Just tonight, we noticed that the karma awards have changed with the latest printing of SR4A. What's up with that?

And more importantly, what do they mean?

It used to be one karma for survival. Now it's 1 or 2. When would you deserve bonus points for surviving?

It used to be one karma for fulfilling most objectives. Now it's one per objective. (Funny, we were playing it that way already.)

It was worth one karma if the adventure was extra challenging, and now the threat level is worth one to four. That's quite a shift, from 0-1 to 1-4.

Sounds like an average of three more karma per mission or session.

Okay, so the award table changed, but the text descriptions did not. How do you interpret this?

Sounds like the table was a holdover from SR4, where the cost to increase an attribute was 3 * rating. (now it's 5 * rating and karma rewards are greater.)

Attributes got more expensive, and karma awards went up.

Another way to see it: Everything but attributes got cheaper, relative to the karma award per run. Players are more likely to spend karma on skills and other stuff.

I assume the description should have been updated, yet the change is IMO good.

So how do you differentiate between 1 and 2 karma for survival? The text seems to indicate there's an extra point for difficult situations, but wouldn't that be covered under the challenge award? Two for survival, but only one if you had to be resuscitated?

I base this choice as a GM on how long the mission runs. IE: I recently ran a run that was a two parter, and the chapters were back to back. I didn't feel it was enough time (they got to sleep, that was it) to actually DO anything with karma, so it wasn't awarded. Short one-shots, 1 for living, for longer multi-session never stop to breath runs or huge combat ops, 2.

Perhaps there are times when you were not up to the challenge yet manage to survive.

Maybe you get 2 points when everybody survives, and one to the remaining team if somebody dies.

We give out karma awards at the end of every session. This includes points for objectives fulfilled (if we're giving a point for each), but we have to be careful with threat-level award.

Red-ROM, that could be.

I remember back in the day...(SR1, SR2...Yup, Bought the first one out of the box at my gaming store back in '89) Well any who, All of the published adventures gave a point for each objective and survival was always based on the difficulty of the mish.

But now a days I don't even use the awards in the book. I have my own thing per mission:

Auto point: 1 (You always get one for showing up to the game.)

Survival-1-3 (Based on difficulty of the mission)

Roleplaying: 1-2 (Some times there are those that just want to blow things up and others want to actually Roleplay. If you impress me with more than one dimension to your character then you get a point. If you go out of your way to stay in character and get all 3D with your character then you get that coveted second point.)

Heroism: 1-3 (Pretty self explanatory. Bigger the heroics the bigger the reward.

Objectives: 1 per objective achieved

Subplots: 1-2 (I drop a lot of subplots in my games. If you pick up on and run with it then you get a point for involving yourself in with the rest of the world.)

Misc. Awards:

Punk Point: 1 (If you can pull off an action movie one liner and the majority of the table laughs...Good job punk ass. And it really has to seem natural and not something that seems forced through clenched cheeks. Both ends)

Right time, Right place: 2 (A hard one to get. But it you have a skill or spell or anything that I had said from the beginning "That seems llike a waste of points" And you find some genuine use for it in game, Good for you...here is a couple of karma for what its worth and I still think it is wasted points.)

Smarts: 1 (One of the ones I am glad they kept from the early days of SR. My players really think about their plans before trying to execute)


As you can see I give out a lot of Karma in my games. Especially now since Attribs are priced higher. But I just like seeing characters grow pretty fast early on and then it tapers off in the mid career.

But I think that the Karma pricing is kinda high so my scale works out.

So do the rest of you just use the awards in the book?

That's almost exactly what's in the book, as of the latest printing.

Great minds think alike!

It just took them a while to catch up, I guess.

On The Run already awarded karma that way...

Some of the changes to Karma awards were motivated not only by the change to Attribute costs but also by the disconnect between awards as published in most Shadowrun adventures and the corebook guidelines (notably the way objectives have traditionally been assigned individual awards in canned adventures - incl. SR4 material like On The Run and the SRMissions campaigns)