KPW, Karma Per Week Options

[DTFarstar]

I know the "how much karma for a run?" and "how much money for a run?" topics have been beaten to death around here only to periodically rise from the grave while we all scramble for our logic clubs to complete the cycle yet again, however, what I am wondering now is not how much you guys think is appropriate, but how much karma you (or your players if you are not lucky enough to be able to play) in a 400 build point game average per week.

I am trying to get a handle on my own karma rewards and see if my friend is being as stingy as he seems to be being on his game or if I am just generally overly generous.

In the game I run, we average about 3-5 karma a week depending on player efficiency and hilarity and stuff like that. Though I think I am going to steal a page of Fisty's book and start handing out knowledge points instead of straight up karma for funny/disturbing OOC comments. We usually play between 3 and 5 hours. So that works out neatly to about 1 karma per hour of play provided they are on the ball and don't just dick around doing nothing.

In the game I play in, however, we get sent on multi-stage runs against armed fortresses (they had a fucking missile launcher w/targetting system and 4 HMG turrets!) and other completely insane things like that. We are about to head to freaking Tibet. Yay massive manastorm/blizzard!. Anyway, in that game we average 1-3 karma a run with runs taking 2-4 weeks and us playing 3-5 hours a week.

So, since both games started out at 400 build points, and his game is actually requiring of a higher power level than mine(we are assisting a pirate raid on the way to Tibet right now, and we just had to fight.... 8 I believe ghille suit wearing, sniper rifle toting bastards with 4 IPs and 14 or so dice to shoot with.), I just wonder which one of us is a more typical GM.

Chris

[HappyDaze]

IMO, your campaign is more my style. Your friend's game could be fun too, but the rewards (or the starting character builds) really need to be increased to match the challenge level.

[DTFarstar]

Little bit of both, I believe, but no average info for you, Happy?

Chris

[HappyDaze]

My last game was a high-end 600BP game where 3-5 karma per session and a 10-point bonus per mission (usually a mission was completed every 3-4 sessions) was the norm. The game is currently defunct d/t player-v-player conficts (out-of-character), but the advancement rate was never a problem.

[Ryu]

About 4 karma/week with an average playtime of about six hours. There are nearly no personal karma rewards, and the exact amount depends on the "intensity" of the session.

[Fuchs]

Back when we awarded karma in our games, we had about 5-10 karma per run, one run taking 1-2 weekly sessions.

[deek]

Our current game is 4 hours, every other Monday after work. I award a base 10 karma per session, plus 1-8 karma based on the happenings. I'd say the average is 14, maybe a little lower.

So, that's two hours a week, average, and 7 karma a week. Drop that down to hours and my players are getting about 3.5 karma per hour played...

[DTFarstar]

I think a higher KPW ratio is probably required for games that play bi-monthly or monthly simply because you have to keep people feeling like things are moving or they will get bored because it will seem like 3 months have gone by and you still have nothing to show for it.

Chris

[deek]

I agree and that is exactly why we did it. We took a look at how often we would play and then I talked with all the players to get a sense of how they wanted to advance. When all was said and done, 10 karma per session plus 1-8 bonus was what we decided felt best for our bi-monthly game.

[Ophis]

I run four hour sessions, with intermittent longer ones and short "Chatty bits" on free evenings, I only give karma for main sessions and give about 6-10 karma per run on average, with a run taking approx 1 and 1/2 sessions.

[dog_xinu]

3-4 per run unless it is a hard one then more. The money is not over abundant either. I dont make it so people are stealing cars to make money either. The money/karma is awarded not on the weekly basis but on the run basis. The longer they take to complete the run (in real life) the slower the growth will happen.

dog

[DTFarstar]

That is what the guy I play under does as well, xinu. However, I have noticed that that typically penalizes us because he will create a run that has one "simple" solution, or he will underestimate the time it takes for combat, or like last week he needed my help with DnD character he was making and so it took awhile for the session to start and just other sidetracking things that are often his fault so we all advance slower than we want to. Though since it is bothering all of us(I'm the only one to speak up, but even the overly nice guy never speaks in his defense) I think he is going to switch to Frank's build and advancement system and give out the same amount, basically doubling what we get per run.

He follows the books guidelines to the letter like they are a DnD experience table except he never gives personal awards(alot of the table stopping laughter are jokes about him) so we get 2-5 karma a run with a run generally lasting 6-15 hours play time. I cited some of the crap we go through on his runs too.

Chris

[Ryu]

Thats why we give out karma per session. It is the player who wants the karma, the character does not care. I do not want for my players to prefer simple runs, as I do not want for them to skip RPing unimportant parts because "time is karma". The "right" amount depends on the number of used skills in your game. If only major skills are ever rolled, char development is much cheaper than in those games where knowledge skills are key. Our experience with a rather secure karma income/real life month has been that even the more "efficient" players spend on flavor skills because they have some idea when their next milestone investment will be possible.

[Redjack]

I used to give out karma per mission. I have recently changed to a per session award. Each session being ~3-6 karma. We usually play about three times per month. The entire session is 5-6 hours, but we cook a meal together and have a good time. Some runs take two sessions to complete because the character building and social time is as important as the objectives to us.