Hand of God, a question for GM's Options

[VykosDarkSoul]

Just wanting to know how all of you are treating Hand of God.

The way my fellow GM and I are looking at it for now (we alternate GMing and are trying to stick house rules the same for both games) is a one and done deal. You get it once, and only once, per character.

Just want to see how other people are treating it! Thanks in advance!

[Jeremiah Kraye]

I thought the rule was, you burn 1 permanent point of edge, and receive any "storyline" penalties the GM attaches dependant upon circumstances. These can include negative qualities, stat hits, etc.

I could see everything from permanent physical or psychological damage to loss of equipment, etc.

[VykosDarkSoul]

Oh dont get me wrong, all that applies as well. But what we are doing is that you burn the edge, you take the penelties, and you get to live. But the Hand of God doesnt apply to you again.

[almost normal]

So if a character has 9 edge, they can only burn one before dying permanently?

[VykosDarkSoul]

First, congrats on 9 edge, no idea how you got there, but cool.
Second, yes. you can use the edge up to that point, but if it gets down to the point where you have already used your Hand of God and you dont have docwagon, etc...then sorry, roll up a new one. Shadowrunners die, its part of the job, if there is no threat of perm death, there is no fun (IMO). whats the challenge if you can burn an edge, and then buy it back with Karma, rinse/repeat.

We thought about working something out to limit it to a certain # of times, etc etc etc, but didnt want to deal with it, and we decided that once is enough.

[vladski]

I hadn't realized that they had changed this from the original 4ed where you burned ALL edge points. In my games, that's what happens and yes, you only get one HoG per PC, ever. I think the text saying that you only burn one point of Edge permanently and no reference to this being a one shot deal cheapens the concept.

Vlad

[almost normal]

Do you make edge purchases cheaper to make up for the large loss of utility, or do you just dislike edge?

I guess I just fail to see the logic in it. Burning an edge, especially a higher rated point of edge, is more costly then starting a new character. I tend to want my players to burn that point, because starting over fresh seems like a cop out, and potentially dicks the party over.

[VykosDarkSoul]

Do you make edge purchases cheaper to make up for the large loss of utility, or do you just dislike edge?

I guess I just fail to see the logic in it. Burning an edge, especially a higher rated point of edge, is more costly then starting a new character. I tend to want my players to burn that point, because starting over fresh seems like a cop out, and potentially dicks the party over.

No we do not make edge purchases cheaper, and you can still use and/or burn edge for the other purposes listed, this is simply a modification to one of the many uses for edge.


*** edited for spelling

[almost normal]

Im not aware of any other purpose for burning edge, could you elaborate?

[VykosDarkSoul]

And now to get back to the proper rail of the topic, this wasnt intended as a place for people to pick apart how I do things, I simply wanted to know how other GMs are handeling it out there (thank you Vlad)

[VykosDarkSoul]

Im not aware of any other purpose for burning edge, could you elaborate?

I dont have my books (at work) but one use is to get a "critical success".

Burning edge is listed on page 75 of SR4A, and, in my game, if you want to do something that can normally be done with edge, but you are out, you can burn an edge. It all matters on how much you want it. Most people dont want to burn edge.

[Jeremiah Kraye]

As a future DM, I plan to let my people do exactly what hand of god is intended to do, let their character live.

A: you are removed from the current encounter.
B: you suffer a point of edge loss.
C: you take penalties I come up with.
D: you have the option to reroll if I deem that your character cannot meaningfully return to the current storyline without delaying everything.


That's about it. You might want to look at it as a permanent reduction to edge max instead, making the punishment more meaningful for HoG.

[almost normal]

Well, no. The Hand of God, or Dues ex Machina as it's usually referred to, is about stepping in above and beyond the scope of the rules to achieve some goal, in your case, it's to save a player. My confusion was based upon your previously unstated rules change that gimps edge, for as of yet, no good reason.

[ShadowDragon8685]

I tend to be pretty lenient about things like this. Sure, death is part of the risks you're taking, but it's no fun to get randomly geeked because some random nameless Knight Errant goon rolled spectacularly well on a burst of fire from a submachine gun and you somehow rolled spectacularly poorly on your resistance roll.

I let my players spend a point of Edge to negate the damage from a single attack to avoid random geekery like that. So invoking the Hand of God rule would be for more serious things, like getting caught in a crossfire ambush or something. I'd let my players invoke the Hand of God to remove their characters safely from the entire scene. Like if you got caught in a crossfire ambush, the gunfire would some Random Joe Driver floor his accelerator at the same time as you jumped, resulting in you landing painfully - and probably injured, but alive - in his passenger's side chair as he sped away from the scene.

[Jeremiah Kraye]

I let my players spend a point of Edge to negate the damage from a single attack to avoid random geekery like that. So invoking the Hand of God rule would be for more serious things, like getting caught in a crossfire ambush or something. I'd let my players invoke the Hand of God to remove their characters safely from the entire scene. Like if you got caught in a crossfire ambush, the gunfire would some Random Joe Driver floor his accelerator at the same time as you jumped, resulting in you landing painfully - and probably injured, but alive - in his passenger's side chair as he sped away from the scene.

Another prime example would have something randomly encounter the problem. IE in the wastelands something big and nasty engages the problem while you and your team get away, it ends the encounter and you suffer the circumstances, but at least your team isn't dead, or maybe it changes the encounter from a "firefight" to a "run for your life".

[StealthSigma]

Another prime example would have something randomly encounter the problem. IE in the wastelands something big and nasty engages the problem while you and your team get away, it ends the encounter and you suffer the circumstances, but at least your team isn't dead, or maybe it changes the encounter from a "firefight" to a "run for your life".

Bear who walks through walls?

[VykosDarkSoul]

Bear who walks through walls?

Ahh...but only your food has anything to fear from him!

[vladski]

And now to get back to the proper rail of the topic, this wasnt intended as a place for people to pick apart how I do things, I simply wanted to know how other GMs are handeling it out there (thank you Vlad)

De nada, chummer. I am always interested in how others handle their games. I take a lot away from DS in improved ways to handle things in my own games. At the same time, I don't always agree with what appears to be the "consensus" rulings from the majority of DS'ers. Which is fine. I don't ever need to BE right or typically ever argue. I do what I think is right for my games. Everyone else does what is right for their games. The SR police will never come knocking on anyone's door because they are "doing it wrong." Well, except that one time. And that has all been cleaned up by now. I am sure you'll never manage to find a log of it anywhere. Catalyst will deny it ever had ANY assets involved. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Vlad

[Blade]

The way I play it, the HoG is an agreement between the GM and the player: "do you want this character to survive this?". If we both feel that keeping the character alive is more interesting, I'll allow the player to burn and Edge point, even if has already used HoG before. If we feel that it'd make a better story if the character died there, or if there is no way to explain how the character can survive, there won't be any HoG, even if the character has a lot of Edge and has never used a HoG before.

[Critias]

Well, no. The Hand of God, or Dues ex Machina as it's usually referred to, is about stepping in above and beyond the scope of the rules to achieve some goal, in your case, it's to save a player. My confusion was based upon your previously unstated rules change that gimps edge, for as of yet, no good reason.

How exactly is Edge "gimped" by his house rule?

[Xenefungus]

Does anyone else think that it's strange that it's far more expensive for Mister Lucky (Edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) to use HoG than for Mister Bad Luck (Edge 1)? If they want to buy their Edge up again after the loss, that is 40 or 10 Karma respectively. I think it should just be the other way around, right?

Also, do you allow burning your Edge down to 0? Usually, a 0 in any attribute causes you to stop functioning for some reason (see Decrease Attribute Spells), would you do the same for Edge?

[Elfenlied]

At my table, Edge has a minimum value of 1, so you cannot use HoG if your value is 1. Also, buying Edge after your first HoG counts as buying Edge from 1 to 2, and it gets progressively more expensive than that.

[Aerospider]

Does anyone else think that it's strange that it's far more expensive for Mister Lucky (Edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) to use HoG than for Mister Bad Luck (Edge 1)? If they want to buy their Edge up again after the loss, that is 40 or 10 Karma respectively. I think it should just be the other way around, right?

Also, do you allow burning your Edge down to 0? Usually, a 0 in any attribute causes you to stop functioning for some reason (see Decrease Attribute Spells), would you do the same for Edge?

Not me. As with other attributes, it's harder to get to/stay at the top.
Any alternative would elicit calls for the same to apply elsewhere - I.e. going from 5 to 6 in Agility, say, should be relatively easy since the guy's so good at being agile.

[Pariahpaladin]

I run 3E so it is not quite the same, but i use one HOG per PC ever. They are free from any further harm even if they used it while knocked out in a burning building or something. They loose all karma pool and all good karma. Usually a character will have burned through most of their karma pool before this point though.

[StealthSigma]

Does anyone else think that it's strange that it's far more expensive for Mister Lucky (Edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/cool.gif) to use HoG than for Mister Bad Luck (Edge 1)? If they want to buy their Edge up again after the loss, that is 40 or 10 Karma respectively. I think it should just be the other way around, right?

No. I don't think it's strange at all. It's a concept called opportunity cost.

Mr. Bad Luck has a cheaper cost to rebuy burnt edge because he's given up the opportunity of having a significant edge pool for use in order to develop other areas. On the other hand, Mr. Lucky gave up other opportunities in order to increase his Luck and have those options available to him during a scene.