I think it boils down to that even if you attempt to downgrade a roll, the one initiating the roll is still at an advantage because the proficiency dice are slightly better than the red dice.

So no matter what if both sides are just stalemating spending a point on every roll and trading it back and forth you're just creating a situation where everyone is doing slightly better. And that might be on purpose. It just starts to get a bit tenser when characters start using abilities that trigger on destiny points and such.

When a DP is used, it flips and sits in the center of the table until the action is resolved and at that point becomes available to the other side for use in a different action. Would that help the situation?

creature feature said:

That's how we do it.  Both sides can't use a DP for the same action.  Plus my group doesn't use them for every single thing being done.  They use them only for desperate situations, or really important moments in the story.  If both sides just use them back and forth like ping pong for the same action, you would just be doing it all day, and if your group is using them all the time merely to just get a dice upgrade, then you are using them too much.  DP's should be something important.  If your players are using them too much, just let them use them up and as the GM don't use any yourself. Let them burn em up….

I think the spirit of the DP is supposed to be that climactic moment where the players desperatly NEED the help of mother luck because the situation is so important.  Anyone just using them over and over, back and forth I think really takes away the importance and meaning of the destiny point.  I know as a GM, I only use them in the instances I want to stress the importance of what I'm doing, or what the NPC is doing, that moment is weighing on them…so I'm going to upgrade one of those purps and use a DP.

To each their own, but I think if you use them more sparingly, you'll find them more fun. 

KommissarK said:

Little thing: Be careful with your terminology.  DP's [still sounds dirty] never downgrade, only upgrade.

And Doc, that was hilarious.

-WJL

EDIT: there MAY be a talent that lets you downgrade something, but I don't think so.

LethalDose said:

Sorry, yes, you're right. I'll admit, I'ts been sometime since I've actually played the game. Got in only a few small sessions in the early days of beta, but my gaming group had a rough time with die conversions so it got dropped.

creature feature said:

Not if both sides have a single point available. So the GM has a big hit coming, and spends a DP (I'm committing to it Lethal). He puts it aside for the action. If there is still a Light Side point in there, the Player can spend it (putting it aside for the action). The two are added back after the action.

The solutions I'm seeing so far are:

1. Put DPs aside when used for the scene, adding them back into the pool at the beginning of the next scene (or at an appropriate pause in a long scene).

2. Only one side can play a DP on a roll (First pick being either the character taking the action, or whichever side has the most DPs, light or dark)

3. It costs 2 DPs to upgrade a die when the other side has already upgraded one (First pick as above)

4. Only use DPs on unimportant actions where the other side doesn't care about success or failure enough to spend a point

I feel that only #1 and #2 work well, with #1 being the easiest to implement.

This may be going too far for a house rule but perhaps a bidding system would work. Each side bids DP and the most gets the use. You could even do it secretely and then have the bidded amount flipped anyway, even as the loser. Sorry if this is out there. I like house rules.

creature feature said:

Huh.  That interesting.  I don't think I'd use it, for two reasons.

1. They make a point of stating the players and GM aren't opponents, but I worry the bidding would create too much of a adversarial back and forth.  Also, the GMs could block players out of using DPs when the players felt it would be appropriate.
2. This 'zero sum' bidding could create situations where, after a single big bid, the other side would have free run with a bunch of DPs that the opposing side couldn't respond to.

But I do kind of like the idea.  I just don't think it'd be a good match for my game.

-WJL

I pretty much use it the way it's written up:

• You can use one Destiny Point per action.
• Both sides get a chance to use one.
• The Destiny Point(s) is/are flipped the other way (light/dark) and is/are available for use after said action is resolved.

The only thing I've had an issue with so far - and it's really a minor one - is that I have to break in before the players roll dice to add a Destiny Point.  My players are eager to throw the dice and I've had to stop them so I could modify the check. 

LethalDose said:

Yeah, i'll probably stick with RAW in the meantime.

So, subitted for consideration, a house rule: 

The players and the GM can only use the DPs faces showing at the start of an action.  For example, if the pool has all Dark points showing when someone takes an action (player or GM, doesn't matter), A DM could flip one to a light side for whatever appropriate use he desires, but the players would be unable to respond because there were no point showing whent the action was declared.

So now when the players have decided to use all their DPs, they can no longer respond one for one when the GM plays a DP when fate is entirely in his favor.

This is the simplest variation, others include a free opposing upgrde on the same roll, or a free upgrade to be spent by the opposing side within one turn.  The general idea is to keep the destiny pool out of 'extreme configurations' where the whole pool is one color, or only one color except for one point.  There's a more severe penalty for "that last" DP, since it represents pushing so destiny/karma/fate/the force/the FSM so far out of balance.

So if one side games the system, where everytime the other side plays a DP, they do too.  But, presumably, the DPs are a bonus resource for them as well, so, in my games, the both sides want to use them proactively.  If one side is matching their use one-for-one reactively as well as proactive use, it's a simple matter of NOT going responding when they boost their rolls and the 'abusive' party will back themselves into corner quickly.  

Yes, the 'abusive party' may still just shift their preferred position one bead away from the most extreme configuration, but it takes lesst time to get there and each DP becomes more valuable.

Just a thought.

-WJL

Lord Dynel said:

Yeah, those crazy players, ready to throw those bones before the GM is even done talking

I think the RAW works pretty well, both from the perspective of a player (when I remember to make use of them) and as a GM.  That said, I think that last bullet point might the issue, not because it exists, but more to the fact that players and GMs forget to that tidbit.

The only time I ran into an issue was when running Escape from Mos Shutta for my Wednesday group, and running the adventure pretty much as written, where Destiny Points didn't get included until almost the end, and my players kept forgetting they were there to spend, even when the pool was nothing but Light Side Destiny Points.  Could just have been that they were too used to Destiny Points being something big and cool in Saga Edition, but as that group has little interest in pursuing an EotE campaign, I'll probably never really know.

Donovan Morningfire said:

And I don't mean to sound better than anyone on this thread, but that was the headsratcher for me.  I wasn't understanding what the big discussion was about.  I'm thinking to myself, "Gee, it seems to be spelled out in the rules right there in black and white."  But maybe it just clicked for me, I don't know.  

LethalDose said:

See, I don't think this is an abusive party issue. I think this can come from using DPs as intended.

Here's a few examples:

1. The party runs into a fallen Jedi, who rushes them with a lightsaber. The GM wants this to be a scary fight and spends a DP on the attack roll. The defending player doesn't want to get hit with a lightsaber, and spends a DP in response. The GM wants this fight to be brutal, so he spends a DP whenever the Jedi attacks. The party doesn't want to be hit with a lightsaber, so they save their DP for defense.
2. The party is ending an adventure and facing off against the mastermind behind thier troubles. They have been waiting for this moment and want to take him down, so they use DPs on their attacks. The GM doesn't want the fight to be over so quickly, so he spends DPs on defense.

Who is abusing the system in the above examples? Everyone? I don't think this is a "blame the players" issue. 

In any other game where fate points are limited, both of these scenarios would be fine, because both sides could run out of points. In addition, since DPs are unlimited, there is less incentive to hoard them and more to spend them (for both sides). 

And to those saying "refresh DPs at the end of an action" aren't seeing the issue. If there are 4Light and 3 Dark DPs at the start of an action, there will be the same if each spends a point. That's part of the problem, it can be done forever.

The more I think about it, the more I like refreshing DPs at the end of a scene. If you do it this way, when you start a scene with only one or two DPs (or none), you know things aren't going to go well for you. It heightens an existing feature of DPs. 

Doc, the Weasel said:

So, when I said "Abusive Party" I didn't explicitly mean the players, I was trying to imply it could be either  the players or the GM hoarding the DPs.  And when I said 'abusive', i mean that someone routinely wasn't using the DP rules in the nature they were intended.  This actually IS a place where we get Jay's (or at least some designers) thoughts on the topic, in Destiny Point Economy in Gameplay (pg 24, Beta Text).

My point was you could use house rules if it was a consistent problem because the players routinely played in a particular way.  So citing particular examples doesn't really address what I was talking about.

I'm also not blaming anyone, I was just trying to address the concern of the OP.  My group doesn't seem to have this issue because they don't do the one-for-one DP use and they don't hoard, so I haven't needed to implement a rule like this.  Though, they are pretty separate problems.

I think the intended the 'solution' to the one-for-one exchange is for the other side not to respond when a side is proactively uses their own DPs.  This shifts the The problem is it leads to an "all but one" configuration of the pool, which someone above I think mentioned "As long as a side has at least one DP of a certain color, they're 'safe'", so the problem isn't really solved, and its not really a solution.  It's the players finding their 'preferred equilibrium' point.  If that point is undesirable because of either the 'spirit' or the 'mechanics' of the game, then it should be disincentivized.  

And really, what I posted only the variants changed the rule, since theres already a line in the book about the DPs flipping after the action, which I had never noticed.  So, mea culpa.  Feel free to ignore the ever loving crap out of that part of the post.

Personally, I don't like the pool refreshing every encounter, because I don't think it would solve the problem, but actually increase the intensity of the problem.  Under these rules, the players (PCs or GM) not playing in the spirit of the rules could move to a "all but one" configuration every encounter.   If a side knows the pool will be refreshed to a random state at the end of every encounter (or beginning of every encounter, not much difference), if their DPs are depelted, the worst case scenario is that you still have zero DP at the start of the next, and more likely, you get some back.  Also, you have to define "encounter" or at least when the pool is refreshed. I feel like this could cause problems with encounters that had a small number of rolls, like social encounters.  The parties would have no incentive to not blow all the DPs they could because they come back later.  In short, I think each the DP pool for each encounter should have memory of the earlier ones in that 

I think the actual solution is to do it in a way that both sides declare DP use simulataneously.  Like, everyone takes 2 cards from a deck, a red card and black card.  Every roll, the GM and player each choose one of their two cards, and put them face down on the table.  Whoever chose a red card spends a DP, black means no DP for that side.  

Or to prevent this from slowing down the game, either side can simply say "DP check" when they want to either spend a DP or have a chance get a DP back.  There are essentially 2 reasons to call DP check: Get a bonus, or to increase your pool (and therby decrease their pool) .  Looking at this like the Prisoner's Dillema, we get:

Except for the "No bonus, no pool change" outcome (Which has no utility value), The utility value of all the outcomes is situational (depends on what a party is trying to accomplish), so no equilibrium point exists.

Actually, I think I may try this next time we're playing to see if it slows things down or leads to any other issues.

-WJL