How much mileage are people getting out of the Destiny Point mechanic?

When we first started play we used them very frequently, but as time has passed we've used them less and less.

It has gotten to a kind of "cold war" deal where we don't use them because we know next slot the GM'll use them against us (and a Despair's badness feels greater than a Triumph's greatness) - exactly what the book tells you shouldn't happen.

(We never mod attachments if there are any Dark Side showing.)

On the other hand it may simply be that we haven't needed the help Destiny Points provide as we've grown more competent.

Either way, does anyone have some non-"bludgeon the PCs" ways to encourage their use?

It varies. I (the GM) hav found that if I use them in normal amounts my players see that it actually works and the start using them as well. If I forget about them then so do my players.

It is fun to see their faces when out of the blue I upgrade my dicepool.

I would say we are sophisticated and engage in the DP detente, but mostly we just forget about them because we are too busy running our mouths......

I usually don't use them if they are in short supply, but if my players are running low or out of light side DP, I'll certainly find excuses to use them.

I'm a fairly kind GM. I don't use them on skill checks I want them to pass. Sure I can handle failures easily enough, but there are certain points in my games that it's easier for me if they succeed. In some of those cases, I tend to forgo a skill check, but in other times it makes sense for the check to take place.

My table is currently at a weird stand-still of sorts with them as well. I try to use them often so they'll be available to the players but a few things are happening. The players use them on every one of their turns and/or they use one to "counter" one I've played. So the points either negate and don't shift, or the light gets flipped to dark faster than I can send them back. We all generally try to quickly explain their use in a narrative fashion but it's becoming much more of a mechanical tool than a storytelling one. The constant point use is probably a holdover and habit from playing Fate but it's not quite working the same way with SW for obvious reasons. I haven't quite decided how to handle it yet besides sitting on a pile of dark points, which isn't what I want to do.

Yeah, the "counter trick" really bugged both me and my players so we decided that we were not going to use it as such anymore... It improved the use quite a bit.

I can see groups forgetting to use DP. I know that the GM I played with in D&D 4th Ed would ask each of the players on their turn if they wanted to use their Action Point. Maybe do the same with DP. Just make it something you ask each of the players on their turn. "It's your turn, are you going to use a Destiny Point?"

I use it quite regularly still, the ebb and flow makes for good fun. I generally try to spend them faster leading up to a big conflict so the players have a pool to work with. I had one player who almost always reached for one, especially to counter my use, and was kind of hogging it, but I reminded him that the pool was for everybody and he needed permission from the other players. That's made it more balanced.

I think once characters start getting their Signature Abilities from the sourcebooks, the DP pool will see increased use. You need to flip 2 DPs (at least at first) to use it, so the players will need to learn to tolerate the GM's use and leave something for themselves.

Hadn't thought of Signature Abilities (or any of the Talents that require spending a DP to use). These by themselves may be enough to bring DP use back into the game more frequently.

the talents and abilities bring up a great point that I had forgotten. once my players make that connection I think they'll shift their behavior a bit.

Destiny Points were the tipping point for me on liking the game. I mean sure, SW RPG, that's fun in and of itself. But of all the mechanics, that's the one that was like wow.

We had to rule that only one Destiny can be spent on a roll, whether by player or GM. The one taking the action has first choice on upgrading, and only if they elect not to do so can the other side elect to spend a point on upgrading. It prevents the constant "me too" use that we had seen.

I forget to use it so it creates a finite pool for my players. Trying to work on that.

I mostly use them (unless the game starts with me having a disproportionate amount of them) to give "important" NPCs an edge in combat, or when a PC does something foolish, or when a very skilled PC tries to do something fairly routine. This way I get more mileage from NPCs that might otherwise not pose that much of a threat, I get to warn players that what they're doing isn't too smart, and I create tension whenever the players think something is going to be a complete cakewalk.

We had to rule that only one Destiny can be spent on a roll, whether by player or GM. The one taking the action has first choice on upgrading, and only if they elect not to do so can the other side elect to spend a point on upgrading. It prevents the constant "me too" use that we had seen.

That is a good idea with the group that I'm in. One player, with a starting character, ended up on top of his regular dice pool ended up having 4 or more boost dice. Having that many boost dice worried me. It was akin to using a nuke to kill an ant.

We had to rule that only one Destiny can be spent on a roll, whether by player or GM. The one taking the action has first choice on upgrading, and only if they elect not to do so can the other side elect to spend a point on upgrading. It prevents the constant "me too" use that we had seen.

That is a good idea with the group that I'm in. One player, with a starting character, ended up on top of his regular dice pool ended up having 4 or more boost dice. Having that many boost dice worried me. It was akin to using a nuke to kill an ant.

Per RAW a player can only spend one Destiny Point per action so I wouldn't think you'd have to much, if any, stacking to begin with unless I'm misunderstanding you.

We had to rule that only one Destiny can be spent on a roll, whether by player or GM. The one taking the action has first choice on upgrading, and only if they elect not to do so can the other side elect to spend a point on upgrading. It prevents the constant "me too" use that we had seen.

That is a good idea with the group that I'm in. One player, with a starting character, ended up on top of his regular dice pool ended up having 4 or more boost dice. Having that many boost dice worried me. It was akin to using a nuke to kill an ant.

Per RAW a player can only spend one Destiny Point per action so I wouldn't think you'd have to much, if any, stacking to begin with unless I'm misunderstanding you.

It's been a while, I'll have to check some notes, closer to the time of that particular session.

The games I've been a part of, we've gotten plenty of mileage out of Destiny Points. The only time that players have been hesitant to spend one is if the Light Side of the pool has gotten pretty low (1 or 2 left), but even that hasn't stopped us if we think a given character could really use the boost.

Granted, it helps if the GM also remembers to spend some of those Dark Side Destiny Points. Played in a session at GenCon run by Sterling Hershey, and there were a few times he had to be reminded about the Destiny Pool, mostly as the collection of tokens was on the other side of his GM screen and out of his line of sight.

Here's a question that has recently come up in a game. If for one encounter an NPC of some importance fighting along side the PCs wishes to use a DP. do you let them? The easiest answer is that it's up to the PCs, but if you were a player what would you say?

And by extension. Would you have them flip lightside DPs to dark since they are on the same side as the PCs?

I ask this because my players were reaching the climax of the session. They had just made a deal with the local insurgency (budding rebels. This is a few years BBY) and the imps showed up (thanks largely to the PCs unintentionally leading them there.) well sith hit the fan and I didn't find any good opportunities to spend my dark side destiny points prior to this encounter. They started out with only 1 lightside point against my 6 darkside points.

Inadvertently an NPC was helping them fight off the imps so they could get back to their ship. Part of me wanted to have him spend darkside destiny points (since I was controlling him), if for no other reason than to cut them a break. After all I'm not going for the TPK so I was trying not to upgrade the adversary's attacks or upgrade their difficulty.

The benevolent GM in me says I should have gone ahead flipped those dark side points, but does that really reflect the push and pull of destiny? Probably not.

We had 4 light/4dark on the table yesterday when I, GM, flipped one, on my wife no less. She was being flanked by 2 advancing Black Sun thugs. She had a knife drawn on one, then raised her blaster to blindly fire at the other. Her pool ended up being GYYPRB, I believe. Result: red came up blank, TRIUMPH, and a couple Advantages! Can't you just picture what that would look like on the Silver Screen (they were even in a New York/ Times Square location).

I think it gets used less as the characters get more skilled. It makes less difference than when the players first start out.

For me and my group the DP mechanic works fairly well in history mode.

The problem appears when combat erupts, then the mechanic kind of fails or feels dull. At this moment, everyone starts spending one DP to upgrade their combat checks, while at the same time the other side spends one DP to systematically upgrade the check difficulty (or things go along a kind of "negotiation" like -I do not upgrade my pool if you do not upgrade the difficulty-).

While the mechanic feels boring during combat, it makes on the other hand things fun since rolling most of the time at least one challenge die per combat check means many despairs!

Here's a question that has recently come up in a game. If for one encounter an NPC of some importance fighting along side the PCs wishes to use a DP. do you let them? The easiest answer is that it's up to the PCs, but if you were a player what would you say?

And by extension. Would you have them flip lightside DPs to dark since they are on the same side as the PCs?

I ask this because my players were reaching the climax of the session. They had just made a deal with the local insurgency (budding rebels. This is a few years BBY) and the imps showed up (thanks largely to the PCs unintentionally leading them there.) well sith hit the fan and I didn't find any good opportunities to spend my dark side destiny points prior to this encounter. They started out with only 1 lightside point against my 6 darkside points.

Inadvertently an NPC was helping them fight off the imps so they could get back to their ship. Part of me wanted to have him spend darkside destiny points (since I was controlling him), if for no other reason than to cut them a break. After all I'm not going for the TPK so I was trying not to upgrade the adversary's attacks or upgrade their difficulty.

The benevolent GM in me says I should have gone ahead flipped those dark side points, but does that really reflect the push and pull of destiny? Probably not.

I would have thought the Light Destiny Points were there for the protagonists and the Dark for the adversaries. Letting allies of the PCs use Dark DPs to benefit the side the PCs are on effectively gives them all of the Destiny Points.

I think your first instincts were correct - the Players should be the ones to choose whether the GM can use them to benefit PC allies.

When they're all Dark, that should tell the Players something: "Your Luck Is Running Out."

I haven`t played alot but I love the style of it. Too often I was a GM in other systems whom had to McGuffin his way out of a jam without being able to reward the players enough for their creativity. Now I just flip a DP and continue narrating. If my players are being annoying flipping every DP I flip and I want the plot to continue a certain way, I just say thank you with a big smile and continue anyways. They usually pick up that I`m doing this as a plot device and not to screw them over. I haven`t ever turned a DP over to counter a player and I would never do it so directly. Sure the players may spend a DP to catch a speeder they can chase down their evil nemesis on but once they find him they see it was just a decoy/henchman/clone/shapechanger, and I flip the DP back over.

I can see the argument that the DP's get used a bit less as players become more skilled but to me the skill upgrade isn`t the part to focus on, it's relatively minor, you might get an extra success or triumph from one upgrade. The game naturally tries to keep the DP flipping with the good talents in later levels anyways. But any player who cannot make the imaginative leap with DP will never use them to their full potential. I usually allow any good ol' movie cliche to be used for a DP. Players cannot hotwire a speeder? Spend a DP to find the keys tucked above the visor. Players hurting and out of Stimpac's? They spend a DP and come up with a reason the next room over has one.

So far I`ve found them as a great way to goad the players along the plot without becoming too much of a lead-by-the-nose sort of GM. Players are being stupid and wasting time rather than getting on with it, flip a DP to make their stupid checks harder, or my personal favorite, flip the DP then just wait till they ask what that was for, then you say you`ll see. Usually lights a fire under them faster than a squib on stims.

As far as a NPC using DP I would have to say no to it flipping the dark points over to light for the players. If the players all agreed I`d let him use light DP on a per case basis but that would be it.

If you`re doing ti just to give them some light DP to work with there is alittle known use for these DP, and that is increasing checks from below an easy. The book even has rules that even some checks that normally do not require checks might have to be rolled for if enough setback dice exist to foul up whatever the player is trying to do. Great way to give the players back some DP by making them pay for it in possible hilarious face plants. I usually try to have atleast half the pool light DP whenever the players come across a Nemesis. Though if they insist on blowing it all on the chump minions I cannot save them from themselves.