Why am I getting karma for killing feral ghouls and powder gangers, my current character is a good guy, he only kills when his survival depends on it, I don't see how he should be rewarded karma for shooting powder gangers, sure they are a nasty piece of work and a threat to the caravan traders, but being rewarded for taking a life seems wrong to me, the only reward should be your character surviving, as for feral ghouls, these were once people who were affected by the fallout, what they became is no fault of theirs, sure I kill them on sight, but I don't want to be rewarded with karma for it, in my opinion karma should be reserved for when you "specifically" help others not when your killing just for your own survival.

Thoughts?

Its post apocalyptic war man! A kind heart today, would mean killing people attacking nice people makes you a hero and an angle in that time. Those people are out to terrorize everything, you will be doing people immense favors by finishing them off.

By those arguments you should gain karma, you're taking out "bad" people (i'll include ferals in that generalization) before they have a chance to hurt others. I guess put simply you're doing the world a favor.

Didn't mean to restate the post above.

My character might be doing the world a favor, but it's incidental since he is killing them for his own survival and not a reason to be rewarded with karma, now if a NPC was to ask your character to help defend their town/village as an example, then you are known by them and gain karma if you succeed, as I stated in my first post, the only rewards should be the characters survival and whatever they loot from the bodies.

I would say killing feral ghouls should get you karma as you could say you are doing them a favour. I'm sure the person they used to be wouldn't have wanted to turn into a radioactive zombie.

I'd agree personally, I was simply trying to see it from a dev's point of view (sadly in this game they seem a little schizophrenic). It was probably done to help balance the negative karma you get from stealing, but like I said I agree its an error in philosophy to be labeled as good for random murder.

His point is that karma is not about whether you're doing good to the world or not. It's about WHY you are doing something good. The most evil person ever would blast ghouls to pieces in self defence, that doesn't make him a better person.

Things like stealing from people struggling to survive or helping people out for the sake of it are good.

But then again, a character might be helping them out of self-interest; he might simply want to increase his own reputation/prestige, and revel in their adulation of him, like so many celebrities and politicians do. He might also help them because he expects to be paid, or because the people attacking the town are his own enemies as well. There's simply no fool-proof way of handling karma in a computer game, unless there's a system where you can input your character's motivation for doing something.

Have you watched the tv-series "Firefly"? Jayne is the http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8omJvCrwRdY, yet it wouldn't make sense for him to have gained any karma for his 'heroic' deeds as he acted purely out of greed, and the positive consequences were incidental.

Eh, it depends on how Karma is interpreted. Since the motivation of any action in the fallout universe is ultimately for the players kicks, having karma influenced by motivation is beyond the scope of the game. This means that karma in the Fallout universe is influenced by action and in this case the action of putting down powder gangers and feral ghouls is considered to be good. In the case of the powder gangers, they take over towns and raid caravans doing the whole loot, kill, [censored] thing for kicks so it is good karma to kill them. With the ghouls, you may just be putting the insane bastards out of there misery along with saving any innocents that could come across them.

The devs gave the courier a varmint rifle and said, "go kill powder gangers and feral ghouls" and the courier went out and killed powder gangers and feral ghouls. Devs then looked upon what they have wrought and said it was good.

That what reputations is for.

Feral Ghouls are pest and annoying to the general population and Powder Gangers are mainly convicts. These two out loose in the world is a big no no to many villagers and travelers alike.

Think about it like this man, in the wasteland, similar to where I live, It's either kill or be killed. :gun:

Well this brings the whole concept of karma into the question.

When you do good acts, do you do them because you have a moral fiber and desire to be good, or is that "comes around goes around" little extra creating the incentive?

The entire philosophy is flawed in that sense. You might be doing good deeds to better yourself, but as long as the deeds are good, the more selfish you can be.

I like karma though (in real life too) I'm just trying to point out that this examination of karma is going to become too big.

Boom.

I see the point some of you are making, but I still think it's wrong to gain karma out of self interest, I guess this is my own personality coming through here, it just does not feel right gaining karma for shooting a powder ganger in the head, the problem is because my character only steals when desperate he is going to end up a bloody saint, I just wanted to keep him just above neutral karma, oh well, looks like a bit more theft is called for.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmcA9LIIXWw

No, seriously, this is an interesting read. RunningBare the question though is this. Are you roleplaying or are you straying OOC too much and worrying about the karma mechanics? I don't really know how you play but I tend to really get immersed. I hope someone comes out with a mod to remove karma completely, or at least remove any effects it may have.

I have to say I love how consistent the developers have been in giving bad karma for violating private property rights. It's as though Ayn Rand herself programmed it.

Well there are many different views on what karma is and how karma works.. In this case, karma is simply a matter of action, since there is no element in the game that can measure the players intentions behind what they do and say.

I'm roleplaying my character, he attempts to maintain a balance with nature and kills for two reasons, the first is defence the second for food, if he can avoid getting into a fight he will, he does this to conserve his resources, things like ammo and meds, I don't think I step much out of character, he does not exactly like any of the factions but has no hate for them either, basically if they leave him alone he leaves them alone.

think of the show dexter , he kills killers but for the good of the majority!

karma means next to jack [censored] in this game, reputation is what really matters. i learned along time ago to just ignore karma, especially when you get a negative hit from stealing something from a bunch of powder gangers you just slaughtered.

karma means almost nothing gameplay wise.

I'm not sure why I'm getting Karma for killing powder gangers, they don't seem THAT bad :shrug:

As for feral ghouls, I always thought I was getting karma for putting them out of their misery

He doesn't kill bad guys for the good of the majority, but because he has a pathological selfish desire to kill humans. Harry's code of conduct on how not to get caught, states that he must not kill the innocent. Still, it's an interesting moral issue.

The devs did say that karma in a large part is replaced by the reputation system. A universal concept of good vs. evil that has an arbitrary influence on how your character fits into the world is better suited to a Tolkienian inspired universe than a Fallout one.

The way they have karma AND faction rep now makes me think of the AD&D "wheel," as I call it, of alignment.

Well they're stealing resources from innocent people who's trying to survive, they're assaulting and robbing innocent travelers, and they have no qualms about murdering the people of Goodsprings and sacking their town. They were sent to the correctional facility in the first place because they're thieves, rapists and murderers. I don't really see how they could be much more evil. Their only redeeming quality is that they're not cannibals.