Duck and Cover

Steal should affect your karma, Karma should be all your acts, any negative, even things like pimping your spouse/you, also titles like gigilo and berserker should affect karma and town rep. IN towns like reno gigilo should get you better gigs at Golden globes and an option to work for any pimps in reno as well as a upgrade from neutral to accepted in places like reno but i rank down in places like Vault City and NCR.

If noone see's you steal, why the hell should it lower your Karma? Pff...

I was the biggest cleptomaniac // good guy in the Fallout series. No proof tho. lewl.

Because karma means basically "Do bad things, have bad things happen to you" - wether you were seen or not. Kinda poetic justice...

Pimping your spouse should definitely lower your reputation...

Seeing as any town was suspicious of outsiders they would assume it was you, unless the item was found somewhere else or you were liked in that town...

If the devs stick to a "Karma" stat/attribute, then I think that things like stealing should affect it. Like Yossarian said, Karma is a cosmic issue, not one of who's looking.

Reputation, on the other hand, should only be affected by things that NPCs experience, whether it's by observing first-hand, or by way of hearsay. Yes, I do believe that Rep. should benefit/suffer from "shockwaves", where even if you're a hero in one town, they might hear of you say, selling dope to children while disguised as a nun. Rumors are powerful things, after all. (It should always be easier to make your Rep go down than raise it, too. That's the way things are, and anything else would be something out of a fairytale, which is not what FO is about.)

Now that that's sorted out, I'd like to say that I'd like to see any notion of "Karma" go the way of the dodo in the FO universe. It's hard, gritty post apocalyptic retro-sci-fi that we're after, not the tea-leaf and aura reading mumbojumbo of late night informercials. (The same could be said about Luck, but that's integral to the character generation system and having a character that relies on his luck rather his/her wits or brawn is a viable archetype, at least IMNSHO.)

OTB

In the 50's, though, Karma was around...just kind of a beatnik thing. There were gypsies and stuff like that in those 'B' flicks...Lots of paranormal type things...I know it got pretty big in the mid-60's...But it was around in the 50's, as well. It was really popular around the turn of the century (the one before last, I mean...)

Perhaps it could just be changed to "Popularity"?

I dunno. Maybe Karma is the best name for it. Its not really Karma anyway. Its more of a "Hey I've heard of you, you're a bad/good person!" system than it is a "I feel bad/good" system.

Its not like other people would know what your karma is. But they might hear about your actions. Although I doubt if anyone would hear of you destroying an entire town (as they seem to in the FO games).

The whole idea is really ludicrous though. Its very unrealistic that one person can simply go from town to town just killing everyone. They would catch on really quick and start barring the gates, setting up traps, all kinds of stuff. And the game should be set up that way to deter players from playing like a troll.

Playing an evil character shouldn't be about going around killing everything that moves.

But that's what evil is all about, killing women, beating children with sticks, shooting midgets out of canons into packs of wolves and then turning the fathers into slaves. I bet we could find a bus load of orphans and shoot some of those midgets loaded with C-4 into the bus for fun.

Now I think that your Kharma should be lowered if you steal, but not too much. Also if you do go around blowing away orphans with midgets and taking out towns other towns should hear about it and lock up their gates and refuse you service, and if you attempt to enter they blow your ass to Hell.

Hmm... kleptomaniac. That would make an interesting trait - get a big bonus to steal, but if you go near someone you ALWAYS try to steal a random object from them.

atoga wrote:Hmm... kleptomaniac. That would make an interesting trait - get a big bonus to steal, but if you go near someone you ALWAYS try to steal a random object from them.

That's a pretty funny idea, atoga. I'd want "always" downgraded to "a certain percentage chance", but I do like this idea. Maybe the "random object" would either have to be in their inventory, of have a size limit, though. It wouldn't be much fun to have to worry about your character spazzing out and trying to lift a Bozar from the hands of the guards as he/she walks by... :oops:

Edit: This Trait would make the "Bluff Master" perk from FoT handy, as well. (It allowed a CH check if you were caught stealing, passing it meant that the target wouldn't engage in combat.)

OTB

Only if you're caught. If you want to get technical, maybe have the chance you have of being caught in a given town go up for every thing you steal because people would suspect you after a while.

Stealing from honest folk should be bad for your karma... Stealing from the wicked be good.

OR:

you dont chose your luck at character generation but in stead it starts out at 5 and is directly affected by your karma !

That's dumb. Luck has nothing to do with Karma in Fallout.

Karma is subjective. It isn't "good vs. evil". Atleast it shouldn't be in a post-apoc environment. Is karma the same thing as reputation? I forgot. It all seems the same to me in Fallout.

In Fallout, Karma is the same thing as reputation, yes. That has nothing to do with luck. That said, I wouldn't mind having my luck change a bit from random events throughout the game (perhaps as a reward for some minor quests where no large cash/material reward is obvious).

but you can loose stats very easily and randomly

EG

1 of the final bosses quests(reno) randomly(changes each game) drops you 1 random stat point, and another raises it 1 random stat point.

or along those type of lines

**Most likely luck cause it'd be kind of weird if you were like "Bob your now a member of the salvatore Family (chosen one)"hey i can't see as good do you have any glasses?"

And Atoga, you can get your luck raised by getting a "zeta scan" from the woman at the church in NCR. Though I don't think it works every time.

Nightkin244 wrote:**Most likely luck cause it'd be kind of weird if you were like "Bob your now a member of the salvatore Family (chosen one)"hey i can't see as good do you have any glasses?"

Really? I didn't know that. Mucho bizarro.

Franzy_Scubart wrote:And Atoga, you can get your luck raised by getting a "zeta scan" from the woman at the church in NCR. Though I don't think it works every time.

Yeah, but that's only once. It should happen more often, I think.