Nah, I'm pretty good with the math. That does really simplify it, at least to BP levels. The problem is still actually memorizing it, but that just takes time. (More time for me, but, I deal with it.) Ultimately, even without the simplified form, it should still be pretty easy, for those of us who aren't lazy.

How many people have built with KarmaGen in SR4? How does it compare to BP (or even BeCKs...)

Anywhere from 5 minutes to a whole week or more.

Sometimes I tweak even some of the stand-by "archetype" characters that I keep around. I can rustle up a good to go character on the fly but if I want the character for the long term, I spent days moving back and forth between backstory and character stats. The way I go about creating the character is fairly simple, the story has to fit the stats and vice versa. The backstory is like a cover legend, it has to be plausible and good enough to pass the most intense of backstory-stats scrutiny.

For me the problem with the formula caculations for variable costs is not applying the formula (that's easy), it's doing it upwards of 6 times at once so I can see what I can do to some skills and secondary stats when, say, taking a point out of my highest stat and advancing and picking up some low level stats and skills.

If you can keep track of 6+ variables in your head under a variable costs system and then be able to see at a glance how shuffling points around your character sheet can and will work (Common case: dropping a point out of a stat at 6-> 5 to free up BP for 2 skills and a stat and money, requiring you to know instantly how much the next rank of 2 skills, 2 stats and a focus is, including the karma cost of binding) I tip my hat to you. I'm objectively very good at maths, and I cannot do that without computer assistance.



It's harder than BP for the reason I outlined above - it's not much harder to do a basic character, but fully optimising a sheet requires computer assistance or being much better at juggling multiple variables in your head than I am.

I always take a long time to create. There is never a skill or set of skills, piece of equipment, weapon, or lifestyle item that doesnt mesh with my concept. I'd almost say its painful, but no character I make is just thrown together.

The numbers involved simply aren't large enough for it to get that complex. You free up all of 12 karma with this drop; your skills, stat, and binding cost all have to be very low (and thus trivial to calculate) in order to get that many variables out of it. Since the costs of the other things are independent, you can just do it as a running difference, meaning that you only need to keep about two to three numbers in your head at once.

~J

It is a complicated problem instead of a complex one. You have to keep a running total in your head/on your notepad. The solution to the individual calculation tasks can be tabled and is therefore easy.

1) Budget karma for attributes/skill/ressources/contacts.
2) Spend karma as you see fit.
3) Repeat until calculated cost is 750.

Eh, I wouldn't put it in those terms either. If anything, it's a touch obnoxious, but running totals don't make complexity or complications—especially to the point of requiring computer assistance, a not-very-large scratchpad serves the purpose as well.

If anything, I think the problem is imagined complexity—that certain things are complex, intractable, or otherwise scary seems to become an article of faith, like with SR3's Matrix or Rigging rules, when they're actually quite simple outside of corner cases (which are nasty, but corner cases nonetheless). I had this thought a long time ago, but I was recently reminded of it by a Freshman in the CS lab who tried to tell me, with a straight face, that THAC0 was impossible to understand. This probably explains why all attempts at fixing the Matrix rules fail, as it doesn't address the fact that "everyone knows" that the Matrix rules are too complex to work with.

~J

my favorite part of THAC0 versus AC (d20 system) is that they're the same calculation just one is subtractive and the other additive; I tend to use it as one of several demonstrations that public schooling in the United States (and perhaps elsewhere) teach math wrongly.

Complexity is in the eye of the beholder, so maybe Kagetenshi is a super genius and everything is simple for him, however maybe other people aren't the same. I see no productive reason to argue that point.

As for the difference between BeCK's and KarmaGen, I'm not aware there is one.

Don't I wish.

~J

I'd guess Kage is just from that "dying" breed that actually got taught math without calculators at some point in their life... (since I agree with him almost completely and didn't have the luxury of a calculator until college.. ..and am numerically dyslexic to boot.)

Oh, there are significant differences.

One big difference - in Karmagen, you don't have to pay for metatype (although because Karma advancement is not a flat cost like build points, you still need to pay more if you raise Attributes past the normal human range - it costs a troll a lot more to raise Body from 8 to 9 than it costs a human to raise Body from 4 to 5). I can see the logic behind that choice, but it grated on a lot of people, and proved to be one of the more controversial aspects of it.


The other problem is that Karmagen only lets you spend up to half of your starting Karma (more depending on metatype) on Attributes - including Special Attributes. This means that it is a lot less scalable than build point generation - drop the amount of Karma, and any awakened character or technomancer becomes exponentially more difficult to create. This was not a problem with the original Karmagen, which gave characters a lavish amount of Karma.

But along came SR4A, which raised the cost of Attributes, throwing the whole system into limbo. The proposed fix (according to Ancient History) of keeping it at 750 Karma (rationalizing that it was overpowered to begin with, so this is only bringing it back to "normal") runs into the problem of the aforementioned Special Attributes being too expensive. This is easily fixed by house ruling that the cap on Karma spent for Attributes only applies to the base ones, not the special ones - but you shouldn't need a house rule to make a char-gen system functional. But it's all a moot point right now, because there is no errata for Runner's Companion yet.

So KarmaGen rips off BeCKS by adding a few limits? I'm not impressed. Frankly I'm ashamed that it was allowed to see print without at least a shout out to Bethyaga.

Even build points have a few features that were in BeCKS first - namely, Attributes all starting at a base of 1 (in SR3, you had to pay extra for certain Attributes to offset penalties), and spells and contacts being bought separately from resources, and resources being purchased in increments rather than jumping from 5,000 to 20,000 to 90,000, etc.

Is there an excel function that sums the numbers between two numbers or a combination of functions that would do that? (IE: if given 3 and 6, it returns 3+4+5+6)

Uh, why exactly?

He ripped off Shadowrun's Karma advancement system when creating his unauthorized rules in the first place. It's their copyright and their ntellectual properties, not his. In fact throwing a "shout out" to him is probably a legal liability even if they did want to. Not only does it give people the illusion that they have permission to rip off their properties, but more importantly it also implies that Bethyaga deserves royalties/payment for having done so. Which he most certainly doesn't. It was neither solicited nor requested, and I'd be surprised if he requested permission to do it let alone publish it on the Internet.

Rules aren't covered by copyright anyway, so using "rip off" in anything but a vague moral sense here is just wrong either way you aim it.

(Not a lawyer, not legal advice)

~J

I know, I was just using it to emphasize the point mostly because I couldn't think of any better words to use. Bethyaga did the "ripping off" first and isn't really entitled to much of anything either way.

A dick move is still a dick move. We'll have to agree to disagree.

Edit

Okay I'm going to say this even though it won't win me any fans. You're correct Doc, that Bethyaga drew inspiration from previous materials-a fact which he openly acknowledged when he wrote BeCK's. At no time has ever denied it pulled inspiration from previous materials. Bobby on the other hand-a guy who attempts to market himself as the most complete archivist of Shadowrun materials out there, a reputation he cultivates and enjoys-claims to have no knowledge of BeCK's when he wrote Karma Gen. I find that ludicrous to say the least. Now you may be correct that acknowledging Bethyaga's role in this inspiration may have some legal ramifications-what I don't know since I don't write or publish RPG's, and my knowledge of the law is limited to more blue collar stuff. As far as I'm concerned it was a dick move to not acknowledge BeCK's. Illegal? Obviously not. A dick move? In my book, yes. In yours? Maybe not. And that's cool.

I know there's no fear what so ever in acknowledging stuff Steve Kenson wrote. His name get's a shout out in several books. Why not Bethyaga?

However this has left a bad taste in my mouth when it comes to some freelancers for Catalyst. When I see stuff written by them (A certain few freelancers) I wonder where it was ripped off or recycled from. And that's sad, because frankly I think the world of the vast majority of the people writing for Shadowrun. ANd obviously it hasn't stopped me from loving, liking and playing the game. ( I get the perspective on this dude, it's not earth shattering, just distasteful in my book.)

But then you've been around for a long time Doc, seen a lot of stuff in various user incarnations-so tell me if I'm just being a little too smug here. Maybe I am missing the forrest for the trees, but I think it was a dick move.

I had written alot more than this, with lots of examples but it's not really necessary to go deeper than one or two, so here's the redacted version:

this is right sort of: the ideas behind rules are not copyrightable or patentable (unless they include significant process: the only 'game' patent I am aware of is one concerning card games that utilize tapping rules, held by Wizards of the Coast. US5662332 (A)) but specific expressions of the ideas are copyrightable.

e.g. the rule in D&D3.5 concerning how to resolve an attack roll is copyrighted, in any form. the restatement: "roll 1d20+modifiers and compare to target's Armor, if you equal or exceed that number, roll the damage die of your weapon + modifiers and subtract that many hit points from your target" is not.

the totality of any fixed media is also copyrighted, so it is copyright infringement to reproduce say, the layout, text and artwork (or any part thereof) of the actual 3.5edition players handbook.

so, kage is right. at least as concerns "rip off" in any actionable sense, nothing happened here that would rise to that, in either direction.

edit:

it actually wouldn't have bearing either way, legally. (since BeCKs isn't copyrightable, a derivative work of BeCKs is not subject to any attribution requirements, etc.), so it would have been polite to acknowledge him somewhere in association with the system, if it was indeed derived from his. But it isn't exactly a dick move, just like it wasn't really a dick move of Bethyaga to only acknowledge that Shadowrun's trademarks were held by Wizkid's/Fanpro/FASA (etc as appropriate) and not go as far as to acknowledge any of the specific authors of the sections that BeCKs drew on.

the former was required by law because BeCKs includes use of trademarks of SR. because karmagen did not include any trademarks of BeCKs it is not.

having looked at both systems I think most of the similarities are incidental due to the similarities of the underlying rules systems personally and would have no trouble believing that they weren't independently designed; although given the... close-knit nature of the SR contributory community it may be as you said as well.
(law student, still not legal advice.)

The longest part of making a character has and always will be the gear. The less money I put into gear the quicker my character is made. Also in some cases all I do is tweak an archetype by changing the skills, attributes and qualities. I then leave the gear as is. I can work with a character concept and flesh him out as we go along, but a playable character can be made in less than 30 minutes assuming he isn't gear heavy.

As for Karma Generation the problem I have had with it is the starting characters tend to be much more skilled with higher attributes than either the BP or priority. When I recalculated the basic BP cost of archetypes they tended to be around the 650 range and even if I min/maxed (lots of attributes at 1) only a couple of character creations get near or surpass the karma system (Shapechanger bear, infected, AIs and a couple of others).