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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Karma Awards

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 18 2007, 08:52 PM

I don't have a clear question, exactly, just something I'd like to discuss with everyone.
In the multitude of threads about karma I found while searching, none of them really went into detail in exactly what I'm looking for.

There are lots of old threads talking about how much karma to give. That's not my issue, I'll decide how quickly I want my campaign to advance.

The issue is, I've never been fully comfortable assigning karma exactly as described on page 263.
The first thing is, I'm not 100% sure that the suggested awards are precisely what I want to be rewarding, and in those proportions. I'm not saying they're bad either, but if other GMs ignore some of those awards or add awards for other things I'd love to hear some suggestions.
Second, I'm bad at giving individual awards. I worry that I might accidentally favor someone, I worry that I'll award one person's brilliant idea but simply forget about another person's, and I worry that imbalanced awards could lead to some hurt feelings. I don't want to punish someone who may be actively participating, having fun, and contributing to the fun of others but who doesn't happen to shine in any particular category. I feel like I'd much rather give an equal award to the group as a whole, everyone earning the same amount based on the overall RPing, smarts, guts, motivation, etc of the team. There's an argument that I'd be cheating the players who put extra work into it, vs. an argument that people who are PRing more or contributing more ideas are rewarded in other intangible non-karma ways.

So that's it, I don't have a question, precisely, or really any strong opinions. I just have a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the standard karma award system and I'd love to hear other people's suggestions and talk about pros and cons of different systems.

Posted by: DireRadiant Jan 18 2007, 09:24 PM

I've done some of the following.

In addition to session karma
- Have the players vote to assign X number of Karma to one player each session.
- Have each player assign a bonus karma point to one other player. Accompany each vote assignment with an explanation for the award.

This puts the guilt and shame of selecting and distinguishing a player, and uneven karma awards and accumalation on the players themselves. Can't blame the GM for favoring a player. It's also very revealing to see what the players like to reward versus what I thought of rewarding.

(One side effect of the end of session rewards is that a lot of players resorted to taking notes so they could remind themselves of what activity they wanted to reward at the end of the session, which effectively meant more players kept records of what happened during a session, which experienced campaigners know makes a GM work easier.)

Also, instead of karma, which players can pretty much do with as they wish, I occasionally will assign IC rewards of some kind. PC finds a wallet in the street. A case of goodies falls of the truck. PC get a free specialization in a skill of GMs choice. PC gets a free language skill, PC has an attribute raised instead of karma. PC gets a free skill point with which to raise any current skill.

Posted by: deek Jan 18 2007, 09:33 PM

In the group I play in (I run the SR4 campaign, but play in a Heroes and DnD campaign with the same group), group experience is the rule. When I used to run DnD back in the day, I was all about individual experience, keeping track of who did what, in and out of combat and also gave bonuses for roleplaying...

Nowadays, we all just enjoy the game and playing together, and while advancement is desired, keeping things balanced is as well. So, for karma rewards, I figured out the rate of advancement I wanted in the campaign, based both on the power level and the frequency we played.

And what I do is award a base 10 karma per session played, even if no one did anything...that is just the award for coming to the game and playing for a few hours...on top of that, I give anywhere from 1-10 additional karma based on the run and how much fun everyone had. If everyone really did sit around and do a bunch of "downtime" stuff, I'd give 11-13 karma for the session. In a really intense session, in the think of a run, they might get 15-18 karma...

My group is more interested in balance, so whatever the reward, just having equal karma dispersed is what keeps everyone happy. When it comes to individual stuff, that comes out in flavor text during the game and the GM write-up I do after each session. Somewhat of a descriptive review of the session which everyone enjoys reading afterwards. It keeps the game fun, gives karma balance and rewards individualism and role-playing by way of the write-up, so everyone stays happy!

Posted by: Dashifen Jan 18 2007, 09:56 PM

QUOTE (DireRadiant)

In addition to session karma
- Have the players vote to assign X number of Karma to one player each session.
- Have each player assign a bonus karma point to one other player. Accompany each vote assignment with an explanation for the award.

Quoted for truth. This is usually my method as well.

However, unlike deek above, I do usually try to keep track of things that I think are reward worth. I know its subjective, and that's the way it's supposed to be. As a game master, I better be having a good time, too, or the game's going to suck ... or I'll just quit and the players will be SOL. That being said, karma (or experience, whatever) is a good way for me as the GM to reward player activity that I feel makes the game fun for me. Then, hopefully, other players will begin to do those types of things, too.

Since I game primarily with college students, I very rarely have all the players on every occasion so balance ends up a non-issue; I only give out karma to people who are actually there!

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 18 2007, 10:00 PM

I thought about the voting system. In general, I think it's a good way to go, for exactly the reasons listed.
Unfortunately, it doesn't help me much for my current campaign, which is a conference call format with 8 players all over the country plus myself, but it's very much play-as-you-can, and I don't really have a guaranteed commitment from everyone. As such, assigning them extra homework such as voting for other people's karma leaves me with one or two votes and a bunch of non-responses. Lazy bums. *shakes fist impotently*

I also like to give non-karma awards, almost always in the form of knowledge skills, like your other suggestion. When you award them with karma, they get to do whatever they want with it which can potentially become unbalancing over time, but if they develop their character in a certain direction and you simply award them a point in a relevant knowledge skill, it's still a cool award that they can use effectively if they're clever, but it can't over/under-power anyone.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 18 2007, 10:06 PM

QUOTE (Moon-Hawk @ Jan 18 2007, 02:00 PM)

Lazy bums. *shakes fist impotently*

Heh, ain't it the truth. My current campaign I've had a policy that you gain extra Karma by typing up sending me a chronicle of the last sessions events. Fill in missed RP details and the bonus grows. My hope is that the players will be involved in the plot, take notes during a session, and be better able to understand the situation they are in by looking back over past chronicles. After more than 15 sessions I've received one chronicle consisting of one paragraph and have given out 1 bonus karma total.

Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 18 2007, 10:11 PM

Ouch. I feel your pain, man.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 18 2007, 10:15 PM

As for awards, I usually try to award enough so that a PC can raise some sort of stat every two sessions. That way you get a pay off, but still have room to grow. just a rule of thumb. I also give out karma for stuff like :
Statting NPC contacts
Doing write ups for new locations
Keepign a log (one was written up in a blog format, decker character)
Figuring out plots . I like to make some really twisted story lines that the PCs have to figure out, like in some of the books like LoneWolf. Bonus karma to who ever figures out what the hell is going on first.
And OOG, bringin lots of food.

I also institued another little system for general, smaller rewards. A little, hey that was a good idea, here's 100xp sort of thing. I call 'em Common Sense Points (mostly for a lack of a better name, so they're CSPs). Basically, someone gets a great idea, pulls a nice save, great roleplaying, that sort of thing, they get a CSP. Basicalyl equivelant to karma, only that it counts only towards knowledge skills. Because I don't see a lot of PC's spending their hard earned karma on knowledge skills, they prefer active skills. But I like to bring a lor of K skill use in to the game. This workds well to promote that. In some games I also let them exchange 5 CSp for apoint of karma. Works really well, my players love it.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 10:20 PM

QUOTE (Moon-Hawk)

So that's it, I don't have a question, precisely, or really any strong opinions. I just have a vague sense of dissatisfaction with the standard karma award system and I'd love to hear other people's suggestions and talk about pros and cons of different systems.

Cool topic.

Up until now, I've been operating on three basic protocols regarding Karma:

1) Each scene setup to be a complex Challenge Scene (in most cases a combat or interaction scene) awards the players with 1 Karma point. One challenge scene, The Meet, and the Epilogue do not merit Karma awards but anything beyond that is fair game. (This is mostly just to make sure I make the "size" of a run in accord with its Karma Award.)

2) Karma awards are given to players rather than characters, and each player playing the game gets a Karma point even if his character wasn't in that scene (but the player had to be present for the session).

3) One extra Karma point is given out at the end of the run and it is given to whoever the players vote on.

--

I'm since abandoned this method of awards while building my Mission Builder. The Mission Builder gives xp awards for everything... traps, obstacles, buildings, high threshold checks, npcs, etc, plus individual awards as I feel appropriate at the end of a mission. I'm more comfortable with such a system. Between runs, players can 'buy' 1 Karma point for 2,000xp but there are two restrictions: 1) the Karma point must be spent immediately. 2) the CHARACTER must spend at least a week in downtime or training or studying or something.

Also, I've started giving out an extra "Style" awards during the game for matters that typically earned Karma in the rulebook. Style points are awarded for clever play, entertaining wit, engrossing roleplay, or just doing something wicked cool. Players may spend Style as they see fit in the same manner that Edge points are spent, except there is no limit to Style, they never refresh, and they are lost at the end of a mission.

This way I can reward actions during play. I really like the whole "instant gratification" of saying, "Wow, you get an award for that". It feels more like an award rather than an allotment of Karma or whatever handed out at the end of a mission. Also, they allow me to reward players for clever stuff without having to pause and think about how I'll be interupting the flow at which I want the campaign to advance.

P.S. The reason I didn't like the Karma system was that the individual awards felt like too big a leap. I mean 3 Karma compared to 4? Or worse, yet 2 instead of 4? I must have really hated the guy who got 2, huh? Larger "experience" awards let me make more subtle adjustments for individual awards. I'm a big fan of individual awards, because it allows the players to sort of compete with each other in a lighthearted way, which my players like and I get a kick out of. I'm trying to incorporate something into the Mission Builder so that players can assign awards to the GM for things they liked or found challenging, but I haven't found a way to do this yet that I'm comfortable with.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 10:23 PM

QUOTE (Moon-Hawk)

I also like to give non-karma awards, almost always in the form of knowledge skills, like your other suggestion. When you award them with karma, they get to do whatever they want with it which can potentially become unbalancing over time, but if they develop their character in a certain direction and you simply award them a point in a relevant knowledge skill, it's still a cool award that they can use effectively if they're clever, but it can't over/under-power anyone.

Most of my missions involve either someone getting a new contact or a +1 Loyalty increase to one contact, also. Don't forget about the Street Cred mechanics, too. These things about my game will never change.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 10:28 PM

QUOTE (cetiah)

Up until now, I've been operating on three basic protocols regarding Karma:

I forgot to mention my latest house rule:

4) After each session, we'll have a quick "Question & Answer" session and anyone who wants to participate is free to do so. Basically, one player asks one or more questions and as a group we try to answer it. These will primarily focus on characterization questions or stuff to flesh out the game work or old plot devices I've long since forgot about. The goal is to try to make out game better. You may ask as many or as few questions as you like, but if you ask and lead a discussion on at least 3, you get 1 point of Karma.

Unfortunately, I don't know when my group and I will be getting together soon and it looks like my Mission Builder will be finished before out next session so we may never see this house rule in action. But I like the Knowledge Point idea, and may keep this idea under the new system, awarding 1 Knowledge Point instead of Karma or Experience.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 10:29 PM

QUOTE

Don't forget about the Street Cred mechanics, too.

If you're more genrous with Karma, I'd suggest adjusting the rate at which Street Cred accumulates otherwise the numbers fly high way too fast. We've even set the base rate a +1 Street Cred per 50 karma earned but certain actions can directly increase Street Cred. These same actions tend to be avoided by those that want to keep their publicity low.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 10:36 PM

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

QUOTE

Don't forget about the Street Cred mechanics, too.

Good point about that. Very important.

Two comments, though:

1) Street Cred (as is) could also be a valuable indicator of when you've assigned "too much" Karma, especially for newer players and GMs.

2) There's a difference between a GM who gives out more Karma because he wants a more powerful campaign and a GM who gives out more Karma because he wants to award players more often. It's important to know what kind of GM you are, especially in regards to this street cred issue.

3) I'm personally of the opinion that Notoriety should be "awarded" every so often (for various situations) to counteract "street cred inflation" but I've already seen from other threads that I'm in a very, very tiny minority on that one.

Posted by: fistandantilus3.0 Jan 18 2007, 10:40 PM

I love applying notoriety. I have a few players that actibely try to gain it for ceratin characters, and avoid it like the plague for others. It makes for interesting dynamics. And yeah, when used regularly, it can balance street cred pretty well.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 11:47 PM

QUOTE

And yeah, when used regularly, it can balance street cred pretty well.

Unfortunately, it leads to grossly inflated public awareness. The guy with high Street Cred and high Notoriety for doing secret work will very quickly breach the 3+ marker of the book. I think that mark needs to be higher.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 18 2007, 11:48 PM

QUOTE

There's a difference between a GM who gives out more Karma because he wants a more powerful campaign and a GM who gives out more Karma because he wants to award players more often.

There doesn't have to be a difference - these are not mutually exclusive conditions.

Posted by: Rotbart van Dainig Jan 18 2007, 11:49 PM

Burn two Street Cred, lower Notoriety by one.

As Notoriety is not limited to 0, it doesn't matter after a while.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 18 2007, 11:51 PM

QUOTE (HappyDaze)

will very quickly breach the 3+ marker of the book.

The what?

QUOTE

There's a difference between a GM who gives out more Karma because he wants a more powerful campaign and a GM who gives out more Karma because he wants to award players more often.

There doesn't have to be a difference - these are not mutually exclusive conditions.

Hmmm. Yeah, that's true. I didn't mean to imply that there had to be one, just that there could be. I'm very much the latter and not really much of the former.

Posted by: HappyDaze Jan 19 2007, 02:24 AM

QUOTE

The what?

The level of public awareness where you're front page news. Possible exaggeration, but I know it gets up there quick.

QUOTE

Burn two Street Cred, lower Notoriety by one.

As Notoriety is not limited to 0, it doesn't matter after a while.

I hope you're not suggesting you can have a negative value of Notoriety. You can't take any value in the game below 0 that I'm aware of, so Notoriety shouldn't be any different. If you've got Street Cred 15 and Notoriety 3, the best you can do is drop to Street Cred 9 - and that's still gives you public awareness too high to stay in the shadows. And earnign Notoriety just to drop your Street Cred so you can then drop your public awareness just screams meta-gaming to me.

Posted by: cristomeyers Jan 19 2007, 02:54 AM

The Public Awareness attribute does increase far too fast. It only takes 30 karma to hit the 3+ mark. Less if you have Notoriety. Even if that's not "Front Page News", it's close. It's hard to justify being a ghost in the 'plex when schoolchildren are playing games based on your exploits.

On average, your runners could earn 30 karma in what, anywhere from 3 to 7 sessions? Not a long life expectancy for characters before they're out of the shadows and onto the Trid.

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 05:18 AM

QUOTE

The level of public awareness where you're front page news. Possible exaggeration, but I know it gets up there quick.

Wow, I must have completely just blanked this out when reading those rules because I don't remember it at all. I guess I made an immediate judgment call that it wouldn't apply to my games and I wouldn't use it. I do that sometimes. Or maybe I just forgot.

QUOTE

I hope you're not suggesting you can have a negative value of Notoriety.

This idea is kind of funny.

"Oh officer, there must be some mistake. Steel Viper did what? No, no, he's such a nice boy. You know he brings cookies for my bingo group every Sunday?"

Posted by: cetiah Jan 19 2007, 05:25 AM

This has been the way I use reputation in my game:

For Street Cred to work - I mean even conceptually - in my campaign, it only applies to other people who have Street Cred. Thus, only Johnsons, gangers, fixers, and certain Lone Star detectives will know anything about you based on Street Cred. And anyone who constitutes "a contact". Journalists and the like will have it too, but that doesn't necessarily mean the media does. If you're the "front page news" anywhere, it's only on pirated trids that "nobody" really believes anyway.

But I always assumed Notoriety was public, so a high Notoriety means your front page news but if you have a high Street Cred, you're still a shadow op except with those "in the know".

I assume ordinary folks who are front page news would replace Street Cred with some other reputation score, like Fame or something, that works with similar mechanics but is conceptually different.

Just how I always handled it and didn't know anyone else ever did it differently.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 19 2007, 05:53 AM

QUOTE (cristomeyers @ Jan 18 2007, 06:54 PM)

Public Awarenes is (Street Cred + Notoriety)/3 round down. See p.258 the start of the appropriate paragraph is at the bottom of the left column. So 30 Karma is 1 Public Awareness.

So If you burn Street Cred to Keep Notoriety at zero you need 30 Street Cred to be a household name. If you got there and never took a point of notoriety that's 300 Karma. Yea, okay you're a world renowned phenom of a mover and shaker, we get it you have 300 Karma, you can go supersonic casting levitate without the aid of a spirit's movement power...

I would call that, not too fast.

Posted by: Garrowolf Jan 19 2007, 06:52 AM

I use a bit of a different system in regards to Karma. I broke Karma into it's XP aspects and it's metagaming aspects. Now I have Karma and XP. I give out both at the end of a session. XP only effects increase in traits like attributes and skills. I will give out at least 2 and as much as 5 but that has to have been a difficult run. I also use harder increases for attribute increases (New Rating x 5) from a suggestion I found on here.

Karma has more to do with luck and cool actions in game. If you role play well you get karma. If you come up with a cool idea or say something funny or you do a cool stunt then you get karma. If you max out your successes on a test then you get a karma. Karma can be used to buy up Edge, or bond foci, and gain your edge for a test. Basically everyone starts with their edge in karma. After that they can gain or loose it. I made bonding based on karma instead of XP because I couldn't figure out why mages with foci were not learning as much if they had a foci. I didn't make it too easy though because I doubled the bonding cost in karma. You can gain about as much karma in a game as XP.

This has worked out well in my games. I can hand out karma for cool things all day long and it doesn't imbalence the game like XP would.

I also let people try and buy up contacts that they persue themselves or raise loyalty levels of contacts in game by spending karma. The can also spend karma to get a favor without paying money because they asked at a lucky time.

Posted by: Eryk the Red Jan 19 2007, 01:49 PM

It's kind of funny. I ditched having any particular system for how to assign karma long ago. It's a running joke in my campaign that at the end of the session I pick up the rulebook and pretend to use the karma rules.

I have certain rituals that have become important, which I guess do amount to a system of rules. First, everyone suggests a name for the session. Like an episode name, if the campaign were a TV show. The group then picks one, by consensus. (I used to have them vote, but they started to vote for the wrong reasons, so consensus seems better.) The person whose name gets picked gets 2 karma. I keep track of these names, and they form the campaign timeline.

Then comes the "Meek Shall Inherit the Earth Award". The group picks someone to get 1 karma, for whatever reason. Usually goes to whoever had the least to do that session.

Then I give the normal one karma for showing up and one for succeeding (if they succeeded). Then I turn to each player and say "One to {character name} for {interesting or cool thing that the character did that sesssion}." Everyone always gets one of them. It's sort of a reminder of how each character participated.

Then comes the 2 to 4 karma "because I feel like it".

And characters can get a couple of extra karma for anything especially cool/awesome/hilarious their character did or said that session. I gave one to the troll (by the name-a Hot Death) for going to the bathroom. Because no one else's characters had done that.

Posted by: Mahoutsukai Jan 20 2007, 01:54 AM

the gm for our group awards karma for simply having a typed backstory that's at least a page long, as for those that read mine when i posted it, i had several. he also rewards extra karma for typing up run journals in character. the more details about the run the more karma one is rewarded. its a good incentive to spend time outside of the game, he figures he puts time into comign up with the runs so if we put time in too we deserve a reward.

Posted by: Demerzel Jan 20 2007, 01:56 AM

*cough*go write your chronicle*cough*

Posted by: Mahoutsukai Jan 20 2007, 02:50 AM

*ahem* at work right now *ahem*

Posted by: Mistwalker Jan 20 2007, 04:03 AM

I have the usual group award for surviving the run.

I also award a few karma during play for things that strike my fancy. Mostly things that are in character funny, or in character and harmful to the character, etc...

Ex.: Performing CPR on a ghoul who had just been pulled from the sewers, still covered in excrement. That got a karma.

I think I may start polling the players for a karma award to who has the most votes.
As well, I may start handing out non-karma awards, as I liked some of the suggestions listed in this thread.

Posted by: pragma Jan 22 2007, 02:34 AM

I use the karma awards system outlined in the book, but once I'm done awarding I ask if any of the players feel like they deserve an award for something they did during the session. If its a good argument I'll fork over the karma.

Posted by: TheOOB Jan 26 2007, 12:16 AM

I use a varient rule reguarding public awareness. If you don't do anything to make the news (don't earn any street cred) for a period of at least two months per public awarness, you lose one point of public awarness. If you spend the entire time in hiding(basically no contact with anyone) you lose a point of public awarness in one month per point of public awarness. Street Cred and Noterity don't usually decrease in this way as the shadows have long memories, unless the general public who only cares about whats here and now.

As for karma, I usually give 1 point for attending a session, 1 point for staying in character through most the session, and an additional 1(or sometimes 2) points if they do something that impressing me. After a run is completed they gain 1 for survivng(sometimes more if the run is long), 1-4 points for completed most objectives, 1 point if they ruined my plans somehow, and 1 point for being extraordinarily useful. I also allow everyone to grant one extra karma after each run to another runner if they can justify it.