Karma Options

[Samaels Ghost]

Of course it depends on how well they play and how much fun is had. I'm curious, because it seems like some people are giving out very little to their runners. IMO, giving minimal awards when you only get to play once every week or so just slows down character development to the point where it becomes uninteresting.

[Taki]

I voted "More" !
Because except a campaign I ran during a few years, I now only do one shot scenarios.
I think I will go on with a shadowrun team - but we play only twice in one year, and I do like to see the PJ evolve.

[ronin3338]

I typically give about 5, but I may be more liberal if it seems like not enough. We played SR3 on a weekly basis, so that was usually enough.

[James McMurray]

I voted 5-8 as that seems about average for our group, but it really depends on the run and how the group handled things (IC and OOC). An evening filled with talk about WoW would get less karma from me then an evening that was mostly SR, even if the same goals were accomplished.

[stevebugge]

I need an other, 4-6 is about normal for me.

[Kyoto Kid]

...8 - 11 per segment (not necessarily gaming session), is the usual, but then I run a fairly detailed campaign. There are also opportuities for Instant and Bonus Karma in addition as well. as subtractions form the base for hosing up..

[KosherPickle]

When I GM'd, I tended toward more Karma. I enjoyed seeing my players develop their characters so I could throw harder and crazier stuff at them.

[Tiger Eyes]

We get about 1 - 2 Karma per session. Which generally works out to 2 - 5 Karma per adventure, since we tend to do a lot of thinking (generally wasted against our GM's plotting) and have fairly short game nights (4 hrs... ah, the college days when we would play for 8 - 10 hours straight...). We're also paying now for the overly powerful characters in a previous game... our GM wants us to remain humble and to grow slowly. We did start out with 500 pt characters, though, so I can't really complain.

I can, however, look over at Kyoto Kid's game with sad, envious eyes... Sniffle...

[Zolhex]

I said 2-5 but that is for the small runs when I do the big multi-game runs I tend to up it a bit as it will take time and extra efferot to finish the run. So I would say around 10 tp 15 for the big runs but like I said that for like 3 to 5 gaming sessions.

[Zen Shooter01]

Less is more when it comes to karma, and nuyen, too. How many times have I read GM laments on this board about invincible bulldozer PCs? They got that way because the GM was too generous with the rewards.

[Ophis]

I voted 5-8 because I tend to give 5 per standard session and up it a bit for harder circumstances.

[Brahm]

I've played with the few karma per session in the past, and only recieving them at the end of the run not the end of the session. Have lately been playing with 5 to 8 typically and on rare occation up into double digits on particularly good sessions, and receiving this every session.

I must say that the later is MUCH more palitable. Been playing the same character for 7 months, and it's not like the character has become all powerful either. He doesn't even nessasarily raise anything after any given session, and I would expect to have things to spend karma on a year and a half from now (and he's not even Awakened or a TM).

Remember that it is easy for a Skill Group or Attribute to cost 20-30 karma, so that means close to a month of weekly gaming just to raise one stat a single point. Now compare that to 1 or 2 per session, say 2 to 5 per "run" with runs typically lasting 2 to 3 sessions. You are looking at minimum of 2 months, maybe 3 or 4 months to raise it just 1 Attribute or Skill. Ouch.

[Samaels Ghost]

Ooo! That's a good question! How many of you sit down for a session and complete a run in that same session? Are "to be continued"s common for you?

[Brahm]

Although when we had started it was one "run" per session, it has changed. Now there is more of an ongoing story that are PCs are part of, and the "runs" are more part of. Also one "run" can often bleed into the next as we try to tie off whatever mess we kicked up in the last session, I'd say we tend to be more of a continuous flow than a TV sit-com episodic format.

That's another reason why tieing karma to a specific run would be bad for us, because it's hard to say when the run is done. And the full adventure is only likely to be done when we are done playing SR.

[James McMurray]

It depends on the run and how well the game flows. If a run is designed to be fast but WoW released a patch that morning forget about it.

[Dv84good]

I says 10+ because that advancement in sr4 has been slowed by the increase cost to raise attribute and skills additionally the increased cost of initiation. Also there are far more skill a player needs to pay for.

[fool]

In our group, we also tend to rotate who's gming, thus slowing down charecter development even further, and we only play about every 2-3 weeks. That really slows things down.
I'm a big one on instant karma awards. often giving out 1-3 points per player a session.
Our sessions often wind up to be continued until the one gm who's running is done and someone else takes over.
BTW what's IC and OOC

[Brahm]

IC = In Character
OOC = Out Of Character

[eidolon]

We were playing weekly in my last game, and in weekly games 5 is the top of the scale unless something major or drastic happens.

In less frequent games, I still tend to award no more than 7 per session.

[stevebugge]

[Jrayjoker]

I went with 2-5 because the average per session is about that, but the completion for scenarios is usually 2-3 sessions and karma isn't awarded 'til then.

[Shrike30]

4-5 points is sort of the minumum you'll get on a short night of gaming with me. I think 8 is the most I've ever passed out, with 6 being the most common.