After playing all this time to the game, I improved my skill on gauging when one (or more) challenge dice can be added to a skill check without the need of turning a destiny point. I agree with Raice and Whafrog on this.

I'm handling it like this: When there is a narrative need for possible disaster, I add one challenge, regardless; when it's only desirable, I pay one DP - only when the RAW don't call for challenge dice anyways.

Oh, and when they're attempting something "impossible", I'll normally pass the DP right back, just to make it a little more interesting.

I wanted to grab some impressions from GMs about when to use the challenge (red) die. The book gives a "very clear" description of which is the intention of this die [...] But then, the game presents some sub-mechanics [...] where the challenge die is introduced as an extra gauge for the task difficulty

[Edited for brevity]

There are a lot of places where the actual 'very clear' descriptions of the purpose of the dice are completely undermined by the reality of probabilistic dice results. The devs have basically stated that they didn't really bother with the math, and the dice felt good without really bothering to understand what was going on underneath the hood. I'm not going to re-hash the details here as my opinions on the matter have been made clear and supported with math elsewhere. I will concede it's not quite as bad as I originally thought, but the outcome structure of dice is still screwy and still pulls my players out of the moment.

IMO There are appropriate places to add Challenge dice in a campaign without forcing the use of either sub-mechanics or Destiny Points (I'm not going to call them DPs, this place is supposed to be family friendly ). This situations for which it is appropriate and the rules which directly allow it are in the passage you've quoted:

[Emphasis mine]

And, again IMO, it's appropriate to extend the logic present to include any situation or challenge that is inherently more difficult, not more difficult due to the environment or circumstances (in which case it's more appropriate to use Boost/Setback dice). Some examples would include using Streetwise to break into a military armory (The locks used would be more complex due to the military needing better security and having better access to tech), using Medicine to perform a relatively simple operation on an unknown species (unfamiliarity with the species' physiology makes it more likely a fatal error could occur) or using Underworld to get information on a particularly reclusive or secretive group.

I think I should mention I feel that it's more appropriate to use this when writing or preparing an adventure. In situations that are done more 'on-the-fly' and done in front of the players, it may be more appropriate to use a destiny point to maintain a feeling of fairness.

I would there may be some precedent for this, based on a skill difficulty listing in the Beyond the Rim adventure (pg 92, second paragraph) where a piloting skill difficulty is listed as two Challenge dice, though I concede this may be a poor example since the challenge dice could be a product of the piloting 'sub-mechanic' mentioned above.

tl;dr: Yeah, I use challenge dice outside of the described destiny point and sub-mechanic paradigms described above.

I would there may be some precedent for this, based on a skill difficulty listing in the Beyond the Rim adventure (pg 92, second paragraph) where a piloting skill difficulty is listed as two Challenge dice, though I concede this may be a poor example since the challenge dice could be a product of the piloting 'sub-mechanic' mentioned above.

Actually that is a good point. Published adventures have plenty of examples with chekc's dice pool including challenge dice without the check being an opposed check.

One mechanic that's actually in the book (EotE, pg 210) that you can extrapolate upon is "Making Ranged Attacks at Engaged Targets". In this situation, you upgrade the difficulty of the combat check, and if you roll a Despair, you hit someone engaged with the target. The basic rationale for this, in my opinion, is that there's a clear, bad consequence in this action that's waiting to happen, so the difficulty is upgraded and Despair is used to make that bad consequence happen.

The same rationale can be used in other situations as well. If, for instance, you're trying to climb a fence, nothing too sinister could happen, so it would be a straight check. However, if you're climbing the side of a cliff, with a raging ocean and sharp rocks below you, there's a definite bad consequence there, so an upgrade would be appropriate. If a failed Coordination check would have you fall 8 feet onto table, do a straight check. If you're balancing on a catwalk in a star destroyer over the bottomless expanse of an engine core below you, then do an upgrade, with a Despair causing you to perform a Palpatine swan dive into oblivion (or, more appropriately for a PC, more checks to see if you manage to grab onto something on the way down; don't forget the setbacks for the "Pants-wetting terror" environmental condition ).

Anyway, that's what I do. If I see a clear vision of possible disaster in the check, I'll add the challenge die without using a Destiny point. Otherwise, it's just basic difficulty, with an occasional Destiny usage for dramatic effect.

Long time lurker, first time poster, so greetings to everyone!

I don't use challenge dice to make a task more difficult. I use difficulty dice and setbacks for that. Between the many sessions I've played with these dice and all the posts on the math, probability and Monte Carlo generators and whatnot, I've come to accept that making purple dice turn into red dice doesn't have a notable effect on the success/failure axis. It does swing the advantage/threat axis a little bit more towards threat. However, without red dice, the Triumph/Despair axis is completely one sided. Therefore, I use challenge dice to introduce the possibility of a despair result. If the situation the task is being performed is worthy of an upgrade, it gets one . If there are more dark side destiny points than light side ones, I will usually upgrade. If a player upgrades with a destiny point, I will also usually upgrade, since rolls that result in both triumph(s) and despair(s) are fun to narrate.

Now, rolls that call out a certain amount of upgrades are handled differently. For example, a combat check against an opponent with 3 ranks of Adversary with whom an Ally is engaged with. That's four upgrades. No more from me, barring a destiny point expenditure. A social roll against a Hutt with 5 in the characteristic and 3 in the skill with 2 ranks of a talent that allow said Hutt to upgrade twice more. Thats 5 challenge dice. A very difficult and challenging task. No more from me, barring destiny points. Zipping a HWK-1000 with a high output ion turbine while under the effects of Supreme Full Throttle at a grand total of speed 8 through an asteroid field. That's 6 difficulty dice and 2 challenge dice, plus 1-3 setbacks based on the density of the field. I don't really need to upgrade that further, even with a destiny point, seeing a how the player will need to spend a destiny point to even attempt that task.

I use to set pretty high difficulty tasks that led along a story path I didn't want to (or wasn't ready to) head down, and added plenty of inherent upgrades as a way of trying to guide players in the story, but such attempts were not received well by my players. So I don't use challenge dice as a bowling gutter bumper of sorts.

Long time lurker, first time poster, so greetings to everyone!

First off, welcome to the party.

Glad to hear someone finally accepts this.

Between the many sessions I've played with these dice and all the posts on the math, probability and Monte Carlo generators and whatnot, I've come to accept that making purple dice turn into red dice doesn't have a notable effect on the success/failure axis.

Glad to hear someone finally accepts this.

Eh, what? It's been accepted for a good long while, years really. Maybe just not by posters you've interacted with.

Challenge dice push up the level of Threat (cancelling Advantages) and introduce Despair. That's what their main purpose is.

Between the many sessions I've played with these dice and all the posts on the math, probability and Monte Carlo generators and whatnot, I've come to accept that making purple dice turn into red dice doesn't have a notable effect on the success/failure axis.

Glad to hear someone finally accepts this.

Eh, what? It's been accepted for a good long while, years really. Maybe just not by posters you've interacted with.

Challenge dice push up the level of Threat (cancelling Advantages) and introduce Despair. That's what their main purpose is.

It's entirely possible. I took so much $#!t from the community when I tried to explain the actual quantitative effect of an upgrade back in the EotE beta, I just gave up trying. I'm not going to turn this post into a rant about the community, so I'll just leave it at that.

The EotE beta was several years ago...let it go, man

The EotE beta was several years ago...let it go, man

I'm back aren't I?

Raice -

The rules actually do cover the GM upgrading difficulty without spending a destiny point.

See Applying Task Difficulty (pg 20 of EotE core) which states the GM can upgrade when facing skilled opposition, particularly challenging circumstances or when spending DPs.

But I can also see the players point that this *can* seem or even be arbitrary if not done well. There's already been lots of good advice here about doing this well so I'd just discuss this with your players and establish that this rule will be applied fairly predictably (as predicable as setting target numbers or DCs in other systems).

Raice -

The rules actually do cover the GM upgrading difficulty without spending a destiny point.

See Applying Task Difficulty (pg 20 of EotE core) which states the GM can upgrade when facing skilled opposition, particularly challenging circumstances or when spending DPs.

But I can also see the players point that this *can* seem or even be arbitrary if not done well. There's already been lots of good advice here about doing this well so I'd just discuss this with your players and establish that this rule will be applied fairly predictably (as predicable as setting target numbers or DCs in other systems).

I understand, and I appreciate the feedback and further examination - from everyone, even.

I wouldn't do this liberally. I'm not looking for ways to introduce them, really. If something strikes me as an obvious reason to do it, then I would consider it. It's only in that sort of circumstance where I would not use a Destiny Point. Otherwise, I would. If the players ask about it, then I'll explain.

I think what I've taken from this is that I should be looking for any and all Opposed Checks on stuff that they are doing. I suspect when we get deeper into the rules and how each skill works, this will be self evident when the time arises. At any rate, if I feel a roll needs a Challenge Die for whatever reason... there's probably an Opposed Check in there somewhere. That, I suspect, would be a more appealing or agreeable reason for the players if they ask, even if from my perspective... the reason is arbitrary if I've already determined that the roll requires one. But that's no big deal to me, really. At the end of the day, I just want them to have fun. I don't want to argue with them about superfluous things.

The main point of contention was that the player felt I was making things more difficult than they needed to be. But in retrospect, since I was not really using Opposed Checks... I was actually making most things far EASIER than they needed to be. Well... "easy" is not the right word, because as stated, Challenge Dice don't make things more difficult. I was not making a lot of things as risky as they needed to be.

Since it was our first game together, I really just wanted to get them used to the dice and how to interpret them. I didn't want to spend a lot of time going into the book, looking stuff up, and breaking the tension. The point of the session was to sell them on playing in a campaign I've been cooking up for nearly 2 years. So for the most part, I ran all checks on a standard DC scale so it would be simple for everyone to grasp what was going on, regardless of the actual rules for the skills. I felt it would keep things going for the time until we get some more experience under our belts. Plus, it would help me stay organized, again, until things became more second nature.

Overall, everyone loved the game and had a blast. It's unfortunate that it was marred by this particular argument after the fact. I knew I hadn't done anything wrong or been unfair with them. And I can't blame him for at least asking about it. But he wanted to see the actual rules, and I couldn't provide them in that moment. By then I had already become quite upset after he kept pushing the topic several times after we'd been over it several times. I just couldn't think straight to give him what he was asking for.

My take: when in doubt about whether there could or should be one, flip the destiny point, if for no other reason than it helps to keep the destiny pool active.

This is a really good thread.

It's interesting to read how people use the challenge dies.

I try not use red dice unless I'm flipping a black destiny point or if it's an opposed roll. I've been thinking that it's a bit contradicting when social situations have opposed rolls but combat situations don't. Because it makes social situations much harder to accomplish. Negotiating against a merchant with 3 skill usually means 3 red dice. ouch.

It's interesting to read how people use the challenge dies.

Pet peeve, but the plural is "dice" (first definition, OED ).

I try not use red dice unless I'm flipping a black destiny point or if it's an opposed roll. I've been thinking that it's a bit contradicting when social situations have opposed rolls but combat situations don't. Because it makes social situations much harder to accomplish. Negotiating against a merchant with 3 skill usually means 3 red dice. ouch.

There's an important statistical difference between the two situations. A social encounter can [frequently] be resolved with a single check, while combat is typically resolved with multiple checks (though there are rules for single roll checks, I think?). Since combat requires multiple successful checks, the comparing a success rate of a *single* combat check to the success rate of a *single* competitive social encounter check is misleading. Though, on the flip side of the coin, failure on a single combat roll typically won't lead to failure of the entire encounter.

Interesting review of the system.

https://illuminatinggames.wordpress.com/2014/09/19/star-wars-age-of-rebellion-a-deep-dive-on-dice-probabilities/

You might think 3 ranks of Piloting gives you some niche protection in that area; but it does not, someone with 4 Agility is basically as good as you.

No, actually they are not. My 3 yellow dice may not generate much more successes than someone with raw ability, but I could potentially get three Triumphs. You cant do that with just four greens.

But spending points to upgrade checks and difficulty is fiddly and low-impact.

Again, the author is totally ignoring Despairs. Yeah, if you just want failures, a Red die is not that much more devastating than a purple. But, as we see in the Awesome Triumph and Despairs thread, getting a despair is way more interesting than just failing.

http://maxmahem.net/wp/star-wars-edge-of-the-empire-die-probabilities/

Probabilities.

Invariably the biggest problem with the critiques of the dice probability is the fact they aren't numeric dice and too much occurs from even a 'failed' roll to be able to definitively say what is 'best'.

If I am firing a Bola for instance I just want a successful roll, I don't give a squat about lots of successes, in fact I don't even want Advantages really. What I do want is a Triumph, which is an absolute nut crusher with that weapon.

These comparisons also never, and realistically probably can't, consider Talents, which add upgrades to dice pools.

A Triumph, particularly multiple ones, 3 Triumphs means a critical hit, weapon effect activation, and an upgrade to the enemy's next attack or player's. None of that is possible with just an abundance of successes. In fact depending on character build, if I am going for the trick shooting, crit landing, gunslinger build, I'd rather have more Advantages and Triumphs than an over abundance of successes, as with a single hit I may just kill a target outright.

So these articles are interesting at times for those into the math, but in terms of practical effects in the actual game, the conclusions in regards to Ability vs. Proficiency are incomplete and don't look at the system holistically imo.

I found the rules for what dice to use to be rather ill defined. I got the impression that the devs did not really understand it themselves. They certainly did not understand the probabilities and seem to assume the blue/black dice are worth far less than upgrading to red/yellow. See MaxKillJoy's link above about that.

I'd like to get your impression of how I have been running the dice and see what you think. Not so much if they marry up with the rules (which I feel don't head their own advice), but just in general.

Purple dice = how hard is this in general, innately? E.g. How hard is it to service AN engine? Lets say it is average 2 dice

Red = how hard is this specific task to complete, innately? E.g. How hard is it to service THIS engine? This particular engine is obscure technology and is also really delicate prone to breaking. Let's say 2 upgrades.

Black = how hard are the circumstances? You don't have the right tools, the **** Gammorean is blasting his opera at full volume and the gravity in the ship is playing up. Three black dice.

The chance of failure is affected far more by black dice than red upgrades. As such, I like to use black dice for things that are external factors, not inherent ones. By doing this, the PCs have far more control over their success of failure. In this example, the engineer gets the Gammorean to shut up, waits and buys the right tools and fixes his gravity, then he will avoid all the black dice.

Setbacks are off set by the large #s of ranked Talents that remove them from dice pools. My point in the previous post, trying to judge the dice without including the Talent system is incomplete, to say nothing of the fact failure is completely relative given that even on a failed check positive effects can take place, as well as the flip side, in which a successful outcome with too many despairs can end up feeling like not much of a win.

Ugh, anyone who reads that article and stops at "ewww, numbers" is missing the point. The author also makes it clear that he's reviewing the game's mechanics after a year of playing it!!! If there weren't issues in practice , I doubt they'd be taking the time to write 3,000+ words about those issues, and I'm guessing someone in their game remembered to use talents, and there were still issues. It's a relatively well-written article, and the author's major point is summed up well in the last paragraph:

"This may all sound negative, and I do think it’s true that there is too much in the game that just doesn’t make much sense as designed."

The article is about the disconnect between how the dice mechanics are presented, and how the dice *actually behave*. At no point does the article try to draw any conclusions about what's "best", so there's little point to criticize it for ignoring any other mechanics, like triumph or talents, in pursuit of what's "best"; Its irrelevant to discussion.

Additionally, ignoring the talents is further immaterial because the relevant talents modify the dice pool, and article is about modifying the dice pool. The problem is downstream of the talents.

I'm so tired of these Ludditical rebuttals of the system that completely confuse the cause and effect of these articles: The authors aren't looking for problems that may occur in the system, they're looking to explain the problems that they've seen during play. A year's worth of play with the system is more than enough experience to form an opinion. And if the system is so immaculate, then I pose the question: why do these articles keep appearing!?

Boring article, summed up best as, until you've gotten decent xp and are rolling a good dice pool, mod your weapons, and stack your talents you won't get the results consistently you want. zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz, no sh*t.

One thing that might be nice in the probabilities webpage is having the effect of counting a Triumph as 3 (or 4) advantages, and Despair as 3 (or 4) threat. Generally, depending on the GM, of course, if you get 3 or 4 of either one, the effect is pretty much the same as getting a Triumph or Despair. Even the CRBs and other published material view them as somewhat equivalent in various tables.

And yes, I did use a good amount of weasel words in that last paragraph because I know that they're not actually equivalent What I'm saying is that the effects of rolling 3 or 4 advantage or rolling a Triumph can be very similar...