How much Karma, Does a wage-mage earn? Options

[Mr Clock]

So we know shadowrunners earn their Karma by going on runs, being cunning and sneaky, and by a metagame reward based on the strength of their characterisations and interactions (roleplaying, drama, humour). Pretend a runner does a job a month, takes a week, earns six Karma. 72 per year for highly illegal, often dangerous work.

How much Karma does a wage-mage earn? How often? Do they have any means of gaining bonus Karma, say by going on magical training courses, doing research, studying under a tutor (metahuman or otherwise)?

Why I'm asking

In order to present a world that is real and tangible and follows the same rules as those presented in the books, I'm big on my realism. The discussion on anchoring and anchoring foci has made me consider how many VIPs and execs and even corpsec officers might be carrying a little something extra. Knowing how normal people earn Karma and at what rate will help me more clearly define how available such extras should be.

Thoughts please?

[Yerameyahu]

You're going to have fun trying to get realism out of the fluff/crunch interaction of a tabletop roleplaying game. I wish you good luck.

I didn't think anyone actually earned karma at all. Primes get whatever the GM decides to hand them. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[CanRay]

Depends on the Mage and the company in question. If all he does is summon watchers all day, every day, and do the occasional bit of astral rounds (Basically a Magical Security Guard), not much.

If he's in academia delving into the deepest, darkest secrets of magic, a fair bit. Them some dark places and almost as dangerous as Shadowrunning. You could get a nasty papercut. Those can get infected.

Combat Mages can get as much as, if not more, Karma than Shadowrunners depending on what unit they're in, and they're rarely sent to some podunk "Nothing Ever Happen Here" position due to their value.

[Summerstorm]

Hm... didn't this come up a while ago? Tried to find it... but there is a LOT about karma.

Well, my opinion: Of course everyone has karma and generates it. As i see it karma is not only the metaphysical construct of "life-energy of change" but also real experience and potential to learn. This of course does not sit right with the players who take a closer look at the mechanics.

For example the mechanic is that the mage CANNOT learn a language at the side (even if he does read and practices) because he bound a focus seems just weird. But this is a metagame effect from throwing two descriptions into one pot and call it karma.

As to your question: Well... i always assume that the more someone pushes himself, the more active someone is, the more one tries to change and understand the world... the more karma he generates (BOTH parts). So a schoolkid gets a pretty nice chunk, as are active researchers, philosophers, athletes, fighters. While someone working a dead-end job were nothing changes and no hobbies and no self-improvement will generate next to nothing. (Again both parts of karma... metaphysical life-energy of change AND no tangible attribute and skill-improvement).

Hell, maybe there is even something like NEGATIVE karma for such cases, draining their skills and attributes (certainly in real life)

Getting to concrete numbers:
A normal child with no exceptional circumstances should generate enough karma to become a normal 8*(2-3) character with a few skills, but never have much "saved".
After that maybe generating about a point a month or so.

Now if you have someone living completely on the edge, needing massive training just to survive another day and always pushing limits, he should get around as much as runners. (As per rules i think runners do get a bit too many points though - but that is a needed break from realism to make the game more fun)

So a normal sec-mage, just doing a bit of boring work, but not also learning to improve himself but also sometimes getting "awards" for dangerous situations and testing his limits (summoning higher spirits to fight, going against runners and gangers) should earn maybe 30 karma a year i guess. (Enough to initiate, raise his magic and attributes and such at the beginning of his career, getting good in his thirties if he concentrates his grow - even when being nobody special)

Since it is a SIGNIFICANT portion of his power using it to anchor spells and long-term bind spirits should cost a lot of money. (In my games between 10.000-20.000 Nuyen per point of karma) if he provides these services to others. But it is hard to gauge this exactly and fluctuates as i think about it.

[Yerameyahu]

If students and athletes are earning karma, surely it's simultaneously being spent on the exact activities that they're earning it from, though? I feel like anything an NPC earns is instantly spent on the actual self-improvement. The PC advancement crunch just disconnects these. As you say, NPCs wouldn't really have anything 'saved'.

It doesn't work this way for PCs, but I wonder to what extent the karma for NPC magic comes from the casting/prep/etc. itself?

[Mr Clock]

I like the thinking here. It's certainly given me some thinking fuel for the availability of magical items.

[CanRay]

Karma also comes from acts other than studying or such. There's also doing good deeds, helping the community, and so on. That could be how they earn it. It is *KARMA* after all.

Also, they might buy it from the sleazy free spirit in the white panel van down the street, near the alleyway. He also has candy.

[Yerameyahu]

Meh, I think it's very much not '*KARMA*'. How do villains get it, if it's morally magical? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif) It's just experience points that happen to exist in-game, so that they can be affected by problematic and overpowered Drain abilities. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif) Really, is there any reason except spirit bargains? Sounds like more crunch interference.

[CanRay]

How do villains get it?

Bad Karma. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/nyahnyah.gif)

Toxic Spirits need Karma too. As do the Horrors and their servants.

[Yerameyahu]

How do neutral people get it, then? (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif) Hehe. Anyway, it just seems like NPC advancement is a nearly direct, karma-less process. Only PCs would need to use the 'disconnected' system, and only for OOC/metagame reasons. It's fundamentally unrealistic, on purpose.

[CanRay]

Um, sorry, "Neutral People"? You mean Wageslaves that never advance further than where they are and just live day-in, day-out?

Exactly, they don't get squat.

Look at my Accountant From Hell before he had his life erased and had someone with "Assassin V3.2" Skillwires go at him.

[Omenowl]

I view karma as a basis on time, desire and self-exploration/learning. What shadowrun does not do and this applies to most games is using karma to sustain skills. Our wage slave hit a certain level and they are happy and they do not gain karma in that aspect. Just like a guy who does accounting generally doesn't use calculus or differential equations. As such he is capped because he never exercises the skills to his potential, but his math skills are always up the algebraic level. You see this in real life between people who invest time in their family and the guy who invests it in his work.

So to answer your question is decide how far said mage wishes to learn and maintain his skills and then give him the appropriate skills. Also you learn when you go beyond your comfort boundaries and make mistakes. The difference is one who wants to learn wants to know why something failed and how to correct it and the guy who is capped just knows it failed and never tries to correct what went wrong. Generally speaking people cap between 5 and 10 years in their career for that skillset. So figure 3 represents the mid mark and 4 represents experienced career professional. 5 and 6 are reserved for those who dedicate their lives to mastering a skill. So skill 1 about 3-6 months, skill 2 6 months to 4 years. Skill 3 is about the 3 to 8 year mark. Skill 4 is the 8-15 years and skill 5 is 15+ year mark for most wage slaves.

[Epicedion]

Most NPCs don't really have anything to spend Karma on. For "real people" skills and attributes are decided by natural aptitude and time spent. For most people, the desire to improve themselves in one regard will come at some other penalty.

Let's say you have Joe Wageslave, and he's tired of being weak and slow and he drinks and smokes too much. If he decides to get on the treadmill, lift weights, and stop drinking and smoking, he could justify over the course of six months to a year improvements to Body, Strength, Willpower, and maybe buy off some addictions. In meta terms that could come out to 60 or 70 Karma or more. Or he could sit on his fat ass watching TV and get nothing.

It's too much bookkeeping to try and run that as a system for improving characters, though. What would you do, figure out how much free time your character devotes to each possible activity and calculate maintenance and improvement?

Hence, Karma. Karma is a fast-and-dirty abstract system that's part reward, part on-the-job training, and part what characters are up to in their downtime. It makes a lot more sense if you plan out your characters' advancements a little ahead of time, and consider each improvement to be a long-term process and part of your character's life. Your character doesn't look in his Karma basket and decide he wants to expend energy on buying Running 3. Instead, he spends a lot of his downtime training for marathons. Karma expenditures just mark the milestones.

For Mages, Karma can also indicate pieces of their lives that they invest in having powerful things. The time and care bonding and maintaining that Power focus is time and effort that can't be devoted to something else. A mage that's accumulating magical power is a mage that's not out learning how to skydive.

[Mr Clock]

All looking good from here. The intent of the question was to come up with some simple way to gauge the relative power level of various NPC magicians. Lets put it another way: based on Professional Rating, what seems like a reasonable number for Karma invested in foci, Quickening and Anchoring?

[Omenowl]

3 to 4 and probably a comparable number of foci and ratings based on their job and specialty. Weapon and power foci maybe a lot less common. That would fit into a mages budget for personal use. Ignore anchoring and quickening for the most part as those probably have gone into spells for the company or into their home.

[Epicedion]

Most wagemages aren't going to be able to afford too many personal foci, considering most of them cost significantly more than a reasonably priced car. Corps aren't going to just pass out foci to most of their magically active employees (especially standard security) due to the real risk of loss.

[Yerameyahu]

Actually, I just meant 'accomplish things without being good or evil, whatever those are', CanRay. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[CanRay]

Actually, I just meant 'accomplish things without being good or evil, whatever those are', CanRay. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

Good, bad, we're the PCs with the guns.

[Kim]

Lets put it another way: based on Professional Rating, what seems like a reasonable number for Karma invested in foci, Quickening and Anchoring?

I think you're asking the wrong question. Realistically everyone with enough time and money who wants something bad enough (and physically/mentally able to) will be able to learn anything. In no way will someone need karma to do so, but to avoid players from saying "My character doesn't sleep 8 hours a day. She sleeps only 4, the other 4 hours she's improving her skills." there is this thing called Karma in this game.

So your question should be: how much time and money are they willing to invest in foci, Quickening and Anchoring?

[Yerameyahu]

But he's specifically asking about NPC, 'Grunts', who have a Professional Rating. There's no question of 'willing to invest', any more than that's the answer to 'what guns and cyber should this grunt have?'. I also think that this is a *much* better question than asking about NPCs earning karma. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

The dirty answer is that you can just ballpark it. Foci and Quickening can be a significant power boost, so that boost should simply 'feel right' for the Professional Rating you're looking at. It's muddy and depends on how they use it, of course.

[phlapjack77]

Good, bad, we're the PCs with the guns.

Two kinds of people in the world: Those with loaded guns and those who dig.

On the question of wagemages and quickened / anchored spells / foci, you could also tie it to the mage's status at the company. I wouldn't imagine lower-tier mages would be allowed to walk around with a lot of magically-active "things" tied to them. Either for security reasons or just company policy or whatever. The more powerful or prestigious the wagemage, the more leeway they have to anchor / quicken / etc.

[CanRay]

Two kinds of people in the world: Those with loaded guns and those who dig.

"There are two kinds of folks. You load your gun like an ordinary man, or you load it like a devil." - Jules, Fallout: New Vegas

"Never trust a firearm you haven't loaded yourself. Never trust a magazine you haven't loaded yourself. Never trust ammo you haven't personally checked. Never trust a knife you haven't personally sharpened. Never, ever trust the enemy on anything." - Jon "Money" Johnson.

"Lead, or get driven over." - Nas

[Omenowl]

Most wagemages aren't going to be able to afford too many personal foci, considering most of them cost significantly more than a reasonably priced car. Corps aren't going to just pass out foci to most of their magically active employees (especially standard security) due to the real risk of loss.

You are right it does cost the same as a car, but considering a wagemage probably living a high lifestyle then they will have enough foci. A newly starting mage won't, but an established mage with 10 to 15 years will have plenty for foci. Many may have initiated once or twice, but never raised their magic.

[Makki]

what would a wage mage quicken anyway?
to himself, a researcher: Increase Drain Attribute (/Logic), something to do overtime
a Security mage: Detect Enemies, etc. But will a sec mage know quickening?!?!
high Execs: Combat Sense, Deflection, Incr Attr

But then, they have to obtain permission for every ward they want to pass through. Will be a major inconvenience.

[Yerameyahu]

Assuming they wanted or needed them for anything. Does Joe 10-year Wagemage need much? Maybe a couple, if allowed?

Yeah, Makki, that's roughly my question as well.