In some cases I factor an Ob, but I mostly just do what makes sense at the time. I’ve mostly been throwing Ob 2’s, with Ob 1’s and 3’s roughly balanced. There have been some sporadic 4’s and 5’s.
Is that enough? Too many?
I tend to use Ob 1 when the consequences of failure low. Ob 3 is when I want to make them work together and Ob 2 is for small team efforts, or one heroic act or “Seriously none of you are going to help me move this rock?”
The 4’s and 5’s as really difficult, perhaps unsolvable problems.
Yeah, based on my limited experience with the game it sounds like you’re playing softball. Our GM factors most every roll, and the OB’s tend to run 3’s and 4’s, with higher for some of the more difficult ideas we try and pull off. Keeps us on our toes, and working together (there’s 3 players running around including me), and gives us rolls to decide on spending our fate and persona on. It’s difficult, and we fail rolls, but that’s part of advancement… and it really feels good passing OB 5 and 6 tests with lvl 1-2 characters.
Looking back, the only OB1 tests I even remember were in town.
To have fun with the higher obstacles though, I would definitely have to say your players need a pretty firm grasp of the system, how to generate themselves some checks, and how to write/play beliefs, instincts, goals, and traits… or the difficulty will probably get them down. It really helps to be able to generate an average of 2-3 fate and 1-2 persona per session. If they’re fine doing all that, though, it’s on that border of being difficult but very rewarding.
I suspected this might be the case. Thanks both of you for your replies. We’re only two sessions in, and I think we have a much firmer grasp than we did in the first session. I’ll start factoring more often now that we know the system better.