 Free contacts? |
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 Aug 1 2006, 08:25 PM
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#26
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Genuine Artificial Intelligence  Group: Members Posts: 4,019 Joined: 12-June 03 Member No.: 4,715  |
Yeah, that's probably better. :-)
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Aug 2 2006, 02:47 PM
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#27
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 511 Joined: 24-March 05 From: On a ledge between Heaven and Hell Member No.: 7,226 |
One the things that I like about giving out a GM giving out a contact is that it helps to answer the question of how a group got together.
On how groups can get together you can have. PC A trying to break into the buisness hears about a job. PC A knows PC B and trusted contact C. Contact C knows trusted PC D. PC B knows PC E and PC F. Looking to round out the team PC E calls up contact G and asks for a PC H type. And that is how PCs A,B,D,E,F, and H got together.. Or Fixer Z hears about a job. The established runners she knows or either: on a Job; Vacation; Medical Leave; or have turned the job down. So finds out as much about the job as possible, opens up her rollidex of wannabies and tries to form a team with a good chance of compleating the mission objectives. And that is how PCs A,B,D,E,F, and H got together.. Or What seems to never work, but can be amusing. PCs A,B,D,E,F, and H each have a simple job. Security is weak enough to make this a one or two man operation. Trouble is there is some competition. PCs A,B,D,E,F, and/or H. |
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Aug 2 2006, 04:51 PM
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#28
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 316 Joined: 18-April 05 From: France Member No.: 7,343 |
Buying gear is both described by using contact and using the "general" blackmarket.
But I haven't found any rule to describe how to do legwork without using a contact. Could you give me a reference please ? |
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Aug 2 2006, 05:10 PM
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#29
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 502 Joined: 14-May 03 From: Detroit, Michigan Member No.: 4,583 |
Depending on the GM that may or may not be an issue. I for one am big on the common fixer contact for the group. ( It makes bringing in replacement characters much easier ) And he came free. The players are aware that I'm not going to have a "We're wandering around aimlessly because we don't know anyone" gaming session so actually there's not much incentive to buy Mr. Johnson contacts. The big contacts are my players are cyber-docs, Talismongers, Smuggler contacts, Ganger contacts, etc. Basically contacts that help them buy things or can provide support during a run. I noticed that in "On the Run" the runners have a good chance of getting a free Mr. Johnson contact at the end of the adventure. How are you when it comes to contacts gained during the course of the game? ============================================ "Thank you for getting rid of the corporate hit squad that was threatening out cyber beta-clinic. If there's anything we can do for you, you need only to ask. Um... What's wrong with your street samurai?" "Nothing, those are tears of joy." ============================================ |
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Aug 2 2006, 05:20 PM
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#30
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
Legwork has two modes. The first is a simple Knowledge Test which has little difference from a correlating Knowledge Test or Data Search Test by a character. The wrinkle being that the character may then have to convince the Contact to share the information via a Negotiation Test. EDIT I will say though that, depending on circumstances, you can have a good multiplier effect for having the Contact doing the Knowledge Test. However that depends a lot of whether or not there is overlap with the character's knowledge and how much knowledge a Contact is assigned by the GM, assuming it is the GM doing the assigning. The second is the Connection + Charisma or Knowledge test. Which appears to be shorthand for exactly what the character would be doing without, and even effectively with, the Contact. Calling people they incidentally know or can find or are on their Contact list and using social ability to convince them to cough up the information. That would be a Negotiation Test, potentially preceded by an Etiquette Test. What the rules don't reflect well are these incidental people that the character knows via their background, or perhaps even previous runs, that are there for selling and buying without a Contact.
:rotfl: |
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Aug 2 2006, 05:35 PM
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#31
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 316 Joined: 18-April 05 From: France Member No.: 7,343 |
Thanks Brahms, but as I understand it both of those legwork modes are using contacts.
In the thread a few people said it was possible to do a lot of things without contacts, but I have only found how to buy stuff. Is there any other rules for legwork and general "get in touch with someone" than in the chapter Contacts / using contacts ? |
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Aug 2 2006, 05:42 PM
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#32
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
The PC does a Knowledge Test. The Contact does a Knowledge Test. Same test, different character, same pile of do-do.
Networking sort of does something like that where a Contact can put you in touch with another NPC. But generaly no, which is what I'm saying sucks because we can see that the people and or ability is there. The GM/players are left to wing it. EDIT The rules would in my mind belong in the missing chapter on Social Skills. Which I guess means it might show up whenever the book that fleshes out Social Skills shows up. That arbitrarily created immovable cap, and having it at '6', has become quite entrenched in people's mind. |
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Aug 2 2006, 06:25 PM
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#33
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Neophyte Runner Group: Members Posts: 2,026 Joined: 23-November 05 From: Seattle (Really!) Member No.: 7,996 |
Slightly unrelated but is there any rule in SR4 requiring the expenditure of Karma for new contacts? I haven't noticed one but do recall that the previous editions required a point of Karma be spent for new contacts in game. If that was intentionally left out (as I hope it was) that should make both making and losing contacts in game a bit easier.
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Aug 2 2006, 06:27 PM
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#34
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Target Group: Members Posts: 5 Joined: 1-August 06 Member No.: 9,001 |
Most of my team members had 2 - 3 contacts at chargen. I started with 1 myself, and I felt the pain early on.
Our group instituted a seperate Karma-like pool to be used for getting and improving new contacts. It became tied to MVP which is decided by secret vote. At the end of each "run" the group ranks all players, and a small number of points are distributed to the players (with highest MVP gaining significantly more than lowest). The GM has to approve all contact changes, however, it seems like we have found a decent balance such that low contacts may ramp up quickly, while those in the 3 - 5 range are quite difficult to improve. Also, we will occasionally receive contacts and improve them through RP, spending time searching out those people we need to meet. Our group does tend to try to do those extra things for their contacts - for instance, we ran one of the old SR1/2 modules (sorry I forget module names) dealing with the Urban Brawl championship and part of our "fee" was obtaining 2 good tickets to the event for each runner. We were all able to provide our tickets to our favorite contact (oddly, every runner brought a Troll contact). Turns out, that ended up being rather useful in putting us in the right place at the end of the run (though I don't know if it was intended to be part of the deal). Overall, the system has worked well for everyone, since we're all extremely concerned about maintaining our contacts. |
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Aug 2 2006, 06:36 PM
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#35
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
Another place you just have to wing it. There are no rules for new or building Contacts. Whether they intend to or not, I've seen suggestions by some people of doing it. Even our GM. However he is flexibile in that we can also just put in the time and effort.
For example last session I had supper with Jimmy, a mafia contact of mine, and some of his associates in a private room at the Gates Casino. Jimmy asked me to shoot somebody for him, set an Ares IV down on the table in front of me, and pointed out the guy in a yellow tie at the end of the table. Lucky for buddy Jimmy was just screwing around with him, and perhaps testing my character, having loaded the handgun with blanks because my character drew and squeezed the trigger as fast as I could roll Init. I haven't asked the GM if my Loyalty has increased or not, but I'm guessing it likely has. This is a Contact I made by happenstance and have worked him up some. I haven't had to spend any karma on the Contact yet. I also risked in a card game my character going into debt for a favour to him, which would have been bad in an exicting way methinks. But I won the game with an opposed Knowledge:Card Gambling test. He seems to have taken well to my PC. In the meantime I've used him for a couple small things and most recently for fencing some 5 figure swag that was fairly hot. EDIT My character had also dropped nearly 3 grand on the night by the time he had paid for the eye candy for Jimmy, a highclass escort with the big hooters, the manditory limo ride for the escort and a casino shopping card for the escort when it was time to send her off so we could talk shop. So this wasn't 'free' in any sense. |
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Aug 2 2006, 07:16 PM
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#36
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Well, whenever you are introduced to a NPC, establish that you aren't enemies and are given a method of contacting him...
You can write him as a loyalty one contact on your character sheet. That's pretty much it, really. If you can call him and he picks up the line evn after seeing the caller ID, you got yourself a contact! Deal fairly with the contact for a while and the GM ought to bump him to loyalty 2 and if the roleplay is especially friendly between the two it could raise to 3. More than that would require special cicumstamces. You saved his daughter? He's in love with you? That sort of thing. |
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Aug 2 2006, 07:31 PM
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#37
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
Yeah. As soon as you call them up again, they answer, and don't hangup I think that makes them a "Contact". Or they might as well be. I've seen another game system where you can start out by just trying to get hold of of anybody from your character's background for a task. You roll an ability, a stat called Circles, against a difficulty set by the rarity of the person fitting the parameters you give. If you succeed you get someone that can do what you are looking for, although compensation still needs to be negotiated. Once you get hold of them once you have their name. Next time you need someone similar you can try to get hold of that person again by naming them when attempting your Circles. Once you successfully get hold of them a certain number of times, which varies based on another stat, you can get hold of them automatically from then on barring extrodinary circumstances. The best part of that system is that if you fail your Circles test the GM can opt to envoke the Emnity Clause. What that means is you still find someone that fits your parameters but they hate your guts, you owe them money, or some other complication. Anyway how would you increase Loyalty? Just through use? Like the example I described in my last post? Through doing Favours? We also play that Connections isn't nessasarily at the full level that the Contact character could preform at, but it is at the level that they are willing to deal with you at. It is a little different than Loyalty, because at Loyalty 1 they'd still theoretically always sell you anything they'd sell a loyalty 3 or 4 person. With a lower Connection you get just the menu items. With the full Connection potential you get the off the menu items. Even if Loyalty is still 1 but, you have to pay through the nose and upfront to get them. I'm not sure, but I think our GM is just increasing that through simply using the Contact and not being sloppy and bringing the heat down on them in the process. |
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Aug 2 2006, 07:43 PM
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#38
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Target Group: Members Posts: 15 Joined: 20-July 06 Member No.: 8,926 |
I usually give one contact for free myself, usually a MR. J or equivalent. course, in SR3 my players almost universally had 2 contacts each, but I had a bigger team. currently, the custom character went with one big contact, and the others just went with the default 3-5 contacts at level 1's and 2's.
I give my characters a few small bonuses here and there. They're playing freelance detectives/police (odd, but so far amusing idea) in a bit of an alternative game. so they got one free contact as a liason to the police [who they'd go through to turn in people, get jobs if they can't find one, ect.] and gave 'em a free high lifestyle for one month to represent the office. though had to make them 450 points... but only 3 players, so the technomancer hacker also does some rigging, and the occult investigator is also a good negotiator. beat having to add a 4th character, probably a rigger, to balance them out |
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Aug 2 2006, 07:45 PM
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#39
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Great Dragon Group: Members Posts: 5,430 Joined: 10-January 05 From: Fort Worth, Texas Member No.: 6,957 |
We do it that way as well. One of the better parts of it is that you can increase the contact's connection rating through RP, and have it not afect the whole party, just the guys that are doing the work. It's easier rationalize larger jumps as well, since it isn't a case of the contact suddenly acquiring a ton more contacts of his own, but rather his desire to open them up to you. |
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Aug 3 2006, 01:32 PM
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#40
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,002 Joined: 22-April 06 From: Canada Member No.: 8,494 |
I liked the house rule where you get contact points equal to your charisma. This means if you have a charisma of 6 you can have one contact with a 3,3 rating or 3 contacts with a 1,1 rating (ans so on).
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Aug 3 2006, 03:43 PM
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#41
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Grumpy Old Ork Decker Group: Admin Posts: 3,794 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Orwell, Ohio Member No.: 50 |
I'm a bastard GM normally, but i do kinda like the Charisma*2 method.
Kinda works out along the same lines as freebie knowledge skills, really. And those can be damned important in game as well. However, I'd suggest a cap. 3/3 maybe. Just to stop the Charisma 6 or 7 Elf from going "Yeah, I was roomates in college with Damien Knight back in college. We were great drinking buddies!" and buying a 6/6 mega contact. Anything higher than that, you should definately pay for. Oh, and if the GM wants any "required" NPCs (The common "YOu all have Mr Greene as a Fixer, for one of your freebies" that I used all the time in SR3), they can come out of that freebie pool. (If a PC's Charisma of 2 isn;t enough to support Mr Greene's 3/3 rating, buy him at 2/2, and you've gotten on Mr Greene's bad side once or twice, so he likes you less, and won;t do as much for you). Bull |
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Aug 4 2006, 07:35 AM
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#42
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Target Group: Members Posts: 38 Joined: 12-May 06 From: Melbourne, Australia Member No.: 8,551 |
However, all the PC's have a collection of contacts they can use for free: Each other! Whether an individual character has any contacts (or any decent contacts, for that matter) isn't as important as to whether the group as a whole have the right contacts. "I need to do something about this. Bob, you know a guy who can..." In my game lack of contacts certainly hasn't been a problem. Every character has taken at least two contacts, one guy took seven or eight.
I have a slight issue here with those numbers. While loyalty can certainly vary from a contact to a number of different characters, connection won't. The people he knows won't change depending on whether he's talking to his best drinking buddy, that guy who's helped him out a few times or that newbie he hired for the last run that he never met before. (Well, maybe it will, but that's a roleplaying issue, and not a stats issue). So, if you can't afford him at 3/3 like everyone else, you'll be getting him at 1/3 and you'll have a hell of a lot of work to pull him up to the same level as the rest. As for gaining new contacts and changing the stats on existing ones, I take that as a roleplaying issue. While a contacts connection rating is almost completely in the hands of the GM, the loyalty of the contact should be roleplayed. One of my player characters has just forked out 5000 :nuyen: to pay for a one day glamour photoshoot in Costa Rico for the daughter of one of his contacts (the Mafia Made Man). I'm seriously considering having a military coup in Costa Rica on that day... Is Costa Rica mentioned in any of the source books? :vegm: |
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Aug 4 2006, 01:06 PM
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#43
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Grumpy Old Ork Decker Group: Admin Posts: 3,794 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Orwell, Ohio Member No.: 50 |
See some of the comments above and in other threads about contacts. Just because a contact knows people doesn't mean he's willing to talk to them on your behalf. I can see a high loyalty, but low connection contact. Bob may be willing to take a bullet for you, even though he's a street bum. That makes sense. But a low loyalty, but high connection? THat doesn't really work as well for me. If you don't have the loyalty at least up a little bit, you're never gonna see any benefits from that Connection rating of 6. The contact barely likes you, he is NOT gonna go out of his way to set you up with his best people, or hook you up with his best gear. The Connection rating, to me, implies both what he can do, and what he will do. Loyalty is more a measure of relationship, how trustworthy the contact is, and how much he'll go out on a limb for you. I think should I ever end up GMing again, my own house rule will be that you can never take a connection more than 1 point higher than the loyalty rating. A 1/2 or a 3/4 works. But a 2/5, or worse, 1/6? That's just cheeseweaseling a bit. Of course, once chargen is done, the ratings changes are based solely on roleplay and actions by the player and GM. |
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Aug 4 2006, 02:09 PM
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#44
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
Sure he would. He's gonna deal with you on a loyalty one rating basis : All business. Why wouldn't he hook you up with his best gear if you are willing to pay through the nose? But don't expect a discount and you better pay all the money up front. Why would you only sell your best gear to your good friends? That makes no economical sense. If you are a connection 6 arms trafficker, how many loyalty 4 to 6 friends do you have?! And how many need a sniper rifle? Most likely not enough to buy these 10 case of 12 untraceable Ranger Arms sniper rifles you have just acquired. You sell to people who can afford it, not just to people you like. --- As for hooking you up with his best people, same thing. Can you make it worth his while? And are you trustworthy? You can have loyalty one toward an international fixer, but if your street cred and rep is good and you are willing to pay premium fees for the introduction, in the name of what silly principle wouldn't the 6/1 Fixer hook you up with the top notch cyber-surgeon he knows in Switzerland? His Cyber-Surgeon contact expect him to funnel clients with good rep and a lot of nuyen in his direction. Not just drinking buddies, clients! It's all business. |
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Aug 4 2006, 02:13 PM
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#45
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The Dragon Never Sleeps Group: Admin Posts: 6,924 Joined: 1-September 05 Member No.: 7,667 |
I think a low loyalty high connection contact gets you the connection, but the low loyalty makes it cost more and harder to to get, and also more risky.
"Sure, I can get you fancy Widget X, I'll put you in touch with some people, but don't blame me if they just shoot you and take your money okay?" |
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Aug 4 2006, 02:57 PM
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#46
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Running Target Group: Members Posts: 1,011 Joined: 15-February 05 From: Montréal, QC, Canada Member No.: 7,087 |
I'd be more in favor of restricting what a connection 6 contact would do by looking at your street cred / notoriety.
If I were a connection 6 fixer, I would deal with people I don't even like. Day in, day out. It would be my job. But not with people who have a reputation for burning their contacts and I'd take it slow with people who don't have a solid street cred yet. Heck, I wouldn't introduce my loyalty 4 drinking buddy with a notoriously loose tongue to my best contacts. Wouldn't want to burn them, you see? He's a good guy and he means well but he's not good with secrecy. But I'd introduce the hardcore pro with loyalty 1, street cred through the roof and a reputation for always protecting his sources. I wouldn't invite him to my daughter's birthday, but hey, I would introduce him to my best people without hesistation. He's exactly the kind of man they'd want me to introduce to them. They don't want to meet my friends, they want to meet trustworthy clients or talents. |
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Aug 5 2006, 01:13 AM
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#47
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Bushido Cowgirl Group: Members Posts: 5,782 Joined: 8-July 05 From: On the Double K Ranch a half day's ride out of Phlogiston Flats Member No.: 7,490 |
...we also use the CHA x 2 houserule. Since for most characters this ranges from 4 - 6 BPs I don't see it as that large of a freebee. All of my characters also apply additional BPs to contacts as well.
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Aug 6 2006, 10:53 AM
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#48
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 315 Joined: 6-August 06 Member No.: 9,032 |
I think stevebugge is mentioning the key problem most players have when it comes to buying contacts here: At charakter creation each contact you purchase is equal to a loss of either Karma (in form of attributes, skills, magic, etc...) or Cash (gear, wear...). Later you can easily get contacts "for free" (by simply roleplaying). In my humble opinion this exactly is the reason why people don't take that much connections on chargen they would if they had to pay for them later on (with karma and/or cash), too. I personally use the Charisma x2 rule and am seriously planning on increasing the multiplier to x5 or even x10. Yeah, this would result in an average of 30 BP for Joe Average (Cha 3) - but just give it a second thought: The "typical" contact with Connection 2 and Loyaity 1 costs 3 BP. So those 30 BP are just 10 "normal" people you know. As soon as it comes to either better friends (high Loyality) or more powerful people (high Rating) the number of contacts decreases dramatically. Runners need to have those "special" contacts so I imagine it is more likely that they would invest into 5 3/3-rated contacts or so. And again only in my humble opinion it is perfectly reasonable that Joe Average knows those 5-10 people. I might also have to add that I am using a house rule that limits the total rating of a single contact (Connection+Loyality) to 6 on chargen. This is just because I don't want my Runners to be Lofwyr's beloved sons - sorry for exaggerating, but I guess you cought what my point is about. It can be compared with the availability of all those nice peaces of gear: the finest parts are just not available for starting characters - and neither are those very powerful persons. The sample characters do not exceed this limit either - for a reason, I guess. You see that I personally can perfectly understand the dislike to pay for something at chargen that can be acquired for free later on. It's just an imbalance when you compare "pure roleplaying" guy A who bought all those great connections on chargen and "powergaming" guy B who instead of this invested his BP into something else, let's say skills. While A still has to invest his hard-earned karma to lern the skills he he had to forgo because of his contacts, B simply gets his missing contacts by talking to people and may use his karme for something else. Of course this could be solved by asking for karma each time a player wants to achieve a new connection during the game, but I think it is much more suitable to give them their free points at chargen and later on let them get to know people at no cost, too. Don't wanna suppress roleplaying, uh? :) |
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Aug 6 2006, 02:45 PM
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#49
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Shooting Target Group: Members Posts: 1,635 Joined: 27-November 05 Member No.: 8,006 |
That's why I dislike the term "roleplaying" used like that. Because it should be some defining trial of the character, not just adding a little personal flair or just the player getting into the character. It should be hard to mistake it for totally "free". Think of it more like a reward, and then size the challenge appropriately. For example before the session last night our group sat down and brainstormed out a plan for advancing Contact Loyalty. At first we were talking cash gifts and karma costs and just general undefined, unspecified actions. The karma and the cash were to have specific numbers based on what level you were raising to. But then, do you really trust someone that just up and slaps down some cash? Nah, a narc can do that just as easily, if not even more easily. Is it really going to be a people that you'll want to count on when your risk can become their personal risk? To share the load? We finally settled on using something that's in the book already. The PC raises the Loyalty a notch by doing a Favor for a Friend for the Contact.
So a scaling 'cost' is already built in. This is also something that might considered an above and beyond threat/task, but instead of rewarding it with extra karma it is rewarded with something more directly linked IC to the action. Something that the NPC would normally do, more confident that the PC to has their back. |
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Aug 6 2006, 03:25 PM
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#50
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Moving Target Group: Members Posts: 932 Joined: 26-February 02 From: Orlando, Florida Member No.: 1,042 |
My suggestion to keep the rules streamlined is not to give out free contacts, but to require the PCs to spend a certain amount of BP on contacts. Keep in mind that as GM you decide how many BP the PCs get in the first place, so you can say, "You have 406 bp to spend, and you must spend at least six on contacts."
And don't be afraid to partly dictate contact choices. "You must all have the fixer Jane Eliot Smith as a contact. She is Connection 4, you choose the Loyalty." Contacts as written in my opinion are very easy to exploit. For 12 bp - the cost of a rating 3 active skill - you can have a Yakuza oyabun who would take a bullet for you. I treat the Connection rating as a Power rating - it might reflect the contact's influence, or it might guage other abilities. For example, you might have a Loyalty 6 contact with Connection 2, "Knows some people but doesn't have a lot of personal pull" - but if that contact is an ork street samurai who will face any danger for or with you, you sure got a bargain for your 8 bp. I've considered capping the ratings for contacts at the level of the PC's etiquette skill. How do you get a 6/6 yakuza oyabun contact with no etiquette skill? |
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