Nuyen <-> Karma? Options

[Matrix Monkey]

Also, which conversion rates do you use?
The SRC ones, or your own?

[Sphynx]

Both, but House Ruled. We simply let the players sell Karma off to each other. They chose the value of their Karma that way. And the GM maintains the amount of Karma through allocation. Hell, I as a Shaman just sold 2 Karma Points for 2,000 (thousand each) nuyen cause I needed it in a rush. Our only real control point is that we insist any Karma bought in this manner is immediately spent. That was House Ruled because someone once came up with the idea that if they kept selling Karma to each other, they could raise their Karma Pool (every 10/20) and then sell the extra to the next person. :P

Sphynx

[L.D]

Normally it's 5000 nuyen for each karma and to stop people from spending ridiculous amounts at the same time purchases are only allowed between runs and then there is a five karma limit.

[Krashlocke]

Neither - I tried it one game and I ended up with a mage who was using all of his money to buy karma, then borrowing all of the other PCs money to summon high force elementals. It was ridiculous. It got even worse when he started looting everything he could touch just to buy more karma.

Damn karma junkie.

[Game2BHappy]

Conversion rates we use:

1 karma spent = 5,000 NuYen
100,000 NuYen spent = 1 karma

In my book, even that could get abused.

[phelious fogg]

I use
50k = 1karma
1karma = 5k

That way you loose either way. And I almost never let runners get 50k that they would want to use towards karma. A normal run from me is 1-10k payoff for each person, and 3-5 karma..

the karma for cash is used a lot though, and that i dont mind

[Sphynx]

This thread got me thinking.... maybe a better method, instead of Karma for Cash would be using Karma for the 'luck factor' of a negotiation. Every karma spent increases the 'base' pay by X%, maybe 10%. If a Johnson is paying 50g's for a run, and one of the team mates spends a Karma point, that's a nice way of starting the base offer at 55g's.

Would be a better method for my games where Cash is always the problem. I mean, hell, to 'upgrade' to any kinda Cyber or Bioware, where 5 karma and 5,000 nuyen a game is average (per person), is just about impossible. Might also lessen the looting acts neccessitated by a chance to get something Delta. I don't think my characters have EVER seen more than 250g's total in any of their lifetimes of Running, and some of the good stuff is easily in the millions.

I mean, what's a player to do short of cutting a deal with a Corp that leaves you wide the frag open for GM abuse? The reason I ALWAYS start with a million nuyen, I'll never get cybernetics installed in-game again. Too expensive, too risky if the surgery tables are used, and too available for GM abuse. Give me my low ass Magic Rating to buy off via initiations any day.

Sphynx

[phelious fogg]

I give out cyberware and other things as loot occasionaly. Team X breaks into a place, Teammember Y has been saving up for Wired 3. Team X steals prototype from lab in Case Z. Case Z contains, along with the prototype, several cyberware enhancements, leaing Teammember Y only to pay for the surgery. Occasionaly the team will pool together to buy some cool cyberware for thier buddy too. You can image each player haveing 100k saved up in a rainy day fund, and each having 5 karma to spend. among five teammeats that 625k which isnt bad for buying expensive cyber. And thats 10-12 runs probably (you tend to get paid more as you run more, your rep is also your pricetag) If you dont have a reason to give a runner more than 10k then its going to take forever, but if they get more skilled they might earn 15k or something like that, cutting the time down even more. The idea is the team should probably be helping pay for nessassary upgrades.

[mckay421]

My players tend to think of me as being rather stingy so the 2-3 karma that they get per game session would never be converted to cash. And even though I keep them on a 5-10K nuyen per session leash there is just no way that I would ever allow them to buy karma. Just me...

All the best...
John

[Switchblade]

I have never even had a player that asked for such a thing. Good thing too. In the beginning I was giving out monster payoffs but being stingy with the karma.

[BigBlacksmith]

I just ration the amount of karma the players can buy. I roll dices to check how much karma is "available", and then, if they want to buy some, they are more than welcome. The rates change on the situation, but I rarely go under 10K. Same thing for selling karma, but the price is really lower. The fact that I ration it that way (rarely above 2 or 3 points per pc per session, if even that much) kinda stops the whole karmarush idea, while allowing them to get that extra point that makes the difference.

I usually give more leeway to mages for buying, but then again, barely... :D

However, as opposed to L.D., I allow it in-game.

[Lilt]

I don't allow any direct point-for-point shifting but I doleave them oppertunities in-game once every coupple of sessions.

They may be hired to 'Remove' a group of orks from a building they are squatting in for example. They could go in and kill/muscle the orks out but if they talk to them they'll find-out that the orks just keep being evicted as they only have enough money to feed themselves.

The runners, being nice people at heart (as I encourage my runners to be), could find them somewhere else to stay which, if they pay something out of their own pocket for it, could see a nice reward karma-wise (Probably at-least as well as the rules in the SRComp). IE:A few permenant squatter lifestyles in another part of town could earn the contributors a fair bit of karma.

You can do the converse with completely amoral runs (assasinations, bombings, whatever). That way I have control over when the group can earn karma or nuyen. If the players want either they can just ask me.

I would probably not allow direct "I give 200k to charity. Aren't I nice! Woot, Initiation level 6...".

[Zazen]

Does anyone else find the "gift to charity" explanation really weakass?

I've never heard anyone place restrictions on what you can use the karma for, so what keeps people from using karma gained from donating to good to learn bad things? Hell, you can give money to your church to quicken an Agony spell on the poor elderly priest!

ed- clarity

[Domino]

And that is why it gets abused. Because GMs do not say no. With final say over the process it only gets as abused as you let it.

[Lilt]

I might allow stealing from charity as a way of doing karma to cash... As long as it was done in character. The other realistic rules-wise way of doing karma to cash is by giving karma to a free spirit with the wealth power.

[Reth]

i play in a fairly high powered game, but without getting terrible much more karma than in regular games, so we need karma badly, therefore we are allowed to purchase karma ca. every 3 months, seeing as we play about once a week, this we feel is not overusing the rule.

10K=1 karma
1 karma=1K

[Zazen]

[TinkerGnome]

My view on karma for cash is that it really only has to work one way. Most games will tend to be heavy on one type of award and light on another (the last game I played for a length of time was heavy on karma, light on cash). The point of the trading rule is simply to maintain game balance and interest. What rigger wants to have 2k a run and 10 karma? What mage wants 10k a run but just 2 karma? While, in the short run, both characters might like the awards, they'll start missing out on not having their more necessary resource.

[Fortune]

I allow both on a case-by-case basis. I require a half-decent explanation as to just how the trade-off works, and never count bought Karma as Good Karma in that it never goes towards raising the Karma Pool or Reputation.

[VOLKOV9]

we use both, we jsut make it unprofitable, by a long shot. we do 25,000Y to buuy 1 karma, and 1 karma will get you.... 200Y? i dont remember, I'll ask my group, but we don't use it too commonly.
we used to have a rule about a maximum number of times a char could use this rule in his lifetime, but I'm liking the idea of a maximum use per run.

[Lantzer]

What conversion rates? dunno.

How would you folks handle conversion rates for a campaign that is supposed to
start at the gritty In-The-Gutter level (60-70pt chars) and is supposed to develop
to the Darned-Good-Professional level?

This one has got me kind of stumped. Maybe have variable rates, with the rates dependent on how long the campaign has gone?

One of my future players has a nifty concept that includes the Borrowed Time flaw, where the character got the money to buy his cyber from a leg-breaker, and it's only a matter of time before he comes to collect... And I was thinking that I'd allow him to buy off the flaw with gobs of cash _and_ 60? pts of Karma converted to cash. So the conversion rates interest me.

[Herald of Verjig...]

For entertainment purposes, you could say that all karma nuyen conversion is simple gambling. They put up cash and karma, one gets doubled, the other is lost, a coin decides which way.

This way, they choose the exchange rate, but don't know which way the exchange will go.

As always, don't let this modify the karma build-up that fuels the pool, just how much you can improve by karma.

[last_of_the_grea...]

Real simple in my games.
1 karma can be traded for 10 000 nuyen
10 000 nuyen can be traded for 1 karma
maximum of 50 000 nuyen/5 karma per game session/adventure, whichever lasts longer.

Because it's fun to advance!

[GunnerJ]

I guess I'm a fairly permissive GM...

2000 :nuyen: = 1 karma
1 karma = (1D6*250) :nuyen:

[GunnerJ]