You guys do realize that the GM controls the cash flow of the characters completely. If the GM wants the flaw to stick around he doesn't have to make up additional rules.
If this flaw can get bought out after one session, feel free to say 'No' to the player.

Karma should be a way to buy off the flaw, but so should flat out paying it back. Loansharks that make up debts don't stay in business for long. (Creative payments for outstanding debt, however, are expected.)

So far most everyone has said that you should have to pay it back, but no one has answered the question of why you would ever bother taking the quality if that is the case.

You say that you either pay back the karma, which means that you've lost nuyen and had a loss in advancement (Because 2 karma is generally worth more than 1 BP, not to mention the lack of character growth for the next 15ish runs) in exchange for nothing. Or if you don't pay back the karma you get equal levels of other bad qualities, in which case you've lost nuyen in exchange for nothing because you could have just taken those qualities from the start and not paid nuyen for the privilege.

I did like the suggestion of allowing it as a non-quality option to increase your starting cash (For the hacker or street sam that needs those couple extra k to get that last cool toy) in exchange for having a bit of a loan to pay off once the game starts or for the mage who needs every last BP for spells and can't/doesn't want to swing any over to resources.

I don't really see the point of contention.

"In-Debt" is a Negative Quality, ergo it's removal requires an expenditure of Karma. There is nothing to suggest otherwise.

It is no different to killing your "Enemy", or going through rehab for your "Addiction". Both are in-game methods of resolving a Negative Quality, but require an expenditure of Karma to make permanent.

"In-Debt" gives you a cash boost at CharGen as well as Build Points, there is nothing wrong with it.

But where is the logic in that? If i have payed off my debt it is done. Sure the loanshark MAY want to hold me in it... but what is he gonna do if i give him a bag of cash and say: That's it, we are even... AND DON'T FUCK WITH ME, EVER?

Sure you can now make him an enemy for some points and try to ruin you for daring to escape his petty debt... but that's unlikely. There are some more hooks too, where you could get to the people (What, courier? I never got the money...). But doing that on purpose and all the time is contrived and unneccessary. If somebody in my group has that flaw and pays it off, he is out of it... maybe with minor consequences (which may be bought off with karma) But not for a 5000 loan or such. Of course i would only allow higher debts because of that reason. the 5000 or such are too easily repayable, but higher levels of debt can REALLY throw a wrench into the gears, when the character really struggles to pay the monthly interest.

Edit:
Ah, there are some positive qualities as well, which you can just "lose" ingame... i am not GIVING him karma for this too. People should stop thinking that Karma=Qualities... They HAVE a buy/pay off-mechanic, yes. But some things just happen. Positive AND negative qualities.

But where is the logic in that?
The Logic is out of Game ,not Ingame
If Your Character would be allowed to loose a Diasadvantage without Paying in Karma,than other Players would demand the same for their Chars and could request to loose their Addiction or their Incompetence without paying in Karma. So;
Ingame you pay the Money to get rid of your Debt and Outgame you pay Karma to get rid of a Disadvantage.
The only other Solution I see is making In Debt not a Disadvantage. If you dont get any BP ,then its not a Disadvantage and you don't have to "Pay Back in Karma"

with a logical Dance
Medicineman

Let's say that the in dept is always linked to a crime syndicate of some sort. Then you would owe the money plus favors ... and if I look at mafia, favors are always too small to cover the entire dept. So buying Favors (with karma) would be a better way to see it.

In my opinion, the "In-Debt" Negative quality is a totally different situation to one where a character takes on debt during play.

The former has gained the character Build Points as well as money and so has a Karma component, while the latter is usually just a matter of paying back the money owed.

I assume in-debt means a favor that you have to keep on paying. You offer something in exchange of a cash down payment. Otherwise it's kinda pointless. Letä's face it. If your character makes the leg breakers look like choir boys then who exactly is going to extract the money if the character decides not to pay up?

Anyways, Christmas waits for no-one and there is too much coal to deliver to freezing homes.

Yes, only the good kids get coal.

That's cos the coal is paid for with Karma (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

With today's energy crises. It looks like the cost of coal is going to increase. A lump may turn into an investment 20 years later.

And the naughty girls get diamonds. ^_^

Conceptually, I understand why folks want there to be a drawback to "In Debt" even after the cash is paid back. It is a negative quality. It gave you karma.
But, as written, the book describes the negative effects of this quality. And those negative effects go away when the debt is paid.
The book doesn't say that the lending organization "did yo a favor". If it did, you would owe them a favor until / unless it was all cleared up.
Yes, a GM can decide it should have said that, and require it. If that were included, then I would think there would have been no need for the 50% surcharge.

Also note: IRL, Loan sharks don't collect favors. They collect money. Unless you are a politician, or maybe a corporate exec, having borrowed money from a loan shark, and paid it off, it not going to give them a hold on you that lets them demand a favor. (The hold for politicians and execs is revealing that you borrowed money. For a shadowrunner, the response would probably be "I've done worse. So publish.") Even in fiction, the typical setup is that the interest rate is so high that the victim can't pay it off. Or the fee wqas 1/3 of the company, which you don't have the option of buying back. But it is not that borrowing the money, in and of itself, gave them a hold on you.

I can well understand a GM saying that as written the quality is too good. And therefore wanting to adjust it.
Just don't tell me that the quality says that you owe them a favor or that they loan shark will lose track of the payments.

Yours,
Joel

I believe strongly that In Debt should be a 0-point quality. It's a good tradeoff - more nuyen at chargen, less later. Especially good for sammy types, and thematically appropriate as well. If you don't like the potential abuse of that much extra money, rule that it's affected by the resources expenditure cap (50 BP/100 Karma, or 250k, without born rich).

I actually agree that it should be a 0 Point quality. That would solve most of the argument and it keeps people from double dipping getting both cash and Karma from the same thing and only wanting to pay off one or the other.

*starts a new poll*

[Edit:] Here

In debt goves both money and BP at character generation. It is, effectively, a sort of zero point quality already, since you have to pay the money and the karma back to get rid of it.

Or, if you pay the money debt, every future karma point you receive will be "discounted" to pay the karma debt until all the karma cost is paid.

I usually make my players pay off the nuyen and karma, but the karma at a steeply discounted rate. Part of the reward for shadowrunning is money, earning it in game usually involves significant risk so if the characters pay off the debt but not the karma they might have made a nuisance enemy, gained a bad reputation for not showing the proper social graces or something of that nature.

The way you are presenting it, it is as if the character borrowed the money on Monday, went on their First Run on Tuesday and Paid off this Generic Loan Shark on Wednesday. Truly a compelling story.

It would be a mistake to assume that Debt refers only to money. Yes, money is the only thing mentioned in the text as far as the direct physical effect, but it also mentions a whole lot of BP and therefore a lot of Karma. The monetary difference between what is given (5k [7.5k] nuyen for 5bp) and what that's worth (5bp for 25k nuyen,) is an indication of the true debt. This difference in value represents the Karmic Debt you owe in the relationship. It also represents the Roleplaying Opportunities which Qualities are meant to provide as part of the character creation process.

As for making the player pay all their first Karma towards this debt, I play that the karmic debt can only be paid off by doing favors for the person/organization the character is In Debt to. Therefore, the occasional side mission will be open to the player and anyone else on the team who wants in, but the rewards for that player go solely towards absolving their debt. If an In Debt player refuses to take part in the opportunity their "beneficent friend" provides them, then that "friend" quickly loses his beneficence and begins to get his satisfaction out of the character in a much less mutual way. You know: contact/family is kidnapped, player has to make right with the organization or rescue his friend. Either way, karma is generated and paid towards the Debt. This sort of thing continues until the karma is paid, either as debt absolved, or cost of pursuit too high.

We came up with some solutions to “I paid off the Karma, but not the Cash.”

-The Loan Shark has a Stroke. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)
-As you are going to meet with him to make a payment, he meets the Cross Town Buss, (IMG:style_emoticons/default/dead.gif)
-You find a Cred-Stick with twice what you owe, and as you are tiring to figure out what to do with it, Mr. Sharky shows up with his two Shark Shaman Goons and decides the Stick will make everything even. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/sarcastic.gif)

In addition, to keep with the season.
-He was visited by three Spirits the night before (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

During Character Generation
In Debt Negative Quality gives you BP which is used at the rate of 5 BP = 5,000 nuyen worth of Gear. (Note that normally 5,000 Nuyen is 1 BP in chargen)
You did not get cash. You got Gear. Gear is measured in Nuyen. Bad things happened to unused Nuyen in Gear Purchase phase. You do not end up with cash.


During Play
There are no Karma to Cash or Cash to Karma rules.
All Qualities are changed with Karma.
Gear in Play is purchased with cash.


My opinion, the 5 to 30 K of Gear is not the "Cash" debt they owe. It's actually the 10 to 60 karma to cash equivalent. By most Karma to Cash systems this is far more then 30k nuyen.

The general disconnect in discussing this Negative Quality is the idea of 30,000 nuyen in cash. It was never really there. As an exercise, find 30k worth of gear and determine the street value and time it takes to get it. 30k of Gear at character generation usually costs far more if you try to by it during game play.

I am confused... Street Value in 4th is the same at character creation as it is in game play... no more street indexes to worry about, so I am not sure what the point was of this statement...

You may indeed take some time to acquire some things after play starts... but the problem with this is that you are still not allowed to purchase anything abouve availability 12 anyway with the extra "Nuyen" you get for the In debt Quality... so that point is also somewhat funny to me...

And thirdly... there is no mention that it is in kind... read the Quality... you receive an extra 5,000 nuyen for every level of this quality, up to a max of 30,000 Nuyen... (it specifically mentions that it is MONEY, not GEAR)...

I guess I am just missing your point... Just Sayin
Could you clarify it a bit?

Keep the Faith

RC "For every 5 BP taken, the character
receives an extra 5,000¥ at character creation; this money can be
above and beyond the normal 50 BP cap for gear."

For Character Creation, see SR4A p. 86, Assign Resources.
"Resources cover
all the tools of your character’s trade, including gear, cyberware, magic
spells, and technomancer complex forms. Each type of resource has
its own separate BP cost."

Gear is set at 1 BP = 5,000 Nuyen, up to 50 BP may be spent in Character Creation's Assign resources step.

Then we get to Starting Nuyen, p. 88 SR4A
"Nuyen used to purchase gear under Resources doesn’t carry over when
you finish character creation and are ready to play."

For additional material, p. 81 SR4A "Players purchase qualities during character creation."

Also p. 89 SR4A under Starting Nuyen "Characters can purchase things immediately upon entering
the game, but any items bought are subject to Availability and the
whim of the gamemaster."

There is a clear distinction between nuyen bought with BP at character creation and used to obtain resources, and nuyen you get during game play.

One alternative would have been to assign an equivalent BP cost for all gear rather then nuyen, but that would be another column in the gear tables and a whole lot of numbers to the right of the decimal point to track. Want a 0.03 BP Defiance Shocker, or a 0.07 BP Ares Predator to start the game?

You generally get cash from the loanshark. You even pay him back in cash. The game simply assumes that you piddle all the cash away once you have 'acquired' your starting gear before the game starts.


Question: Are people getting both the cash and the BP bonus for taking this quality, or are they limiting the earned BPs to only getting the cash the quality gives? A second look at the quality has me reading both interpretations.

Well, I can kinda see what he means. There is actually an increase in the cost of most gear if you reason that R and F stuff fall under the 'hard to obtain' and 'police crackdown' categories which increase the price by 10 or 50%. Then time can be a huge issue, as if you want something 10,001+ (Most ware) it takes a week per roll, and something with say an availability of 15 requires 15 hits on an extended test which is subject to the reducing dice. So unless you have the pornomancer or someone helping you out finding the stuff, it could easily take months or be impossible to find. Even with 15ish dice it could still take about a month.

So yeah, I can see some validity to the argument that chargen nuyen is 'worth more' than in play nuyen. Of course I'd imagine that alot of GMs don't enforce availability so strictly, and even fewer are likely to charge you extra like that for R and F items.

So, yet another question. If you play that you have to pay back the karma for a quality, and play it by the book that you have to pay it back as soon as possible (No long term pay it back over the next 60 runs plan or anything similar), would you ever get the quality? It gets you a few extra BP that you could get via other means and some nuyen, but in exchange your character doesn't improve for the first 10-15 runs and doesn't make money for a while either.