Perhaps somebody else has discussed this topic at some point in time or another, I apologize if so and only ask to be pointed in the correct direction. But here it is:

I read in SRComp about Training to learn new skills or improve a skill, and the complex formulas they've come up with and so on. Here's my question though. In order to improve a skill or an attribute, you need Karma. Which I've never argued about, until now. Wouldn't you think if a character spent 4 hours a day (which is considered one day of training) shooting his Ares Predator at a target range, that eventually he would shoot more accurately? Thus improving his Pistols skill? So my question is, if you choose a method like this (like downtown between runs), would you be allowed to increase a skill without Karma? I would think you would, but I want to get some opinions.

Technically, yes.

However, the way the sysem is set up, you don't actually improve without benefit of karma. The time spent on the range (in game terms) is the means by which the character improves -- justification, as it were.

There are any number of house rules that allow swapping cash-for-karma to allow characters to improve stats and skills and theoretically give magic users something to do with their excess cash, although I've never found it to be a problem personally (the excess cash, that is.)

-Siege

alright thanks a bunch

This is what i tell my players:

There are three things that are important for character growth in Shadowrun: Time, Resources, and dedication/drive (i.e. Karma). To be succesful a character needs a combination of all three. Shadowrun is a highly competitive world and everything counts in large amounts....

Dedicationand desire (Karma) is important to make a character see through his trainning and improvement. If your character were an olympic athlete it would require an immense amount of dedication to excell. Shadowrunners need to be dedicated at excelling, and IMG this is what karma represents. Likewise, IMG characters gain karma when they are succesful at doing what they do, i.e. shadowrunners go on shadowruns. If they are succesful they gain karma, and then in return they spend their karma to further improve themselves. I know it sounds a bit ideallic but this is how I justify it in my game.

However, there are levels of learning that are quite basic. So I house rule that characters can learn skills at rank 1 and/or 2 with no Karma cost, but they still have put in the time and the money/resources.

Veracusse

I require my players to justify when did they learn/practice a skill they want to raise, and that's a great way to do it. Besides, the first level on each skill requires teaching, so training becomes almost a necesity when learning new skills.

I let my players temporarly gain skills through training without spending karma. This, particularly came in as useful for language skills. Thus a character who spent a week practicing a new language could an effective skill level of one or two in it without spending any karma. However, if stopped using the skill on a very regular basis he would lose the skill. If the player wanted to keep the skill he could spend the appropriate karma.

Namer18

I let my players temporarily gain skills through training without spending karma. This, particularly came in as useful for language skills. Thus a character who spent a week practicing a new language could an effective skill level of one or two in it without spending any karma. However, if stopped using the skill on a very regular basis he would lose the skill. If the player wanted to keep the skill he could spend the appropriate karma.

Namer18

I personally just use training for high skill levels or skills that aren't being regularly used (like someone who has been doing a lot of gunfighting suddenly getting better at Demolitions for some reason). Free skills is a not in my game kind of thing.

~J

Yeah, in Man and Machine, there's rules for steroids. They just decrease the amount of Karma it takes to increase strength, but it says it has to be done in conjunction with exercise, I think.

Training takes time - from training you get experience in <insert skill>

Why not give characters (a small ammount of) Karma for training? That is, say, every three full days = 1 karma towards that skill only. Same effect, with built in justification!

I don't like it. Why? It's ok, if this would be the ONLY possibility to increase your skills. But in shadowrun, you already have a good method to get karma - by doing your job. So for the players, there is no problem, they get karma and they can increase their skills, if they want. The only problem is the question "How do NSCs do it?". And the question is: Doesn't matter. Perhaps they get karma for training, not important for the players.
It seems to be more the "I want to get more(!) karma."-Problem. But that is another problem and I think, it isn't a good idea, to give the player-chars to possibilty to train AND to get karma from job.
If you want to do something like this, I would look at the gurps rules, where 1 point is 200 hours of training... Becoming a great gunman takes years of training, characters can do it in much less time, so I don't think it's necessary to increase the learning speed even more...
And btw: Personally, I would think, that the first one or two points are the most simple points to get without training. Anyone can train a little and fire with a gun, it's not hard. Anyone can read some books about philosophy and get an idea of the topic. A trainer is important to speed up your learning or the learn komplex things, but that's not what the first points mean - btw.: The chance of hitting a target can be greater by defaulting to an attribute than by using a skill of 1

I see your point.

I think what my idea needs in order to work properly, though, would end up being too dificult.

Say you spend <N> number of hours at the range with your predator. You blow a load of ammo at the targets, your accuracy and efficiency gradually increase. GM awards <X> Karma toward your pistol skill only.

The next week, raiding a corp facility, you use the aforementioned predator to cap a <Y> number of guards (with gel rounds, of course). For this, the GM awards <Z> Karma toward your pistol skill only



This could require a lot of book keeping on the part of the GM, but it would, eventually, lead to a more realistic skill progression.

For example - a character has Laser Weapons B/R (ludicrous skill, I know). How can he arbitrarily improve this skill? With the regular, ephemeral Karma rules he can go beat up a load of gangers and put the karma from that toward becoming better at fixing his MP Laser. Duh? Would it not make more sense for this skill to be restricted in its advancement? Only karma from using the skill or, maybe, HOURS of research, SOTA updates etc would apply.

This would mean having to make up some kind of ruling, of course, for how much "karma" (that word applies less to this system, I think) you'd get for things like range practice, study, sports (for Athletics), track days (for vehicle skills) etc.


I'm sure someone would be willing to do it like this - it would certainly, IMHO, result in more realism for the game.

There isn't a direct corrollation between Karma gained from banging gangers and insights of wisdom gained from reading a tech spec on laser weapons.

It's more along the lines of experience gained (karma) is then re-directed to whatever meaningful activity the character chooses to pursue and improve in.

Let's face it, otherwise almost every PC would have "drinking 5" and "partying 6".

One possible method would be to assign karma to skills actively used or attempted -- which means "down time" or "blue-booking" would become more important as the character would have more incentive to be specific in what the character is doing and to what end.

Instead of assigning a "lump sum" of karma at the end of an "adventure", spread it out a little more evenly across "real time" and "down time".

Or to simplify the book keeping, break it into categories: "Combat stuff," "Physical stuff", "Social stuff", "Academic stuff". Karma gets divided into one of the above categories which determines what the player can spend it on. If all the sam does is fight and melee, then he can spend points on Combat.

Eh, random thoughts.

-Siege

You could always take a leaf out of the Rolemaster system and make players pre-assign exactly what skills (etc.) they are working on during downtime prior to actually gaining the Karma to improve them. I've seen a Shadowrun game that has players list 10 things that their characters are currently planning on improving/learning, and when one goal is reached another is then added to the list.