Karma Rules

Session Karma:

The average session, not counting mission awards, should earn an active and responsive player between 3 and 5 karma.

1) Learning Curve - What did your character learn that will affect your actions and decisions in the future? (This must be written on the character sheet.)

2) Suspension of Disbelief – Was it evident to the ST (and no one else – keep your mouth shut, peanut gallery) that you played your character (not a mere extension of yourself), stayed in character for the most part, and rolled with the punches without OOC complaint?

3) Paranoia – What does your character believe will happen in the future? What do you, as a player, predict will come about as repercussions for the events of this game? Karma will be awarded based on merit, specificity, and the critical basis of your prediction.

4) Big Damn Heroes – Did your character do the right thing, when it was substantially easier not to? This does not necessarily imply action, but it does require risk, danger or cost.

5) Oscar Moment – Was your character involved in a scene where a deeper motivation or part of their history was revealed to dramatic effect, or involved in a scene of excellent or award-winning dialogue?

6) Atmosphere – Did you actively and consistently contribute to maintaining the atmosphere of the Shadowrun setting? This includes using the Shadowrun lexicons, improvising flavour that helps to immerse the other characters in the world, developing your characters perceptions and understanding of the world, and NPCs.

7) Cohesion - Did your character work smoothly and effectively with your team-mates? Did you contribute to the development of the plan and make the team's success more vital than your own particular role?

8) Space and Snacks: I like snacks! This represents an actual contribution that everyone benefits from. Offered space must be clean, allergen-free, and spacious enough for game play. Food must be edible and enough for everyone.

Mission Karma:

At the completion of each mission, PCs will earn karma based on how well they accomplished the mission.

1 - for marginal success, i.e. you killed the guy you were supposed to kill. It was messy, but he’s dead.

2 - for complete success, i.e. you killed the guy you were supposed to, and everyone will think he just had a heart attack.

3 - for a creative or extraordinary success, i.e. You found out the guy you were hired to kill was a witness to a federal investigation who was exposing the evil vampires who control the Blue Sun corporation. You saved him (well, he did pay you for not killing him) and made it look like you blew up his house (with a clone of him in it for corroborating evidence). You saved the life of the would-be-vampire-corporation-destroyer, were paid loads of cash, and of course helped to destroy an evil vampire-controlled corporation.

Karma Penalties:

Karma penalties exist to reduce the amount of stress in a game. Believing in the Storyteller and your fellow players is the most basic component of Shadowrun, and there are a number of examples of behavior that will only end up penalizing your character, such as:

-1 OOC whining about the turn of events in a game;

-1 complaining about getting negative karma;

-1 complaining about a player’s portrayal of a character;

-1 disrupting game play with excessive rules arguments;

-1 coaching or pressuring other players to act in your favour;

-1 excessive and willful dismissal of stated rules, and other forms of cheating;

-1 casually ignoring previously learned lessons;

-1 demonstrating knowledge impossible for one’s character to know;

-1 "I had that here all along", where you have to argue that something you don't (or do) usually denote as carried gear is on hand when you probably left it in the car. Think of it like karmic teleportation. If you insist on carrying everything, remember your carrying capacity!;

-1 for intentional and disruptive factionalism;

-1 for OOC grudges being brought IC.

Also, while not an OOC penalty, if characters do horrible things they will lose Karma. This is because Karma is called Karma, and in some sense represents what the characters morally deserve. Think of it as the inverse of 'Big Damn Heroes'. This is not common and will not be levied against combatants (even unrighteous ones). Examples include releasing a virus that will destroy all elves to the evil anti-elf group, or intentionally killing non-combatants in cold blood.