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Dumpshock Forums _ Shadowrun _ Longest-running campaigns...
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 22 2007, 09:48 AM
What have been your longest-running campaigns in terms of karma dished out? 100 karma? 200? 300?
Posted by: Wounded Ronin Jan 22 2007, 10:52 AM
I usually did scenarios rather than campaigns and those campaigns which I ran tended to be short and based around a series of scenarios. So, in terms of campaigns, I'd say no more than 25 karma or so tops.
However, some characters were used literally for years in these various settings and racked up quite a lot of karma. One I recall got 15 karma dice which equals roughly 150 karma.
Posted by: NightmareX Jan 22 2007, 12:44 PM
| QUOTE (emo samurai) |
| What have been your longest-running campaigns in terms of karma dished out? 100 karma? 200? 300? |
Right around 350 karma (for the highest scoring character) - took two years to get there.
Posted by: Grinder Jan 22 2007, 01:19 PM
| QUOTE (emo samurai) |
| What have been your longest-running campaigns in terms of karma dished out? 100 karma? 200? 300? |
Three and a half year long campaign, that got my elven mage close to 300 karma. Didn't play him the whole time, every player had a pool of three characters that he could pick and play. The characters of the various (iirc we were six people) knew each other, so it was a complex web. Only one player decided to play only one character, that ended up with close to 550 karma.
Posted by: Sphynx Jan 22 2007, 02:13 PM
Little over 200 Karma, I think maybe even broke 250 that time, but then we lost it all as we moved to SR4. 
However, I like my new character better, and he's soooo much weaker.
Posted by: Rajaat99 Jan 22 2007, 02:22 PM
I'm currently running a 6 year game. My players have about 620 karma.
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 22 2007, 02:53 PM
62 Karma dice... Wow.
They could probably throw down with an IE and win.
Posted by: Pendaric Jan 22 2007, 03:02 PM
Three and a half years and counting, about 80 karma
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 22 2007, 03:35 PM
| QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685) |
| They could probably throw down with an IE and win. |
That's a lot of assumptions right there. Specifically:
They're all human, and none of them have Bad Karma.
They've never burned any of their karma pool.
The IE someone has accumulated less karma pool than some Shadowrunners who haven't even lived outside the Sixth World.
~J
Posted by: DireRadiant Jan 22 2007, 03:38 PM
8 years on and off, 265 karma. Once the karma pool gets over ten, the normally impossible can become routine.
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 22 2007, 04:03 PM
| QUOTE |
| That's a lot of assumptions right there. Specifically: They're all human, and none of them have Bad Karma. |
Granted. It's 31 if they're not human. That's still a whole hell of a lot.
| QUOTE |
| They've never burned any of their karma pool. |
Again, granted.
| QUOTE |
| The IE someone has accumulated less karma pool than some Shadowrunners who haven't even lived outside the Sixth World. |
And here is where I get to turn your two arguments back atcha.
1: Immortal Elves are, by their very nature, Immortal Elves, not Immortal Humans. Thus, their karma pool dice represent 1/20th of their total Karma, not 1/10th. Therefor, if we give the Immortal Elf in question the outrageous sum of 1,240 Karma, they still only have exactly as much Karma Pool as the human in question.
2: Immortal Elves have accumulated their Karma over a much longer peroid, at a much slower pace, since the kind of antis that generate Karma in a hurry would get noticed in the 5th world. However, they are also likely to have had to burn quite a few points to survive said 5th world, if nothing else they needed to spend Karma Pool to get magic off when they really needed it to fire off.
3: The group in question is composed of multiple 62-karma-dice characters. If the Sammie is willing to blow all of his Pool in one shot. he could just buy himself 62 net hits. Soak that. And if the IE has enough to soak it, well...
Just imagine the Force of spirit you can buy by using Karma dice to buy successes. Have the spirit attack at the same time.
Posted by: Moon-Hawk Jan 22 2007, 06:22 PM
I don't remember, exactly. It was something around 300 karma, I think.
Posted by: Ophis Jan 22 2007, 06:37 PM
The longest consistant campaign I ever ran the longest running character had 450 karma.
Posted by: tisoz Jan 23 2007, 06:54 AM
| QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685) |
| Granted. It's 31 if they're not human. That's still a whole hell of a lot. |
15 if not human AND Bad Karma.
| QUOTE |
And here is where I get to turn your two arguments back atcha. 1: Immortal Elves are, by their very nature, Immortal Elves, not Immortal Humans. Thus, their karma pool dice represent 1/20th of their total Karma, not 1/10th. Therefor, if we give the Immortal Elf in question the outrageous sum of 1,240 Karma, they still only have exactly as much Karma Pool as the human in question. |
1 Karma a month for 6000 years is 72000 karma. Even with Bad Karma, that is 1800 karma pool. Who knows how much they started the 5th world with.
| QUOTE |
| 2: Immortal Elves have accumulated their Karma over a much longer peroid, at a much slower pace, since the kind of antis that generate Karma in a hurry would get noticed in the 5th world. However, they are also likely to have had to burn quite a few points to survive said 5th world, if nothing else they needed to spend Karma Pool to get magic off when they really needed it to fire off. |
Contradict yourself much???
First you say it's an easy life and they are not going to be able to earn karma. Then you say it's a dangerous world where they are going to have to continually burn karma to survive. Like someone else said, when the karma pool gets over 10, many things are easy. I think a thouand year old being has learned how to survive without continually burning karma.
| QUOTE |
| 3: The group in question is composed of multiple 62-karma-dice characters. If the Sammie is willing to blow all of his Pool in one shot. he could just buy himself 62 net hits. Soak that. And if the IE has enough to soak it, well... Just imagine the Force of spirit you can buy by using Karma dice to buy successes. Have the spirit attack at the same time. |
Need one success before you can buy any.
And in answer to the original question while adding a remark about burning karma and/or karma pool, I have several characters that have earned about 420 karma without burning a single karma pool point.
Posted by: Rajaat99 Jan 23 2007, 05:17 PM
Sorry to start an argument.
3 players are human (2 have spent permanent karma pool) an elf (who has spent permanent pool as well), and a Troll (Who started later and has about 300 karma, no permantly spent).
It's surprising they actually get beat up on pretty regularly. Don't get me wrong, they kick butt and take names, but when you have 20, or so, fully armed and armored sec guards blasting away at you, it still hurts.
I play that an IE would still smoke 'em. That's because I run an Earthdawn game too.
They also have a team karma pool ( just a way for the humans to give back to the metas.). I maxed the players at a personal karma pool of 40, the rest going into the team pool.
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 23 2007, 05:49 PM
I didn't say it was easy - I was saying that Karma would be a lot harder to come by in the 5th world.
And as for IEs smoking them? Bleh. I've found there's two kinds of Shadowrun players.
Those that play Earthdawn, and those that don't know a damned thing about ED. Those that play ED 'get' all these connections that those that ignore ED are like "Huh. That's nifty - now roll to soak down 10D. Naval scale damage."
Welcome to the sixth world. Even the Greast Dragons are afraid of what the mortals can do here. IEs better watch their step.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 23 2007, 05:54 PM
| QUOTE |
| Even the Greast Dragons are afraid of what the mortals can do here. |
Er, no, they aren't really. At all. Except for maybe the whole "calling the Horrors through early" bit, but that isn't really a demonstration of metahuman power.
~J
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 23 2007, 06:10 PM
Do you remember that a half-hearted Aztlan attack nearly killed Ghostwalker, Mr. "So many spirits flying my Wing that you might as well call me Wing Commander" Ghostwalker?
If a national military or megacorporate body gets it in their head that a Great Dragon needs to go bye-bye, the GD is going bye-bye. It'll be the kind of epic battle you hear for ages, but the GD is toast.
Nukes and falling girders and other orbital options will be involved. Whole swarms of spirits and astral mages will attack. Entire flight wings will concnetrate on one target. Canaries will go in first, and men will die. And so will a dragon.
If they ain't afraid of what'll happen if they completely piss off a Mega or a Nation to the point of throwing everything and the kitchen sink at them, they ought to be.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 23 2007, 06:45 PM
No, actually, I don't remember that. Source?
(I'm not stating anything about whether or not it affects my position, but I want to review this.)
~J
Posted by: Cynic project Jan 23 2007, 07:00 PM
One game it was about 2,00 karma but we got like 80 karma a game....
Posted by: Fortune Jan 23 2007, 09:13 PM
| QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685) |
| Do you remember that a half-hearted Aztlan attack nearly killed Ghostwalker ... |
Nope. Can you be more specific?
Posted by: Grinder Jan 23 2007, 09:34 PM
When he attacked their sector in Denver, iirc.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 23 2007, 09:52 PM
That nearly killed him?
Posted by: mfb Jan 23 2007, 09:59 PM
i've used the same character on http://www.shadowland.org for six years, now. in that time, he's accrued just over 200 karma. the largest reward for a single run was 37 karma.
| QUOTE (Shadowdragon8685) |
| 1: Immortal Elves are, by their very nature, Immortal Elves, not Immortal Humans. Thus, their karma pool dice represent 1/20th of their total Karma, not 1/10th. Therefor, if we give the Immortal Elf in question the outrageous sum of 1,240 Karma, they still only have exactly as much Karma Pool as the human in question. |
i tend to view 5,000 earned karma as being at the low end for beings that have been around since the fourth (or, in some cases, the second--right?) world. even if they've burned an astonishing amount of karma pool to survive, pools of 100+ aren't, to me, beyond the realm of reason for immortal-types.
| QUOTE (Shadowdragon8685) |
| 2: Immortal Elves have accumulated their Karma over a much longer peroid, at a much slower pace, since the kind of antis that generate Karma in a hurry would get noticed in the 5th world. However, they are also likely to have had to burn quite a few points to survive said 5th world, if nothing else they needed to spend Karma Pool to get magic off when they really needed it to fire off. |
depends. i've never liked the whole "every famous person ever was an IE" thing, but it's canon that many famous personalities were IEs in disguise. how much karma do you get for scamming your way onto the throne of the British empire at its height? besides which, where do you think all our legends about dragons and magical beasties come from, if not from 5th-world IE/GD incidents? and that doesn't even count the fantastic amounts of karma they must have accumulated during their shenanigans during the fourth (and second?) world. that's several thousand years, right there, when they could run around doing big, dangerous, public things that would net them lots of karma.
Posted by: Fortune Jan 23 2007, 10:22 PM
| QUOTE (emo samurai) |
| That nearly killed him? |
Not that I recall. And you can hardly call the Azzies' efforts in that incident 'half hearted'.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 24 2007, 03:09 AM
Let's assume they accumulate the same amount of karma as runners. That's 3 karma per month if your GM's a cheap asshat. 
Then let's say they've been around 5000 years, as an ultra-conservative estimate. That means at least 180000 karma, or 9000 karma pool. 0_0
Posted by: mfb Jan 24 2007, 03:10 AM
even at 3 karma per year, they'll have buttload.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 24 2007, 03:19 AM
And if they're as active as they say they are, then they'll probably accumulate it faster than shadowrunners, anyway.
Let's run those numbers and ignore the debate about karma pool. 180000 karma. For the sake of simplicity, let's say that the initiation grades average out at 300 karma per grade, and that they only spend half their karma on initiation. That's 300 initiation grades right there, more metamagicka than exist on the Matrix right now.
Posted by: mfb Jan 24 2007, 03:28 AM
you begin to see the power of the dark side.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 24 2007, 03:32 AM
So... let's spend the other half of the karma, shall we?
60 karma to max out a stat in SR3, right? 360 karma. A drop in the bucket.
210 karma to take a skill to 14.
That's 450 skills with 90000 karma left over after those bajillion initiations, more than even exist, have existed, or ever will exist. Let's assume they "concentrate" on 100 skills, meaning that they'll have about 28 in every skill they know. And we all know that there exists half that many skills.
0_0
Posted by: Herald of Verjigorm Jan 24 2007, 04:13 AM
Immortal Elves: masters of the Blindfolded Zen Combat Salad Preparation
and 350 other non-Shadowrunning related skills of uncertain value.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 24 2007, 04:24 AM
So... would they be able to take on 50 shadowrunners?
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 24 2007, 04:28 AM
Keep in mind that even the IEs that just spoke English in addition to Sperethiel (which would be about none of them, by my estimation) would have had to buy up at least three different Language Skills for it.
As for your question, I would say rather that their survival has much to do with their avoiding doing things like taking on 50 shadowrunners, because even if they were almost guaranteed victory, an Immortal Elf's lifespan is long enough to make them start worrying about the zero-one law.
~J
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 24 2007, 04:42 AM
I am unfamilar with the Zero-One Law, but am I correct in assuming that it states that if given an infinate amount of time, eventually you roll a Rule of One when doing something with a ridiculous number of dice that will fry your ass?
IE: Throwing a 68-dice Fireball and Rule-of-1ing it?
And I think 3 karma per year is very, very liberal for the 5th world. I'd think it'd be more like a karma per century. Of course, that does beg some questions, but it's the only way to explain that the IEs haven't gained enough Karma over the 5th world to literally just throw out the Great Dragons and rule the world as Gods.
Really, if you have 180,000 Karma, you're a God. It's that simple. Even if you're an IE and you took the Bad Karma flaw to munchkinize your starting build, that's 4,500 Karma Pool. If you're a regular IE, that's 9000 - that's ridiculous. And with that much dice...
Gleh. You ARE a God. You have Underwater Baskets (B/R) at like 200 or something.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 24 2007, 04:56 AM
The zero-one law states that over an infinite number of trials, the probability of something occurring is either zero or one—that is to say, it will either never occur ever at all, or it will almost surely (using the probability-theory definition of the phrase) occur.
Though this isn't an infinite series of events, in this context a similar line of reasoning would be used: "anything that isn't impossible will become more likely the more times it is given the chance to occur".
~J
Posted by: tisoz Jan 24 2007, 07:17 AM
| QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685 @ Jan 23 2007, 10:42 PM) |
| And I think 3 karma per year is very, very liberal for the 5th world. I'd think it'd be more like a karma per century. |
This is millenia of life without civilization as we know it. Where cities were walled, travel was travail, and men went armed as habit. Where a simple disease of today, could be a devastating epidemic. When a wound is more likely to kill from infection.
3 karma a year is silly. 1 karma a century might be the only way to make the numbers come out the way you want them to, but figure they needed to successfully change identities about every 20 years just to avoid people wondering why they were not aging. That should be worth a few points of karma.
Even if they do not become historically famous, unless they are hermits (which should earn karma all its own for being so self sufficient) they are likely to become skilled at something, likely many things. Their skill is going to draw people to seek them out for help concerning whatever they are skilled at, medicine, gardening, quilting, whatever. Overcoming the problems for which they have been sought for help should earn them karma.
Posted by: mfb Jan 24 2007, 07:33 AM
| QUOTE (ShadowDragon8685) |
| And I think 3 karma per year is very, very liberal for the 5th world. I'd think it'd be more like a karma per century. Of course, that does beg some questions, but it's the only way to explain that the IEs haven't gained enough Karma over the 5th world to literally just throw out the Great Dragons and rule the world as Gods. |
...say what? how in the heck would anybody learn to do anything, ever, if that were true?
Posted by: SuperFly Jan 24 2007, 09:57 AM
And to bring this thread back around to where it started...
My character, Julius the ork hitman, survived for about 3 1/2 years (real time) before taking a round to the back of the noggin' Wild Bill Hickock-style. He checked into that big coffin motel in the sky with 256 earned karma.
"The Chronicles of the A-Team" campaign, which I GM, has been going on for over 4 years now. The longest-surviving character is currently sitting at around the 96 karma region.
Posted by: tisoz Jan 24 2007, 10:11 AM
Tangential to the topic, has anyone ever used the karma for cash rules and kept track of the karma gained that way?
I have used it, and the characters quickly have maxxed attributes, Skills in the 20's, and buy a boat load of edges at the suggested rate. The game becomes a romp.
Posted by: Grinder Jan 24 2007, 10:19 AM
| QUOTE (tisoz) |
| Tangential to the topic, has anyone ever used the karma for ash rules and kept track of the karma gained that way? |
We did so, but the conversion was really high (like 20,000
per point), so no character bought more then 5 or 6 points.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 24 2007, 01:48 PM
I used it once, but it caused such widespread deforestation that I had to cancel the deal.
~J
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 24 2007, 01:53 PM
I think that's the Karma for Isengard rule you were invoking, Kage, not Kash for Karma.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 24 2007, 02:36 PM
No no, the rule I was invoking was the ash for karma rule, as described above (though I guess he was calling for karma for ash, which wouldn't have ended up with much reforestation).
~J
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 24 2007, 04:13 PM
There's more than one way to get ash, other than deforestation.
For example, it's plentiful near volcanos, which are plentiful after the GGD.
Posted by: Kagetenshi Jan 24 2007, 04:19 PM
I was thinking the type of tree, but that works too.
~J
Posted by: ShadowDragon8685 Jan 24 2007, 04:21 PM
Oh, the ash tree? Well, you can get a lot of that by planting seeds and waiting. It's basically renewable Karma.
Posted by: SL James Jan 25 2007, 03:56 AM
| QUOTE (mfb) | ||
...say what? how in the heck would anybody learn to do anything, ever, if that were true? |
Dude. Just... Don't.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 25 2007, 03:57 AM
| QUOTE (SL James) | ||||
Dude. Just... Don't. |
Huh? Are you saying that people DON'T learn anything?
Posted by: SL James Jan 25 2007, 04:01 AM
Apparently some don't.
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 25 2007, 04:07 AM
Hah, he's funny because he's an asshole.
Posted by: SL James Jan 25 2007, 04:36 AM
I made a joke?
Posted by: emo samurai Jan 25 2007, 04:48 AM
*sigh*
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