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> Death in SR4, how does it happen to PCs?
sunnyside
post Jul 18 2007, 07:10 PM
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In previous editions death was pretty straighforward. If you die you die. Hand of god was optional and since it totally burned out a characters karma pool it was often considered a fate worse than death. Seriously. If a campaign allowed players with dead chars to make new ones with some karma (I think 1/2 party average being common) they would often have a more powerful character if they did that than if they kept their no-rerolls character. Probably RPing that the experience was so traumatic that their char has sold their expensive toys and gone into retirement by buying whatever lifestyle they could affort.

Now SR4 has burning single edge points to avoid death. I actually like this. I like the deep developed characters you get after playing a while, and I also dislike playing soft, so this lets me have my cake and eat it too.

But I'm wondering how things really should go down when edge starts to get burned. Especially in regards to a character actually dying. Put another way, how much does each edge burned get you out of?

In the headshot example of the book the PC is put into a coma and lives to fight another day. But what if the Yaks are supposed to bring back the characters head on a stick? Did that edge buy the char some aura of invulnerability to get them out of that too?

Ditto for the classic " something catches on your jacket as you fall off of the building". Unless your char was RPing being drunk and stupid, there is probably something that put them in that situation. And that something like as not has a ranged weapon.

Personally I play that a point of burned edge gets a temporary out, cinimatically relevant to the situation (often adding effects that couldn't otherwise happen in the game). Generally I also let them keep on their feet to some degree. However their invulnerability bubble doesn't last long. And they'll have to keep burning edge to keep prolonging their life.


For example in the book case of a headshot I'd have a slip in their footing cause the snipers shot to be off and the characters lower jaw gets blown clean off instead of their cranium, and maybe I'll assign 3 boxes of damage.

This buys them a little bit of time to start running while the sniper stands up and tries to get back into position, but the rest of the yak team is still around, and the character isn't safe yet. If they were going to turn in a direction I know would result in their immediate doom I burn another edge and say that their "gut" tells them not to go that way.

And so on and so forth until eventually the player escapes or runs out of edge.


This does make "Mr. Lucky" type chars hard to kill. But again you have a "fate worse than death" situation. If Mr. Lucky has only gotten 30 karma and a dozen bp worth of disposable income so far in the campaign and they just went from edge 8 to edge 5 they are now worse than a starting character.

What do you do?
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mfb
post Jul 18 2007, 07:16 PM
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generally, if a character has to hand of god to survive, my ruling is that they survive the scene but may not participate further in it. if the yaks shoot him in the head, Lone Star shows up and scares them off. if he falls off a building, his jacket catches on something far enough down that the bad guys can't reach him. no matter what happens, he's done until the rest of the scene is resolved.
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sunnyside
post Jul 18 2007, 07:20 PM
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@mfb Is there any way a PC could die in your campaign? Other than continually screwing up faster than they can purchase more edge (which at a base of 3 karma means they would have to HoG on over half the adventures).
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Moon-Hawk
post Jul 18 2007, 07:25 PM
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QUOTE (mfb)
if the yaks shoot him in the head, Lone Star shows up and scares them off. if he falls off a building, his jacket catches on something far enough down that the bad guys can't reach him.

My favorite is falls of a building into the back of a passing truck. :-)
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mfb
post Jul 18 2007, 07:28 PM
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QUOTE (sunnyside)
@mfb Is there any way a PC could die in your campaign? Other than continually screwing up faster than they can purchase more edge (which at a base of 3 karma means they would have to HoG on over half the adventures).

assuming i don't have any unresolvable issues with the player (in which case i'll kick him out of the game as well as killing his character), a character can survive as long as they have a mechanical means to do so.
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Gargs454
post Jul 18 2007, 07:28 PM
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Well, the way that my GM handles it is that you can indeed go ahead and burn your edge to survive; however, you are likely in a coma and are looking at months and months of recovery.

Unfortunately, the next run is probably only a couple of weeks away, so in the interim you have to run a different character for several sessions. Additionally, its likely that a large chunk of your saved nuyen is going to be used up by the doctors trying to keep you alive. This lets you "save" a favored character, but it doesn't do you much good to be reckless all the time. The last player we had who did in fact die, simply made a new character and didn't worry about it.

I guess its all in how you run your campaign and word the HOG.
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Eryk the Red
post Jul 18 2007, 07:30 PM
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Sunnyside, I run with the assumption that burning edge reducing the maximum rating also, sort of like magic loss from essence. It's not explicitly written that way in the book, but it seems fair. Additionally (this part is just my own interpretation), I don't count rating modifiers when determining karma cost for raising an attribute. Meaning that a character who burns Edge has a true rating and an augmented rating. ( 4 (3), for example.) The true rating determines cost of raising it, but the augmented rating is the functional rating for gameplay purposes.

That keeps it pretty balanced.
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DireRadiant
post Jul 18 2007, 07:37 PM
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What the book uses as the "story" for the escape clause isn't what you use, you make up your own for whatever makes sense.

Maybe they cut off the wrong head? It's up to you as a GM to make up the story.
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Moon-Hawk
post Jul 18 2007, 07:45 PM
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QUOTE (mfb)
QUOTE (sunnyside @ Jul 18 2007, 02:20 PM)
@mfb  Is there any way a PC could die in your campaign?  Other than continually screwing up faster than they can purchase more edge (which at a base of 3 karma means they would have to HoG on over half the adventures).

assuming i don't have any unresolvable issues with the player (in which case i'll kick him out of the game as well as killing his character), a character can survive as long as they have a mechanical means to do so.

Same here.
If I'm not done running a campaign, and the player isn't done playing their character, then no, some unlucky roll of the dice is not going to screw up our game, and I don't have to "cheat" to make sure of that. I like that.

In my experience, the thought of having to spend precious karma to restore edge is plenty scary enough to preserve the fear of "death".
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sunnyside
post Jul 18 2007, 07:51 PM
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Hum. For the players. Do you think you would enjoy being able to keep playing in the adventure at the risk of losing more edge/dying or would you rather just be "out" which seems to be the consensus so far.

Or maybe would you like to have a choice or something?
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knasser
post Jul 18 2007, 08:06 PM
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In my game, if a point of edge is burnt to save the character's life, it is gone. Gone gone. Gone as in you can't buy it back that character will never reach six Edge.

This is compounded by the fact that all characters start with minimum edge (2 for humans, 1 for metas) and only gain more as a result of periodic awards at certain karma stages.

But even without my "realism" take on Edge awarding, making burnt mean burnt is a good way to stop your game turning into a Road Runner cartoon.
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Solomon Greene
post Jul 18 2007, 08:14 PM
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I run a cinematic campaign and my bad guys make some of the usual movie bad guys "mistakes". If a runner goes over the edge of a building, my arrogant evil bastard may not even look over the edge, because he knows there's "no way to survive" because that side of the building is a sheer drop with non-opening windows.

The stupidity of my bad guys is directly porportional to edge expenditure.
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Whipstitch
post Jul 18 2007, 08:21 PM
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*shrug* With my current GM, you don't get any karma from the run if you HoG, (he'd rather have us be proactive and burn Edge to do something awesome or better yet, avoid dodgy scenarios to begin with) and the hospital bills are likely to eat up a fair amount of any profit made on the run (provided you actually complete the run to begin with). To paraphrase the book, defaulting on loans or hospital bills can result in earnest conversations with very large individuals about the proper way to manage one's debt. And a new organ or two can turn out to be very, very expensive. Generally speaking, if you screw up on two runs in a row, you really start to become more of a burden then a benefit to the team in our games. The roadrunner cartoon issue doesn't become a problem unless the team manages to be real slick on their first half dozen runs or so with our group.
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BlackRabite
post Jul 18 2007, 08:46 PM
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I think I might be misunderstanding something here. I was under the impression that you bought your edge at chargen and that was your maximum possible edge. For instance you made a 5 edge runner, if you used a point of edge for a longshot or a re-roll it would give you 4 of 5 maximum edge and that the edge is replenished at GM's discretion.

I thought that when you HoG'ed to keep yourself alive it burned your maximum edge down, and you would then be a 4 edge runner. Can you pay karma after chargen to increase your maximum edge again? I thought it was a permanent loss like Essence.

We may just play it backwards, but we use edge very sparingly because our GM refreshes it only for exceptional solutions to problems on a run or for excellent RP that serves a purpose in game. I always thought Edge was... well a stat that gave you the edge over your opponent when you really needed it.
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sunnyside
post Jul 18 2007, 08:53 PM
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Unless there is something I missed edge is treated mostly as another attribute. As in you could raise it later in the game, or, if you'd burned some of it, you could buy it back up.

Sounds like a bunch of people have some variant on reducing the maximum edge along with the current value. Creating a "burnout" effect over time.
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Kyoto Kid
post Jul 18 2007, 09:20 PM
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...I side with Eryk the Red and Knasser on this. Edge burned to save your bum from the great beyond is burnt and reduces the character's attribute maximum. In the past I also added some form of mental trauma related to the "near death experience" however SR4 saw fit not to include Phobias and Flashbacks as NQs leaving only Combat Paralysis which I feel is too crippling.
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FriendoftheDork
post Jul 18 2007, 10:44 PM
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QUOTE (knasser)
In my game, if a point of edge is burnt to save the character's life, it is gone. Gone gone. Gone as in you can't buy it back that character will never reach six Edge.

This is compounded by the fact that all characters start with minimum edge (2 for humans, 1 for metas) and only gain more as a result of periodic awards at certain karma stages.

But even without my "realism" take on Edge awarding, making burnt mean burnt is a good way to stop your game turning into a Road Runner cartoon.

That's almost exactly what I do as well. When you burn edge you burns so permanently, not just until you can buy it up with karma. Otherwise I let people buy the edge they want, but they can never burn more edge than they could have had to begin with. Thus humans have 7 "extra-lives" while metas have 6.

Limiting them to only 1 or two at creation is a bit harsh I think, and makes it only a point to spend edge to reroll failures instead of adding dice to make those extraordinairy rolls. I'm talking 14 hits rolls :)

And there are bound to be situations where I won't allow burning edge to escape certain death. If they're unlucky, sure no problem. If they go and dare Lofwyr, then no amount of edge will save them.
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Fortune
post Jul 19 2007, 12:12 AM
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I'd let them buy their Edge back as they choose, but just limit the maximum uses of HOG to 6 ... across the board for all characters.
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Nerf'd
post Jul 19 2007, 02:29 AM
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I've been running SR4 for about 8 months now, and I've had exactly 2 HoG situations.

Then again, I take it to heart that H0G is completely at GM discretion. My take is that, if someone is burning edge to save their character's life, then yes, they live...but they may not be playable.

In one case, a player burned edge to escape the ill effects of a chest full of full-auto fire at short range. The character lived, but I told the player to bring me a new one.

In the other case, the H0G was to ensure a critical success - which saved the entire team from what would effectively be a debilitating event (explosion + water = hydrostatic shock...and they were all standing in the water).

I don't treat HoG as a player's right - they can have it, IF I approve, and if they're not dying of a terminal case of stupid.
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Moon-Hawk
post Jul 19 2007, 03:02 PM
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I don't limit Escape Certain Death. The karma cost of restoring a lost point of Edge (or living with a lower Edge) is punishment enough. I've still never seen it become a problem.

My policy on Escape Certain Death is that, the character will survive and you will be able to keep playing them, but it's hardly a get-out-of-jail-free card. Bad things happen. I might give a flaw. I might take a limb. You might get captured and the next run will be your escape/rescue. You might be left in a bad situation, like in debt to Brick Top. *oink oink*
These are just examples, but after use Escape Certain Death, your Edge goes down, and I will do something else mean that will take time/money/RPing to correct, but the character will still be playable, and the campaign will continue.
Of course, YMMV. The only way ECD can be used wrong is when the players and GM aren't on the same page as to how it will be used.
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Bull
post Jul 19 2007, 03:59 PM
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How do PCs in my SR4 game die? Well, only happened once while playtesting... And that was when, confronted by a Chain Link Fence and a lone security guard at a gate, the PCs decided to switch to "Plan B!", which apparently involved ramming the van into the front of the office building, getting stuck in the van when it wedged into the doorway, and then blowing themselves up when one of the PCs critically glitched throwing a grenade.

It was ugly.

:]

Bull
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eidolon
post Jul 19 2007, 05:35 PM
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Haha. That reminds me of something that happened in a game I was playing in. We got this awesome idea for a warehouse assault where we were going to all jump in the armored van, ram through the rolling door, and fire out of the windows and doors as we drove down through the warehouse.

When the van hit the armored, reinforced sliding door, the rear end popped up in the air and came back down, and the sentry gun mounted over the door opened up on us. The van wouldn't start, so we executed plan "open the back doors and run for our lives and hope we don't all die". :D
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Kyoto Kid
post Jul 19 2007, 08:01 PM
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QUOTE (Bull)
How do PCs in my SR4 game die?  Well, only happened once while playtesting...  And that was when, confronted by a Chain Link Fence and a lone security guard at a gate, the PCs decided to switch to "Plan B!", which apparently involved ramming the van into the front of the office building, getting stuck in the van when it wedged into the doorway, and then blowing themselves up when one of the PCs critically glitched throwing a grenade.

It was ugly.

:]

Bull

...nearly had one buy it when she attempted to bind a Force 4 spirit of fire (mentioned the tale before in another thread). The worst (or maybe funniest) part, this occurred in "downtime" before the runners even met with the J. The mage who was with her also got hacked up pretty bad as well as I remember. One of those 'Dice Unkind" moments where they couldn't roll a hit to save their lives & I couldn't seem to miss.
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dog_xinu
post Jul 21 2007, 04:02 PM
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All of my player's characters that have died (and it hasnt happen too many times) they just died. Shot in the head. Shot in the chest. Grenade explodes. Spell nukes them. Whatever. Most of the time the PC goes somewhere they shouldnt. Or pissing someone off they shouldnt.

no really great deaths.. not even my own (when I got to play). I just kept nuking a "evil mage" and his spirit nuked me. I am not sure if I got the "evil mage" but his spirit did nuke the hell out of me.

YMWV
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DTFarstar
post Jul 21 2007, 09:33 PM
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In the vein of the last few posts, I miss the stupid deaths thread. It was highly amusing. I would just try and start a new one, but being a relative newcomer, I don't actually have any stories to add.
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