Karma Overhaul (IMPORTANT)
Karma might not be working as well as it could be right now. I'd like to brainstorm solutions for that.
Design Perspective on the Purpose of Karma
- Dramatic glory. Used by heroes when all the chips are on the table and it is vital that something succeeds a certain way. Shooting the controller with the big red button out of the villain's hand right before they can press it, for example, or catching someone moments before they lose their grip on the edge of a volcano's rim.
- Safety net. Karma is also there to help characters who would otherwise be stunned, maimed, or killed avoid such fates.
- Character advancement. The bulk of karma is generally spent leveling up your character.
The Problem I Want To Solve
- Some players (e.g., those with reactive defenses) may feel forced to spend karma whenever they would otherwise take damage, which turns karma into another form of hit points.
- Some players (e.g., those with crowd control) may feel forced to spend karma every round to maintain a stun lock for the rest of the team, hindering their growth while enabling that of their allies.
Potential Solutions
Here are a few options. Please vote on your favorite (or, if inspiration strikes, post an alternative for discussion).
Option 1: Leave it the way it is. | Nuff said. If you love how karma works right now, I can continue to work around the current system. I want to leave it alone if you love it and it's fun!
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Option 2: Introduce a cap | Limit karma such that it can only raise rolled results by a max of 1 color. This helps prevent "everything is red" syndrome, but it makes karmic expenditures feel less epic. This is not my favorite solution, but I'm putting it out there nonetheless.
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Option 3: Introduce a cooldown | Limit karma such that once you've used karma, you can't use it again until AFTER your next turn. This prevent chaining red results via karma, but it disproportionately punishes people with reactive defenses. I'm neutral on this change.
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Option 4: Introduce a threshold | Limit karma by adding a new stat to every character that can be upgraded like any other stat. Karma expenditures would no longer have a minimum, but that stat would be the maximum possible expenditure per round. I don't hate this, but I don't love it either (for the same reasons as in Option 2). Plus, once the threshold gets high enough, we have the same problem as before.
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Option 5: Split the pools | Limit karma by asking players to divide it into an Upgrade Pool and an Action Pool (better terms to come). You'd make the decision the moment you added the karma to your sheet. Karma in the Upgrade Pool would be immune to karma penalties, but karma in Action Pool would be subject to them as normal. Upgrade Pool karma can't be used on rolls. Action Pool karma can't be spent on upgrades.
This is my preferred solution, as it encourages you to think about budgeting for your upgrades and for your actions at the same time as opposed to the current "let's just see what I have left later" mentality.
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Option 6: Reverse the Gains | Lock all remaining karma into an Upgrade Pool after a chapter ends. At the start of the next chapter, give everybody the karma they would have earned up front, in an Action Pool. Whatever's left after the chapter is over is what you'd get, with bonuses and penalties for RP, heroic actions, etc. as normal. I'm not sure how I feel about this one, honestly, but it too is a possible solution.
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So there you have it. Six possible karma solutions, one of which is to leave it alone. Thoughts? I'd love to hear from you!
This message was last edited by the GM at 18:08, Thu 12 Jan 2017.