I guess I'm just more of an evil GM than you all. I've had at least one Despair show up every game sometimes even more. I even had two show up on the same roll. I used Adversary and a Destiny Point when one of my characters attacked a Black Sun Vigo. He did score a Triumph though. So basically he ended up critically injuring the guy, but his Vibroax broke and when it did it caused him to slip and fall prone.

We played last friday, there were about 4 instances of red dice being thrown, every one of them had a Despair.

Its often enough that I have fun with it. Toss a dark side at any important dice roll and see what happens. I did that to the player's Astrogation roll coming into Raxus Prime. Despair! The players came out right next to the orbital defense platform.

Not telling anyone how to play, just explaining why I think the Core books take on when to use Challenge dice or Upgrade difficulties is fine.

I like your examples, I think we're closer in opinion on it than it might appear. I think it's more that I'm not as afraid to use challenge dice as others might be because I think the effect of it has been oversold. I would certainly never plop someone into lava because of a despair or even three.

Whatfrog, I totally agree that Triumphs and Despair have been oversold as catastrophic results. Especially Triumph, which actually comes up quite often.

Whatfrog, I totally agree that Triumphs and Despair have been oversold as catastrophic results. Especially Triumph, which actually comes up quite often.

My players yell "Justice!" whenever it comes up. They get downright silent when I roll it.

I think it's more that I'm not as afraid to use challenge dice as others might be because I think the effect of it has been oversold. I would certainly never plop someone into lava because of a despair or even three.

I agree completely. I've never used them to do something that would out right kill someone. At the most I might make them have to roll an athletics check to keep from falling in a pit. But even that would be so rare that it's highly unlikely to ever happen. Most of the time I've been using Despairs to either break a weapon, make it run out of ammo, upgrade the characters difficulty, or make them fall prone.

I am of the opinion that GMs seem to use red dice more infrequently than they ought. The reason is twofold - one, red dice are interesting, the same as yellow dice. The chance for triumph or despair increases the stakes and makes the game fun. That's the objective, right?

And two - and this one is more in-depth - red (challenge) dice are supposed to represent active opposition ("Opposing forces at work," p.9, "extreme adversity or opposition," p.11).

When you construct a dice pool, you've got your base difficulty that represents the difficulty of the task in an ideal situation. Those are your purple dice, your difficulty dice. If the environment or situation would modify the difficulty in some way, this is represented by setback dice being added to the dice pool (or by boost dice being added). If the situation increases the danger or is actively opposing the character, that's where upgrading dice comes in to play.

To wit - When I'm negotiating with a trained negotiator, there are challenge (red) dice in the pool to represent not only the difficulty of the task, but the danger of a system actively opposing my success. When I'm attacking an adversary, there are challenge dice added to the pool to represent not only the difficulty of hitting that target, but the additional danger of shooting at a target that is an active agent working against me.

So as a GM, I upgrade difficulty to challenge whenever the system not only presents a difficult task for the players, but also adds an element of danger or opposition to the task. Examples:

-Hacking a computer system (DDD) with a security system built into it (DDC)

-Jumping a long distance (DD) over a chasm filled with lava (DC)

-Climbing up a cliff-face (DDD) with loose rocks for hand-holds (DDC)

-Weaving a vehicle through the streets of Mos Eisley (DD) with crowds of people on the street (DC)

None of those tasks are made more overtly difficult with the addition of the dangerous element, but the consequences for failure are somewhat more dire. It is for this same reason that shooting at a target engaged with an ally has its check upgraded (p. 210) - the target isn't more difficult to hit, but the chance for despair is there - if you miss, you may hit an ally instead.

That's what challenge dice are for, really. If failure on a task has a logical chance of a really, really bad result, then challenge dice should be part of your dicepool.

I think those are great examples for using a challenge dice (especially jumping over a chasm with lava in it), since a challenge die not only makes it harder (it actually DOES increase the difficulty, despite your examples), but the primary use of it is to represent a harsh consequence for failure.

However....in these particular situations you've exampled, I think they would be good moments to use Destiny points. Instead of arbitrarily deciding to use a Destiny point on a mundane situation, it's precisely situations like jumping over lava where you could flip the Destiny point and introduce possibility of Despair.

In essence, it's those situations that are good prompts for using Destiny.