Epic to normal runners. Just another one of his save the world walk in the parks to him.

Which is why he gets his ass kicked by the Horrors in Harlequin's Back. Uh-huh, yeah. Just a walk in the park.

~J

Doesn't matter one iota. Unless you want to point to a table in the books that shows Karma awards based upon past earnings. You know, like "If you have earned 1,000 or more Karma, you don't earn any for this adventure. Everyone else earns 10 points worth." Go on, find that table for me.

Oh, and good job of avoiding the rest of what I said. <thumbs up>

I'm not sure what part of 'Completing the Mission' is not understood. There is no proviso that the mission must be a challenge for Karma to be awarded. If the mission is a challenge, then even more Karma is awarded for it's completion.

There isn't. All I'm saying is that with he having so much Karma and having very high Attributes and skills as a result, it isn't an adventure for him. No adventure, no Karma. He can continue gaining Karma from adventures, I never claimed otherwise.

For me I tie the amount of Karma/Attributes/Skills into the defination of adventure. As a defination, Ultimate NPCs do not roll dice. I see any "encounter" in that there is no need to roll dice as not being an adventure. When Harlequin actually needs to roll, yes, he gets that Karma, but he is always an Ultimate NPC - THE Mr No-Stat, therefore no dice roll ever.

Oh, and good job of avoiding the rest of what I said. <thumbs up>

The very defination for a Karma award is that there needs to be an adventure in the first place. Without an adventure, there can be no Karma award at all.

There are no levels, this is not D&D. But

Maybe I'm just not familiar with Shadowrun's definition of "adventure." Maybe you could find that for me. While you're at it, explain all those other karma reward criteria that have jack all to do with any of that.

No ...

First of all, you need to have an adventure. Only by completing that adventure, you go to the Karma awards criteria.

All Karma awards are tied to adventure. Without adventure, no Karma. By Canon, the only thing that is not an adventure is doing your laundry unless the laundromat is in a urban combat zone.

I pretty much agree with Toturi in that it gets more difficult to earn karma as one becomes more powerful simply becasue one must overcome a challange to do so. For Harlequin most ordinary challanges are the equivilant of doing laundry.

However, I don't think there is a lack of things for Harlequin to find challaning enough to earn karma. It doesn't have to be saving the world, just something equally challanging.

It all comes down to what you define as an adventure. If you are stuck in D&D mentality and thinking that an adventure has to be challenging to be an adventure, then so be it.

If the adventure is not challenging, then the character doesn't receive that part of the Karma award. That does not in and of itself mean that the character cannot acheive goals, or have good ideas, or any other way that Karma can be earned.

Right on, Kanda. Something as simple as convincing a racist that orks are people too can be a challenge that causes someone to look into their own soul and view their personal predjudices, which is an adventure in and of itself (one could argue), especially when the soul-searcher isn't really (meta)human himself, in a literal meaning of the words. Is that an adventure that I'd run as a GM? Probably not; my players tend to like to blow shit up. Could it be one? Oh yeah.

I'd say that just staying sane is adventure enough to earn karma after 8 or 10 thousand years. But I must again go back to my first point that IEs and Dragons break the rules of karma completely by their magical nature and ties to the 4th world.

Just my view.

My point is that an adventure needs to have some value. And the simplest way to measure that is to have challenge.

Ordinary people do go on adventures. A stressful day at the office can be a mini-adventure. Rushing that report for that obnoxious client can be an adventure. For a 5 year old, going to school himself is an adventure. For a 13 year old, his first kiss is an adventure.

And I'm willing to bet that in an alien world without magic, with evolving and changing technology and social systems, Harlequin probably managed to average out at absolute minimum one karma point a year.

~J

Um, why would an immortal (elf, dragon, or otherwise) want to adventure? I mean, what do they really have to gain from running around fighting?

Most of the IEs seem perfectly happy sitting back and running the Tirs, and let their minions do all the actual work. Not to mention that there are probably decade long boughts of apathy (esp. during the downcycle) brought on by the death of people they care about (or at least by the mindnumbing sameness of "mundane" life). So, while they have a few action packed decades here or there, I would think that most of them would spend quite a bit of time just trying to entertain themselves, and keep feelers out so they can maintain their power among the other immortals.

Add that to the care that most of them take before involving themselves with anything, and Good Karma would come very, very slowly compared to the average 'runner that expects to be geeked or arrested in less than a year, and thus lives life a little faster.

Then factor in all the karma for skills improvements as technology grows, quickenings, learning uber-spells, bargaining with free spirits, improving attributes so you can soak the drain from said uber-spells, and regaining attribute points from damage, disease, or Ascetic Ordeals, creating allies, etc. and I think 10-20 grades doesn't sound too bad.

I would also think that most of the IE's would prefer to master the abilities they have before going for more power, which would also slow down their initiations. I mean, once you learn all the techniques known to Elf-kind, and are more powerful than 99.99% of people capable of using magic, I think the brunt of your attention would turn elsewhere (statecraft, for example).

That would also explain why Harlequin is as powerful as he is--he hasn't turned the majority of his attention to global politics like his fellows.

Maybe he got less.... Maybe the rise and fall of the Roman Empire was just one adventure to him, say 20 karma. Maybe the Dark Ages was another adventure, another 20 karma. Renaissance, same 20 karma. so on and so forth.

And maybe each and every second without easily accessible magic was a 20-karma adventure in and of itself. We're into territory we can't even vaguely begin to have a sensible debate on.

So, anyone think the figure at the beginning of Harlequin's Back is Ysrthgrathe?

~J

Why is everyone assuming that it is even possible to earn karma in the downcycle? Hindu religious doctrine aside, there is no solid evidence for the existance of karma in the fifth world.

Opps, K10 beat me to it.

Dunno, aren't shamans sorta questors. You follow a certain god, accept restrictions on your activities based on the attributes of the god, and you get more powers (totem advanteages) for it.

Somehow I don't think "staying in character" award requires you to have been in a gunfight or to have had a challenging time figuring out one of those damnable Rubik's Cubes.

Should you, however, solve one of those damnable Rubik's Cubes, you'll have earned a point of Karma for the "smarts" award.

If someone decides to do something different from the routine, such as travel to an exotic locale or simply take a vacation, that might warrant a "motivation" award based upon the description thereof.

Hell, if you're just in the right place at the right time in order to use some skill you possess, that warrants a point of karma for the "right place/right time" award.

For crying out loud, if *you* (not your character) makes everyone else fall to the ground rolling, your character deserves a point of karma for the "humor" award.

I honestly don't know why some of you are so dead-set on thinking that karma is only earned from performing mind-boggling or death-defying feats. That is not backed-up anywhere except in regards to specific types of karma rewards. Just read over the "Awarding Karma" section of the game on SR3 p. 244. Then read through some of the sample awards in the published adventures/runs/campaigns/whatever you want to call them (and, again, take note that not once will you find anything that even comes close to saying that players don't deserve any points if they're already really powerful, or that the adventure wasn't much of a challenge for them -- they may earn one or two *more* points if it is, but again, those are conditional awards).

Non player characters cannot earn Roleplaying Karma Awards, such as Humor, Stroy Breaking, Smarts, Staying In-Character ect as only player action casues those from my reading of the rules.

Nope, I was referring to assorted others in this thread. And of course NPCs don't earn some rewards as part of a normal award-giving-out-thingie. The GM isn't responsible for that. Aside from the Humor one, however, they're almost all available to NPCs as much as they are PCs, even if it isn't necessarily the GM who's dishing those points out.

I suppose the biggest flaw I see in the idea that someone will gain karma and improve their skills for 2000 or 30,000 years is that there is no mechanic for the perishable nature of knowledge in SR (or for that matter, any other game I can think of).

That is to say, if Joe Dandelion-Blower has a rough time in the Dark Ages and has to up his Edged Weapons to 6 because the Visigoths don't like sissy boys (putting aside that this is all blatantly anti-elf racist stereotyping), and then he moves to Venice and doesn't have to pick up a sword for the next 1500 years, when he does find himself using a butter knife to defend the honor of a Waffle House waitress, he will still have a 6 in said skill, just as he did when he laid the sword down in 564.

This to me, seems odd.

Secondly, I take issue with the idea implicit in the IE mythology that immortality is a big thumbs up from the universe. I've seen too many episodes of the Twilight Zone, perhaps, that deal with the idea that immortality has a downside (and when you're talking about statless npcs with "high" double digit Initiate Grades, a downside of them being kind of mopey doesn't really seem to balance the slate) to buy the idea of the IEs as presented in SR.

Most people have enough trouble getting through one lifetime, much less eons (though admittedly, I don't know any elves... who've revealed themselves to me). I would be much more in favor of IE's if they were broken down old men with the bodies of 20 year olds and the minds of 2 year olds. (And the idea of a toddler who was a Grade 88 Inititate does interest me, though I could not in good conscience make him statless. I'm just not wired that way. And it was also an episode of the Twilight Zone, anyway.)

You might say, in their defense, "But they are not humans, they are elves. They are genetically fit for immortality. They can take it."

Well on that point, to quote Josiah Bartlett, I conceed the high ground. Elves are ficitonal creatures, and fictional creatures behave as the fiction requires. I find that the IE's as written in SR are uninteresting to me, and so I am unlikely to be swayed by any argument in their favor (much as I expect anyone who likes IE's will not be swayed by this one). Its uninteresting to me because I can't relate to it; its a bridge to far in my suspension of disbelief. Morality seems so intergral to the idea of a human being, that to remove it would make whatever creature that would be completely alien, and not, say, Leonardo da Vinci with a slightly hipper rap.

If IEs and dragons were written like Insect Spirits, "of a completely alien mindset, incomprehensible to humans", I would have less of a problem with it. The immediate jump in logic to make there (since this relates back to my primary complaint in the whole IE, GD thingamabob), is the idea of statless insect spirits. Which I imagine would be a hard idea to get funding for. Because Insect Spirits are Bad Guys, and its no fun pitting the pcs against a foe that they have absolutely no hope of affecting (at least, no fun for the pcs). IEs and GDs aren't Bad Guys, they're just there to deus ex soda machina plot points.

Except I don't run games with Good Guys and Bad Guys, it's just a bunch of guys; and the characters I want to motivate plot are the ones the players are controlling.

Its funny (not funny ha-ha) but if this was a D&D forum, I would be on the exact opposite side of the fence. I think one of the stupidest things D&D did-- and lets face it, that list is going to be long but distinguished-- was stat gods. Statted, Thor ceases to be the God of Thunder and instead becomes a challenging encounter for 4-6 characters level 35-40.

But, as has been pointed out earlier, SR isn't D&D (though there is a point in very bad SR and very good D&D where they overlap; its not exactly sex and law school we're comparing here). What I am looking for in an SR game is not what I am looking for in a D&D game, or any high fantasy game. I come at the game from the other side, the underside, from the bottom up. The low fantasy side. Shadowrun can handle high fantasy just fine (it is an incredibly versatile system), but I'm just not interested in it. For me, SR works best where it is relatable to real life. The trials and tribulations of the average SR group is much more accessible to me than that of the average high fantasy group. No one's out to defeat Sauron or save the world from the forces of darkness in SR; their concerns look a lot like mine. They want to make rent, they want to not go to jail. To me, this is the strength of the low-fantasy game. Its immediate. Its one or two jumps away from real life. There's a point in high fantasy where you jump the shark, where the game just loses credibility. It varies from player to player and from group to group. With me, it starts just on this side of IE's.

But thats just my opinion, I could be wrong.

PS: I have realized in scribbling this that I have buried three or four movie or television references in there, and rather than go back and attribute them all-- as I did with the West Wing quote-- I'll just point out I know they're there and I'm not trying to get away with anything.

I agree with mercer on the first part of his post about memory.

I disagree in that one of the things I love about shadowrun is the possibility of High Fantasy. I do like it when my players have a chance to affect the world. They may save it, damn it or something. I guess its that versatility tht makes SR so popular.

It seems like the whole argument's pointless unless people agree ahead of time on what definitions they're using.

Does karma represent

• a purely abstract game construct created to incent players to go on an adventure?
• some quantity of personal growth gained by facing challenges that force the character to apply themselves? (It wasn't easy forcing myself to eat raw yak penises on Fear Factor, but I'm now a tougher person because of it...)
• the impact that the character makes on the world through his (mis-)deeds? (i.e. by changing the world I change myself)
• effort and focus spent applying themselves to accomplish something? (e.g. spending months lifting weights to increase my body and strength)

I can see an argument where people improve much more if they have to really work at it (i.e. in athletics, you learn more by competing against those better than you compared to only competing against wimps). But diligent, long-term practice can improve skills even without tough competition (albeit much more slowly).

I would guess that IEs accumulate huge amounts of karma over time, but most of it gets either blown (hand of God incidents) or used on mundane stuff associated with day to day life. So, over 2,000 years Harly may well have adopted roles of farmer, soldier, politician, aristocrat, scientist, athlete, etc, etc and spent karma building up the associated skills of each. Maybe half his lifetime accumulated karma has gone toward stuff that's not even useful any more (language skill in Mesopotamian, etiquette skill in Renaissance Court politics, Build/repair manual printing presses, etc.)

The only house rule I eve came up with to represent perishable knowledge (and thats not to say its a good one), I'd let a pc lower a stat or skill and receive karma equal to buying that reduced rating. (Frinstance in 2ed, dropping a stat from 5 to 4 would net someone 4 points. Man stats were cheap in those days). These points were added into karma point total because the represented a redistribution of karma, rather than earning more.

No one ever did it because you were basically losing points on the trade (to increase the stat back to 5 would cost 5, so you'd lose 1 point to break even). The only time it would have been useful is if the character needed a few points of karma quick (such as, he needed to initiate before the next run to lose a geas), or if he had dumped a bunch of points into a dead end skill he later decided blew. If anyone had taken advantage of it, I might have put some limitations like it could only be done once every X amount of time, or so on, but since no one used it, it was never abused.

Mainly I just wanted something to mechanically represent that unused skills sort of fade away, or that as you put effort into one area, another weakens.

Any living IE has Hand of Godded at most once.

~J

Unless you're an 1337 immortal elf who doesn't stick to the rules...