Hello, it's my first time ever participating in an RPG of any kind. I've started GMing "Beyond the Rim", with two friends as PCs.

I've noticed on some occasions the adventure offers advice on what a Despair might mean - for example Pg. 40 it talks about Despair on the piloting check causing a critical hit - but there's not much guidance on when the difficulty would be upgraded to make this a possible occurrence. Is it meant to be an aside, put in just in case the PC pilot just so happens to have a crippling fear of asteroids and failed a daunting fear check before making the piloting roll?

Similarly on page 41, there's two notes on what a Despair could mean, but no suggestions on what could cause an upgrade to bring a red die into play.

Just though I'd check - have I missed something obvious, and if not do you guys have recommendations on when to upgrade a check?

Thanks!

Congratulations on taking the plunge! I hope your game goes well!

For the piloting check specifically, check the stellar terrain page in the vehicle chapter. The difficulty and upgrades are determined by speed and silhouette.

Generally, remember as GM you have the ability to set the difficulties and upgrades you deem appropriate. If you make it rainy, then add setback, but if it's a violent thunderstorm, then an Upgrade (without spending Destiny) would be warranted. I don't remember which check is on page 41, but the individual circumstances of your game may generate a Challenge die on the check. Also, almost any check has the potential for Despair if the GM flips a destiny point to upgrade a check.

Between the two of these, the writers add suggestions for unique uses of Despair even when the check as written doesn't have a Challenge die.

GL;HF

Hello, it's my first time ever participating in an RPG of any kind. I've started GMing "Beyond the Rim", with two friends as PCs.

I've noticed on some occasions the adventure offers advice on what a Despair might mean - for example Pg. 40 it talks about Despair on the piloting check causing a critical hit - but there's not much guidance on when the difficulty would be upgraded to make this a possible occurrence. Is it meant to be an aside, put in just in case the PC pilot just so happens to have a crippling fear of asteroids and failed a daunting fear check before making the piloting roll?

Similarly on page 41, there's two notes on what a Despair could mean, but no suggestions on what could cause an upgrade to bring a red die into play.

Just though I'd check - have I missed something obvious, and if not do you guys have recommendations on when to upgrade a check?

Thanks!

It's called a Destiny Point and any time you want there to be a chance of a Despair, you flip one. That's why suggestions are scattered throughout.

Although I agree with adding in a red die whenever something could go horribly wrong like doing a mechanics check on a bomb, I'm 99% sure it's never mentioned in the Core book that you can upgrade a purple to a red, unless for piloting rules/flipping destinys/talents.

The book DOES state that if you don't have enough purple die to increase the roll, to just change one of the purple to red though.

So although there are different ways to get that red die in there, I haven't come across anything the states if the circumstance is bad enough, make it a red (RAW).

Just though I'd check - have I missed something obvious, and if not do you guys have recommendations on when to upgrade a check?

There are four main ways to upgrade a check:

* The Bad Guy has a NPC talent only called "Adversary" which automatically upgrades any attack the players send his way (and arguably stuff like Scathing Tirade, which does not necessarily target an opponent, but it would seem reasonable to impose Adversary upon those rolls)

* The GM flips a destiny point, meaning that one purple gets upgraded. This can be done at GM whim - provided that he has the point to flip, of course.

* Opposed checks, like negotiating against someone and their bargain, hiding vs someone's search, hands of cards against someone with ranks and so on.

* The GM decides that whatever task before them is worth of upgrading and just says so, no Destiny Point flip required. Say, the player is defusing a bomb. That's a perfectly reasonable time to say that the potential of screwing up is so great that a despair could come into play.

There's probably a couple more that I'm forgetting about (almost certainly forgetting about), but that covers the main ones.

If a PC is crossing a tightrope over a training net or only half a meter off the ground then the difficulty will be something like a Hard Coordination check.

But if that same tightrope was between 2 buildings a couple of hundred meters up in the air with no safety harness then that check is getting an Upgrade for sure without any Destiny Points being flipped.

This is discussed in the GM chapter of each core book. The difficulty is "how hard is the task in perfect conditions?" Then Upgrades for high risk and Setback for difficult conditions. I'll try to get page reference and edit it in soon.

Try to remember that Beyond the Rim came fairly early in the line(s), so it's a bit raw in some places.

Thanks so much for the responses guys! I am aware of Destiny Points, have mainly been using them to make something go wrong when it would be most dramatic for the PCs, it just seemed like that would be a relatively rare occurrence given that the DPs are relatively arbitrary.

If it does say somewhere in the books about upgrading a difficulty just for things being "extra hard" as some of you have suggested, I must have missed that. That's pretty much the advice I was looking for though - I wanted to check if there was any other circumstance than DPs and Adversaries that people typically use for upgrading. Although perhaps I should be more liberal in using Destiny Points as well.

Thanks so much for the responses guys! I am aware of Destiny Points, have mainly been using them to make something go wrong when it would be most dramatic for the PCs, it just seemed like that would be a relatively rare occurrence given that the DPs are relatively arbitrary.

If it does say somewhere in the books about upgrading a difficulty just for things being "extra hard" as some of you have suggested, I must have missed that. That's pretty much the advice I was looking for though - I wanted to check if there was any other circumstance than DPs and Adversaries that people typically use for upgrading. Although perhaps I should be more liberal in using Destiny Points as well.