[Heinous Tugboat]

So, I noticed elsewhere that it's apparently common for GMs to neglect Notoriety and award Street Cred. My question for my fellow Gamemasters is straightforward, do you use the public awareness rules? Do you often award street cred or do you just figure it as a function of Total Karma by RAW? If you do, how do you handle the rule for burning Street Cred to lose Notoriety?

I'm just hoping for some input here, because I'm wondering how other GMs handle it. I've been more or less following the books on Karma rewards and Street Cred, and my players are earning 5-10 Karma per week, which is very quickly adding up for Street Cred and Public Awareness. (They're already at 2 PA, but that's mostly because they royally botched last week's mission, getting their extraction target killed and having a huge fire fight in the middle of a street with an Ares hit squad. Their Notoriety is varyingly between 2 and 4.)

As a final question, do you guys award Notoriety at Character Creation for Negative Qualities?

[Andinel]

I award Street Cred, Notoriety, and Public Awareness as a consequence of actions taken, not as a direct result of Karma totals. Especially with the increased Karma awards for SR4A, my players earn around 7 to 10 karma per run easily, which would automatically give them a Street Cred bump every time. Instead, if they do something noteworthy, they get a point of SC. If they do something both noteworthy and that would be in the public eye, they get a point of PA, and so on for Notoriety as well.

I also do award Notoriety for certain negative qualities at creation.

[Angelone]

I award Street Cred, Notoriety, and Public Awareness as a consequence of actions taken, not as a direct result of Karma totals. Especially with the increased Karma awards for SR4A, my players earn around 7 to 10 karma per run easily, which would automatically give them a Street Cred bump every time. Instead, if they do something noteworthy, they get a point of SC. If they do something both noteworthy and that would be in the public eye, they get a point of PA, and so on for Notoriety as well.

I also do award Notoriety for certain negative qualities at creation.

This, I feel it's the smarter way to do things. In my mind it's silly to tie it to karma earned.

[Dead Monky]

I've been awarding it for karma, but I mostly forget about it.  I think I may switch to Andinel's method if I ever remember to factor it into things.

[Max Anderson]

I award Street Cred, Public Awareness and Notoriety based on the actions of my PC and their consequences. I feel using RAW, the players could quickly have huge bonuses that, for me, are not justified.

I prefer my players to roleplay theses stats (something like "Hey remember this guy the Star found in five different districts ? You don't want to mess with us") than just saying : "Ok, I have 3 Notoriety, so +3 to my intimidate check..."

[FastJack]

I've used a mix of the two. Street Cred I'll base mostly off Karma, showing that your cred does grow as the runners gain experience; but Notoriety and Public Awareness I'll simply check stuff that gets noticed for future use. It also adds flavor to the Johnsons and jobs offered - "I've heard of your ... reputation for discretion (Low Public Awareness/High Notoriety), hence why your names came up for such a this job."; "Listen, you primitive screw-heads! The only reason we're hiring you is because you like to blow things up (High PA/High Notoriety). So make it burn bright to get the attention of all the sec guards of the 'plex. If you survive, we'll be sure to pay you handsomely!"