A few members of my regular group and I were wondering if NPC's have karma.
It came up in a talk about karma drain and blood spirits and whether or not they could drain karma from NPC's
We noted that Karma is not a field in the normal statblock but also recognized that they probably should have some karma from just life.

So is there any info about this out there?

Your players have access to blood spirit and karma drain?!?!?
I'm afraid to ask what kind of game you guys are playing.

They certainly do not.
It was more of a theory kind of talk and about if a prime runner had access to said abilities and was using it on NPC's

No we don't. Some mage in our group, Foobot, wants to bind some blood spirits so that he can make a pact, share powers, and then karma drain children.

… Of course he does.

It kinda bothers me that things like Essence and especially Karma have in-world, literal existence. I guess everyone should have some Karma 'lying around'? Meh. I can't see it ever actually coming up, but I understand it's a theoretical question.

We are merely trying to discern whether or not that it is confirmed in any book that NPCs have their own karma pool or if it is implied they have a fluid development similar to reality. In contrast to the blocky karma based development of PCs.

I would say, based on the sample contacts, that they do not.

This is my reasoning as well. Although there are those who disagree with me, which is why we wanted a little confirmation from some dumpshockers.

I still struggle when trying to talk about karma in game, particularly when playing a Free Spirit PC who can develop powers that can draw karma from others. How exactly does one phrase, "I'll give you my ItNW for 4 karma"?

*****

"I will imbue you with my mystic barrier defense against physical damage if you feed me your creative life force. I will only take enough to empower me to learn. It won't hurt at all."

Do you generously intersperse slurping sounds like you're eating limp noodles into that statement?

I imagine different entities see it in different ways dependent on philosophy, tradition, etc. I also imagine that almost no metahumans have any concept of it at all, so the spirit can make up any old rubbish to make the sale!

In answer to the OP I would assume the average man on the street has a few based on the professionalism scale, except not judged merely on combat proficiency - so a wage slave might have 1 or even 2, a manager 3 or 4 and the upper echelon (ceo, etc.) 5 or 6.

Those karma-trading powers are really troublemakers aren't they?

These problems are easily solved: only allow players to earn karma by earning karma. i.e. by experience. Anything else is so much an abuse of the game that it isn't funny.

That's the best fix yeah.

Ask your PCs this question:

"Are we playing Karma-Run or Shadowrun? Do you want to just sell your karma generating services? Or do you want to go on runs? Because once your PC starts selling karma transfer services, he'll have no motivation to run anymore, as he can make a living from his new powers. At that point, he'll retire from the shadows, he'll become an NPC, a contact (high loyalty, moderate connection) for the party. The player who has his PC retire, will get to roll up a new PC, at 400 BPs, no starting karma. So by doing this, you'll effectively lose karma...which is the opposite of your goal. Are you sure you really want to do this?"

In this case, it's about stealing karma from NPCs, I think.

In either case, the PC would use the karma on a money generating skill set. With those skills, he would make a comfortable living and then retire.

He would probably spend said karma to initiate, gain magic, initiate, gain magic, rinse and repeat. But in either case your point is valid, but the topic of the post was not if this SHOULD be allowed, but do, as written, NPCs have karma to drain.

Well, the only RAW source of (new) Karma is end of mission awards for PCs, and that doesn't apply to NPCs.

Also, I can't find why you think Blood Spirits would have access to Karma Drain. They have energy Drain (Esence), not Energy Drain (Essence).

Sure. At least prime runners do. (p.277 SR4 w/o A)