Board Game Arena

I was in the middle of a game and my area lost power. I was dropped 20 points in Karma.

Can this be reversed?

tbh, karma is quite meaningless if you are a regular player. It will go back up as you finish more games. People also use fast games like Can't Stop to boost their karma back to 100 quickly.

Yeah, it's not gonna be reversed. Consider the number of people who would claim to have had a power outage... there'd have to be some sort of proof, a "doctor's note" from your electric company... it's not really feasible.

Luckily, as wdspider says, regaining it is pretty easy. (Too easy, if you ask me, but I also believe it's taken away too easily.)

Why should it be taken away?

Even if it's not your fault, the penalty is just informing others that you could not finish a game that you started, willingly or not. If it's not a common situation, it will disappear naturally. But if it's a common thing, everyone should be warned that you live in an area with frequent power outages (or whatever).

I don't think those sorts of things can necessarily give you back karma.

I mean, the point of karma is to communicate that a player has a tendency to disrupt games. It doesn't really matter if it's intentional. If someone loses karma because of a bad internet connection, for example, then the system is working properly, because it is true that your connection is unreliable and that therefore you may be a problem for other players, even though it's not exactly your fault.

Getting your area power cut out is a bit more of a grey area, but it's still hard to "prove" that it's a totally random incident. As it stands, the site doesn't really make a distinction based on why someone lost their karma, because it would be too hard to address every case separately.

OK. Thanks.

Understood.

I just hate not being at 100% -- I try so hard to ensure it stays there.

KDLadage wrote: ↑24 July 2026, 22:20 OK. Thanks.

Understood.

I just hate not being at 100% -- I try so hard to ensure it stays there.

I assume you were playing on your computer.
I won't assume you have a cell phone, but if you do, and the outage wasn't enough to take out all the cell towers, was it an option to continue the game on your phone, if you had one available?

Sems like a dumb question but the first time my internet went out, I was unprepared. By the time I loaded BGA on my phone and logged in, it was too late, but now, for real time games, I always have it ready.

As for hating not being at 100% - you can get back 20 Karma in 15 minutes by playing fast games.

Moreover, I believe the karma penalty is -20 only if you have another recent (within the last week? couple of days?) incident, otherwise it's just -10. So, for truly occasional, once-in-a-year events, it's really almost negligible, especially for those who normally play many games anyhow.

Also, karma restrictions for tournaments only apply at the moment you register the tournament. So it's not like unexpected losses of karma would have too negative effects. Unless you happen to stumble on a tournament that only starts in a few hours and you don't have the time to regain the karma.