Most of my players are happy with a quick ringaround to their contacts to see what they can find out, but i have 2 players that want a little more. Can some of you more experienced gm's give me some tips on bringing the legwork to life with a minimum of effort? I want to avoint the case where the legwork gets done in a 15 min phone session after they find out what the run is about.

The rulebook indicates that flashing out the contacts more fully will help, and i think i'm gonna have to do this, but it's a lot for work (my players all went for big cash and lots of contacts so for 8 players i'm looking at about 45-50 contacts, and if 1 player starts getting more interesting contacts they will all want the same treatment)

Reasons to have face to fave meetings, ways for sontacts to sometimes be unavailable, anything to make it a little more intetesting, with minimal work. Anyone done a accessory to randomly generate a meeting etc? I might work on that!

Your creative input is much appreciated

There is a whole page full of characteristics you can use in MrJLBB. Other than that, hm, I'm not sure. I just do it on the fly.

Two things you can do to make legwork more intresting is to either add more descriptive/interactive elements or more 'friction' (marginal impediemnts to progess).

So for example,

On your way to meet contact X, the acid rain starts comming down really hard, did you remember to bring your chem poncho?

On the way to meet contact Y, you pass an alleyway where Lone Star cops are beating some poor ork to death.

Your contact asks you to meet him at (insert description of the place here).

Note also that you can use a place description several times, also you can change the place description when something happens. For example, everyone at on of their normal meeting places is depressed because (someones kid/dog died/thier favorite micro-brewery has closed down/thier team lost the big game)

Notice that these do not require describing the meet with the contact at all.

Next: friction

On the way to the meet they are pulled over by a cop for (speeding/driving while being an ork/whatever), all they have to do is play it cool...

They get to the meeting place, and the contact calls them he will be (late/ can't attend/is sending a representative)

The contact dosen't know what you want, but knows someone who does you have to
(lean on/bribe/ steal) for the info.


Next: two way street

A contact calls them wating to know (stuff)

A contact has a small problem that a bunch of slope headed killers (the PCs) can easily solve for him.

The contact has been arrested/fired/demoted/promoted/moved to another branch/married/divorced/had kid graduate from high school/had no good brother come to town/etc

This way, you can add some flavor to your legwork without actually having to fully flesh out each and every contact. It can sometimes help if you go through the whole list of contacts and give each of them a few distinguishing characteristics: style of dress/manner of speach/favorite meeting place/constantly eating/does the junkie shuffle/has really bad teeth/always looks tired/ etc Then, whenever that contact shows up, you can mention a few of their mannerisms, so that each contact is not just a faceless source of info.

So, if our arms dealer:
Always wears suits, has two ork guards, has a scar under left eye

Then when you meet him, describe 1 or 2 of these traits every time. Then you can have the players ask stuff like: hey, where are the two orks today? or whatever.

Only then, if you really want to, do you need to fully flesh out and motivate some of the contacts.

A good way to reduce the burden on you is to ask your players to create personalities for their own contacts.

if ya go that road, USE THOSE PERSONALITIES
angry players line the other road

Remember, leg work is more that just talking to contacts. Legwork is also stakeouts, casing a target, talking with contacts of contacts (friends of a friend), and interrogating complete strangers who may have information.

A good example of how legwork can be fun came from today's episode of Boston Legal. A child is kidnapped and the FBI knows who did it but they are constrained by procedural rules that provent them from using all of their resources to find the suspect. So, the FBI agent (contact, possibly Johnson) puts two badges on his desk and "does not see" the two lawyers take them. The lawyers then procede to zealosly and forcefully interrogate the suspect's brother (antognistic witness) in the guise of FBI agents. They get the name of a priest who may know something. The priest (hostile witness) refuses to give information because of the sancity of teh confessional and all that nonsense. The FBI agent presents the good samaratin lawyers with a fake search warrent and "does not know how they obtained it" and they take it to the priest. Again, the priest refuses. They can't actually arrest him because they aren't really FBI agents so they just cut off three of his fingers with a fireaxe. At the hospital, they hold one of his fingers hostage in exchange for the address of a home tht the suspect uses for his sex crimes. They then give the address to the FBI and the child is rescued.

This is all 100% legwork, the FBI did the actual run. But it was certainly very fun and very righteous legwork. It is also a good example of a Lone Star job.

The use of greedy, antoginistic, and hostile witnesses who want give up their information easily is great for roleplaying legwork.

If you want in-depth legwork, it's important to remember that contacts don't exist in a vacuum. Fleshing out the details on each contact is a good start and I would definitely recommend at least asking for player input, if not having them flesh out the contacts at least a bit themselves.

To add to that, though, remember that every contact exists in their own world. Not only do they have quirks which should come out in the detailed descriptions, but they have dependents, contacts, and needs of their own. Contacts don't generally exist just to hand out information to runners, they usually want something out of the relationship. Before they help the runners with their legwork, they may ask for something. Money, assistance, a small favor, etc. Remember that those same needs and dependents may lead contacts astray unless the runners maintain these relationships.

BTLs.

Get one of the contacts addicted to BTLs,. Within three month's game-time, the players are down a contact (Overdosed, doncha know? Died in a dehydrated stupor), while suddenly they now have a very personal reason to go crusading against BLTs. Or at least the dealer who pushed them on their contact.

(This works best with an important, high-loyalty, high-friendship contact. The kind that the players themselves like.)

I was wondering for a moment. That didn't sound very Boston Legal at first.