Do Shadowrun characters, particularly the awakened (including technomancerrs), understand the concept of karma "in character"? Players budget, save, and spend karma for their characters -- for things like spells, complex forms, bonding, binding, initiating, etc.. What do the characters think they are doing?

How do you handle this? Do your characters discuss karma costs? Do you use some kind of "in character" metaphor for karma?

I used to think discussing karma was metagaming. Now I am not so sure.

You dont. There is no such thing as Karma. Karma is just a RPG concept to allow fast character progression and award players for runs.

Karma can be experience, time involvement (learning stuff), or personal energy or even lifeforce put into something (i.e. to bind a spell).

Bye
Thanee

Karma is a nebulous representation of time and effort.

For example, the karma spent to learn a spell would be "in character", long nights of studying, trying to figure out the new formula, looking stuff up online, asking your teacher (if you have one) questions, etc.

Learning a new skill like Pistols would be time spent at the range, getting familiar with the weapon, assembling/cleaning, etc.

Edit: Curses Thanee! Curses to you and your quick responses!

You do.

You have to. There are rules for trading karma with spirits in return for various toys or favours. You need to know what it means when you say you're bonding with a foci. Some creatures can now even drain it from others.

My answer is that karma has several parallels and you have to use different descriptions according to the use it's put to. In the case of trading with spirits it's nice because you can use a very vague term like life energy. Following on from that, you could say that having given some of your life energy away you no longer have the will or determination to carry on with that exercise regime you keep planning (attribute increase). For the samurai who is building up his skills, he can say karma represents a mix of time and determination to improve himself. We don't just depend on time and energy to improve ourselves, or else we all be highly successful genius athletes by now - we also need motivation, a kick up the arse from circumstance or the insight of experience. Karma from a run represents this.

Best thing to do is keep an array of interpretations open and mix and match them as needed. You should be able to represent it in any number of ways and find links between them (e.g. spirit energy drain stealing away from your will to train). Foci bonding costs would could represent both for example, according to taste.

-HTH,

-K.

EDIT: Curses to you ronin3338 and Thanee with your quick quick responses.

I think the best way to align the game mechanic of Karma with "real life" is to consider it a measure of life experience. It helps you assimilate/learn new things. How? Several ways. Comparison - little lessons from overcoming other problems, whether similar or not, help you get insight into a new subject. "Freshness" - ever hit a wall when you're studying or working on your tennis serve? Go out and do something else, and not just play a Halo marathon. You need real experiences to "flush" your stumbling block.

Since NPCs can give Karma to free spirits, they must be earning it or something similar, too. Presumably a researcher earns Karma by making a new discovery, writing a report on it under deadline, etc. A new mother earns Karma by resolving a new baby disaster. (To push her Diaper Changing skill to 3, no doubt.) Everyone earns a point of Karma by taking a vacation to a new location. Extra if their bag gets lost and they are inventive in overcoming the obstacle. Etc.

So what are they giving up when the spend it? A certain enthusiasm for self improvement, ambition, and/or mental flexibility, I suppose. You've studied hard to improve, now its time to put the books down in the library (or gun at the firing range) and get back to regular life and your regular job, overcoming some obstacles that aren't rote and controlled.

It doesn't exist "in game" in my games. Since it's an abstraction of experience leading to increased ability, there is no in-game representation.

As far as "knowing about it because you have to spend it to do X", we spend the karma out of game to say, make a deal with a spirit, however, that too is an abstraction.

What's going on in game? Whatever you feel like saying is going on. Or, you could not say, and let everyone have their own ideas about it. Unless it directly comes up in game, there's no reason to handle it in any more detail. If you want it to be done in game, it's up to you to decide how it's done, what karma means, etc.

Karma is creative inspiration... Karma is the heart of what makes metahumans Namegivers, to borrow an earthdawn term.

In my game, only those with a good magic theory have a working understanding of it, but even to them it's a nebulous energy and not quantifiable.

Most other characters only know it indirectly through its effects: inspiration, creativity, being "in the zone"... writer's block, frustration, headaches...

So no, we don't talk about it...

Actually, I just recalled that characters in cannon have explicitly referred to karma. I don't recall which book as I read it annotated on AH's site. It was too mages online talking about Cybermancy and several times they mentioned it. For example, one mage asked about how the Azzies handled the karma drain.

I wouldn't have a problem with magician characters talking about their energy as karma to some extent. Ish.