I am a newbie GM running a group of equally new players. In a session last night, a player burned edge to stay alive for the first time, and I have no idea what could realistically happen to his character. For context, he is a mage that "died" in the astral plane in Denver with his body back in Seattle. The mage that killed him also nearly killed herself with drain, and was shortly taken down by another party member. The only idea I have is that he was sustaining a mission-critical invisibility spell through a sustaining focus. Would it be realistic to say it fails? Is that a consequence on an appropriate level? Does the community have any better ideas?

2 minor nitpicks before I make any suggestions:

1.) The player should not have been able to sustain an invisibility spell without maintaining line of sight. That means he wouldve had to have been there too

2.) The player has already burned edge. He's paid a price enough for his failure.


That said, he's not there anymore to sustain the spell, it goes down and the team needs to revert to their SHTF scenario.


as far as "fun stuff" for the mage who "died", you could say that his unconscious mind wandered the astral metaplanes for awhile before naturally returning to his body out of instinct. Give the player flashback scenes featuring any kind of surreal scenery that is triggered by like images in the physical world. The player sees the flying spaghetti monster every time he gets near pasta, for example.

Personally, I suggest apply some "odd" touch to the character, maybe a negative quality related to the astral plane or to his character persona and leave him unconciously wandering the astral planes being led back by a spirit maybe.

In fact I would be so bold as to say as the spirit that brought him back from the brink touched him in some way, pick a spirit type and see if you can find an attribute, quality, or effect you can apply to him in some way.

If you're really stuck for ideas, default to the Serious Wounds/Heavy Damage optional rules in AU. Last time one of my players used HoG I hit him with brain damage and left it at that.

He's already burned edge, he's paid the price for getting his astral ass handed to him on an ectoplasmic platter.

If you're going to do any thing else, don't just cram a ration of shit down his throat by heaping him up with negative qualities or fiat penalties or something. If you really want to do something more than just "you invoked the HoG, lose Permanent Edge," either give him a balancing positive quality of the same point value, or give him one of those qualities that can be both an advantage and a disadvantage when looked at cockeyed.



If you want to go with the "your soul survived by autopiloting on a Metaplane for a while," then, for instance...
He saw things within the Metaplane that would shake a magician's foundation of magic if he could remember them fully, things which completely contradict the rules of magic as he knows it. As it stands, he gains a Cursed 5BP flaw (reducing the number of 1s required to glitch on a spellcasting test by 1,) but gains a Mentor Spirit if he didn't already have one (it guided him through the Metaplanes and sticks with him as a powerful protective force) or the Guts quality (he stood alone against the horrors of the metaplane and prevailed with his mind shaken, but not stirred, and it gives him the perspective to resist fear and intimidation.)

Or give him Magic Resistance. It sucks when he's trying to buff himself, or when his allies (seems that there's several magicians in this group) try to heal him, but he was scorched and hardened by the opposing magician's blasting him, letting him more easily ward off such attacks in the future.

As long as the sustaining focus is on the magician's body (SR4a, pg. 199) the focus stays active. Therefore the invisibility spell is still sustained, because the focus is sustaining the spell not the mage. Also, on pg. 193 of SR4a, there is a box titled "While You Were Out..." and in it, it states:


I like the wording on pg 75 of SR4a (under Burning Edge) for starting out. Make the mage appear dead to everyone, and have the body fall into a coma until the end of the current adventure (or longer if you wish, but I would stick to the end of the adventure).

And I have to ask, why was the mage in the astral in Denver doing a run, with his body in Seattle?

Either his whole team was doing an astralized run for some reason, or someone doing a run in Denver needed astral backup that didn't require any meatspace support.

The fact that that point of Edge is gone permanently until he spends karma to get it back is enough "consequence". Anything further is the GM equivalent of holding a magnifying glass over a line of marching ants trying to burn them.

Personal opinion really... Falls to DM choice, nothing in the rulebook contradicts this.

In fact, the book says:


So I would say that the book says there SHOULD be more than just loosing edge.

Well I didn't want to be all rules lawyer about it, but without saying anything more... Yes?

I would do one of two things. If the player made a simple mistake or just had bad luck, i'd leave it at "hand of god, burn edge" and go on to describe how the hand of fate decided to intervene and save his life.

If the player made a stupid move or did some otherwise boneheaded maneuver, then I might consider tossing on a negative quality as well. It doesn't need to be something terrible that would make a character unplayable (like if the character already had Spammed, don't give him Sensory overload syndrome, or he'll be a heaping pile of seizure every 15 minutes) but something simple that could make him interesting. Such as give him incompetent (pilot groundcraft) if he's not the party driver. This way your not killing a character concept, but he will now be bumming rides from everyone or taking the taxi. And you know, it always seems like when crap goes down, its never the driver who is in immediate position to drive so someone else jumps behind the wheel until the driver can jack in.

Sorry... was using your post for emphasis. Did not come out the way I wanted. I was trying to counter those that said that losing the point of edge was enough.

Sorry, I forgot the sarcastic tag. I was more making a point that one could argue any way they want, when it comes down to it the DM makes the choice, I agree with everything you wrote, including the quoted text.

if the mage was sustaining a spell himself, the spell can be sustained after cast out of line of sight. Casting it in the first place requires line of sight. Sustaining Foci in contact with his body will continue to sustain the spell on it while in contact with his body, until he dies. Continuing the spell shouldn't be a problem.

As for the consequence: I agree with the general consensus that a negative quality should be merited. It is normally required, but as you mentioned everyone there is newbie, I'd suggest leniency. Unless, as previously stated, he did something stupid that, as a new player, he was DIRECTLY told not to do. Otherwise, newbie armor applies, I should think.

Hmm, make posessing the sustaining focus a geas for him. I.E. he needs it to perform his magic without penalty. Perhaps because of his near death experience he believes that only the magic in the focus keeps him alive.

Ouch... But that could indeed work.

Even better. Tell him that the sustaining focus in question must be kept on his person without changing the sustained spell or else he dies for realz.

Can anyone please highlight the word "Quality" in that paragraph? Because I cannot. (Hint: It does not appear in that paragraph.)

While it mentions, vaguely, consequences, the only consequences it actually prescribes beyond the loss of Karma that losing a point of Edge represents is, quote, "A character who uses the Hand of God should be incapcitated until the end of the current adventure or until the gamemaster deems she has recovered from the side-effects of her close call."

So put the character out of the game for a while, and if the time until the character would again be in a position to play is going to be more than one session, let them bring in a backup characters. Do not - I repeat, do not shovel a shit sandwich down the player's throat.

You're looking for the word quality when it doesn't need to be there. The rule states that the character should suffer the majority of the consequences of what would have killed him. If the character suffered an injury due to what amounts to massive spinal damage, then the Quadriplegic negative quality is a direct consequence of the action that would have killed him and should be given.

Reading this thread off to my husband and we thought. "Can a player have 0 edge?" Otherwise everyone's making some good arguments.

There are, of course, other alternatives to the Quadraplegic/Paraplegic Negative Qualities. They should suffer consequences, not necessarily the harshest possible penalties.

And yet, if you do that, you're telling the player "you may as well have let the character die, because they're now as good as dead because they're unplayable."

Bollocks to that.

You use the Hand of God to retain a character for continued play, not to retire them as a cripple and make a new character anyway.

You're already losing Karma, which (depending on how much Edge you had,) can be a loss of anything from 10 to 80. That's pretty goddamn harsh already.

They're also being forced to sit out a "reasonable" amount of time, which could be anything from no time at all, OOC, if they HoGged during the climactic encounter, to months of real time if the group is stuck in a period of intense action where several game sessions take place over the course of only one game-time day. So they've not only taken a testicle-hit to the Karma, they're taking the follow-up jab to the Karma opportunity cost of all that Karma they don't get to reap.

And you want to start heaping on negative qualities after that?

I said it before, I'll say it again: Bollocks to that. If you're going to go down that route, give the player compensating qualities of equal BP value - like if a magician gets Cursed, then he should also get Guts or something. That, too, can be a "consequence" of what happens to him - after all, what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.




Edge is a special attribute, so I would say, yes, a character can have 0 Edge. They're the Unfated, the Unfavored, not-the-chosen-one. It won't kill them, but it won't be there to save them, either.



And I think here is the crux of the problem - terminology.

The paragraph species consequences.
"Penalty" is not a synonym of consequence. You can be shot through no wrongdoing or outcome of any choice of yours - it isn't a "consequence," it just happened. And being filthy rich is a "consequence" of winning the lottery, either.


Consequences do not have to be penalties. If you're going to start adding on Qualities to represent the life-changing whammy of using the Hand of God, don't just look in the shit sandwich half of them. There's another half, too.

Agreed on all points. Especially the last one, but far too many seem to think that only slamming an All-You-Can-Eat-Buffet of Negative Qualities on someone is the only way to "balance" being able to use HoG.

I like the strawman you built.



Getting shot is a consequence of someone aiming a gun at you and pulling the trigger. Being filthy rich IS a consequence of winning the lottery. A consequence is simply the logical end point of an action or a series of action. Further, a penalty is also a consequence albeit one forced on you that you wouldn't otherwise face. Para and quadraplegism are consequences that can occur from significant spinal injuries. Amnesia is a potential consequence from head trauma.

That said, you asked where in the rules it permitted giving negative qualities when burning edge. I pointed it out. The wording is there. If a negative quality is a logical consequence of the circumstances that killed the character then it is permissible to grant it. The GM has carte blanche do whatever he pleases as long as it is a logical consequence of the circumstances that lead to the death. Yes. That can mean quadriplegism. It can mean phobias. It can mean lowered attributes. It can mean lost limbs. It can mean irretrievably lost equipment.

All that being said, I do not agree with GMs jumping to the most punitive consequences from burning edge unless it is agreed upon beforehand that the game will be particularly hardcore. I would probably stop playing under a GM that chose such a route for myself or any other player.

Um. It says 'suffer the consequences'. Are you trying to say that means *suffer* non-negative effects? Suffer winning the lottery? There are definitions, and then there are definitions in obvious context. You 'suffer the consequences' of whatever would have otherwise *killed* you. This doesn't mean everyone gets Quadriplegic, no, but neither does it mean the GM can't do things.

They no doubt will have to pay the karma if they ever want their edge back and I'm going to guess even a BFF street doc may still charge them a bit for medical treatment. After all, they had a near-death experience.

So, a paraplegic Street Samurai is still a "playable character" in your estimation, then?

For nearly every player, and for most character concepts, "Congratulations, your character's spine is all fucked up, welcome to the wonders of taking a dump in a colostomy bag and being unable to feel your own personal Mr. Johnson," might as well be the same as being dead.

It's kind of hard to do a stealthy breaking an entering from a wheelchair. Not even if you miraculously have the money to pay for one of the fancy ones that don't even have wheels. It's definitely going to rule out being a physical combatant.

So, no. It's not a strawman at all. Getting suddenly handed the paraplegic/quadriplegic Qualities after invoking the Hand of God is getting a shit sandwich shoved down your throat. Frankly, I'd refuse to play the character any more and make a new one. I imagine many players would feel similarly.





Not necessarily. It could be the result of a dumbfuck firing into the air wildly and you being a very unlucky bastard, or it could be the result of tripping a shotgun booby trap. Either way, it's not necessarily "You FUCKED UP ROYAL SON, EAT SOME PENALTIES!"

Which is what this is all about. You want to heap some penalties onto someone who survived something they shouldn't, to "teach them a lesson" for "being so stupid as to get killed and have to HoG," isn't it?!

Because that's the vibe I'm getting from the pro-heaping-of-negative-qualities camp here.



And I do not hold to that. If someone is forced to invoke the Hand of God, he's already lost a sum of karma which ranges from (at the very least) Non-Trivial, up to Oh My Fucking God. There's no need to heap extra shit on them atop that. If you absolutely must throw on some qualities, throw on a counterbalancing positive quality for the negative quality. If you're not imaginative enough to do that, then just call it good with the Edge burn.





And yet, it says "consequences," it doesn't say "qualities." The word "Consequences" could mean anything, it's very non-specific. In fact, it explicitly fails to prescribe a heaping of negative qualities. It could mean anything from "the guy who thinks he killed you strips you naked and dumps your ass in a gutter, whereupon you wake up with a splitting headache and a burning desire for revenge," to "You're in a coma for a month." It doesn't say you have to permanently saddle the character with a shit sandwich.




As would I. The karma loss and opportunity cost of any potential missed sessions is far more than enough.




Folks who win the lottery tend to wind up dirt-poor in a few years. They've also had hits taken out on them by their own kin.

And in this case, the consequences are already there; you lose the point of Edge, and you lose any opportunity to gain further Karma for the time you're out.




They'd better just hope they don't have Dixie Flatline (thieving bitch) for a street doc, then. That bitch will break into your doss, hack your commlinks and help herself to 10% of your net worth for her lifesaving services.

So, now you're saying that, contrary to the rules, the GM can't actually do anything beyond lost Edge and lost time? Make up your mind, because I thought you said, "The word "Consequences" could mean anything", which fully agrees with the bit you quoted to apparently refute ("That can mean quadriplegism."). 'Can' isn't 'must'.

Not that he "can't," but that he "shouldn't" unless the players agree to it or the campaign is particularly brutal. Or if they did something incredibly stupid to end up in that situation and the GM wants to saddle them with something that reminds them of their own stupidity. But he sure as hell shouldn't completely invalidate a character by saddling them with paraplegia/quadriplegia, which would invalidate most character concepts and massively increase how much they pay for lifestyle costs, thus sending them into a spiraling, inescapable circle of debt, starvation, and eventually death. We play games like this to escape reality, not live it.

I agree that quadriplegia is the most extreme example, but StealthSigma made it very clear that it's only the most extreme example of many possibilities. That's why 'can' isn't 'must'. That's why he's not even actually disagreeing.

There's also the fact that the GM has to consider whether it will be a detriment to the player's enjoyment of the game if he slaps him with, to use Shadowdragon's language, a shit sandwich in the form of negative qualities that drastically impact the character. A Magician with Cursed 4? A hacker/rigger with Gremlins 4? An Awakened character with a Geas that limits their magic with a limitation that is almost impossible to fulfill (Fasting)? Or would you rather see them come out of it with some new roleplaying opportunities, such as, again, Shadowdragon's examples - slap them with Cursed 1 and a Mentor Spirit, or a hacker/technomancer/rigger with Gremlins 1, or Scorched, or Sensitive Neural Structure and Codeslinger, or an ambiguous negative quality such as Bad Rep, an Enemy, some Flashbacks, Paranoia, maybe a Dementia? But a lot of those should come about through roleplaying, not GM fiat to screw the player because they used a legitimate game mechanic in order to keep playing their character. That's where Shadowdragon is coming from - you should be enriching the roleplaying experience as a GM, even through the bad shit, not deliberately fucking the characters over.

I've seen others mention the sustaining focus bits. But even without a sustaining focus this is dead wrong. The LOS requirement is only to cast certain spells (others are touch range). You can sustain a spell as long as you're willing to take the -2 sustaining penalty (or keep an active focus on your body) and it stays up. (IE: force 3 goes into a BGC 3+ and drops... spell ends; or you sustain a permanent spell until it ends as it becomes permanent).


The entire point of burning edge is that he doesn't die. Since he's alive the focus stays active.



That said, did you remember that the mage has a physical track and on top of that he has overflow damage boxes == body? He's dead when overflow runs out. He's dying when the physical track runs out.


As far as good negative qualities... why not some of the mental ones. The one I'd recommend for the best RP fun is delusions. It's not crippling, just a fun handicap.


p163 augmentation these are mostly for cyberzombies... but they can work here as well.
5BP Mania/Phobia
10BP Assensing Rejection : Not all minds are capable of processing astral information even when it is thrust upon them. (don't actually recommend this one... still kinda funny and apt in a black humor way).
10BP Delusions : Examples include an imageinary friend or foe, belief in the power of a 'lucky' charm, or knowledge of a global conspiracy between dragons and elves.
10BP Emotion Leak
And for the truly sick and twisted.... *drumroll*
10BP Will to Die : A cyberzombie is not supposed to be alive, and some part of her is willing death upon herself even at the best of times. *haha*

So far, I've done it twice, once in a story, another in-game.

In my story, the guy who was practically stock now is at the "Almost Cyberzombie" stage of Essence Loss, as well as a bit unhinged mentally.

In game, my group's magician now owes a spirit "A small piece of your soul. A piece that regenerates if you're working at it.", Karma in other words. If he can't make the payment, however... He loses Essence. He owes this once every lunar month thirteen times. Oh, and the spirit looks like Alice Cooper.

That's right, Alice Cooper has a piece of the magician's soul, AND the human equivalent of his "True Name", although I haven't told the player that yet.

Does he get his edge back when he has paid off the karma?

I still want to hear the story behind this. The picture of the spirit haunts my nightmares.

The spirit is seriously named Alice Cooper?

Speaking for myself, the one time it came up was with a Technomancer who lost an arm (to a dwarf with a combat axe). I asked the player (or, at least, the player for that session, it was kind of a round-robin character) if they'd rather get a cloned new arm, or if they wanted to dip into the fun of Augmentation, and all that, suck up the Essence loss, and kit 'em out like a chromeboy? We ended up going the cyber route, and suddenly that gimpy little Technomancer -- while, yes, he took a hit on Resonance -- had something to do with all his nuyen and started hanging with the big boys when the bullets started flying. The arm got more and more tricked out as gameplay went on, and the whole thing ended up being a lot of fun.

But what worked for me might not work for everyone, and I get that.

Maybe instead of sniping at each other and flaming out the thread, just this once, folks could just politely agree that there's more than one way to skin a cat, admit that the wording for HoG is vague enough that a consequence might be a Negative Quality, and that it's the sort of thing that's best decided at an individual game table, GM by GM and player by player, as to what's appropriate?

Maybe?

*snicker*
*LOL*
*ROFL*
*ROFLMAO*
*Wets pants from laughing so hard*
*scampers off to change clothes*

Sorry I just couldn't help myself.



-D

Nope when skinning a cat you have to start on the front left leg.

Oops double post.

Well said Critias (and DMiller), though if Dumpshock isn't used to debate such matters (and I believe most posters in this thread are approaching it with an appropriate sense of spirited debate) won't it be little more than another FAQ? Albeit a more useful and less definite one.

Call it 'sniping' if you like, but ShadowDragon8685 did

single himself out somewhat.

(see what I did there?).

@ShadowDragon

1. Please stop with the phrase 'shit-sandwich' – it's melodramatic and now tiresome.

2. 'Heaping' in the context of negative qualities is not accurate to anybody's playing style as they've represented it here. Of course it's not on to throw numerous issues on a character for sheer bloody-mindedness to the point that they're little more than a brain in a jar, but nobody's said that it is.

3. Getting shot is a consequence of "someone aiming a gun at you and pulling the trigger", but it's not a one-to-one relationship – it is a consequence of other things too.

4. I think the vibe you're getting from the pro-'heaping' (seriously, no) camp is off. Personally I see it less as a lesson-teacher and more about making the experience mean something more than a setback on the infinite Karma trail. The player was already intending to go out to earn Karma to boost stats so the loss of Edge has changed nothing ingame and I for one think that's definitely not sufficient. The key text for me is "The character should not escape unharmed from whatever circumstances would have led to her death", noting that the character should suffer.

5. I think a paraplegic street samurai would be fascinating to play. You have the new challange of physical impairment and roleplaying the psychological hardship as well as forging the character's way to recovery or even taking a new career path. I don't remember if the particular quality prohibits recovery, but it would be excessively harsh for the GM to assign an irrevocable suffering and as has been noticed this is already an extreme example.

6. As Critias put so delicately, different tables will have different games and gaming styles and this is not a cut-and-dried area of RAW. In your game it seems that the goal is to build stats and dicepools as far as possible before getting bored and lamenting every scratch incurred in the meantime. Good, if that works for you and yours (and I hold my hands up that my speculation is one-sidedly-negative). Me, I'd be bored off my arse at that table as you might at mine. Personally, I like things going wrong in my games, either as a player or as a GM, because therein lies my enjoyment of roleplaying. A guy who was built for shooting people who then goes out and shoots people won't hold my interest with that alone, but if something goes horribly wrong and he then has to work with a post-traumatic stress disorder? That's more interesting, not less. When I recount SR tales and characters I don't go on about the numbers I was allowed to write on a bit of paper – I relate the decisions made and how the consequences were suffered/enjoyed. But as always, YMMV.

7. I don't think there is such a thing as an 'unplayable' character. Not strictly speaking. If you don't like what the GM has done to your character then you should question it by all means, since if he allowed you to HoG (and by RAW it's always up to him on a case-by-case basis) he is obviously open to the character's story continuing and that will only happen if you're still interested. That said, the whole point of HoG is you have a choice between two options and what you might consider to be a battered wreck of a PC cannot be less appealling than a dead one. Dead PCs don't even get wheelchairs.

Pretty much what I'm saying... except I wouldn't use the term 'vague'. I think it's extremely clear that it's more likely that there is more to be given to the character beyond the burned edge and the opportunity cost from having to recover from the wounds sustained.



There's a couple of things that need to be addressed about it.

1. The burning of edge is a consequence of death and not a consequence of the circumstances that lead to the death. Additionally, the "unconsciousness" that results and takes the character out for the rest of the session/scene is a consequence of the death (or burning edge if you want to view it that way) as well. Consequently, neither can be considered part of the direct harm the character suffers from the circumstances that lead to the death.
2. In light of point 1, the quote uses the plural form of consequence. Since neither burnt edge or unconsciousness is not a direct consequence of the circumstance, and there's only one other consequence (damage) that the character can absolutely be considered suffering from, that leaves at least one unsaid consequence which could be any of the various things that have been listed in this thread. Of course, it could be just the damage from the death stroke, but the term is still consequences leaving open the door to more than that.
3. The word should is the past tense of shall. It's pretty common for people to think that there's wiggle room with should, but there really isn't much if any room. Should is basically synonymous with must and it's just a less heavy handed way of telling someone what they must do. Whatever negative effects would result from the circumstances should be applied to the character. If your death was caused because your legs got severed when you were nearly pulled out an airlock during a firefight with some ghouls, then burning edge isn't going to magically restore your lost limbs. Likewise, burning edge doesn't magically heal you of the damage you took from the circumstance that led to your death.

I'm curious how you're planning to earn the 40 karma required to buy off that negative quality the GM just gave you. You're dead from the waist down, so you can barely move. You're definitely not a street samurai anymore, and what, exactly, do you bring to a group and how do you plan to 'recover', mechanically speaking? Do you plan to sit there for ~20 sessions leeching up karma for showing up ('per session' karma) and sitting on the sidelines, sighing melodramatically and telling your team over their 'links 'Wish I could be out there with you, guys' for an extra point or two per session? That's actively hampering the enjoyment of the other people at the table - they're doing the work and you're getting the rewards. Basically, why should your team still cut your useless ass in from this point forward? Especially if you built that shiny street sam with BP - I doubt your hacking skills are up to snuff. And even if they are, the rigger's doing just fine on his own and doesn't really need you to pilot that shiny Crimson Samurai, thanks for the offer.

There are points where a character does become unplayable - whether by a detriment that makes them useless, or a detriment that hampers the enjoyment of the rest of the players at the table. Being unable to perform the role you signed up for is pretty much the latter.

Why should he?

The key here is that when HOG is invoked the player is saying they want to continue playing the PC despite the consequences. The GM's job then becomes to make the consequences of HOG interesting and fun for the player. Some players don't want their PC's to be gimped and won't invoke HOG when a PC dies even though they can. THey'll just make a new PC. Others might be very attached to their PC, and want to continue even if it means playing a paralyzed PC. It isn't a straight forward this is right way to handle it or not, it is a judgement call by the GM who has to keep in mind the Players attitude toward the PC and if they would still have fun playing the PC.

@Aerospider

I was just about to post, and then when reading to the end of the thread saw that you'd covered everything I was going to say. Specifically points 1 and 5. So thanks.

On point 5, I too think playing a paraplegic character would be great fun, and loads better if it happened in-game than out of game. If you chose it from the start then it's already somewhat mitigated by your other choices. When it happens suddenly you've got a life-changing moment and you've got to cope with that. For net based or awakened characters it wouldn't immediately stop them from being useful. Sams would be harder to make work, but you could still man a mounted weapon, drive a van etc. More than that though you'd have to rely on other people, your team-mates and contacts until you were back on your feet. Would a cyber torso fix paraplegicism? I'd imagine so, and I think I've just made up a word.

It's like a spirit pact. Spirit gets one point of his edge to use until he pays his debt then he gets it back.

You may be dead from the waist down but that does not stop you from shooting a gun, or even swinging a sword/axe. Every team needs someone to watch their backs when they go in and if you take that place it frees up another character that usually holds that position to 'build their skills.' And you might learn some new ones (like maybe disguise).

I think Aerospider is correct and that it just depends on the person playing the character to make the most out of what has happened.