Rules of Thumb for Negotiation? Options

[Voran]

I've wondering if anyone had some used or ideas for rules of thumb for Negotiation/Social Skills?

Like, Loyalty provides +dice to social checks, but I was wondering if there might be a way to better represent something like Fixer negotiations between chummers. Like that the old 4th edition series that has your group potentially run a series of missions for Bull, possibly resulting in things like: saving his life, finding his daughter's killer, finding the guy behind the fake-killer, etc and general business that can easily end up with like a 4 or 5 loyalty rating. It just seems odd to me that you still basically enter fee negotiations like strangers. Yes you have more dice and potentially more hits, but would something like, "autohits based on loyalty" for such things be too much? Representing that you know he's lowballing you, and there's always some sort of wiggle room, and you guys come to a default consensus ANYWAY, so why not just fast-forward the process at bit. Like if there's wiggle room up to 5 hits, and you're already at 5 loyalty with that contact, then they just offer you the max and don't go for more negotiation. If there's wiggle for 10 hits, you get a basic 5 hits free, then have to earn the rest via test, etc.

[Umidori]

As a GM, I just call for checks less often.

You've got a high loyalty contact? Saved their life, done huge favors for them? When you guys make agreements, typically neither side is going to be actively "negotiating" to get a better deal - they're gonna treat you fairer from the get go, meaning there isn't really a need to haggle on price as much.

Naturally there will still be the occasional bit of negotiating going on, when despite your close relationship you still find yourself at odds over certain details, but this happens less frequently with people who know and trust you, and when it does occur you've got the bonus dice because even when you disagree, you still share that loyalty. So the net result is effectively what you propose, just with less paperwork.

This of course assumes your runners are okay with such an arrangement. Some players will always try to negotiate for every spare nuyen they can possibly squeeze out of even their most loyal of contacts. When that happens, I have the NPCs play hardball on prices - no matter how loyal your contact is, if you treat them only as a source of profit, they're gonna resent that fact and lowball you on principle - make you work for your reward.

~Umi

[Beta]

As a GM, I just call for checks less often.

You've got a high loyalty contact? Saved their life, done huge favors for them? When you guys make agreements, typically neither side is going to be actively "negotiating" to get a better deal - they're gonna treat you fairer from the get go, meaning there isn't really a need to haggle on price as much.

Naturally there will still be the occasional bit of negotiating going on, when despite your close relationship you still find yourself at odds over certain details, but this happens less frequently with people who know and trust you, and when it does occur you've got the bonus dice because even when you disagree, you still share that loyalty. So the net result is effectively what you propose, just with less paperwork.

This of course assumes your runners are okay with such an arrangement. Some players will always try to negotiate for every spare nuyen they can possibly squeeze out of even their most loyal of contacts. When that happens, I have the NPCs play hardball on prices - no matter how loyal your contact is, if you treat them only as a source of profit, they're gonna resent that fact and lowball you on principle - make you work for your reward.

~Umi

From reasoning much like the above, I reduce the amount that negotiation will change things when dealing with high loyalty contacts. I figure that in those cases they will have negotiated harder on your behalf (if a middle-man) and are more apt to be fair (or at least non-exploitative). More or less:

Loyalty - impact
1 - they are more apt to call you
2 - they are fairly happy to employ you, so won't do things that are apt to make you avoid doing business with them in the future
3, 4 - after taking care of themself, they want to take care of you. They will generally give you a fair deal
5+ - you are getting into the zone where they may give you a deal that doesn't make total sense from a business perspective, because of how they feel towards you.

For the most part, with contacts what I let negotiate change is how much is given up front, and how much in the way of sweeteners get thrown in (medical care, gear, consumables, assistance, etc)

[Smash]

The whole contact system needs more mechanics IMO.

As a general rule the contact rating should affect their buing power and the loyalty should affect the cost and type of work they will do for the PCs.

I'd even like to see some rules/guides for how trades/jobs improve their reputation.

All optional of course (IMG:style_emoticons/default/smile.gif)

[Umidori]

I get the sense those things are left purposefully uncodified, so that GMs and players both treat contacts less as "things" and more as "people".

~Umi

[Voran]

I do like the variations that go, "Take the highest lifestyle cost of one of the PCs and give at least that to start."

[ShadowDragon8685]

Generally speaking, if someone is really, really Loyal to you, you shouldn't be making tests to negotiate with them.

After all, you saved their life, gunned down their daughter's killer, framed someone else to get the mob off their back, etc.

They're going out of their way for you, and not trying to squeeze you. You shouldn't try to squeeze them, or that loyalty may evaporate.

[Hibiki54]

You shouldn't be negotiating with a fixer in the first place. You usually want to negotiate with the Johnson offering you a job.

[Umidori]

Well, not every Fixer likes you or doesn't want to rob you.

Sometimes you need an item or favor your ordinary Fixer can't get, or your ordinary Fixer simply isn't available - in which case, whoever you approach to do business with is probably going to negotiate to try to get the best deal they can, since they don't know you from Dunkelzahn.

~Umi

[Voran]

In this case I'm referring back to the SR 4 missions involving Bull as the Fixer and Johnson for alot of the runs. again, if this is a group that has played all the series of those related ork underground missions, they've potentially accomplished some significantly personal life-altering outcomes for Old Bull.

[Voran]

On similar note, I wondered if it would be balanced to allow Street Cred to purchase autohits for negotiation as relevant. The "Missions" seem to hand them out like candy, so beyond the 1 per 10 karma earned, it seems like for every run you could pick up another point of street cred, if not more. I could see you easily ending up in double digits in about a dozen runs.

[Smash]

I get the sense those things are left purposefully uncodified, so that GMs and players both treat contacts less as "things" and more as "people".

~Umi

There's no reason why it can't be both. On the other end of the scale I find that without mechanics everything just boils down to GM fiat which makes the contacts somewhat redundant.

Mechanics can lead to roleplaying. Rolling badly against a high loyalty contact can just mean that the PC is asking them to go against a particular person or moral code that they value higher than the player or to work against one person who scares them more than their like of the PCs. It should be hard to roll badly against a loyal contact and so these moments should be rare.

Now none of your players even need to have contacts as negotiation can be used equally well by the players as it can by fixers for black market goods and if you actually want to play the game then someones going to receive a call from a Johnson regardless of whether a contact provided a number or not.

[ShadowDragon8685]

In this case I'm referring back to the SR 4 missions involving Bull as the Fixer and Johnson for alot of the runs. again, if this is a group that has played all the series of those related ork underground missions, they've potentially accomplished some significantly personal life-altering outcomes for Old Bull.

If you've done that kind of stuff for a guy, he's not a business associate, he's a chummer. He's someone who'd as soon go on the Run with you as hook you up with the Johnson. You've put everything on the line for him, and he'll do the same for you, which means you don't need to negotiate - he's already giving you the best he possibly can.