My entire group, myself included, is new to this game, and I'm having trouble making dice rolls interesting. It seems like there are a LOT of Advangates/Disadvantages generated with any given roll that a PC is competent at, and trying to spend them has become a bit of a pain, to the point where I'm letting them cancel each other out, just to make my life easier. How do you handle spending them, especially on non-combat checks?

Also, my players are being extremely passive, letting me do all the spending of ads and disads both, I guess to allow a more coherent scene. Should I be forcing them to describe how they want them spent?

Are you not cancelling Advantage/Threat already? They work the same as success/failure; a roll will only ever have advantage or threat, not both.

I would start with the suggestions in the skills and combat chapters and work your way out. Let the players adjudicate their own positive rolls, and you (or whoever GM is) work with the negative. There is also an environmental setpieces fanmade supplement that has a selection of suggestions and ideas for spending threat/despair in a variety of environments.

Are you not cancelling Advantage/Threat already? They work the same as success/failure; a roll will only ever have advantage or threat, not both.

I would start with the suggestions in the skills and combat chapters and work your way out. Let the players adjudicate their own positive rolls, and you (or whoever GM is) work with the negative. There is also an environmental setpieces fanmade supplement that has a selection of suggestions and ideas for spending threat/despair in a variety of environments.

Sweet Christmas, I thought they weren't supposed to cancel out. *facepalm* Well, that's one major hassle resolved.

The only ones that don't cancel each other are the major effects of triumph and despair. The minor effects work exactly like success and failure and do cancel.

Suffering and recovering strain is always a good fall back. So is passing a boost or setback die to another character. The final go to for us is to gain a second manoeuvre for free that turn.

Remind them that they can shape the story and layout of scenes, according to results. Listen to the One Shot podcast, its a great example -http://www.oneshotpodcast.com/category/campaign/

I will say that if your players are lightsaber wielders with parry and reflect those advantage are a god send for recovering strain from their uses,

Our GM doesn't demand it but I really try to narrate how I'm spending my advantages.

e.g. Instead of "I spend two advantages to give that guy a black die to his next action" I try to say "I behead the battle droid with my lightsaber - its head flies off and hits the main jerk in the face, momentarily throwing him off balance. (one setback for him, please.)"

I've found that by telling little stories around even a simple game mechanic, inspiration as to what to do with my advantages strikes with happy regularity.

Look up the skill monkey. It is a podcast with examples on how to interpret the die rolls for every skill.

Sweet Christmas, I thought they weren't supposed to cancel out. *facepalm* Well, that's one major hassle resolved.

Well, that would change the game slightly, wouldnt it? (:

Eh, dont worry about it - we've all been there. However for the future, be sure to check out the awesome How To Spend Advantage and Threat Cheat Sheet.

As a reminder, remember that the success and failure aspects on Proficiency and Challenge dice cancel failures and successes, respectively. This was an aspect my group often forgot in the beginning, as those two dice don't have success and failure symbols on them.