to be there. When the character fails, the obvious failure state is that they don't find the trail, so the entire adventure grinds to a halt.

In Edge of the Empire, along with the other two facets of the Star Wars RPG, this throw away roll is even worse because of the various possible failure states that could result. It felt important to explore skill failure in this type of situation. Specifically in this system as the narrative dice add so much richness to such a roll. However, this could easily be applied to other situations or to other roleplaying systems. There are a host of times where a roll of the dice where that roll must succeed or there isn't an adventure. When a little bit of thought is put into the situation, the skill check suddenly no longer becomes a gatekeeper to adventure but a conduit for heroism. First, we need to explore the dice system for those that are not familiar with it.

The FFG Star Wars RPG has six primary dice results. Success and Failure are the first pair. This determines whether the action succeeds or fails. If the total of the Successes minus the total of Failures is more than 0 the action succeeds.

Advantage and Threat are the second pair. These are also summed, with the Threat subtracted from the Advantage. If this is positive, something good happens with the roll regardless of whether the action succeeded. If there is more Threat than Advantage, something bad happens regardless of whether the roll was a success.

Triumph and Despair are the final set. These do not cancel out. They also add a Success or Failure result, respectively, to the initial roll. Both represent something major happening, for good or ill, regardless of the other outcomes of the dice. Indeed both could happen as they do not cancel out.

Because these dice tell a story that we find an answer to situations like the tracking attempt.

For tracking, it needs to be considered that the character is a hero of the story. Highly skilled and capable, the fail state should not be a simple ' The ultimate tracker of awesomeness doesn't find the tracks ' situation. Assume that the character will find the trail and follow it successfully. The roll then becomes a mechanic through which the Narrator is able to tell a story, not a gatekeeper to adventure. Even the worst possible roll should result in the character following the tracks.

What then should the narrative outcome of the roll be if the ranger is going to succeed automatically?

1-2 Successes: The Ranger finds the trail and they reach the destination with no issues. 1-2 Threat means he, or the group, take a bit of strain. 1-2 Advantage and the party gets to recover a bit of strain or they arrive a bit faster. All around, the most boring result.

Triumph Option: The tracker finds something. This could be information, allowing the group to discover something about the group they are tracking. Or their prey dropped gear they are able to recover.

Despair Option: The players anger the weather gods. Heavy rain,obscuring mist, choking sand, or even the blinding glare of the sun off snow cause severe issues for the players when they arrive at their destination. All checks are given a setback die or two for the encounter.

3+ Successes with no Advantage or Threat: Successes are a reflection of skill and succeeding well through talent. These results are directly related to the character performing admirably. As such, it makes sense that the tracker was able to follow the trail easily, making better time than the pursued and finally catching up to them. Instead of the bandits reaching their destination where they are well prepared for a fight, it now happens in an anonymous forest clearing or ravine when the brigands are not expecting combat. In effect, the players are able to launch a surprise attack.

Triumph Option: The enemy party has become strung out and don't all arrive at once, instead arriving over several rounds. Alternatively, the players have enough time to more fully plan the ambush.

Despair Option: The villains return from an unexpected direction, throwing all the ambush plans asunder. Alternatively, they are more numerous than expected.

1 Success with 3+ Advantage: Where Successes represent skill and competence, Advantage reflects chance, the force, and the situation conspiring to the betterment of the party. It's not through the intent of the character but through happenstance that the result is better. An easy way to reflect this is that the character makes a minor mistake, such as making a wrong turn at the last minute, but instead of losing the trail they find themselves better off for it. Perhaps they appear on the cliffs above the enemy camp, stumble across a side entrance, or inadvertently appearing to be allies of the targets of the tracking. It wasn't because the player succeeded better, it was luck that left them in a better position.

Triumph Option: They players observe something unexpected and useful. Perhaps they see how to open that hidden entrance to the base or the codes to open the doors. The players find themselves overlooking the encampment at just the right angle to notice gaps in the perimeter fence or the presence of booby traps, allowing them to form a better plan.

Despair Option: The players approach just as the guard is changing. While the guards are distracted, there are twice as many of them. Waiting may be an option but the party may just have to risk it. Alternatively, one of the party members is separated from the party. While most of the party is in a serendipitous location, one or two of them end up in a bad spot such as stumbling up to the main entrance.

3+ Successes and 3+ Advantage: The tracker knows intuitively where the target is headed. Able to take shortcuts and avoid rough terrain, they reach the destination before their prey. This gives them time to prepare an ambush or otherwise plan for the arrival. Alternatively, if the bad guys are already at the base/camp, the ranger is able to cause disruption or havoc using the terrain or its denizens. Few raiders or even military scout troopers are able to keep calm when being a herd of horses are charging through the camp.

Triumph Option: The party stumble across the hiding place of defector who is willing to barter information for assurances that the group will protect them and help them escape their former life.

Despair Option: The defector isn't actually defecting and is giving the party false information.

3+ Successes with 3+ Threat: Sometimes one can do everything right and the situation just gets worse. Perhaps the player is able to reach the base before the bandits, only for them to arrive too close on the party's heels for them to exploit the situation. The party is caught in the open, but so are the raiders. Alternatively, the players reach the outskirts of the camp and just as they are about to plan the assault, one of them disturbs a biting insect hive. Now they must deal with that quietly lest they be discovered.

Triumph Option: Hostile atmospheric conditions are a hindrance to both sides, but favor the party. The party gains a setback die on all actions but the enemies gain two. Alternatively, an ion storm or other high tech condition renders certain tech, like commlinks, inoperative for a short time.

Despair Option: The party arrives at the enemy base just before the enemy band does. Unfortunately, enemy reinforcements arrive at the same time. The party is surrounded, but holding the camp center.

1-2 Successes with 3+ Threat: The tracker is able to follow the trail competently, but events have conspired against the party. During the trip, something important is lost or broken. Perhaps they stand at the top of a cliff surveying the enemy camp and one bit of gear clatters all the way down. Or they pull out their sensor gear only for the body of a dead mynock to tumble out and the power cables have been completely chewed through. The character did nothing wrong, but events unfolded unfortunately.

Triumph Option: When they reach the camp, the occupants are involved in a disagreement. Harsh words are being spoken. The party is witness to the dirty laundry of the group laid bare.

Despair Option: The lost or broken item is lost or broken in a spectacular manner which the group the party was tracking cannot fail to notice. I didn't know that binoculars could explode!

0-1 Failures with 3+ Advantage: The simplest option is that the tracker loses the trail, but is able to reestablish it in some way. Perhaps radio transmissions are intercepted or a fire is spotted that helps the party zero in on the camp. Time is lost, which may be important, but at least they are on the right track. Alternatively, while moving, the party discovers a point of interest. A cave or temple or ruin that needs investigating. They might not have the time to investigate now, as they have already lost a bunch of time, but what is in that strange, overgrown shipwreck?

Triumph Option: A minor artifact or piece of equipment is easily portable and at the entrance to the point of interest, allowing the party to take it immediately. It might be useful.

Despair Option: The exact coordinates of the place of interest are lost or the path the party used to get to it is no longer passable. It'll take effort and time to find this place again.

3+ Failures with 3+ Advantage: The tracker finds the obvious trail. Unfortunately, it was obvious because the people they were tracking set an ambush. Only the freak glint of sun on the gear of the erstwhile prey alerts the party before they walk full into the snare. The party is at a disadvantage but at least they aren't surrounded.

Triumph Option: Where the players are has generous cover and would make an ideal fighting ground, unlike the bare ground where the ambush point was intended to be.

Despair Option: Good news, the party didn't walk into the ambush. Bad news, the ground they are in is mined/booby trapped that had been setup to prevent the party from fleeing back through it during the ambush.

0-1 Failures and no Advantage or Threat: The player finds the trail. As we established, any result involves the player finding the bandits. But this time, the player was so intent on the trail that they walk right into the enemy camp before they realize it was there. Both sides are surprised that they are suddenly in combat. Why is this a failure? Because in most encounters, the party can prepare for combat or make plans. Now they have to react on the fly.

Triumph Option: The party gets a moment to react before the enemy. After initiative is rolled, the lowest party initiative slot is moved ahead of the next highest enemy initiative slot. For example: The party initiative slots are 1,2,4,7,8. 8 would move ahead of slot 6, leaving the party with 1,2,4,6,8.

Despair Option: Noncombatants on the field. Slaves, innocents, or other individuals that pose no threat are in the area and could be injured if the party isn't careful.

0-1 Failures with 3+ Threat: In this situation, the ranger is able to find the track with difficulty, but the fates conspire against the party. The tracker finds a shortcut in the trail which could easily be cut through. Unfortunately, the reason it was avoided is because a cave or swamp was in the area. Now the players have stumbled past it and have thus disturbed whatever was living there. The player made a mistake in tracking,but it was misfortune that turned it into a potentially fatal one. Further, a particularly loud fight might alert the original targets that they are being followed.

Triumph Option: The party spots the beast(s) before they themselves are spotted. Perhaps they can slip away without a fight or otherwise deal with the beast without violence.

Despair Option: Beast of Legend. The creature they run into is bigger and meaner than it should normally be. It gains some sort of combat advantage. Or there are two of them.

3+ Failures with no Threat/Advantage: The tracker loses the trail, only realizing it after the party traverses terrain that is far more difficult to return through. Perhaps they slide down some shale or moved too deep into a swamp. They have two options, turn back and lose time and suffer strain to return to the trail or press forward blindly and alert the enemy they are coming as well as find themselves in a disadvantageous situation. It forces the party to choose two unpleasant options.

Triumph Option: Traveling through the hostile terrain makes them more difficult for the enemy to detect them initially. During the encounter with the base, all stealth check are upgraded once. Alternatively, beneficial plants or other supplies are found equal to a days rations.

Despair Option: The terrain isn't just difficult, it's dangerous. All party suffers wounds in addition to strain. Perhaps allow an Athletics check to avoid or reduce the wounds.

3+ Failure with 3+ Threat: Some days nothing works out just right. The tracker is following the trail, but is too focused on it to realize that the enemy has doubled back.

The group walks into an ambush. The party is now surrounded and caught in unfavorable terrain. They can either attempt to fight their way free or they are captured. And a new story can be told of their heroic escape.

Triumph Option: One of the ambushers accidentally pulls the trigger too soon or otherwise makes noise to spoil the ambush. While the party is still caught in a kill zone, but at least they gain a bonus on initiative. Or, if the party is taken prisoner, their new captors get sloppy and miss a critical bit of gear.

Despair Option: Because why not make it the worst possible roll? The party is stunned before they even know what hit them. Or they are separated upon capture.

When the GM approaches a skill check needed to further the story, often failure means there is no story. This means that the skill check is often made as easy as possible so that the adventure can be told. But if one approaches the skill check from a different angle, whole story opportunities suddenly appear. The roll is no longer just a check box for the party to proceed, it's fraught with peril and adventure. Now the roll can be made harder knowing that even utter failure helps the GM tell a story.

Further, because failure can be woven into a story, the dice no longer serve to take the players out of the moment when a check is failed. No longer do the dice hit the table to groans and the GM beseeching the player to try again. No longer is the game resting on a dice roll. Further, failure becomes a story that the players may well remember and tell their friends, because it led to something awesome even if disadvantageous. All the players are there to participate in an epic story. Sometimes an epic tale requires a bit of creative failure.

Note: This is my first attempt to write an article focused on the RPG. Was this helpful? Would you be interested in me exploring more such ideas? What other such skill checks can grind a game to a halt? Hacking a terminal after breaking into a base is an obvious one.

I find this is only a problem due to Lack of Imagination of the Players or the GM.

The story shouldn't end because of a botched roll...

The GM should be prepared for alternatives or to wing alternatives when necessary.

The Players, if they aren't just the Zombie type players waiting for the GM to had Feed them their Direction, should come up with Ideas and direction to go on their own.

"Oh we lost the trail? Does anyone have any knowledge of this group and where their usual hangs are?"

Seek out further information, Hit up their locals to glean for information about them and so forth.

This is, to me, not so much a problem of hanging the story on a single rolls sucess or failure (though if a writer makes that so that is part of his issue in this vien of thinking.) But a Lack of imagination and problem with many gamers who expect the story and success to be handed to them.

One thing you need to do is not have single paths the the story. I think it is the gumshoe system that talks about the 3 clue rule. Basically 3 ways to get the piece of information that moves the story forward.

Have some other way of getting to the destination if tracking fails.

You can also have failure mean you don't get there before the target leaves so now you have to find a new way to find your quarry from the place you tracked them to. Like a streetwise to find the homeless guy who overheard where they were going...

Ok so my first question is this:

If you wanted the game progress, and the character had the skills (as per the description), then why have the player roll at all?

This isn't D&D where you roll for everything. This is the 3 simple rules I apply when my former Pathfinder brain kicks in and asks for a roll:

1) Is there a chance this roll could derail the story? If yes, consider not rolling.

2) Do I want the story to take a left turn and am I prepared to deal with that? If no, then consider not rolling.

3) Do I want something weird or outlandish to happen? If yes, upgrade the difficulty.

Also, check this out:

Skill Monkey - When Not to Roll

http://archive.org/download/SkillMonkey10/Skill%20Monkey%20%2310.mp3

Note: This is my first attempt to write an article focused on the RPG. Was this helpful? Would you be interested in me exploring more such ideas? What other such skill checks can grind a game to a halt? Hacking a terminal after breaking into a base is an obvious one.

I hate to say it, but it's a lot of words to little effect. The basic problem is this: no skill checks should ever grind a game to a halt, and each skill does not need an article. If you feel a need for these articles, then the source of the problem is how session and encounters are being structured. What you need is a change in the general approach, and then this "problem" goes away.

In addition to the Skill Monkey link, this article is also useful, the principles are easily adapted for any situation:

http://thealexandrian.net/wordpress/1118/roleplaying-games/three-clue-rule

There's a flaw in the basic premise of the article, namely that the check to follow the tracks means:

Success = follow tracks

Failure = losing tracks.

A better choice for the GM to make while preparing the adventure would be something like:

Success = follow tracks and reach the bandit camp at night, when everyone's asleep.

Failure = follow tracks but reach camp later the following day, when everyone's awake, armed and alert.

Thanks for the honest feedback. Sorry this wasn't of any use.

I tend to subscribe to the "more than one way to skin a cat" school of thought when it comes to problem solving like this.

First off, if it is absolutely critical the players must follow the tracks, then they shouldn't roll to start with. Let them get into the woods before rolling happens, where they can get lost and are likely to get eaten by a grue. This also allows for back tracking (once they find their way, of course) and trying to pick up the now colder trail. Maybe they have to end up camping, maybe no one thought to bring food or water, maybe that one character absolutely cannot bring themselves to "do their business" in the woods because they come from a civilized planet and can't tell the friendly leaves from the itchy ones.

Secondly, if the party can't solve the problem by themselves, time to take away some of their credits! Hire a contractor, like Tommy Lee Jones! "Alright, which one of you is the ugliest, most inbred country son of a <expletive deleted> out here?" Lots of roleplay opportunity, and who's to say your contractor isn't a double agent leading them into a hilarious trap? Don't like the hired help? Use technology! Who needs primitive trackers when you got the life form detector on your space hoopty? No life form detector? Use the terrain follower to find that conspicuous clearing that still has a tree canopy over it for some reason! Don't want to use technology in your space fantasy? Seek for the win! Alternately, you can also burn the forest down. This isn't in the Force and Destiny forum, right? We don't worry about morality here?

I mean, maybe it's just my atypical GMing experience, but my players will derail things on there own, no need to have the dice do it for them. I still have flashbacks to the time I was interrupted while saying the phrase "So you make it to the office..."

It is of use sable because to everyone it won't be so obvious. There's a lot of good suggestions in your write up and some good advice in other posts. I particularly like the method of auto giving the tracker the trail and later forcing a check that way failure means lost time but they can backtrack. But like you said if its important to the story you need to be careful how its done.

I also have often just handed information without a skill toll on knowledge checks. The important part being that I point out that they know enough about the topic at hand. That way putting ranks into the skill wasn't a waste

It is a lot of use, you started a very important conversation that will get others thinking about ways to make their games more enjoyable. You may learn, we may learn too. No one likes rolls that come up "A Wash" and discussing ways to handle that is important.

Thanks for the honest feedback. Sorry this wasn't of any use.

Crap, now I feel bad. It was well written, and has some interesting ideas, and obviously it was a lot of work to put together. I just think if that's a "common" problem in people's games, then they need to step back and reassess how they are structuring their plots, and do so holistically rather than addressing it one skill at a time.

Like Krieger22, if the PCs need the clue to proceed, I like to have them make a check which determines that they either get the clue with difficulty and consequences (failure) or get the clue with ease (success).

In the SWRP system, unlike some others, I like having them make a skill check because you can still use the narrative dice to inspire other cool aspects to the challenge.

Thank you for this post! It really turned on the lights for me. The situation that got me stuck was the party determined to make a rendezvous in a strange forest without making use of any kind of guide or map , and the thought that "well, a failure's a failure, right?" has bothered me since. I'm thrilled by the idea that the story and keeping the adventure going take precedence, and that the dice are meant to enhance the narrative rather than kill it. I loved the situations you sketched out for all the dice results.

The way I handle Astrogation checks when out of structured time is to allow a single roll. On Failure, they get to the location but they are farther out from their target when they exit hyperspace, which can potentially be very problematic. But they always "succeed" as the roll's consequence isn't failing to calculate.
This can be summed up as "the best you can do" rather than a single attempt. This precludes the possibility of simply rerolling until a desired roll is had.

Under some circumstances (such as during a chase) it's a "roll until you succeed" check. That's just for the standard "okay, let's go to Nal Hutta now" roll.

I apply this same principle in other checks as well. The basic question when rolling is "What does failure/success look like?" Or, "what does this roll determine?" In the case of tracking, if it's a really obvious trail that the PC should be able to follow given his or her level of skill, still call for a check, but the consequence becomes time. On success, they reduce the time required. On Failure, they increase the time required instead.
On the other hand, sometimes losing the trail is and should be a possibility. In which case, Failure means they did the best they could, but they failed to follow the track. Depending on the circumstances, I'd consider allowing a Perception check to regain the trail, or backtracking to try to follow it again, but this would carry with it accompanying time penalties, and those alone could result in "failure" because the target manages to get away in the intervening period.

Other examples: Athletics or Coordination to move distance, a Resilience check to move long distances on foot, Perception to recon a location (basically they see obvious stuff, but miss some details. They obviously aren't blind ["Nope, no ginormous Imperial base here!"]), some Knowledge checks, and potentially some others.

If in your games, time is completely ignored and would not be a sufficient consequence, then I think you should reevaluate. Time is a very important tool, especially in situations like this. Not all checks need to carry a time penalty (Knowledge or Perception, for example), but time is one of the easier "commodities" with which to "charge" the player characters and can be quite significant.