Karma in GURPS

AlexanderHowl · 03-27-2016, 03:31 PM

I was wondering if any of the GMs had created a karmic system in their games to reward their characters for being heroic and to punish their characters for being villainous. For example, the characters in all of my games learn that I have a tendency to seed my 'innocent' NPC populations with NPCs that can whip the floors with the entire party in case they decide to start plugging innocents. More formally, I reward the entire party when one or more of them is heroic (+1 character point for the session for each heroic party member) and I punish the entire party when one or more of them is villainous (-1 character point for the session for each villainous party member). While it tends to discourage people from creating villainous PCs (PCs with Bully, Sadism, etc), it does tend to make my games rather high action and rather fun (especially since I like beginning campaigns at 250 character points).

Minuteman37 · 03-27-2016, 06:07 PM

I've experimented with this kind of system in the past, with mixed results at best.

I do like it though and if I were to try it again I'd tie it to disadvantages. Basically I as the GM can force a disadvantage to activate, putting the player in a bad spot, to compensate for this dickery I pay the players in points. Either strait character points or expendable points that can be used in play like impulse buys lays out.

Anaraxes · 03-27-2016, 06:28 PM

It sounds a bit heavy-handed the way it's phrased. But, if during the character creation phase, the players have already agreed to a campaign requirement that all the PCs be "heroic", then it really is the same as the suggested bonus for good roleplaying.

The biggest difference is penalizing the rest of the party for the unheroic actions of one member. You could fold that in if you define "heroic" as also not associating with known villains. In that case, the heroic party members lose the point of xp for continuing to associate with villains, which isn't heroic. The villains themselves lose the point because their concept involved them being heroic, and they're failing to play that way.

There's something of a level mixup involved, as while the players know they're getting docked xp, their characters don't know anything about that. Do the characters behave heroically because that's what they do, or are they just puppeted that way by their meta-game masters solely to selfishly gain more xp? And how heroic is that motivation, really? Where's the karma system karma to dissuade that behavior? :)

In the groups I've been in recently, we tend to create reasonably compatible groups of characters from the start. We mostly got over the inter-party conflict with holy paladins and evil assassins a long time ago. So, the issue doesn't really come up. If we decided to play Big Damn Heroes, why, that's what we do, because we wanted to, and we'd just be cheating ourselves out of fun, no matter what the xp totals were.

Johnny1A.2 · 03-27-2016, 11:52 PM

To some degree, this can be accomplished with a system of 'natural consequences'. That is, if PCs behave badly, let the natural consequence of that behavior ensue (it's not as easy to use the other way, but it can be).

Start killing bystanders, or even beating them up or otherwise mistreating them, and depending on the setting there's a fair chance you'll have an unpleasant encounter with the whatever fills the role of police, or with angry relatives of the victim, or something. Steal from bystanders and same deal.

Behave like a creep and pretty soon NPC reaction rolls may start developing creepy penalties. Yeah, that local may be scared of you and not likely to give you any crap...but he isn't likely to help you needlessly either, and people who know stuff you might need to know won't be likely to seek you out, either, if you've got a reputation as Trouble.

Tomsdad · 03-28-2016, 12:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

To some degree, this can be accomplished with a system of 'natural consequences'. That is, if PCs behave badly, let the natural consequence of that behavior ensue (it's not as easy to use the other way, but it can be).

Start killing bystanders, or even beating them up or otherwise mistreating them, and depending on the setting there's a fair chance you'll have an unpleasant encounter with the whatever fills the role of police, or with angry relatives of the victim, or something. Steal from bystanders and same deal.

Behave like a creep and pretty soon NPC reaction rolls may start developing creepy penalties. Yeah, that local may be scared of you and not likely to give you any crap...but he isn't likely to help you needlessly either, and people who know stuff you might need to know won't be likely to seek you out, either, if you've got a reputation as Trouble.

That's pretty much how I do it. Even in setting where consequences are not that automatic (settings were there's no organised police, society and communication is pretty fragmented) it just slows the karma train down rather than derailing it.

dataweaver · 03-28-2016, 12:45 AM

Impulse Buys can be adapted to support something like this (in terms of “good karma”), while the Corruption stuff from Horror could be used to model “bad karma”.

dfinlay · 03-28-2016, 01:02 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Johnny1A.2

To some degree, this can be accomplished with a system of 'natural consequences'. That is, if PCs behave badly, let the natural consequence of that behavior ensue (it's not as easy to use the other way, but it can be).

Start killing bystanders, or even beating them up or otherwise mistreating them, and depending on the setting there's a fair chance you'll have an unpleasant encounter with the whatever fills the role of police, or with angry relatives of the victim, or something. Steal from bystanders and same deal.

Behave like a creep and pretty soon NPC reaction rolls may start developing creepy penalties. Yeah, that local may be scared of you and not likely to give you any crap...but he isn't likely to help you needlessly either, and people who know stuff you might need to know won't be likely to seek you out, either, if you've got a reputation as Trouble.

I do a combination of this and talking to my PCs. I usually find that a "this game is about heroic and upstanding characters. Make your characters in line with this" and possibly the occassional gentle reminder tends to work wonders. If it doesn't, then maybe that isn't the type of game they want to play in and trying to force the players into a type of game they don't want by mechanically penalizing them for stepping outside the campaign framework is bound to cause friction.

Tinman · 03-28-2016, 10:05 AM

It sounds extreamly heavy handed & unfair to penalisze the whole group for the actions of one player. If I was a player in a group like that there would be trouble.

RyanW · 03-28-2016, 10:24 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Tinman

It sounds extreamly heavy handed & unfair to penalisze the whole group for the actions of one player. If I was a player in a group like that there would be trouble.

The usual justification for group punishment is to encourage internal correction (if everyone is being punished, everyone has an incentive to provide correctional pressure). Whether that creates the desired effect or simply destroys friendships depends on the group.

PTTG · 03-28-2016, 10:27 AM

I myself might use Luck and variants as the consequences of karma as an in-game force. Being karmic earns extra CP that goes into separate track that starts at 0. When this karma is positive, it can be used to successes. When it is negative (due to penalties from being un-karmic), the PC has the effects of Unlucky, which wears off slowly each individual time that something bad happens to him.

03-27-2016, 03:31 PM	#1
AlexanderHowl Join Date: Feb 2016	Karma in GURPS I was wondering if any of the GMs had created a karmic system in their games to reward their characters for being heroic and to punish their characters for being villainous. For example, the characters in all of my games learn that I have a tendency to seed my 'innocent' NPC populations with NPCs that can whip the floors with the entire party in case they decide to start plugging innocents. More formally, I reward the entire party when one or more of them is heroic (+1 character point for the session for each heroic party member) and I punish the entire party when one or more of them is villainous (-1 character point for the session for each villainous party member). While it tends to discourage people from creating villainous PCs (PCs with Bully, Sadism, etc), it does tend to make my games rather high action and rather fun (especially since I like beginning campaigns at 250 character points).

03-27-2016, 06:07 PM	#2
Minuteman37 Join Date: Aug 2015 Location: Kenai, Alaska	Re: Karma in GURPS I've experimented with this kind of system in the past, with mixed results at best. I do like it though and if I were to try it again I'd tie it to disadvantages. Basically I as the GM can force a disadvantage to activate, putting the player in a bad spot, to compensate for this dickery I pay the players in points. Either strait character points or expendable points that can be used in play like impulse buys lays out.

03-27-2016, 06:28 PM	#3
Anaraxes Join Date: Sep 2007	Re: Karma in GURPS It sounds a bit heavy-handed the way it's phrased. But, if during the character creation phase, the players have already agreed to a campaign requirement that all the PCs be "heroic", then it really is the same as the suggested bonus for good roleplaying. The biggest difference is penalizing the rest of the party for the unheroic actions of one member. You could fold that in if you define "heroic" as also not associating with known villains. In that case, the heroic party members lose the point of xp for continuing to associate with villains, which isn't heroic. The villains themselves lose the point because their concept involved them being heroic, and they're failing to play that way. There's something of a level mixup involved, as while the players know they're getting docked xp, their characters don't know anything about that. Do the characters behave heroically because that's what they do, or are they just puppeted that way by their meta-game masters solely to selfishly gain more xp? And how heroic is that motivation, really? Where's the karma system karma to dissuade that behavior? :) In the groups I've been in recently, we tend to create reasonably compatible groups of characters from the start. We mostly got over the inter-party conflict with holy paladins and evil assassins a long time ago. So, the issue doesn't really come up. If we decided to play Big Damn Heroes, why, that's what we do, because we wanted to, and we'd just be cheating ourselves out of fun, no matter what the xp totals were.

03-27-2016, 11:52 PM	#4
Johnny1A.2 Join Date: Feb 2007	Re: Karma in GURPS To some degree, this can be accomplished with a system of 'natural consequences'. That is, if PCs behave badly, let the natural consequence of that behavior ensue (it's not as easy to use the other way, but it can be). Start killing bystanders, or even beating them up or otherwise mistreating them, and depending on the setting there's a fair chance you'll have an unpleasant encounter with the whatever fills the role of police, or with angry relatives of the victim, or something. Steal from bystanders and same deal. Behave like a creep and pretty soon NPC reaction rolls may start developing creepy penalties. Yeah, that local may be scared of you and not likely to give you any crap...but he isn't likely to help you needlessly either, and people who know stuff you might need to know won't be likely to seek you out, either, if you've got a reputation as Trouble.

03-28-2016, 12:45 AM	#6
dataweaver Join Date: Aug 2004	Re: Karma in GURPS Impulse Buys can be adapted to support something like this (in terms of “good karma”), while the Corruption stuff from Horror could be used to model “bad karma”. __________________ Point balance is a myth.[1][2][3][4]

03-28-2016, 10:05 AM	#8
Tinman Join Date: Feb 2007 Location: New York City	Re: Karma in GURPS It sounds extreamly heavy handed & unfair to penalisze the whole group for the actions of one player. If I was a player in a group like that there would be trouble.

03-28-2016, 10:27 AM	#10
PTTG Join Date: Feb 2011	Re: Karma in GURPS I myself might use Luck and variants as the consequences of karma as an in-game force. Being karmic earns extra CP that goes into separate track that starts at 0. When this karma is positive, it can be used to successes. When it is negative (due to penalties from being un-karmic), the PC has the effects of Unlucky, which wears off slowly each individual time that something bad happens to him.