To test out whether the Karma system was truly FUBAR, I tried starting a new game and simply murdering every single person I met without discrimination or compunction. Everybody in Goodsprings, the NCRCF, Primm, Mojave Outpost... by the time I made it to the Mojave Outpost I was a "Martyr". If a bloodstained psychopath who kills literally every single thing he comes across is seen as "Very Good", there's obviously something very very wrong with the karma system.

Now, I understand that going out and hunting dangerous murderous bandits is basically a "good" thing to do. But since the game can't tell the difference between defending yourself and risking your own life to hunt down bandits, it seems stupidly hard to end up with bad karma, no matter how ridiculously moustache-twirlingly black-hattedly Grand Guignol-ishly evil you happen to be.

I noticed a lot of mods removing the karma hit for stealing, but none removing the karma gain for simply defending yourself against people who are trying to shoot you. Seems like most folks want that "good karma" title, no matter how horribly awful they behave.

All this does is remove the karma rewards you get for killing bad people. No longer will the universe forgive you for murdering an old woman for her pair of spectacles just because you happen to get attacked by Powder Gangers later on.