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Karma

All heroes begin with karma. In a single story, karma isn’t always important, but as a series progresses, the award of karma to players helps to improve the heroes' abilities. Karma is awarded to players for role-playing. Karma awards (or penalties) are added to or subtracted from the heroes’ base karma values, and the net is then recalculated. The net karma value of any hero indicates how many points of karma they have remaining to either use during play, improve skills and gifts, or eliminate banes and flaws. Both the players and the Narrator should remember that the primary functions of karma are to award players for good role-playing and to preserve game balance.

Karma Awards
Group Awards
Individual Awards and Penalties {2}
Experience: the Best Teacher {2}

Out With the Old; In With The New
Heroic Feats {2}
Retirement, Death and Reincarnation {1}
Villains and Extras

Karma Awards
Karma is awarded in two forms. Group karma awards, that are given wholly to each player for surviving a story and successfully accomplishing goals, and individual awards for the roleplaying of a particular player.

Group Awards
Usually, the heroes in a game will have a very definite goal during any given story. If the heroes succeed in achieving their goals at the end of the story, each hero is awarded a predetermined amount of karma, dependent upon the difficulty of the story (relative to the heroes' ability levels), and or how quickly the Narrator wishes them to advance. If the Narrator is concerned that she might have difficulty creating interesting stories for a group of very powerful heroes, she may wish to advance them more slowly. On the other hand, the Narrator may wish for the heroes to advance more quickly so that they may more easily deal with the more challenging stories she has in mind.

Thirty to fifty karma points (30k-50k) is the suggested standard amount. Ten to thirty karma (10k-30k) is a good amount for easily accomplished goals, and or slow advancing heroes. Fifty to one-hundred karma (50k-100k) may be appropriate for particularly difficult stories, or rapidly advancing heroes.

Individual Awards and Penalties {2}
During the design process, heroes may receive bonuses to their base karma values according to how far their personality strays from the self-absorbed rogue disposition. These heroes, however, are required to abide by stricter guidelines.

To discourage players from choosing their hero's disposition simply for the karma bonus, and then acting out of character, the Narrator is encouraged to apply karma awards to players when their heroes act in character, and penalties when the heroes act out of character. The Narrator should be lenient in this matter, and always listen to the players' arguments as to why their heroes' actions are "in character", although the Narrator must make the final decision. More often than not, some sort of compromise works well. The Narrator should be much faster to award the players for good deeds than he should be to penalize them for corrupt ones.

EXAMPLE: The crusader, Captain Acme, steals a priceless painting. The Narrator decides that a crusader would not normally do this, and tell's Joe Gamer to deduct five points from his karma base and recalculate his net. Joe Gamer reveals his reasoning for the act: it is the only way he could think of to keep the painting safe from the blood-sucking lawyers, and Acme will return the painting to the museum as soon as they are dealt with. After hearing Joe's reasoning for the act, the Narrator decides to reduce the penalty of five karma points to only three. There is good reason for the act, however, such reasoning follows the mores of hero, not a crusader (who would be more likely to retrieve the painting and jail the lawyers after it had been stolen).

It is important to note that the amount of karma a hero will gain or lose for a deed will not vary based on their disposition. A crusader, however, will gain very small amounts of karma for very small, and much more common acts of good, such as preventing a used-car salesman from deceiving someone into buying a bad car. Less altruistic heroes will only gain or lose karma for deeds which are worth more points.

For ease of reference various deeds which might cause a hero to gain or lose karma are divided into several categories. A crusader will gain or lose karma for any of these acts. A hero will gain or lose karma for lesser, minor and major acts. An antihero will gain or lose karma only for minor and major acts. A rogue will only gain or lose karma for a major act.

Trivial (Crusaders - 1k-5k): Deception and slander are trivial acts. Each act should merit one to five karma, dependant upon circumstance.

Lesser (Heroes - 3-10k): Blackmail, extortion, theft and destruction of property are lesser acts. Each act should merit three to ten karma, dependant upon the severity of the act.

Minor (Antiheroes - 5k-15k): Violent crimes and wrongful punishment or imprisonment are minor acts. Each act merits roughly five to fifteen karma.

Major (Rogues - 10k-30k): Torture, murder and assassination are major acts. Each act merits ten to thirty karma, dependant upon circumstance.

In the Field: Some games may be played during war times. In such a case, karma is neither gained nor lost through hurried acts performed during a battle. Karma should still be affected, however, by actions outside of battle and some premeditated acts during battle.

Realization: Often, an individual may attempt an action without fully understanding its consequences. Such cases include accidentally killing an individual in a fist-fight, or being deceived into a particular course of action. A hero should not lose karma in the event that they unknowingly cause an event they would never intentionally cause. This does not include falsely accusing or punishing an individual for a crime they did not commit, which will still cause a karma penalty to heroes and crusaders who do so without sufficient evidence of guilt. Heroes and crusaders will only lose this karma once they realise their mistake.

Redemption: If a hero's net karma value is less than zero at the end of a game session or story, the Narrator should discuss options with the player. The easiest option is for the hero's disposition to shift one level toward fiend, also increasing the hero's base karma value by the negative amount of it's net. Alternately, a hero which has a net karma value of less than zero at the end of a game session or story may accumulate flaws or lose gifts or other abilities or devices which originally cost the hero karma. The value of these additional flaws, or lost abilities must be enough to increase the hero's net karma to zero or greater.

If a hero falls from grace to the disposition of scoundrel, the Narrator may choose to either allow the player to play the character as a villain temporarily (until they are rehabilitated, imprisoned or dead), or allow the player to create a new hero.

If players have a particularly difficult time with this bartering system of redemption, the Narrator may choose attribute new flaws that the players, and their heroes are unaware of, instead of causing them to lose karma. This requires more bookkeeping for The Narrator, who must now keep a running tally of karma lost by all heroes, and all new flaws and how much karma they account for. The easiest flaws to attribute in this manner are reputations and enemies, which actually represent these flaws a little more accurately, as one is rarely aware while they are making enemies, or building a reputation.

Experience: the Best Teacher {2}

"To be what we are, and to become what we are capable of becoming, is the only end of life."

- Robert Louis Stevenson

If the Narrator desires, skills may be developed through their use during a story. For each victory or fumble die rolled during any skill roll, apply one karma point toward the skill being used, until enough karma is accumulated to reach the next skill level. Remember that victories and fumbles cancel each other out, so if you roll two fumbles and one victory or two victories and only one fumble, either way you add one karma to the tally. The Narrator may choose for this karma to be drawn from your net karma available, or simply added to the hero's base karma value.

Out With the Old; In With The New
Accumulated karma points may be used to permanently improve a hero. One of the methods of improvement is through the elimination of flaws. The only requirement is that the karma points be spent and that the Narrator agrees with the change. A player should have a good rationale for removing a flaw, and the Narrator may even require the player to “work” toward the goal of eliminating flaws during play of the story if such a change would drastically affect the game.

Players may also use accumulated karma to increase their heroes' old skills and abilities and add new ones, just as they did when they first created their heroes. The player should submit a rationale for their newfound abilities to the Narrator, who may require the hero to work toward the improvement as a goal during play. Learning many new skills may require the hero to either find a teacher, or buy the necessary tools and one or more books and teach themselves. The latter of these two options is not recommended for the timid, particularly for dangerous skills such as demolitions, etc.

If a player wishes their hero to gain an ability which they do not have enough accumulated karma for, they may elect to increase an old flaw, or add a new flaw to help pay for the new ability. The player should also provide a good rationale for the new flaw, preferably one that is connected with the story (heroes, villains, plots) and or the ability they are adding.

Heroic Feats {2}

"Try not. Do or do not. There is no try."

- Yoda Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Sometimes, a hero simply has to succeed. When a player determines that their hero needs help, they may perform a heroic feat by spending karma points from their net karma pool. Before making a skill roll, a player may choose to spend two karma points (2k) per level to increase their skill level for one die roll. After the dice have been rolled, the player may spend five karma (5k) per point to increase the total result. Once these points have been spent, they’ve been spent for good, and cannot be reclaimed. Subtract any karma spent from the hero's base karma value, and recalculate the net karma pool. Only new karma awards can restore this karma once spent.

Retirement, Death and Reincarnation {1}
Karma is a method of awarding the players, not their heroes. This is one of the reasons why villains and extras never receive karma awards. When a hero dies, the player's next hero begins with the same base karma value as the deceased hero. This allows the new hero to start the game without being vastly inferior to the other heroes in a series that has lasted for a long time, or one in which the heroes improve rapidly.

Occasionally, a player may become bored with a particular hero and will wish to retire them. When a hero retires, that does not mean they are gone forever and will never be a part of a game again, it simply means that the player will play a different hero for a while. This new hero should also start with a base karma value equal to that of the retired hero. Each time one of the heroes is played, any karma awarded should be added to the base of both heroes. Thus, if the retired hero returns, they will have experienced new events and learned new skills while retired, and will have roughly equal influence as the rest of the heroes who remained active.

Villains and Extras
Both extras and villains (unless the Narrator allows the players to play villains) begin with a base karma value of zero. The karma values for these characters are only a representation of how powerful they are, used to approximate the heroes' ability to appose them. To determine if a hero is equally matched against a villain, subtract the villain’s net karma value, or combat value from that of the hero. If the result is zero or close to zero, they should be a fairly even match. If the result is negative, the villain has an advantage. If the result is positive, the hero has an advantage.

{1} Rehabilitation: Heroes may, on a rare occasion, have the opportunity to rehabilitate a villain. When a hero manages to rehabilitate a villain (bring their disposition to rogue or better), they gain twenty karma points per level by which the villain's disposition is altered. Precisely how any villain is rehabilitated depends entirely on the individual villain and Narrator fiat.



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