15 hours ago, bygrinstow said:

My approach/understanding is that I set the Difficulty where it's not already laid out (as in Opposed checks), and that that methodology is: Determine a number of Difficulty Dice, introduce Upgrades based on mechanics (Talents, etc.), add Boosts and Setbacks as appropriate to the circumstances. Done.

-- those mechanical Upgrades include the mechanics of the Destiny Pool. It does not include Just deciding that some red should be in there. Maybe I'm being too strict, but it's worked fine so far (both PCs and NPCs have had a fair share of success and failure in big and small things), and I feel like if pumping in some Challenge Dice were part of setting the Difficulty, there'd be some reference to it in the Difficulty Levels charts along with with Simple, Easy, Average, Hard, etc. and direct examples would on hand under Applying Task Difficulty .

I'd never say just adding some red to your pool is wrong. It's just not fitting into the game in the style that I'm running it. What's been happening at the table feels very Star Wars , so I don't feel any need to switch up that approach... Maybe when the characters each have 150+ XP under their belts, I'd feel differently. We'll see.

Look at the Fear Check table in the GM section. It specifies, that certain situations should come with natural upgrade. It's not opposed to the enemy, that the check for Vader should be RRRPP but that the situation should have high chance of despair.

Look through the skill section, what a despair means in a check for a given skill. If you think that outcome should be available, then you should give out those red dice.

There are conditions (and DPs) which institute upgrades.

There are actually some exceptions that I make to my "never randomly upgrade " rule: sometimes I will, but only in the case of something where the option for Despair ought to be present just naturally, such as in the case of defusing/setting explosives or making a social check on a particularly touchy subject where you've got to be careful not to set someone off. It's become such a rule of thumb for me that I didn't even think of it. That said, in general I still stick to the idea that you should only upgrade when it is mechanically called for or you flip a DP.

46 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

"never randomly upgrade "

I never "randomly" upgrade either. There needs to be a good reason.

1 minute ago, whafrog said:

I never "randomly" upgrade either. There needs to be a good reason.

I didn't mean that to come across as derogatory, I was simply separating mechanical from fiat.

16 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

I didn't mean that to come across as derogatory, I was simply separating mechanical from fiat.

Well, technically every difficulty which is not set by gear or talent is fiat.

On 12/14/2019 at 5:44 AM, Rimsen said:

Look at the Fear Check table in the GM section. It specifies, that certain situations should come with natural upgrade. It's not opposed to the enemy, that the check for Vader should be RRRPP but that the situation should have high chance of despair.

Look through the skill section, what a despair means in a check for a given skill. If you think that outcome should be available, then you should give out those red dice.

The Fear table basically makes my point from above -- if it's important for Difficulty to be Upgraded by assessing the situation and simply saying "I'm the GM, I'm Upgrading this" then the Difficulty table should have something much like the Fear table has, as advice on how and when to do that... That's what leads me to thinking that the Destiny flip is how you get those red dice into the pool, if other mechanics haven't already done that; Fear has a specific mechanic laid out for it, meanwhile Difficulty does not.

Obviously, YMMV. One of us, both of us, or neither of us is houseruling, and all of that is fine. But this is how I've arrived where I am on the issue.