Now first thing I'll say is that I understand that this has already been decided upon and is not likely to change.  That being said I'm kinda making this thread and such to voice my concerns about the system and to hopefully have things clarified, and fears calmed.

Now to start off with I'm not against karma only coming from +awards.  I think its a prety sound idea, as long as there are some given out for rping and such where applicable (which seems to be the intent).  My concern is with the karma cap and the decreasing karma values.  It really is something thats bothering me more and more as I think about it.  Especialy with the general policy of 'we don't want to houserule, and will atempt to avoid it at all costs'.

Karma with this system, now seems to be less based on what you do and instead on how many times you have a staffer about running a scene while you're there, be it a run, or a miniplot thing.  While it was said that "+awards will be handed out for roleplay, prps, performance during runs: all the things admins traditionally hand out karma for." it bothers me that i could do something mediocre in the begining of a story arc and get 1.3 karma, and then do something truly heroic thats outshined everything else, was a truely wonderful scene managing to triumph in the face of adversity and so on and so forth and get .75 karma for it.  The idea of karma awards, not based on what you do, but based on how much karma you already have really bothers me because of that.

Maybe thats not how its going to play out.  I don't know.  Thats just the way its looking from Noor's post.  And its because of that I'm making this post, to maybe get some insight into this, to figure out why this was chosen over say just going with +awards giving you the amount of karma you would earn as per the little chart in the BBB, to hopefully have my fears put to rest that it doesn't matter what you do, just how many times you bother showing up and if you want to get karma you should only show up so much and after a certain point you might as well not bother...

As i was writing this another concern came to mind with this system...  What happens if i'm prety active i attend alot of plots and scenes, cause i've had a fair amount of time and have gotten lucky on the times i've been on when things have been run.  Will 3 months into this 6 month story arc I start getting negligable karma awards so the reward i'm getting from plots vs the risk of my characters life not worth it at all?  I know I probaby would atleast think twice about taking my character that i've worked hard on for the past 3 months on a dangerouse, or even moderately dangerouse run when i know i will probably not even get a full point of karma from even if I perform spectacularly.

Another question that comes to mind is will the cap be adjusted if you see people aproaching that cap quickly (first 2-4 months)?  Is that even a posibility/would it be considered?

On another related note...Karma rollover.  Say 3 months in i've acumulated a good portion of the karma cap...say half (halfway through the arc so lets assume half of the cap karma).  Then I get killed, get the rollover...does rollover count towards the cap at all?  Does the karma i earned on the other character durring that story arc count towards this characters earned for the cap?  How is that going to be taken care of?


On a only slightly related note, I assume we'll have the option of forgoing our rollover karma in order to help continue to test 'lower level' stuff as well right?



So I suppose those are my current questions and concerns regarding +awards.  The things that initialy make me nervouse.  I'm more looking on staff comments about this as, well, they decided and implimented this.  That is not to say other player comments aren't welcome, I welcome dissenting views as well as those that share my concerns, I'm not looking for responses that are essentialy 'you have no idea how it will play out just sit down shut up and lets wait and see' or 'the admins know we don't need to know'  or for that matter 'the admins know what their doing leave them alone'.  So hopefully I'll get a response that'll atleast aswage some of my fears...

These same concerns came up when we talked about it amongst ourselves. It is a valid concern, at first, I put up the ' You don't play to have fun you play to get karma? ' angle, but hey, even if that IS why you play there shouldn't be a smack down for it (it should just eat at your soul you disgusting munchkin in training/karmawhore/powergaming/minmaxer)...

But since that angle didn't work out so well, it is possible to get multiple awards for the same (or similar actions) so, while I've been known to give someone karma for a pose that made fall out of my chair. You may get an +award on the spot if you pull out something wonderfully tactful and amazing during a run and again at the end. Yes, the net will be lower, that's just how its been put together, this like many other ideas is the reason why we're having the beta. The karma gulf was insurmountable on SRS, and we're trying to squash that and make sure those players who put in the effort actually have the chance to play in the same game as everyone else.

Probably the easiest way to avoid this is to determine a floor on how low each +award can go.  Maybe default it to, say, .25 Karma?  From the sound of it, that'll keep for a nice, slow, even pace while still allowing someone who really is dedicated to make some advancement.

The biggest problem with the "karma gulf" was due to obscene karma pools. A character out of chargen can have the same amount of edge as any equivalent established character. So the biggest problem was solved already. The next problem was that due to karma improvement, an established character's skill/attribute/etc set is so superior to a new characters that there is no chance for competition. This has been addressed in SR4 with skill and attribute caps, so the "runaway" ubercharacters of SR3 are now in check (no more skills of 8 to 10). Out of character generation, I can make a character that is just as valuable as any established character (since in chargen I can 'max out' my skill to the same as them), however to be on that level I am making a specialist. That means I would be good at only hacking, or only summoning, whereas the established character is probably good at hacking AND shooting or summoning AND sorcery. I could make a generalist however, and with time and effort, be on par with an established character, but out of character generation I deserve less then him, because at that point I have put minimal effort in compared to however long they have played. So I don't see that I should "catch up" with him faster to avoid a "karma gulf", at a certain point, all they can spend their karma on is to become more general (a problem I'll address last.) The only real concern out of character generation is that a more general, established character, has better skills and attributes and can kill me. Aside from my belief that that is how it should be (I wouldn't expect a new infantryman in the army to go head to head with a Ranger), it is also not really much of a problem stats-wise, because I could make that aforementioned specialist and be even on certain terms. And frankly, going head-to-head with an player character is never a good idea to start with and should be approached with caution under any circumstances and probably could be better resolved differently anyway.

While I am sure it is not the intention, by setting up an asymptotic system like that, you are essentially punishing your most active (and probably "best", though that is a relative term) players for being involved in numerous things and for frequently roleplaying. So at a certain point (and particularly early if you use a geometric progression like is mentioned in the original post (i.e. 1, 0.5, 0.25, 0.125, etc) and want to approach but never reach the end point, you will eventually reach a point where gaining additional karma is a fruitless endeavor. An example: I am "near my cap" and am now on the 3rd "step" for karma awards, receiving 0.125 karma for each +award. In order for me to raise my attribute from 3 to 4 (which is not an unreasonable progression for anyone in the game, IMO), it will cost me, 4 (my new rating) * 3 (karma multiplier) = 12 karma, and requires 96 +awards. And further, it is not unlikely that at some point you will likely descend another "step" during that time, which also increases the amount of awards you need. Some people would struggle to get 96 +awards--period--though because this player is approaching the cap, I'd assume they could do it in 6 mos to a year. How many players are going to want to spend 6 mos to a year to increase an attribute from 3 to 4? So the options are (a) continue playing hard, for love of character, to eek out that little improvement, etc. (b) make a new character and go back to decent karma awards (if that is the intention of the policy, then the focus of this discussion should be changed), or (c) you continue to play your character but no longer "work" as hard, with (at least marginally) less activity, running less PrPs, etc, because there is no longer a tangible benefit for doing so. Some will certainly play for love of character, I suppose, but I believe that the "majority" are playing for a combination of factors, and the "peaking" of a character is certainly a downer for anyone.

An asymptotic geographical depreciating system is essentially going to create a "sweet spot" for characters that comes relatively early and then diminishing returns from then on, bringing "balance" to the game at the expense of progression and sheet development. By the point you hit the second step, you need to have your sheet set up the way you want it, because you are not going to have much chance to change it from that point forward. This will have the untoward consequence of min-maxing from the start of character generation, with an emphasis on niche characters rather then any sort of generalists, so that by the second step (which has to come before or at the "halfway" mark to the terminus) you are already amazing at your chosen speciality (hacking, pistols, sorcery, whatever). It certainly doesn't "have" to be done that way, but that will be the most efficient, and the "majority" (such a nebulous term, I regret) of people do take efficiency into their thinking particularly when using karma ... and will almost HAVE to think efficiently, because after the first (50|100|150) karma, you can basically write off any further significant improvements.

The major problem with karma is that it just comes too quickly. Without karma pool, and with built-in caps on skills and attributes, your normal mundane character is going to hit a point where he can go no further in progression except sideways. S/he will say "I am now one of the best possible street samurai, and have nothing else to spend karma on. I will start working on .... <blah>." And they will become a multi-archetype character out of a lack of possibility. At the same time, magicians, technomancers, etc, are just karma sinks ... they can take all the karma you throw at them. So slow the karma down. Instead of depreciating karma as you approach to a cap, just depreciate it across the board from the start. One award is worth 0.1 karma. Then continue use as normal. New characters won't "catch up" as quickly, but the gulf will be minimal at best, and even then a specialist from character generation will be better then or equal to any established character in his chosen specialty.

... I don't think it's good policy to make a system that rewards new players at the expense of established ones (particularly the ones that have already proven they are the most active and "best".) I don't think karma is much of a problem anymore, except in excess.

I would ask everyone to keep in mind that this is the beta.? I think the idea is so that people who play the beta don't start out as the unapproachable best-of-the-best on day one of the official open.? Don't make the character you plan to play for the next 5 years because they can and probably will die.? Play around with concepts, rush headlong into deadly situations.?

Live fast, die hard, and make a big boom.

After the beta, bring out your person with the 400 page novel as back story, and feel a bit more assured that you can keep them and make them as uber as you want over time

All systems in beta will be critically reviewed by staff, I'm sure, but one of the great things about discussion is it points out issues that you may or may not have seen prior to implementing a system. The flaws pointed out in discussion may keep you from wasting your time with a flawed system. Just to make sure, I reread the original post, and during that, found a new bit of information with contributes to the problem. (Emphasis mine)


This concept twists my meager mathematical skills into a helluva conundrum. Regardless of the actual values used, any system approaching a terminus but never reaching it will have a depreciating cost to ensure that you can never get there. But now, each 'story arc' we are going to push that terminus higher. Wow. That puts a whole new twist in things from an efficiency (and fairness) standpoint.

Arbitrarily assign the hard target as 100 karma. So I happily bounce along, getting 1 karma for each award to about 50 karma, then .5 karma for each award to 75 (the sweet spot, according to what I posted earlier.) So in 100 awards for good roleplaying, I am now at 75 karma. Now diminishing returns, and I get another 50 awards at 0.25 to get to 87.5 karma and 150 awards. At 200 awards, I have 93.75 karma and am receiving 0.125 karma an award. The next step (in geometric progression) is 0.0625 karma/award, and you need to keep to geometric progression to ensure you never make it to the terminus. Another 50 awards I would have received another 3.125 karma for a TOTAL of 250 awards and 96.875 karma. Jesus, that sucks. I'd quit working hard for karma somewhere around 100 awards, PARTICULARLY in light of my next point.

Story Arc over. We raise the karma cap to ... say 120 (a tiny raise, but since you need to raise it each time you need to do tiny). The new characters first 60 awards at 1 karma each for 60 karma at step 1. Step 2 is 90 karma for 120 awards. Step 3 (diminishing) 180 awards for 115 karma. So it seems to work. A player will catch up and be on par with an established character relatively quickly.

Now, the comparison. An established character that started out in the first arc (100 karma cap) and continues playing into the second arc (120 karma cap). The second character starts in the beginning of the second arc. They both are equally good players, receiving awards at a high rate of 150 awards/arc, because they are spending an inordinate amount of time online. Note that these are all pretty reasonable example numbers, and frankly probably a bit lowballed. I know people who make better then 1 karma/day when they try, and I think +awards will likely be EASIER to get since they diminish.

Player B is the newbie, starting with 0 karma, and is in 'step 1' of the geometric progression, receiving a full karma for each award. Player A is starting with 87.5 karma, receiving .5 karma/award because he is in 'step 2' (step 2 since he is greater then half the cap but less then three-quarters.) He's really close to three quarters of the cap though (90 karma) so can only receive 5 awards at .5 before his awards are only worth 0.25. Another 60 awards and he has 105 karma and is in the next step, another 60 and he has 112.5 karma and the next step, for his final 25 awards that arc. His final karma total is 114.0625 karma for the arc. Player B has gotten 60 karma from step 1, 30 karma from step 2 (120 awards) and 7.5 karma from his remaining 25 awards in step 3 for the arc. His total? 97.5 karma. So in final tally? Player A has 300 awards and 114.0625 karma. Player B? 150 awards and 97.5 karma. The difference is 16.5625 karma for 150 EXTRA awards? Kind've obscene to me ... and totally devalues an award.

The main problem with the "karma gulf" is adversarial, not cooperative.? A well-designed specialist out of chargen can be just as valuable as a character played for five years with skills all across the board. Further, if your group is truly cooperative and the establish players aren't trying to showboat, you can be just as valuable as anyone else--straight out of chargen. Power levels were out of hand to some degree with specific characters, but that was a problem with the rules more then anything--and those flaws have been hard capped by skills and attribute maximums. You could be a 10000 karma mundane and be able to do every skill in the book, but you only have so many actions. Teamwork is still important, so there is always room for bodies--especially specialists who can perform at a higher threat level.

So adversarial wise? I can make a character in chargen that is able to do one thing fantastically, and if that skill is offensive, I could kill any established character under SR4. Karma Pool is gone, so they can't rely on 28 rerolls to fix the problem. And by corollary, should I make a big enough bruiser, I could survive a normal attack by any established character. So the adversarial karma problem of the past seems like it was corrected by the core rules (albeit unintentionally, I think.)

To me, all this does is devalues the award and ignores past history and work that you've put in your character to arbitrarily keep everyone on the same power level, which due to core rules changes, isn't that important anymore. Regardless of how hard you work, you can never really get ahead, and if you do, all that work goes away the next story arc anyway. So why work harder then half the cap? That way you can get the most karma for the least effort input. It's the most efficient thing to do, and rewards people who only play occasionally or sporadically, as opposed to the core group of players that tends to keep a game going when there are no plots, no staff, nothing but people roleplaying.

I just think that this system is a poor choice to solve a nonexistent (under the new rules) problem. If karma bloat is the problem, then depreciate all awards equally. That solves the bloat problem, and rewards people fairly for what they are putting into the game and their character.

Good or bad is purely subjective. None of the above discussion may matter and the system may be "good" according to staff, if their intent is to ensure that everyone is equal at the end of a 'story arc'. If you're not familiar with the history of the MUSH, the reasons for this rule are not as obvious, but this is a recurring problem since the beginning of Shadowrun MUSHes. The two facets of this are to address the disparity between an established character who has been accruing karma for years to the new character without any karma and to prevent 'karma bloat'. I don't see the first as being an issue and the second can be relatively easily addressed by reducing the value of awards.

As for 'getting off topic', I would disagree. You are taking issue with the fact that it is (a) not worth it to continue trying to improve after a certain point, as well as (b) unfair (for lack of a better term) to give less of a reward for actions later in the "arc" just due to the fact that you have more karma now, regardless of the relative merits of the actions deserving the awards. Lastly you have questions regarding rollover karma, which I believe anyone can answer for you: You can certainly decline to take rollover karma. Karma rollover will certainly count for the 'steps', because otherwise I would try to get killed as soon as I neared the second step to ensure maximum value for all +awards. Will the karma cap be evaluated? Almost certainly, I am sure staff will be examining everything during beta and adjusting it if needed.

As far as the swing from one extreme to the other, I can understand what you are saying, but I disagree. Unlike a lot of the rules, karma awards are largely subjective, and while it offers guidelines, they have traditionally been discarded as far as the amount of karma awarded per adventure, mainly due to the frequency of play in an online game. A blanket reduction in karma awards (making each award worth .1 to .25) would allow for consistent progression without any of the aforementioned problems inherent to either system.

Yeah, I have a lot of time on my hands, and I like doing the math for esoteric problems like this.

None of the points you've brought up haven't already been discussed by staff, Austin.

You aren't alone in your concerns. However, the decision has been made to try this experiment in beta, so that's what we're doing. Period.

Well, I suppose that is certainly a definitive answer, but would you be able to elaborate further? If all those concerns have been raised by other staff members (who are certainly better informed that I am), how are they going to be addressed by the system, because there seem to be significant flaws possible. I'd agree that beta is a good time to try a new 'experiment', but following the analogy potential flaws in the process are addressed in advance so as to at least allow success.

Also, though it may be unintentional, I feel slightly rebuked by your tone. I'm not sure what I said to elicit such a sharp answer, but if offense was taken, I apologize. My examples and comments are meant to elaborate my concerns with this system, which since they were raised by others seems quite well-founded.

In any case, if you could elaborate, I'm sure it would be appreciated by everyone, since karma awards are such a central tenet to how we play this game. Thanks.

There are always flaws possible, we will (are making, have made) make mistakes. The risks involved in the process are known, as well as some additional perceptual concerns that you pointed out, we're going to go forward with this sytem as envisioned for the beta period, and examine its effectiveness. As for elaboration, I Can say 'some off' your points are valid but as we haven't used the system we're not going to go point by point to address them.

Feel free help us evaluate the system as it gets implimented, and used.

You should feel slightly rebuked by my tone. And your apology is accepted.

As Melk said.  We Will, we Are, and we Have made mistakes.  Mistakes are always being made somewhere, somewhen, somehow (Ooh, look.  It's a bird, Mr. V-P!).  Beta is for making those mistakes and hopefully ironing them out.  +Awards is a new system we haven't used yet.  SR4 is a new system we haven't really used yet.   If it doesn't work and you all point it out the flaws to us as we go on, then it'll get changed or scrapped.  But like all things in Beta, give it a chance to see what it does and then discuss it. 

This board is for discussions on these policies, so feel free to post your opinion and thoughts on it.  Just remember they are your personal thoughts, and not bold statements about the way things will be.  Just remember that we are using this system for now.  In the future... nothing is certain.

Okay... Now for a few words that should be removed from the nifty badge thingie Melkir made.... 

I didn't come up with this particular policy, and truthfully the math of it hurts my head.  I liked it when I thought that it related to each story arc and the amount of karma gotten would start over with each new arc.  As in, you reach the cap on that arc, now start off with all this karma again on this arc. But it doesn't look like it's that way.  I really don't like bits of karma under 0.25 for an award.  I don't often go on runs, and when I do I don't have hours upon hours to devote to my comp screen when everyone else can too.  So basically what my character is going to have coming out of CG is what it's going to be stuck with.  Unless I rechargen, get rollover, but then I'll be getting the same fractional karma as before.  So at least we don't have to worry about playing the system that way. 

But yeah, I don't get involved in a lot of these discussions.  Why?  Because of that nifty badge thingie and that what is said is often taken as the Word on High from a staffer who isn't speaking for everyone.  And because I'm a lurker and dislike putting my opinions out there in general.  But staff in general do read these, and these are there for you all to ask the questions, or discuss among yourselves. 

At this moment, I'm kinda with you on some of those subjects, Rune.  This is a place for discussion, and discussion shouldn't be shot down in the middle of good points just because something has been decided upon.  In the middle of something else, yeah.  And this post isn't helping, so I'm going back to my hole now.

I'm going to briefly weigh in, with the understanding that it's brief for me. I took the opportunity to speak to Melkir about this, and while I can't say I am overly enthusiastic about the idea, I can at the very least understand the purpose of it. The basic gist is that the hope with this system is to change the reason people play the game, rather then just have a "race to the best", and emphasizing things as rewards that are less concrete then karma. I have my reservations about that shift, but the effort is being made in good faith, which at the very least should mean something. If there is going to be an experiment, beta is a good time to try it, and I hope that when the time comes to evaluate the system that as part of the evaluation you examine who is hurt and who is helped. This system will CERTAINLY benefit people, but the driving force of the game will largely be the people ahead of the bell curve that are getting diminishing rewards for their karma, and those people may feel held back, and during evaluation those people should have significant weight due to their increased level of participation. I'm interested to see what else is going to be offered so as to retain interest in the game for those people, there is certainly the possibility for exciting happenings, and again, I believe there is definitely a good faith effort to offer alternatives to sheet-building. I don't know much anything more then anyone else who read this thread, except after conversation I do feel that Melkir is making an earnest effort to make this system work, and that at the moment is good enough for me.

I don't feel this is the appropriate time or place to attack staff for their response on this or any issue. Actions will eventually speak louder then words and once the MUSH is off and running, each person can individually decide if it is a culture and environment that they want to play in. The culture of "old seattle" was very adversarial, angry, and lacked a basic trust and respect among the community that plays it. Many people did not like that environment, but continued to be part of the problem. I certainly, at times, fell into that mold.

It has been oft-repeated that this new MUSH will have a new culture. Part of that will require mutual respect, trust, and transparency of systems. It will require a public break from old habits, customs, and attitudes in order to be successful. People will certainly not love one another in a Barney-esque work, but discussions need to be held in an adult manner and questions and/or dissent needs to be handled appropriately and most importantly POSITIVELY. If that breaks down, then it is just the same manner of being as old seattle was, and is only our collective fault.

I will say I was not filled with glee at the response I received from Noor, but I offered a sincere apology because I recognize how my history could color perception of what I said, and? and that it is probably my karma to take a few public penis-smackings. C'est la vie. In the end, however, it is only my feelings that were hurt, and because I was able to have a productive and non-adversarial conversations with another member of staff about the issues I had with this system, I can how things are hopefully changing for the better, coming to a common understanding and not leaving the conversation feeling as if I received a "I'm staff and know better then you" response.

So I can say without hesitation, that while I am not totally in favor of this system, I am not vehemently opposed to it, under the belief that there people are making effort FOR us and are aware that there are potential problems, and while specific solutions have not been announced, that efforts are being made to mitigate the flaws and if the system fails, there will be some equitable fix and something else will be tried.

Well, that certainly wasn't brief. Sorry.

Ok, like Dreamer, I rarely get to post my personal opinion on things. But in this case, I will.

This karma scheme isn't my plan. I didn't come up with it. I raised many of the same points Austin did when it was discussed. It has some good potential, and there are some dangers associated with it. But I'm optomistic about it in general, and hope to see it work well in the new game

My objection isn't for people expressing their opinions. I do honestly accept Austin's apology. And I offer my own for curtness. We've given these policies an enormous amount of thought and discussion beforehand. But I am human. I get tired and frustrated, just like players. And as I've stated elsewhere, I'm attempting to accommodate the wishes of the less vocal along with the more vocal. This is not easy.

As for the not elaborating in excruciating detail, Melkir will provide the post with the details. I didn't feel comfortable giving them all myself in the initial post since I'm not the originator of the plan.

I'm pleased that Austin was able to discuss the issue to his satisfaction with Melkir. I am approachable, however, as most players will tell you. Austin chose not to approach me directly, as is his right. I'm available on SRS, I'm available here on PM, and my AIM is on my profile. Players are always free to contact me.