Traditionally I'm a scrooge when it comes to handing out Karma to my players. They've taken down some pretty intense scores over the years and honestly the most I've ever handed out, with one notable exception, is six points of karma. I'm changing this actually. But I was curious as to how much you like to hand out-it doesn't need to be a specific number, but rather a ball park amount. A lot? A little? How do you like to award it? Do you have any special tricks you use?

For instance a poster on this board about 9 years ago taught me a cool trick. Every few sessions I have the players vote for a player. Who ever gets the most votes gets an extra two points of karma, and second place gets 1 point. My players like this, and have tried out a number of different methods when approaching it-dead serious voting, getting together and rigging the votes, rigging the votes so everyone ties, you name it.

So what about at your table?

Our group tends to get 2-4 karma per session. Used to be 2-4 per run (which could go on for 3-4 sessions... so like 2-4 karma for 2 months of play time). Recently the GM has started allowing us to buy extra karma, up to 50% more than what we got from the last mission, at a rate of 10,000 nuyen per. (So if over the course of the last mission, we had 3 sessions totaling 8 karma, you could buy an extra 4).

I think it depends a lot on if you use SR4 or SR4A. In SR4A, recommended rewards were increased, but also the cost of increasing Attributes went from 3x new rating to 5x new rating.

I go for about 10 per ession. Cause I know the players want to see the PC's advance in the game and doing one game month kind precludes small karma awards.

I used to use a system like that a long time ago. It worked really well for us and encouraged everyone to try just a little harder, though the reward usually went to the person who most improved rather than outperformed. Positive reinforcement for the win.

That said, the last time I had a real tabletop group, we experimented with getting rid of Karma altogether. Instead, after each run or story, everyone was allowed to improve one aspect of their character as long as it was used during that story or a part of their downtime thereafter. Improving an attribute, learning or improving a skill, initiating, learning a new spell, tracking down a hard-to-get item or implant (you still had to pay for it, however), and so on and so forth. It actually worked really well and everyone liked it.

That does not seem all that equitable. One Player ups his Attrtibute to a 6, and another gets a Single Spell... Really? That actually seems pretty unfair to me.

Is an ally spirit one aspect? Sign my mages up!

Who are you asking? The player who just got to boost their attribute and any secondary traits that includes, or the mage who just got another spell for his repertoire and added versatility?

It's one of those things that only looks unbalanced because you're used to how it is right now. Doubly so when you assume one player is always going to choose the biggest upgrade while the other is only going to take shitty upgrades. Considering I've actually experimented with it and had nothing but positive responses, I'm pretty sure it works and everyone's happy. Of course, I don't usually play with powergaming munchkin twits, either, so that aspect is a non-issue.


For each point of Force, sure. Or each additional power. Or each addition spell or skill. etc.

I was not asking, I was stating.

One person gets a 30 Point upgrade, and the other gets a 5 point upgrade. Yeah, way imbalanced in my opinion.

I make no assumptions on what one chooses, but the choice itself will be unbalanced unless they are of equal cost, which is not going to happen very often. I am not saying that it cannot work (it obviously worked for you in a limited fashion. However, I bet that you do not still use that method, though, am I right?), but in the end, it will create an imbalance in the characters, and that is something that you cannot avoid.

I also do not play with a lot of Powergamer Munchkins, but that is not the point. That method WILL create unbalanced characters over time within a group, it cannot be avoided, and if you are saying it can be, you are deluding yourself...

Why are the costs so extreme when, whether you start with an Attribute of 1 or an Attribute of 5, all you're getting from the upgrade is a +1 bonus to a limited subset of rolls compared to what you were doing ten minutes ago? As opposed to the magician who's gaining a wide array of new possibilities from that single spell, depending on the spell they choose? Say one of the cooler ones like Levitate, Physical Mask, or Trid Phantasm. And what if the attribute being boosted is one of the crappier ones, like Logic, and all because the street samurai with a Logic of 1 doesn't wanna be put out of commission again due to a Decrease Logic spell?

And nevermind the fact that the magician can just as easily boost Magic, Willpower, or their Drain attribute instead, or that the street samurai could learn a new martial art or maneuver the next session.

Again, not only does it LOOK Unbalanced, it IS Unbalanced. You cannot argue that, it is FACT... Eventaully, using your experiment, the characters within the group will be unbalanced against each other, you cannot avoid it. Whether that is in short order, because you have powergameres mixed with non-powergamers, or longer, because you have players who at least try to stay somewhat close to each other in power level, is irrelevant. The fact is that it WILL become unbalanced eventually.

I am happy that it worked for you in your limited experiment. However, it is an inherently unstable advancement scheme, that can and will cause problems over time.

Prove it then.

Everyone gets to improve what they want, emphasizing the things they think are important to their character and which will help them "keep up with the Jones'." It only seems unbalanced because you're convinced that the book is right when it tells you that going from Attribute 5 to Attribute 6 should cost an ungodly amount, even though the benefit you're gaining is no different whatsoever from going from Attribute 1 to Attribute 2 -- an actual fact that is demonstrated just fine during character creation where they are exactly equal.

As an aside, if a player thinks picking up a spell that he really, really wants is worth giving up, say, improving their Drain attribute by +1, who are you to say that's unfair? Furthermore, how is it any different from the player who decides to do nothing but gain new spells with his Karma under the current system while his teammates are doing nothing but boosting their attributes? By your logic, that makes him horribly underpowered and unbalanced, but it's perfectly acceptable under this system. So how, exactly, is that system stopping him from making such a tragic, horrifying mistake?

Pics or it's not real.

Because raising from 1 to 2 only costs 10 Karma. Raising from 5 to 6 costs 30. There is a reason that the higher stat costs more, but when you value it at the same cost as raising from 1 to 2, then you have discounted the effort required to get there. By the same token, Raising Counter pelling from 5-6 is much more beneficial than a single spell ever will be. Sure, the mage gets more versatility (Maybe) from that spell (Dependant upon which spell is chosen), but the counterspelling is 6 times the cost, and, in the end, it is only costing the same amount of Karma as that spell.

All of your examples have no real meaning, because they will cause an imbalance within the team. For a gain to mean something, it has to have a relevant balance with other choices. I am amazed that you do not see that. If you were to let the one character raise a Stat to 6 (30 Karma) and then let the Mage gain 6 Spells (30 Karma) in the same time frame, then that would be balanced. But to cost them as equal (30 karma vs. 5) is not, nor ever will be, balanced

Easy 30 = 30... 30 is NOT equal to 5...
Sure, everyone gets to improve what they want, and with karma, it evens out. I can spend 30 points to get what I want, and you can spend 30 points to get what you want, and as long as the points are equal (in this case 30), then it is balanced. If, however, my cost is 30 and your cost is 5, then it is not balanced. It is basic math. You are wrong.

If you think that the difference between the Weakest Individual (Strength 1) and the Stronger Individual (Strength 5) to advance to the next level takes an equivalent amount of work, well, then you really know nothing about physiology. That is why there are increasing costs to advance to the next increment. It is the Same with Skills. If all it took was equal work, the world would be composed of only Physical and Mental Geniuses (from about the age of 12) with Perfect bodies and Total Knowledge. Or are you really going to argue that your method is how it should really be?

Oy.

Still waiting for pics.

Pics and Proof...

Nah, you proved it pretty well, and showed your work. I'm just being a bit annoying as usual. And getting my post count up.

Heh... Works for me...
Found any other vice to raise your EVIL yet?

Nope. Even checked the seven deadly sins and can't even try for them. Yes, even sloth.

I still say that you should kick Marmots...

I'm just going to quote myself again and emphasize a few parts since I've already addressed every single thing you're going on about.

Wow, this is an easy one... Players can SPEND THEIR KARMA any way they like, because everyone has the same amounts of Karma. So, the one paying 30 points for spells is not being outdone by the one raising an attribute from 5 to 6. THEY BOTH SPENT 30 KARMA. My issue with your proposed solution of not handing out Karma and just allowing someone to advance something, is that it is inherently imbalanced. Now, instead of spending Karma, they get to pick. One Picks the choice to raise a Stat from 5 to 6 (30 Karma Cost) and the other gets..... a spell (5 Karma). So, how exactly is that balanced? Easy, it isn't, it is completely imbalanced. The fact that you cannot see that is actually very funny to me.

As I said above, more than once... If the gains were commensurate with each other (an Attribute raise to 6 for one, and 6 Spells for the other), then it would be quite fair and EQUAL... Not providing equality in the choices leads to an imbalanced game. Now, if the characters spent the same amount of Karma to get to their very different finishing points for their characters, they will be mathematically balanced, and yet their choices will lead to very different characters. The situation you describe above does not lead to imbalance, it leads to differences based upon choice, and those choices were made by spending an equal amount of Karma for both characters. In the first character, he has awesome stats but little versatility, while the other character has the same stats he started with and much more versatility than the first. Those are both valid design choices, as long as they both had the same opportunities (Karma Expenditure) to get there. But, in your systrem, there really is no choice. If you want to stay Equal, you must get the biggest Karma Purchase you can with each purchase, otherwise you fall behind. As I said before, and will continue to say: 30<>5.

Put another way. I can purchase 7 new active skills and a Specialty for the same cost of a Stat Raise from 5 to 6. If you restrict me to a single skill, while the other gets to raise the attribute, then you have created an inherently imbalanced, and unfair, situation.

And that's the point you're just not getting. Those values are only those values because they're arbitrarily set that way. Completely and utterly arbitrarily. The actual value of an improvement is dependent upon the player and what they think something is worth to them. Using my previous examples, the player of the mage character believes that gaining his new spell is worth the same to his character as the street samurai's player thinks raising his attribute is to his character. Who are you to tell either of them otherwise, especially if they're both completely familiar with the rules and the consequences and benefits of their choices?

Your problem is that you're utterly convinced that the values in the Karma system are perfect and flawless under any and all circumstance. But they're not. They never have been, they never will be. This is made abundantly clear by the costs of spells versus the benefits of different spells. Levitate and Physical Mask are far more useful spells in most runner situations than Detect Cookies or Cure Disease are. But in the Karma system, they cost exactly the same, ergo, from what you're saying, they must be worth exactly the same at all times. Even though they most certainly aren't. The same holds true for most things in the game. Agility, for instance, is a far better attribute than Logic is for most characters in traditional games. But raising them cost exactly the same, despite the grossly different value of each.

Thank you for telling me how I think (See Bolded/Italics). I am sure that you know more about that than I do.

What you are not getting is that at the point where Karma Expenditure happens, the expenditure MUST be equal in cost to be considered balanced. Whether you cost things differently is not the problem, it is that the sum total of the expenditure MUST be equal to not create an imbalance. Whether you cost a spell at 2 points, a skill at 10 points and an attribute at 100 points is irrelevant. What matters is that when you spend 100 Karma, it should be equal to the 100 Karma I spent. So, if you spent that 100 Karma to get that poiont of Attribute, My expenditure should equal 100 karma. So that should be 50 Spells, or 10 Skills in comparison to that 1 Attribute. THAT IS FAIR AND BALANCED. However, when you grant a person the ability to raise One thing per session (or whatever) and one raises an Attribute (for that 100 equivalent Karma that you did not give out) and the other raises a skill (for the 10 Karma you did not give out), you have just created an imbalance in reward/compensation. They are NOT EQUAL, and thus are not a fair compensation between the two individuals.

As for the Cost/benefit of various spells. That will be different dependant upon character concept and design. A spell that you consider absolutely vital I may consider as utter crap. And yet, to have the spell, regardles of what it is, should cost the same for all spells. To do otherwise would lead to the ludicrous conclusion that (for example) the Automatics skill should cost more than the Pistol Skill because you think one is better than the other.

<shrugs> You're the one who's been going on about the "FACTS" and arguing endlessly about how fair and balanced the current Karma values for advancement are. I didn't realize you were instead arguing just for the sake of arguing.


And what you're not getting is that those values are completely and utterly meaningless to individual players. That mage gaining a new spell values his action exactly the same as the street samurai who's improving his attribute. If he didn't he would and could do something else. But he doesn't, because for him, that spell is worth "100 Karma" and to the street samurai, his attribute boost is worth "100 Karma." The only time it becomes "unbalanced" is if you stick your head in the sand and just assume that the values in the Karma system are fair and perfectly reasonable in every situation and to every character. Which means absolutely nothing in this variant advancement system, because the only value anything has is what the individual player places on it. If they think something is worth more to their character than another option, then they are right in exactly the same way that they're right if they think something else isn't.


Ex-fucking-actly.


Except, as mentioned many times, you're just not getting it. Neither of those skills has a predetermined value in this variant system. For the guy who prefers automatic weapons, the Automatics skill is worth infinitely more to him than the Pistols skill does, and vice versa for the pistoleer who finds automatic weapons absolutely gauche. Assuming they both had equal skill levels in both skills, the former is not going to find the cost of improving his Pistols skill equal to the cost of raising his Automatics skill, and vice-versa. Not to their personal value, nor to the actual value within the game. That other skill might as well be as worthless to them as Pilot Aerospace is to most runners.

What's more, both could advance their skill of choice at the same time for the same net benefit to both, thereby equalizing their respective values despite the worthlessness they are to each other.

Advancing to Rating 1 in a Skill is not equal to Advancing to Rating 6 in a Skill.
Advancing to Rating 1 in an Attribute is not equal to Advancing to Rating 6 in an Attribute.
Etc...
You cannot grant a Rating 1 skill to one person and a Rating 6 Skill to another Person (an increment of 1 each, in case you miss it) and expect the recipient to agree that they are equal in cost, whatever cost you assign to individual levels. Net Benefit is not the same as Balanced advancement.

So, As usual, you completely an utterly miss the point of balance. If you do not understand that principle, well, then I cannot help you.

No, I'm pretty sure I get the point of balance. I just disagree with your idea of balance, especially since it relies entirely on blind faith and the belief that everything is of equal value to everyone else. If it were, it would be impossible to create a poor character as every choice, no matter what, would grant exactly the same benefit as any other choice of a similar total value. Including the guy with 1 in every attribute, no active skills beyond Ritual Spellcasting 1, but who possesses every spell in the game as an extreme example.

Apparently you do not, but what else is new. Again, Net BENEFIT is not the Same as Balanced Advancement. One Character's ADVANCEMENT should be the same cost, Karma wise, as another Character's ADVANCEMENT. Regardless of where that Karma is spent, it should be the same amount of Karma. Yes, the characters will advance differently, based upon the player's desires for their advancement, but the numbers involved (in expended Karma) should be the same. THAT is balance. It has nothing to do with a belief, or blind faith, in equal Value to all. It has to do with Equal Expenditures for all.

As a GM, would you call it fair to give out 1000 Karma to one player and only 100 Karma to another, for the same experience in play? If you say yes, then you care nothing for balance. If you say no, then you should recognize the inherent unfairness and imbalance in allowing someone to purchase a Spell for a determined time increment of experience, and another to increase an Attribute from 5 to 6 for the exact same increment (in your system of no Karma). The fact that you don't see that (or at least claim not to see it) says volumes about how you view imbalance.

Ol' Scratch and Tymeaus,

I may be mistaken but I believe Tymeaus is arguing that your method of improvement is not mathematically balanced. Which to be fair it isn't 1 does not equal 2.

However

I believe, and correct me if I'm wrong here, that you, Ol' Scratch, are arguing that in a group of players who are not power gamers this system does not get out of hand and that you have not witnessed any loss of fun/balance at its hands.

If I am right about the arguments you both are making then it becomes quite plain to see that you are both arguing against invisible opponents as you are no longer arguing against each other. If this is the case please stop arguing as I find Paul's topic intriguing (hence why I opened the thread) and I'd like to see more opinions on the matter of...

How much Karma do you award?

Thanks

Relecs

Close, but not quite. In as few words as I can manage (which admittedly is hard because I ramble on), we've essentially gotten rid of the current advancement system altogether. The only thing that matters is what the individual player considers a worthwhile advancement for his or her character, and he or she is able to advance any aspect of their character as they see fit within reason (reason being dictated by the GM, myself, which is my job as an arbitrator, referee, storyteller, and narrator).

The values listed with the default system has no meaning to anyone. They're just random numbers on a meaningless table. Trying to argue that 100 Karma != 1,000 Karma means nothing because there is no Karma at all. If Bob feels that learning a new spell is worth as much to his character as Jane feels boosting an attribute by 1 is, then he's right. Because in this system, that spell doesn't cost 5 Karma and that attribute boost doesn't cost 30 Karma. After the next story, they get to choose to do something else. And so on and so forth. And if at some point Bob feels like he's falling behind Jane, he can begin remedying it the story after that one. It doesn't even matter if you're dealing with powergamers or not, at least no more than under any other system where one player is abusing it while the others aren't.

That's the brunt of what I've been saying since post #1. I've also diverged a bit, arguing that even in the Karma system, those values are not balanced for many of the reasons listed above. If Jane spends her 30 points of Karma to boost an attribute and Bob spends his 30 points on spells, it somehow becomes perfectly balanced through some magical, wondiferous means even if those six spells he learned are spells such as Detect Cookies and Cure Disease while Jane is boosting her Agility, Magic, or some other highly valued attribute. Just because something has a preset value, that doesn't make it worth that amount of currency. Especially in a variant system that's not using that currency at all.

I gotta say, I think Ol'Scratch's system is quite interesting. It looks like it could be balanced, albeit on a different principle than karma.

I find it interesting but I think my players would be scandalized by it. Still it's cool to see what's out there!

So there's like 7000 users on this board. What else is out there?

Coming back to the original intent of the thread of discussing Karma, eu created an artificial balance between roles on my game table. Street Sams and hackers need money, much more than they need Karma. Spellslingers and Technomancers need Karma more than they need money.

So i award 3-6 Karma per Run (5 to 8 on larger runs), and allow them to trade Karma to money and money to karma on downtime.

This represents Hooding and easy peasy missions (Money to Karma) - 5000 moneys for 1 karma (Money = Credit, Ucas Dollars, CAS dollars, Corp Scrip, Whatever).

This represents small easy jobs that, though not well paid, are well below the pc's skill level. Like a hacker cracking programs to sell them. 1 karma for 2.500 moneys.

In each case, it could not be done more than two times on a single downtime. So, they could rack up 2 karma or 5.000 moneys.

It worked well for me.

So turning karma into money and money into karma don't use the same conversion rate?

I like the idea of limited-use karma/cash conversion btw.

And it is exactly what his system does for the following cost:

+1 skill = +1 attribute = 1 new spell = karma award per session = 1 karma

Whatever works for your table, mate. I can see Ol' Scratch's system working for a particular group of mine, especially since they're far more interested in the story/world than numbers. I'll definitely make a note to try it out some time.

Does frequency of play affect how people award Karma? For instance if you game once a month do you hand out more than you would if you gamed once a week?

Lol, damn can you guys argue salient points!

Ol'Scratch (you devil) is talking about perception of value as it applies to the player. Players will naturally pick what they perceive to be the most important to their personal ideology and character concept. Therefore it is balanced on enjoyment and personal advancement, which is what the karma system tries to represent.

T J is talking about balance in the sense of equality in the inherent value of something as it pertains to the mechanics of the game. It should cost more to raise an attribute than a skill, because attributes have effects on more dice pools than a single skill would. Therefore, the given values of karma as set are balanced on some merit, and Ol'Scratch's method overlooks that.

Granted I'm just reiterating what you guys are saying so that I'm sure I understand both points. How can you find fault with either method though. T J, it's wrong to assume there is only one way to do things, specially in a game whose mechanics only exist for fun. The value of a reward in karma only matters in the long term enjoyment of watching a character develop anyway. Scratch does have to concede that all rewards aren't equal however, and an abusive or crafty player could far outpace the others by intentionally picking things that carry weight in the mechanics further than other choices.

Spells vs attribute is a poor comparison. If I raise agility every time and player B raises pistols. We both got a similar reward for shooting things, but player B's (Yo B!) reward only applies to one class of weapons. You can't argue that I got off way better than Player B and that it won't skew the perception of a reward in the long term. Eventually leading to everyone picking those rewards that have the greatest effect on play rather than "wasting" it on things they would enjoy.

personally, while it's a novel idea for a the short term and a great experiment to have players disconnect from power gaming habits, in the long term I think it will eventually reinforce the worst of greed an become unproductive. And that's true whether anyone has ever seen a karma rewards table or not.

Fight on!

You have my point exactly. I do understand Ol' Scrath's point, I just do not agree with it. And here is why. I tend to make my characters with portability in mind. If I am to be able to take my character from table to table, or GM tro GM, then there must exist an inherent balance between the stuff on my character sheet and the other player's sheets. Ol' Scratch's method does not provide that portability. It is only valid for his table and his table alone, due to the inherent imbalance that can be created with the system he is advocating. Why should one character be compensated less effective karma than another character for the exact same experiences?

Like it or not, the mechanics of the game are set in print. An attribute raise from 5 to 6 costs 30 Karma, and a spell costs 5 Karma (to go back to the original comparison); If, at his table the person taking spells was compensated equally to the one getting an attribute boost (he received 6 spells to the 1 attribute), there would be no discrepency (I could allocate X numbner of Karma to the sheet to show validity), but if you completely ignore the Karma Mechanic, then sheets will quickly be worth varying degrees of Karma Expenditure when tallied, and you would have significant variance in the "Awarded Experience" of the Characters involved (And significant difference in the compared capabilities, due to the choices made). At that point, portability suffers.

I don't think I've ever been at two different game tables where characters were created using the same rules. There's always some house rule in play, whether its completely ignoring certain rules, using all the optional rules, or using variant creation methods. "Portability" only really matters if you're dealing with something like Missions, where a pre-established set of rules are in play. And even in Missions, they use house rules out the arse.

Speaking of a discussion about karma advancement, i gotta ask you, which rewards table are you using? Because that seems a little low for anniversary edition.

I'm in a game that has allowed cash->karma from the beginning, and I can say it does a lot to help keep all the players happy and not worrying over being a point short.


Limiting it a bit seems like a decent idea, though.

I agree with you on pretty much every point FTR. But that doesn't mean other systems of advancement couldn't/can't produce enjoyment for certain groups, even if they seem to carry the potential for inequality. I still applaud the creativity and merits of "forgetting" the numbers for awhile in Scratch's method, purely from a fun is what you make it philosophy. If everyone is happy, they're happy, and it's hard to find fault with that.

We at dumpshock take the game far more serious than most tables do. So it's refreshing to see methods to remind ourselves what really creates fun outside the context of weighted values. For example: As a performer of prestidigitation, I often have to remind myself that it isn't the sleight itself that entertains anyone (but me, since I knew how long it took to practice), rather it's all the other components of a good illusion that make it a performance. The patter, the misdirection, the pause. Without those, really I'm just showing off (like juggling).

I do hate the way some player's can metagame the value of rewards to a simplistic "We only got 4 karma for rescuing her? next time I'll let her die", rather than simply enjoying the game. Rewards are necessary to compensate a perceived "risk" and make the challenge worth while, but when the "risk" isn't really real, do the "rewards" have to be so carefully measured?

I never break down how I award Karma. For all they know they got 4 karma for surviving.

I don't usually have a karma breakdown. If I feel like the players did a good job/stayed on game/helped each other shine I'll give 'em 4. Do you guys think that's a little stingy for a session? (4-6 hours) I've had GMs give me everywhere from 2 karma a session to 8.

Sometimes when wrapping up I think out loud. Regardless what you hand out, theres no pleasing some people (smoke and a pancake?)

With the advent of SR4A, I started awarding karma after each session (about once a month, unfortunately), following the Karma table. It usually ends up being about 3-4 Karma per session, with more being awarded at the end of the mission with the mission completion awards, etc.

However, in order to improve ANYTHING, it takes game-time to train/learn/etc., which I have a handy dandy Open Office sheet which is based on an extended test of the Karma spent as a threshold, with mods for such as training materials, instructors, etc. You can even fail to learn something, which means you don't waste the Karma, you just don't get the improvement and will have to try again later. You also have to work it into the game, usually during down-time (which in my game is usually a couple of months or more), so improving in the middle of a mission can be difficult unless it is a fairly easy or simple improvement (specializing for example).

I'm curious here: why do you award karma each session if they cannot spend it? Wouldn't it be easier to only give a big chunk at the end of the run?

Because strictly following the book's karma awards for a full mission that lasts several sessions is going to get you 2-4 karma per mission, unless the GM is generous. Most people like to be able to improve something every once and a while.