[Noble Drake]

Saying "GMs can modify this number" without providing any further guidance is like saying "GMs can ignore any rule they want." It's true, but it's not remotely helpful. How does a novice GM decide how much modification is appropriate for a particular situation? If this approach is acceptable, why do we need three hundred pages of rules at all? We could just replace whole sections with "the GM decides the difficulty number."

I don't like how often I see people talking about table-top RPG rules act like there can't be shades of grey between the black & white of having everything explicitly spelled out and expected to be followed exactly as-is, and having the GM make up literally everything.

In this specific case the  "further guidance" is given in the form of the rules saying not "GMs can modify this number [full stop]", but "Gamemasters can increase or decrease that threshold based on the difficulty of the attempted maneuver.?"

Based on the difficulty of the attempted maneuver is guidance. It's not elaborate, detailed, or even really all that specific... but it's still guidance.

Rolling a dice pool modified for current speed vs. a threshold set by the vehicle and terrain (give or take a bit for "seems easier" or "seems harder" based on other concerns) is, for some people at least, plenty of rules even though it's not as detailed as other systems have been. And it doesn't come with the implication that you need to succeed at a handful of rolls to get anywhere (example: if the rules say it's threshold 1 to merge, then taking a right turn out of your drive way, merging over twice to turn left at the next traffic light, driving along a bit and taking a right turn into a parking lot to get to your local Stuffer Shack looks like 5 or so dice rolls... where as in practice during an actual game that bit of driving, regardless of edition used, typically involves zero rolls).

[Typhus]

With no example scale to refer to, it guidance as you say, but it's extremely weak and subjective without a reference point to start from.  It also creates a different scale by handling thresholds differently than in other parts of the book. Handling would be better expressed as a Threshold modifier and refer you back to the Threshold chart earlier in the book.

Let's assume the default handling of a standard vehicle should be a threshold of 3, since anything less is in the realm of walking and chewing gum, per the chart.  That's your default for typical maneuvers.  That still requires a baseline DP of 12 to execute, but as many have said, why are you rolling to turn corners?  That's a Bad GM maneuver there.

So, any vehicle with a current Handling rating of 4 should have a +1 TH to the handling tests (4-3 = 1). Or you can set it to 4, and make the lower TH vehicles reduce the TH by the difference.  A 3 Handling vehicle becomes -1 that way, and now you feel like you have that "better choice" car/bike whatever. 

So, whipping around a corner at an unsafe speed, maybe drifting a little without a wipeout, sure stick with a 3+Car mod.  Now you get crazy on the car though.  You want to pull a Dukes of Hazzard maneuver putting the car up on two wheels.  That's a threshold of at least 5 for sure.  Now it really matters what car you have.  No one is managing that junk without Edge and/or a lot of skill.  Fine, yeah?

It should also matter that you have a vehicle rig.  Right now, it adds its rating in dice, which is trivial by comparison to the requirements for most tests you are attempting, if the TH is going to be a baseline of 3.  I would rather see it reduce people's thresholds overall, like it used to do.  That feels worth replacing my spine for.  Now my rigger can do stuff my wheelman can't.  I can roll with the DP mods from speed better, and do notably nuttier things in that model.  Right now, the rigger is only a slightly better driver than a wheelman.

I've seen the argument that the Edge generation from the rig enables the rigger to do stunts more often, sure.  However you tinker Handling, there's that as a factor.  However, outside of a rig, Edge has no rules for generation in a vehicle context.  None.  Which brings us back to the guidance topic: there's zero guidance for the GM on what stunts can even potentially do, or even the idea of doing stunts as a thing either.  It leaves almost everything up to the GM, with no backup and no reference points.  Very poor situation for new GMs.   

[Noble Drake]

...That still requires a baseline DP of 12 to execute...

This is a case where even though I know what you likely meant, it is important to remind everyone that this is not how dice work.

Just like you will not roll exactly one 20 if you make twenty rolls of a d20, you neither have to have enough dice to use the (deliberately over-priced) buying hits rules to be "good at" something, nor will you roll 1 and only 1 hit per 3 dice in your pool as the 1 in 3 odds of any one die coming up a hit mislead some people into believing.

It is within the realm of statistically "normal" for a dice pool of 8 to get 5 hits (just an example, the specific numbers chosen have no deeper meaning).

[Typhus]

Sure.  Fair.  Call it "a dice pool unlikely to found unless the character is a rigger".

[MercilessMing]

Handling would be better expressed as a Threshold modifier and refer you back to the Threshold chart earlier in the book.

It sucks that it takes a thorough discussion of driving tests to arrive at this concept, but that's much better GM guidance than what appears in the book.  A plain reading of the chapter lead me to the same place as your original post.

However, outside of a rig, Edge has no rules for generation in a vehicle context.  None.  Which brings us back to the guidance topic: there's zero guidance for the GM on what stunts can even potentially do, or even the idea of doing stunts as a thing either.  It leaves almost everything up to the GM, with no backup and no reference points.  Very poor situation for new GMs.   

Truth.  Even the quick start rules have better guidance than the CRB for driving tests, because Battle Royale at least has an example of a getaway scene.

[Michael Chandra]

If there were default values listed people would complain about those and players would complain if their gm didn't remember and made one up. Just listing a few sample scenarios is perfectly fine, there's no need to hold your hand.

[Hephaestus]

If there were default values listed people would complain about those and players would complain if their gm didn't remember and made one up. Just listing a few sample scenarios is perfectly fine, there's no need to hold your hand.

Similar issues have come up in other threads here, and I'll say the same thing: Having a GM extrapolate from a solid set of base rules is generally far easier for most players to accept than the GM being left to arbitrarily wing it.

It isn't "hand holding" to expect a ruleset that has a clearly defined threshold system to provide a solid list of examples across all of the areas the rules are intended to cover. So if you have driving in the game, then there should be defined examples at every threshold level. Do they have to cover every possible scenario? No. Should they provide a generic starting point for each threshold level? Yes.

They could have made one threshold table with a column for each major aspect of the game (combat, magic, driving, decking, and social) so everyone has the same framework to work with. But they only did this for combat, so GMs are left to make drek up as they go along. This gets down to the difference between the GM having agency (being the arbiter of RAW vs RAI) and the GM being the creator of their own game (making up rules to fill in the gaps in RAW.

[ZeroSum]

If there were default values listed people would complain about those and players would complain if their gm didn't remember and made one up. Just listing a few sample scenarios is perfectly fine, there's no need to hold your hand.

Similar issues have come up in other threads here, and I'll say the same thing: Having a GM extrapolate from a solid set of base rules is generally far easier for most players to accept than the GM being left to arbitrarily wing it.

It isn't "hand holding" to expect a ruleset that has a clearly defined threshold system to provide a solid list of examples across all of the areas the rules are intended to cover. So if you have driving in the game, then there should be defined examples at every threshold level. Do they have to cover every possible scenario? No. Should they provide a generic starting point for each threshold level? Yes.

They could have made one threshold table with a column for each major aspect of the game (combat, magic, driving, decking, and social) so everyone has the same framework to work with. But they only did this for combat, so GMs are left to make drek up as they go along. This gets down to the difference between the GM having agency (being the arbiter of RAW vs RAI) and the GM being the creator of their own game (making up rules to fill in the gaps in RAW.

Well said!