OK we all know about contacts, what about the opposite of contacts. If you just swap out loyalty for hatred and keep the connections part the same it's not that hard. And at low levels it might make characters a bit more interesting.

So far I have:

Lvl 1: Person has had business dealing with you that have not gone their way. They tend to charge a premium or require more hoops to jump through. (You screwed them in a negotiation, you took to long to pay a bill, borrowed something and never returned it)

Lvl 2: Person dislikes for personal reasons but will not go out of their way to harm you. They will however take great glee in your misfortune and take advantage of you when you are down. (you embarrassed them in front of their friends, turned down there advances, made them look bad to their boss).

Lvl 3: Person really dislikes you and keeps tabs on you and actively talks trash about you. They will generate rumors and try to steal business away from you. They will do what they can to make you miserable, but don't generally look to cause you permanent harm. (You embarrassed them in front of their fixer, you got them nearly fired, you destroyed something of value, you hurt a loved one)

Lvl 4: Person hates you and wishes you physical harm, but not if it will put them in any danger personally, financially or business wise. They will tip off Lone Star if they see you committing a crime, they will let ganger's know that you have something valuable on you, they will even fake evidence. (Injured them, killed a friend, got them demoted or transfered)


Lvl 5: Person wants you dead. They are not willing to get killed or ruin their life for it, but they will be dedicating all the time and resources they can to find a way to kill you. (Killed very close Friend or loved one, got them fired, sent them to jail, cause severe injury)


Lvl 6: Person wants you dead or worse. They want you dead in a slow and painfully way. They are willing to even die themselves if it will guaranty them your death as well. No cost is to high to pay to bring you down. You are their obsession.(Killed love of their life, destroyed their life, destroyed their livelihood)


So I figure that you can take them as a negative quality just like contacts. So a 3H/2C enemy would be worth -5BP and could represent the beat cop that couldn't make charges stick and takes every opportunity to pull you over and search your car.

Hell a 6H/1C could be that homeless guy over there. You remember Bob right? He was that security guard you shot on your first run. He got fired, his wife left him and now he has a nothing better to do then wait for you to be weak and tired...

In our game, we went as far as to design contacts the old school way...Power, Motivation and Knowledge-each one point in one being worth an extra BP. It goes against the ''5 multiples' of the usual Qualities of SR4, but it works well.

Power is how much they can throw at the PC, be it themselves or resources they can use to hire. And yes, you can have ratings of 0-a 0 Power can't really do anything, a 6 power probably has the full resources of a corporation at their disposal, or are a big Prime Runner themselves. a 3 Power is just about that; they might be ok to try to deal with the PC personally, but they probably want help; and their resources aren't bad.

Motivation is how much they want the PC. a 0 Motivation means they just can't be bothered with it; a 6 is just what you said..they want them dead and they will die doing it. a 3? Again, in the middle. They want em hurt(not dead necessarily) but they aren't willing to ruin their own lives or get themselves in trouble for it.

Knowledge is how much they know on the PC; mainly in regards to location but it could be a bit more. a 0 means they know NOTHING about where they are at and little on them. a 6 means they know when they use the toilet as well as when all their friends do. a 3? I'd say they have an idea where they are, but if they knew the PC in the past they don't know what's up now with them.

This ranges from 1-18 BPs. Again, it's an odd number but we like how this works.

Mixing and matching the numbers is interesting, too. a 6 Power, 6 Knowledge, 0 Motivation person could make sense..they could have the PC in the palm of their hand at anytime...but for some reason, they aren't bothered with it at the moment. 6 Motivation and Power, 0 Knowledge means the PC is in deeeeep crap if they get a bead on them. 6 Motivation and Knowledge, 0 Power? Oh, they want them horribly dead and know where the sleep...but they perhaps are confined to a wheelchair and went so obsessed with getting said PC that their friends got tired of their rampant, maniacal obsession and hung them out to dry and they can't do anything about it.

3/3/3 is a good mix; dangerous enough to keep the PC on their toes but not enough to endanger the whole party. 6/6/6 Number of the Beast enemies should be used with caution; as these can end up making the PARTY'S like just as miserable as the PCs. Of course, ratings can change over time-for better or worse(a PC that managed to destroy an 3/3/3 enemy's major resources might turn him into a 0/5/3 enemy. No more power since it was trashed but now he REALLY wants them.

And also remind PCs that think its safer to take a bunch of small ones than a biggie...they can always band together and cause even MORE trouble than one moderately powered one could.


Again, this is working great for us.

...the issue I have with an "Enemy" or "Hunted" type quality is that it also becomes an enemy for the rest of the team and they don't get the benefit of the BPs for it. If the team gangs up and kills the enemy off, then the PC is left having to dump Karma into buying off the negative quality.

Used to play Champions a lot and this was one of the standard character disadvantages that often cause friction in the group ("well they're your enemy so why do we all have to fight them?".

Because Ultron is an equal-opportunity bad-ass.
(On the plus side, when he duplicates himself and you beat the dupes down, everybody can sell a body to the scrap dealer for extra cash!)

Contacts work just the same way; the team benefits from my contacts. Also NPCs aren't stupid. Bob isn't going to jump a runner team just because he wants one person dead. They might have to deal with finding one of their safe houses bobby trapped, but that is neither here nor there. As for the team killing off the enemy, just give it a bit and I'm sure that a GM will have a good reason to create another enemy worth the same BP. (you kill off Bob who is 6/1, but your last run made that middle manager at Aztek look bad and now you have a 2/4).

Ah, we usually just solve the problem(again, with the 6/6/6's it becomes an issue because they WILL mess with the party; but luckily no one takes an enemy that powerful-the worst ive ever seein i think is combinations of 3s and 4s), by making the enemy not care about the rest of the party. It's handwavy but it keeps trouble away.

now if the PCs CHOOSE to get involved and end up making their life miserable too? Well, then something might happen.

EDIT: Well, there's a chance the 6/6/6 is powerful enough not to mess with the party in a sense...they can get the PC whenever they want alone. But, well...do they WANT to is the question...

To me your lvl 1 enemy seems more like an advantage, eg that yakuza oyabun doesn't like me so he'll charge me more for getting rid of that evidence can hardly be called a disadvantage considering if you didn't take it you wouldn't have that contact at all. from a min/maxer pov everyone in your group will have 5 of those really important persons that were a wee lil bit pissed off by them and 0 in regular contacts.

well, the way i'd run it, is that they'd outright refuse to deal with you...UNLESS you paid said(dear) premium, and/or do a rather dangerous favor for them. They don't like the PC, after all. If the party had only level 1 enemies as contacts, they wouldn't be getting much done unless they were up for doing favors and paying an arm and a leg every damn time.

I guess that my assumption is that at 0 all things are neutral. And just because they are an enemy doesn't mean that you can contact them whenever you want. The Oyabun at 1 can mean that you took a job protecting someone that he wanted their legs broken. Its just business. However if you are faced with having to deal with him he will extract a MUCH higher price than he would have in the first place if you hadn't done it. If he wouldn't do it for someone he didn't know he sure as hell won't do it for someone he doesn't like, unless it's significantly to his benefit. In most cases it should be easier to find someone that you don't know then to go to someone who hates you.

Just because they hate you doesn't mean that you know how to contact them. Hell it doesn't even mean you know they exist in theory.

I have done more or less exactly what the OP suggested. Connection rating stays the same, Loyalty rating goes negative and turns into a measure of the intensity of their dislike. It worked really well.

Character I'm working on has this type of person as a Loyalty 1 contact... This seems more along the lines of minor annoyance not worth 3+x+y BP. Unless he is actively against you I don't think you could consider an enemy. Lvl 1, I'd see as a Lone Star official who's trying to dig up dirt on you. You slip up, and he'll bust you (Granted this is with a connection of maybe 3). Higher levels are people who are working towards making you slip up, or even going so far as to frame you for something, if not take you out on their own. Otherwise you'll end up with every non-human metatype taking
5, 5, 5 Humanis policlub. I think them wanting you dead but unwilling to risk their selves seems fitting for their level of enemity.

Little old lady in neighborhood grocery store 1,1,1 3 BP there because she won't give me the time of day she hates punk kids. The levels are just too leniant that are BP for general flavor.

A cop at H1 would charge you more for the bribe to look the other way than other cops if he is crooked, or if is is straight he'll write you up for the maximum fine he can get away with or add in a few charges.

Humanis wanting you dead is only a lvl 1. Its just business. If they want YOU dead because you killed 3 goons for jumping on an old bag-lady who just happened to be an ork then I can see it jumping up to 5. Again I consider 0 to be they don't know you from Adam and treat you the same way that they treat anyone else. Again reputation and noterity adjustments sit on top of these.

a 1/1/1 BP(under our system) enemy is an enemy, though. That's not the old lady down the street who won't give you the time a day. She doesn't want to hurt you or frame you or try to dig up dirt on you, she just doesn't like you.

IMO, a 1/1/1 is someone, say a midlevel goon of sorts-someone with SOME potential of resources(even 1 die can help), that you ended up making look bad by killing a couple of his underlings and causing him to botch a job. Ok, so he KIND of knows where you MIGHT be. (a 0 means he has no idea). He KIND of wants to mess you up in some way, and he's got a little resource to do it. Let's say that he's got a &#% list and you're on it; you're just underneath the A. Rival Mob Guys B. Guy who shot his prize purebred Terrier(who was worth more to him than the punk kneebreakers to him, he's one of those villians) and C. the guy who stiffed him a couple of information chips and thus a very important deal. You might be D on his list. But say someone comes up to him and say ''hey, remember that one guy who turned Rob and Bob into human sashimi? He's in our neighborhood''. His motivation and knowledge might be a temporary 2 for that time; since he's closer than the guy who shot his terrier. If he doesn't catch up; the PC might end up back down on the list a bit.

Of course, if the PC does more dumb things to make himself noticed, that could be a problem.

An Enemy isn't underpowered just because he doesn't want to see the PC drawn, quartered, fed his own intestines while being hung upside down in a pool of rubbing alcohol with steel being scraped down a blackboard and the new Haris Pilton album on replay, it just means that he is interested in maybe getting the PC back in other ways.

and again, numerous low level enemies have a chance of banding together into one super-Voltron esque enemy. And remember to let them know that ratings CAN chance over the course of the game-for better or worse. In the above example, the 1/1/1 ends up getting screwed over AGAIN by the same PC who caused him to botch a deal. His Power might stay the same, but his Motivation might shoot to 3 and his Knowledge to 2.