Yeah that happens to be to.

It's not.

What it is is a list of people you know that can help you gain information and equipment that you've worked with in the past. That's the entire point of a contact. They don't have to be your friends, and often aren't, but you will know people on a professional level one way or another. They're not your best friend from high school, they're not your parents, they're not your next door neighbor. But most Shadowrun characters should know and have several contacts.

Using older editions as a reference again, even a Connection 1/Loyalty 1 contact in SR4 is equal on a straight 1:1 cost basis to an SR3 "buddy" (which is actually equal to a Connection 4/Loyalty 4 contact) in price at 10,000 nuyen. Except that's not at all accurate as 10,000 nuyen in SR3 is equal to about 40,000 nuyen in SR4... and previous editions even gave you two free contacts. In other words, a single 1/1 contact in SR4 is equal to four 4/4 contacts in SR3!

Having several low-level contacts in previous editions was in no way overpowered, nor was it a huge burden on the players to acquire them for their characters. But SR4 completely kicks you in the nuts if you're playing a sociable or well-connected character. Hell, even a minorly connected one.

Using the group contact rules in Runner's Companion can ease the Build Point cost burden a bit, especially if you are trying to group together a bunch of redundant contacts. For example, exactly how many street gangers, bartenders, bail bondsmen, prostitutes, and otherwise mundane street contacts do you need? It's easier to group them into a contact group called "Regulars at the Seattle Bar known as Cheers". You may not know them as well as an individual contact rating (it's a group contact, after all), but it can make the Build Point cost cheaper when starting out. As you progress in play, you can develop stronger relationships with particular individuals, or friends of friends, etc.

It's not an ideal answer, obviously, but it could help for Build Point "economy" as it were. If the GM allows it, you can even have some esoteric groups like "Former Runner Team: Team Ninja" to give the player a bit of a head start, and all by the RAW (at least, Runner's Companion RAW).

Your missing my point, perhaps I should be more clear. The contact list should before people who can help you now. Not people you should know just because of your background or your stats but contacts who would have a meaningful effect. Yes every ganger should know a prostitute, But that doesn't mean they should have to put BP down for everyone they should know.



Which I agree with Dr. Funk SR4 does kick you in the nuts if you want to start with well connected character. I don't think anyone is saying starting with a bunch of contacts is overpowered. Just I'm saying paying a lot of BP for a bunch of contacts probably isn't worth it. For my own social adept I decided it wasn't worth spending more then 15BP in contacts just enough to get me going to survive the early part of the game,(we weren't using any free contact point rules). We had five runners on the team, each with two or three contacts which was plenty to get us going for several runs. After so many runs we have more contacts then we know what to do with.

Ok here's my idea.
Each character contributes 10-15BP to the team contact pool. These are the important supply and info guys. Fixers, Mafia Consigliere's talismongers, arms dealers etc. Everyone on the team gets these contacts and they are simply professional contacts max starting loyalty of 2. I mean every runner needs to know people who can get them gear but why make every runner pay for basically the same contacts. Have the whole team share the costs of those kind of contacts its cheaper BP wise and you get a big variety and some specialty.

Now every runner gets twice his charisma in free friend contact points(or whatever formula). These aren't shared and represent the more personal relationship each runner has outside the group.

To add my GM voice to the multitude: I also used the Charisma x 2 houserule for Contacts. I told my players that I wanted them to have at least two, but probably no more than five Contacts to start with. I required that at least two of their Contacts be fully fleshed out with background and history of relationship with the PC. I figured they'd be picking up more Contacts during play and I'd rather have a smaller number of well-developed Contacts for the team than lists of archetypes with Connection and Loyalty ratings attached.

Also, the way data search works in SR4, especially if the characters have access to ShadowSea and/or Jackpoint, it basically stands in for a whole bunch of low connection, low loyalty Contacts.

I like this. It's a bit more complicated then Cha * 2 but I think it's more realistic. Thanks Funk, I'm going to bring this to my table now.

As far as contacts that the PC doesn't make up a background for, I just apply a back story of whatever is funniest to me at the moment (or funniest for me to role play) and still fits logically.

Thanks for all the replies, there has been some very helpful and very interesting discussion.

Edit: I'll make my problem a little more clear now.
The players aren't having a hard time buying contacts, they just seem willing to spend silly amounts of points on them.
One player plans on starting with 58bp invested in 9 contacts!
If I give them free bp to spend on contacts, they're just going to have that many more.

-Group contacts seem like a good idea.
The character mentioned above should have a large social network,
if he can keep it that same size but spend more bp on other things, it's a good thing.


How can I convince players that having that many contacts/spending that many points simply isn't useful?
Any other alternatives/arguments?

Something this had made me realize is that I always make characters who are just getting into town in part to justify why I only have maybe two people in town I can call.

SR4 does punch you in the nuts if you want to make a well-connected character, but so did previous editions. (Has anyone anywhere ever bought a 200,000(IMG:style_emoticons/default/nuyen.gif) "Friend-For-Life"?)

One thing you could do is look back at the old Priority rules, which I personally always loved, and build an escalating pool of contact points. That sounds weird, let me try with an example:

Default: (Charisma+Etiquette) Contact Points. Everyone gets at least that many. Connection is limited by Etiquette and Loyalty is limited by Charisma. Everything that follows adds on to that and you can only choose one of the following options; ie, you can't spend 5 BPs and then 10 BPs to get 25 Contact Points instead of paying 20 BP.

Contacts - 1 BP: An additional 5 Contact Points.
Contacts - 5 BPs: An additional 10 Contact Points.
Contacts - 10 BPs: An additional 15 Contact Points.
Contacts - 15 BPs: An additional 20 Contact Points.
Contacts - 20 BPs: An additional 25 Contact Points.
Contacts - 30 BPs: An additional 50 Contact Points.

And then put a final limit at that point. That was just an example off the cuff. I doubt I'd use those numbers at all, but I wanted to try and demonstrate what I was talking about. This prevents players from spending way too many points on Contacts, but gives them options so that they can have quite a collection if they really need or want to. If Contacts play a significantly larger roll in a specific game, you could lower the points awarded. Or vice versa. Whatever works for your individual games.

Regardless, I wouldn't consider having 9 contacts as not being useful. A waste compared to what you could do with those points, definitely. But if you're playing a Face, a Detective, or any other kind of character that specializes in footwork and gear acquisition, you can definitely make use of every single one of them. Far more than some other options.

Use the argument that I mentioned in my earlier post that Data Search obviates the need for a whole bunch of low Loyalty, low Connection contacts. For example, why does anyone need "corporate wageslave" when there are thousands of them live-blogging the goings-on at their offices?

If they decide they want to spend huge amounts of points on "high value" Contacts, just emphasize that they're gimping themselves and reassure them that they'll get more Contacts after the game starts.

Well, if you really think it's a waste, tell them. Open communication is good.

OTOH, is it really a waste? Some of the early posts seemed very hostile, as if the players meant to do something horrible. Why are they putting so much points in contacts? Maybe they want a game with lots of legwork? Open communication.

Make sure that host of contacts doesn't cause you too much work. Let them write descriptions; if they're not too outrageous, and the contacts are cool, then let it stand as they wrote them.

First I'd tell them that you think that with your GM style that the some of the points could be put to better use.

If they don't want to listen, well, it's their characters. Let them build them the way they like. I'm sure that the fourth or fifth time they miss a threshold by one, or get edged out in an opposed test they'll think about how they could have better spend their points. My whole team's first line of characters were terribly underpowered compared to their second go around, I imagine that's true for many if not most shadowrun players. Sometimes you have to let them make the mistakes in the build process so they know what to do next time. Just so long as you warned them first n_n . It's a learning process.

I've seen characters come across my desk for approval with more points (in excess of 70 in sr4) spent in contacts; but they were characters who were highly specialized and had the points to burn (so they went with contacts instead of a third area of 'semi-expertise') to be fair, I tend to run relatively legwork heavy games.

I did buy two friends for life once on an sr3 character; they were worth every nuyen.

all that said, if the game style you run doesn't really mesh with contact lists that extensive then I'd at least warn them up front; if the player still wants to run the concept as is or can sell you on why they need that many, I wouldn't disallow the character just for having lots of contacts.

If your concern is how many NPCs they're introducing, just think of it as a blessing in disguise: now you have to think up fewer contacts during preparation and can just steal theirs...

Why are you shouldering the load of creating the character's contacts...

Make them (The Players) do that work and then approve/deny or amend them when they have finished... this is kind of what we do and it works out great... the GM creates the contacts that he is intorducing or mandating inteh campaign... after that, the players create those contacts that they interact with on a continuing basis... of course, teh GM runs them, but teh relationship has already been fleshed out by the player, so it makes the game run much smoothly...

There is nothing like having 150+ points of contacts that you can call upon (from an extended game with multiple players having different contacts, totalling anywhere between 30 and 170 points individually, makes a very well connected group)... and yes, most of them will tend to be somewhat insignificant to the campaign, but then again, sometimes they may be the key focus as they need a favor that only you can provide for them... because it works both ways of course...

Keep the Faith (IMG:style_emoticons/default/twirl.gif)

Don't allow anything in the game with which you are not comfortable. Straight up tell your players that you believe that they are wasting their points. Ultimately, it's up to them to convince you that this is acceptable, not the other way around.

Tell them that their character should be "the man for the job," rather than the man who knows the man for the job. Try and get them more excited about the things that they can have and do, and, if they seem to think that they can't make a viable character given the BP system, use karmagen instead. Also, try having them build a char using a program like Daegann's here which lists all the scads of gear and abilities which a guy can have. Seeing such options usually spurs on the choice to take them.

Another advantage to your players having lots o' contacts that may or may not have been mentioned in the thread (I just skimmed) is that you suddenly have a lot of people who can give your players new jobs, or put them in contact with folks who can. It opens up more story options if they're getting these jobs from people they know and owe favors.

In my opinion, this is the best reason for multiple contacts... the more the merrier...

Keep the Faith

Agree with you completely, but keep in mind that two or three well fleshed-out Contacts per character in a five character team means a cast of up to fifteen major characters. You don't need each character to have loads of Contacts in order to have a broad enough cast.

But that brings me back to the idea that the GM should not be doing all of the work if a player wants a lot of contacts... If that is the case, make the player put in some of that work as well...

Keep the Faith

It's not a problem if those contacts contribute as much to the character as two skills at 5. If they don't, then it is.

But if you already have those 2 skills at 5 (or the one at 6) then Why Not get them if that is what you really want?

And there are times that 2 skills at 5 (or one at 6) does not fit the concept, so that point could rapidly become moot...

Keep the Faith

the other question of course, is *which* two skills at 5. I can see 20BP worth of contacts being worth more than lockpicking 5 for instance.

Agree with that too. The GM has to handle the rest of the world, least the players could do is detail a few NPCs each. Think of it as shared authorship of the game, but without getting too far into high-falutin' Forge-speak. You pick a few Contacts and give them backgrounds with plot hooks that, if used by the GM, will lead into the sorts of stories *you* want to experience as a player.

Exactly, that was my point entirely... it has seemd to work for us over the years...

Keep the Faith

Err, it's just BP equivalency and an opportunity cost. If it's not as good as adding 4 to your stats, or getting 10 points worth of skills, it means that the players with extra contacts with be underpowered.

I do not see how this is tricky, complex, or requires exceptions handling?

@The lock picking thing - Lockpicking 5 should be as good as two extra points in logic, and if it isn't you may need to do something about it as the GM.

(Btw: If your concept involves 'being shit' then yes you will be underpowered. 'Skills that fit the concept' has nothing to do with balance and shouldn't even be considered in this discussion - it should be considered by the designers who have a responsibility to make the characters that people want to play playable).