And btw, as I tried to give an example with Shadowrun, there can be other Karma interpretations as well. I'd prefer a Karma system which is based on the character you choose... the better you stick to your character, the better Karma you get. The Mafia Boss killing his wife and her lover would get good Karma then because it's the character's way of handling that situation. No mafia boss would sit down and discuss the matter with his wife and her lover - that should be "punished" in game terms. But again: These rewards and punishments shouldn't go so far to make it impossible to play the game.
And what if I'm a neutral guy ? Would I get bad karma if I kill someone or bad karma if I help someone ? Or what if I want to be kinda bad, but not kill everything and everyone that comes in my way.
I believe if you choose for this type of karma system, it would be something like experience. Since everything I do will define what kind of role I'm playing.
And what if early in the game people come to me, maybe some sort of rebels.
They ask me if I want to join them and tell me all sorts of lies (offcourse I wouldn't know, I have no reason not to trust them).
So I join them and they make me take out leaders of certain towns or some traders.
Later in the game however I discover that I have been taking the wrong path and maybe I will want to repent for my sins.
I would like it if there is no "good" or "bad". Wouldn't it be great if it wasn't obvious what to do ? And some things may be unforgivable to you and thus you kill the person that has done a certain thing to you. But to me this might be just unpleasant and be something I don't really care about, so I spare the person that did it to me.
In most (or all I think) of the games I played I think it was too obvious what to do, it was easy to see what was considered to be right or wrong.
And the moral dilemmas wouldn't allow your kind of karma system, unless they weren't real dilemmas and if it was obvious what to do.
So maybe it would be better to get some choices and just see the story evolve from there, I would hate being punished for a dilemma, and I would hate getting bad karma for something I wouldn't consider being all that bad.
