[penllawen]

You are a GM. Your players are in a firefight with corpsec while infiltrating a corp facility. One of them - a decker - says they are going to Data Spike the lights in the room to disable them. Their deck's Attack Rating is 10 points higher than the light system's Defence Rating, so there's 1 point of Edge to be allocated.
 
Which of the following scenarios would you consider to be "Edge abuse" and deny the decker the point of Edge? Select all that apply.

(1) the player says "I need Edge to attack the grunts, so I hack the lights."
(2) the player says "I need Edge to defend against the grunts, so I hack the lights."
(3) the player says "I'm going to hack the lights to blind the guards. Our streetsam has cybereyes so he'll be fine."
(4) the player says "I'm going to hack the lights to blind the guards; they probably have low-light vision but maybe it'll work."
(5) the player knows the grunts have cybereyes via Matrix recon, but says "I'm going to hack the lights anyway. Maybe their cybereyes don't have low-light? Seems unlikely but you never know."
(6) the player hacks the gun of a still-alive grunt.
(7) the player hacks the commlink of a still-alive grunt.
( the player hacks the commlink of a dead grunt.
(9) the player says "I'll look for some access codes for the rest of the facility" and hacks the commlink of a dead grunt.

Edit - I should have added a "none of these are Edge abuse" option to the poll. I'll track it manually. So far, there's been 2 votes for that.

[Shinobi Killfist]

I don’t see any of them as edge abuse as they are in a firefight. Outside of a fight I’d likely see many of the hack comlink ones as edge abuse but I’m not sure as I haven’t got deep enough into the game yet. I’ve only run test scenarios where I’m less than impressed with 6e so far.


As an aside. Nice thread. It illustrates a issue with the GM will fix it concepts pretty well as all of these are the same thing but in play when asked by a player you aren’t getting multiple choice you are getting one of those and you are making a decision on the fly. And often. 

[DigitalZombie]

Weeee Ive submitted my answers

But I think you are missing 1. The "buy 10 cheap commlinks and hack them yourselves to gain edge" or "buy a sudoko game for your commlink and use logic to solve it( with the + edge logic quality".

[ZeroSum]

Personally, I don't see any of these as edge abuse. I'd prefer more context, and would likely ask the player for as much, but realistically these are all valid cases in my opinion.

I briefly debated the "Hack a dead NPCs commlink", but as a hacker PC myself you just never know, there might be paydata on it.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

For reference, here's the meat of the rule regarding edge abuse:

Gamemasters should not
award points of Edge that are not directly part of
an ongoing confrontation, and they should not reward
players who are attempting to game the system. For example, players might attempt to aim
their weapon at an innocent passerby to stack up
on the Edge they might gain from targeting such
a person, or they might try to take multiple looks
at something that isn’t a real opponent when they
have better vision than them in an effort to stack
up extra Edge. The easiest part of this guideline
is to say that Edge should not be awarded to any
player taking an action solely to gain Edge. The
action must play another role in the ongoing confrontation/
discussion/hack/whatever.

Breaking it down:

1) the action should be part of a confrontation. Knocking the lights out to plunge a fight into darkness? Sounds well within the bounds of this tenet.  Likewise hacking a dead grunt's commlink in order to find access codes the guard uses to penetrate deeper into the facility may not be part of the COMBAT, but it's still relevant to the conflict of "Us vs Security" in the context of the infiltration.  Hacking that same dead guard's commlink just to see if he has porn pics that are of no relevance to the Shadowrun? Now it's not part of the confrontation anymore.

2) Is the player's motivation only to gain the edge point? 90% of the time when this occurs it's inarguably clear to everyone involved.  For the remaining 10% of the time, some simple out-of-character discussion about this very rule can clear up misunderstandings.


So, out of the examples above, #1-2 sure looks like a case of violating 2), but might be cleared up with some further discussion. Likewise, #6-8 might or might not be a case of Edge abuse- it depends on what the Player is trying to accomplish.  The aim of the action relevant? Or is it just to gain the Edge point?  Each might or might not be a case of edge abuse.  The rest sure sound to me being sufficiently applicable to the advancement of the mission that they shouldn't be denied Edge.

[penllawen]

I don’t see any of them as edge abuse as they are in a firefight.

Personally, I don't see any of these as edge abuse.

I should have added a "none of these are Edge abuse" option to the poll. I'll track it manually in edits to the OP instead. So far, that's two.

As an aside. Nice thread.

Thanks!

[Michael Chandra]

Is the player fishing for Edge with an action everyone knows has no tactical value? It's abuse. No? Then it's not.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Is the player fishing for Edge with an action everyone knows has no tactical value? It's abuse. No? Then it's not.

This.

If the player begins with "I need to get some Edge..." it's not a good sign.  But if the action is actually RELEVANT to the conflict at hand, then it doesn't matter if the Player's primary motivation was to gain Edge.

[penllawen]

Is the player fishing for Edge with an action everyone knows has no tactical value? It's abuse. No? Then it's not.

We've gone around and around talking about general principles and rules of thumb in other threads. But rules of thumb only moderate subjectivity, they do not eliminate it. I want to get specific here to see how different people's opinions vary. Please vote, or otherwise address the secenarios directly. That's what's new about this thread: the specificity.

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Is the player fishing for Edge with an action everyone knows has no tactical value? It's abuse. No? Then it's not.

We've gone around and around talking about general principles and rules of thumb in other threads. But rules of thumb only moderate subjectivity, they do not eliminate it. I want to get specific here to see how different people's opinions vary. Please vote, or otherwise address the secenarios directly. That's what's new about this thread: the specificity.

As I explained, the subjectivity of this topic renders 5 voting options POTENTIALLY edge abuse.  It depends on more than what you have there to say if they would be or wouldn't be.

If you flipped the premise, and said "Which of these are solidly NOT edge abuse", then I'd vote 3-4-5-9 as being clearly ok. 1-2-6-7-8 require more context to say.

For example, #6 is hacking a goon's gun. That's probably not edge abuse, but depending on the context, it COULD be.  If the goon weren't USING the gun (he's blasting at you with his AK-97, but you're going after the holstered Light Fire instead) that's strong strike against relevance.  It's not completely irrelevant, as the AK-97 certainly could run out of ammo and you don't want him to have a backup weapon! But player's intentions usually aren't hard to divine.  If the still-holstered Light Fire is being targeted simply because the AK-97 is better protected, when the AK-97 is clearly more relevant, I'd certainly consider witholding the Edge, sure.  It'd depend on lots of other things. Perhaps none more important than the completely out-of-character consideration of "is this player a chronic problem with Edge fishing, or is this the first time I've had to ask myself if this is Edge fishing with them..."

[penllawen]

I should have added a "none of these are Edge abuse" option to the poll. I'll track it manually in edits to the OP instead. So far, that's two.

Aha, found the Edit poll button and added that as an option.

[Michael Chandra]

Since there's no way to indicate 'X MIGHT be Edge Abuse', nor options for 'none of the above' or 'it depends', there's no way for me to actually answer the poll. Since there's literally no way for me to vote truthfully on the poll, it means my opinion is disregarded. That means we're still subjective here. Given how the OP has indicated this is a deliberate move and voting is a must, I'll back off as demanded.

[penllawen]

Since there's no way to indicate 'X MIGHT be Edge Abuse', nor options for 'none of the above' or 'it depends', there's no way for me to actually answer the poll

I added "I'm really not sure" a few minutes ago, in response to posts here. I've now also added "it depends" as requested.

[GuardDuty]

Weeee Ive submitted my answers

But I think you are missing 1. The "buy 10 cheap commlinks and hack them yourselves to gain edge" or "buy a sudoko game for your commlink and use logic to solve it( with the + edge logic quality".

And then you get so distracted by the Sudoku that you miss the moment you were farming edge for in the first place.   

[Stainless Steel Devil Rat]

Weeee Ive submitted my answers

But I think you are missing 1. The "buy 10 cheap commlinks and hack them yourselves to gain edge" or "buy a sudoko game for your commlink and use logic to solve it( with the + edge logic quality".

And then you get so distracted by the Sudoku that you miss the moment you were farming edge for in the first place.   

The rigger making the drone fly loop-de-loops!