[X] My Assistant

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

What? Edge shouldn't go away because "luck" is offensive. Edge should go away because Edge is a stupid system that's poorly implemented and works awfully.

And I would disagree with that point of view. *shrug*

[Sengir]

Look, it's like this: I have a personal, direct, first-hand experience. I know three other people who are witnesses to it, as well.

So? Last time I checked nobody challenged that it happened, only why it happened...

PS: And given the TOS of this forum, climate data is something I won't touch with a ten-foot pole here

[Epicedion]

As well as limit it to a reasonable number with its inherent hardcap.

A hardcap of what, 64 extra dice per run?

The problem with Edge is that it gets exponentially more powerful, unlike every other attribute that increases linearly. The mechanics of Edge lend it not toward scrappy luck or perseverance against odds (low dice / high difficulty), but rather on rolls that already have a lot of dice behind them to take advantage of the exploding sixes. Or apparently to raise hit caps, I guess so you can blast the troll with 11 successes rather than 5.

It's not luck, it's just a weird metagame resource.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

A hardcap of what, 64 extra dice per run?

The problem with Edge is that it gets exponentially more powerful, unlike every other attribute that increases linearly. The mechanics of Edge lend it not toward scrappy luck or perseverance against odds (low dice / high difficulty), but rather on rolls that already have a lot of dice behind them to take advantage of the exploding sixes. Or apparently to raise hit caps, I guess so you can blast the troll with 11 successes rather than 5.

It's not luck, it's just a weird metagame resource.

Do you count the resource utility of each attribute? Have 10 passes with a Pistol (5 Turns, 2 IP each, 2 shots per IP - total of 20 rolls), and that Agility of 5 is worth 100 dice of utility. Add in standard defensive rolls along with it (Reaction of 5 = 9 dice of defensive rolls per Turn against ranged attacks = additional 45 dice utility over that same 5 Turns of Combat) and you have so totally blown the utility of Edge so out of the water that it is laughable. Normal attributes are not restricted to how many times they may be used in a Session.

[phlapjack77]

All those who don't currently like Edge, what say you to the idea proposed where Edge is not purchasable, but increases as the character's earned karma increases?

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

All those who don't currently like Edge, what say you to the idea proposed where Edge is not purchasable, but increases as the character's earned karma increases?

Which takes us back to the bad days of previous editions. No thanks.
Of course, this was not really directed at me, as I like the cuirrent Edge mechanic. *shrug*

[bannockburn]

A hardcap of what, 64 extra dice per run?

A hardcap of 8 for lucky humans. Which can translate into 64 extra dice per run. Or per session, even, depending on the system used for refreshment.
Since you've already only considered one possible edge use, why don't you go ahead and compare that number to what is possible in SR3 with a karmapool of ... let's say 20.

It's not luck, it's just a weird metagame resource.

Which, in part, represents luck.
Note how it's not called Luck, but Edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Epicedion]

Do you count the resource utility of each attribute?

Yes.

All those who don't currently like Edge, what say you to the idea proposed where Edge is not purchasable, but increases as the character's earned karma increases?

How you get it is less of a concern than how it's used.

[Epicedion]

A hardcap of 8 for lucky humans. Which can translate into 64 extra dice per run. Or per session, even, depending on the system used for refreshment.
Since you've already only considered one possible edge use, why don't you go ahead and compare that number to what is possible in SR3 with a karmapool of ... let's say 20.

Comparing a potential starting character to one at the ~200 Karma level (or ~400 for metas) from a previous edition?

Which, in part, represents luck.
Note how it's not called Luck, but Edge (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Better mechanic: spend a point of Edge, counts hits on 4+ (with exploding 6's). No extra dice. That's an edge. An extra handful of dice on top of a big stack of dice for eleventy billion counted hits available for nearly every significant roll in a run is a win button.

[bannockburn]

Comparing a potential starting character to one at the ~200 Karma level (or ~400 for metas) from a previous edition?

Sure. Why not? That starting character cannot _ever_ get more than his 8 edge. That's what I originally said even. The open-endedness (nicity? whatever ^^) of the karma pool system in comparison to the edge. Please read the original point before arguing against it.
Reiterated here for your perusal:

Karma pool was poorly implemented, because characters beyond a certain level always succeeded at what they tried. It still worked fine at normal power levels.

You're welcome.

Better mechanic: spend a point of Edge, counts hits on 4+ (with exploding 6's). No extra dice. That's an edge. An extra handful of dice on top of a big stack of dice for eleventy billion counted hits available for nearly every significant roll in a run is a win button.

Different mechanic. Can't say if better. Needs playtesting (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

[phlapjack77]

How you get it is less of a concern than how it's used.

Well it seemed that part of the concern with Edge was how a starting character could have 8x8 extra dice, just from the word go. Accumulating Edge based on earned karma would delay that 8x8 scenario until some (large?) amount of karma in the future. Then it's easier to imagine a well-seasoned runner having this kind of tool in their arsenal.

[Lionhearted]

With the karma system I proposed you would permanently spend edge and accumulate it as you gained karma.
So someone that accumulated edge over a long time would be able to pull off what did Sean Connery in the second highlander movie "All your energy focused into one point in time"

Also, christ on a bike people are passionate about dice luck.
Wholeheartedly support the idea of good or bad dice and lucky rollers, even if it's just human nature assigning intent.

[Cain]

All I have to add on the subject of dice luck is a 24-year unbroken string of critical fumbles. Every time I GM Shadowrun, *since the game came out*, I've critically fumbled at least once per game, and usually more. My record is all ones on 13 dice. And yes, I have witnesses. I don't know how the odds work for this sort of thing, but it does happen.

As for Edge, front-loading it is a more serious problem than gaining it eventually. A high Edge character may not gain any more luck as he gains karma, but it's not as bad if everyone is gaining it as well. In SR2-3, it wasn't that one character was hard to challenge as karma pools grew, it was that everyone became harder to challenge as karma pools grew. That meant things were balanced, between players at least, it's just that things became more powerful in ways not all GM's wanted.

Cost wise, having a high Edge doesn't prevent characters from having high dice pools elsewhere. You can have an Edge 6 pornomancer, for example. You might not be able to get the 50+ dice, but you can settle for 40, which is more than enough. The trick to a high Edge character is that you have comparable dice pools in most areas, with Edge on top of that. Unless you show off, you don't need to use Edge any more than any other character would. So, limiting Edge refreshes doesn't hurt them, it actually helps them more.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

Yes.

I don't see it. You complain about a POTENTIAL 64 additional Dice for a Human, and completely ignore that that is not likely how that 8 edge is actually used in play. In addition, you apparently have no issues with the Attribute 9 Charactrer who gets those dice in everything that attribute pertains to. There is a Disconnect.

Case in Point. An Edge 2 Troll I played had a 19 DP soak roll. Scored a single success. Used Edge to Reroll all failures. Net 18 Dice gain for a single point of Edge. Same character, still faring quite badly, needed to Burn Edge to survive an Encounter. Net Dice Gain? Absolutely nothing.

There are other uses of Edge than Adding the Edge score to the DP for exploding 6's.
Just becasue something can be abused does not mean it will be abused.

[Epicedion]

Sure. Why not? That starting character cannot _ever_ get more than his 8 edge. That's what I originally said even. The open-endedness (nicity? whatever ^^) of the karma pool system in comparison to the edge. Please read the original point before arguing against it.

We aren't exactly talking about Karma Pool, though. It's got its own problems that aren't necessary to hash out.

Well it seemed that part of the concern with Edge was how a starting character could have 8x8 extra dice, just from the word go. Accumulating Edge based on earned karma would delay that 8x8 scenario until some (large?) amount of karma in the future. Then it's easier to imagine a well-seasoned runner having this kind of tool in their arsenal.

I have kicked around an idea for tying it to karma gain, involving doubling the amount of Karma needed for the next step (have metas start at 1 and humans at 2) and then acquire a point at 10, 20, 40, 80, 160, 320, 640 etc. That makes it a quick race up to the 4-5 mark, and then a long haul to get to the 6-7 mark.

I would want to change the base Edge mechanic, still, though.

All I have to add on the subject of dice luck is a 24-year unbroken string of critical fumbles. Every time I GM Shadowrun, *since the game came out*, I've critically fumbled at least once per game, and usually more. My record is all ones on 13 dice. And yes, I have witnesses. I don't know how the odds work for this sort of thing, but it does happen.

As for Edge, front-loading it is a more serious problem than gaining it eventually. A high Edge character may not gain any more luck as he gains karma, but it's not as bad if everyone is gaining it as well. In SR2-3, it wasn't that one character was hard to challenge as karma pools grew, it was that everyone became harder to challenge as karma pools grew. That meant things were balanced, between players at least, it's just that things became more powerful in ways not all GM's wanted.

Cost wise, having a high Edge doesn't prevent characters from having high dice pools elsewhere. You can have an Edge 6 pornomancer, for example. You might not be able to get the 50+ dice, but you can settle for 40, which is more than enough. The trick to a high Edge character is that you have comparable dice pools in most areas, with Edge on top of that. Unless you show off, you don't need to use Edge any more than any other character would. So, limiting Edge refreshes doesn't hurt them, it actually helps them more.

1 in 13,060,694,016 -- or about 1000 times less likely than dying from a lightning strike. Don't golf in the rain.

[bannockburn]

We aren't exactly talking about Karma Pool, though. It's got its own problems that aren't necessary to hash out.

Uhm. Right. You answer to a point I made about not liking the karma pool in comparison to the edge attribute and then claim that we're not talking about karma pool?
Whatever floats your boat.
You still fail to make a compelling argument why you think that Edge is poorly implemented and works awfully. Look to Cain on how to do it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Epicedion]

Uhm. Right. You answer to a point I made about not liking the karma pool in comparison to the edge attribute and then claim that we're not talking about karma pool?
Whatever floats your boat.
You still fail to make a compelling argument why you think that Edge is poorly implemented and works awfully. Look to Cain on how to do it (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

I never addressed your comments about Karma Pool until for some reason you wanted me to compare high Edge versus high Karma Pool. Your snarky 'learn to read' bullshit is unwarranted and unappreciated.

I don't like to use the phrase 'misanthropic shut-ins' all that often (that's a lie, it sort of rolls off the tongue), so can we drag ourselves out of the mud, people?

[All4BigGuns]

All those who don't currently like Edge, what say you to the idea proposed where Edge is not purchasable, but increases as the character's earned karma increases?

No, but only because Edge doesn't need to be changed, it needs to be removed from the game in its entirety.

All I have to add on the subject of dice luck is a 24-year unbroken string of critical fumbles. Every time I GM Shadowrun, *since the game came out*, I've critically fumbled at least once per game, and usually more. My record is all ones on 13 dice. And yes, I have witnesses. I don't know how the odds work for this sort of thing, but it does happen.

Try rolling all 1s on a 24 dice soak pool in consecutive sessions.

[Falconer]

Karma pool in earlier editions... hated it. Sorry... just a mess... especially the 'group karma pool'.

TJ: strongly disagree... when things are written in an easily abusable manner... they get abused. That's why I objected to things like people abusing 'mist form' to teleport equipment as a fluff plot device, it's the camel's nose under the tent. I see it all the time in all sorts of games... creative players find creative and disruptive uses for all kinds of things. Also, why I state when it comes to crunch those are the things playtesting should find and point out to be fixed.

But in this case the edge 8 human paid out the nose for this... 20BP quality... an extra 15BP more on top of 60BP spent raising edge. So 95 out of 400BP went into edge alone.... that's not abuse in it's own right to get a lot of dice out of it... especially when you can only spend that 8 times before you're out and not all of them will be for adding 8 dice.



Though I just had a realization of why All4Big would advocate he needs 1000 karma to make a 'balanced' character. Bad luck quality and 1 edge... means he has no 'catchall' dice pool to use when he needs to pull a rabbit out of his hat and turn a mediocre dice pool into a good one.

Also he doesn't realize something important... the players between them normally have many times the amount of edge available to the GM. If the GM does spend edge countering player uses... he runs out before the players do. All it does is drag out the scene a little longer... rather than a quickie... *bang* ouch bullet to the eyeball... he's dead... big bad is down in the first round from the first punch... what a wimp, not memorable at all..



Edge and refresh... if SR5 makes edge more important through exceeding the limits... then I'd say it should most likely refresh faster a point or so at a time. Maybe even weight it so people low on edge regain it faster... But in any case, the 'critical' success rules are so badly flawed that I'd never use them to refresh edge.. it simply rewards powergamers for powergaming! (the bigger the dice pool the more likely the critical success becomes... the faster edge refreshes for the non-powergamed pools). Put simply... i expect the pistol adept to pull 4 nets every time he pulls the trigger... I don't think he should get a point of edge back on top of the rewards he's already pocketing for his stellar firearms skills as opposed to the guy who made a better well-rounded character but is only rolling 12 dice instead of 18+.

[sk8bcn]

Absolutely Dead. Fecking. Wrong.

I had three players. The guy I'm talking about, NEVER had less than stellarly-awesome attributes. This isn't just "I only remember his good sets", no, I remember specifically the unbroken string of absolutely awesome attribute sets he had.

It doesn't make it wrong at all. Your guy, created like, 5-6 characters with a random attributes rolls? That's like 36 rolls. The chances it happens is certainly way superior than winning in Euro-million.


The law of great number says:

"In probability theory, the law of large numbers (LLN) is a theorem that describes the result of performing the same experiment a large number of times. According to the law, the average of the results obtained from a large number of trials should be close to the expected value, and will tend to become closer as more trials are performed."


The samples you describe are small. So it's very possible.



Wanna mix the idea of beeing lucky and probabilities? Easy: Let's say that beeing lucky=roll well a certain number of important dices. That roll has a probability associated. So it may happen. So it's possible (in probability) that a lucker exists.


Likeliness of it decreases over time the more you roll as this probability follow a gaussian curve. (as it's finite, it's not really a gaussian curve but maths addicts well get the idea).

[_Pax._]

It doesn't make it wrong at all. Your guy, created like, 5-6 characters with a random attributes rolls? That's like 36 rolls. The chances it happens is certainly way superior than winning in Euro-million.

And here's proof you didn't read. Because I specifically said "dozens", not "5-6".

The samples you describe are small. So it's very possible.

Possible and Likely are two entirely different things. The chance that one particular player, consistently across dozens of characters, would always be significantly better than everyone else at the table, is so vanishingly small as to be, for all practical intents and purposes, functionally zero.

That was a LONG string of games. And is the foundation for my absolute loathing of any randomness during character creation, and strong preference for point-buy systems.

[Sengir]

1 in 13,060,694,016 -- or about 1000 times less likely than dying from a lightning strike.

For a single roll. Having it occur once in 24 years on the other hand..

[thorya]

And here's proof you didn't read. Because I specifically said "dozens", not "5-6".


Possible and Likely are two entirely different things. The chance that one particular player, consistently across dozens of characters, would always be significantly better than everyone else at the table, is so vanishingly small as to be, for all practical intents and purposes, functionally zero.

That was a LONG string of games. And is the foundation for my absolute loathing of any randomness during character creation, and strong preference for point-buy systems.

Dozens of reliable trials, where you just rolled randomly "for" him when he wasn't around and you weren't even playing. Those definitely were not subjective and all of these cases that you remember supporting your opinion are good reliable data. Luck must be an animate force acting in our world.

But, I've got good news for you. I just rolled 4 sets of stats for him and his string of luck is broken. Lady luck has turned her back upon him and your troubles are ended.

12, 15, 14, 16, 5, 15
14, 8, 16, 15, 11, 13
16, 12, 7, 9, 10, 13
15, 16, 13, 10, 17, 12

Let me know if you need help breaking any other strings of unlikely rolls.

[Epicedion]

Karma pool in earlier editions... hated it. Sorry... just a mess... especially the 'group karma pool'.

I'm not really keen on Karma Pool either, even though I prefer SR3 to anything else. I like the idea of characters having an 'oh-shit' pool of dice (or 'dramatically appropraite' pool) but I find the implementation of these things to be a little weak, because they've never really hit the sweet spot of coming through in a pinch but not overwhelming the game.

Karma Pool was rooted in the idea that the grizzled veteran would be generally more apt to do amazing things or survive against all odds. For awhile, early in a character's lifespan, it works okay, but pretty soon I think it shows up too fast and sticks around too long. There are 'burn a point' rules, but in my experience they're rarely used. Sort of like the D&D group that hoards their expendable items, you know, just in case, players are generally loathe to permanently expend stuff on their character sheet just for a quick benefit. So instead of self-regulating, Karma Pool just tends to accumulate until characters have 10 or 15 points and can do anything they want all the time.

So the solution there was obviously to make it a stat you have to pay to improve and add limits, but then the changes in the dice system made it so that snagging a die out of the pool for a roll wasn't a big help. So you snag all the dice out of the pool, lots of times. Or buy initiative passes (again, changes to the dice system made this the only way for a non-wired person to get a second pass, even though it was fairly common in SR3). Rerolling your gobs of dice (again changes in the dice system made this one mean you reroll 25 dice instead of 5) is hilariously useful sometimes.

So you get a weird combination of too awesome, or lackluster. No sweet spot.

[_Pax._]

But, I've got good news for you. I just rolled 4 sets of stats for [...]

Noone, because he'll never use these. I haven't had contact with that group for 10+ years.

Meanwhile - yu just go ahead and keep telling yourself whatever comfortabe lies you need to, to discount that maybe, there's something to "luck" that simply hasn't been quantified yet. *shrug*