A Case for Karma

[Coriander]

I hope I did not miss something in my search of the forum posts, but it appears that the concept of Karma may be nearly dead.
Rather than being doomed for deletion, I propose to the Devs (great work guys!!!) that Karma be used to patch some of the holes in the current theft/crime and general injustice area.
I propose that crimes carry a Karma clause. The act of a crime lowers Karma. The cost of this Karma loss is in an inability of the crook to properly digest food. (the worry messes with the GI tract and causes tummy troubles)
If the thief is caught and justice is done then the Karma debt for that crime is canceled. Good deeds can also mitigate bad karma. After a period of time, the karma cost declines and is eventually canceled.
This proposal would make a life of crime unappetizing, but still possible.
Also, Karma, by definition "informal destiny or fate, following as effect from cause." sticks with the player even after termination/reincarnation.
While this is not a Germanic concept, it does deference to the very Germanic concept of schadenfreude.
I propose this as a broad concept - no messy details yet. What do you players think?

[WorkerDrone]

Could use some expanding on. And besides tummy troubles, there should probably be a bit of 'bad luck' associated with tasks such as smelting, or harvesting, or baking.

In that they all take a bit of a hit from having negative Karma. Not really high actually, just a few percent even on a high karma loss.

It might only be to the point where you lose the extra seed even far into nature, or smelting ore becomes a little bit more of a hassle.

I think committing crimes should be made more generally unappealing. But of course, like you said, still possible.

A tummy ache doesn't really sit well for a person that can commit murder, and of course steal enough food to where any food problems becomes easy.

Unless that is, you lose a bit of HHP when you eat INTO the full mark, meaning you can't really safely eat into the green bar anymore.

Though that might actually be more damaging then the task deficiency.

Erm.

[Yolan]

I don't think I like this idea, as it seems to me like hard code punishing for certain types of behavior. I believe the vision of the devs is to let the players themselves decide what is right and wrong, moral and immoral. The ambiguity and messyness of such decisions helps keeps things interesting.

Take the new ranger code for example. It facilitates 'justice', whatever people might take that to be, but does not enforce any particular vision.

I would rather that the Karma reflect the kind of choices you make in a way similar to KOTR. If you are a more virtuous or devious player, you may get bonuses in doing certain things as opposed to other things.

[Rift]

yea, i as a hunter/ranger, find the idea of hard-coding punishments takes away potential customers and work for me... So am against it.
Besides, i've always felt artifiical hard-coded punishments for crimes are silly.. your not created good people that way, your merely making them have to try different things to be jerks.

[Coriander]

Good comments. Thanks.
I only proposed a food penalty because it is so universal. I takes time to farm or hunt, so this is a real penalty in that it consumes more of the players on line time. If the avatar steals food, it just makes it's situation worse by causing more eating inefficiency.
Yolan,
Yes; relief from the food penalty should be possible and something a player can manage to do. This would be helpful in that it would add more depth to the game. A player still retains choice and a life of crime is still a viable option.
Also;
A Karma penalty would assuage the loss felt by the victim by providing a small feeling of schadenfreude. But, that feeling may be a ruse if the thief manages to circumvent or nullify the Karma Penalty. Fun fun

[theTrav]

I haven't looked up the post, but I recall reading that they're not so much scrapping karma, as they are re-writing it using a similar but more appropriately themed system called wyred or some such (I just call it weird) which is close to karma but has subtle differences.

I wouldn't look for it any time soon though, as I'd expect some other things *coughdeconstructioncoughvandalismcough* to be higher on their priority list