Fleshed out contacts, How much info is good? Options

[JesterX]

I always wondered how much infos you guys put while fleshing out your contacts for a new character...

For instance here is my list of contacts for my new character:

Do you think that's enough infos about them? Too many infos about them?

----

Emily Thompson, Human Female, Buddy, Face/Social Adept, Damn Cute, Haves Tailored Pheromons, Well Connected, Likes high-class restaurants.

"Neon", Human Male 10 years old Kid, Buddy, Shadowland Operative in the Denver's Nexus, Otaku, In a wheelchair.

"Priest", Human Male, Buddy, Shadowrunner and part-time fixer, Chromed to the max with lot of SOTA beta ware, Childhood buddy. Did some runs together.

Alicia Johnson, Human Female, Buddy, Ex-Girlfriend, Mr. Johnson for Saeder Krupp, Specialises in Matrix Runs.

Erik "The Mole" Bold, Dwarf, Male, Contact, DeckMeister and Information Broker.

Sandra James, Elven Female, Contact, High-Level Escort, Really Cute, Sees lot of corporate clients.

Jean Tremblay, Human Male, Contact, CatCo Seraphim, Huge Urban Brawl Fan.

"Sarge", Troll Male, Contact, Bouncer at the Seattle's Dantes Inferno, Really Huge, Eats as much as 10 humans.

"Feng Shui", Ork Male with asian heritage, Contact, Motorized Pizza delivery guy, Member of the Rusted Stilettos gang in the Barrens.

Shannon Sokal, Human Female, Contact, Security Decker for Fuchi America.

"Dances with Eagles", Male Human Amerindian, Contact, Eagle Shaman, Lives in Salish Sidhe near the border of Seattle.

Yoshihiro Tanaka, Contact, Male Human Japanese, Mr. Johnson for Mitsuhama, Has connections with the Yakuzas in Seattle.

Georges Huntington, Contact, Male Human, Fixer, Used to work for Ares, still have some connections in Ares, Humanis Policlubber.

Andrey Gustov, Male Ork, Russian, Contact, Taxi Driver, Ex-member of the Universal Brotherhood, Not infected by the Invea. Likes to party... a lot...

Carlos Mencia, Male Human, Amazonian, Lone Star Plain Clothes Cop, Physical Adept, I owe him a favor for saving my life.

[Backgammon]

As a GM, I usually make contacts my own. For example, the player will write he has a Bartender contact. I'll go from there, and stick a personality of my own. However, sometimes the player will have a specific idea for his contact. In that case, I will make sure to taylor the personality to be as close as what the player has in mind.

So for me, it doesn't matter at all how much info the player writes for his contact. I'm going to use what's there, and make the rest up. Which IMO his a perfectly good way of doing things.

[Neverborn]

Yea, I'll have to agree with the post above me, just a generic contact that i'll flesh out with a personality and what not according to the rating of the contact

and then of course some players enjoy making a special contact in which case by all means let them

i also think that good contacts help keep the game fresh and what not so that everyone the character runs into has a more real feel to them then just cardboard cut out npc's

[Jrayjoker]

I feel that you have adequately described your contacts. Let the GM make plot hooks out of them. I would add any buddies to your backstory, though.

[JesterX]

The thing is that we all play both GM's and players in alternate roles...

[stevebugge]

[Apathy]

[Drraagh]

When I flesh out a contact, I look at how important the contact is to the player and then make some examples of history the characters have had as well as looks and personality. The reason for that is mainly for Level 2 and especially Level 3 contacts.

Think of the scene in the remake of the Ocean's Eleven movie:

Reuben: Look, we all go way back and uh, I owe you from the thing with the guy in the place and I'll never forget it.
Danny: That was our pleasure.
Rusty: I'd never been to Belize.

Sometimes, especially with one PC and their contact in front of the rest of the group can be some fun RP as the rest of the team is wondering what sort of secrets that character hides.

[MacMoney]

When creating a PC, I tend to write long histories of my character's dealings and observations of the contacts. With my last character, I think he had something like six or seven contacts and I ended up writing about three or four pages of text in total. When I GM, it kinda depends on what kind of a campaign it is. Usually our campaigns start out pretty open-ended so the contacts are like that too besides the most obvious stuff like name, description, race and usual behaviour. Then as the game goes on and the characters become more acquainted with the contacts, I will develop deeper personalities and histories for them as needed.

[Dog]

[The Stainless St...]

Jester, I think your contact info is fine. It sounds exactly like the contact descriptions my group puts together, with the exception that a buddy should be slightly more fleshed out as your character should know them a little better. Mention them in your backstory, but I think that in general personality and plot hooks are in the pervue of the GM.

[JesterX]

Excellent, thank you all