Virtual acquintances, or, Internet buddy Options

[Tarko]

This is a dual-natured post;

1)I'd like to thank all of you guys who took time to respond to my questions. I've been reading DS for a while (2003) but never posted before, I was too uncertain about my english skills. But thanks to your acceptance I'm glad I signed up to speak and discust with you. As you can see by the frequency of my posts, I'm the kind of person to hit 'refresh' every 2seconds, but, alas, I'll be in vacation until the 15 of Jan without a computer (yikes!), but I'll resume my frenetic posting as I come back.

Now, to make a connection with Sr4

2)It's written at a few place in the book that there is personnal profiles going around in WM(wirelessMatrix). To the point where it makes me belive everyone is on MSN/ICQ/Trillian/Yahoo/Forums 24/7. Extrapoling on my feeling of comunity here at DS, what do you think is the implication of this upon contacts? I mean, just by lookin at my infos you know I'm from québec, if you read a few post I made, you know I'm from Sherbrooke specificly; wich means you could always drop me a call if your in the neigborhood.


So: If I look up a personal Ad of someone and see it went to my high school, I might whant to connect with that person, to see if we had common friends and such. So, whats the implication upon contacts then, doesnt it make fairly easy to make a BUNCH of loyalty1 contacts with different amount of connection... hell, if I look at the amount of peeps I know, I'm like a connection5 contact...

Info: As per canon, Pan is auto-looking for peeps with same interest. Meaning? If in the shadows 'icing' mean 'hacking' and 'Hoola-Hoops' mean 'shadowruning' that means every runner knows each other. (of course, there is the problem about LS knowing about those secret codes)

[Jaid]

i doubt shadowrunners would conform to some standard method of marking themselves as shadowrunners. or at least, not the real shadowrunners (although they might tell someone so just to make them put something ridiculous in their profile).

also, connection is not just about how many people you know...

it's also related directly to what those people can do.

for example, a connection rating 5 contact probably has access to all kinds of mil-spec gear, secret information, cutting edge toys, etc, as well as knowing people who can get that stuff, and also knowing lots of people in the 'service' category as well (doctors who don't ask where that bullet hole in your arm came from, for example, or people who aren't too choosy about who's car that may have been before).

[Tarko]

well, that depends, I can picture a gangmember connection5 contact knowing everyone in the streets without having a clue about mil-items. Or a doctor lvl5 knowing cunting edge streetdoc...I mean, it depends in what field of activity you are in.

As to shadowrunners advertising... we all need the creds, dont we?
And I would rather speak with a guy who ran against Aztek last week at the same counpond than I'll hit tomorow than speaking with a corpdrone or a courrier guy.

[FrostyNSO]

[Tarko]

Common guys, I know there isnt any numbers related to this, but I would like to hear your toughts.


Would that easy connection give free contacts to plyers or would it be only the reason why, say, Joe, got his new pole-dancer contact even if he never went to a strip-joint?

So: way to explain new contact without need of ropleplaying or free contacts at lvl 1 that the player can augment as time goes by/or pay to boost up?

(I'm feeling advanturous, trying new words)

[BishopMcQ]

Frosty--He's not a native English speaker, and the spell check can only do so much...that's not to say that such mistakes aren't humorous...

Tarko--An easy way to rule the high connection rating of street level thugs would be to read the descriptions on p. 278 of SR4. A gang leader who knows everyone who's anyone in the Barrens could be Connection rating 4. The write-up and background you create with your GM would help define the type of favors you can get from said contact. Mil-Spec weaponry is probably unlikely, unless he knows the leader of the gang that happened to hijack a shipment off the 405 last week. But a gang leader like that could probably connect you to drug-pushers, chip dealers etc, who know people who know people...

It'd be the six-degrees of separation, through which you know millions of people but as a GM, each time you reach through another level of contacts, I'd say that your threshold raises. It would be nigh impossible to get a favor from the cousin of your roommate's friend's brother's boss' ex-platoon buddy. But then again, that's what Edge is for...

[BishopMcQ]

Basically I'm saying you wouldn't get new contacts written down on your character sheet, but you could use the friends of friends modifiers to facilitate that expanding network.

[RunnerPaul]

I'd also like to point out that having a high Data Search skill could just represent a knack for knowing which of your online buddies to ask about a particular piece of info.

[Tarko]

[FrostyNSO]

I wasn't teasing...just being juvenile.

[Tarko]

Dont worry about that.
I find it more interesting to focus on the fact that even with language barriers we can all comunicate and share ideas, thats the point, isnt?

[Darkness]

[Mr.Platinum]

or advertise like those dumb asses in soldier of fortune.