No. Almost everybody I know still has at least 2 contacts (well, their chars do), but there are exceptions - one player spend over 50 BPs.

Doing a little math, and not counting the 50 BP guy, my players spent a little under 9 BP for contacts on average.

Yes. I'm seeing a few less starting Contacts. Although no Contacts at all isn't particularly common, it now happens as does having a single contact. Also the quality of the contacts is down some in my estimation. I haven't yet seen anyone drop anything approaching what Butterblume described. As Rotbart pointed out the rules surrounding Contacts has changed a lot, making Contacts nolonger that critical in RAW.

As for the rules themselves I like the new two stat contacts a lot more. However it still feels kind of wierd with the rolls that don't need any contact at all. Unfortunately our GM hasn't really embraced that aspect of it, and I haven't really pressed it. A big thing to get past is describing the effects of the Negotiation roll without having specific predefined names. It just feels wierd. This might be part of why you'll still see large Contact lists with some characters, where the Contactless procurement rules just aren't being used or allowed to be used.

The biggest thing missing though is Contact progression, which could handle the Negotiation rolls too. Not only could the progression rules include raising Loyalty, it could start with a name that you get from a Negotiation roll and eventually progress him up to a stated Contact on your list.

Yeah, I've done the free common contact (Usually a fixer) schtick in all of my past 4 campaign in SR3 too. This time I'll be using a DA but that's another story.

Hmm, linking free BP for contact to charisma is nice. I think I like that more than a fixed amount.

The rules are written such that using a Contact is optional. It shouldn't be hell to have an empty Contact list, unless you also are lacking in social skill or a teammate that has either a Contact or social skills.

If you want to go back to the SR3 standard of requiring characters to obtain illegal things by starting out going through a named Contact then going of back to the SR3 standard of a couple free Contacts, or a rough equivalent, is more than fair.

and who has

so in other words. 2 BPs let's you actually buy stuff from the local bum (not that he likely has anything you want), and ask him questions about stuff he knows, provided you pay him for it. a contact is often not worthwhile until you have put at least 3 points into it, IMO.

Well put.

But a major differrence is that while I don't care if my PCs don't buy armor or guns, I want them to have contacts.

That's NPCs for the campaign.

Beside, you suggest 400 BP with 10 BP earmarked for contact instead of 410 BP with 10 BP... earmarked for contacts (Or approximately).

Not much difference, really. Especially since 400 is just a recommandation.

But what I like of Ravor suggestion is that those +10 BP can't be split with normal BP and must be used for at least 2 contact.

As a result at least one of these is likely to be a minor contact. Less powerful but good for flavor. And that PC will still likely pay from the 400 BP for the major Loyalty 3 connection 6 arms dealer he needs to get his hand on the hot stuff.

Otherwise, he's very likely to pay only for the maximally useful contacts and have no "flavor" contact. That way not only the Faceman will have a few quirky contact worked in the story.

Of course a 1/1 contact isn't very useful. I personally don't run characters without at least a good 15-20 points worth of characters (most of them at least 5-8 point contacts).

I think the problem evolves from the players lack of interest in contacts. Both their usefulness and the inability to sacrifice a few combat points to have an NPC buddy/confidant. Which ultimately should be solved through roleplaying.

If you have a group of 4 runners, with two total contacts between them, what happens when both contacts are compromised? (Either dead, disinterested, scared, betrayed, etc). What happens if neither dabble in a career field or circle of influence that the players need help with? Show the players the error in their ways.

Giving extra points comes down to band-aiding the problem and coddling the players. Shadowrun is harsh; not forgivable. You might want to remind them of that fact.

If doing so would fit the tone and style of the campaign I wish to create, then yes. So far it hasn't happened while running Shadowrun, but I can see types of campaigns where I might consider it.

Nope, unlike Equipment, Contacts, and maybe Knowledge Skills (I would have to think long and hard about Knowledge Skills though.) I can't foresee myself running a campaign where giving an Active Skill for free would fit with the possible exception of using Shadowrun Rules to run something akin to The Matrix movies....

*Shrugs* Call it a matter of semitics, but I'd rather add a Bonus to Char-Gen then take something away from the Player's control.

So? What's wrong with running what amounts to a 410 BP campaign? If I remember correctly, 450-500 BP campaigns are suggested somewhere as an alternative...

Besides, it's fully my right as Keeper of Fate to say no to them if they decide to pester me for things that I don't believe would make a better and balanced campaign.

I suppose that's one way of looking at it, personally I see giving what amounts to a couple of free contacts as carrying on one of the traditions of Shadowrun without unduely affecting gamebalance.

Although I do wonder how you've equalited more-or-less following what I believe to be the spirit of Third Edition's take on Contacts to running a campaign that isn't harsh and unforgiving on the characters...

Partially, although it seems more like just general S&M style GMing.

In order of ease of alternatives to Contacts there is buying and selling items as Negotiation+Charisma, see Blackmarket Goods starting page 302. The legworking part of a Contact is really just knowledge skills, with maybe a little surveillance on the side. EDIT And sometimes Data Search. Networking, showing up or convincing someone to do it for you, is probably the toughest alternative.

However obviously the character knows people, or knows how to get hold of people, outside the Contact list. Otherwise the first three things wouldn't work at all. Unfortunately how that happens isn't detailed in anyway, and isn't reflected in the rules particularly well. Nor is building new offical Contacts out of people that you incidentally know or meet. Nor increasing the loyalty of existing ones.

Equalited?

I've never played 3rd edition. Before starting up 4th, I only played a few years of 2nd edition back in the mid nineties. Nor will I compare the playstyle of one edition to the next.

Only new and inexperienced players will go lite on contacts, from what I can tell. Experienced players should get at least a handful of useful contacts. New players should have a firm reminder of the need for contacts.

Players should have to balance contacts with skills or nuyen. Then maybe instead of taking Pistols 6, maybe they'd take Pistols 4 and a 4/4 contact.

Though personally, a 4/4 contact (equivelent of 40,000 ) is worth way more than the cash equivelent.

As for doubling up contacts. I don't really think its wise for all the members to have the same contacts. Why? If everyone has the same fixer contact, what happens if something happens to the fixer? What if they all have the same Lone Star beatcop as a contact, and he disappears. Maybe he's fired, killed, betrayed the team, or now works the customer service desk.

Everyone should have a Johnson and/or Fixer. No one says the others ever need to have the same one as well. This just means that if something happens to Character A, no one can contact any of character A's contacts without difficulty or with the same loyalty rating.

Plus, having 3 different fixers might make it easier for the characters to get jobs (roleplaying wise) and maybe increase the chance of finding that hard to get doo-dad you need for a run.

Depending on the GM that may or may not be an issue. I for one am big on the common fixer contact for the group. ( It makes bringing in replacement characters much easier ) And he came free. The players are aware that I'm not going to have a "We're wandering around aimlessly because we don't know anyone" gaming session so actually there's not much incentive to buy Mr. Johnson contacts. The big contacts are my players are cyber-docs, Talismongers, Smuggler contacts, Ganger contacts, etc. Basically contacts that help them buy things or can provide support during a run.

I noticed that in "On the Run" the runners have a good chance of getting a free Mr. Johnson contact at the end of the adventure. How are you when it comes to contacts gained during the course of the game?

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"Thank you for getting rid of the corporate hit squad that was threatening out cyber beta-clinic. If there's anything we can do for you, you need only to ask. Um... What's wrong with your street samurai?"

"Nothing, those are tears of joy."
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Legwork has two modes. The first is a simple Knowledge Test which has little difference from a correlating Knowledge Test or Data Search Test by a character. The wrinkle being that the character may then have to convince the Contact to share the information via a Negotiation Test.

EDIT I will say though that, depending on circumstances, you can have a good multiplier effect for having the Contact doing the Knowledge Test. However that depends a lot of whether or not there is overlap with the character's knowledge and how much knowledge a Contact is assigned by the GM, assuming it is the GM doing the assigning.

The second is the Connection + Charisma or Knowledge test. Which appears to be shorthand for exactly what the character would be doing without, and even effectively with, the Contact. Calling people they incidentally know or can find or are on their Contact list and using social ability to convince them to cough up the information. That would be a Negotiation Test, potentially preceded by an Etiquette Test.

What the rules don't reflect well are these incidental people that the character knows via their background, or perhaps even previous runs, that are there for selling and buying without a Contact.

The PC does a Knowledge Test. The Contact does a Knowledge Test. Same test, different character, same pile of do-do.

Networking sort of does something like that where a Contact can put you in touch with another NPC. But generaly no, which is what I'm saying sucks because we can see that the people and or ability is there. The GM/players are left to wing it.

EDIT The rules would in my mind belong in the missing chapter on Social Skills. Which I guess means it might show up whenever the book that fleshes out Social Skills shows up. That arbitrarily created immovable cap, and having it at '6', has become quite entrenched in people's mind.

Yeah. As soon as you call them up again, they answer, and don't hangup I think that makes them a "Contact". Or they might as well be.

I've seen another game system where you can start out by just trying to get hold of of anybody from your character's background for a task. You roll an ability, a stat called Circles, against a difficulty set by the rarity of the person fitting the parameters you give. If you succeed you get someone that can do what you are looking for, although compensation still needs to be negotiated. Once you get hold of them once you have their name. Next time you need someone similar you can try to get hold of that person again by naming them when attempting your Circles. Once you successfully get hold of them a certain number of times, which varies based on another stat, you can get hold of them automatically from then on barring extrodinary circumstances.

The best part of that system is that if you fail your Circles test the GM can opt to envoke the Emnity Clause. What that means is you still find someone that fits your parameters but they hate your guts, you owe them money, or some other complication.


Anyway how would you increase Loyalty? Just through use? Like the example I described in my last post? Through doing Favours?

We also play that Connections isn't nessasarily at the full level that the Contact character could preform at, but it is at the level that they are willing to deal with you at. It is a little different than Loyalty, because at Loyalty 1 they'd still theoretically always sell you anything they'd sell a loyalty 3 or 4 person. With a lower Connection you get just the menu items. With the full Connection potential you get the off the menu items. Even if Loyalty is still 1 but, you have to pay through the nose and upfront to get them.

I'm not sure, but I think our GM is just increasing that through simply using the Contact and not being sloppy and bringing the heat down on them in the process.

We do it that way as well. One of the better parts of it is that you can increase the contact's connection rating through RP, and have it not afect the whole party, just the guys that are doing the work. It's easier rationalize larger jumps as well, since it isn't a case of the contact suddenly acquiring a ton more contacts of his own, but rather his desire to open them up to you.

However, all the PC's have a collection of contacts they can use for free: Each other!

Whether an individual character has any contacts (or any decent contacts, for that matter) isn't as important as to whether the group as a whole have the right contacts.

"I need to do something about this. Bob, you know a guy who can..."

In my game lack of contacts certainly hasn't been a problem. Every character has taken at least two contacts, one guy took seven or eight.

I have a slight issue here with those numbers. While loyalty can certainly vary from a contact to a number of different characters, connection won't. The people he knows won't change depending on whether he's talking to his best drinking buddy, that guy who's helped him out a few times or that newbie he hired for the last run that he never met before. (Well, maybe it will, but that's a roleplaying issue, and not a stats issue).

So, if you can't afford him at 3/3 like everyone else, you'll be getting him at 1/3 and you'll have a hell of a lot of work to pull him up to the same level as the rest.

As for gaining new contacts and changing the stats on existing ones, I take that as a roleplaying issue. While a contacts connection rating is almost completely in the hands of the GM, the loyalty of the contact should be roleplayed.

One of my player characters has just forked out 5000 to pay for a one day glamour photoshoot in Costa Rico for the daughter of one of his contacts (the Mafia Made Man). I'm seriously considering having a military coup in Costa Rica on that day...

Is Costa Rica mentioned in any of the source books?

See some of the comments above and in other threads about contacts.

Just because a contact knows people doesn't mean he's willing to talk to them on your behalf.

I can see a high loyalty, but low connection contact. Bob may be willing to take a bullet for you, even though he's a street bum. That makes sense.

But a low loyalty, but high connection? THat doesn't really work as well for me. If you don't have the loyalty at least up a little bit, you're never gonna see any benefits from that Connection rating of 6. The contact barely likes you, he is NOT gonna go out of his way to set you up with his best people, or hook you up with his best gear.

The Connection rating, to me, implies both what he can do, and what he will do. Loyalty is more a measure of relationship, how trustworthy the contact is, and how much he'll go out on a limb for you.

I think should I ever end up GMing again, my own house rule will be that you can never take a connection more than 1 point higher than the loyalty rating. A 1/2 or a 3/4 works. But a 2/5, or worse, 1/6? That's just cheeseweaseling a bit.

Of course, once chargen is done, the ratings changes are based solely on roleplay and actions by the player and GM.

Sure he would.

He's gonna deal with you on a loyalty one rating basis : All business.

Why wouldn't he hook you up with his best gear if you are willing to pay through the nose?

But don't expect a discount and you better pay all the money up front.

Why would you only sell your best gear to your good friends? That makes no economical sense. If you are a connection 6 arms trafficker, how many loyalty 4 to 6 friends do you have?! And how many need a sniper rifle? Most likely not enough to buy these 10 case of 12 untraceable Ranger Arms sniper rifles you have just acquired. You sell to people who can afford it, not just to people you like.


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As for hooking you up with his best people, same thing. Can you make it worth his while? And are you trustworthy? You can have loyalty one toward an international fixer, but if your street cred and rep is good and you are willing to pay premium fees for the introduction, in the name of what silly principle wouldn't the 6/1 Fixer hook you up with the top notch cyber-surgeon he knows in Switzerland? His Cyber-Surgeon contact expect him to funnel clients with good rep and a lot of nuyen in his direction. Not just drinking buddies, clients!

It's all business.

I think stevebugge is mentioning the key problem most players have when it comes to buying contacts here:

At charakter creation each contact you purchase is equal to a loss of either Karma (in form of attributes, skills, magic, etc...) or Cash (gear, wear...).
Later you can easily get contacts "for free" (by simply roleplaying).

In my humble opinion this exactly is the reason why people don't take that much connections on chargen they would if they had to pay for them later on (with karma and/or cash), too.

I personally use the Charisma x2 rule and am seriously planning on increasing the multiplier to x5 or even x10. Yeah, this would result in an average of 30 BP for Joe Average (Cha 3) - but just give it a second thought: The "typical" contact with Connection 2 and Loyaity 1 costs 3 BP. So those 30 BP are just 10 "normal" people you know. As soon as it comes to either better friends (high Loyality) or more powerful people (high Rating) the number of contacts decreases dramatically. Runners need to have those "special" contacts so I imagine it is more likely that they would invest into 5 3/3-rated contacts or so. And again only in my humble opinion it is perfectly reasonable that Joe Average knows those 5-10 people.

I might also have to add that I am using a house rule that limits the total rating of a single contact (Connection+Loyality) to 6 on chargen. This is just because I don't want my Runners to be Lofwyr's beloved sons - sorry for exaggerating, but I guess you cought what my point is about. It can be compared with the availability of all those nice peaces of gear: the finest parts are just not available for starting characters - and neither are those very powerful persons. The sample characters do not exceed this limit either - for a reason, I guess.

You see that I personally can perfectly understand the dislike to pay for something at chargen that can be acquired for free later on. It's just an imbalance when you compare "pure roleplaying" guy A who bought all those great connections on chargen and "powergaming" guy B who instead of this invested his BP into something else, let's say skills.
While A still has to invest his hard-earned karma to lern the skills he he had to forgo because of his contacts, B simply gets his missing contacts by talking to people and may use his karme for something else.

Of course this could be solved by asking for karma each time a player wants to achieve a new connection during the game, but I think it is much more suitable to give them their free points at chargen and later on let them get to know people at no cost, too. Don't wanna suppress roleplaying, uh?

That's why I dislike the term "roleplaying" used like that. Because it should be some defining trial of the character, not just adding a little personal flair or just the player getting into the character. It should be hard to mistake it for totally "free".

Think of it more like a reward, and then size the challenge appropriately. For example before the session last night our group sat down and brainstormed out a plan for advancing Contact Loyalty. At first we were talking cash gifts and karma costs and just general undefined, unspecified actions. The karma and the cash were to have specific numbers based on what level you were raising to. But then, do you really trust someone that just up and slaps down some cash? Nah, a narc can do that just as easily, if not even more easily. Is it really going to be a people that you'll want to count on when your risk can become their personal risk? To share the load?

We finally settled on using something that's in the book already. The PC raises the Loyalty a notch by doing a Favor for a Friend for the Contact.

So a scaling 'cost' is already built in. This is also something that might considered an above and beyond threat/task, but instead of rewarding it with extra karma it is rewarded with something more directly linked IC to the action. Something that the NPC would normally do, more confident that the PC to has their back.