Edge and Glitches Options

[Draco18s]

...You want me to find the studies, is what you're saying.

You made the claim, you should pull the research, yes.

Insisting the other person does is a logical fallacy called Burden of Proof.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

It's just annoying because I'm having trouble finding where I put the bookmark. If I bothered to bookmark it, which I sincerely hope I did.

This may take me a few hours, is my point.

EDIT: Never mind. It turned out that I was looking for the wrong words; I wanted "near miss," not "near loss."

A study that does a good job of explaining the theory is here. Also related is this study (though only the abstract is free), which explains why letting players reroll glitches is more fun than not. Note that the two studies use the term "near miss" in different ways, however.

[pbangarth]

It is scientific fact--and if you want, I'll pull out the relevant studies--that people like (or sometimes prefer) a close loss almost as much as winning.

EDIT: Never mind. It turned out that I was looking for the wrong words; I wanted "near miss," not "near loss."

Don't you just love a field in which the same term can mean opposite things, depending on which side of the Atlantic you use it?

[Aerospider]

Translation... you shouldn't use dice at all... since results don't matter. Especially sad results which might get those poor babies of yours hurt.

Unlucky doesn't matter. Which isn't even the point of the argument... it's not whether you can negate a glitch... just spending to reduce it or rerolling (if allowed) are both highly likely to do that. Just one is also going to turn most any bad event into a better than average one (rerolling for more successes and getting rid of a glitch).

Everyone should get a booby prize, everyone should feel good about themselves at the end of the day.

There should be no such thing as a failed mission excepting if it's a skin of the teeth type thing you can do for cinematic reasons.


Sorry I don't buy it, it's smacks too much of the silliness that gets foisted on kids these days. You go in and take your risks... and half the fun is succeeding in spite of the odds. Few things take the fun out of it more than the GM slanting things so you can't lose or so that bad things don't happen to good players. Really few things are less fun than something scripted so you can't loose. Tough, sometimes bad things happen... and without the players consent... or more precisely they happen because of the players choices put them in the wrong place at the wrong time. At the end of the game it's just ua game, no one really gets hurt.

Seconded.

I once played in a one-shot RPG which was beautifully set up with a huge table depicting the city and surrounding lands and looked like it was going to be epic fun. In actual fact there were no stats and every gamble paid off. At one point we were in a tomb being attacked by an invulnerable spirit and the only way to defeat it was to pick the correct three symbols out of 20 and we had one go to get it right by pure guesswork. And we did it. At the big final encounter we had a magic sword, a magic bow and a magic shield to repel the daemonic invasion and it was nothing but "a daemon flies at you", "I shoot it with the bow", "it dies", over and over.

Dullest.
Game.
Ever.

Players who think of their PCs as their best friend or personal avatar are really missing out. Valuing the quality of the story with all its highs, lows and uncertainties is far more rewarding. I know players who relish bad things happening to their character and sometimes I'm one of them because it can be so much more interesting. It's not that you want to suffer glitches, but when they hit your situation gets more complicated and more challenging and you feel even better when you finally triumph in spite of it.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Remember how I said that there was one major category of exceptions? It's combat. That's a really good illustration of why there should be lethality somewhere in the game, and I certainly don't pull punches on my damage rolls. Again, as the studies show above, people prefer a really close call--an evenly matched combat has the greatest possibility of a desirable outcome in either sense. In your example, the combat wasn't closely fought at all--you would have been happiest had you barely won or barely lost, but winning by a wide margin was as dissatisfying as "rocks fall, everyone dies."

As GMs, our primary responsibility is to make things as fun as possible for the players... and if we accept that literally any throw of the dice can put them into life-or-death mode, that situation becomes impossible to manufacture. Especially in cases where low dice pools are being used, which tend to be high-tension anyways (because it means the players are having to do something they didn't expect to do), critical glitches can come up at really inconvenient times for psychologically optimized stories.

Again, though, the exception is combat, because death is an expected outcome. As has been stated before: The burning of Edge besides, there's not a lot that can happen once sufficient bullets hit your character, so there's less of a feel that the character has failed spectacularly (as opposed to achieving a "near miss" in the failure sense) when they die.

[Aerospider]

As GMs, our primary responsibility is to make things as fun as possible for the players... and if we accept that literally any throw of the dice can put them into life-or-death mode, that situation becomes impossible to manufacture. Especially in cases where low dice pools are being used, which tend to be high-tension anyways (because it means the players are having to do something they didn't expect to do), critical glitches can come up at really inconvenient times for psychologically optimized stories.

The problem with this is that even a critical glitch can't kill without the danger being there before the roll. You won't suddenly be reaching for the Hand of God because you botched a Data Search test. You have to be in harm's way already. If you don't want a glitch to put you in big trouble, make a safer plan.

And it depends what your players think is fun. Unpredictable, challenging and messy are key for me.

[Raiden]

lol, crit glitch a data search and uncover completely false info? thats as good as being dead if the info is for the run

[FuelDrop]

lol, crit glitch a data search and uncover completely false info? thats as good as being dead if the info is for the run

My group has done runs with bad intel before. We survived... just. Safe to say that the guy that gave us the faulty intel and subsequently betrayed us demonstrated that even hand of god can't save you from a short burst of ex-ex to the head.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

The problem with this is that even a critical glitch can't kill without the danger being there before the roll.

What would you do if someone critical glitched a Pilot test? What about a Climbing test? Or any of the other ten million dangerous things a 'runner sees as a typical part of their job?

The best possible result from this is that the player sees the crit-glitch, rerolls it with Edge, gets a plain success, and goes, "Whew, that was close." But a master infiltrator falling to his death during the entry phase when no one even knows he's there simply because he got screwed by a die roll adds literally nothing to a game and has the potential to take away quite a bit from his player--especially if this is an old, established character.

[almost normal]

Kind of like the helicopter full of navy seals that died 10 years ago from a lucky RPG hit?

Shit happens. If you can't handle random elements of danger, take more edge, or play a different game.

[Dakka Dakka]

Kind of like the helicopter full of navy seals that died 10 years ago from a lucky RPG hit?

Shit happens. If you can't handle random elements of danger, take more edge, or play a different game.

Wasn't your point that against a critical glitch you cannot do much?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Wasn't your point that against a critical glitch you cannot do much?

You can downgrade it to a Normal Glitch. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Kind of like the helicopter full of navy seals that died 10 years ago from a lucky RPG hit?

Shit happens. If you can't handle random elements of danger, take more edge, or play a different game.

1. I play RPGs to get away from tragedies like that, which, unfortunately, do occur in real life.

2. My argument is that I'm playing the game as written and intended, so I have no need of doing otherwise.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

2. My argument is that I'm playing the game as written and intended, so I have no need of doing otherwise.

Problem is that others also claim they are playing the Game as Written and Intended, so you have no real exclusivity here. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
In fact, since both positions here are fairly dominant in their respective corners, it is highly probable that someone is likely wrong.....
Unfortunately, we have no real way of knowing.

[All4BigGuns]

1. I play RPGs to get away from tragedies like that, which, unfortunately, do occur in real life.

Personally, I think those who go by this are the ones who are "right", but add in getting away from other things in real life as well such as "scraping by" financially and other such unpleasantness.

[Draco18s]

Personally, I think those who go by this are the ones who are "right", but add in getting away from other things in real life as well such as "scraping by" financially and other such unpleasantness.

You try being poor for an hour. It's made grown men cry.

[All4BigGuns]

You try being poor for an hour. It's made grown men cry.

I know. I'm poor. That's why I said that I believe that perspective is the one I consider to be "right" (and added the addendum).

[Dakka Dakka]

You can downgrade it to a Normal Glitch. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

And how would that help if the failure kills you/makes the run impossible/majorly inconveniences you in some other way? Downgrading a glitch to a regular failure glitch is only viable if the failure in itself does not inconvenience you enough to care about it.

GM: "Roll your damage resistance test."
Player: "Damn, I critically glitched that."
GM: "Your head explodes and shower the room with blood, bnone and brain matter."
Player: "I use edge to downgrade the glitch."
GM: "Your relatives can have an open casket for the funeral"
Player: (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wacko.gif)

[Irion]

This. At my table, if you pick up failed dice and reroll them, they're no longer 1s. Glitches aren't determined until after the dice stop rolling.
So at our table you can "negate" a glitch by rerolling the dice.

Maybe it doesn't make sense "any other way" if the rule exists...unless it doesn't make any sense for the rule to exist.

It's like an if(false) { } statement in programming. It'll never execute, but it'll compile anyway!
(Most compilers will throw a warning that it won't ever execute, but there are valid reasons to do it).

(Similarly there's if(a != a) { }--read "if a value does not equal itself," which appears at first glance to always evaluate to false, but there is one case where it will evaluate to true: NaN.* All comparisons for equality to NaN return false. I.e. NaN == NaN will return false, so the inverse will return true).

*Special value, "Not A Number." Happens when you attempt to divide by 0 or similar.

Then please arguee that way all the way. If you reroll your failed dice then the successes you had before are also deleated. The glitch is there if after the dice stopped rolling. After that happend you got the option to roll again.

So if you go with everything is deleted and it is a fresh roll, it should also be the case for any hit you had.

Example:
You got 2 hits with 10 dice and 5 times 1-> Glitch.
You reroll 8 dice and get 2 hits with them and no 1. That means you have passed the test with no glitch and 2 hits.

[Aerospider]

What would you do if someone critical glitched a Pilot test? What about a Climbing test? Or any of the other ten million dangerous things a 'runner sees as a typical part of their job?

The best possible result from this is that the player sees the crit-glitch, rerolls it with Edge, gets a plain success, and goes, "Whew, that was close." But a master infiltrator falling to his death during the entry phase when no one even knows he's there simply because he got screwed by a die roll adds literally nothing to a game and has the potential to take away quite a bit from his player--especially if this is an old, established character.

Those "ten million dangerous things" aren't dangerous if you can't get hurt. It doesn't matter how masterly your infiltrator is - if he's scaling a building at a lethal height without safety equipment then he's putting his life at risk. That's why when people do it in real life it makes the papers. I contest that allowing the game to be more lethal than only-combat-kills adds literally nothing, but there are always ways out. For instance, a spirit could be commanded to catch him before he lands or he could use that parachute he remembered to bring. What with him being a master and all.

But clearly our motivations differ. If over a few years of Shadowrun campaigns I had kept the same character with no scars, no warrants and no unhappy employers I'd consider it an unproductive few years. Alternatively, if I had a string of characters who had met untimely ends ranging from pathetic to cinematic I would have better stories to tell, I'd feel more proud of the things that went well and I'd be more excited about how far my current character might get.

[tsuyoshikentsu]

Mission Impossible would have been a terrible movie if Tom Cruise's climbing harness had broken, sending him plummeting to his death.

...Okay, bad example.

Star Wars would have been a terrible movie had Luke accidentally crashed his X-Wing into one of the turrets in the Death Star trench. You keep straw-manning my argument; I'm not saying that no one should ever piss off an employer or do anything dangerous. I'm just saying that, barring combat, it shouldn't be up to the dice. I guarantee that you'd be happier with a stable of characters that had all met epic ends than you would be if some of them were pathetic.

[mister__joshua]

Then please arguee that way all the way. If you reroll your failed dice then the successes you had before are also deleated. The glitch is there if after the dice stopped rolling. After that happend you got the option to roll again.

So if you go with everything is deleted and it is a fresh roll, it should also be the case for any hit you had.

Example:
You got 2 hits with 10 dice and 5 times 1-> Glitch.
You reroll 8 dice and get 2 hits with them and no 1. That means you have passed the test with no glitch and 2 hits.

2 things. Firstly, that's silly. Re-rolling your other dice doesn't remove the un-rerolled ones from existence. They're still there, sitting on the table
Secondly, we are literally 13 pages further on in this discussion now (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[Irion]

@mister__joshua
Yeah, but still it does not move on.
Still the same issue...

And no, it is not silly. It is a valid interpretation. Why can you drop the glitch but not the successes?
And it would not be against the rules...


It is just silly to allow rerolling to remove normal and critical glitches and probably getting more hits in any case...

That makes edge far to powerfull and far to usefull. MR. Lucky is not a problem from a strict rules perspective. He become a problem, because a lot of people allow edge to be very, very usefull.

Unless you roll very, very often.

[FuelDrop]

Just want to chip in and remind everyone that the GD's twist fate ability to force a reroll of all successes negates a critical success, and it's pretty much the direct opposite of the ability to use edge to reroll fails.
Not sure if it's relevant, but it is another example of an edge-forced reroll negating a critical whatever... just not in the players favor.

[Aerospider]

Mission Impossible would have been a terrible movie if Tom Cruise's climbing harness had broken, sending him plummeting to his death.

...Okay, bad example.

Star Wars would have been a terrible movie had Luke accidentally crashed his X-Wing into one of the turrets in the Death Star trench. You keep straw-manning my argument; I'm not saying that no one should ever piss off an employer or do anything dangerous. I'm just saying that, barring combat, it shouldn't be up to the dice. I guarantee that you'd be happier with a stable of characters that had all met epic ends than you would be if some of them were pathetic.

What's so special about combat?

I'm not too sure about the movie analogy. Would the film have worked if he died at all? Or survived but failed?
Maybe, maybe not, but it's most often the case in films that you can be damn sure Good will triumph and I prefer my games not to be so predetermined.