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Awarding Karma/Edge for roleplaying Negative Qualities

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synaryn

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« on: <07-23-20/1359:52> »
So, my D&D group has now wrapped up our campaign and decided we all want to do a Shadowrun campaign with me as GM. Half of us are new players, I've never played it but I'm familiar with the setting through the videogames and reading the books. I've been going over character creation with them, and I brought something up regarding Negative Qualities. See, I'm a big fan of Legend of the Five Rings, and there when you interact with your Negative Qualities (Adversities and Anxieties), you get a Void Point, which is somewhat similar to Edge. I suggested house-ruling it so that interacting with your Negative Quality can give you a point of Karma or Edge. For example, one of the players has a Moderate Phobia of Lone Star, so him facing that to fight or interact with them, I'd award a point of Karma. I felt it's a good way to have the players balance between buying off the Negative Quality or keeping it to get extra points.

How does this idea sound? Is it too liable to be abused by players for points, or too beneficial? Any suggestions?

Reaver

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« Reply #1 on: <07-23-20/1428:23> »
Well first off, I guess the biggest question is what edition you are going to be playing, as Edge and Karma have different values and generation in every edition which makes answering this a hard question.


Generally speaking though, Negative qualities are disadvantages your character has taken at creation in exchange for a boost at creation... So role-playing your disadvantage is expected.... After all, you choose that disadvantage!

IE: If you take the Uncouth negative quality, you accept that your character is an obnoxious slob that pisses people off (-2 social dice), in exchange for 10 karma that you can spend anywhere you want at character creation...

Rewarding someone for playing this negative quality, kinda turns a negative into an advantage... After all, I get that sweet, sweet extra Edge/Karma reward just for playing my character and living up to my choices!!!

Where is the consequence?
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

synaryn

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« Reply #2 on: <07-23-20/1454:59> »
We're playing 4th Edition, the rest of the group was insistent the character creation and sourcebook quality was better in 4th than 5th. There would still be negative consequences, like the character with a phobia would still have -4 dice pool modifier for interacting with Lone Star cops, but he'd get a Karma or Edge point for facing his fear. Felt like it would encourage more depth in roleplay to interact with the negative qualities.

Reaver

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« Reply #3 on: <07-23-20/1547:10> »
Its your table, you can do as you please :p

Just be aware, there are some differences between DnD and Shadowrun (if you've never played before)...

XP (Karma) is awarded on a  Per mission basis, and not per encounter in DnD..

So, while in DnD, the adventure might be to clear a cave infested with monsters, and the players earn XP for every monster they clear...
In Shadowrun, the adventure might be to get the Prototype Commlink... And that is what the reward is for, it doesn't matter if they defeat 1 or 100 security guards... the reward is the same. (generally 1 to 3 karma)


Page 269 of the SR4a has the write up for Karma and how its rewarded...


While every edition has its strengths and weaknesses, for me I feel 4e weakness was in overall character growth, as character quickly "maxed out" what they 'wanted' to spend karma on, and were forced to settle on 'optional' choices. So speeding up karma rewards just makes the issue worse.

Of course, that is only my opinion on the matter. 
Where am I going? And why am I in a hand basket ???

Remember: You can't fix Stupid. But you can beat on it with a 2x4 until it smartens up! Or dies.

Sphinx

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« Reply #4 on: <08-02-20/0008:10> »
I award Karma based on the players' progress through the plot. One for achieving each major milestone/plot point, another two or three for success, plus a few points depending on the overall challenge. As a general rule of thumb, I figure the karma reward at the end of a mission should about equal the number of hours spent playing. Maybe a little more for epic shadowrunning, a little less if the players spend a lot of time dithering.

As roleplaying rewards (including but not limited to players embracing their negative qualities), I like to return points of spent Edge (in 4E/5E at least).

DigitalZombie

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« Reply #5 on: <08-08-20/0611:54> »

Generally speaking though, Negative qualities are disadvantages your character has taken at creation in exchange for a boost at creation... So role-playing your disadvantage is expected.... After all, you choose that disadvantage!

IE: If you take the Uncouth negative quality, you accept that your character is an obnoxious slob that pisses people off (-2 social dice), in exchange for 10 karma that you can spend anywhere you want at character creation...

Rewarding someone for playing this negative quality, kinda turns a negative into an advantage... After all, I get that sweet, sweet extra Edge/Karma reward just for playing my character and living up to my choices!!!

Where is the consequence?

Well, if I were to houserule negative qualities as OP suggested, I would remove the initial karma bonus. And JUST have the ingame benifits when the quality is triggered in a meaningful way. So your servere allergy to silver didnt affect you yet?  No karma/Edge for you. This would also turn the whole negative qualities on their heads. Usually some players would pick negative qualities that had the least negative impact on their characters for the highest karma value: just look at how many hackers have a -2 penalty for setting a data bomb for instance ;) og in 6th edition how many Trolls have impaired Attribute strength.

Now some of those qualities would be hard to manage during a game. When would the player be awarded for having impaired strength Attribute on his troll hacker?

As most builds Rely in 30+ extra karma during character creation I would simply have Them All start with as much karma, as if they had maxed out their negative qualities. So 50 karma for 5th Ed. For example.