The SR4 contact system at chargen is decent enough, but it has a massive flaw in it. Namely, it's far cheaper and more effective to throw all your contact points into a single contact who's both loyal and has far-reaching influence than getting lots of lower-level contacts spread over many different backgrounds. Even the Face archtype in the book bows to this pressure; it used to be that a good face had dozens of people he could get in contact with for a job, now he's far better off getting only one very loyal fixer contact and letting them FOF for you.

I think we can do better. So here's my first, very rough attempt at a patch:

1) Buy Contact Points rather like resources. You get 5 Contact Points for every Build Point you spend on contacts.
2) for formula for contact cost is changed to Connections^2 + Loyalty^2. Thus a Connections 3 Loyalty 2 contact would cost 3^2 + 2^2 = 9+4=13 points.

Does that sound like it would be interesting? In this way low-level contacts would be much cheaper (you can get nearly 2.5 times as many now for your BP) but high-level ones will cost even more (Loyalty 6-Connections 6 would cost 14BP).

Interesting.

• The GM should always have absolute veto power or deal with the consequences. I haven't had any luck in articulating a rule or set of rules to keep a cheese-monkey from taking Dunklezahn as a contact, which forces a certain amount of responsibility on the part of players and GM.
• A silly amount of math to complicate what should be a fundamentally simple process.
• The d6 availability check serves to limit the practical usefulness of highly influential contacts.
• Just because a contact is amazingly influential and devoutly loyal doesn't mean they actually have the capacity to provide meaningful assistance.

I'd suggest a cascading point cost, just to keep things simple.

• Rating 1 costs 1 point
• Rating 2 costs 4 points
• Rating 3 costs 6 points
• Rating 4 costs 8 points
• Rating 5 costs 10 points
• Rating 6 costs 12 points

Cost = (Rating x2)

Edit 3:

The thing to remember is that the amount and types of favours your contact will expect off of you in turn hangs on their rating. And if you have an Oyabun that is willing to take a bullet for you, you can expect that he'll be wanting some pretty hair raising favours from you in return

I'd also draw the line at characters having a contact with major crime figures, but that's just me.

-Siege

You don't need to have one of those defunct Flaws to balance them out, because you just paid 12BP for the privilage of being mostly ignored but on the occation you aren't ignored you are likely screwed.

You got to deal with [Bricktop]. You just got to make sure you don't end up owing him. Cause then you're in his debt. Which means, you're in his pocket. And once you're in that, you ain't ever coming out." - Turish, Snatch

The only possibily good thing about that suggestion is a way try make contact less expensive overall. If you look through the contacts section to see what they give you, generally they buy you the privilage of paying more money. The best deals are likely around 7-8BP, but IMO even they are about maybe 60% over priced.

What i'd likely do is push the contacts up a level, spacing out the 1 & 2 into 1, 2, & 3. What is currently listed as level 6 joins up with dragons, high level free spirits, AAA corp CEOs, etc. in the "You don't really want these people as friends, and we aren't going to let starting character commit suicide by taking them" catagory.

Then change the BP cost for Contacts to (total off all Connections+Loyalties)/2.

Making higher-level contacts a double-edged sword?

Doesn't that defeat the point of having a Loyalty rating?

-Siege

You'd think.

Personally, I just redid the entire Social Situation Modifiers table and have PCs make a Negotiations Test based on the apparent loyalty. Connections is a bit more complicated, but it works.

Consider "Face" as a character archetype, like Mage.

A good mage will spend about 90 points on stuff specific to being a mage like their magic attribute, buying spells, and having better mental attributes.

If you were to spend 90 points on contacts, you could get 18 3/2 or 2/3 contacts - easily enough to get the "Face" flavor right. If you mixed it up a bit, that could be 5@3/2, 5@2/3, and 4@5/5.

I gotta agree with Blak on this one - considering the pound-per-point exchange for BP and contact points, there's not a lot of mechanical incentive to acquire a large network of contacts.

Although it's amazingly useful to know all sorts to the inventive player.

-Siege

House Rules

My house rule is: rating x loyalty. Together with the karma creation system.

I noticed this mentioned offhand in a separate thread. That's not too bad a mechanism to get a couple of Contacts for each PC, and naturally a boost to face types.

Hm. I wouldn't use the Attribute; attributes are too damn important already. How about something like Leadership x2 + (Skill) in BP for contacts, where (Skill) is any other CHA-linked social skill? I think good leaders should be able to attract more contacts.

But Serbitar's got a very impressive system there. That's really got to be posted somewhere important; it's SR4 BeCKS + SR4 Errata all in one neat little package!

I like Connections x Loyalty, with 3 'contact points' per Build Point. The 6/6 Uber Contact still sets you back 12 BPs, but everything else costs less.

-Frank

Has anyone just put an arbitrary cap on "Influence" ratings?

No "Influence" rating over 4, for example.

How often do characters have contacts that rate as having "Influence" over 4?

-Siege

I think perhaps a better cap is to cap the total, rather than any one score. Cap it at say 8, and then you can have an influence 6 contact for example, but you're still just his client, rather than a friend (6/2)

Or you can have a Gang Boss that is a good buddy (4/4), or a gang member that is willing to take a bullet for you(2/6), or an experienced shadowrunner who is willing to back you in a tough situation (3/5)