Karma

A single running score of the player's moral standing, nudged by every significant deed: steal and it drops, save the village and it rises. Karma is the simplest possible consequence system — one variable, trivially implemented, instantly understood — which is exactly why early open-world RPGs leaned on it. Designers use karma to give moral choices persistent weight, to gate companions or perks by alignment, and to flavor how the world addresses the player. Its crudeness is the known cost: collapsing ethics onto one axis produces absurdities (mass murder offset by charitable donations — Fallout 3 literally lets you tithe away sin), and players quickly learn to game the meter rather than inhabit the morality. Modern designs have mostly replaced karma with per-faction reputation precisely for this reason. If using karma: keep actions' karma weights hidden, make thresholds matter dramatically, and never let karma be purchasable.

• Dev effort: Small
• Timing: Real-time or turn-based
• Common in: rpg

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