Karma- I'm hoping that Karma plays a big role in V13, it was always one of my favorite parts of fallout. I like the idea that there are consequences of the moral decisions we make in a game. In my first playthroughs of all the Fallouts, I was always the savior of the vault, doing alot of good in the cities I visited (except the Necropolis.... all those muties ended up dying the first time around). I want to see Karmic consequences in V13. ** A quick note on PvP flags, I think that if you choose to be PvP flagged, you should be able to see everyone on a map that is PvP flagged, kind of like a homing beacon, and you gain XP when killing . Once flagged it cannot be removed until your character is killed in PvP, this is to prevent spawn killing.

The Good(Saints) - Do good things and good things will happen to you
I think that good Karma should get benefits such as more Quests but fewer XP per quest, various combat perks.
Saint VS Saint - No PvP except for duels. Get a bonus while grouping if everyone has good Karma
Saint VS Sinner - These two groups can always kill each other regardless if they're flagged for PVP. You should still be able to group with Sinners but experienced gained will be reduced (and yes they can still kill you while grouped)
Saint VS Merc - Can PvP if flagged

The Neutral(Mercs)
Mercs get a wider variety of quests, and can get along with most factions. Has the ability to trigger Karma Specific PvP Flags, ie, Flag against Just Evil or Just Good or Just Neutral or any combination of the three, normals rules would apply.

The Evil(Sinners)
Sinners should get more experience from killing other players and NPCs, law enforcement in towns will not help or might turn against you. Sinners would have the ability to rob other players, if you they give you something, you have to let them go. Sinners would be able to kill anyone at any time, however, would recieve a debuff if that person was not PvP Flagged.

too much religious context. I'd like more neutrality, say, good guys, unknown, bad guys.

Dont forget the towns ^^ If you do quests for a town and end them badly, (Bad quest example)- You are supposed to protect a NPC but you end up killing him/her and take all their money....= Karma loss for you in that town. Or if you kill someone unprovokedly or stealing then getting caught in the towns area that also means Karma loss in that specific town and if you become evil enough in the eyes of the town they will turn hostile on you.

But there should be ways of building up your relaitionship again with the town, it just takes a while and you have to be very nice ^^ .

Also Karma for towns and Karma for the player is separate things. As far as im thinking you could have -1000000 player Karma (A LOT) but you can still enter a town if you haven't done something evil in their eyes, but you are flagged as evil :/ but I'm just guessing that bigger towns have law enforcement, meaning that even if you are very evil no one will touch you when you are inside the town limits... just be careful when leaving.

I also hope Karma plays a major and complex role in PV13, as well as Luck! >:+)

As far as the religious context, I agree to a point that it should not be synonymous with Karma. I do not think religion should be excluded either per say. Religion was in FO1&2, albeit a post-apoc version. Saint and Sinner is more based on perspective of that said religion so one could not depend on a religion determining what Karma results are.

*insert theological debate*

All in all I think both have a place in PV13 in one aspect or the other but not to be firmly interwoven. >:+)

"Z"

I just used the terminology saint, sinner and mercenary because it is easier to write than "Person with Good Karma" ,"Person with bad Karma", or "person with neutral karma". Probably not the best terms to use, but I can't think of anything else at the moment.

I'm sure it all falls under the category of Reputations and Factions.

good neutral bad :/ those work fine

I think the OP Karma ideas are bad ideas. For one I think there should be open world PvP servers where anyone can kill anyone at any time regardless of faction/alignment.

That said, I do think having Karma Specific abilities and quests would be a good idea, like make quests generally have a karma choice of some kind and have certain quest givers that respond to negative or positive karma with a nice middle ground. A black, white, and grey area so to speak.