I'm not sure what you mean, can you explain how they are using moxie to auto-succeed on every roll? By the book moxie can only be used for the following: • The character may ignore all negative modifiers that apply to a test. The Moxie point must be spent before dice are rolled. • The character may flip-flop a d100 roll result. For example, an 83 would become a 38. • The character may upgrade a success, making it a critical success, as if they rolled doubles. The character must succeed in the test before they spend the Moxie point. • The character may ignore a critical failure, treating it as a regular failure instead. • The character may go first in an Action Phase (p. 189). and only 1 point of Moxie may be spent on a single roll.

Okay, let me see if I understand this: In combat the characters take actions with a lot of penalties and then they use moxie to negate the penalties so that they succeed. For example: a character with 60 in Kinetic weapons shoots a full-auto (+3d10 damage) burst from cover (-10) and an opponent in heavy cover (-30), using quick aiming (+10) and their smartlink (+10) while making a called shot to ignore armor (-10, needs MoS 30+ to ignore armor). Which is normally a net -30. But they then spend moxie to ignore the penalties so that they instead have a net +20 for a probability of 81% to hit. Both in combat and out, when the characters roll, their skill and bonuses are high enough that if they were to use moxie to flip the results, they are guaranteed a success. Putting up the probability table: [code] TN % %w/Flip 10 11 19 20 21 36 30 31 51 40 41 64 50 51 75 60 61 84 70 71 91 80 81 96 90 91 99[/code] So your PCs are in the 70+ range after bonuses usually. And (I don't want to put words in your mouth here, so correct me if I am wrong) you feel like this is a problem because the game isn't challenging enough when the characters can make every roll a success, but when the players can't make every roll a success, they don't want to roll? In short they are risk-adverse and like to play smart? Assuming that is the case, here is my advice: First make moxie refresh based on the actions of the characters in the game. The book suggests refreshing it (fully or partially) when the characters get sufficient rest or when they achieve a motivational goal and you might try using that system. Then (assuming that your players don't already do this), help your players find bonuses to rolls: teamwork, complementary skills, taking the time, superior positioning, equipment, etc. This is so they don't feel like they have to have moxie to succeed, even with low to moderate skills. It will also let them conserve moxie. Finally, build one or two hard encounters per adventure. Make them hard enough that the players want to blow through moxie as fast as possible in order to win without significant losses/setbacks. This is easiest with Combat encounters but Social or Technical encounters work too. Combined these three things should let the players to horde their moxie to the big fight (or other encounter) and cause them to freely spend it once they get to the hard encounter(s) because they know they need it to win and that they can refresh it by taking a break. So you get what you want (harder more thrilling adventures) and the players get to play smart and use their moxie to good effect. Also, here couple of tips for more thrilling combat encounters (I don't know if you do this already but I am going to put it here anyways :P ): 1) Give transhuman opponents moxie. Just a couple of points is usually enough and assume that since they are fighting for their lives that they will spend it: going first in combat, moxie dodging (that is upgrading a successful Fray to a critical in order to automatically win the opposed test and achieve another minor benefit like getting behind cover), and upgrading attacks to criticals (thus forcing the characters to moxie dodge or take armor piercing hits themselves). Some people think this isn't fair because NPCs don't have to spend Moxie outside of their encounter but I like it as it makes fights much more tactical and interesting. 2) Give the opponents drones, smart, animals, vehicles, etc. Don't go overboard, but one or two direct controlled drones or a couple of slavering guard dogs work great as force multipliers and are great for making the characters waste ammo/actions taking them down.

Evilnerf wrote:

this seems to make some players not want to make any roles

That is a terrible tactic for players. Players must roll—they don't have a choice. Whenever they wish to exert force or agecy on the game, they must roll dice. If they decide not to roll then nothing happens. Tough. Really needed to speak to that point. The issue seems to be that they have a bounty of Moxie for a scarcity of rolls. If they only have to make four rolls in a case and they have four Moxie, then they will reliably spend that moxie like it is candy. If I have four Moxie, but have to make ten to twenty rolls in a case, it stops being candy.

I am more familiar with it myself... I hit math for things like this: Estimate your rolls per hour against your hours per session. You want to aim for running enough rolls per hours per enough sessions that they could burn through all the moxie and still need to make two rolls without before you refresh. (Give or take based on how difficult you want things to be for them). That may mean you refresh every other session instead of every session - depends on your personal rates for the story. Since you're running a game with a lower-combat rate than the standard game, this is one of the areas that it's not really surprising you need to adjust for. Standard EP assumes suicide mission style missions where the PCs are burning moxie to survive long enough to succeed and then maybe not surviving after. Given that you're running an off-model game... it's probably something you're going to see more than most GMs out there. Remember to tweak it up or down as needed based on how much resistance your players really need - some players need more resistance than others to feel like they've earned a win, some need less.

This is a problem in my game, too. The [i]only[/i] time my players fail a roll is when they roll a critical botch, and then they use MOX to stage it down to a mere failure. It's like "Okay, roll perception." 83. vs 70. "Moxie flip." It's getting a little ridiculous, honestly. [b]Every. Single. Thing. They. Roll. For.[/b] If they don't succeed, they moxie flip it. I see two options, I'm not sure I care for either of them, but... 1: Call for a lot of superfluous or inane rolls, so they don't know which roll is important and when I'm calling for them to roll perception to notice that a lot of the missile launchers they're thinking of looting have already been fired off. (Something they would have discovered automatically when they started picking them up.) I don't like that, because I believe in "Yes or roll" GMing. I don't like calling for inane rolls and chaff rolls. The other I'm thinking of is reducing MOX restoration to 1 per full sleep they get. Between sleep restoration and the Stunting rules I added which allow you to restore a MOX with a really good stunt, this might leave them hungry enough for Moxie to [b][u]not[/u][/b] spend it on [i]literally every roll[/i], whilst not leaving them too dry, either. Basically, I don't want them to say "Moxie" every single time they fail (which is ironic, because the combat monsters are the [u]worst[/u] offenders about this, despite having miniscule chances of failing in the first place,) but don't want Moxie to become [url=http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/TooAwesomeToUse]Too Awesome to Use.[/url] (WARNING: TVTropes LINK DETECTED!) Finding the middle ground is hard. I may just do nothing. Some people in my game get [b]very[/b] upset at any houserules that nerf them, even when they're so ridiculously overpowered that I literally can't threaten them with a gigantic stompy mech.

ORCACommander wrote:

in my house with non combat situations and non terribly risky or unorthodox actions if you can Role play it well enough there is no need for rolls.

That is one way to do, and it does reward good roleplay more. I do it quite differently myself. If the player is a real charmer but his char isn't, he doesn't get to roleplay his char into it. And the other way around works as well, even if someone isn't good with words but his char has high social skills, he can still convince people. I play it more like combat. Good tactics gives you bonuses, but you still have to roll. The same with social stuff, good roleplaying, good arguments, good con setups, they give plusses to your rolls, but you still have to roll.

Evilnerf wrote:

Using the rules of getting new moxie every session

Just to clarify, you mean moxie refreshes every session, right? Not new moxie? On average, how much moxie do your PCs have and how long are your sessions? I normally run about four-hour sessions, or online sessions where there's no real breaks. Most PCs have 1-3 moxie, and they hang onto it tight. However, we also have usually 1-2 fights per session, which normally sucks up the moxie. If your players don't make a lot of rolls (and everyone is okay with that style of game), then you just need to pull back on the frequency of moxie refresh, or put in more challenges of another sort to balance it out (although given the number of rolls in combat, replacing that may be tough).