One of our bigger changes for New Seattle concerns the +nom system. We're doing away with karma awards for +noms. Don't try to talk us out of it, the decision's already been made. But we do want your input on what +noms should be able to be used for. We currently have a short list, but the more minds we can apply, the better. Just keep in mind that it can't be karma or anything that you would otherwise use karma for.

• Item Customization (Names and Descs)
• Favors (As described in the SR3 Companion, basically a temporary contact)
• Contact Level Improvement (Since there's no rules for it yet)
• Small Cash Awards (Replacing +karma2cash)

We're also interested in how you guys think the mechanics of +nomming should work. Should we stick with the 2 per character per week limit? What about the number of +noms you have to give out, should we stick with 2 at the start and give more with more activity? Should it be related to the number of +noms that you yourself have recieved? Both? Any other questions or comments?

Well, I like the last three you put there, since those are generally difficult things to do. Raising contacts and such. I'd dislike to hinge customization of descs and names on +noms, but rather hinge that on application and qualiity of those customizations. Thats just something you  should be able to get if you've got the right idea or something that will add depth to the game or the character.

Obviously, I guess you guy's are going to try lowering the ungodly amounts of karma folks have. Can't say I agree with that, but, I can see your reasoning.

While I'd suggest keeping karma2cash, I like the idea of having some way to get /money/ via noms, because, well, you all know what type of character I play.

A good idea might be to make nom points, and let player's do lots of different things for them, including reimbursing them for cash.

Can't think of much you'd want to do with those Noms... I don't know. Maybe increases in Street Rep, Noteriety, or Public Awareness, but that would be really selective on the type of nom, generally, so maybe not.

No way I'm gonna spend my time reviewing customizations for quality. How about if we give you two free ones, like we do now? As for the Reputation things, Street Rep is already linked to karma, so that's out. Notoriety, I don't know why you'd want to increase. Same with Public Awareness...how about decreases instead?

Jeez, I dunno.? Since +noms and the autokarma ticker used to be how casual RPers would (slowly) advance their characters, I'm honestly having a hard time seeing +noms used for anything else.

The bragging rights were nice, and arguably they were the best benefit.? "Oh, look, Bob keeps getting +nom rewards.? He must be cool to hang out with."? Popularity leads to RP, RP leads to fun, and you've got your whole Circle of MUSH Life thing going at that point.

Maybe just take a cue from eBay and give folks an RP rating (based on +noms)?? Reward the "better" and/or more dedicated players with the appropriate non-game-effect attaboy.? Put the ratings on the +who or +finger or somewhere otherwise accessible to the public.? That way people will be encouraged to strike up a conversation with some heavily-lauded stranger at the bar, and both parties might get a +nom out of it afterwards.

If you are not going to use +noms for Karma than there is only one other thing I think that they'd be especially useful for... nuyen.

You'd want to make it small cash rewards (like stated as a suggestion) in order to give those players who don't get on Shadowruns too often, and those people who RP more than they can be in plots, the ability to still survive in the game.  I remember there being a big discussion about making lifestyles free because someone wanted to have their character be able to survive as a mechanic.  Well, NOW YOU CAN!  Just give out like 25-50 nuyen per +nom, limit each character to like 3 +noms they can issue per week.

This way if someone really wants to not go on Shadowruns they can, although in order to do so and still pay for their lifestyle they're gonna need to RPRPRPRPRPRPRP! And that's good for the grid.  All the other options don't work out too well directly with the +nom system.  This money can replace karma2cash and mitigate lifestyle costs. 

If you do not want to do that, than you may think about just getting rid of +noms all together.  It shouldn't be useable to raise contacts, you can do that with RP and plots.  Cause its at GM's discretion.  In addition, unique customizations to your stuff oughta not just be handed out but worked for in plots/rp/etc and than purchased.  As for reputation and such, I thought that'd be the only second place option, except in retrospect I don't like it either.  Leave that stuff controllable by the system already in place in the book.

NES

Hey, if you've got some freakish detective or other character that could /use/ the publicity, Public Awareness can be a good thing. And /some/ of us might want a book deal. <.< >.>

Seriously though, yeah. Moneys. Though mabye a little more then 50 yen. Maybe like...  150, or 200. Thats like, at least something I can do stuff with, like buy something more then a Baton or a Knife.

Plus then theres a chance that my nom's might pay for a low lifestyle, or abouts.

At 200 nuyen per nom, you'd only need 10 noms to make for 2000 nuyen.  That's pretty easy to get even if people were restricted to 2 noms per week.  You get people in a week getting that many... but even if they were only semi-active than you'd have people who got 2 noms per week getting 1600 nuyen a month.  Without participating in plots really.  And it increases the likelyhood of re-creating nomming circles of old.  But instead of getting 30 noms and getting 8 karma, you get 30 noms and get 6k in nuyen.  A worthwhile plot that'd be...

So, to prevent noms from replacing plots, but still giving a good outlet for people to not just be sucked dry by their lifestyles... I think 50 nuyen is a good way of going.  Than you'd need 4x that many noms.  If you got 10 per week, than you'd get 2k which means you've supplimented your lack of plotting with lots of RP.  That's how you afford to live.  3 noms per character per week to be given out would be 150 nuyen max I could give you if you blew me away.  At first in the beta it might be tough to get 2k per month, but that'll only be because there's not a lotta people on.  But after that, once it opens, it'll be super easy.

Again, for those people whom neither plot nor RP, sorry.  You shouldn't try maintaining a lifestyle without some sorta residual income.  Which, usually, don't exist in SR MU*s, so you're SOL.

NES

I have to say, I very much like the no-karma-for-noms decision. (And I might be the only one. )

I think you can't come up with how we should set up the nom system without first deciding on the payout. If that payout is to be cash, I suggest the following system:

Give everyone two noms to give out every week. Allow them additional noms to give out in return for activity (automated, natch). Allow PCs to give noms however they want, however, each PC can only give any other single PC a max of two noms a week (works against nom circles, and powerfully encourages people to get out and RP with different people, which is very healthy for the game). Make noms worth nuyen, 50Y/nom for the first ten a PC gets in one week, then 25Y/nom for an additional ones they have received beyond ten. This helps the people who can't RP constantly not to be completely outclassed by the 24/7 types, while still rewarding the top nom-getters with (comparatively) plenty of cash.

Yes, the money totals are a bit low. If you want wires, go on a Shadowrun. It's the name of the game.

I like everything about your suggestion(s), Aries, except for noms awarding money.? I'm okay with noms not translating into karma; it just feels like translating them into cash is too big of a disconnection between concepts.

Karma is a nebulous currency earned from "doing stuff."? You get it for RPing, accomplishing objectives, and so forth.? Then you spend it on anything from getting noticeable results at the gym to improving your underwater basketweaving talents.? You got noms from people noticing you doing stuff, which turned into the "doing stuff" currency.? There was symmetry there.

A "nom2cash" system would generate spontaneous financial income for even ascetic monk-type characters and homeless bums.? Where am I getting this money from? How am I storing it, if I have no commlink nor credstick?? It would break (under the conditions of) certain character concepts.

On the other side of the coin, "nom2cash" would become proportionately meaningless as a character gained wealth: Why worry about RPing for penny-ante noms when I just made 20k on that run?? I'll just sit in my personal hidey-hole and only come out when someone is running a job; to heck with roleplay.

~~~~~

It's very hard to generate some sort of game-mechanic benefit for earning noms when the only (obvious) rewards in Shadowrun distill down into nuyen and karma.

Even a bum or a monk has some valuable posessions, their cardboard box or some incense. More importantly, if we have lots of different options, I think we can trust folks not to jack the system around too much, just like we trust them with low-level KSR usage. Sure, some folks do 'cheat', but it doesn't break the game when they do. The more ways there are to use +noms, the more incentive there is to gain them, even if some of the uses don't make sense for their character. Some people are going to avoid RP anyway, so let's give those who do a wide range of options.

New Ideas:
Perhaps, as Mark suggests, we could add a ticker to someone's +finger, say '+noms per hour connected'? It'd give an incentive to avoid idling in your apartment.

If we go with money, how about 2D6 x 10 =Y=? Keep it random, just like the old +karma2cash system.

Well, biggest problem I see is that some folks don't really /nom/ so much, or some other folks (me) Forget to give a nom until I do a +nomlist and go, "Oops! I shoulda nommed that person I did that scene with! Then again, thats not so much a problem for folks who get the shadowrunnage.

I do think its a good idea, at least, to give /some/ sort of nom2cash system to the game because it adds some flexability to what I can do with a character, and gets around the "Well we shouldn't be giving anyone a FREE RIDE just becasue they might want to play a non-shadowrunning supporting type character/not be on during peak or plot hours/not take every nun/child/innocent security guard killing Plot thats slung his way." problem. Keeping it random would be nice too. Kinda like a gambling thing. Thoug I still think it should be a little more then 50 yen. Maybe 75-100. But thats just me.

Now, it might be nice to have a nom2karma and nom2cash type system, though no karma would be given for noms.... meh. Least it'd keep me from wasting karma with karma2cash. But what I mean more is that you get an amount of raw noms and then use them as you want. If you want to save up like... 50 and then cash them in for money all at one time, you can do that. Also, I'd note that when you play a monk/bum/street shaman character that doesn't really earn money from their dealings (whether that be just being homeless or actually doing the greater good in a impovershed community.), that you don't have to /RP/ having the amount of money that you do have. Just like you can RP tossing 100 yen at someone, but not really deduct that. You can just say, "Oh, right, I found that 10,000 yen." Or, heaven forbid, say you did something to earn that money off camera. Like a run. You character's still around when you log off you know.

As a suggestion to what nom's could be used for... maybe you could get like a 'Nom-Karma' which you could use for only certain things. Like, you couldn't buy additional attributes or active skills with it, but you could purchase knowledge/langauge skills or like, qualities, or something, with a good explination.

I like Waffle's 2d6x10 idea.  It's sorta boring to get 50 yen in your account for each nom you get.  It seems like it would be a lot more fun to +nomtocash-- like opening a present.  You don't know what it's gonna be, and that's way more rewarding than a set amount.  Small cash rewards for noms sound like a good idea, but the random element would make them so much more fun.

The randomness would also make them much more disappointing for a lot of PCs.  Think of HP rolls and D&D MUXs, if you've ever played on them.  People hate it, and every D&D MUX ever has come up with some way to try and mitigate the randomness of the Hit Points.  People are still allowed, of course, to usually just roll without any of the aids but only a couple ever do.

Think about +karma2cash policies that have existed when people utilize them and only get 16k for spending a gazillion karma, instead of the 40-60k their buddy got for ripping through only 4.  If you make it random than you are potentially giving a smaller reward to those people who RP more often.  I.E. A roll of 20 =Y= is 1/6th the maximum.  So it could take you 6 noms to equal out the nuyen of one nom from someone else.  And than you also wouldn't know how close you were to affording your lifestyle each month.  I think it'd be nice to know exactly what one had to do in order to afford a low lifestyle via +noms. 

Now, if we go with the random, I'm not gonna be concerned at all.  I just think its more risky, and we're already playing a risky game.  So I like to make all the OOC stuff settled and not just like the IC stuff.  Also, we could just get rid of +noms altogether.  Make plotting, and staff observed scenes the only means to gain rewards.  Or you could do what some others have done, which is give rewards based on time not idle in a non-private location.  That way the only people getting bennies are the ones RPing out in a public place (which would include public restaurants, just not housing or plots).  And in that way do away with +noms all together and give nuyen/hour of activity.  I know there are ways of coding to make sure that anit-idlers and such don't get abused.  I was on a D&D MUX that did this with tiny amounts of XP.  You got 15 xp per 1 hour of activity.

Either way you wanna go.  At this point, and in most of my MUXing time, I'm not really concerned with the rewards for RP (whether in or out of a plot) and much more concerned with wanting to play my character!  So, maybe, you shouldn't do anything with +noms for the BETA, just as a test to see how well it works out.  And that way making one less thing to code/policy make about.  See, now I'm just wanting to play sooner rather than actually decide something about +noms.

I think the general idea of noms into cash in some way is a good idea. But we could also make it noms to pay rent on the public and private spaces people have. Since the rent problem has been one that people have been so concerned about so far.

Noms for goods and services, maybe?

Oooh. Thats a good idea, actually, since thats we would most likley be paying for anyway... but, anyway, credits would be a better, I'd think, unless there are some non-credit sorts of things they could pay for, that fall under goods and services. Ammo'd be nice too.