Loyalty and Contact Behaviour, ...my contact, my enemy Options

[eidolon]

Good to see the GM's perspective. If you'll notice, what you've said was raised as a possibility multiple times. Turns out they were right.

Still, there's no such thing as too much communication in gaming groups.

(Well, outside of things that are TMI in any situation...;))

[Kyoto Kid]

[Edit] was in a crunch for time & being constantly interrupted.

...the Uneducated flaw was a central part of KK's character make up and her backstory (we also have another character who recently joined the group with the same flaw). This is a personal challenge I made for the character and I agree, she does need to find some way to compensate for it (which is part of the reason Harper was bought with such a high loyalty rating).

[Kyoto Kid]

...sorry that this became campaign specific. The original intent was to discuss the player's input on contacts and how much weight it had in the way the GM set the contact's persona up. Unfortunately there seem to be no hard and fast rules as to contact creation. Hopefully this will be taken up in the Runners' companion when and if it ever comes out.

[Ryu]

Seems to be that the campain-specific discussion had quite positive results.

I don´t think there need to be rules for contact creation stronger than those in the core book. What needs to be stressed is the importance of contact discussion as part of GM approval.

There are two possibilities:
1.) I get only ratings and name from the player. Fine. I´m free to do what I like, as long as it fits the ratings. Friends should generally behave like friends in this regard. To indeed join the case of the fool, I unterstand his reasoning.

2.) I get name, description, personality, backstory (bullet points only. short enough for playing notes). I rate the contact based on that (or suggest modifications to make the contact work better). The list does not need to be complete, I´ll fill the gaps. Except for high-powered-and-befriended contacts, where I either get an acceptable backstory or just say "NO!".


We did something else in addition to the contact system. All players had to start the game as beginners in "the Redmond Shadow Szene" and have ties to the local Finnigan mafia clan. They know where to buy weapons, where to upgrade cyberware, who deals in what etc.. All for free. I decided how to tie them in. One is an actual made man of the mafia, one was a thief sometimes working for them... As a result of all characters knowing the same people, differences in behaviour are easier to portray. Given that contacts were predefined and infrastructure present, exactly ONE player bought contacts on her own. We consider this approach a good improvement to our previous style of play (several players of 10+ years), as it provides a strong background for the team as a whole, independend from individual histories.