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Message no. 1
From: ValeuJ@*************.navy.mil (Valeu John EMFA)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 06:39:47 -0800
Alright, things are starting to look up in my campagin,
but our team Sniper is starting to thing like a twink.
(Quote: "Hey, I can kill people and get away with it because I'm a
Shadowrunner, right?")

But since my group has a phsyad and a shaman along with a couple of others,
How should I award Karma?

On a sliding scale so that everyone can advance at roughtly the same time?
(ok, sammy you get 2, decker gets 3, phsyad and shaman, you both get 5)

Or just the flat "everyone gets x karma, with a few extra points here and
there"?


EMFN John Valeu
-AKA- TimeKeeper
Message no. 2
From: maxnoel_fr@*****.fr (Max Noel)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 19:37:54 +0200
---------------------- multipart/mixed attachment
At 06:39 29/08/2002 -0800, TimeKeeper wrote:

>But since my group has a phsyad and a shaman along with a couple of others,
>How should I award Karma?
>
>On a sliding scale so that everyone can advance at roughtly the same time?
>(ok, sammy you get 2, decker gets 3, phsyad and shaman, you both get 5)
>
>Or just the flat "everyone gets x karma, with a few extra points here and
>there"?

As a GM, I tend to go for the second option. Award karma based on
what they did, and how they did it, first as a team, then as individuals.
Surviving the mission should earn them at least 1 karma point, plus 1 or 2
(possibly more depending on the danger level) per mission objective. If on
top of that, everything went smoothly (undetected, no need to fall back on
plan B...), that's 1 or 2 more points.
Now, while you're GMing, take notes on what each player does --
right or wrong. Award more karma for roleplay: staying IC is good, acting
"really" IC is even better. If a player fast-talks his way out of danger
instead of just rolling dice, he deserves more karma (except if his
character has a charisma and an intelligence of 1, of course). Roleplaying
fear, sadness and other feelings that impair their combat abilities and/or
chances of survival ("berserk" doesn't count) should grant... Mmh, I'd say
2 points. Imaginative planning helps, too.
As for the "bad" stuff. Well, if a player (not a character) screws
up badly (read: acts really stupidly), he's obviously gonna get less karma,
if he even survives the run.
Disrupting the mood, not following the plot, or falling victim to
the Playstation Syndrome while no decking or astral quest is underway
should reduce the karma award.
And teach them munchkinism (no problem with powergaming as long as
the char is consistent, logical and has a correct background) doesn't work.
Slaughter-maniacs won't get much karma (or perhaps you can give more to
those who avoid casualties -- that includes using gel ammo) and have a
horrible reputation (and don't forget the Johnsons turning them over to the
Star or worse).
"Hey, I can kill people and get away with it because I'm a
Shadowrunner, right?" This guy should have gotten at most 1 point for this
run, no matter what he did.

But that's just my 2 cents, and I hate munchkins with a passion.

-- Wild_Cat

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Message no. 3
From: loneeagle2061@*******.com (Lone Eagle)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 18:48:26 +0000
>From: Valeu John EMFA <ValeuJ@*************.navy.mil>
>Alright, things are starting to look up in my campagin,
>but our team Sniper is starting to thing like a twink.
>(Quote: "Hey, I can kill people and get away with it because I'm a
>Shadowrunner, right?")

Quote from a few weeks later:
"It is the finding of this court..."
With the FBI on his case maybe his attitude will change.

>But since my group has a phsyad and a shaman along with a couple of others,
>How should I award Karma?

I award karma based on what people do and how the players play their
characters rather than according to what type of character they're playing,
I allow characters to purchase karma to compensate magical characters but...
I have run a couple of very high karma runs which give magical characters a
bit of a boon (mainly because non magical charcters tend to run out of
things to spend it on, or spread it around lots of skills). These runs try
to focus the runners on the moral aspect of the game, more karma is awarded
to characters who go into the hole to pull a run for a friend.


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Message no. 4
From: loneeagle2061@*******.com (Lone Eagle)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 18:56:15 +0000
>From: Max Noel <maxnoel_fr@*****.fr>
> Disrupting the mood, not following the plot, or falling victim to
>the Playstation Syndrome while no decking or astral quest is underway
>should reduce the karma award.

Playstation Syndrome, I like that, a wonderfully descriptive term. John Woo
syndrome is another one to watch out for. (unless that's what everyone wants
from the game.)

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Message no. 5
From: 1shadowrun@*****.com (Adam Hansen)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 14:56:35 -0500
I've never been happy with the flat "everyone gets x Karma" idea. Many
players will take an active role in making the game more fun, interesting,
exciting, ect.

To encourage this, I award karma on a flat rate for the necessities of the
run (surviving, getting the goods intact, ect.) and award bonus Karma on top
of that.

I believe one of the rulebooks/sourcebooks covers the concept of "Karma" as
being "Good" Karma. That is, receiving awards for doing the right things,
legal or not.

Just going around killing people because you can is obviously not "Good
karma." Thus, in my games for excessive acts like that, I dock karma.

I have had more than one game where a player complained that he didn't get
as much karma as others. I then remind him of his characters behavior, and
thus, justify his award. This usually ends any arguments.

However, there are more ways than docking karma to have thier actions catch
up with them...

Adam
----- Original Message -----
From: "Valeu John EMFA" <ValeuJ@*************.navy.mil>
To: "'Shadowrun Discussion'" <shadowrn@*****.dumpshock.com>
Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2002 9:39 AM
Subject: A karmic question


> Alright, things are starting to look up in my campagin,
> but our team Sniper is starting to thing like a twink.
> (Quote: "Hey, I can kill people and get away with it because I'm a
> Shadowrunner, right?")
>
> But since my group has a phsyad and a shaman along with a couple of
others,
> How should I award Karma?
>
> On a sliding scale so that everyone can advance at roughtly the same time?
> (ok, sammy you get 2, decker gets 3, phsyad and shaman, you both get 5)
>
> Or just the flat "everyone gets x karma, with a few extra points here and
> there"?
>
>
> EMFN John Valeu
> -AKA- TimeKeeper
>
>
>
Message no. 6
From: shadowrun@********.net (Augustus)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2002 12:06:15 -0700
----- Original Message -----
From: "Valeu John EMFA" <ValeuJ@*************.navy.mil>
>
> How should I award Karma?
>
> On a sliding scale so that everyone can advance at roughtly the same time?
> (ok, sammy you get 2, decker gets 3, phsyad and shaman, you both get 5)
>
> Or just the flat "everyone gets x karma, with a few extra points here and
> there"?

First, about the above:
You shouldn't award karma based on "how tough it is to advance" for the
character class... Although certain classes (mages, shamans, physical
adepts) need higher karma awards... thats mostly because their character
classes get more powerful with more karma

In the short run, it might seem that spellcasters and adepts are getting
"cheated" because their karma costs to get better are so high (initiating
for more power or abilities, cost of spells as well as raising skills,
bonding with magic items) but in the long run it starts to balance out.

How to award karma:
This has always bugged me... the SR3 rulebook was so poorly edited when
somebody cut and pasted this section from the SR2 rulebook...

On p244[SR3] it says:
"The gamemaster awards Karma to all surviving members in equal amounts,
based on the following criteria. He also makes individual awards to
characters whose actions deserve them."
So right off you might say "Hey wait!! What 'criteria' are they talking
about... they didn't say anything! They go right into personal karma
awards!"

And you would be right in saying that...

So we flip back to p242[SR3] and it atleast says:
"Each surviving member of a team gets Karma for staying alive,
succeeding at a mission, and for the degree of danger in the mission.
Individual characters can pick up additional karma for good roleplaying,
gutsy fighting, smart planning, sheer luck and other personal feats."

So that gives us some criteria: "Surviving the run", "Successes" and
"Danger" (then the individual karma awards)

Mind you, it still doesn't really say anything about how much to award
here... but atleast it says there should be some team karma...

And this is where the poor editing comes in... in previous editions of
Shadowrun, there was alot more information than the two sentences above.

On p199 of SR2 it says:

AWARDING KARMA
Characters get Karma for surviving an adventure and more Karma if they
do well in the process. The gamemaster makes the awards. Give all
surviving team members Karma in equal amounts, based on the following
criteria.

TEAM KARMA
A typical adventure should be worth maybe 3 to 4 team Karma Points. One
for survival, a couple of objectives, and a point for the danger along the
way. A real horror show would be worth 6 to 8 points or so, but that
requires combat, danger, and powerful opposition, where the objective is
wrapped in twisting paths of mystery!
SURVIVAL: If the characters live, they get a point of Karma. Ain't life
grand?
SUCCESS: For every objective in the adventure that the team achieved,
give each member a point of Karma. Partial awards are allowed. If they
foiled the evil plan and stole the technological gizmo but the villain
escaped, they get 2 out of a possible 3.
THREAT: Award extra Karma for dangerous adventures. A simple mission
might not carry any bonus, but a mission against high odds or one where a
dangerous enemy is involved is worth 1 or 2 extra points. A whirling
nightmare of combat, confusion, and betrayal is worth 3 Karma Points each to
the survivors. Let the level of opposition influence this. Even a simple
run against a superior enemy (a powerful corp type or a yakuza oyabun) is
worth extra Karma.

INDIVIDUAL KARMA AWARDS
Team awards are made to everybody who participates in an adventure, even
if a character did not get into the spotlight this time around. Individual
Karma is awarded to characters who personally advance the story or the
overall gaming enjoyment in some way.
If a character has an absolutely amazing run, and the group succeeds at
a very nasty mission, he might get up to 10 or 12 karma points. A karma
award greater than 12 points for a single adventure should probably never
happen.

<< The rest of this page is pretty much cut and pasted into p244[SR3] >>

Hopefully this helps a little bit,

Clint
Message no. 7
From: korishinzo@*******.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Fri, 30 Aug 2002 14:18:41 +0000
>From: Valeu John EMFA

>Alright, things are starting to look up in my campagin,
>but our team Sniper is starting to thing like a twink.
>(Quote: "Hey, I can kill people and get away with it because I'm a
>Shadowrunner, right?")

(Counterquote: "Of course the cops can do that to you, you're a SINless
Shadowrunner, right?) ;)

>But since my group has a phsyad and a shaman along with a couple of
> >others, How should I award Karma?

>On a sliding scale so that everyone can advance at roughtly the same >time?
> (ok, sammy you get 2, decker gets 3, phsyad and shaman, you >both get 5)

>Or just the flat "everyone gets x karma, with a few extra points here >and
>there"?

I do the following two things with karma, in pretty much every game I run.

Number 1: I have always hated the nuyen-karma and karma-nuyen rules.
However, Spell slingers need about 3 times the karma as non-magical
characters (thanks to spells, foci, metamagics, allies, and so on all
requiring karma). Adepts need about 1.5 times as much karma as non-magical
characters, because weapon foci are expensive in terms of karma. I
instituted the following approach.

Characters may give money to charity causes and earn extra karma. The
amount they give converts to points like this: for each 10% of their current
wealth (minimum of 500¥) that they donate at a given time, they earn a D3
worth of karma points (that is a D6/2, round up, for those keeping score at
home). Thus, a hermetic mage who just scored 8,000¥ on a run can give
4,000¥ to the Seattle School for Disadvantaged Chimps and earn 5D3 karma
points (between 5 and 20, not overly game imbalancing). Due to the karmic
balance inherent in the (at least my) SR universe, abuses of this system are
not a good idea. Getting fragged by Karma is ~not~ pleasant. The karma
gained in this fashion can only be spent on purely magical efforts (bonding
foci, creating allies, learning spells, etc). It also goes away at a rate
of one point per week if not spent. A physad trying to bond a rating 6
weapon foci will probably give a few hundred grand to charity while working
towards the foci, because a good chunk of the points gained dissipate before
she can use them. To save my players from having to do all that book
keeping, I keep a nice little tally sheet on my GM screen for just this
purpose. They can ask where they are at in "magic-specific" karma any time
they want.

2. I have pretty strict minimum standards for what constitutes award
winning roleplaying. Earning a karma point for surprising me is almost
impossible in my games, as are Drama points and Smarts points. I only award
Humor points for things said/done In Character, and of late, have been
clamping down on Roleplaying points as well. The upshot of all this is some
very low karma games. But I award karma a little subjectively. If someone
is roleplaying poorly for much of the game, and sudeenly hits their stride
one night, I might give them 2 points at once, to encourage it. Now, the
guy that has been playing to the hilt for the whole campaign and getting at
most 1 point per session would be rightfully unhappy about such a thing. My
solution is outlined below.

I give out karma the following week/session. In the interim, I consult my
brief game notes about each player's efforts. I then figure out their
karma, and write a note about why they are getting it. I hand each player
their note at the next session. No player knows what any other player has
earned in karma, or why...ever. I have a standing threat to remove any
karma awards for a week in which I hear players discussing their relative
karma gains. No one has tested this in my hearing. This secrecy allows me
to give karma as I see fit, matched to the player's relative performance (to
the other players, and to themself). When I inherit a roleplayer from some
munchkin game, or who has never roleplayed before, I can use this system to
indicate what I expect in a game, without anyone else knowing.

As a final note, I have instituted a new category under Team Karma awards.

Teamwork.

I'll let you all mull over what I might have done that for. ;)

Korishinzo
--my players call me names...then come back for more...masochism is ~not~
dead :p

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Message no. 8
From: loneeagle2061@*******.com (Lone Eagle)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Sun, 01 Sep 2002 12:35:12 +0000
>From: "Ice Heart" <korishinzo@*******.com>
>As a final note, I have instituted a new category under Team Karma awards.
>
>Teamwork.

Team Karma? But that ceased to exist ages ago!!!
<Span Style=Hippy Voice>
"Sounds like someone's livin' in the past man, Contemporise man,
contemporize!"
</Span>

:-)

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Message no. 9
From: l-hansen@*****.tele.dk (Lars Wagner Hansen)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Sun, 1 Sep 2002 17:01:29 +0200
From: "Ice Heart" <korishinzo@*******.com>

<Snip>
> Characters may give money to charity causes and earn extra
karma. The
> amount they give converts to points like this: for each 10% of
their current
> wealth (minimum of 500¥) that they donate at a given time, they
earn a D3
> worth of karma points (that is a D6/2, round up, for those
keeping score at
> home). Thus, a hermetic mage who just scored 8,000¥ on a run
can give
> 4,000¥ to the Seattle School for Disadvantaged Chimps and earn
5D3 karma
> points (between 5 and 20, not overly game imbalancing).

4.000 nuyen = 5-20 Karma, with an average of 10 karma. That
sounds like wastely imbalancing in any of the games I have played
in. But as usual YMMV.

Lars
Message no. 10
From: korishinzo@*******.com (Ice Heart)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Mon, 02 Sep 2002 17:20:39 +0000
From: Lars Wagner Hansen

>From: "Ice Heart" <korishinzo@*******.com>

><Snip>

> > Characters may give money to charity causes and earn extra
> > karma. The amount they give converts to points like this: for each > >
>10% of their current wealth (minimum of 500¥) that they donate at a > >
>given time, they earn a D3 worth of karma points (that is a D6/2, > >
>round up, for those keeping score at home). Thus, a hermetic mage > > who
>just scored 8,000¥ on a run can give 4,000¥ to the Seattle > >
School
>for Disadvantaged Chimps and earn 5D3 karma points (between > > 5 and 20,
>not overly game imbalancing).

>4.000 nuyen = 5-20 Karma, with an average of 10 karma. That
>sounds like wastely imbalancing in any of the games I have played
>in. But as usual YMMV.

>Lars

Ack! That should have been 5 to 15, with an average of 8. In any case, you
have to remember that the karma does not hange around wainting for the mage
to use it. It begins to fade. As a matter of fact, if the PC begins
abusing this, it is easy enough to have the karma fade faster. My default
is one point per week. At one point per day, the karma would fade almost
too fast to ever be used. Furthermore, that mage (if Hermetic) is now going
to have a very hard time affording summoning materials and other talesma. A
shaman is slightly less hurt by spending all their cash on karma, but still
cannot afford as much telesma. And trust me when I say that the percentage
system works best. The Nuyen-Karma-Nuyen rules in the Companion (2nd Ed.)
were so broken it was scary. Accidently let that mage get a windfall chunk
of cash at the wrong time, and they would have ridiculous amounts of karma
to burn. As a last note, karma earned in this fashion in my game does not
add to rep, at least directly.

Korishinzo


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Message no. 11
From: York.GA@******.ca (York.GA@******.ca)
Subject: A karmic question
Date: Tue, 3 Sep 2002 11:40:52 -0400
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Valeu John EMFA [mailto:ValeuJ@*************.navy.mil]
>Sent: Thursday, 29, August, 2002 10:40 AM
>To: 'Shadowrun Discussion'
>Subject: A karmic question
>
>Alright, things are starting to look up in my campagin,
>but our team Sniper is starting to thing like a twink.
>(Quote: "Hey, I can kill people and get away with it because I'm a
>Shadowrunner, right?")

If you kill indescriminately there should and will be repercussions. For
starters it builds up a case file so that when you are caught the charges
will be greater. If you take out someone important you could be the target
of someone elses shadowrun. It makes for an interesting shadowrun to try
and find out why all these people are trying to hunt down your team using
the same heavy handed tactics you prefer to use yourself. No matter how
good you are information on your activities will leak out. Information
gathering techniques work just as well for the bad guys as it does for the
PC's. Many professional shadowrunners and contacts will not work with
sychotic killers and the force used to apprehend them will often be lethal
(terminate with extreme prejudice).

Coyote

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