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Message no. 1
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Karma (was Re: Killing players)
Date: Thu Nov 29 07:35:00 2001
Gurth writes:

> [1] IMHO, every character in the SR world has Karma, because everyone
> follows the same rules.

Technically, by the rules in SR3, every _thing_ in the SR world has a Karma
Pool, from PCs to spirits to NPCs and the stray dog down the street. In my
view, this somewhat detracts from the "PCs as central protragonists" view
that I feel the game and story should revolve around. So I do not give Karma
Pools to any characters or entities other than the PCs. This gives the PCs
the ability to be the center of attention, pull off daring stunts, and walk
away from major confrontations. Just like big screen action heroes and the
like. Much more satisfying :-). OTOH, it does get a little difficult to
make "big name" NPC villians and the like when you know the PCs have 20
points of Karma Pool and the villian has none... Of course, this is why any
good villian has dozens of henchmen and a huge building as his HQ. So the
PCs can squander away their Karma Pools just getting to meet the villian,
and then be on equal footing <evil GM grin>.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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Message no. 2
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Karma (was Re: Killing players)
Date: Thu Nov 29 10:00:01 2001
<Judo Chop!>
> Technically, by the rules in SR3, every _thing_ in the SR world has a
> Karma
> Pool, from PCs to spirits to NPCs and the stray dog down the street.
In my
> view, this somewhat detracts from the "PCs as central protragonists"
view
> that I feel the game and story should revolve around. So I do not give
> Karma
> Pools to any characters or entities other than the PCs. This gives the
PCs
> the ability to be the center of attention, pull off daring stunts, and
> walk
> away from major confrontations. Just like big screen action heroes and
the
> like. Much more satisfying :-). OTOH, it does get a little difficult
to
> make "big name" NPC villians and the like when you know the PCs have
20
> points of Karma Pool and the villian has none... Of course, this is
why
> any
> good villian has dozens of henchmen and a huge building as his HQ. So
the
> PCs can squander away their Karma Pools just getting to meet the
villian,
> and then be on equal footing <evil GM grin>.
Ok I'm gonna have to put this one in here cause I'm thinking it's
probably the only way that the point is gonna make sense that everone
has Karma. Ever seen a person that was in such a horrendous car
accident that you would look at the wreck and assume the people inside
died only to get closer and see that there's 2 people inside trying to
get out for all they're worth? That's karma, without it death would be
cut and dry, remember that joey butafuco thing where this chick that
wanted him (I believe that he was cheating on his wife with her) and so
she took a .22 cal pistol and put it to his wife's temple and shot her?
The bullet ricocheted all around in her head scrambling her brain but
she's still alive and if I recall correctly last I heard she's getting
better, can still talk, and behave like a normal person. That's Karma.
An army paratrooper that hits the ground because his chute didn't open
but only has a broken leg or a dislocated hip or something like that,
it's karma. EVERYONE has karma, it's not only used for bold and daring
heroics and most often shouldn't be because if that's the case the PC's
are just getting out of hand and begging to be killed off. Remember
they're SHADOWRUNNERS they're supposed to be somewhat sneaky cause they
don't want everyone hunting them down, if you're being all heroic and
flashy someone's gonna remember your face and then the drek's gonna hit
the fan.
Message no. 3
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Lars Wagner Hansen)
Subject: Karma (was Re: Killing players)
Date: Thu Nov 29 10:25:00 2001
From: "Derek Hyde" <dhyde@*********.net>
<Snip was here>
<Snip examples of everyone has karma>

That's because those people are the PC's in the Real Life RPG (TM). The rest of
us are just plain vanilla NPCs.

Lars
--
Lars Wagner Hansen, Jagtvej 11, 4180 Sorø
l-hansen@*****.tele.dk http://home4.inet.tele.dk/l-hansen
--
SRGC v0.22 SR1 SR2++ SR3+++ h+ b+++ B--- UB++ IE+ RN LST W++ dk sa++ ma+
sh++ ad++++ ri mc rk-- m- (e-- o t-- d-) gm+ M- P-
--
Main Rule of Usenet: Never argue with idiots. They drag you down to
their level, then beat you with experience.
Message no. 4
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Karma (was Re: Killing players)
Date: Thu Nov 29 10:35:00 2001
Derek Hyde writes:

> <Snip examples of Derek's interpretation of "Karma".>

While I see your point, I don't actually agree. I would say that such
examples were _luck_. A car crashes horrendously. The occupants, in SR,
suffer 20D. The odds of the surviving are very slim indeed. But, out of a
large number of such crashes, a few lucky people survive. You call it Karma
Pool re-rolls, I call it statistical luck that they rolled 2 20's on their
Body roll. Likewise the other examples that you gave. Karma _increases_ your
chance of being able to pull off amazing, unusual feats - it doesn't make it
possible for you to do so.

> EVERYONE has karma, it's not only used for bold and daring heroics and
> most often shouldn't be because if that's the case the PC's are just
> getting out of hand and begging to be killed off. Remember they're
> SHADOWRUNNERS they're supposed to be somewhat sneaky cause they don't want
> everyone hunting them down, if you're being all heroic and flashy someone's
> gonna remember your face and then the drek's gonna hit the fan.

"Bold and daring" doesn't neccessarily mean "heroic and flashy",
though.
Admittedly, sometimes it does. But often enough, bold and daring could be
trusting your instincts and luck (read Karma) enough to be able to shimmy up
a 20 story wall to get access to the panel that runs the transponder that
activates the authentication signal to the rooftop helipad so that you can
jimmy it in time (Karma again) so your chummers in the chopper who's ETA is
14.5 seconds won't be blown away by the laser security system up there. That
kind of stunt often requires Karma. That sort of stunt is not something that
"Joe Average" pulls off. It's something that action movie heroes pull of
with sweat pouring off their bodies in order to prevent the deaths of
whoever is on that inbound chopper. Thus, Joe Average has no Karma. Joe
Shadowrunner (read, PC Shadowrunner), does.

As for "heroic and flashy", not everything in the game Shadowrun is about
_shadowruns_ or _shadowrunners_. A large part of many of my games involves
organised crime syndicates and gangs. Being remembered by your Triad
opponents as the guy who broke into their head troubleshooters apartment all
alone, took on the guy and his support, and _escaped_ alive (that's where
Karma helps), even if you didn't actually kill any of them, can really count
for something in the honourbound criminal scene. Similarly, if in the middle
of a large gang skirmish you are the one who notices the invisible sniping
magician on the other side who's systematically knocking off your gang and
gets up there to do something about him (probably requiring Karma), then who
do you think gets the respect, admiration, and jealousy of the rest of the
gang?

And, seriously, since when did you see Bruce Willis (or any other big action
star for that matter) playing the 2nd string in a movie that he starred in?
I don't remember the entire plotline of Entrapment revolving around anyone
but the main characters. They're the one's who pulled the amazing tricks,
not the rest of the supporting characters. Likewise, PCs should be the stars
of the game that they star in, don't you think? Sure, there may be bigger
fish around, but the whole story revolves around the PCs. They're the ones
who do something special. They're the ones who create the real story. They
stand out from the NPC crowd. One of the things that helps them do it in my
game is the fact that they have Karma.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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Message no. 5
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Derek Hyde)
Subject: Karma (was Re: Killing players)
Date: Thu Nov 29 12:05:04 2001
>


> And, seriously, since when did you see Bruce Willis (or any other big
> action
> star for that matter) playing the 2nd string in a movie that he
starred
> in?
> I don't remember the entire plotline of Entrapment revolving around
anyone
> but the main characters. They're the one's who pulled the amazing
tricks,
> not the rest of the supporting characters. Likewise, PCs should be the
> stars
> of the game that they star in, don't you think? Sure, there may be
bigger
> fish around, but the whole story revolves around the PCs. They're the
ones
> who do something special. They're the ones who create the real story.
They
> stand out from the NPC crowd. One of the things that helps them do it
in
> my
> game is the fact that they have Karma.

Ok....good points but step back to a more realistic perspective, they're
just the ones with the skills and the guts to do what they're thinking
about doing. Take the army for example, about 90% of us wish that we
could be out there on the front lines in afganastan busting our humps
and doing real army things with the special forces BUT a very small
number of us really have the guts and the skills that we'd need to make
it through the selection school let alone make it through their
training, I know...I didn't, I bombed out of the "q" course about the
3rd week, and no it's not cause I'm weak, but rather that my body just
couldn't keep up with what they wanted because of prior injuries. What
I'm getting at is that a runner is the same as you or I with only the
difference that #1 they're of course imaginary and part of a game, and
#2 they've got the guts and the skills to be able to do it. Everyone
should have karma, just like someone else pointed out though, they won't
have nearly as much karma as a PC, (unless the PC is an initiate and
then they'll have about the same cause he's spent all of his..LOL)
Message no. 6
From: shadowrn@*********.com (Damion Milliken)
Subject: Karma (was Re: Killing players)
Date: Mon Dec 3 05:05:01 2001
Derek Hyde writes:

> Ok....good points but step back to a more realistic perspective, they're
> just the ones with the skills and the guts to do what they're thinking
> about doing. <Snip army example> What I'm getting at is that a runner is
> the same as you or I with only the difference that #1 they're of course
> imaginary and part of a game, and #2 they've got the guts and the skills to
> be able to do it. Everyone should have karma, just like someone else
> pointed out though, they won't have nearly as much karma as a PC, (unless
> the PC is an initiate and then they'll have about the same cause he's spent
> all of his..LOL)

Yeah, I see what you're getting at now. You look at the characters in the
game as being "as close to real life", as in _realistic_, as possible. OTOH,
my group looks at the characters in the game in much the same way we might
look at characters in a big budget Hollywood action flick. _We_, the
players, the people, know that characters in movies are rather, er,
preposterous, as are the situations that they get themselves into (and out
of ;-)). We know that in "real life" these sorts of things just don't
happen, and that, as you point out, many of the circumstances where things
might appear similar are due to statistical differences in the capabilities
and skills of individual people.

OTOH, I guess that we feel the Hollywood style is more entertaining (and if
the popularity of preposterous movies is anything to go by, we might be on
to something <grin>). While your group, OTOOH, prefers to be a bit closer to
"PCs are merely a cog in the great machine of the universe ... a well
trained and capable cog perhaps, but nothing more and nothing less". Thus
stems our slightly different approaches to Karma Pool.

--
Damion Milliken University of Wollongong
Unofficial Shadowrun Guru E-mail: dam01@***.edu.au
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