Had a very amusing moment last night. After a very poor Astrogation roll, the players ship's (Currently flying a Shuttle, Scout and Y-Wing), emerged together badly in an Asteroid field at Speed 2.

So, facing two red dice, each (non-specialist) Pilot made a piloting check. All were successful, all had advantage, and five of the six dice came up despair. I ruled they avoided the asteroids, but hit each other, two head on (the two despair) and one glancing blow (the one). Using collision rules gave them a crit each (which dropped shields entirely on one, and in that zone of the other two), this seemed insuffient, so I have them sil + speed damage for the head on (sil of thing that hit them), and half that for the glancing blow (reduced by armor).

This did leave the most damaged ship floating in space (again), but none of it terribly dangerous.

What would you have done ?

Since they had success, I would not have had them collide with each other. You need to find something else to happen.

Like, they dodged the asteroid and find themselves swallowed by a giant space slug. Not immediately deadly or damaging, but definitely not where you want to be.

Or while dodging asteroids, forced an NPC ship they didn't see to hit an asteroid. Especially when that ship is carrying a load of spice for Black Sun. And they caught your registration numbers.

Or let out a whoop on the comms after a close call. Unfortunately, it was at full power, alerting the Empire to their presence.

In my mind, find out what the players goal of the roll is. If they succeed with despair, they succeed, but something bad happens, but not cancelling the success. In your case, they tried to dodge asteroids, and succeeded. What can you do to them that is painful, but does not cancel their success? If their pilot check was to remain undetected in the asteroid field, I would agree with your answer.

These are always hard - Success with Despair, or Failure with Triumph. On the face of it, Despair looks like it should be horrible, but you never want it to be worse than actually failing, which can make it seem a bit underwhelming. (Much easier to interpret Despair on a Failure: "You fail...and it's gonna suck".)

In this particular example, I might have suggested that avoiding the asteroids involved a manoeuvre that the ship was not designed to make, inflicting a bucketload of system strain (which is far more problematic that personal strain) or even some hull trauma (or, if I was feeling particularly vindictive, a Crit, allowing -10 for each point of Defence on the ship). Or something a bit more narrative: "There's a fire in the engine room that needs to be brought under control NOW. Hope you've got a mechanic on your ship...".

Alternatively, you could have had the Despairs carry over to the next PC's check: e.g. "PC1 instantly pulls to the right to avoid the asteroid, but in doing so cuts straight across the path of PC2. PC2, your check difficulty is now upgraded/increased/whatever...and if you fail this one, you WILL collide with PC1".

I think it was fine, including the collisions...success on Astrogation just means they arrived in the system, the other stuff gives detail. And it doesn't have to be lethal, or even dangerous, despite the name "despair", it just needs to create a complication. Now the ships have crits that must be repaired and paid for, and the guy floating in space is discovered by some space debris scavenger...

What was the Astrogation roll? The Pilot checks were required because of a 'poor roll' on Astrogation and you imposed a narrative consequence. I think your second roll is fine, but I would've opted for another narrative consequence as opposed to reaching for a mechanical result.

This is where GMs do themselves a favor by creating some ready made mini/micro result options, not full blown modular encounters necessarily, but something to throw out there on specific bad rolls. Astrogation is a good one. In my current campaign they're doing the stereo-type go search for bases and allies in Wild/Unknown space for the Alliance. I knew I wanted to have a circumstance where on a Despair for Astrogation they have a hyperdrive overload and are blown clear of the galaxy to the ancient alien world that had some apocalypse 1000s of years ago, etc. They were kind enough to roll a despair on their first check at mission's start, so that's how the campaign started. Point being have that stack of modular/mini encounters ready to go when a trigger roll occurs and your PCs will think your precognitive or something.....

8 hours ago, Edgookin said:

Since they had success, I would not have had them collide with each other. You need to find something else to happen.

...

In my mind, find out what the players goal of the roll is. If they succeed with despair, they succeed, but something bad happens, but not cancelling the success. In your case, they tried to dodge asteroids, and succeeded. What can you do to them that is painful, but does not cancel their success? If their pilot check was to remain undetected in the asteroid field, I would agree with your answer.

This, absolutely. I like the idea of cutting off and forcing another ship into a collision.

Personally, I would have considered giving some wounds (and maybe even a crit) from people not belted in getting tossed around the inside of the ship.

I think it depends on what the check was actually for. No check is made in a vacuum (metaphorically speaking), and so it depends on what Success would mean for the check.

• Success here would likely mean, at bare minimum, they made it through asteroid field.
• Advantage might mean they find themselves back on track for their original target in some way (or any number of other options).
• Despair would likely mean they suffered considerable damage while doing it. I like the space slug idea, but for me that would be a Failure scenario, if they failed to successfully navigate through the asteroid field.

So it sounds like you made a good call! I'm not aware of the circumstances following the Piloting check, and I don't have all the context of what transpired prior to the check, but on the face of it, it sounds fine.

I agree; as the Piloting check was about avoiding the asteroids, hitting each other is a perfectly reasonable resolution of Despairs.

Myself, I would've one Despair result in a plain crit, the double in a crit +10, just as if critting with Triumphs for a combat check.

Still not as crazy as rolling 2 triumph, 2 despair with yyrr.