Advice: Roll Difficulty

[truetrueevil]

So I've been GMing my first few games and am having some teething difficulties with the new multi D6 system as apposed to the old D20.

My greatest issue is setting difficulty. Where in D20 a check directly correlates to how good a character may be at a skill, the requirement for the GM to bodge a difficulty requirement for every roll in new paranoia (which seems to be the intention) gets quite confusing and difficult.

For example taking a simple stealth check, whole party is creeping past a raging Scrub-bot, NODES range from 1-7 or even down to -7. meaning any difficulty check of greater than 2 success is literally IMPOSSIBLE to pass for players with skill of 1. But doing difficulty 1 or 2 checks for everyone to make things possible seems like I'm being a bit nice.


I also find myself adjusting check difficulty depending on their skill so a skill 7 for a hard check might get a requirement of 5 or a skill 3 might get a requirement of 2 which is bit silly, though nobody at my table has complained it feels like I'm completely dodging the point of variable skills but I find it very hard to hit a consistent balance.

Anyone had similar problems or got advice?

 

[Shai]

Did you consider 0 successes?
Page 20 in the GM's book has a table for difficulty (and it has 0). 0 is considered average, 1-"requires a bit of effort and knowledge", 2-considered "quite hard". Remember that players have other resources, besides their skills (action cards, mutant powers and xp points) support their use of those. Also, if a player has a clever idea, you could give him bonus dice (or less negative dice).
I'd also suggest to look at the first paragraph at page 17 and the "Always make things happen" section page 107, they suggest that, players that fail, don't necessarily fail.
Examples for the situation you described:
If a player fails by one die, a curious Scub-bot notices them and starts following them arround asking annoying questions.
Or a damaged Scrub-bot sees them, considers them Scrub-bots as well and tries to recruit the PCs to the cause.
Remember that if players fail, it shouldn't mean the end of the mission, make things happen. Have them either fight, negotiate or bureaucratize (for a lack off a word) with the scrub bots to get away.

 

[euansmith]

@Shai, thanks for some good solid advice. I feel that the book rather leaves novice GM's all at sea; especially as it effectively says, "Make stuff up", rather rendering the rules a bit moot.