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Message no. 1
From: Gavin Lewis <lewis@**.EDU.AU>
Subject: Karma Pools rehashed!
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 16:07:37 +0800
Sorry for bringing up a thread that seemed to have finished, but I didnt get
a good enough feel for what people were trying to say.

In my opinion Karma Pools are an essential aspect of SRII. They protect
older characters from lucky dice rolls and give them a sense of confidence
(which is explained in the fact that as characters get more experience they
should get more confident). The SRII rules have made dying easier and
therefore mistakes more punishable. I believe that SRII has tried to
compensate for this in the fact that they have introduced a thorough karma
pool system and a thorough healing system.

Am I wrong or was the general opinion that Karma Pools should NOT be used in
SRII?

Gav
Message no. 2
From: Charles Baker <karolusb@**.NETCOM.COM>
Subject: Re: Karma Pools rehashed!
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 00:27:39 -0800
Gavin Lewis wrote:
>
> Sorry for bringing up a thread that seemed to have finished, but I didnt get
> a good enough feel for what people were trying to say.
>
> In my opinion Karma Pools are an essential aspect of SRII. They protect
> older characters from lucky dice rolls and give them a sense of confidence
> (which is explained in the fact that as characters get more experience they
> should get more confident). The SRII rules have made dying easier and
> therefore mistakes more punishable. I believe that SRII has tried to
> compensate for this in the fact that they have introduced a thorough karma
> pool system and a thorough healing system.
>
> Am I wrong or was the general opinion that Karma Pools should NOT be used in
> SRII?
>
> Gav

Not general, I like karma pools, but I feel that if your even remotely
generous with karma it becomes very easy to get too much of it, our
current group uses the staged karma out of the comp and still most
people have bad karma, knowing that since the GM gives out a lot of
karma it becomes easy to achieve unplayable in six or eight months. (At
8-10 Karma per award 1-2 sessions a week, awards every 1-3 sessions etc.
150 karma in six months isn't so odd, and a 15 karma pool is awfully
high.)
Message no. 3
From: Bull <chaos@*****.COM>
Subject: Re: Karma Pools rehashed!
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 04:27:55 -0500
At 04:07 PM 1/16/97 +0800, you wrote:
>
>Am I wrong or was the general opinion that Karma Pools should NOT be used in
>SRII?
>
Personally, I like 'em... And i'm on both sides of the GM's screen...

But I would defiantely comsider limiting the pool for higher level
characters... More than 20 gets VERY abusive...

Although it lets you pull off some pretty cool stunts...

I guess it's up to the GM, though, and how he runs the game. I tend to
make the big, climactic encounters a bit tougher than the characters could
normally handle, which they can survive only with either great dice rolls,
or using there pool to get better rolls... This represents, at least in my
mind, the superhuman heroics that great characters are made of... tehse
make, or break, the story... And penalizes the characters if they squander
their pool early on.

Just my opinion.

Bull
--
Bull-the-I'm-now-cuddley-because-Dvixen-said-so-ork-decker-turned-GM

=======================================================
= Bull, aka Chaos, aka Rak, aka Steven Ratkovich =
= chaos@*****,com =
= "Order is Illusion! Chaos is Bliss! Got any fours?" =
=======================================================

"I dare you to use that .sig file for a week!"
-Dvixen, after seeing my new .sig
Message no. 4
From: Gurth <gurth@******.NL>
Subject: Re: Karma Pools rehashed!
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 12:46:09 +0100
Gavin Lewis said on 16:07/16 Jan 97...

> The SRII rules have made dying easier and therefore mistakes more
> punishable.

IMO they've made it harder to die... SR1 had no overflow, for example --
once you hit 10 boxes, you were as good as dead. Single attacks in SRII
are more deadly, OTOH 7 shots from a 5M3 assault rifle hurt just as bad,
if not worse (SR1's different way of applying armor makes a major
difference here -- someone with armor was a lot less likely to get killed
than in SRII).

> Am I wrong or was the general opinion that Karma Pools should NOT be
> used in SRII?

I feel it should be used. The only real trouble with it is when the pool
gets large (10 or more points), since that allows characters to re-roll
lots of tests and get out of nasty situations a bit too easy at times.

--
Gurth@******.nl - http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/index.html
I feel better, having screamed on you.
-> NERPS Project Leader & Unofficial Shadowrun Guru <-
-> The Plastic Warriors Page: http://www.xs4all.nl/~gurth/plastic.html <-

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Message no. 5
From: David Buehrer <dbuehrer@****.ORG>
Subject: Re: Karma Pools rehashed!
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 07:28:57 -0700
Gavin Lewis wrote:
|
| Am I wrong or was the general opinion that Karma Pools should NOT be
| used in SRII?

I feel KPs should be used, because it's the moderator for
combat (without the KP SRII's combat system is very
lethal).

I just gripe about KP every now and then cuz it's
unbalancing, IMHO, at high levels (20+). I've found that
when the KP gets this high it starts to screw with the
entire game, cuz it can be applied to any success test. My
players are smart and the combat oriented characters would
spend their KP on combat, while the other characters would
spend their KP on everything else. Adventures where being
decided by the KP instead of good old fashion roleplaying.

As other people have stated, putting a limit of some sort
on the KP might be a good idea (longer time between
refreshements, maximum of 10, etc.).

-David
--
/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\ dbuehrer@****.org /^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\/^\
"His thoughts tumbled in his head, making and breaking
alliances like underpants in a dryer without Cling Free."
~~~http://www.geocities.com/TimesSquare/1068/homepage.htm~~~~
Message no. 6
From: "Arno R. Lehmann" <arlehma@***.NET>
Subject: Re: Karma Pools rehashed!
Date: Thu, 16 Jan 1997 23:09:59 +0100
On Thu, 16 Jan 1997 16:07:37 +0800, Gavin Lewis wrote:

>Am I wrong or was the general opinion that Karma Pools should NOT be used in
>SRII?
>
>Gav
>

Yeah, your'e wrong. (But then, I did not say anything about it yet,
because I have not made up my mind about it.
After this discussion, _I_ would say, Karma Pools are okay, but should
not be filled as fast as the rules suggest. (my opinion: any rules are
suggestions, not law)

Arno,
ducking-to-not-get-found-by-the-game-police-and-already-infected-by--ing

Further Reading

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