The Karma System, Alternate Character Creation Options

[Tomothy]

I was wondering what people generally felt about using the Karma System for Character Creation. Do you find it makes more varied builds? Do you think it makes for overpowered characters?

[Fyndhal]

There has been a number of threads on this, hashing it out. Quick recap is DS in a nutshell: Most posters seem to agree that the Karma system allows more flexibility, but that it also lends itself even more to munchkin-y behavior than the BP system. Add in the fact that there is no Karma cost for Race, and you got some bitter arguments.

The general conclusion was: Don't use it unless you are prepared for it and know what to expect.

EDIT: I should add that the above is what I took away from the conversations. It may not be 100% accurate.

[Ancient History]

The Karma character generation system given in Runner's Companion was generally well-received, but the characters aren't necessarily directly comparable to those made using standard BP-based character generation or Priority generation - different strengths and weaknesses in different systems, see. Because of the different costs involved, for example, a character created with 400 BP might take anywhere from 500-700 Karma to create under the RC system.

Particularly in karmagen, metahumans are perceived to have an advantage under certain circumstances, because there is no cost to play metahumans and they have higher racial minimums (and maximums); for players that care to only start out with minimum attributes this means a starting metahuman character will have higher attributes than a starting human character. Its a heated issue with some.

[HappyDaze]

I love the Karma System, but it needs some tweaks to cover racial costs and - especially - the advanced character options from RC. I recommend it over the craptastic BP system that awards min-maxing over all else.

[Tomothy]

Yeah I was mainly wondering because I made the same character (conjuring specialist) with Build Points and then Karmagen and found the latter left me with a great deal more points to spend.

[Ancient History]

Its endemic to the system: BP is arithmetic, Karma is scalar. For low attributes (below 6), the cost is lower than the equivalent BP cost, and so you have more Karma floating around (it reverses itself with attributes higher than 6, which is why metahumans get higher spending caps on attributes). Part of that extra Karma is controlled by forcing you to pay for Knowledge skills (if you want 'em), and by lowering the number of Karma available compared to the 2:1 conversion cost (i.e. just because 2 Karma is "equivalent" to 1 BP in terms of cost doesn't mean you should start out making 800 Karma characters). Because of caps on skill and attribute levels, and resource and attribute spending, the extra Karma points generally go into by low-to-mid-level skills by default, making more well-rounded characters.

On the other hand...the no-cost-for-metahumans was a bit of a risky design move. The intention was to encourage players to play whatever they wanted to play without worrying about the cost of any particular racial option. The minimum attributes were an issue, though - it was still desired for players to be able to make characters at least superficially equivalent to BP characters for a couple reasons, and bunch of Body 1 orks or trolls that couldn't max out their Strength because of spending caps was seen as a bad thing (hence the raised attribute cap on metahumans - to encourage them to raise their attributes, and let them max out at least one).

Unfortunately, one of the outliers on chargen was if a player decided not to increase their attributes - humans would start with 1s and metahumans would start with 1's and some higher minimums. The only realistic solution to that would have been to add racial costs back in (which wasn't desired), eliminate minimum attributes (in hindsight, what maybe should have been done), or decide it was a very low-probability event that made a certain amount of sense in context (what was done, and in hindsight should have remembered dealing with gamers). Which is why we have the Weakest Ork Is Stronger Than the Weakest Human argument.

[Fuchs]

By that logic, the 20BP quality "Exceptional Attribute" should be free in karma gen, since it does the same metarace does - makes it possible to have higher stats, but you need to pay karma for them.

[Ancient History]

2 + 2 != 5

[Muspellsheimr]

(hence the raised attribute cap on metahumans - to encourage them to raise their attributes, and let them max out at least one).

A Troll (the most expensive attribute-wise in this system) can reach 10/4/5/9/3/4/4/5; one at max, the rest one under, with 390 Karma. 15 Karma more than the "normal" maximum alotment. Every other base race can do the same with under the 375 Karma limit; I'm not sure about the advanced races, but strongly suspect all but Troll variants are the same.

I fail to see how you thought this increase was needed; most won't ever even be able to use it, & those that do only by a minuscule amounta.

[ElFenrir]

Well, IMO, this is what I've found with the different systems, strengths and weaknesses wise.

BP:

Strengths:

Nicely customizable.
The costs are fairly math-easy. Skills cost 4, skill groups 10, attributes 10/25 for the last point, etc.

Weaknesses:

-Rewards a lot of maxing/soft-maxing at the start, rather than even spreads. This is due to the higher stuff costing more karma in-game; it's more cost-effective to get it over with at the beginning and buy the low stuff with the cheap amounts of karma later.

-Metahuman costs are out of whack. See Elves(who pretty much get low-light vision for 30 BP, as their costs equal out), vs. Orks(who get a LOT for 20 BP and very little drawbacks. In a world with cosmetic modification, it might as well be close to no drawbacks. Slightly lower Charisma and Logic maxes can be made up for easily), and Dwarves(little guys who pay between elves and orks, but still get more than elves, and again, very few drawbacks.)

-IMO, this system, due to the prevalence of soft maxes at the start, it leads to characters which are ''glass cannons'' in their fields. IE, highly specialized but not very spread out in other places. You CAN make a character that is well-specialized and still a bit spread; but the system just leads people to not to many times.

-Needing houserules/exceptions to do ''offbeat'' character builds. For example, it limits you to half your BP on your base 8 attributes, which allows for a spread of natural 3's and 4's (4 of each.) But say someone has a concept for a character with great raw potential(say, a ganger), but very little actual training(very low Skills), they need a GM's special permission to do this, since they would need to go over their allowed half-BP on Attributes. (For instance, I have seen a ganger campaign that had a 300 BP build limit, but allowed up to 200 of that on Attributes, which is an exception to the half-rule.)

Karma:


Strengths:

-Due to increasing costs, and the things costing the same in-game as the start, it leads to much more spread out characters. You still see heavy specialists at times; but due to perhaps some mental...thing, when characters see the costs of those very high Skills or whatnot they are more likely to start pulling them back. It's no longer ''optimal'' to start with the 2 5's, etc.

-Super-customizable. You can literally make anything you want. High Attributes, low Skills? Easily done. Vice versa? Also doable. Many builds that are damn-near impossible to do decently under BP are doable here.

-IMO, the most balanced of the systems, and it creates the most believable characters. For me, a believable character with spread out skills and the like is worth the slight boost in power that may come with it. (One can always just tell your players ''keep it under control.'' Works fine for me.)


Weaknesses:

-In general, even with ballpark Karma figures, they do somehow tend to come out more powerful than under BP. For example, I could probably take 550 Karma(less than the usual seen 600 Karma=roughly 400 BP characters), and make a character that is, more than likely, more powerful than it's 400 BP counterpart.

-Metas not costing anything are a heated topic. If you have a table that are known for playing races ''because they're cool'', this will not be a problem. However, if you have a table of bonafide twinks, this may be a problem. Also, while things like Metas, Shapeshifters, and the like cost no BP, Drakes/Infected, who are Qualities, not only cost BP, they cost DOUBLE the listed BP(since all BP costs are doubled under Karma.)

-Very math-intensive. May be overwhelming for new folks.

Priority:

Advantages:

-Very fast. Great for a one or two-shot weekend game when you just want to throw together some characters and go. This one advantage, IMO, is enough for me to want to keep it around. Also good for introducing people to the game.


Disadvantages:

-It's an odd mix of twinky and low-powered at the same time. For example, due to the extremely low costs of skills, one can end up with a few skill groups of max level if they take Skills rather high. But at the same time, characters tend to get a lot less points to work with. I haven't quite decided if this system gives too much, too little, or both.

-It very much encourages maxing. You don't need to pay double for that last Attribute point. Be prepared to see your gunbunnies with max Agility out of the box.

-Few points means again, the ''glass-cannon'' specialists. This is not a system that lends itself to spreading your points around.

[Yeah, not to much of a Priority fan, but it's usefulness for fast weekend games IS rather great.]

--

Also, yes. It's not good to mix these systems. As said, Karma costs for a 400 BP character can go as low as 500 or as high as over 800(yes, it can be done with certain Infected qualities.) I had mentioned 600 Karma is usually seen as the ballpark 400 BP figure, but still, it's so variable that it's better to just use the same system for all.

Again, people's mileage may vary, but these are my takes on the systems. Keep in mind Mango the Pornomancer/Possession Mages can be made under any system, and HAS been made under any system. Hell, I can make Mango under about 320 BPs, if not 300.

[Demosthanes]

We've been using the Karma system at 650 karma. We have house rules for character creation, designed around people building well skilled and talented characters but without a lot of gear or augmentations. We did the characters under the BP system at first, and while that worked, we rebuilt all characters under the karma system and found that all the characters came out as more generalists, with a broader range of skills and more knowledge skills.

The no cost for matatypes hasn't been a problem for us, but then, as players we all tend to play the metatypes that are most appropriate for our character concepts, or for cool factor, rather than pure power. Clear conversations with the GM and all players in regards to the style of game that is desired works best in resolving most of the potential problems of min-maxing and ridiculous builds (pornomancers, etc...).

[Glyph]

Karmagen works well for building well-rounded characters, although 750 Karma is significantly more powerful than 400 BP. The lack of racial costs doesn't bother me in most instances, but it is way too overpowered when you use it to create IEs and spirits, since their super-high "racial cost" is the main thing keeping them in check. I wonder if the free racial cost rule was really intended for those two types, and think that both cases would be better off treated as qualities (like drake and infected are). But until we get an errata or clarification, it remains a huge, gaping loophole in the system.

[Ancient History]

IEs

Wait, what?

[The Pat]

The problem we have had with BP chargen and karma-based advancement is that the two systems are not linked at all. As stated above, with BP you have a benefit if you go for min-maxing in attributes and in skills. 2 Characters could have the same stats with totally different karma earned and spent.

We solved this "break" in the system the other way around: Advancement costs the same as during chargen (so increasing an attribute from 3 to 4 costs 10 BP/karma, no matter if during chargen or later in the runners career). The GM needs to rust the players not to abuse this system, since it is now "cheaper" to get high individual stats.

By the way - this is totally okay with me. Improving a skill from 5 to 6 gives you one more dice (and 0.33 more successes on average). Same goes for improving a skill from 1 to 2. I am a big fan of linear advancement costs, since the game benefit is linear as well.

One additional - slightly off topic - note: We scaled down the cost for skill groups to 8. Why should they be as expensive as attributes, if they only include 3-4 skills each. We have also lowered the skill costs to 3 BP/karma.

Overall, this system makes advancing your character faster/easier. I always like it when characters can be developed visbilby (in game terms), which is not really possible in SR RAW.

--- The Pat

PS: As always take these house rules as "food for thought" - But feel free to go wild and rip them apart if it makes you happy (IMG:style_emoticons/default/love.gif)

[Glyph]

Wait, what?

Sorry, meant AIs. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/embarrassed.gif)

[Rad]

Funny, I made an immortal elf character once--before Runner's Companion came out...

...it was just an elf with the Formula spirit pact from Street Magic. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[Ancient History]

Ah, very good, yes. Karmagen isn't really suitable for building AIs and Spirits.

[Mordinvan]

So, what is the proposed Karagen solution for A.I.'s and spirits?
Make them cost karma = BP X2 ?

[Ancient History]

Well, first you take the freelancers that were working on both and beat them soundly with a shoe about the head and neck, paying careful attention to the face...of course, you have to make them put their hands on the table and keep them there, because we can't damage the all important typing hands.

Seriously, I don't have a good work-around for them right now. Sorry.

[Muspellsheimr]

I advise BP cost x 2 for every racial option. Of course, this makes Free Spirits & Synthetic Intelligence's unplayable. That is due to their ridiculously retarded cost though. Right now, I do not have a fix for that, & probably will not for some time (I'm lazy, & it's not relevant to any games at the moment).

[Cain]

Let's be blunt, here: Karmagen also wasn't designed for Shifters, Drakes, any of the metavariants, or the nonhuman options. If you combine them, you can end up with some horrifying combinations.

Karmagen, in my experience, doesn't lend itself to more "balanced" characters. It leads to more powerful ones, with a wider spread of skills. Because you can afford to pick up low levels of skills, players will tend to do so, instead of sacrificing them to get more dice in their specialties. I haven't seen it change the number of high-powered dice pools, though, which is kinda a good thing: you can't min/max out more specialties easily. But that doesn't make characters more "balanced", nor does it stop them from being incredibly broken if done right.

[Glyph]

I advise BP cost x 2 for every racial option. Of course, this makes Free Spirits & Synthetic Intelligence's unplayable. That is due to their ridiculously retarded cost though. Right now, I do not have a fix for that, & probably will not for some time (I'm lazy, & it's not relevant to any games at the moment).

No point in playing anything but a human then, since every other metatype is completely screwed by that house rule. Even trolls, the biggest winners purely points-wise under BP, come out inferior to humans if they are charged 80 points. Elves, who have a net gain of 15 Karma over a human, wind up costing 45 karma to play. And on top of that, under karmagen they pay more for, say, Agility: 6 and Charisma: 7, than a human would pay for Agility: 5 and Charisma: 5. So they are paying extra points, for the privilege of paying more for their Attributes. You could say they are getting the equivalent of metagenetic improvement/Attribute x 3, but that quality is overpriced, and I would much rather have 60 points of stuff, than pay through the nose for 60 points of potential.

It's a good house rule, IF you are trying to make metatypes more like they were in SR1, when they were rare, costly, and generally inferior to human builds.

[Matsci]

No point in playing anything but a human then, since every other metatype is completely screwed by that house rule. Even trolls, the biggest winners purely points-wise under BP, come out inferior to humans if they are charged 80 points. Elves, who have a net gain of 15 Karma over a human, wind up costing 45 karma to play. And on top of that, under karmagen they pay more for, say, Agility: 6 and Charisma: 7, than a human would pay for Agility: 5 and Charisma: 5. So they are paying extra points, for the privilege of paying more for their Attributes. You could say they are getting the equivalent of metagenetic improvement/Attribute x 3, but that quality is overpriced, and I would much rather have 60 points of stuff, than pay through the nose for 60 points of potential.

It's a good house rule, IF you are trying to make metatypes more like they were in SR1, when they were rare, costly, and generally inferior to human builds.

I was thinking of using strain BP cost for races and Racial Traits. I haven't done the math yet, but I think it might work.

[TheOOB]

I have all racial options port their BP cost directally to a karma cost, so orks cost 20, dwarves 25, and so on. It keeps some of the "This metatype is supposed to have higher attributes in their special fields", but also acknowledged the fact that the metatypes have worth, and should cost something if only for the bonuses to your min attributes.

[Muspellsheimr]

I guess I should have remembered to say I also suggest applying racial modifiers after determining attribute advancement costs, both during & after character generation.

Still, those 80 BP for a troll net you significant benefits; +4 Str, +4 Bod, +1 Armor, +1 Reach, & Thermographic Vision. Before the attribute modifiers, that is roughly a 30-40 Karma benefit.

The elves still loose out if you apply modifiers before costs.