It came up in a thread concerning binding a free spirit and feeding it karma to keep it happy that a free spirit could earn way more karma on its own doing services around the world, 24 hours a day if it wished.

This is 3rd edition, so there are no Spirit Pacts to automatically jump into. The spirit is a newly free ally spirit without Wealth power, Force 6 Spirit Energy 1. Its former master gave it the true form of a pretty redheaded elf female, mostly nude, but with a pile of stacked clothing accompanying it, a black male nude elf (it was not noticed if this form had accompanying clothing) and an invisible nude male (it was asked if that form was also nude.) A fourth form was identical to the former master. The former master evidently had frequent sexual relations with the spirit and it came out that he may have pimped the spirit out. The spirit has skill in Sorcery, sex, bikes.

The spirit gained the powers of Aura Masking, Dispelling, Possession, Hidden Life, and Human Form (the powers on the table in MitS most likely for an ally to roll. I think I may have messed up its starting powers as I'm not sure how I got 5 from a 1D3 roll. I think I rolled FD6 vs TN3, but not sure and it is in play with 5 powers, so too late.)

It has all the normal Ally powers. 3D Movement, Sorcery, Aid Power, Materialization, Sense Link, Telepathic Link.

Spells include 3 custom @ unknown Force:
1 that makes people have an orgasm, singly or a group
1 that makes one ready to have sex (Viagra.)
A sex change spell
@ Force 6: Heal, Bind, Armor, Combat Sense, Physical Barrier, Transform, Levitate, Animate

It came out that the old master allowed it to keep some of the money earned from prostitution and a few clients gave Karma. I am assuming that is where it learned so many spells.

Good Karma Pool?

How does it earn a bunch of Karma while avoiding being enslaved?

That's an interesting spirit and background....

Anyway, on to the question:
"Free spirits need Good Karma to grow in power, but they cannot earn it on their own. They must receive it as a gift from living, physical beings." -MitS p116
Full Mages can donate karma at 1:1, Adepts and Aspected Mages at 2:1 and Mundanes at 3:1. Conjuring can help modify the ratio.

For me, when the Spirit asks for help, otherworldly payment, part of their soul / essence, or whatever in game term they use to describe it - and a person agrees, then that forms the pact / bargain that allows the karma to transfer.

In game terms for the scenario you described, I'd have played it along something like this:
Free spirit makes a "sex" roll as an open test, like a stealth check
Victim makes a WP test vs the result of the above.
If the spirit wins, they can edge/tease/prolong the sexual act to the point that the victim is driven a little bit crazy, and in the heat of passion agrees to "whatever you want", which satisfies the requirement for the spirit bargain.
Spirit absorbs a karma at the appropriate ratio. Or more than one karma, depending on the circumstance.

And that's how the Spirit goes about getting new karma... plying the worlds oldest profession and taking advantage of weak willed males.
YMMV.

I do think the spirit could keep itself perpetually booked with clients. The human form power allows it to choose how it looks as well as any metahuman race so it could offer multiple looks to attract clients with a wide variety of tastes, or even the same unwitting customer who always wants to try out the new girl. I can also see the spirit earning pretty decent nuyen as a joy toy, but enough to buy 3 points of karma from a mundane or 1 point from a magician? I doubt it, plus buying karma this way puts the spirit at risk someone determines its true nature and binds it.

But is the spirit going to get at least one client a day to fork over potentially 3 karma? It would seem to work against the safety of a steady customer because they are going to run out of karma. Which actually brings up the question of owed karma. I think there is something about pledging karma one does not have means the next karma earned goes immediately to the karma debt.

How does the spirit phrase the "anything" so no one catches on it is a free spirit and tries to bind it?

As a GM, how likely would it be for organized crime to decide to put a halt to the new freelance talent stealing away clients? Maybe, if the spirit truly went worldwide, they could fly under this radar.

And on a morality ethical basis, how much better is this than being bound? If someone binds the spirit and orders it to earn nuyen and karma this way, now how filthy does the scenario seem?

First of all you have to remember that karma is an offplay mechanic mainly aimed at the development of player characters. NPCs generally earn whatever amount of karma they need with their (not necessarily) ordinary lives.

So this is about "making things work" for a particular spirit in a particular situation within your game environment. If you really need it to earn karma in a comparable manner like player characters you might want to give the spirit some leeway in terms of "cannot earn karma on its own" by utlising the optional karma for cash / cash for karma rules. If the spirit really further engages working as a sex worker you could set a (regularly fluctuating) exchange rate of Nuyen that the spirit has to give away from its earnings without further ingame gains - donations, paying the local pimp, etc. - in order to gain the desired karma ... preferably at a rate that matches whatever the players earn on average.

With one of the biggest exceptions being this scenario, where a free spirit is bargaining for karma.


Really, this isn't about just this particular case. I used this particular case because it was current for me. But I have long argued that free spirits should be at the top of the power chain in SR, above even great dragons as there really is no upper limit for free spirits and they are the only beings who by canon can buy karma and use it, so the more powerful they get, the more karma they should be able to acquire. Every time I put forth this assertion, I was repeatedly told there was no way it could happen and someone would bind them somehow and evidently that person would be immortal so the binding would continue forever. I think the rules for free spirits were changed in part due to my discussions about this subject with Peter, who became the game director at that point and dragons got boosted a bit more and free spirits had restraints imposed, like the ritual for giving karma being changed from seconds to hours. I have long held as easy as it seems for spirits to go free, and as simple as it is for them to amass karma and therefore might, it is really odd that one rarely hears about them as power players. (Maybe they are just good at staying in the shadows, maybe possessing the relatively few great dragons in the world. )

Be that as it may, I found it odd that when I decided to play the situation as I have so often been told it would play out, I was told the opposite of what everyone had been telling me all along (basically agreeing with what I had always held.) Most of my scenarios for rapid free spirit advancement were variations of one way to get karma. I thought it would be interesting to see how many viable ways people could devise. Especially when I was told a free spirit on its own could earn more karma than a friendly magician could get for it. My conservative baseline for the magician was an average of 1 karma per day. When I've done simulations before, it usually is much much more than 1/d.

it does seem like whichever side I take, I am told I am wrong.

MitS.111 has Karma Pool for Ally Spirits. I think that's probably what you meant since the rest of the question is all about Good Karma. That's cool you influenced the god-like status Free Spirits have in SR3. They are, as you say, the uncapped kings of the food chain. When you look at the Spirits who have risen so far as to become Totems / Idols (SR3.162) and the power they wield to cut Shamans off for transgressions, that's formidable. (It isn't canon, but I wouldn't be surprised if the Karma a shaman spends learning a Spell goes to the Totem spirit.) When you look at the Free Spirits who have risen so far as to become Avatars of Magical Groups (MitS.69) and the power they wield to cut an entire group off from its Magical Link, that's formidable. When Founding a Magical Group (MitS.65) the supplicants contribute 3 Karma each and can voluntarily donate even more Karma into their offering to try to attract the interest of an Avatar Free Spirit. Just as an Initiate could be the member of multiple Groups, its feasible an Avatar could provide a Magical Link to multiple Groups the same way that, for example, the Badger Totem and the Wombat Totem are the same Spirit perceived and venerated by different groups of Shamans. If a supplicating Group doesn't offer enough strictures and customs for the prospective Avatar to pony up, only a hefty Karma offering is likely to sway them. On the other hand, a Group with oodles of strictures and customs is more attractive to the discerning Avatar because if the group breaks their Magical Link, they'll have to pay Karma to reestablish it. Once it's got its own little cult following, it's in business. It can teach Spells (SR3.180) and Metamagic techniques (MitS.70). If it's got Astral Gateway, then Astral Questors don't need to procure Altyerre (TAL.109) to bring along their roadies.

As long as the Free Spirit has minimal Karma, it can learn the Knowledge Skill (Academic) Spell Design (MitS.30, MitS.47 - Rating 2 should suffice). Cruising around on the astral plane should give it abundant opportunity to observe and reverse engineer any Spell imaginable. It probably can't use Fetishes* (but see footnote) but it can use the Exclusive limitation (SR3.180) because Materialisation (SR3.264) is only Exclusive to initiate and terminate - it's not an ongoing Exclusive Action (unlike initiating and terminating Astral Projection, SR3.173). So at this point, the Spirit essentially knows every Spell cast in its field of view, at Force 2, with Exclusive limitation, for zero Karma.

Shadowrun is dystopian. Everyone is in trouble; it's just that some are in more trouble than others. A Free Spirit with the Search power has an advantage here, but one without it can still surveil opportunities by using its nugget. Detect Life (Extended range) while cruising down a road through the desert, spot a sucker whose car broke down, and manifest beside their gasping meatsack; "Got Milk Karma?" the Spirit croons, "I've got what you need." If the meatling has been a good little organism, it coughs up blood a cloud of Karma and the Free Spirit Materialises and serves it with Create Water (TW.119), Create Food (MitS.147), Alter Temperature (MitS.146), etc. If the meatling has no (spare) Karma, the Spirit can just depart with a "Good luck with that" or "Sucks to be you". It's harder to find someone drowning to Oxygenate. It shouldn't be hard to Detect Fear in dark alleys and offer an Invisibility/Stealth to someone fleeing from muggers (by dumping all of Sorcery and Spell Pool at it, the muggers likely don't have enough Intelligence to beat your Successes, even at Force 1). If the Spirit gets Confusion and Concealment, even better. The Spirit can follow someone home from the weekly Obesity Anonymous meeting and offer to sate their appetite with Fast (MitS.142). Everywhere it goes, it will encounter impoverished homeless: if they're starving, it can offer Nutrition, and if they're replete it can offer them Intoxication (cheaper than buying Burn) or instant Orgasm (what is that custom spell? A specific effect of Control Emotion / Mob Mood?) for less Nuyen than a BTL. End-of-term school exams would be a fine harvest for a few castings of Improved Attribute: Intelligence. Happening upon a gunfight / car accident and casting Stabilise, Sterilise, Resist Pain, Awaken is more of a gamble because you can't negotiate for payment until they are conscious. However, happening upon a distraught survivor desperately trying to pack entrails back into their mangled loved one is a fruit ripe for picking, willing to pay any price for fortune to bring the leaking mess back from the brink and turn away from the light at the end of the tunnel. Pretty much any situation people these days wonder at as a miracle or stroke of luck can be explained as Spiritual Intervention. Some old grouch's dying regret is that he never reconciled with his estranged daughter on the other side of the world, and now he's on his death-bed with no future, he'd happily trade his remaining Karma for her to have a Dream (MitS.143) of love and apology from him so he can die in peace. When you can slide around at 7,200kmph (for a Force 6) and teleport to remote targets / through wards using a metaplanar shortcut, and you don't need to eat or sleep, you get around a lot. With Immunity to Normal Weapons, and healing a box every minute (MitS.98) you aren't going to suffer pain or Drain for long.

Although there is business in setting up Wards for the privacy-conscious, the Spirit probably doesn't want to leave traces of its astral signature permanently advertising "I was here" - it's going to clean up its signature whenever it casts a spell just to be on the safe side. Since this Spirit has Aura Masking, it's got some hope most Awakened won't realise its true nature if it is strategic enough to materialise then step out of a darkened doorway to start a conversation, rather than blatantly materialise-while-you-watch.

If the Spirit gets 10,000Y for an Enchanting Kit, Detect Metal, Detect Ore (both Extended range), Enchanting, Talismongering and Metallurgy, it can go around Talismongering until it can afford to buy an Enchanting Shop and accompanying Lodge and start churching out the orichalcum. Then it can donate orichalcum to ethical hospitals (if it's a Bear Shaman) or ecoconservationists or whatever to make use of the Cash-To-Karma rules in SRC.80. At 88,000 Nuyen each, orichalcum is a solid retirement plan once the Spirit is high enough Force to not worry overly about distributing lumps of its astral signature. Whether going with the average rate of 1050Y per Karma (SRC.80), 1000Y per Karma (MitS.169 for anchoring Foci), or even 5000Y per Karma (MitS.170 for prying Karma from a Karma-starved mage to spend it on your behalf) you're still looking at 17 to 88 Karma per success every 28 days, at a TN of 10 - Magic. Even if fear of being Bound was a concern prior to donating orichalcum, by the time anyone tries to use the astral signature the Spirit will have improved its Force once or perhaps even twice already. A being who doesn't need to sleep can keep the alchemical pot boiling in the background while keeping up appearances - it only needs to make an Enchanting test against TN of the number of hours away spent being worshiped / saving the world / whatever.

I had an NPC Nosferatu joygirl once who used the ecstasy of Essence Drain to give customers the best bang for their buck for consuming whatever bodily fluids they sent in her direction. This got her Essence 12 and therefore Magic 12 + Initiation Grade + Power Foci + Allies (she had to avoid Magic Loss Check situations at all costs!) but Free Spirits aren't so limited. They are, as you rightly said, at the top of the power chain.

Have you seen the film American Pimp? It's interesting. Sometimes girls will volunteer. They also discuss girls who are subdued using drugs to coerce them into the work. There is a huge difference between being promiscuous as a hobby (like university students are notorious for), or being promiscuous out of desperation (just this once! I swear!), or while bound and gagged and at knife-point. A huge difference. While the Free Spirit is being pimped out, it is doing what the master wants, when, where, and with whom / what. When it is Freed and dabbles in this line of work as an opportunity to exploit the physical appetites of pathetic biological organisms, its entire approach and reward paradigm are fundamentally different. Now the Spirit is the Master, and the meatling is but a puppet, vulnerable, at their mercy, coming with a need the Spirit can choose or refuse.


* when creating an Ally spirit, it gets one random spell the summoner knows with the same limitations. If this happens to be a Fetish-limited spell, how does the Ally deal with that? Does an appropriate fetish need to be incorporated into the Ally's Formula? It's similar to Dispelling a sustained Spell - the Dispeller has to resist Drain as if casting the spell so if the spell is Fetish-limited, and the Dispeller is not sporting a matching Fetish, how does the Dispeller deal with that?

I'm well aware of that exception, no need for a reminder. One of the questions you should ask yourself there is: Why is this rule in place? Well, to me it looks like someone (somwhat unnecessarily) tried to provide some form of incentive for free spirits to engage with player characters on a mechanical level by creating something akin to a concept of "pact" (not the actual spirit pacts from SR4 though!) and on the other hand prevent them from becoming "too powerful" - a notion that's just stupid considering that great dragons are treated as normal NPCs in that regard and explicitly already have god-like skills, spells, ect.. Since you already started questioning that rule aspect I'm not quite sure why you're now rehashing RAW on free spirits and their karmic gains!?



But it should be because that's the thing that actually impacts your game play.



Well, if you see it that way, you're free to change that for yourself and your group. But if virtually every free spirit rises above dragons in such a manner that would also change the game universe and its premises ... I'm just not seeing what you're trying to accomplish here. If you want it that way just do it and don't fool yourself with pretending that you're looking for a RAW based solution (albeit I already gave you one).



And just like your own assertion that assertion has its merits. Particularly the aforementioned great dragons would certainly "object" to such a change in power structure and thus try to bind any free spirit that reaches a certain power level and then either destroy or enslave it (or both).



Truth be told: It's of no relevance to me whether you influenced the game in that manner or not. I had my (tiny) share of influencing "the game" way before Peter was "the man" and ultimately it's of no interest these days.



And with how you present it now it looks like an exercise in futility to me ...

That was more of a question about how much of the incoming karma should be added to the Karma Pool? Normally humans add 1 point for every 10, metahumans 1 point for every 20. I thought I looked in the Spirit and dragon section about which formula they would follow, and I think it just said for GMs to give them what they felt they needed, OR and average of the team's Karma Pool. I think I favor the 1/20 or even 1/30 since they differ more from humans than metahumanity differs from humanity.


It didn't change anything up through 3rd edition, but I noticed a few points I made about free spirits and great dragons got retconned for 4th ed.


This goes a bit beyond the scope I am looking at I am not sure about the relationship or similarity of totems/idols or avatars to free spirits. I'm not at all convinced they are the same type beings, sort of like how ponies no matter how big they get, don't become horses. (Watch someone look it up and it turns out at some point a pony does get reclassified as a horse, lol.) OK, or worms get big enough and turn into snakes.


I've seen this proposed, but have never allowed it. Always cost at least 1 karma to learn a spell. But maybe you overlooked that free spirits do not even need to observe the spell to reverse engineer it, nor do they require formula (in fact, they could make money just writing spell formula all day) since they are in tune with mana and therefore know the spell formula for any spell.

I guess most of this was dependant on knowing any spell at Force 2, plus know ing Sorcery at all. The naysayers are going to jump in with every time you put forth an offer, the spirit is at risk of being bound or someone finding out it is a free spirit and selling it out to someone who can bind it. But overall, I liked some of the ideas for making an offer they couldn't refuse. They gave me an idea for a few more of my own, but maybe when they are a bit stronger and not needing to worry as much about being bound.


I always wondered about which rate to use, also which karma you are paying for, the karma they gave, or the karma the spirit got since only the full magician gives at a 1:1 ratio.


Just because I believe it, it doesn't make it so and there is less than 0 canon references to back me up.

Oh. Well if that's what you were wondering, I'd just stick with the 1:10 ratio proposed on MitS.116. Yeah you can argue that Free Spirits are (much, much) less Human than Metahumans are, but they are different in an orthogonal dimension. They work differently.
Despite the references I listed? "Avatars are powerful free spirits" "as removed as Totems and Idols from the affairs of metahumanity." "Shamans frequently consider their avatar and their totem as one and the same" (MitS.69). Before MitS had been published, detailing Free Spirits specifically, "A totem is a powerful spirit that gives the shaman magical power and knowledge." (SR3.162)
You can always house-rule it that way if you have an aversion to orisons and cantrips, but by the book, spells cost Karma equal to Force reduced by Limitations and Astral Quests. It's pretty clear on that. Nothing on MitS.94 suggests that a F2 spell after an F2 AQ costs 1 Karma to learn instead of 0. Same goes for Limitations. When NSRCG pointed it out to me more than a decade ago, I asked McMackie who was pretty thorough, and as far as he could tell it's completely legitimate.
Sorcery is a given: check MitS.118 to find that "Free allies always have this power." Access to spells at Force 2 for zero Karma is normally fine -- unless you go off-road into house-rules territory (at which point none of us know your context or what you'll encounter)!
If someone is so dehydrated beside a desert road the spirit offers them desperately needed redemption, it's unlikely they have the wherewithal to go through all the rigmarole required to bind the thing before they're unconscious/dead. If some twit wants to take a photograph of hurling themselves off a precipice at Machu Picchu, and a ghostly figure offers to Levitate them to a safe landing, are they going to reply, "Trade you 3 Karma for my life? Get real! I could pwn you if I wasn't plummeting to my-" (crunch). Even megalomaniacs have priorities. When one's drowning and an offering of Oxygenation is presented, how many are going to look a gift-horse in the mouth and flip out on an Astral Quest to track down its True Name while their body is killing them softly with its CO2? A Spirit watching them can just manabolt them if they try anything fishy: those wound penalties are going to hurt their AQ TNs. Is someone on the brink of being mugged, realising they have been offered aid by a Free Spirit, really going to say, "Yo chummers, don't stab me to death yet - just wait ten minutes will you? There's a pokemon in this alleyway I wanna add to my collection before I die." Same goes for each of those scenarios.

I had several NPR free spirits in my sr3 game. One was a player ally spirit in the body of a black cat. Sold spells and magical assistance for karma food and board. One was a talislegger that paid mundane for karma. Another was a body guard that was paid karma and cash by his employer. A free combat humonculus worked for the corp that made it. In its contract it was paid Nguyen and paid corp employees to donate karma with corp wizzers help. There was a grand zombie who was part of a ghoul pack. Finally I had a powerful ally spirit who usd their wealth power and magical teaching to be a duke in tir tangier. So sold metamagics for karma as a citizen of the state.