If the group has a face, is there really a reason to have a fixer? Finding anything is a Negotiation + Charisma test, and most Faces should have a higher total than their fixer, or at least in the same ballpark. Since it technically doesn't require any contacts to find anything, that aspect of the Fixer biz isn't needed.

I have personal house rules for getting around this and am curious about what others do.

Thanks!

I'd say that the fixer has mysterious "I have a phonebook with everybody in it" powers and adds his Connection rating to every "finding stuff" test.

the fixer is more then just a items man.

he is allso the person that knowns anyone thats usefull to know if your planing to get around in the criminal world. he is the one that can ask around for you, get you some info thats not normaly available if you dont know someone familiar with the topic in question and so on. he is just as much a info-broker as a person with 1000 watches under his coat, a trunk full of guns and ammo, and a 10000:nuyen: smile.

fixers are what a face become when they retire

a face on the other hand is a walking talking con-man. some may target little old ladys and their pensions. others will make the rich and illegal belive he is their best friend until he walks out the door with their money and then some. if he wasnt breaking the law he would be working at the marketing department for one of the big corps...

A face could certainly be their team's own fixer... if they want to put the time into it.

I don't think there are rules anywhere, but I'd say that it takes time, effort, some cash, and rolls to functionally replace a fixer.

On top of that, the fixer serves as a buffer. Johnson doesn't have to know quite as much about you if he knows something about the fixer, and trusts him to pick a good team. It's the way the game is played, and while nothing says you can't play your own game, there are costs involved.

I think a good face should certainly maintain enough contacts to operate without a fixer if necessary, but should not turn away from fixers altogether. That said, if the fixer knows that you can do just fine without them, it should give you a minor bonus to the split.

I would say that you make a test to "find" something, but the fixer is the one you usually find it from. Yeah, you might be able to cut out the middleman sometimes, if you know a docwagon clerk who lets a few medkits slip out of her inventory, or a Johnson who knows your team well enough to contact you directly. But most of the time, your goodies will pass through middlemen, and the fixer is in the middle of a lot of stuff.

I agree that the rule as it stands sounds too vague - you shouldn't be able to smuggle yourself into Quebec, then buy an Ares Alpha from someone, just because you have a lot of dice to throw around. If it's really such a simple test, then either a house rule or some common sense is definitely in order. And the former is probably a better idea, since it is more quantifiable.

Maybe the Face wants to do something else every now and then, than to hunt down items in his/her free time.

Bye
Thanee

Personally I place fixers with about 100 Bp spent into contacts and faces with 100 Bp into social skills/charisma.....

So yes you could make a face that doubles as a fixer.... but you're going to be spending a lot of time on your comm to all your buddies. It's a lot easier to delegate to fixers.

Personally I would think any agent purchased with the data search program purchased should be able to find anything you want to buy..... almost. But fixers are goood for black market stuff, and getting better prices. Fixers can talk down their clients (since they usually do end up buying large volumes of gear), and then you can again attempt to negotiate a better deal with your fixer. But, then again, you could spend all your time trying to find the best deals on gear on your own. If you're willing to try that hard.

What "try that hard"? By the rules you're trying no harder than the fixer, and doing better because you're skills are higher.

I require contacts to find stuff. If you've got the appropriate contact you can use your own skills. If not, you use the fixer as a middle man, and he uses his skills.

Sure, I agree with that:
If you have the conatact.
If you have the time.
If you have the money.
If the contact trust you enough.

I don't think a fixer can be cut out that easily. Remeber that all they do is "schmooze" with people and make connections and such. I would also rule that the more you try to cut your Fixer out of the action, the more resentful he/she will be.

Your face might be better on a case by case basis at doing this particular thing, but the Fixer has lots and lots of contacts. They shouldn't be that easy to replace.

hey with 23 dice in the Charisma + Negotiation DIce pool I can do enough schmoozing

How do you get that without monster Kinesics?

why do you assume I am not using monster kinesis?

My bad.

And how likely is it that a fixer will have it, too?

I guess a fixer is basically an NPC face, since people don't regard legwork as a full-time shadowrunning job.

Irritates most groups that I've run into, taking hours upon hours doing the legwork...and 1 hour for the actual run, so players are strongly encouraged to multiskill, and not be all the Templeton Peck that they can be. I've played 3 face-types. Two out of the book 3rd edition faces, one rigger-negotiator. Went backup muscle with one, went chauffeur with the other...the rigger had a day job. So it's really difficult to do all of the legwork and buying and such that you need to do just because of the pressure from the other spastic players.
"Me want smash, go in front door!"
"But I just heard a few seconds ago about the turreted flamethrowers and the rigger..."
"oh, please continue"

30 minutes later
"Me want smash, go in front door!"

Then again, faces usually end up being the de-facto leader, and I like my sh*t to run like The Italian Job.

It depends on how you handle it. If tracking an item down requires both rolling and 45 minutes of roleplaying then yeah, the group should get pissed. But if it just invovles making 5 or fewer rolls they don't have a lot of room to complain and the GM just says "anyone else want to do anything during those 5 days?"

Again, I have no problem with a face doing the team's fixer work if you don't mind blowing the time, effort, and cash for it, during which you could instead be doing *other* legwork or other missions.

But then, if you really get down to it, I'd argue that you would have to have a much larger network of contacts than most players if you want to get the same results without facing a large pool penalty.

After all, if people swoon when you smile but you only know a dozen people "in the know", you'll be less effective at finding out something that they don't know that a fixer who's gruff but has a few hundred names in his rolodex with a wide selection of backgrounds.

It depends on the contact and the rolls. If you only know one guy that could get you a grenade launcher, but he knows three other guys, your odds improve. The charisma test would then determine whether he wants to take the trouble to ask his friends.

I wish I had a book handy. Does it ever say that you should use the fixer's stats or does it say that the player rolls?

Time, for me, is the biggest reason to have a fixer. Any player can nail down any piece of gear, given enough time and a few dice to throw (and the luck not to glitch himself into trouble). When you're hired to do a run, and they want it done in two days, that's when having contacts is helpful. Pretty frequently, I'll offer to sell players equipment they need immediately (rather than making the fixer roll) at a serious markup, or they can call in one of the "favors" that a loyal contact will give to borrow something for 24 hours. Stuff like that is why you *need* contacts.

Nothing more embarassing than failing a job because you couldn't get the equipment you needed for it in time.

Wouldn't a smart Johnson find a way to get it for the players early?

Most of the purchasing done in my group is done between runs unless really specific items are needed for teh job, then the players tend to hit the Johnson up first.

I tend to look at this more somantically than "I have more dice." Yes, your Face has more dice, but the Fixer spends all his time doing what he does. I would require the PC to do a lot dice-wise and RP-wise to replace the roll of the Fixer.

I think what I'm trying to say it that you have to think about what your character is actually doing when you throw your massive social dice. I think when you start dealing with the "shadow community" and acquiring all the nefarious goodies that you need the big factor in relations is trust. For most people that trust can only be built with time. No matter how good you think your "wink and the gun" to Mr. Mob Boss is, he's not going to sell you that Panther Cannon, because he doesn't know you.

I can see, however, that you are someone who needs a game mechanic in order for the point to get across ("but I have more dice"), so here's one for you:
When dealing "directly" with a contact, your hits are limited by Loyalty rating (or possible Loyalty x 2). So, to Mr. Arms Dealer you are a client just like any other. Maybe your a client with a "winning smile" but he's not going to give you that much of special treatment.

I pretty much require characters to go through contacts to get gear... fixer, docwagon clerk whatever... unless it is a really common off the shelf item (non upgraded commlink, medkit etc.)
remember also that your face adds the contacts loyalty rating to the dice roll to decide if they want to get something for you.

mdynna: a person with 18+ dice to throw in a social situation represents, to me, a person that is really good at getting people to trust them right off the bat.

fool: I do it the same.

Can someone answer the question about whether it specifies using the contact's skills rot he characters?

What was the question?

Well, you're less likely to be the target of a sting going through a fixer. And when the police trace the explosives or chemical tags, they'll have an extra step before finding you. And that extra step maybe the one you need. Fixers have lawyer contacts, they have contingencies for when corpsec shows up, and so on. Sure, you can buy and sell everything without a contact - but then you're responsible for the product and the transaction. If you buy the l33test gadget from a fixer and it's busted, you go back for a refund; if you buy the l33test gadget from Mr. Nobody, you have to make some tougher decisions.

That said, I don't think you have to have a contact to buy something; you just have to make contact with someone who sells the product.