PC Fixer Options

[IvanTank]

How exactly would someone create a PC Fixer? I imagine lots of social skills, some appropriate knowledge skills, decent amount of currency, and contacts up the wazoo. I am asking because I am right now writing up a social adept with aspirations of taking a slice out of the local black market.

[ShadowDragon]

Contacts. Lots of contacts. I'd imagine they have much more contacts than most faces, as well as tons of social skills and matrix skills. Many are former shadow runners, so it wouldn't be inappropriate to be more well rounded either.

Why do you want to play a fixer though? That doesn't sound very exciting to me compared to an actual runner. Those former runners-turned-fixers became fixers because they wanted life to be a little slower and safer.

[Jack Kain]

Well a few things to put down are in knowledge skills
Such as Fences, Smuggler hangouts.

Look at the sample Fixer from friends and foes, but your already on the right track your not confusing fixers, with fences, arms dealers and smugglers. A fixer is none of those things. But they know the people.

From the book.
"Think of the fixer as a combination employment agency, procurement firm, and
all-purpose fence: they earn their keep by what they know, who they know,"

Green runners don't have the contacts. During the course of the campaign i'm in my face has kept track of every single contact they've made. He's planing a head for his retirement.
One of his main fixer's was a runner teams face until SURGE turned her into a catgirl.

My advice to you is build up a face how you would face. Throw in some knowledge of Fence's and smuggling hangouts. It will quite awhile of running to build up all the contacts you need.

[cetiah]

A fixer is basically a face with a business plan. :)
Yeah, lots of contacts helps, but that's not the most important part. You'll get contacts later and as you do, you'll become a better and better fixer, but only as you use those contacts.

It's important to have social skills, especially Etiquette and Negotiation, along with lots of languages and dialects so that you can talk in all areas of society. Any legwork-related skills will help, too, most notably Data Search.

It's kind of a delicate game to build a fixer, because he's sort of a secondary runner. What I mean is, you want to go for subtely but effectiveness. Lots of cyberwear probably won't be your thing, so you'll want to compensate somehow. Make sure you're good with your guns.

I see a fixer has having top of the line equipment, though, but maybe that's just me. I can easily see a fixer getting the best pistol he can, awesome ammo, a smartlink, possibly some skillwires, basically any edge he can get but still be stuble (i.e., no heavy assault rifles, wired reflexes, or any of the obvious street-sam upgrades). See if you can talk to your GM about maybe using one or two of your contacts during chargen to buy higher availability equipment, for the compromise of not getting the more obvious upgrade packages.

Basically, lots of contacts and knowledge skills help, but be sure you have lots of ideas on how to use them. Ultimately, that's going to make the difference.

[SL James]

[Zen Shooter01]

There is a PC fixer. It's called the Face.

[Charon]

Yeah, just make a normal face.

Then in the course of the campaign try to develop business relations with your contacts, keep an eye out for people who can give you useful info and to people who would pay for that info.

And by the time you are ready to retire, you are a fixer.

But you can't play a fixer right from the start with 400 BP. You'd need to blow 100 to 150 BP on contact at the very least to be credible as a fixer. And then with the remaining BP all you can design is a bum. And people will inevitably wonder how the hell such talentless individual could have made so many useful connections? The only answer will be a silly background that translate into : "Chargen rules allowed it!"

But on the other hand, while playing, you can start making contact like crazy and for free. Assuming you are not a useless bum, of course!

[Wakshaani]

A Fixer is just a prestiege class that most Faces want to join. :)

[cetiah]

If you're GM allows it, maybe you can get an organization or two as a contact. Or just a ubiquitious "Network", just so that you can say you're contacting your network of informants and have rules for it (in the form of connection). I don't think these networks/organizations would have very much loyalty though, probably 1 or 2.

This can get unbalanced pretty quick, though, so discuss it with your GM to see if you can get on the same page... on the other hand... you'd expect the fixer to be contacting his network every session... and at the most the connection rating will be 6, so it's not totally out of balance.

Otherwise, make extensive use of the Data Search, Negotiation, and Intimidation skills but explain them in a way that sounds fixer-y, like "Yeah, he owed me a favor" or "I know this guy, who knew this guy, who got me this info" for a Data Search. In this case your Data Search wouldn't represent so much going through the Matrix-equivalent of search engines and such, but rather the Matrix-equivalent of chat-rooms and forums.

[toturi]

[dog_xinu]

I dont let players play fixers as a general character concept. If they want to do some hiring of team(s) for a job to subcontract work that is fine. or if they want to pawn work off onto another group that is fine or if they need a distraction that is fine. But I am not going to come up with dozens of runner teams for them to play Johnson or fixer to.

I have someone now that is basically working their way to being a fixer (as their retirement from running).

to each his own...
dog

[Eryk the Red]

Yeah, being a fixer is most interesting as a character goal, rather than a playable concept. I've got a guy in my group who's heading that direction. It's neat. It gives me something to hook onto with my plots. I'm willing to bet he'd take some serious risks if he thought it could get him some useful contacts.

[SL James]

I love the idea of someone whose job requires them to treat disposable people, like runners, like shit... being on a shadowrunning team.

[Jack Kain]

[toturi]

[Jack Kain]

First off that availibility check is optional and not a standard rule. Its in the DM's hand.

Second, you have no idea what connection means do you? Or does your group not follow the connection table.

A Connection 1 contact
Knows very few people and has practically no social influence. Many are useful only for
their Knowledge skills. Examples: squatter, manual laborer, academic graduate assistant.

A connection 1 contact can offer little in the way of info, gear or much of anything.

Connection 3
Meets people on a regular basis and has some personal pull. Examples: beat cop, private
investigator, street doc, corporate secretary, club owner, street-level fixer or fence.

A real skilled Face should be a smooth enougth talker that loyality should be a minor matter. A fixer lives and dies by his contacts. If all he has are a bunch of squatters and laborer's he cant' do crap. A skilled face should be able to aquire what a connection 1 contact could on thier own skills.

[cetiah]

[Jack Kain]

Actually I thought I was quoting the connection table. I figured if he was following the availibilty check rule he should at least follow the connection table.

[cetiah]

edit: removed

I bow out.

[toturi]

I was using the Availibility rules, yes. And the Connection table shows examples of who has what connections. But must a squatter have only Connection 1? If a player decides that his PC should have a Squatter contact with Connections 6 Loyalty 1, I will accept that as part of the chargen process. This is a house rule, but one that I think is widely accepted(like Mentor spirits that are not explicitly mentioned in some Traditions are still allowed, like how you can have a Dragonslayer Druid when the Dragonslayer Mentor isn't mentioned in the Druid tradition and related "religion" write-up in Street Magic). My own GM NPC contacts follow the canon ratings, but I generally allow PC contacts to be whatever ratings the player chooses.

Yes, a GM may think that for the purposes of the campaign/mission, it is better that the PC has access to a certain NPC contact. But he can also decide to let the dice do the talking. Personally, my players like to consider the most probable worst case scenario.

Yes, for some tests, the higher the Connection, the better. But most of the time, it means that the NPC is using his skill/stat + his Connection to find someone who can do something he cannot. But why rely on someone else to find someone who can do the thing you want when you as a fixer/face should go to the source? And when going directly to the source, the important stat is not Connection(in fact, I think that if the GM decides to let the dice fall as they may, high Connection is bad), but Loyalty. There is no need to call Bob, who will call Dick, when as a fixer you can call Dick directly. There is no need to call John of the gunshop to get your PAC when you could call Jim, his supplier.

I agree that a low Connection contact can do less than what a higher Connection contact can, but for some of the tests, Connection isn't going to matter, since you will call the guy who knows.

[Kesslan]

[Charon]

It seems to me that it's only common sense that certain type of contact must have minimum ratings while others can't have a very high ones.

Take a talismonger. Awfully tempting to take him with a connection 1 / loyalty X. It's cheaper!

But that implies that this talismonger is virtually your personal supplier and does almost nothing else but keep you stocked in magcial goodies.

Logically a normal talismonger knows several mages ; his customers. And of course he has his suppliers. And most likely some contacts with at least one criminal syndicatem the one who controls the smugling routes used by his suppliers. Not quite connection 1, you see? I know it's more expensive but a talismonger is basically a fixer for the arcane and he knows too many useful people to justify him being connection 1. Connection 1 would be a shopkeeper selling only legal magical product.

Meanwhile you could argue a squatter contact may have more than connection 1. If he's popular amongst his crowd, he could know a lot of transients and have a keen ear for the word on the street. But no matter how many people he knows, not many of them will useful and even quantity can't overcome lack of quality and so giving him a connection rating 6 is just a joke.

In theory you can give any type of contact any rating you want to, but in practice some situation would sretch credulity too much and detract from the setting.

[Jack Kain]

A connection 6 squatter? What does he sleep in the attic of a Mafia don's favorite restaurant?
Or is he really a great dragon who likes to spend his time sleeping under a freeway overpass.

A squatter may be an example of a connection one contact but this would be the rule if there really are any rules for contacts.
"Knows very few people and has practically no social influence."


How is it these connection 1 contacts just happen to know the person you need to talk to. If your GM designs the adventures so at least one of the connection 1 contacts happens to be closest related in some way to the target then it works.

What are the chances the connection 1 contact is going to know the guy or the thing the PC needs access to to. Low, thats why they have a low connection.

What if you don't know Dick? What if out of the 20 million people in the city he's not on your list of 30 connection 1 contacts.

OH and your little thing here.
"There is no need to call John of the gunshop to get your PAC when you could call Jim, his supplier."

Jim who supplys the PAC to John would have a good connection rating being an arms dealer who supplys gunshopts. If he didn't have a good connection he wouldn't be in business. Thats like saying the head of R&D at Aries has a lower connection then the guy at the aries manufactoring plant.


I AM NOT disregarding connection 1 contacts. What I'm saying is if you want to be more then a sub street-level fixer. You need more then that. You need some good 3/3 contacts. You can increase loyality by being a good customer and doing favors. However you can't increase your contacts connection.


What toturi here is saying is you only need dozens of connection 1 contacts to get by. Thats bull, Low connect contacts know few people and have little pull.
So they are required to be close to the subject. And just about anything can come up for a run.

If you ignore all the guide lines for contacts then yes it works. Because you can have the connection 1 loyalty 5, professional dog walker who happens to walk the dog of Mafia Don, Tommy.

[Kesslan]

Indeed. Which is why I make the argument that any 'normal professional' should have at least connection 2 or 3 unless their just starting out in the field.

But that doesnt necessarily mean they arnt useful or dont know alot of stuff. The recluse would very much be a connections 1. He may be one of the top minds in the field even. Though in that case I'd make em very specialized. It's just your one of the only people he actually talks to for any reason.

Maybe you were friends in school or something. I've actualy got a friend who's sorta like that IRL. He's Scitzophrenic (I'm sure i've mispelled that). Doesnt talk to many people. It's hard getting anything out of him. He's finally at the point again where you can have a sort of conversation with him. He used to whisper everything, now he actually says it in a normal tone of voice. He's quite smart, artistically tallented.

But he hardly knows anyone, he's horribly shy etc. He wasnt ALLWAYS that way. He used to be a perfectly normal kid. But beyond a few immediate friends and family he doesnt really talk to anyone.

I still get a X-mas card from him every year on the dot though, even though we just about never talk to one another.

Another guy I got to know on the street used to be a university professor. Really smart guy. You could have some really great conversations with him. Though... again he had alot of mental issues, totally kept to himself most of the time. The last I saw of him he was still wearing the exact same suit he did every day. Kept it clean as he could. It was obvious he had a nervous breakdown and had no real friends or family to look after him.

But he's still as smart and still knows just as much as he ever did about.. well what ever the heck it was he used to teach. Thats another case where you coudl have a connection 1 contact thats still quite useful. Limited use perhaps, for very specific kinds of information. But you could also, through careful cultivation get a high loyalty raiting out of em.

And it may well be simply becuase you were one of the only or very few people who were ever actually nice to them. This guy in particular used to allways be made fun of and picked on by the others in the shelter. But if you were nice to him and workd him out of his shell he'd talk your ear off. Simply because you were one of the only people who seemed to care.

[toturi]

A Connection 1 anybody "knows very few people and has practically no social influence."

These Connection 1 buggers do not know the people you need to call. These Connection 1 buggers ARE the people you as the fixer know you need to call.

You know that you will need someone to supply you with guns and ammo, so you go to the source, that Amerind gunsmith. You know you will need someone to help fix your car, you go to that mechanic that works out of that junkyard. You know that blogger guy that tracks Triad activities. You know that conspiracy theory guy who tracks megacorporate affairs. You know that ivory tower professor who knows his magical theory. These people may have very limited social circles hence their low Connection, but it doesn't matter that they don't know many people, you know them. Instead of knowing someone who knows someone else, you know that someone else. You short circuit the chain, cut out the middlemen and go to the primary.