In need of Hand of God consequence ideas Options

[toturi]

Not always. For me, it's bad enough to have to pay the Karma to replace the point of Edge. If you want to put some kind of a negative quality on me atop that, then I expect and require a counterbalancing positive quality.

The GM has the option to give the character a Negative Quality. It does not mean that the Negative Quality needs be something that is totally detrimental to the character.

[StealthSigma]

The point of a role-playing game, any role-playing game, is to have fun.

I disagree. The point of any role playing game is to experience the story from within a role. Fun is something that an individual experiences while performing some act. Fun is a purely subjective matter.

If verisimilitude is more important to you than that your players have fun, I'm going to give you the same advice you give to GMs advocating "the players should never die." That advice being "Go write a novel." Go write a verisimilitudinous novel wherein the criminals on their first real heist get rapidly and swiftly overwhelmed by a massive response of armed company men because they plain slipped up and forgot to check for Stealth RFID chips and as a consequence get massacred in their homes. Yea, it shall be verisimilitudinous and consequenceful.

This paragraph humors me. I think it's because you jumped from your melodramatic shit-sandwiches to grandiloquent usage of verisimilitude.

This is an RPG. It exists to be fun. If the player feels his character should die - such as, say, making a dramatic last stand, emptying a magazine from an Ares Predator into the snout of a Great Dragon whilst shouting "Frag you!" then so be it. The Shadows will tell the tale of his demise for years to come - futile, but defiant to the end. (Whether that's a good or bad thing will be up to the teller.) If he decides "You know what, this is kinda retarded, I'd rather not die now," and invokes the Hand of God, then there you go. He survives. If, and only if he feels like it would be fun going forward, then have the dragon make him his bitch. If he doesn't, then the dragon is taken by a fit of benevolence and/or humor and can't stop laughing, until he just takes wing and departs, leaving the stunned imbecile with the realization that he shouldn't be alive, yet is, and always looking over his shoulder at the sound of anything flapping.

That's not even a valid outcome of the HoG by even the most minimal standards. The person that should have died is left with unscathed. Paradox! He never died!

Got your legs crushed off by an airlock and dragged away by your buddies? Mr. Johnson was feeling unusually benevolent and paid for cloned legs, or else one of your contacts likes you enough to get them replaced for you, and you now him two big ones.

So just to sum it up. You expect to be rewarded for dying.

Get caught trapped in an elevator with twenty kilos of C-12 on a ticking timer? The detonator's a dud or it was wired wrong.

This scenario requires a complete ret con. If the detonator was a dude or it was wired wrong, then the explosives would have never gone off meaning the character would have never suffered the wounds that would have killed him, which means the character would have never died, which means the burning of edge could not have happened, which means that instead the character would have died, which means the edge would need to be burned, which means the character would not have died.....

Burning edge to live cannot negate the act which kills you without creating a paradox or an infinite loop nor do the rules even suggest that a ret con happens.

"Fun" is something you make with others, it's not something you inflict on them.

Fun.

[Warlordtheft]

If verisimilitude is more important to you than that your players have fun, I'm going to give you the same advice you give to GMs advocating "the players should never die." That advice being "Go write a novel." Go write a verisimilitudinous novel wherein the criminals on their first real heist get rapidly and swiftly overwhelmed by a massive response of armed company men because they plain slipped up and forgot to check for Stealth RFID chips and as a consequence get massacred in their homes. Yea, it shall be verisimilitudinous and consequenceful.

I think your missing part of my caveat in that "verisimilitude" is important since my GMing style is very sandboxish. Players can go off the rails at anypoint--it is ok for players to refuse a job--I'll wing it and come up with something else for the session.

Also, not every research facility is a corp zero zone, meta-humanity/corpsec is not infallible (if it wasn't this way runners would not exist), and lastly having versimilitude in the campaign adds to the enjoyment of my players. YMMV though. Players are different, some are just looking to kill SEC guards, be all that they can be, be the biggest badass street/sam, magiician, hacker/techno/rigger, gun bunny or pornomancer. Others are looking at the character and trying to figure out what motivates the PC, how does their PC feel about killing a sec guard who has 2.5 kids depending on daddy's/mommy's salary to live. Some like to be posed with the moral hazard: Do I try to save a little girl held hostage by the toxic spirit? Or do I just do my job and try to chase after and kill the toxic shaman?

I guess what I'm trying to say is different groups of players/GMs have different styles of play. Some are more combat oriented, some are more non-combat oriented, some are very strict on RAW, some are loose with the rules. In the end you're right, it is all about the fun people have with the game. My players enjoy my style of GMing, I'm left with the impression you and some others on DS would not be. That is OK. So far the RPG police have not arrested either of us for doing it wrong. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

[All4BigGuns]

You know, if you're putting story over fun, then the crap you pulled out and threw at me is getting thrown right back. Go write a fraggin novel and let people who actually care that their players are having fun take the GM seat.

[forgarn]

You know, if you're putting story over fun, then the crap you pulled out and threw at me is getting thrown right back. Go write a fraggin novel and let people who actually care that their players are having fun take the GM seat.

And you know what??? For some people the story IS the fun. For me and the people I play with, if there is no story then there is no fun. Fun is what you make it with what you are handed.

[Yerameyahu]

Everyone go write a novel! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The GM has the option to give the character a Negative Quality. It does not mean that the Negative Quality needs be something that is totally detrimental to the character.

Hard to argue with these obvious and clear points straight from the RAW… but for some reason people are trying.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

No. Death does not need to be a possibility. One can make them THINK that it is even if it's not.

I disagree...

[All4BigGuns]

Everyone go write a novel! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

Hard to argue with these obvious and clear points straight from the RAW… but for some reason people are trying.

It may be there, but one can only hope that by the time the next edition comes along, they'll wise up and remove that little GM-abuse magnet.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Not always. For me, it's bad enough to have to pay the Karma to replace the point of Edge. If you want to put some kind of a negative quality on me atop that, then I expect and require a counterbalancing positive quality.

Flashbacks to the time some pipe-hitting trog heavies took exception to me and beat me over the head with their pipes? Okay, but the neurological fuck-uppage and subsequent realignment in therapy left me ambidextrous, or something like that.

Why replace the Edge at all? I never do. You make it sound like it is a mandatory exoenditure to do so.
As fo REQUIRING a counterbalancing Positive Quality for a received Negative, you would be waiting a LONG time (as in forever) to get a positive out of Burning Ege to survive at our table. Survival is its own positive. Now, saying that, we do not go out of our way to absolutely screw people over. BUT, there are always negative consequences when Burning Edge for survival. Most of them are not too hard to overcome. As Yerameyahu indicated, even Qualdraplegia is not that hard to overcome in Shadowrun.

[Jeremiah Kraye]

Wait, so you're saying that little gem of RAW is a tool for GM's to abuse their group with? Man I gotta get on this, and then say "it's written in the book!".

GM Abuse is GM choice, there is never RAW for GM abuse. Honestly grow a pair or find a new GM, as no decent GM or a Decent Player would argue any of the above as abuse. I've had worse happen to characters in other less brutal systems. Shit I had to deal with my favorite minotaur character turned into a rock in old-school DnD, the fact was the group didn't have the effort or time to fix him, what made the whole situation hilarious was in an alternate dm game we came upon that rock at the center of a giant city, it was a know and loved piece of the city memorializing the efforts of the adventurer's who liberated said city from the forces of darkness. Gosh forbid you anyone every stone to flesh the thing...

The point is that without consequences, you have no purpose in playing a game. Without consequences why keep an inventory list? You don't have to worry about weight... Nuyen isn't an issue. Why even record your essense loss? Because those all have consequences.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Everyone go write a novel! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)
Hard to argue with these obvious and clear points straight from the RAW… but for some reason people are trying.

Would that I could. My Novel Writing Chops are not all that impressive.
I can write a good story for Gaming, but an actual Novel still eludes me for some reason.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It may be there, but one can only hope that by the time the next edition comes along, they'll wise up and remove that little GM-abuse magnet.

So you would sanitize the entire system to be character friendly?
Just Wow... Why even have dice mechanics at that poiint then? Just run free-form.

[Yerameyahu]

Show us on the doll where the GMs hurt you, All4BigGuns. :O At our tables, it's not the intent or the practice of the GM to 'abuse' things. We give them the freedom to maintain and enhance the game for our benefit. As StealthSigma pointed out long ago, this attack is on a straw man: '(if the GM is an asshole who randomly and inappropriately 'punishes' players and, by definition, a bad GM), this rule could be abused!' … Like all the rules?

It's not like we're talking about *player* rules abuse here, which is an actual problem that merits killing with fire. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif) This is the GM's job, and for once, the RAW isn't wrong. Neither are you *required* to give people any NQs if you and your players don't like that. You're not even required to follow the RAW, and you can (not) do this today, instead of waiting for the next edition.

[StealthSigma]

And you know what??? For some people the story IS the fun. For me and the people I play with, if there is no story then there is no fun. Fun is what you make it with what you are handed.

I am the sort of person that as a GM will give an illusion of choice. I would run a machiavellian campaign. In a sense, the way I would plan a campaign is to generate a number of mission ideas, none of which are required for the players to run because someone else will run them if the PCs don't. Of course, the intent is that the unspeakable horror will be released with the players barely having any clues to go with. The more missions they refuse that are related to the horror, the less likely they're going to know that it's being released. In fact, my overall design was such that players would refuse some of the dismally low or unusually difficulty sounding jobs related to the horror for more filthy lucre. Essentially, it was a game that was supposed to have the outward appearance of just doing a bunch of missions for fun. I never really got very far on it, unfortunately.

I would like to GM Paranoia sometime...

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

I am the sort of person that as a GM will give an illusion of choice. I would run a machiavellian campaign. In a sense, the way I would plan a campaign is to generate a number of mission ideas, none of which are required for the players to run because someone else will run them if the PCs don't. Of course, the intent is that the unspeakable horror will be released with the players barely having any clues to go with. The more missions they refuse that are related to the horror, the less likely they're going to know that it's being released. In fact, my overall design was such that players would refuse some of the dismally low or unusually difficulty sounding jobs related to the horror for more filthy lucre. Essentially, it was a game that was supposed to have the outward appearance of just doing a bunch of missions for fun. I never really got very far on it, unfortunately.

I would like to GM Paranoia sometime...

You just outlined my 200 Campaign Years (20 IRL Years) DnD Campaign. It was amazing to watch what the characters actually cared about and what they did not. When the horror of the campaign was revealed, they (with the exception of the 2 who actually caught on to what was going on) were caught so unawares that it was almost laughable. Of course, from that point on, it became a campaign of epic proportions. It was tremendously fun to run. Still dealing with the fallout of that campaign when I run the game. Had 5 sets of character incarnations in that time frame. Still have plots running through my head on that one.

[StealthSigma]

You just outlined my 200 Campaign Years (20 IRL Years) DnD Campaign. It was amazing to watch what the characters actually cared about and what they did not. When the horror of the campaign was revealed, they (with the exception of the 2 who actually caught on to what was going on) were caught so unawares that it was almost laughable. Of course, from that point on, it became a campaign of epic proportions. It was tremendously fun to run. Still dealing with the fallout of that campaign when I run the game. Had 5 sets of character incarnations in that time frame. Still have plots running through my head on that one.

It's definitely a lot easier to get big damn heroes out of D&D. A bit more difficult with Shadowrun, I would think. I wasn't entirely sure what to do about the big bad that could get the players wanting to be involved but my initial idea had been to make the horror something that threatened their lifeblood, megacorps. I was trying to figure out a way to cause the horror to collapse megacorps (no megacorps no running the shadows) that was semi-reasonable while making the horror something that runners could deal with while the corps and governments were mostly powerless.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It's definitely a lot easier to get big damn heroes out of D&D. A bit more difficult with Shadowrun, I would think. I wasn't entirely sure what to do about the big bad that could get the players wanting to be involved but my initial idea had been to make the horror something that threatened their lifeblood, megacorps. I was trying to figure out a way to cause the horror to collapse megacorps (no megacorps no running the shadows) that was semi-reasonable while making the horror something that runners could deal with while the corps and governments were mostly powerless.

Indeed... it is always a challenge.

In some ways, I think Shadowrun is a bit easier to digest, in that the Sideways advancement of Shadowrun allows a lot of flexibility, and the world does not swing too far, too fast. I do love my DnD Campaign (I am still using my beloved 3.5 Edition Set with a Black Company Rules Overlay) but I often have some issues with Level Based Advancement (Which the BC OVerlay helps with a bit, in my opinion) becasue of how the expectations of the way the world works (I absolutely hate Challenge Ratings). However, for sheer ease of campaign planning, DnD is the way to go. Simple and easy. Sometimes a little too simple.

I love running that Campaign for DnD, I vastly prefer to Play Shadowrun/nWOD.

[StealthSigma]

Indeed... it is always a challenge.

In some ways, I think Shadowrun is a bit easier to digest, in that the Sideways advancement of Shadowrun allows a lot of flexibility, and the world does not swing too far, too fast. I do love my DnD Campaign (I am still using my beloved 3.5 Edition Set with a Black Company Rules Overlay) but I often have some issues with Level Based Advancement (Which the BC OVerlay helps with a bit, in my opinion) becasue of how the expectations of the way the world works (I absolutely hate Challenge Ratings). However, for sheer ease of campaign planning, DnD is the way to go. Simple and easy. Sometimes a little too simple.

I love running that Campaign for DnD, I vastly prefer to Play Shadowrun/nWOD.

Well, the problem as I see it. How to create a believable big bad that can pretty much take down megacorps, with all their resources, without them being able to stop it, while at the same time making it something that can reasonably be bested by runners. I honestly think that the only thing that can accomplish this would have to be some sort of pervasive AI that has access to records of what the various corps and governments can do, thus basically giving it perfect knowledge to counter anything they could throw to try to stop it.

Such a scenario would essentially be relying on the fact that runners are typically "off the grid" so to speak, and while there may be dossiers about them, they're a bit more prone to act outside of the box. The question, of course, being if runners are such a small element to be effective, why can Ares Firewatch or other specop level groups also capable of succeeding? I think that then leads to a potential climax which basically requires a bunch of the small "independent" teams acting cooperatively independently to fell the beast. Runners, "fighting alongside" Firewatch, government spec ops, and other runners.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Well, the problem as I see it. How to create a believable big bad that can pretty much take down megacorps, with all their resources, without them being able to stop it, while at the same time making it something that can reasonably be bested by runners. I honestly think that the only thing that can accomplish this would have to be some sort of pervasive AI that has access to records of what the various corps and governments can do, thus basically giving it perfect knowledge to counter anything they could throw to try to stop it.

Such a scenario would essentially be relying on the fact that runners are typically "off the grid" so to speak, and while there may be dossiers about them, they're a bit more prone to act outside of the box. The question, of course, being if runners are such a small element to be effective, why can Ares Firewatch or other specop level groups also capable of succeeding? I think that then leads to a potential climax which basically requires a bunch of the small "independent" teams acting cooperatively independently to fell the beast. Runners, "fighting alongside" Firewatch, government spec ops, and other runners.

Yeah, that is a tough one.
Indeed... How did it work out?

[StealthSigma]

Yeah, that is a tough one.
Indeed... How did it work out?

It didn't. I never got the players to run it. So planning much beyond the first couple of sessions felt pointless to me. On the upside, the generic appearance of it would make it something that could support a GM with two separate groups living and breathing in the same world without necessarily realizing it.... then once the big bad comes out.... have one mega session with all the players and get their collective WTF looks.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

It didn't. I never got the players to run it. So planning much beyond the first couple of sessions felt pointless to me. On the upside, the generic appearance of it would make it something that could support a GM with two separate groups living and breathing in the same world without necessarily realizing it.... then once the big bad comes out.... have one mega session with all the players and get their collective WTF looks.

That would be very entertaining indeed... (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Aerospider]

Not always. For me, it's bad enough to have to pay the Karma to replace the point of Edge. If you want to put some kind of a negative quality on me atop that, then I expect and require a counterbalancing positive quality.

Flashbacks to the time some pipe-hitting trog heavies took exception to me and beat me over the head with their pipes? Okay, but the neurological fuck-uppage and subsequent realignment in therapy left me ambidextrous, or something like that.

"Bad enough"?!
"Expect"?!!
Free positive quality as compensation?!!!!!

You're NOT F***ING DEAD.

More to the point, the GM has bestowed his divine grace in allowing you to retain your oxygen privileges, so making demands is somewhat short-sighted to say the least.

[Halinn]

While I disagree with making demands for bonuses for the HoG, you should remember that it's not a Get Out Of Jail Free card. You are actually paying for not dying by burning the edge. It actually costs you something already.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

While I disagree with making demands for bonuses for the HoG, you should remember that it's not a Get Out Of Jail Free card. You are actually paying for not dying by burning the edge. It actually costs you something already.

Only if you actually buy it back.

[Halinn]

Only if you actually buy it back.

If you don't, you'll have a point of edge less than you normally would.