[MTCE]

My group's mage-player has a beef: his specialty doesn't earn him any extra Edge like combat or hacking does. I know I, as GM, can award Edge based on a given situation. Right now, this pretty much comes down to "does the opposition have magic?" I'd be curious to know if the other 6we GMs are having this same issue and how, if at all, you're dealing with it?

[Banshee]

Well without knowing what their specialty is I can't comment on specifics ... but in general non combat mages should be earning edge by manipulating the environment and creating circumstances that favor him and his team.

For example the invisibility spell should provide tactical edge while also providing the stealth benefits of being invisible.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Well, on one hand I'd say I'm fine with Mages getting screwed for once.  Shadowrun's been dominated by the awakened for so long, it's the mages' turn to suck, right?

But the thing is, mages do have lots of ways to gain edge.  So they're certainly not being screwed out of edge.

Note that Combat spells check AR vs DR (see pg. 132) so they can gain edge just like the sammies by shooting guns, chopping with katanas, but ALSO with slinging combat spells!

Other spells should be churning out edge as well via giving beneficial circumstances.  Oh, you're invisible? Yeah, that's a bonus point of edge on your sneak test.  Etc.  Also note that the mage can help the rest of the team generate edge via these sorts of effects!  If your buffs meant your team all generated a bunch of edge for themselves, you might ask for them to pay it back somewhat and chip in some Edge back to the mage.

Also note that you can spend reagents so that when you attempt to summon or banish a spirit, you gain a free point of edge.

[Lormyr]

Again, part of this issue is that some edge gain is explicitly spelled out, and some potential edge gain "did I make a good enough argument for why I should get some that my GM agreed". Not having an explicit edge gain system for non-combat spells, rigging, and a few other elements that frequently come up for some archetypes is among the reasons I still really dislike this portion of the new edition.

To pre-empt SSDR, I agree that if you have a reasonable GM it can be played over fairly easily. Sadly, in my experience, reasonable GM's at conventions are a straight 50/50 craps shoot.

[Leith]

Again, part of this issue is that some edge gain is explicitly spelled out, and some potential edge gain "did I make a good enough argument for why I should get some that my GM agreed". Not having an explicit edge gain system for non-combat spells, rigging, and a few other elements that frequently come up for some archetypes is among the reasons I still really dislike this portion of the new edition.

To pre-empt SSDR, I agree that if you have a reasonable GM it can be played over fairly easily. Sadly, in my experience, reasonable GM's at conventions are a straight 50/50 craps shoot.

This is true of all RPGs. I get where your coming from, the more vague a rule is the more difficult it is to make decisions for your character. But any ruleset can be undermined by bad GMing, tis the nature of the role play experience.  It is a lot easier and practical to design a ruleset that embraces the fact that there is a referee rather than try to write a rule for everything.

Anyway, mages can grab various qualities to get edge and there are spells that diectly or indirectly result in edge like Armor and Physical Barrier, Analyze Device... the spirit thing... etcetera.

[Xenon]

Again, part of this issue is that ... some potential edge gain "did I make a good enough argument for why I should get some that my GM agreed".

How is this different from the mechanic of regaining edge in the 5th edition...? ;-)

• Good roleplaying.
• Heroic acts of self-sacrifice.
• Achievement of important personal goals.
• Enduring a critical glitch without using a Close Call (...this should be used judiciously...).
• Succeeding in an important objective.
• Being particularly brave or smart.
• Pushing the storyline forward.
• Having the right skills in the right place at the right time.
• Impressing the group with humor or drama.

[Michael Chandra]

I hated those rules, since they're really annoying to keep in mind. 'This gives a tactical advantage' is much easier to judge. And a single point is way less powerful now, so it is much easier mentally to grant them.

[Xenon]

I agree.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Most of the time, being invisible is an obvious advantage when using the Stealth skill.  So why doesn't the Invisible status (or the spell description) just say you get Edge, and take GM discretion out of it?

A couple of examples involving Invisibility and when it's clearly not "Edge-worthy" on a Stealth roll:

When you're sneaking past a blind/blinded person, being invisible is irrelevant.
When you're sneaking past a person with no line of sight to you (other side of a door/wall, etc), being invisible is irrelevant.
You're using the Stealth skill to perform some Sleight of Hand legerdemain (if they can't see you, who are you impressing?)

Furthermore, there may be contexts where invisibility's benefit is diminished:
You're moving around through fresh snow.
You're moving around through water.
You're moving around through thick smoke/mist.

Some cases where the context of the observer's ability to see infrared may lessen the advantage of invisibility:
You're invisible, but you've been hiding in one place long enough for the surrounding objects to begin to heat up.
You're invisible, but the warm footprints you leave behind as you move around sure aren't.
You're invisibile, but certain critters "feel" infrared (pit vipers, dogs, etc) rather than see it, and invisibility only works vs visual detection...

The longer you think about it, the more cases one can think of for why being invisible might not warrant the circumstantial edge point.  Hence, the rule is "GM discretion". As with most Edge awards.

[Lormyr]

How is this different from the mechanic of regaining edge in the 5th edition...? ;-)

It is not substantially different. No argument there.

What is substantially different is the role of Edge from 5e to 6e, though, which is where the crux of my particular issue lies. In 5e, we had a ton of combat options that primarily came from action economy - take this penalty to your Initiative count to do this non-standard thing. While some of that carried over into 6e, a lot more of those options come from Edge expenditure now. So in 5e, you pretty much only ever used Edge to go first, act faster, or re-roll a bad roll. Now if you want to most anything besides fire your gun in a basic way, cast that spell, or stab that dude, you are most likely spending Edge to be able to do it.

Is that switch inherently bad? No, not in my opinion. But the way they executed it has a lot more room for improvement that praise for being "good", to me personally.

Past all that technical stuff, I am just a fan of game rules being well defined. Can you cover everything? No, of course not. The defining feature, the soul of the system, should be fully defined though.

To reiterate again though, if you have a good GM, this won't really be an issue. Maybe it is just Ohio, and maybe it has just been my luck, but my experience has been we get a lot of petty fuck GMs around here, who honestly have no business being allowed to run games. Maybe Banshee, or other Columbus locals, would chime in and share with us what their experiences have been like. I played a lot of public SR Missions and a lot of public PF Society, and you get about 1 in 3 on average.

Bad GMs have ego in the game, feel the need to "teach players a lesson" based on the way they play or build characters, and are generally hostile to anything clever or making their session too easy. That is all stupid. The only thing that matters running a game is making sure your players have a good time. What a good time meanings varies with your particular audience.

[Banshee]

To reiterate again though, if you have a good GM, this won't really be an issue. Maybe it is just Ohio, and maybe it has just been my luck, but my experience has been we get a lot of petty fuck GMs around here, who honestly have no business being allowed to run games. Maybe Banshee, or other Columbus locals, would chime in and share with us what their experiences have been like. I played a lot of public SR Missions and a lot of public PF Society, and you get about 1 in 3 on average.

Bad GMs have ego in the game, feel the need to "teach players a lesson" based on the way they play or build characters, and are generally hostile to anything clever or making their session too easy. That is all stupid. The only thing that matters running a game is making sure your players have a good time. What a good time meanings varies with your particular audience.

Yes. I agree when it comes to public events there are a lot of weak GM's, to be honest though my experience is only with SR and then only cons and local (Columbus) events ... I've never played or ran any other game publicly.

Reasoning ... do to such high demand the screening process for SR GM's is pretty lax as many times at the large cons we just need warm bodies that can read, but I think there is still more good than bad but the vast majority fall in the mediocre middle ground. Local events have a far worse ratio because so many of the good GM's (at least here in the Columbus area) have gotten burnt out and no longer run public events (like myself, Ray, Tim, Mike, or Tony)

With that being said though home games should have no negative impact and Missions play should have a GM Primer to establish a baseline for them to run with.

[Lormyr]

I'm both glad and sad to know it hasn't just been my experience. I never got to play with you or Tim, but Michael, Tony, and Ray were all fantastic. After I had done about 12ish sessions with them sometime in early 2015, those three were literally the only ones running games for us. So I asked Ray if you had to be on the demo team to run, and he said not technically, so I ran the next two sessions for us. By the end of the second Ray just handled me a shirt, and said give me your email address, you're "hired". He was the best GM I have ever played with, so I took it as a high compliment.

I also agree that if you have a home group any Edge gain holes will have zero impact. Presumably if you have similar enough tastes/play styles to want to play regularly with set people then you'll all be mostly on the same page with things.

[Hobbes]

The number one goal of a Missions GM should be everyone has fun.  You do have to enforce the rules as best you can as that is one of the points of a Living Campaign, hundreds of players playing the same games.  A dose of "We'll do it that way for this roll but next time it'll be X" goes a long way.  Or steal a key from Improv acts or Rules light RPGs with "Yes, but...." as you Narrate the action to demonstrate consequences. 

Players in a living campaign need to be flexible and considerate as well.  Had plenty of tables with "That Guy" as a GM and a Player.  'tis the nature of Con games vs Home Games. 

[skalchemist]

Reasoning ... do to such high demand the screening process for SR GM's is pretty lax as many times at the large cons we just need warm bodies that can read, but I think there is still more good than bad but the vast majority fall in the mediocre middle ground. Local events have a far worse ratio because so many of the good GM's (at least here in the Columbus area) have gotten burnt out and no longer run public events (like myself, Ray, Tim, Mike, or Tony)

I suppose this is way off-topic, but in my experience at conventions (not with Shadowrun specifically, but across a wide range of games and publishers) this "need to fill the GM seat with a warm body" attitude is THE WORST THING A PUBLISHER CAN DO.  You are far better to tell folks "sorry, our GM didn't show up, here is your money back, go have some dinner" than to run the game anyway and those players have a bad experience.  If you say the GM didn't show up I'll be mad for a bit but in the end, s*$% happens, right?  Its a very forgivable sin.  But you use up four hours of my convention time with a crap GM?  That lingers.  That leaves a very sour taste that doesn't go anyway soon, or at all. 

I feel nearly all publishers could use a more focused quality over quantity attitude in their convention set ups.  Better to have 8 full tables each one with a GM that is known to be good (or some kind of observation procedure where a senior GM observes the first game or two and makes sure the new GM is doing well) and some kind of player feedback procedure to weed out the bad GMs and reward the great ones, than to have 16 half full tables with dodgy GMs who are going to do god knows what. 

[Lormyr]

The number one goal of a Missions GM should be everyone has fun.

I would say that is true of any game. Alas, if only everyone behaved as such.

Had plenty of tables with "That Guy" as a GM and a Player.

The thing is I think the nerd community is made up of an unfortunate percentage of such people. Somewhere north of 1 in 4, but south of half is my experience. I have always pondered why our hobbies draw those types.