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Message no. 1
From: Slipspeed <atreloar@*********.COM>
Subject: Re: Karma Levels (Was: Physical sorcerers?(tangent))
Date: Sat, 12 Sep 1998 01:14:28 +1000
>David Foster wrote:


<snip>

>Any character can blow things out of the water after 200 Karma, but I'm
>guessing you meant relative to the other 200 karma characters. In my
>opinion, the best campaigns are between 30-70 Karma.

I'd tend to disagree... 30-70 karma is a good starting base, where
characters can start to have a few of the skills they need. But I,
personally, hate having hundreds of low karma characters. Play the
character for a while and it's inevitable that they'll accumulate more than
that.

To my way of thinking, 200 karma is where characters start to move from the
high end of average characters into people with real weight in the shadows.
However, they CERTAINLY can't blow everything out of the water at that karma
level. Especially mages or physads (adepts under 3rd Ed? I forget). At
200 karma, most of mine are just getting past the basics in skills, spells,
attribute boosts, initiations etc.

But then, I tend to spend karma evenly, preferring the 'jack of all trades'
type rather than the specialist. A mage with 200 karma could be initiated 4
times alright, and have a manabolt 10, but none of my characters, mage,
physad or otherwise are like that. Point in casee, my oldest character,
Turbo - 600+ karma and his highest skill is an 8 in firearms. Most of his
karma has gone into many skills. Her has about every skill in the book,
plus some. He'd slot it quite well with most runners of 100 karma or more,
*because* he doesn't have firearms of god-knows-what, if you ignore the
assests he's accumulated. About the only area where he'd stand out would be
karma pool, but he doesn't have much of that either, not after a rather
nasty encounter with a dragon... :)

Anyway, in summary, I hate abandoning a character with 200 karma because
people are thinking that the character is getting too powerful. Running as
street trash is great for starting characters, but it's nice to see them
move into the movers and shakers section of the shadowrunners world.

After all, what runner that knows his business hasn't heard of Fastjack etc?
Wouldn't it be nice if in your particular version of the Shadowrun world one
of your characters had similar name recognition? (Well, maybe not THAT
much, but more than your fixer, at least.. :) )

Slipspeed


----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
"It's called tourist season, so why can't we shoot them?"
Adam Treloar aka Guardian, Slipspeed
atreloar@*********.com
http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1900/
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
--
Message no. 2
From: David Foster <fixer@*******.TLH.FL.US>
Subject: Re: Karma Levels (Was: Physical sorcerers?(tangent))
Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 12:21:43 -0400
On Sat, 12 Sep 1998, Slipspeed wrote:

->>David Foster wrote:
<snip snip>
->>Any character can blow things out of the water after 200 Karma, but I'm
->>guessing you meant relative to the other 200 karma characters. In my
->>opinion, the best campaigns are between 30-70 Karma.

I didn't say this. It was the response to my statement. Please
quote the right person. The correct speaker was Lars Ericson.

->I'd tend to disagree... 30-70 karma is a good starting base, where
->characters can start to have a few of the skills they need. But I,
->personally, hate having hundreds of low karma characters. Play the
->character for a while and it's inevitable that they'll accumulate more than
->that.
->
->To my way of thinking, 200 karma is where characters start to move from the
->high end of average characters into people with real weight in the shadows.
->However, they CERTAINLY can't blow everything out of the water at that karma
->level. Especially mages or physads (adepts under 3rd Ed? I forget). At
->200 karma, most of mine are just getting past the basics in skills, spells,
->attribute boosts, initiations etc.
->
->But then, I tend to spend karma evenly, preferring the 'jack of all trades'
->type rather than the specialist. A mage with 200 karma could be initiated 4
->times alright, and have a manabolt 10, but none of my characters, mage,
->physad or otherwise are like that. Point in casee, my oldest character,
->Turbo - 600+ karma and his highest skill is an 8 in firearms. Most of his
->karma has gone into many skills. Her has about every skill in the book,
->plus some. He'd slot it quite well with most runners of 100 karma or more,
->*because* he doesn't have firearms of god-knows-what, if you ignore the
->assests he's accumulated. About the only area where he'd stand out would be
->karma pool, but he doesn't have much of that either, not after a rather
->nasty encounter with a dragon... :)

I have to say my characters specialize slightly. They are REALLY
good at one thing (skill 9) and have backup skills that are about 5-6.
And who, in their right mind, fights a dragon one-on-one? Bring in
friends with assault cannons and disposable drones loaded with C12 if
you're going to be taking on a dragon. ]:-)

->Anyway, in summary, I hate abandoning a character with 200 karma because
->people are thinking that the character is getting too powerful. Running as
->street trash is great for starting characters, but it's nice to see them
->move into the movers and shakers section of the shadowrunners world.

Actually, the character I'm referring to was "Buddy" and besides
being a Physad/Mage he was also Immortal (per my rules), and that kinda
helped me to decide to retire him. He had enough money to make a
corporation and now has no more need to work, so retirement he goes. The
corp only has a Net Rating of 15 or so, but it's nice and stable,
especially with Buddy to make "adjustments" to other corporations to
enhance his own when necessary.

->After all, what runner that knows his business hasn't heard of Fastjack etc?
->Wouldn't it be nice if in your particular version of the Shadowrun world one
->of your characters had similar name recognition? (Well, maybe not THAT
->much, but more than your fixer, at least.. :) )

Would be nice, but some prefer anonymity... ]:-)

Fixer --------------} The easy I do before breakfast,
the difficult I do all day long,
the impossible only during the week,
and miracles performed on an as-needed basis....

Now tell me, what was your problem?

Further Reading

If you enjoyed reading about Karma Levels (Was: Physical sorcerers?(tangent)), you may also be interested in:

Disclaimer

These messages were posted a long time ago on a mailing list far, far away. The copyright to their contents probably lies with the original authors of the individual messages, but since they were published in an electronic forum that anyone could subscribe to, and the logs were available to subscribers and most likely non-subscribers as well, it's felt that re-publishing them here is a kind of public service.

Thwap!