BS&W: Using Your Karma Points
Good Karma
Good Karma is used between adventures to improve character ratings or gain benefits. A character can increase Physical and Mental Attributes 1 point by paying a number of Good Karma Points equal to the rating to which the Attribute is being raised. Raising a Strength of 5 to 6 would cost 6 Good Karma Points. Attribute Ratings cannot normally exceed the character’s racial maximum. However, if the gamemaster agrees, paying double the Good Karma Points can raise the Attribute above the racial maximum. For example, a human character who wanted to raise her Strength from 6 to 7 would have to spend 14 Good Karma Points to do so. The gamemaster should probably discourage players from raising a character’s Attributes to beyond 1.5 x the racial maximum. Good Karma can also raise Attributes that have been reduced for some reason. Though it is NEVER possible to use Karma to directly raise Reaction, Essence, and Magic, Reaction may change if Quickness or Intelligence is improved.
Skills
Skill Ratings can also be raised using Good Karma. Once the Karma has been paid, the Skill Rating goes up 1 point. Once the character has begun the game, improvements in general skills, Concentrations, and Specializations al happen sepa- rately. Increasing a general skill does not automatically change the Concentration, and so on.
Good Karma Cost For Skills
- General skills – 2 x New Rating
- Concentrations – 1.5 x New Rating
- Specializations – 1 x New Rating
- Languages – 1 x New Rating
Iris has specialized in Firearms Skill. Her current ratings are Firearms 1, Pistols 3, and Beretta 101T, her chosen weapon, of 5.
Raising her general Firearms Skill from 1 to 2 costs 4 Karma Points.
Raising her Pistols skill from 3 to 4 costs 6 Karma Points.
Raising her Beretta 101T skill from 5 to a Specialization 6 costs 6 Karma Points.
New Concentrations are based on the existing general skill score. If the character has Firearms 4 and wants to concentrate with Pistols at 5, the Concentration would cost 5 x 1.5, or 8 Karma Points.
New Specializations are based on the existing Concentration score. If the character does not have an appropriate Concentration, use the general skill. Thus, if the character only wants to improve with the Remington Roomsweeper, the Specialization would cost 5 x 1, or 5 Karma Points, to reach Rating 5 in that specialized skill.
New skills cost 1 point of Good Karma for the first rating point. A Hermetic magician must have unrestricted access to a sorcery library with a rating equal to, or greater than, the Sorcery Skill rating he wishes to acquire.
Karma Pool
One-tenth (round up) of all Karma earned goes into the character’s Karma Pool. The character can draw from it as needed during an encounter, but once the Karma Pool is emptied, it is no longer available for that encounter. The full value of the Karma Pool returns with the next encounter. (What constitutes an encounter? A single scene or event in the story. It might be a single location or several closely related areas. A running gun-battle might be a single encounter, or it might be a series of them. If the runners have time to catch their breath, it usually means a new scene, or encounter, has begun.)
Points from the Karma Pool can be used a number of ways.
Re-rolling Failure
A character can use 1 point from the Karma Pool to re-roll any test dice that failed. For example, the player rolls 4 dice and scores 2 successes. For 1 point of Karma, he can roll those 2 failed dice again. This process can be repeated, but each time it is done on a single test the Karma cost goes up by 1, until all the dice are successes or the character runs out of Karma.
Avoid an “Oops”
The Rule of One can be partially avoided. If all the character’s dice come up 1, it usually means a disastrous failure. Paying 1 point of Karma does not allow a re-roll, but does turn the disaster into a simple failure. Additional Karma cannot be spent on the failure.
Buy Additional Dice
A character may spend 1 point of Karma to buy an additional die for use in a test, up to a maximum of however many skill, Attribute, or rating dice are in use, not including other Pool dice. These karmic dice score, and are used, normally.
Buying Successes
It is also possible to purchase raw success at a cost of 1 Karma Point per success, but on two hefty conditions. First, the character has to generate at least 1 success normally through the test. No natural, regular successes, no karmic successes. Second, Karma Pool dice spent to buy a success are gone (pffft!) forever, expended permanently. They do not refresh with the pool in the next scene. Replacement Karma must be earned.
Catgirl of Battle Gaming Mini!
I have finally painted one of my custom-designed and 3D-printed Catgirl of Battle parody Warhammer 40K figures. Maybe I’ll actually manage a five-woman squad before Christmas LOL. I’m actually super-pleased with how she turned out, she exceeded my expectations!
The figure is based on a HeroForge body, is wearing shoulder armor scaled down from a full-size pattern, a modded power unit based on Games Workshop designs, and carries a singularity (power) sword modeled by me in Blender after a full-size prop. Can’t wait to work on the next one!
In the latest edition of Warhammer 40K, the depicted Catgirl of Battle counts as a Battle Sisters Sister Superior with a Boltgun and a Power Weapon. In Grimdark Future, the depicted Catgirl of Battle counts as a Battle Sister with an Assault Rifle and an Energy Sword.
RPG systems Michael owns
This is a “top of my head” list, and I may have forgotten a few. Starred titles are systems I personally like.
- * Bunkers & Badasses (Tiny Tina of Borderlands runs an RPG)
- * Deadlands (alternate Wild West with Cosmic Horror)
- * Glitter Hearts (magical girls, also heavy on role-play)
- * PARANOIA XP Edition
- * Shadowrun Eds. 1-6
- * Space: 1889
- * Star Wars (the 90s D6 version)
- * Teenagers From Outer Space (wacky anime school comedy)
- * The Excellents (She-Ra for kids and kids-at-heart)
- * Thirsty Sword Lesbians (more role-playing, less combat dice)
PARANOIA Miniatures
I may never run another game – I’m not sure the humor holds up in 2024 – but if I do, I’m pleased with these PARANOIA Troubleshooter minis I created in HeroForge. Might just order the STLs and print them in case.
Classic Game “Marathon” Free on Steam
Released in 1994, this game could be called a Doom clone. It used a game engine that couldn’t handle ramps, curves, or solid enemy models. You can’t even jump! But it still had great graphics and an entire short sci-fi novel hidden in terminals that gave you objectives and the plot. I played this *so* much and even helped with creating a makeover mod for it!
Available free on Steam.
About Damn Time For Dancing
I have commissioned a custom avatar twice, each time for a considerable (for me) amount of money. Now that I’ve used VRoid Studio, I understand that each time that’s what the artist was using, and it was time for me to buckle down and learn it well enough to get the results I wanted. The artists I commissioned weren’t sure about simulating facial hair, adding the hair bow, or adapting the VRoid for Beat Saber among other things.
But now I have had a little practice. (Though it looks like I may somehow have deleted the save file, so the next incarnation may look a little different once again.) This time, the MeidoRanger looks even more like me and has a fun hairstyle that swings around while I move. And I figured out how to make the outfit glossy in Unity while I was adapting the VRoid for VR gaming use. I swear, I’m learning more about 3D modeling than I ever intended to!
I literally had to downgrade my Unity install: the feature that animates the hair and skirt doesn’t yet work with the newest. (Thankfully, one can have multiple installs.) The only way to get a bow on the back of my head was to lie to VRoid and claim it was oddly-styled hair. Of course, I had to fix the neckline since I have no maid dresses which show it, and I had to put on a second invisible skirt so that the apron tails would move separately. So many little things to do! Next, I plan to curl the fingers so I’m holding the sabers better. But of now, I’m really happy with this avatar, and plan to make videos with far greater frequency. I think we can agree, it’s about damn time.
The Old Dungeon
The past blasted me a couple of times this weekend. The charity site Bundle of Holding offered the old Traveller RPG books from 1981 as PDF for a giveaway price (through July 9th), and I discovered that D&D Classics will sell me the First Edition Dungeons and Dragons books in a similar downloadable form, cheaper than they’ve ever been. With the PDF reader on my iPad, I could browse them easily, even use them to run a game or two were I so inclined; I’ve done this with Shadowrun and Paranoia PDFs.
Both offers are incredibly tempting. I spent uncounted hours of my puberty reading these game books, immersing myself in their world, and running adventures in my head when I couldn’t play with my friends. Did a lot of the latter, to be honest: I went a long stretch without friends who were interested in a regular game, and frankly most of us were abysmal gamesters. We followed rules slavishly or bent them nine ways from Sunday without thinking for a second about game balance, or storytelling. We didn’t spend any time building a game world to inhabit, either. Adventures were disconnected episodes which occurred in a void. Despite all that, I had a lot of fun and kept many golden memories.
So, these old books tempt me to come back and relive those happy novice days. Unfortunately, I’m not 13 any more. I’ve spent a lot of experience points, bought off some disadvantages, and picked up some new ones. The dungeons of my youth are now familiar places, stripped of their wonder and danger in favor of familiarity. I find my modern players less interested in poring over carefully-constructed maps of hyperspace jump routes in favor of simply asking, “According to the ship’s computer, where’s the closest system with a fuel depot we can safely use?” and I can’t blame them. Hell, I don’t even know anyone who cares about D&D these days, with Pathfinder still going strong.
So I’ll be saving money on this nostalgic offer for now. I have to admit, though: “Expedition to the Barrier Peaks” would still make a great Deadlands or Shadowrun adventure with some adjustments to fit the new setting.
Installing Skyrim Using Wine on Mac OS X
Computer used: 2009 Mac Pro with 8 GB memory, a 1 GB Apple graphics card, and OS X 10.9 Mavericks
- Purchase Skyrim on Steam. (By waiting for the right sale, I got it for $5.)
- Download ThePortingTeam’s Wine wrapper for Skyrim.
- Follow the installation instructions under “Installation”. Run Skyrim at least once. At this point Skyrim worked excellently except for a horrible display bug. So, after a lot of websites and some guessing…
- Right-click on the wrapper (the Skyrim icon), choose “Open Package Contents”, and open wineskin.app just as you did during Step 3.
- Click “Set Screen Options”. Uncheck “Use Mac Driver instead of X11”.
- Under “Override Wine control of Screen Settings?” click “Override”.
- Under “Override Settings” make sure that “Fullscreen” is checked. Under “Installer Options” make sure that “Force Normal Windows” is checked.
- Click “Done”. Click “Quit”. Double-click the wrapper icon, and enjoy your game!
I also installed the Unofficial Skyrim Patches, SKSE, and SkyUI, but that’s for another time. Further, I updated the wrapper engine to WS9Wine1.7.21, but I’m not sure I needed to do that. If you do, the instructions are on the Wineskin Winery website.
Have fun hunting dragons!
Instant Death, No Saving Throw
In 1974, Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson created Dungeons and Dragons. Sometime around 1978, I acquired a copy, and my leisure time pursuits were changed forever. I owe the both of them a debt of gratitude I can never repay (and a debt of finance as well).
They made one mistake, though, and my gamer friends and I have been dealing with that mistake since then. I don’t know how it got into the game originally; in fact, sometimes I wonder what it was like gaming with them under this philosophy. The attitude is never openly stated in the books, but the early game materials make it clear: the Game Master is the other players’ enemy.
Why Warhammer 40K Makes Me Unhappy
Today, the social media channels are abuzz with the ongoing story that Games Workshop got the e-book of M.C.A. Hogarth’s “Spots the Space Marine” pulled from Amazon on the dubious grounds that no one else is allowed to use “Space Marine” in an e-book. They may or may not have the law on their side – most folks suspect not – but it remains a dirty, unethical, and ridiculous thing to do either way. It’s costing Hogarth real money, and one notes that they didn’t go after any well-established, well-funded estate or media organization that’s featured space marines in e-books since such were invented. Also, this event exposes flaws in Amazon’s due process which concern many an independent writer.
But that’s my problem with Games Workshop in general. Why am I down on Warhammer 40K specifically? Well, I’m glad you asked that. (Of course you did, don’t you remember?) Let me fire off a few disclaimers right at the beginning: I have never had the chance to actually play the game and would love to give it a try if it could be done without supporting GW. And if you love the game and have been playing for years, this isn’t an attack on you. Having fun? That’s *excellent*.
My tabletop battle experience is primarily through FASA and its descendants. I had seen Battletech materials in my game stores, thought it gauche that they were using Macross and Dougram mech designs, and given it little more thought before getting caught in a blizzard one weekend and giving it a fair try. I fell in love with the game, still play when I can, and even enjoy the click-base version as an entirely different game in the same setting.
But I’d seen lots of 40K stuff in the stores too, all of it illustrated by photos of Games Workshop’s brilliant modelmaking and paintwork. Of course I was curious! And I knew a gamer or two who loved it, though none of them happened to game with me. Finally, I learned enough to discover how many figures a player uses for a basic game, and checked on the price.
