Now shadowrunners being the criminals/lawless people they are, some might let them get away with whatever they want.
But does anyone have an idea to handle such a thing as Bad Karma?

eg.
gun down 6 people in a mall, because they looked at ya funny?
kill 3 squatters because they got too close to your car?

I could go hard on hard and never let them get away with it, ie LSSS or friends of the deceased etc.
But does anyone have an idea to use as a deterrent to keep the players from devolving into a maelstrom of blood and fire?

Insofar as I am aware, SR has never made a distinction between "good" and "evil" points, just experience.

"Karma" in SR terms is strictly that - experience.

It doesn't share any particular relationship with the philosophical nature of "karma" in real life.

That being the case, a GM always has the discretion to withhold karma if he feels the players are wantonly abusive and violating the "game spirit". Interpret that as you will.

The general concensus on the board runs along the lines of - "do bad things and Nature will take her course in due time."

-Siege

Those call for reprecussions within the gameworld, not the acquisition of "Bad Karma." In fact, the word "Karma" is a misnomer. It really should just be called "Experience" because that's exactly what it is; Karma Pool could still be called that, and honestly it would end a lot of confusion between the two, too. The original designers were just loathe to use anything that sounded too much like D&D.

ah maybe in a hostage situation, Aim for the dude using the the hostage as a hostage and then lets the shot off that was sure to hit the bozo, but instead fatally kills the hostage. Now thats some bad luck...or Karma i should say.

Yes, consequences of their actions and by not coddling them and letting them to survive things they shouldnt when those consequences come full circle. If their actions have consequences then their behavior is self limiting.

Karma is a reward for doing the right thing as well as experience. SR3Comp p80. If you do bad things, you just loose Good Karma. You can buy karma, though, since the wealthy make their own luck.

You generally give out less Good Karma when you want to penalize PCs for "evil" actions.

As I recall, there's an old published scenario involving a nasty bioweapon. If the PCs don't try to stop it, or actually sell it to the highest bidder, they suffer a Karma penalty, to the extent that I think they could loose some previously earned Good Karma.

SR3Comp p80. Amoral and Immoral campaigns. Breaking the law doesn't mean you're not a good person.

New Thread started on this topic to avoid derailment...

The thing I dislike is that the game tries to rationalize away the name of a game term rather than simply treat it the way it's meant to be treated (as experience). Yeah, it's cool that they call it Karma; it adds some interesting flavor and gives the game some character. But the consequences of that terminology are... less than desireable in my opinion.

Treating it as experience points is exactly how it should be treated. It gets rid of all the ambiguity, not to mention the penalties for good roleplaying (oh no, a hardened career criminal just shot a guard while on a job to assassinate the CEO of some AA corporation -- the horror!), while simultaneously opening the door for more roleplaying opportunities in the form of reprecussions for truly terrible actions.

Give me ten sessions involving Lone Star tracking a character down for murder over a -1 Good Karma penalty any day of the week.

There's a certain base level of nastiness to be expected. PCs who managed to avoid the guard entirely or use only non-lethal methods might be looking at an overall higher karma award for the session, though.

Karma is experience, yes, but it is also akin to "cosmic brownie points" (SR3Comp's words, not mine). People who don't kiss up to the universe tend to earn less karma, but more cash... which they can then use to "buy" their influence and power, as it were.

I seem to recall a optional rule somewhere (I have been playing since 89 so my senility and way too many reads of various editions is getting in the way here), but wasn't there an optional rule somewhere that abolished the GM giving karma and basically players bought karma?

Mainly to hit the so called 'amoral' campaign, which certainly seems to be a bit of the feel of shadowrun if you look between some of the lines. It took the GM out of the "that was good/bad" etc, which when I first started, I remember balking at adventures like DNA/DOA that had you subtract karma if they did not do XYZ (which I followed for fear of the FASA police banging on my door and taking my books away..age and wisdom and a growing waistline have allowed me to ignore rules now as I see fit now).

I let my players do whatever they want and focus on in-game repercussions...there, in reality, is tons of to be made smuggling things like drugs and guns, but the stakes are that much higher in my games.

the metaphysics and what not of their actions are addressed when they are dead, something that my game never deals with (heaven, nirvana, hell, whatever...). But I never tried out the cash for karma principle and was wondering if anyone had ever used that or even liked it?

oops...just saw that someone talked about immoral campaigns..sorry to clutter up..but I guess my question is does anyone use/like those variants. Again, sorry to waste space if that is my crime

Killing because it is simpler than thinking earns less karma.

Throwing a grenade into a crowd of fifty to kill a man who stole your wallet earns no karma. No challenge was overcome, no deed was done.

Holding to a moral code, even when doing wrong would be easier, faster, simpler, and safer earns extra karma. The threat was raised, the challenge reached.

Do you award the jumper who sneaks under the bar the same as she who leaps over it?

I've only penalized karma for 'heinous' acts three times (that I can remember)

Once was when the teams gun-crazy street sam executed a family of ghouls, including an infant, that were begging for mercy and hadn't done anything against the character (He wanted the bounty that was in effect there at the time)

Once when the same character killed some squatters in order to force the remaining squatters to walk first up the stairs into an ambush.

Third time was when the same character and his friend used rocket launchers while in a diner, setting fire to the people eating breakfast at the table behind them.


All the other times I've deducted karma it's been for failing with certain parts of a job. No wait, there are two cases where the PCs knowingly used enough plastique to blow out an entire floor of a populated building just to 'remove evidence'. They lost karma for that too.

From that description, you should be penalizing such unprofessional runners with death, not docked karma. That sort of behavior should get you killed.

Is worth noting that karma pool is derived from good karma recieved.

Karma gets you karma pool, so karma eventually does get you luck, ect...

Previously addressed.

SR Companion Third Edition, page 80, "Karma and the Amoral Campaign"

"As a race, we humans like to believe that the cosmos rewards constructive and productive actions more readily than greedy or destructive ones. As is clearly indicated in the rules for Karma and the Karma awards suggested in every published adventure, the Shadowrun rules reflect this belief by rewarding characters who do good deeds and punishing those who fail to do the right thing."

In the same section there is an optional rule for Karma awards, like cha-cha said. Normal Karma awards go away and the GM determines nuyen cost for buying Karma by dice-roll with purchased Karma counting like "normal" Karma would (effecting Karma Pool).

I always interpretted the Karma penalties in adventures as taking away from the potential Karma award, not from what a character already had. So as far as I know, there is no official way to handle "bad karma" from not being one of the good guys, characters just earned less if they behaved badly or don't try hard enough to do the "right" thing.

The mechanic is Karma = experience and that's how I prefer it to be without the additional ethical element. To me, Karma is awarded for a job well done and for good roleplaying, without concern for who's good or bad. I think Karma for cash and it's converse should only be used when the rigger/decker/samurai or mage/physad has too much of the wrong thing and can't advance.

IMO sloppy and stupid runners will earn less Karma, not because they're bad people, but because they can't do the job right.

AS I have always played it, once Karma is awarded, it is sacrosanct and is not taken away, but may be spent by the player as indicated in the rules. I also published a listing of how much it costs to buy karma in my campaign, a sliding log scale that gets hideously expensive.
However, the awards I give are based on how much the player brought to the game. Did he participate? Did he participate effectively? Was he polite enough to let others participate? Did he role play effectively? Did he assist in self policing the group? All of these things matter to me more than did he kill a security guard, because if I and my other players are not enjoying the game due to a given player, then what is the point?
Our group has developed the ability to train new (or new to the group) players to make the game enjoyable for everyone. Those that won't learn, face the consequences.
On consequences:
When they 'are bad' in game, there are consequences. Prices are placed on heads, warrants are issued, the news gets a story and it is all over 'trid and screamsheets, and so on. Usually, if it is one player causing problems, that player will earn the enmity of someone powerful enough to place a bounty. If it is good enough, or the reason obvious enough, my other players will take that bounty and turn the offending character in.
I have seen this wake up call dramatically improve one players table manners, so to speak. He got a second chance and is pulling his weight at the table.
Anyway, that is how I handle it, your mileage may vary.

(edited because spell checkers don't catch things like "lets all prey for whirled peas")

Thanks for all the replies, gosh longest thread ever started by me ...it even spawned a new one hehe

Lotta different views here. I tend to view Karma as a bit of both (Xp and ...well karma) So I was looking for someones take on how to handle "evil" players.
If my players do something selfless and heroic I award more good karma for that. It has nothing to do with that act being more experiencing.

I lean towards giving out less karma, for evil or immoral acts, since thats a simpler solution than creating a new situation where the players have to dodge the star og yaks or whatever. Just seems like more work for me, more danger for groupmembers and only because some dude decided that those squatters wasnt worth the air they were breathing.

Thinking about it, I've seen a lot of players who's characters are amoral, but not much that I'd consider actively immoral. In other words, the pcs might kill innocents because they were in his way, but I rarely see them go out of their way to kill innocents because they think that's a fun way to spend an afternoon.

If I had someone like that in my group I'd probably find it kind of creepy.

That sounds like a very, very stupid idea. Unless they're about as powerful as powerful gets (not to mention smart and lucky), Lone Star will find and kill them. I'd wager that LS and KE have the capacity to bring down just about any criminal group, if it were worth that kind of resource commitment to do it.

If they are never seen, leave behind absolutely nothing, and no one outside of their trusted cabal ever learns about the activity, then they're probably okay. Once any of those things stops happening, they're toast, though. Between psychometry and symbolic linking, it doesn't take a whole lot to find a criminal. Provided you've got reason to bring enough experts in the field to the effort (which costs to do).

The ultimate caveat -- stupid things happen.

There are serial killers who go for years without being detected -- murders that never get solved.

Juarez, Mexico is a prime example.

The DC snipers were another example - eventually they were caught. Most of us in the US were at least peripherally aware of the intensity of the manhunt going on, but it was a combination of happenstance and dumb luck, as well as civic-minded civilians who were responsible for the information leading to an arrest.

The paradox - very bright people screw up or get screwed by circumstance and never make it out of the starting gate.

Dragging this back to SR - "shadowrunners" are hardly a uniform organization that LS/KE/Interested parties could strike against. With that in mind, I'm sure LS/KE/etc. do make token efforts against "shadowrunners", like local police departments make against "drug dealers" or "johns" or "prostitutes". How successful are these campaigns, beyond a sound bite and a blurb on the evening news?

The downfall of Organized Crims is that is, well, Organized. That organization gives interested agencies a specific target to go after. It is much harder to crack down on all drug dealers in Atlanta (for example) because you would be chasing thousands of individuals with no links to each other. And attacking the supply line is a great idea, when you can find it.

-Siege