How much karma/karma pool does (xx) have? Options

[Lindt]

1) Sgt John McLane. Pretty respectable, well into the double digits, 30s mabey. This guy is really just what someone with pretty avg skills and atts can do with 300 karma in edges.

2) Achilles. Plot NPC, dies when the GM says so.

3) Bond, James Bond. Yeah, loads of karma pool here. That plus skills through the roof. Helps to have the toys too. But he gets screwed every once in a while, read some of the books that arnt movies, he gets the crap kicked out of him a number of times.

4) Cleric John Preston. This isnt karma pool, this is just raw volume of combat pool added to a wickedly skilled adept. When hes not kicking ass, hes pretty lame. Just dont give him the oppertunity to kick ass. This man invented gun-kata, not to be confused with Chow young Fat, who invented gun-foo.

5) Bruce Wayne (batman) Karma pool: see 'yes'. triple digits easly, but rember, you need to get a sucess before you can buy sucesses. He gets his hoop kicked multiple times, especally the comic version (who is far superior to the movie Batman)

[KillaJ]

I think that some of McClane's powers come from some sort of Samson-like need to not shave, possibly not bathe. It seems as though he just gets more baddass the scruffier and dirtier he gets. Maybe that would be a cool geas...

Also I second everything Moonstone Spider said about Batman. Any karma he has I'm sure was just purchased with his vast fortune.

[The White Dwarf]

BB, I like your attempt to ballpark some standards for karma pool for NPCs. But I dont think this is the way to do it, for a few reasons.

First off, all these characters were storyline driven. Simply put, the fact that theyre in a movie or comic means theres an ending based on the story. So the hero will have exactly enough karma as the story dictates.

Players dont have that cushion. They could very well fail and wind up dead. Bond never dies, whatever the writers come up with is how much karma he has. The story, not the character, determine the karma pool in these cases. A more suitable benchmark would be one based on people that arent scripted to win.

Secondly, while theres a broad range of characters to pick from, theyre also open to a wide array of opinions. Something less opinion oriented would be more suitable as a benchmark figure.

Id suggest looking to RL rather than fiction to try to determine this, taking into consideration the game world. Like for example, if players karma pool caps at 10 (example in BBB), and dragons have 50+ (from dotsw), thats a good framework.

Dragons are unbeatable level NPCs, hence 50. Players presumable can win against the adventure if theyre smart, so 10 is enough to do it with a little wiggle room, but not enough that they have karma to burn. So benchmark numbers for a bad guy should fall on that scale too.

Run of the mill gangers and such probably only have 1 karma pool, enough to save them if they make 1 small mistake but thats it. Typical mobsters might have 3, enough to get by rackettering, and enough to make the somewhat dangerous in the single encounter theyll have with the pcs (before they die or something). Highly trained people like vetern sec teams might have 5, more than theyll probably need in their encounter with the runners but not enough to spend on everything. Crack teams like Tir Ghosts and Renraku Red Sams etc will probably bank in at 8, which coupled with matching skill levels (like pistols 7 or whatever) is enough to be a serious, perhaps deadly threat to the players, but still gives the players a little bit of an edge in the event both sides use it all in a single encounter.

Thats just a rough example of karma pool that, to me, seems more realistically applicable to setting a scale. As far as good karma, that largley depends on training and experience, which is a very broad range. The Milspec teams will have more obviously, but such things arent as important because its not used for any in-game operation, its just a method of advancing players. NPCs can be advanced to whatever the plot realistically requires. If you need some standard of NPC good karma to make sure bad guys are 'equivalent' just use a 50 or 100 points per threat rating scale or something. 0-50 is low threat, scaling up with 400+ being extreme threat. Since the exact skills and npc in question will change how much or little of this is needed, thats proably good enough.

[BitBasher]

Er, Nice post White Dwarf and thanks for the reply, but I wasn't trying to benchmark anything, this thread was largely for the fun of it. :D

I was merely interested in the opinions of others, as I find these things interesting.

Incidentally some GM's DO run their games that way, where its all about the story and the rolls are a formality, the players will accomplish things if, and when he feels it appropriate. I don't.

[Number 6]

[Kagetenshi]

That's absurd. Odysseus is one of the least heroic of the characters. Hector, Priam, and Ajax, IIRC, are the only three I'd consider giving the title to.

~J

[BitBasher]

The reason I said Achilles from Troy, as in the movie is that in the move he is NOT a demigod, no mention is made of his invulnerability, he is just a really, really good warrior... and an ass. He's a man.

[Kagetenshi]

That's also absurd. Did they decide to put in strong female roles as well, and maybe make Paris a noble character? Ooh, or why not have Hector win instead, or have aliens invade the battleground?

~J

Note: I'm not against strong female roles in and of themselves. I love them, my writing is full of them. I'm against adding them where they shouldn't have been (*cough*Arwen*cough*).

[GreatChicken]

[BitBasher]

[mfb]

i think we all know what would have made the movie better.

[BitBasher]

No argument there! :D

[Panzergeist]

Odyseus is a hero. He thought of the horse, and he fought his way home in the Odesey. The best warrior of the group would have to be Archimedes. King Nestor is pretty cool too, simply cause he was like 90 years old.

[Moonstone Spider]

Archimedes? If you don't mean Agamenmnon or somebody similar that Movie's even worse than I thought, given that Archimedes was a Mathematician and Philosopher.

Basically nobody in all of Greek Mythology is what I'd call a hero, the Gods were abusive scum with no morals and less common sense, the 'Heroes' were, actually a lot like Shadowrunners which is a far cry from heroes. Rob, Rape, Pillage, yeah that's their tune.

[Kagetenshi]

Archimedes did invent the variable-range catapult, but yeah, he's not supposed to be in there.

Odysseus was most emphatically not a hero. He tried to duck out of an oath that he'd gotten himself into, and then proceeded to do nothing remotely heroic until, potentially, Polyphemus' cave.

~J

[kevyn668]

Did he figure out Displacement, too? Or was that some other dude?

[Kagetenshi]

Same guy. The catapult is just his more notable military invention, as far as I remember.

~J

[Omega Skip]

So, uh, how much karmapool dice do you think Archimedes had?

[KillaJ]

Pffft....not as much as Copernicus. That guy kicked ass!

[Nikoli]

I dunno man, Phythagoras had to live on the lamb from the man. Outlaw mathematicians

[KillaJ]

Did anyone else just get a crazy idea for a new character?

[Nikoli]

rofl... The Pythagorans would make a great Hermetic Initiation Group, but they gotta have a Vatican based Enemy

[Kagetenshi]

[A Rodent of Unus...]

[Shadow]

Spiderman is a modern example. He wasn't a hero until after his uncle got killed.