You're a player. (Not the GM.)

You're rolling a check for something. (Whatever.)

Would you rather be rolling two green dice, or one yellow dice?

If you feel like the difficulty matters in this situation, say it is an average check with two purples.

(Please, I don't need you to quote statistics or link some statistics site. I'm not a math person; it would all just go over my head. I just want to know what you feel is the better dice pool here.)

2 Green.

5 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

2 Green.

Yeah I would choose 2 green as well.

2 Green is out-and-out better since you have greater potential for multiple symbols. And averages and all that mathy jazz.

Depending on the difficulty, I might rather roll 1 Yellow for the chance at a Triumph, but in your example I'd prefer 2 Green since it gives you roughly a coin flip's chance.

If it were, say, Daunting, I'd prefer the 1 Yellow for the Triumph potential.

Thanks!

If I may continue the line...

What if the pool was 2 yellows and 2 greens, or 3 yellows?

Which pool is the better pool? Again against just average difficulties.

Also... As an aside, do you personally call the dice by their colors, or do you call them ability dice, proficiency dice, difficulty dice, etc.?

Color, people see color, they don't see words.

33 minutes ago, RLogue177 said:

Thanks!

If I may continue the line...

What if the pool was 2 yellows and 2 greens, or 3 yellows?

Which pool is the better pool? Again against just average difficulties.

Also... As an aside, do you personally call the dice by their colors, or do you call them ability dice, proficiency dice, difficulty dice, etc.?

A little fuzzy, but you get the picture

1 hour ago, RLogue177 said:

Thanks!

If I may continue the line...

What if the pool was 2 yellows and 2 greens, or 3 yellows?

Which pool is the better pool? Again against just average difficulties.

Also... As an aside, do you personally call the dice by their colors, or do you call them ability dice, proficiency dice, difficulty dice, etc.?

As a general rule, more dice is better. The only time it would be better to take fewer dice is if it makes Triumph substantially more likely. In your example, you'd have to make it a matter of 4 green vs. 3 yellow before my answer would flip.

I generally use whatever is currently being used by the people I am discussing things with, but I prefer to say "Ability, Proficiency, Boost" etc. The exception is with assigning the dice a letter, as the color is easier to remember partly because when the book lists the dice, it shows the color and shape. So RRR makes more sense than CCC.

I would place 2Y & 2G in my palm, wrap my fingers tightly around them...

....and punch the GM in the face for upgrading a purple to red

On 1/3/2021 at 3:31 PM, 2P51 said:

Color, people see color, they don't see words.

Had a player in a game of D&D4e several years ago that was using the dice set from the starter set. This had every dice in a different color. Every time we told her to "roll a d10" or "roll a d20," she would pick up a random die and ask "This one?" We quickly switched to telling her to "roll a dGREEN" or "roll a dORANGE." It worked perfectly...until she needed to borrow someone else's dice one night...

I gave up trying to get my people to understand dice pools when I'd call for 2 Difficulty. 1 Challenge, and 2 Setback, and it was endlessly "what one? what color?" 'PurplePurpleRedBlackBlack' worked perfect...

As a rule of thumb 4green=3yellow thus 2 green = 1.5 yellow >1 yellow. But that's for success and there are certain skill (e.g. negotiation, mechanics while crafting) where triumph is hugely beneficial.

I find more dice tends to go farther in making challenges more difficult rather than better dice. And vice-versua, more dice does more to beat a challenge rather than better dice.

2 hours ago, 2P51 said:

I gave up trying to get my people to understand dice pools when I'd call for 2 Difficulty. 1 Challenge, and 2 Setback, and it was endlessly "what one? what color?" 'PurplePurpleRedBlackBlack' worked perfect...

Also, agreed.

And honestly, I think people hear "red" and "black" as a more intimidating word than "challenge" or "setback".

On 1/3/2021 at 1:59 PM, RLogue177 said:

What if the pool was 2 yellows and 2 greens, or 3 yellows?

Which pool is the better pool? Again against just average difficulties.

YYGG for sure. A yellow is only a fractional improvement over a green in terms of the success/fail axis, and since you need one net success to succeed, 3 positive dice vs 2 negatives is roughly even odds, whereas 4 positive vs 2 negative is roughly 65% success. All the yellow really does is shift the narrative axis a bit more towards net advantages.

I would question leaving a characteristic at 1.

1 hour ago, SuperWookie said:

I would question leaving a characteristic at 1.

If it's the species's dump stat, I encourage leaving it at 1. First of all, it's not something you'll be using all that often, and secondly it gives you a weakness/distinction.

If you want to be good at a range of skills that use the Characteristic, don't leave it at 1, but if you only have one skill that you actually need, just pump it up to 2 or 3 ranks.

3 hours ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If it's the species's dump stat, I encourage leaving it at 1.

When else would this come up? I suppose it could come up after some really nasty critical injury, but that's not really what gets talked about.

Droids by the way are going to have a lot of 1s.

On 1/5/2021 at 1:03 PM, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

If it's the species's dump stat, I encourage leaving it at 1. First of all, it's not something you'll be using all that often, and secondly it gives you a weakness/distinction.

If you want to be good at a range of skills that use the Characteristic, don't leave it at 1, but if you only have one skill that you actually need, just pump it up to 2 or 3 ranks.

Depends what it is as sometimes checks are forced upon a player and a 1 can mean almost certain failure.

Brawn - Roll a Hard Resilience check to resist the posion from the grenade.

Willpower - Roll a Hard Fear check, that Rancor is looking for a snack.

These are just two example but many could be made for every Characteristic. Its good to have a weakness for sure. But practically a assured failure on any check except Easy is tough.

Kel Dor have a Brawn rating of 1, he ended up having 432242 after some dedications. Not done to optimize, but to roleplay a brawny Kel Dor melee warrior that also liked to throw rocks and people around with the Force.

Also, at character creation. Bumping a 1 to a 2 for 20exp is always worth it in my opinion.

3 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Kel Dor have a Brawn rating of 1, he ended up having 432242 after some dedications. Not done to optimize, but to roleplay a brawny Kel Dor melee warrior that also liked to throw rocks and people around with the Force.

I'm all for characters uncharacteristic of their species, I may have been a bit too broad in my statements.

4 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Depends what it is as sometimes checks are forced upon a player and a 1 can mean almost certain failure.

Brawn - Roll a Hard Resilience check to resist the posion from the grenade.

Willpower - Roll a Hard Fear check, that Rancor is looking for a snack.

These are just two example but many could be made for every Characteristic. Its good to have a weakness for sure. But practically a assured failure on any check except Easy is tough.

Yep, I understand. I think that's a good thing. 1 Presence and 1 Cunning can also be problematic when you've got to fast-talk your way out of a situation, and 1 Agility isn't going to help you when you've got to tightrope across a chasm, but that's where you've got to get creative.
It only costs 25 XP to boost an out of career skill to 2, and it only costs 15 to boost an in-career skill to 2, giving you the equivalent of 2 in the characteristic with 1 rank. And if you can get a rank for free via career/spec, then it's only 10 XP. It's not that hard to compensate in a particular area if you need it.

7 minutes ago, CloudyLemonade92 said:

Also, at character creation. Bumping a 1 to a 2 for 20exp is always worth it in my opinion.

Depends. For example, you could get a 433221 build with most starting species options, if you bump up to a 2 you're left with either 432222 or 333222. For many careers, being good in at least 3 Characteristics is important, and oftentimes having a 4 is useful for distinguishing your character.

11 minutes ago, P-47 Thunderbolt said:

Depends. For example, you could get a 433221 build with most starting species options, if you bump up to a 2 you're left with either 432222 or 333222. For many careers, being good in at least 3 Characteristics is important, and oftentimes having a 4 is useful for distinguishing your character.

Most Species can, by using whatever option the game gives for +10 Starting XP, start with 3/3/3/3/2/2 (arrange as desired except anything that the Species sets as a starting 3 obviously can't be one of your 2s). That's a pretty common starting set, and in my groups, it's often been the standard. I've also found 4/3/2/2/2/2 far more common than 4/3/3/2/2/1 because my players are all keen to avoid taking a 1 in anything.

43 minutes ago, HappyDaze said:

because my players are all keen to avoid taking a 1 in anything

I've encouraged my players to take that 1, and they ended up agreeing that it affords a lot more hilarity. They're also happier with the 4 and two 3s because it makes them more broadly capable.

If you're gonna take a 1 I'd only go for Presence. As long as you never have to do anything social, and you pour ranks into Cool, you'll generally be ok.

I had a cerean jedi librarian left with agility 1, but learnt enhance to compensate for it in piloting. I was very fond of that character. A weakness can give your character detail, personality.

A friend, as part of his PC's personality quirk, wanted to be a terrible driver who thought he was great. He also wanted to a be a great shot, because he was a cop, etc etc.

Agility 1 was the only solution. One rank in piloting to flesh out the idea that he thought he was "trained" and therefore awesome; 4 ranks in Ranged Light because he got there by hard knocks. He was still really effective, and a timely DP flip could still give him a 2 Triumph result.

In other words, a characteristic of 1 is little detriment to a fun and effective character concept.