I have a hard time just letting my chars get the next step in a stat in skill without some reason to it, especially when they go from a 2 to a 4 in two games. That is a major progression that i have a hard time believing that anyone could do that. Mental stats are the worst for this, because i can't just make them go to the gym. How do you all keep raising stats in your games reasonable, fair, and in character?

In my group that's one of the things that are left abstract and strictly canon.

The same goes for us, so the standards vary between players.

Instructasofts.

Get Smart for Dummies, Gillmore's Introduction to Public Speaking Fifth Edition, and I Think Therefore I Can together with nanopase 'trodes provide all you need to increase mental stats.


Yes, I vote abstract, too.

In previous campaing I was a real nazi about upgrades. The characters needed to spend MONTHS learning skills or upgrading. Recently though, I realised the timeframe did not jive with my game timeframes as I usually do storylines where something happens everyday or just about. So I just let them spend karma without the training time, though I usually apply some sort of metagaming rule such as "you may raise 1 skill or 1 attribute for next mission" or "you can spend up to 5 karma today", stuff like that.

for the record, in SR4, i think that's the "suggested" route, raising one skill or stat by one point, or learning one new skill.... or maybe it was just that on any stat or skill, you can only raise it one point...

one thing i used to do in 3rd ed. is if you want to raise a skill, you have to use it successfully the number you want to raise it to. So you want to raise con from a 3 to a 4, you have to use con 4 times successfully before you are allowed to raise it. It is the concept of practice makes perfect.

for the most part we just hand wave it. When the GM asks what we are up to during downtime we might say. "Oh, I'm going down to the "shoot'n smoke" and paying the desert wars vet that runs the place 50 to give me a few pointers on how to handle my gun.... Oh and my pistols skill goes up from 3 to 4." If we're feeling less verbose or running short of time we might just say "I raise my pistols from 3 to 4".

My opinion varies from Attribute to Attribute. My general rule is that no attribute can be increased more than 1 or 2 times in a character's lifetime. If a character chooses an attribute at 1 for a starting adult character, that's not just neglect, that may very well be a genetic deficiency. A Bod of 1 suggests a very weak bone structure, one that couldn't possibly support much more added bulk. An Agility or Reaction of 1 may be from neurological problems, ones that can't be overcome except by advanced medicine or cyberware. A Cha 1 player may not have a head 'wired' for social cues.

If a player chooses an attribute of 1 for a starting adult character, I only allow 1 increase over the lifetime of the character. For 2 and above, 2 increases. Attribute problems can be overcome by high skills and cyberware, after all.

IIRC, there was a rule in SR2 that attributes could only be raised 1 point in a character's lifetime.

That... that's really fucking slow character progression.

Thats 2-5 karma per session I hope. We get 3-5, and even that feels slow sometimes.

I don´t see a need for limiting attribute increases. The karma cost is high enough. Chars who where allowed to start with an attribute of 1 will generally not desire to maximise said attribute (she who allows PG characters should also allow PG advancement plans)

You are correct, it was SR1. It would be even more crippling in SR4, though, with its spending cap on starting Attributes.

Why aren't karma handouts bigger? I hope that the 3-5 only includes group karma, and personal karma for heroism, intelligence, and funniness can go up to 6-7. Otherwise, I'd shoot the GM and then myself for having wasted so much time. And SL, where does Critias say that about the debates being meaningless? That seems uncharacteristic to the point of being apocalyptic.

Echo that. Our karma quota was never a point of discussion, as about 20 Karma per real-time month does give enough room to see a character grow, and the basic needs are covered at chargen.

@emo samurai: No. Role-playing and funnies are already included in 3-5 per session. We play once per week, it is sufficient.

My group tends to just give out flat karma awards--that is, we don't do individualized merit karma awards for RPing or funnies for the PCs. If they group as a whole RPed well, that's cool, bonus for the group. But everyone gets the same karma.

The reasoning is basically those awards are highly subjective, and lead to alot of GM favoritism, even if unintentional. If someone is RPing their quiet and efficent guy well but the face is hogging all the attention, he might very well get overlooked in terms of good RPing. I realize it can and does work great for alot of groups, but I've found it reduces hard feelings to just give equal karma.

Not to mention, it maintains some illusion of balance between the characters.

If people die, do they get a new character with the party's average karma?

by the rules, no.

When I run, I tend to match up incoming PCs to the lowest PCs karma.

Many GMs tend to just have them come in with no karma. Either way works, it's a matter of preference.

I used to worry about that stuff, but I'm getting old and crotchety (and that leaves our Shadowrun sessions to about 3-4 hours a week) I just reason that we don't role play every second of the character's life. I try to keep the game focused on whatever run they are doing or on important aspects of their character's in game development. Therefore I don't worry about the hows or whys the character's stats or skills increase. I dole out the Karma, they can spend it as they wish. One of the things about my game sessions being pretty short, though, is that I usually only give them a point for survival each night, plus a small group at the end of the run (or completion of personal goals.) If a run goes 3 or 4 sessions (most of mine do) they can come away with 9 or 10 Karma by the time it is done.

Generally, I leave the advancement questions up to the players. Namely, I ask them what they're doing to earn that stat increase. If the story is entertaining enough, I'll offer a karma discount of maybe one or two points on the raise. This way, the onus is on the players to develop their characters, and not for you to develop their characters for them.

Great idea.

Scene: The nearby boxing center.
Task: To increase body stat.

Trainer: Hi, can I help you.

Runner: Yea, I was wondering if maybe you had a job opening for me.

Trainer: We have one or two openings what did you have in mind.

Runner: I was thinking, do you have an opening for a human punching bag?

Roleplaying Karma bonuses? Trying to encourage roleplaying by focusing the player on the most crunchiest of awards to the PC for the player's actions. Facinating.

Could roleplaying somehow instead be it's own reward? If it is not then why encourage it?

I give the role playing award if for the most part they stay in character (or at the least act the same way consistently)
It's pretty subjective, I know, but it is my award for them entertaining ME. I wouldn't be GMing the game if I thought the characters sucked (or I would just whack em and tell them to try again)

I suggest you could instead try working the bonuses IC. Give me a couple of examples of things the player would have their character do that you'd consider bonus worthy and I'll try to give an example of a bonus, though I would try to tailor it to the direction that the player wants to take their character.

I started giving out 1 karma for most useful and 1 point for best roleplayer. The way i started awarding it though, is through a vote. My players vote who should get the reward. That way i can't play favorites and they have something to look forward to other then, give me karma mr gm!

I do the same thing, Cang. It works well.

I also put a sort of cap on raising skills. I took something i read on this thread and used it and it went over well.

If you start with an attribute at a 1, you can raise it to 2 without problems and will have to roleplay to get it to 3.

If you start with an attribute at a 2, you can raise it to a 3 and 4 without a problem, and to a 5 you will have to roleplay.

If you start with an attribute at a 3, you can raise it to a 4 and 5 without a problem, and to a 6 you will have to roleplay.

This works with the thought that at an attribute of a 1, you have a physical or mental problem, at a 2 you are just on the runty side on said attribute, and at a 3 you are an average person. This also lets me not try to make my players roleplay every attribute increase (to me, raising an attribute must be a very difficult thing).

For skills, i just use a simple system of use. You have to use pistols 4 times successfully to get it to a 4, and so on with any skill. Practice makes perfect.

I basically award my players 1 point per session, 1-5 for threat rating, 1 for surviving, 0-3 for the story. Then there are various personal awards, the most common of which is humor. But, available are heroism, advancing the plot, good plans, good role playing, avoiding innocent's deaths. I occasionally do not give full awards for aquiring things like "bad karma." They tend to get that for things like killing people in cold blood. Or, killing for no reason, ect, ect.

My group has also been awarded, street cred, notoriety, and public awareness for certain events.

After considering the matter of advancement and not wanting to cripple the players by only being able to learn 1 thing between runs, I came up with this screwy messed up formula by discussing it with my players. basically it boils down to if you want to raise pistols from 3 to 4, then it takes a base time of 4 days with a threshold of 4 successes using (usually) logic + pistols. This is assumed you devote 8 hours per day of "training." So theoretically one of my players could learn 2 skills at once. Base time for specializations is 1 week, no rolls at this time, for stats I have been using the same basic idea but am leaning to twice the base time.

With my players being hungry for money and karma, it rarely leads to more than about two weeks elapsing before they are itching for work. Although I have been known to start events rolling in the middle of their training.

I hope this helps.