I play a Free Spirit PC who does not have the Friendship Spirit Pact, but rather the Power Pact. The reasons for that choice are unimportant here, but thinking about how he can get karma to grow along with his teammates led me to think about the nature of karma and where it comes from.

In SR4A, we are told that Karma is the raw material from which PCs can build Skills and Attributes and more. That Karma is earned through living through runs, etc.

But, children are learning machines, and go through amazing developments in Attributes, Skills, etc. as they approach adulthood. All without running the shadows at all. One could argue that the challenges the little "blank slates" face in growing up are enough to generate Karma with which they can build themselves. Or, one could argue that they are born with a reserve of Karma built in, which reserve, like the yolk sac for a young chick, provides the necessary energy for development.

If the latter is the case, then a young child must seem like a smorgasbord to those entities of the Sixth World that feed on Karma (Energy Drain(Karma)), such as Snatchers (Running Wild, page 180). How delicious and irresistible that little bag of energy would seem. Children would, in fact, be the preferred prey.

Should we be seeing children disappearing at an alarming rate in the Sixth World?

Why not? We're seeing everyone else disappearing at an alarming rate already.

And SINless Children, well, who knows how many of them have gone missing? Especially with former ork litters!

I think "karma" in SR is definitely not some little egg yolk around people, and I am sure my PCs would mutiny if I suggested that they were close to their limit!

The way I see it, people gain karma all the time. I figure the basal rate to be about 10 karma a year or thereabouts, although it would be higher (perhaps double that) for full-time learners and somewhere in between for cutting edge researchers etc. People who really live life on the edge such as frontline soldiers in a warzone and shadow runners gain karma at a much higher rate, see your book for details on the latter.

Not sure how this helps your Free Spirit PC, but with your GM's permission I could see you siphoning karma off a young kid at adolescence so he grows up sickly and stunted in return for whatever you give him.

Why no Friendship Spirit Pact? Your greedy fellow PC's want all their karma for themselves?

Just ignore the bit about not being able to gain karma normally and ban the FS from making pacts. Otherwise the FS can go up like a rocket with a little work.

I smell a "Death Note" here. Of course it does depend on what a free spirit's motivations and interests are. Can't believe every possible free spirit in existence is gonna be hanging around Earth to squeeze all the children of their karma.

And certainly there's no limit on how much karma a character can earn/develop. Harlequin is an exceptionally gross example there.

!!!QFT!!!

The major issue is, that the free spirit fluff does not really fly with actual game rules.
As a matter of fact, you do not even need Spirit pacts in order to gain Karma, you can just trade it. (Using the free spirit rules)


@Midas
It does not work to put anything at any rate. The problem is, that a front line soldier can make due without improving anything. Actully he might even loose a lot. (Negetive mental qualities, reduction of charisma, or even reduction of physical attributes for living in bad conditions.)
Normally it takes the same amount of trainging (lets say in 2 years) for staying at strength 5 or 6 like getting from 1 to 3 or 4.

If you really want to simulate possible learning rates, 5 or even more Karma a month are about the way to go. Since SR does not consider anything to keep your skills, well everyone will end up with a huge load of karma to trade...

Shadowrun limits the amounts of skills from the start. It put hughe amount of knowhow, which takes YEARS to learn in some knowledge skill. On the other hand it put stuff, you can learn in a few week is an action skill. And amplyfies this by setting 0 to the "standart of society"... Sillyness unlimited...

So no matter how you run it, if you take the PC-rules to look at NPCs, they will fail and they will fail hard.
(Not to mention that the rolls of "everyone knows that"-skills are horrible...)
(Thats why some games, which also use "free generation", add to the mix some packages to make sure everyone has the skills, the avarage guy growing up in this area has. Getting rid of the 0-nonsense)

Thats why free spirits are such a pain in the ass.
The karma rules work fine in SR, because well, you do not play runners for several ingame years. (You play maybe one year the rest (even if your runner ages) is OOC and not subject to any rules.)
Free spirits force this rules on every NPC for his life...

5 karma a month seems quite a lot, considering PCs doing 1 run/month would not earn that much more. To tell the truth I don't really worry about how much karma NPCs might or might not have to improve their stats and skills over time, all I need as a GM is to know that that potential for growth is there for people that apply themselves.

This "apply themselves" part is important. Joe Shmoe who works as a janitor at a corp and spends his downtime drinking soybeer in front of the simsense ain't gonna get nothing. Should he decide to get fit and go running every night, over time his BOD (=endurance), STR and Running skills will slowly increase. If he goes to night school to study electronics, over time his Electronics skill group or Hardware skill (depending on the breadth of his study) will increase.

The idea that living on the edge leads to an increase in karma came from a logical extension of the karma awarded per run being somewhat higher than you would expect for normal advancement (i.e. going from no skill to world class [42 karma] in 6 months at 8 karma/run, 1 run/month). It seems fair enough that for people who live in the moment and for whom using a skill well or fairly well could be the difference between life and death, the sheer pressure to succeed will increase their effective rate of learning. I believe soldiers who have seen active service say similar things - that they learned more on their 3 month tour of duty than in the years of training preceeding it, and this is why I mentioned frontline soldiers. You are right in that such experience may also result in negative qualities such as shell-shock though ...

Looks like it's already the case. (I once designed an adventure based on this article, I think it fits perfectly in the 6th World).

Depends on the runs. And depends on the downtime. The point is: Karma Gen is per run and is equal to ingame time. Thus it actually has nothing to do with OOC-Time.
So if you have runners doing on run per year, they gain 10-15 Karma (depending on the run) per year. If they do one run per week, they gain around 1000 Karma a year.
(Outgame both will get 1000 Karma for playing, lets say one year regulary. But one group will have aged about 100 years, the other won't.


The point is, what they learn is all combat related. They do not get home and now understand quatum physics. They probably forgot even some of the natural sience they learned in high school.
Thats the whole issue. In order to allow somebody to train his body/strength by doing sport, you have to award him at least 5 Karma a month, or he won't be able to.
(This guy needs to increase body, strength, athletics and probably gymnastics and maybe even swimming)

Thats the basic problem with the Karma stuff. The Learning focus on is very narrow. If you would really flesh everything out, I guess 700 Karma would be unable to build a high school senior. This is countered by ignoring everything unimportant/saying everybody has it. (Which of course leads to some kind of issues as soon as somebody does not have it/should not have it)
This leads to upsurd high learning rates on the one hand or absurd low learning rates on the other. (Physics against shooting a gun)
Why the game is handeling it like that is obvious. A high physics knowledge skill won't come up often. (Unless the player is also a student of experimental physics or something like that. Chemistery would be an even better example....

This means as soon as you step out of the circle of light, the rules work in, they completly break apart...


@General
To the idea to the children in general:
There is not much karma to be gained. The avarage 12 year old won't have a strength higher than one. The only thing seeing real increase would be logic and intuition. Maybe from 0 to 2-3. But again only over a very long time(12 years). Skills are, after the SR system the same. They will all increase to 0...
So building up a 12 Year old would (using the rules and skill limitations) probably cost around 100 Karma (in Karma gen).

Ditto: child stats mostly suck, so it's not much karma you'd be talking about. Prodigies are rare, and easily handwaved.

Ditto on the 'FSPCs and pacts are insane' point, as well. All characters get the same basic karma rewards, period.

Karma is for PCs.

For NPCs things are not quite as formulated.

Bye
Thanee

Interesting, so all monsters under the bed and hiding in the closet are actually free spirits feeding on little childrens fear/karma?

Who are you gonna call...

This is why. The spirits have learned and are sucking the karma out of them in vitro, leading to lowered birth rates.

EDIT:


Where are you getting that unused skills decrease? That's not in any book I've read so far...






He's not talking about an NPC.

*Dan Aykroyd runs out in his Ghostbusters outfit* "Someone else." *Runs away really fragging fast*

Guys! This thread is not about me looking for a way to get more Karma for my Free Spirit PC. I only mentioned him at the start to give an intro as to how I started thinking about Karma in general.

I have a proposal to my GM as to how he and I can limit the amount of Karma my FSPC earns based on the runs we do. I get a Karma award for the run, which goes into a pool, from which my PC can draw Karma whenever he can make a deal in game to trade power for Karma, or do a ritual for a bit of Karma. I get to role play, the GM gets to determine how much Karma my PC gets. I chose not to use the Friendship Pact because after having played another FSPC who did have that Pact, I came to the conclusion that no immortal spirit in her right mind would give up that immortality, tying her life Force to the lifespan of metahumans. It doesn't make sense to me.

So, back to the OP idea. I am just trying to figure out how in Shadowrun game mechanics children grow and learn so fast. The yolk sac idea is not meant to limit characters, so there is no need to bristle about limits on PCs. Birds continue to grow after the yolk sac is used up, too, guys. It is a concept meant to understand the rapid and broad growth in abilities of children. It is also meant to provide an analogy for why predators (not necessarily free spirits, most of whom cannot draw Karma directly except through a two-way deal, anyway) would find children a particularly tasty treat. This seems to me to be a dark aspect of the return of magic into the world. Things start hunting us when we are little.

Yeah, the monster under the bed really is there.

I think children's stats/skills are simply so low that it takes less karma to raise them, and overcoming certain obstacles rewards karma, like passing a math exam or not hurting themselves by jumping out of a tree.

*Looks up from my souffle of Kid Karma* What? *Goes back to munching*

Character stats can be at 1, the lowest possible for a metahuman, and Skills are at 0 to start for everybody.

I don't understand your point: yes people who run more get more karma (or "experience points" in the Other Game's nomenclature). So what?

The BBB suggests 1 run/month as "average"; some groups may do more, I guess it all depends on how often the GM and players can meet up. 1 run per year seems a little extreme: they payoff had better be good to cover their annual lifestyle costs, unless they all have day jobs and are just dilettante shadow runners.

Not necessarily, let's break it down. I will give 2 examples, a BOD 2 STR 2 couch potato becoming a hobbyist runner to get fit on 10 karma/year, and a BOD 5 STR 4 high school alumnus picked to train extensively for the olympics on 20 karma/year, over 4 years for both cases.

1) BOD 2 STR 2 hobbyist runner, 10 karma/year
Year 1: Focuses on running technique: Running skill from 0 to 2 (8 karma)
Year 2, 1/2 Year 3: Enters more races, builds endurance focusing on getting time down BOD 2 -> 3 (15 karma)
1/2 Year 3, Year 4: Builds up muscle mass and works on sprint speed STR 2 -> 3 (15 karma) ... or focuses on Running skill 2 -> 4 (14 karma)
Analysis: does seem a little on the slow side, but after 4 years of hobbyist running has gotten much fitter and gained an amateur rating in the skill.

2) BOD 5 STR 4 olympic trainer, 20 karma/year
Year 1: Focuses on running technique: Running skill from 0 to 3 (14 karma)
Year 2, Year 3: Works on endurance and technique BOD 5 -> 6 (30 karma), Running skill 3 -> 4 (8 karma)
Year 4: Works on running technique: Running skill 4 -> 6 (22 karma)
Analysis: Most athletes train 4 years for the olympics; in 4 years this guy has maxed his initially high endurance and become world class in his field.

Neither of these cases seem particularly unbelievable to me. Admittedly, boosting attributes is karma-intensive, but I guess that is as it should be. As to your 700 karma high school graduate: I think you are talking out of your arse:
All attributes 1 - 3 (@25 karma x 8 attributes) = 200 karma
20 points of knowledge skills @ 1's and 2's (12 free) = 40 karma
60 points for skills (Athletics 1, Influence 1 for 20, another 40 karma for 10 skill points at 1's and 2's = 60 karma
So, I reckon you could build a generic rounded high school graduate for 300 karma or thereabouts ...

Again, I am not sure what your point is. Karma is a metagame concept. You could say to a character "You can't spend your karma learning quantum physics; put your character on ice for 4 years while he earns his doctorate.", but where would be the fun in that?

You are right in that it should take a lot more effort to become professional level in quantum physics as shooting a gun; the game abstracts skills to make the karma "costs" the same. Feel free to create a house rule to change the karma costs for each skill if you want, but I really don't think it necessary.

And should a PC decide in their wisdom to spend their hard-earned cash and karma to buy theoretic physics tutorsofts and train themselves up to rank 3 in that skill, who are you or I to stop them? (Admittedly, for a rank of 4 or higher I would make my PCs go out and find a real teacher, but that's just the way I do things) ...

The kids are all PCs?

Bye
Thanee

Having thought about it some more, with the help of comments here, I think I may have ignored an important point. Children's lives are jamb-packed with practicing. Walking, talking, exploring, hammering... All of that is legitimate training for life. Hence, it is like 'running. So maybe they are earning Karma as they go.

I still like the idea of children being prime targets for Karma predators. If that isn't a dark future, I don't know what is.

#####

When I was small, there was a humanoid thing that would come up over the foot of my bed after the lights went out. I was safe once I fell asleep, but until then I had to be vigilant. Every time it poked its head up over the footboard, I could send it back down by tugging on my pyjama shirt sleeves.

My point IS that it is a metagame subject. Karma has no equivalent to anything. The Karma costs for skills and attributes do not relate to how hard they are to learn/increase.
The thing is, you can have a very low brow sports knowledge skill, which can be learned in about 3-4 weeks or you can have a academic knowledge skill, which takes a lifetime. Both at the same Karma costs. This is due to the fact, that everything is compared to the avarage guy. The guy is good for up to 8 years of learning math but does not really need to know the name of a single football player.


Actually shooting is an active skill and physics is a knowledge skill....
But thats not my point.

The point is: As soon as you allow a free spirit to syphon Karma from NPCs he will have a field day. Even if NPCs just get 5 Karma a month, he could gather from 100 people 5 Karma a Year. Giving him 500 Karma a year, or around 10 Karma a week.
It does not matter if NPCs run around with 10000 unspend Karma points. (If PCs get to this region you just start new once)

The rules are not made to simulate the growing up of a runner from a street kid to an elderly. You get X Karma for a run, so you can do more challenging runs afterwards.
You could build a runner with 1500 Karma and give only 1 "thankyou"-Karma point for each run. It would be more of a "simulation". (If you do not have downtimes)

This whole traiding stuff for Karma, which free spirits can do due to the fluff, works as long as you ignore the details. (They are limited somehow, just do not ask...)

You could say they need the Karma in order to make their own experiances take hold. (So it would be no use for a free spirit to gain 10k Karma because he could only spend it the rate he makes own experiances. Or whatever. It does not matter, because NPC-free-spirits have the force, the attributes and the skills you give them)

An PC-free spirit would need those restrictions as rules or there is nothing to prevent him from initiating 10 times between two runs. (The meditation-technique also gives a very good idea on how long it will take him...)

Thats why I am with the fraction:
PC-free-spirits gain the same amount of Karma as everybody. No friendshippact restrictions and no additional pacts. (If you want, replace the friendshippact with the formula pact so there is a reason he gains Karma)


Depends on what a skill of 0 means and how "big" skills are... (And there are no free skills, thats a BP thing)

The thing is, it is really easy in the system to spend 100 Karma a year, without beeing ridiculous.
Get a drivers licence (Car and motorbike), go running for fun, do some workout, start learning a bit cooking and something aboute wines. And this all while you are in highschool, employed, university.
There is easy getting your strength, agility and body from 2 to 3 for 45 Karma. And so on. (Mayb even reaction for a total of 60)
The problem is to get from I do not know shit about a skill and I know some is easy. As is getting from strength 1 to 3, if you really work on it. But getting to 4 or 5 or even just holding 6 is hard work, which will probably take up most of your time. (Talking about Karma, thats not the case. Getting from 1-3 is as easy as getting from 4 to 5. )

Thats why there is a problem of gaining Karma rates. Your example are getting it the totally wrong way. The high level athlete would need much less Karma than the hobbyist. Because he needs most of his training (in reality) just to stay where he is. (He will probably never make it to running 6 or 7 or never pass strength 4)
So the hobbyiest will need around 50 to 100 Karma for his first year, depending on what he is doing on the side. The athlete can make due with about 20.
Thats my point. So the easy way is to give everybody some Karma per month, which shows their "potential" in order to use it, they need to train (If they gathered 100 Karma they can spent it going to the gym). Which is not a real problem for NPCs in general. But as soon as you introduce one free spirit, well... They just say: Do not train, give me some Karma and be forever young.
(The Karma you would save alone by not suffering the effects of aging...)

Edit: to became do... I got to many typos all over the place. Should probably check more carefully...

The Shadowrun skills system is abstract and arbitary, yes. I guess there is some weighting making potentially useful in-game skills such as Knowledge: Urban Brawl (great for faces establishing small talk with security guards) more karma-intensive for what they are than fluff skills such as Knowledge: Theoretical Physics (fleshing out the background research ex-corper braniac runner did). No need to sweat it though, fortunately we are not playing Nerd Researcher Run, and most characters won't be taking multiple esoteric academic knowledge skills just because they feel they are getting more bang for their buck than humble old Knowledge: Street Gangs, and the latter is far more likely to save the character's hoop in game anyway.


I never said the Free Spirit PC should be able to siphon karma off NPC's, or if I did I said "talk with your GM". I agree with your sentiment entirely that Free Spirit PCs should have the facility to gain karma at a similar pace to their fellow PCs and nothing more.


As Neraph stated, there are no rules for karma requirements to keep skills high, or to deal with ageing. I agree with you that IRL this would be the case, but fortunately (from a book-keeping point of view at least) it is largely skipped-over in game. You are welcome to develop a house rule for skill-upkeep if you like, but given the inherent lethality of the game and the fact most campaigns will not last more than a few years anyway it is probably something most GMs will not bother with.

My musings on karma and NPCs was simply a way of exploring the game-logic of this metagame concept rather than anything else. Like most GMs, I simply give NPCs the stats and skills I think they would have and have done with it.

My point is, that it CAN'T work. You mentioned several reasons yourself. A lot of stuff is just dropped in order to reduce book-keeping.
Making the guy who pushes extreme in one area need close to no Karma while the person dambeling in several "hobbys" needs a lot if he or she changes those hoppys.
Dueto some other simplifications (common knowledge is 0) things get also out of hand, because the dicepools do not really live up to the expectations. (Perception is one of those fine examples. Two dice to spot something? Come on!)
So you can have several years of education in one area for 0 Karma, while a little knowhow in an other area costs at least 2/4 points.

There is a reason most games say: Zero means you have zero idea about it. Because there will always be a instand in which you match different skills against each other. And if one skill starts at "having not seen something like that in my life" and the other with "Done it for several years" it can't really work.

My mistake, I thought they were talking about Free Spirits draining karma as NPCs.

I hereby invoke the rule of Common Sense. No skill does not necessarily mean the character has zero idea about it. Also, one thing you do not seem to understand is that for a lot of skills the GM only needs to call for a roll if he/she feels the circumstances warrant it. Some examples:

1) Running ... Every metahuman can walk, run or sprint - the BBB's movement rates tells us this. Running skill is used only to increase the distance covered above these movement rates, or if the GM decides the terrain/visibility is tricky and calls for a test.

2) Pilot Ground Vehicle ... Most people can drive (if you call plugging into GridGuide and sitting back "driving"), the PGV skill is more an Advanced Driving skill than anything else. You might not need to even make a test if you are driving doesn to the local mall, but you will if you get involved in vehicle chase/combat situations, pull a tricky manouvre or for whatever reason need to make a crash test.

3) Pilot Aircraft ... Yes, this is one of those "no skill means zero idea about it" skills. Doesn't mean that if push comes to shove a runner cannot try and wing it (literally!) defaulting on Reaction, but I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

4) Knowledge: Cooking ... For me the zero skill can mean different things depending on the character's background: some characters might think a saucepan is the wrapping around their favourite brand of Stuffer Shack soy burger, while others might be used to heating nutrisoy over a propane heater. Characters who take the skill will be developing their knowledge of how to make said nutrisoy taste nicer - Skill 1 probably leads to a basic knowledge of herbs and spices; increasing the skill improves the gourmet quality of the food the character knows how to make. Similarly, a socialite character who has drunk wine from time to time might vaguely know the term Cabernet Sauvignon even if he/she does not have a Knowledge: Wines skill.

5) Perception ... This skill is used to notice things that might not be obvious to the casual observer. If the character is ambling along under no stress looking for Vine Street, the GM can rule that they find it, no Perception roll required. If they are bombing along in a stolen car (with GPS for whatever reason turned off) at 100kph with police on their back, a Perception check may be required. The other thing you need to remember about Perception is the 3 dice bonus for Observing in Detail where appropriate, a big help to watcher spirits and PCs defaulting on 2 dice.

@Midas
Fact still is, it does not really work out. The second you have to call for a test, they will fail as if they would be unable to walk or anything.
Invoking a rule of common sense in order to defend a mechanism which is just broken, does not help.
(Of course you may just not use perception tests at all, but thats hardly a working solution)

And of course your whole argument goes for a ride to the sewers as soon as the rules give example thresholds for neon signs, or something else. What they do....

The point is, IT CAN'T BE WORKING. That just as easy to see as a neon sign in the dark.
In order to give a person with 0 perception, leaving him with about 2 dice, a chance of seeing stuff, you would need give him a lot of bonus dice for normal perception test. (For example to spot a friend in the crowed.) Around +5 and +8.
The problem is, that those boni would still be around, if you roll against infiltration. (Additional to all the modifiers against the guy using infiltration)
Making infiltration nearly impossible. (Simply because a 0 in infiltration would mean (like a 0 in guns) that you have no idea, while a 0 in perception means, you have a normal perception. Does not work, can not work.

I personally have Incompetent (Cooking). I can make scrambled eggs and ramen, and I burn everything else. I've even burned water.

Funny you mention that - I had a friend who once failed to boil an egg. How, you might ask. I did, turns out he let the water boil away and came back to the kitchen to discover the egg burned and half melted to the saucepan base ...

You think the mechanic is broken, I do not.

Taking your example of a person looking for friend in a crowd (INT 3, defaulting to 2 dice, your example):
+3 Observe in Detail
+2 Prior knowledge that friend is there or will be there soon (they had arranged to meet)
- 2 for the crowd
That would give him 5 dice, statistically 1.67 successes, he spots friend
Let's say they had not arranged to meet, he still has 3 dice and a good chance to spot his friend in the crowd if he is actively looking at the crowd; if he is intent on his commlink instead, chances are he won't notice his friend pass by, but it's not like that doesn't happen IRL ...

Than lets take a look in the book:
We can add to that, that he needs 2 hits for "pedestrian" and now we may add to that "Object/sound not in immediate vicinity" for abother -2.


So why should he do that? Be activey looking?

Depending on how you do it (and we did not add visual modifiers) you end up having 0 to 5 dice for doing that, while needing 2 hits.
(Even with 5 dice, the chance to succeed is 54%)
The only way to get around it a bit, is extended tests. But those come with declining dicepools as soon as there is the possibility to fail. (Which is mostly the case! And there are no rules for extended perception tests)

And if you are just walking through the steets you will probably NEVER make out a friend you meet by chance. Taking 2 dice for 2 hits means 11%.

You can be go on and look at somebody searching something in his room. Look for a lense they lost on the floor and so on. (Here was also the discussion, that normal drones CAN'T see people)
This leaves you with TWO options. The first option is to give a lot of "situational" modifiers to the observer. The problem here will be, that those will also apply to "rivial tests". For example to spot an synthetic cyberarm. Making those test easy as hell, as soon as you get your perception skill...