UPDATE: Released version 3.1 on 2/20/18. Streamlines mechanics, better defines magic/tech, and clarifies some rules.
I wanted to share with the community, that after 17 months of play testing, I’ve just released version 3 of “Karma in the Dark”. What started as a Shadowrun hack has become its own game.
Karma is a game about fighting an oppressive system in a cyberpunk-fantasy world. The team tries to earn a professional reputation without becoming as corrupt as the factions that hire them. It includes:
* Easy rules to create your own cyberpunk-fantasy world
* A karma system that tracks the team’s corruption level; as the team compromises their values for the sake of power, the GM advances a karma Front that brings more darkness into the world
* A contacts system, so that characters truly live by the “you are who you know” motto
* Advancement focused on social currency; as the team improves their rep, they gain access to special contracts, which are the pathway out of irrelevance and to becoming a faction that can survive the GM’s Front
* A focus on a persistent world more than persistent teams, with mechanics for the players to change the world depending on choices they make during each campaign
* Lots of customization, with 9 classes that can be mixed-and-matched, 6 team types, and the ability to choose between 9 different safe houses which affect upgrades and the narrative, as it determines the team’s starting neighborhood
The Blades and Shadowrun communities have been super helpful in the design process so far, and I’m extremely grateful. This is a major update (with much revision ongoing) so any feedback is appreciated.
I remember the first version of this! It was very impressive. Looking forward to reading this one.
This sounds awesome, can’t wait to read through it!
Very cool!
Sounds very cool. I’ve been containing my attention to the KS stretch goal hacks/conversions to avoid overwhelming myself, but this one piques my interest too much to pass up!
Nihzlet I know what you mean by wanting to avoid overload. I love the community’s creativity and read TTRPGs for fun all the time, yet it’s taking me a while to process all the different hacks. It’s a good problem to have 🙂
This looks very cool and well done. Will read it soon. Thanks for sharing.
Very interested in checking this out! Will read it soon!
Wow, that looks really good. I think I’ll adjust my iconic blades-shadowrun one-shot to look more like that.
This looks super cool and very professional! I had some ideas running around about a cyberpunk hack that was a little more Drive/Hotline Miami inspired than Shadowrun inspired, but it looks like this is basically all that I wanted in mine. When I have time, I’ll read through this more fully. Are you interested in talking about it in a little more depth?
Matt Chodaczek For sure, I’d be happy to talk about it more in depth. My design is still in flux right now; after some great pointers from Sean, I have a better idea about how to break away from Shadowrun while still retaining the spirit I care about in the design.
Cass Reyfield Hey Cass, sorry for the delay, I’m not going to have much time at all this weekend. My own game (which I saw you looked through, thank you!) is having some identity problems so I pulled it offline and I’m going to tear it apart and put it back together again before I take too much of a look at your game.
My main gimmick I wanted to incorporate in a synthpunk/cyberpunk hack was that Corruption (I think that’s what you call it, I toyed with “Ambition”) would be used to decrease the cost of Tier advancement.
So the idea was that a Crew would start out with a grudge, some ideas, a plan to change the world, and be mechanically beaten down and have to trade their ideals for short term goals just to survive. By the end of the campaign, we’d see them in the same place their enemies started out in. I don’t know if anything too similar came up in your game (again, I haven’t read through it that in-depth yet) but I saw some familiar ideas.
As a side note, I’m also interested to hear about what you’ve implemented to allow the players to make their own cyberpunk world (I think I read that), which is a huge departure from both Blades and Shadowrun, which obviously have heavy lore.
Sorry, long post. Thanks for your hard work–it’s people like you that bring legitimacy to this community.
Matt Chodaczek Do you have an email we could talk at? I read through your game and got really excited by what I saw. Would love to chat some more about it. (Or, my email is tangent 42 at gmail . com)