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Old 08-26-2014, 05:38 AM   #1
Anders
 
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Default Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

Has anyone tried what Marvel Super Heroes called a Karma Pool - i.e., a common pool from which characters can draw points to buy successes? For instance, every character may have 5 personal points and a common pool of 25 points. A character may draw from either pool to ensure success - although a polite player will at least consider using his own points first. Contributions to the pool may be set however the group votes, including having everyone contribute the same amount, different amounts or withdraw everything from the karma pool, effectively meaning the group has no pool.

I suppose you could also use the points in the pool to buy advantages, as long as such advantages make sense. So for 15 points, the characters could buy Luck, usable once every hour. The advantage would begin in the "Available" mode until a character uses it, when it switches to "Not Available" mode. When in Not Available Mode, no one can use it. I don't know if that's a good idea, but there are considerably more experienced GURPS GMs/players here to evaluate the idea.

Has this been tried? Is it even in PU5, in which case I apologize for wasting your time? What do you think?
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Old 08-26-2014, 05:42 AM   #2
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
Has anyone tried what Marvel Super Heroes called a Karma Pool - i.e., a common pool from which characters can draw points to buy successes? For instance, every character may have 5 personal points and a common pool of 25 points. A character may draw from either pool to ensure success - although a polite player will at least consider using his own points first. Contributions to the pool may be set however the group votes, including having everyone contribute the same amount, different amounts or withdraw everything from the karma pool, effectively meaning the group has no pool.

*snip*

Has this been tried? Is it even in PU5, in which case I apologize for wasting your time? What do you think?
So, I'm working on a Captain-and-Crew space opera game for GURPS, and a friend of mine suggests that I create a pool of "drama points" that I call "the budget." He suggested that I specifically design some scenarios to spend a great deal of the "budget," such as epic combat scenes full of danger and important actions that will encourage players to spend the drama points from the pooled "budget," and that I also have "bottle shows," where I encourage lots of roleplaying to replenish (or at least not spend much of) the budget.

It seemed a cute idea, but then I saw where he was going with it when he said: "And that's why everyone in Star Trek: TOS hate Shatner! He kept spending all the Budget on himself!"
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Old 08-26-2014, 06:19 AM   #3
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

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Originally Posted by Anders View Post
Has anyone tried what Marvel Super Heroes called a Karma Pool - i.e., a common pool from which characters can draw points to buy successes? For instance, every character may have 5 personal points and a common pool of 25 points. A character may draw from either pool to ensure success - although a polite player will at least consider using his own points first. Contributions to the pool may be set however the group votes, including having everyone contribute the same amount, different amounts or withdraw everything from the karma pool, effectively meaning the group has no pool.

I suppose you could also use the points in the pool to buy advantages, as long as such advantages make sense. So for 15 points, the characters could buy Luck, usable once every hour. The advantage would begin in the "Available" mode until a character uses it, when it switches to "Not Available" mode. When in Not Available Mode, no one can use it. I don't know if that's a good idea, but there are considerably more experienced GURPS GMs/players here to evaluate the idea.

Has this been tried? Is it even in PU5, in which case I apologize for wasting your time? What do you think?
IIRC, this idea isn't in PU5, but I think it's a great concept, especially if you want to model that aspect of gameplay from MSH. Nice suggestion!
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Old 08-26-2014, 10:44 AM   #4
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

Power-Ups 5 comes at the idea from an oblique angle. See the "Friends" option in Paying Fate's Price (p. 5). I think that's more fair than a pool, as no one person can suck up the full budget near-unilaterally.
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Old 08-26-2014, 11:40 AM   #5
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

You mean a "tragedy of the commons" situation? I count on the social cost of being a point hog stopping that. After all, these are friends and so they'll take measures not to make the others angry. I don't think it's a problem, but I would welcome an empirical test.
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Old 08-26-2014, 12:05 PM   #6
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

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You mean a "tragedy of the commons" situation? I count on the social cost of being a point hog stopping that. After all, these are friends and so they'll take measures not to make the others angry. I don't think it's a problem, but I would welcome an empirical test.
If necessary, you could say that any use of the points is legitimate if fewer than half of the other players object. To prevent slowing down play, don't allow for discussion or take-backs - once someone opts to burn some of the pool, he/she (or the GM) simply says "Any objections?" and if there isn't (enough of) a negative response, things go forward (if there is, the GM notes how many are objecting and determines if they have a majority). If the Nays have it, that use of Impulse Buys doesn't occur.
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Old 08-26-2014, 12:06 PM   #7
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

I played in a W20 game that used the variant of the Destiny(?) background that uses a common pool like this and the Storyteller additionally gave us all several levels for free because of this. In practice we almost never used any of the dice, I think because some of the player's forgot they were even available, and some didn't want to deplete the common resource. I made a point of using one or two per session, but I was generally the only one who did.
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Old 08-26-2014, 04:04 PM   #8
Christopher R. Rice
 
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

Quote:
Originally Posted by Anders View Post
Has anyone tried what Marvel Super Heroes called a Karma Pool - i.e., a common pool from which characters can draw points to buy successes? For instance, every character may have 5 personal points and a common pool of 25 points. A character may draw from either pool to ensure success - although a polite player will at least consider using his own points first. Contributions to the pool may be set however the group votes, including having everyone contribute the same amount, different amounts or withdraw everything from the karma pool, effectively meaning the group has no pool.

I suppose you could also use the points in the pool to buy advantages, as long as such advantages make sense. So for 15 points, the characters could buy Luck, usable once every hour. The advantage would begin in the "Available" mode until a character uses it, when it switches to "Not Available" mode. When in Not Available Mode, no one can use it. I don't know if that's a good idea, but there are considerably more experienced GURPS GMs/players here to evaluate the idea.

Has this been tried? Is it even in PU5, in which case I apologize for wasting your time? What do you think?
This is officially a perk in Pyramid #3/65: Alternate GURPS III (p. 10), but you could give out its effects for free to your players if you like. It was inspired by the old Marvel system, but also how some Totems worked in Werewolf, Shadowrun, d20 Stargate, and some traits from my own campaigns.
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Old 08-26-2014, 07:40 PM   #9
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

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Originally Posted by Varyon View Post
If necessary, you could say that any use of the points is legitimate if fewer than half of the other players object. To prevent slowing down play, don't allow for discussion or take-backs - once someone opts to burn some of the pool, he/she (or the GM) simply says "Any objections?" and if there isn't (enough of) a negative response, things go forward (if there is, the GM notes how many are objecting and determines if they have a majority). If the Nays have it, that use of Impulse Buys doesn't occur.
What about a tyranny of the minority, where even one veto blocks expenditures? That should make the pool last for a while. You might want to figure out some measure to prevent degenerative voting schemes.
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Old 08-26-2014, 08:02 PM   #10
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Default Re: Power-Ups 5: Karma Pool

To encourage teamwork, have a multiplier on points in the common pool so that they're more effective than keeping your points to yourself (or withdrawing them).

At the cost of some more bookkeeping, you could add a Point Hog rule that means increased costs for the same effect once a particular player has pulled out a certain number of points. This won't prevent the Point Hog from hogging, but it does increase the loss of group performance for doing so, thus risking success at the group's goal (and the amount of ire directed at the PH by other players).

(This is one of those systems that's probably best done with poker chips to help with the counting and tracking.)
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