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Message no. 1
From: Glenn Sprott wasntka44@*********.net
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 20:02:40 -0500
In a message dated 3/23/00 18:19:12 EST, HHackerH@***.com writes:

>You are right, the "10" is more than adequate to define
"legendary"
in many
>of the gaming formats that are out there. But, in all honesty, if
every
>player in Indiana that I know (I don't know, at least 30) were to
play that
>many games with a single character and only get at most 20 points of
karma,
>there'd be a revolution that would make WW-II look minor.
>
>It does all depend on gaming styles of course, and if the players are
>enjoying themselves as is the GM, then there is nothing being done
*wrong*
>ultimately. But, the "stinginess" factor would probably leave most
game
>players feeling cold.
>
>YMMV

Well, I guess this is the entire point. I don't want my players
feeling cold, but I especially want to make sure that I am
interpreting the rules correctly. From all the published adventures
that I have read and run, I thought I was pretty much on the mark, but
if I'm wrong, I hope to correct it.

Looking through the published adventures that I have (which is almost
all), I do notice that some do award more karma than I do normally
(Eye Witness: 15, Bottled Demon: 16, Elven Fire: 18) and some are just
insane (Paradise Lost: 30-40... for one fragging run!) There are
others that are very stingy considering the opposition (Queen
Euphoria: 13, Dragon Hunt: 7, Dark Angel: 7).

Now, the SR3 states, "A karma award greater than 12 points for a
single adventure, however, is highly unlikely." How does this justify
Paradise Lost? Hell, how does justify the other adventures I
mentioned? Is this a consistent misprint (unlikely)? Did Tom Wong and
Nigel Findley, co-authors of Paradise Lost, go a little karma crazy?
Or does the rule in SR3 only refer to individual karma bonuses and not
the TOTAL karma of any one adventure? This makes more sense to me, but
it isn't very clear. If this IS the case, I think that the editors
need to clarify this one a little better. However, Fasa has always
been consistent with rule explanations, and I've never had a problem
in the past so...

I just want to make sure that I'm not the only schmuck out there who
has been following this guideline since the fraggin' game first got
published!!! If I AM that schmuck, I'm stepping down from my 10 year
run of GM'ing this game, stop writing my Shadowrun novel, and fall
into a state of such deep depression that I will die in a puddle of my
own piss in a dark alley surrounded by dice and character sheets...
"He just kept muttering, 'I thought it meant that 12 karma was alot!'
and then he vomited, twitched, and fell over. That's all I saw
officer."

---------------------------
Wasntka (Wolf)
...Never allow your family to get hurt...
...Never allow your friends to stand alone...
...Never betray your loved one...
...Never betray yourself...
Message no. 2
From: Grey metis76@*****.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 17:09:19 -0800 (PST)
I pretty much play it by ear when it comes to karma
awards. If the run requires a lot of work, my players
do a great job of getting through it and do some great
role playing, then I bank it up and give them at least
20. Heck, even if it is a smaller run, but they
really surprise me with the way they get through it,
I'll give em a bigger award. One thing I do for big
runs that take a long time is break them down into
seperate runs, like a trilogy of books. That way they
get a few rewards throughout the major story lines,
not just one at the end.

====~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There is no Black and White. Only shades of Grey.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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Message no. 3
From: Lady Jestyr jestyr@*********.html.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 15:31:32 +1000
>Now, the SR3 states, "A karma award greater than 12 points for a
>single adventure, however, is highly unlikely."

Something that takes an entire YEAR of RL time to complete is probably
going to be more than just 'a single adventure', in most people's opinions.
That's a CAMPAIGN, not an adventure.

IMO, anyway.

Lady Jestyr
~ Hell hath no fury like a geek with a whippersnipper ~

* jestyr@*****.com | URL: http://www.geocities.com/~jestyr *
Message no. 4
From: Augustus shadowrun@*********.net
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Thu, 23 Mar 2000 21:32:07 -0800
>
> Looking through the published adventures that I have (which is
almost
> all), I do notice that some do award more karma than I do normally
> (Eye Witness: 15, Bottled Demon: 16, Elven Fire: 18) and some are
just
> insane (Paradise Lost: 30-40... for one fragging run!) There are
> others that are very stingy considering the opposition (Queen
> Euphoria: 13, Dragon Hunt: 7, Dark Angel: 7).
>

Heya,

Alas, you are reading the karma awards from the adventures
incorrectly.

The karma awards from the back of the published adventures is to be
given out in lieu of team karma (as they say something like "award
team karma as ..... and individual karma as per pxxx of the SRx
rulebook")

On top of that... the team karma is divided by the number of team
members

And you don't award normal team karma (ie: survival, success, threat)

So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a group of 4 PCs would earn
each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses for roleplay, humour,
drama, etc...
Message no. 5
From: Glenn Sprott wasntka44@*********.net
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 02:07:51 -0500
>Alas, you are reading the karma awards from the adventures
>incorrectly.
>
>The karma awards from the back of the published adventures is to be
>given out in lieu of team karma (as they say something like "award
>team karma as ..... and individual karma as per pxxx of the SRx
>rulebook")
>
>On top of that... the team karma is divided by the number of team
>members
>
>And you don't award normal team karma (ie: survival, success, threat)
>
>So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a group of 4 PCs would earn
>each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses for roleplay, humour,
>drama, etc...

I understand that, except for the dividing the team karma up bit... I
once thought it was that way too, but that would be even less than
what I've been dishing out. 4 karma plus 3-5 more for individual
karma? That seems lower than what I thought everyone in here was
telling me.

I understand the difference between a campaign and an adventure... I
guess we just take longer to complete some of these runs. Like I said
in an earlier post, most of our runs (published or not) take around
3-5 months of play. I get really into the character interactions and
role-playing. Maybe this slows me down.

So you don't give out more than say... 5 base karma, per character,
for each adventure (depending on the threat of course)? I'm talking
about your average, everyday run... Am I understanding this right?
How long would your average run take? 2-5 sessions like everyone else
has been saying?

We must be really slow...

----------------------------
Wasntka (Wolf)
...Never allow your family to get hurt...
...Never allow your friends to stand alone...
...Never betray your loved one...
...Never betray yourself...
Message no. 6
From: HHackerH@***.com HHackerH@***.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 08:27:14 EST
In a message dated 3/24/00 12:32:46 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
shadowrun@*********.net writes:

> On top of that... the team karma is divided by the number of team
> members

Excuse me????

> And you don't award normal team karma (ie: survival, success, threat)

Why not?

> So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a group of 4 PCs would earn
> each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses for roleplay, humour,
> drama, etc...


Gosh, if this rule exists, its' something I've never noticed or read before.
Someone have a correction for me to look at?

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-K
-"Just a Bastard"
-Hoosier Hacker House
"Children of the Kernel"
[http://members.aol.com/hhackerh/index.html]
Message no. 7
From: Augustus shadowrun@*********.net
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 09:44:26 -0800
> In a message dated 3/24/00 12:32:46 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
> shadowrun@*********.net writes:
>
> > So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a group of 4 PCs would
earn
> > each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses for roleplay,
humour,
> > drama, etc...
>
>
> Gosh, if this rule exists, its' something I've never noticed or read
before.
> Someone have a correction for me to look at?

To quote the above referenced adventure "Elven Fire"

p61: KARMA

" Award Karma to the group as follows:
successfully dealing with the yakuza 4
defeating michael dumont: 4
Defeating Shim Bright 5
Down-scaling the gang war 5

Divide the points awarded evenly among the group. Drop any
fractions."


Now, what you might have thought was that I was saying Team Karma is
always divided by the surviving party members...

And no... that is not the case... normally you dole out "survival,
success and threat" karma to each player... but in the case of the
premade adventures the survival, success and threat karma are combined
into these pools to be divided up amongst the party.

Why? Because if an adventure like Elven Fire said "give each player 4
team karma for doing all the above" then that would be too little a
reward if the party consisted of only 2 PCs... but likewise would be
too big a reward if the party consisted of 15 PCs.
Message no. 8
From: Mike & Linda Frankl mlfrankl@***.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 20:02:15 -0500
Wasntka
> Well, I guess this is the entire point. I don't want my players
> feeling cold, but I especially want to make sure that I am
> interpreting the rules correctly. From all the published adventures
> that I have read and run, I thought I was pretty much on the mark, but
> if I'm wrong, I hope to correct it.

To me it really reflects how much time is invested. A year of gaming for 20
Karma is too long if it is a weekly game. I generally give one per session
(mine usually last three for each adventure), one or two for style and
clever moves, and then 3 to 4 for the run. It usually averages out to 7-8
karma an adventure. These adventures work towards a greater campaign which
can run from 2 - 3 years. We play every other weekend for 8-12 hours at a
shot (hmmmmm..). Sometimes I give more and sometimes less.

Secondly, rules are nice but it is more about the players having a great
time. You won't hear me say this often, but if you want to dole out 15-20
karma for a high powered campaign then do it if you enjoy it. The rules are
a guide not the end result. Worrying about them too much detracts from the
whole point of RPG's, having fun.

Trust me there are plenty of folks running around out there with delta grade
this and megapower focus that and winding it up with number crunching that
would make my buddy with the PhD in mathematics blush. If your people like
the game that is all that matters. Ask them, no matter what some would have
you think GM's aren't omniscient.

:)

Smilin' Jack

Franklin Isshinryu School of Karate
http://msnhomepages.talkcity.com/RallyRd/mlfrankl/fiskhome.htm
Message no. 9
From: HHackerH@***.com HHackerH@***.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Fri, 24 Mar 2000 21:12:32 EST
In a message dated 3/24/00 12:45:05 PM US Eastern Standard Time,
shadowrun@*********.net writes:

>
> Now, what you might have thought was that I was saying Team Karma is
> always divided by the surviving party members...
>
> And no... that is not the case... normally you dole out "survival,
> success and threat" karma to each player... but in the case of the
> premade adventures the survival, success and threat karma are combined
> into these pools to be divided up amongst the party.
>
> Why? Because if an adventure like Elven Fire said "give each player 4
> team karma for doing all the above" then that would be too little a
> reward if the party consisted of only 2 PCs... but likewise would be
> too big a reward if the party consisted of 15 PCs.
>
Okay, this made more sense to me ... the original statement just didn't
clarify it and I was really confused. Thanks.

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-K
-"Just a Bastard"
-Hoosier Hacker House
"Children of the Kernel"
[http://members.aol.com/hhackerh/index.html]
Message no. 10
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 05:42:10 -0800 (PST)
> shadowrun@*********.net writes:
>
> > On top of that... the team karma is divided by the
> number of team
> > members
>
> Excuse me????

I agree with K here. I've NEVER found anything that
indicates that team karma is meant to be divided up
between the players. My understanding is that the team
karma awards are points that are...err...awarded to
the team as a whole. They represent success at the
goals of the mission (mostly), amongst other things.
So if one person gets it, the entire team gets it. The
other side of the coin are individual karma awards.

The other thing to remember when looking at the
different FASA adventures and goggling at the amount
of karma some of them award is that a) they were
written at widely varying times, b) they were written
by different people, who apparently decided on the
appropriate awards themselves (and whose
interpretations of "appropriate" apparently differed
wildly), c) FASA didn't seem to make any effort to
standardise karma awards in adventures to keep them on
a par with each other, until recently (look in Super
Tuesday and the adventure books that have followed
that) and, mostly importantly IMO, e) to get the
maximum amount of karma awarded by each book, you need
to do EVERYTHING right - which is not always easy.

For instance, taking the afore-quoted example of
Paradise Lost, to get a team karma award of 40 (the
maximum possible) you have to (amongst other things)
operate entirely off your turf, with few to no
contacts and gear and with a lot of extremely hostile
people gunning for you, find an extremely well-hidden
base, infiltrate that base (one of the hardest jobs in
a published FASA adventure, IMO, taking into account
what I previously said about turf, contacts and gear)
AND defeat or escape from a feathered serpent. This is
a TERRIBLY tough one to get every single award - if
you manage to, IMO you either deserve it, you were
really lucky, or had a really kind GM (who would, if
he were smart, reduce the award commensurate to his
kindness), or you're part of a team who does this kind
of thing every day and to whom a 40 karma award is
diddly-squat.

> > And you don't award normal team karma (ie:
> survival, success, threat)
>
> Why not?

Because those awards are accounted for in the team
karma awards at the ends of the published adventures,
K. Not always explicitly, but in most, if not all,
adventures, that is the case. Of course, there are
probably some that I don't remember the details of
where they left that kind of thing out. That may
explain the seemingly low awards in some of the
tougher adventures - they put in awards for attaining
goals, but left threat and survival awards up to the
GM.

> > So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a group
> of 4 PCs would earn
> > each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses
> for roleplay, humour,
> > drama, etc...
>
> Gosh, if this rule exists, its' something I've never
> noticed or read before.
> Someone have a correction for me to look at?
>
> -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> -K

Don't be snide, K. :)

I agree with you on the whole - I think the boy is
mistaken about dividing karma - but it was probably an
honest mistake (and you could argue (albeit speciously
:) ) there's never been anything to say you DON'T
divide team karma awards). Anyway, same thing applies
with him as with Glen Mr. Stingy (sorry, Glen, but
you've earned the nickname ;) ) Sprott. If it works
for them, who are we to say it's wrong?

But Glen? I'd kick your karma awards up if I were
you...just a tad. ;) Can't remember who said it, but
someone mentioned that each session they usually award
a point or two of karma for roleplaying, achieving
goals etc. You might want to take that on board. That
way your adventures can run however long you want them
to, you still only give one large award out at the
end, but your players do get a few points of karma
here and there as you play to reward their time and
effort.

My. I'm being...reasonable. And...helpful.
And...peaceable. This is...not...at all...like me...

*Doc' goes hunting for his reset button...*

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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Message no. 11
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 06:01:35 -0800 (PST)
> > > So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a
> group of 4 PCs would
> earn
> > > each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses
> for roleplay,
> humour,
> > > drama, etc...
> >
> >
> > Gosh, if this rule exists, its' something I've
> never noticed or read
> before.
> > Someone have a correction for me to look at?
>
> To quote the above referenced adventure "Elven Fire"
>
> p61: KARMA
>
> " Award Karma to the group as follows:
> successfully dealing with the yakuza 4
> defeating michael dumont:
> 4
> Defeating Shim Bright
> 5
> Down-scaling the gang war 5
>
> Divide the points awarded evenly among the
> group. Drop any
> fractions."

Oh, okay, that's new to me. :) I didn't remember that.
I think you'll find, though, that that particular
instruction did NOT appear in many (if any) other
published adventures and was NOT carried over, nor
intended to be. Most of the adventures around that
time awarded less that 10 points of team karma per
player - when you divide the above karma by a few
players you get an award in that range, but with the
other adventures, the award was already in that range,
without division. I think part of the reason that that
particular (divide) instruction was dropped was
BECAUSE of the variable number of players in a team -
see below...

> Now, what you might have thought was that I was
> saying Team Karma is
> always divided by the surviving party members...
>
> And no... that is not the case... normally you dole
> out "survival,
> success and threat" karma to each player... but in
> the case of the
> premade adventures the survival, success and threat
> karma are combined
> into these pools to be divided up amongst the party.

But that's not correct. Some of the adventures have
survival and threat awards listed explicitly and
separately to the goals/success awards. Are you
supposed to divide those too?

> Why? Because if an adventure like Elven Fire said
> "give each player 4
> team karma for doing all the above" then that would
> be too little a
> reward if the party consisted of only 2 PCs... but
> likewise would be
> too big a reward if the party consisted of 15 PCs.

No, uh-uh, wrong. See, that would be the case if you
ran the adventure AS IS, whether you had two or 15
players. But you'd have to be a pretty piss-poor GM to
do something like that. Why? Because if you had two
players, you'd probably end up with two dead PCs, and
if you had 15 players they'd walk all over it. The
adventures were designed for teams in the range of 4
to 6 PCs. If you have more or less players, then you
have to ADJUST the adventures, or otherwise they
become killzones or walkovers - and neither of those
options result in good games. So any GM worth his salt
would MAKE the game a challenge for his PCs (whether 2
or 15), so that they'd all deserve the same amount of
karma. That's why having a flat amount per team, no
matter the size of the team, and dividing it by the
number of players doesn't work (and why, I suspect,
that method was dropped from later adventures).

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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Message no. 12
From: HHackerH@***.com HHackerH@***.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 17:01:43 EST
In a message dated 3/25/00 8:42:33 AM US Eastern Standard Time,
docwagon101@*****.com writes:

> > > So an adventure like "Elven Fire" done by a group
> > of 4 PCs would earn
> > > each player 3-4 team karma points, plus bonuses
> > for roleplay, humour,
> > > drama, etc...
> >
> > Gosh, if this rule exists, its' something I've never
> > noticed or read before.
> > Someone have a correction for me to look at?
> >
> > -=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
> > -K
>
> Don't be snide, K. :)

I WASN'T BEING SNIDE!!! I was being sincere. When a GM who works hard to
stay consistent within his game mechanics as I have runs across something
that has a basis on the fundamental development of the PC's in his games, he
oftens WANTS to know the story behind it. And if it doesn't match with his
game style, he wants to know why it doesn't and is the decision he's been
making is a working, continuously survivable, decision.

And Doc. Don't snip so much, the example prior to this one didn't work for
what you said, and Wasntka (did I get this right? ... by the way, I get a
kick out of how you could pronounce that name there ... "wasn't K"... ;-) had
a point that he was making but he didn't originally provide the details about
a specific karma ruling for a given adventure.

All is fine here ;-)

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
-K
-"Just a Bastard"
-Hoosier Hacker House
"Children of the Kernel"
[http://members.aol.com/hhackerh/index.html]
Message no. 13
From: Mark A Shieh SHODAN+@***.EDU
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 19:33:33 -0500 (EST)
Excerpts from ShadowRN: 24-Mar-100 Karma Awards (was Fixing th.. by
"Glenn Sprott"@*********
> I understand the difference between a campaign and an adventure... I
> guess we just take longer to complete some of these runs. Like I said
> in an earlier post, most of our runs (published or not) take around
> 3-5 months of play. I get really into the character interactions and
> role-playing. Maybe this slows me down.

This definitely slows you down compared to a lot of other groups, I
think, but character interactions and role-playing aren't exactly wasted
time. However, a entire session spent role-playing is worth a couple
points of karma, in my opinion. I think the difference here is that
most groups that I know award the role-playing karma out per session,
not per adventure. Incidentally, I've never heard of an adventure in
any RPG taking 5 months, playing weekly. That's longer than an average
campaign around here, and we play weekly...

> So you don't give out more than say... 5 base karma, per character,
> for each adventure (depending on the threat of course)? I'm talking
> about your average, everyday run... Am I understanding this right?
> How long would your average run take? 2-5 sessions like everyone else
> has been saying?

I'll give out about 3 karma for an average, everyday run, which is
far less involved than your typical module, and might take 3 sessions to
finish. The absolute maximum karma award for a 3 week run might go
something like this when I GM:

1.5 karma: attendance karma x 3
6 karma: role-playing and humor x 3
1 karma: interesting solution to a puzzle
3 karma: threat and objective

Usually though, role-playing and humor karma is much closer to 2-3 than
6, especially since it's rare for me to have a player have a truly
memorable week twice in a row. I've noticed that threats and objectives
tend to get completed at about a rate of one point a session.
Basically, I give out an average of 2-3 karma per session.

Mark
Message no. 14
From: Rand Ratinac docwagon101@*****.com
Subject: Karma Awards (was Fixing the price...)
Date: Sat, 25 Mar 2000 17:32:34 -0800 (PST)
> > Don't be snide, K. :)
>
> I WASN'T BEING SNIDE!!! I was being sincere. When
> a GM who works hard to
> stay consistent within his game mechanics as I have
> runs across something
> that has a basis on the fundamental development of
> the PC's in his games, he
> oftens WANTS to know the story behind it. And if it
> doesn't match with his
> game style, he wants to know why it doesn't and is
> the decision he's been
> making is a working, continuously survivable,
> decision.

*sigh*

And I was being sarcastic. :)

> And Doc. Don't snip so much, the example prior to
> this one didn't work for
> what you said, and Wasntka (did I get this right?
> ... by the way, I get a
> kick out of how you could pronounce that name there
> ... "wasn't K"... ;-) had
> a point that he was making but he didn't originally
> provide the details about
> a specific karma ruling for a given adventure.
>
> All is fine here ;-)

Actually, I didn't snip ANYTHING from this particular
post. The further explanation you're referring to came
in a later post which I've also responded to.
Basically, I see the point, but I think it was (pretty
much) a one off and was not intended to be carried
over into any other of the published adventures.

====Doc'
(aka Mr. Freaky Big, Super-Dynamic Troll of Tomorrow, aka Doc'-booner)

S.S. f. P.S.C. & D.J.

.sig Sauer

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