Ok so I understand the need to have Karma be a requirement for magical activities. But I was thinking, "What would it be like for a character to want to bond a focus, Anchor/Quicken, or Learn a Spell who lacked the Karma?"

Would it be akin to wanting to win the race, but not training enough to make First place? Maybe more like trying to memorize a poem or speech where given enough time you think you've reinforced the idea enough to recall it? Maybe holding the focus in your hands and meditating over it, learning it's subtle curves and carvings, "getting to know" it and spend quality time with it then one day "it clicks"?

Extending the idea to regular Karmic spending (Attributes or Skills) I suppose the above ideas would answer my question. Someone training strength would (with enough training time and Karma) bump-up their stat, or something on the targeting range/combat sim would increase their Pistols skill, etc. However, I don't see the direct analogy for Magic spending when not "learning a new something".

Not that this is critical and since this is more Fluffy than Crunchy. Any thoughts about, "Magic and what happens before the Karma meter is full"?

Thanks,

~GTT

The way Karma is gained in the game makes it pretty hard to realisticly trace the reason why those things done to earn the Karma translates into the things you spend it on.

I think it's best to view it as your pool of confidence. You do stuff that makes you feel like a big man—you stretch your limits and challange yourself—and suddenly things start going your way. Something clicks, and that matrix course in japanese you'd been trying to make sense of for endless hours, well it makes sense. But the next day you're just too exausted to get that new foci thingie to work. You get frustrated with it and throw it in a corner, maybe ask for a refund. A week later when coming home from a night out celebrating your latest corporate extraction you see the foci lying there in the corner, you pick it up and it just works.

Art is the closest analogy to me, because both art and magic are acts of creation deeply rooted in the creator's self image and view of reality. Good karma points represent inspiration gleaned from life experience, which is the heart of creative impetus. Not having enough karma for a given magical task could be compared to writer's block.

These are some good points, but I think I might allow a "karma loan" to a player in a pinch if, let's say, he wanted to quicken a spell or was just a couple points shy of bonding to a foci.

Maybe a way to keep this sort of thing under control is to temporarily take a point of edge away as collateral, or just make them spend a temporary point of edge, with the understanding that they'll spend the session's karma reward on the quickening or bonding.

Dread Polack

I think I prefer the option of considering one point of edge per point of karmic debt to be spent until it is paid off.
That leaves it as a modifier that the player can see.

What about characters with very low edge?

I guess they arnt very lucky then, huh? I.E. "No Karma for you, Foo!"

Karma is a real thing in Shadowrun just like Essence. It can be bought, sold, traded, and stolen. I wold allow PCs to gain karma for bonding foci and things using Cash for Karma or Power Pact: Energy Drain: Karma if they have the connections. I would not alow them to have negative karma any more than I would allow them to have a negative number of bullets in their guns. A karma loan would be an actual loan from an actual character, probably a Free Spirit who has a nice cushy job as a professional underworld karma broker and who employs some legbreakers to ensure that the debt will be paid with interest.

I might also allow a form of karmic self-cannibalism, trading a stat or skill point for three-quaters the karma that went into that stat or skill point.