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Mawootad
Free sprites are a lot more powerful/versatile than regular sprites, but are a lot harder to get and control than regular/registered sprites. I was wondering though, could a technomancer start with a free sprite as a contact with something like 6 loyalty and 1 connection and bypass the hassle of getting a free sprite? Obviously the technomancer would be required to trade favors and make various negotiation tests to get the sprites to follow his/her orders and would have no way to force them to act, but it still might be worth it to the technomancer given the higher power level of free sprites.
RedFish
There's really no rules as to who/what you can have as contacts - it's entirely up to your GM.
Karoline
I don't see why you couldn't take a free sprite as a contact, but remember that if it is connections 1 it is likely to be unwilling/unable to do the sort of things you would generally want it to do (Like, it may view hacking as 'unethical' and refuse to do it), and it will likely be a low rating (or echo or whatever it is called for sprites)
D2F
QUOTE (Karoline @ May 1 2010, 07:50 PM) *
I don't see why you couldn't take a free sprite as a contact, but remember that if it is connections 1 it is likely to be unwilling/unable to do the sort of things you would generally want it to do (Like, it may view hacking as 'unethical' and refuse to do it), and it will likely be a low rating (or echo or whatever it is called for sprites)

Connections 1 merely means his area of influence is small. Willingness to do things, has to do with the Loyalty rating, not Connection.
LurkerOutThere
I would not allow it at least under the rules as written as free sprites are supposed to be rare and they get exponentially powerful with the aid of a technomancer the only thing that controls the matter is GM control and roleplaying constraints.

Karoline
QUOTE (D2F @ May 1 2010, 05:05 PM) *
Connections 1 merely means his area of influence is small. Willingness to do things, has to do with the Loyalty rating, not Connection.


That may be true, but there are reasons that the connections rating is 1. If the sprite was powerful, it would have more connections. If the sprite was a master hacker it would have more connections. I admit, it is possible to be good at something and be poorly connected, but I've always viewed connections as more ability than a pure count of how many people your contact knows. In other words if you take a connections 1 hacker as a contact vs a connections 6 hacker as a contact, the two may not know any more people, but the connections 6 hacker is going to be able to rewrite your identity by the time you finish asking, and the connections 1 hacker is going to need a weekend or so to wipe out that one stuffer shack purchase.

And remember, loyalty is a measure of how good a friend they are to you. If one of your good friends comes up to you and says "Hey, I need help robbing this bank." what are you likely to do? Even if they're your best friend in the world you're likely to balk.
D2F
QUOTE (Karoline @ May 1 2010, 09:28 PM) *
That may be true, but there are reasons that the connections rating is 1. If the sprite was powerful, it would have more connections. If the sprite was a master hacker it would have more connections. I admit, it is possible to be good at something and be poorly connected, but I've always viewed connections as more ability than a pure count of how many people your contact knows. In other words if you take a connections 1 hacker as a contact vs a connections 6 hacker as a contact, the two may not know any more people, but the connections 6 hacker is going to be able to rewrite your identity by the time you finish asking, and the connections 1 hacker is going to need a weekend or so to wipe out that one stuffer shack purchase.

And remember, loyalty is a measure of how good a friend they are to you. If one of your good friends comes up to you and says "Hey, I need help robbing this bank." what are you likely to do? Even if they're your best friend in the world you're likely to balk.


At Loyalty 6 their answer will be "When do we leave".
RedFish
QUOTE (D2F @ May 1 2010, 10:46 PM) *
At Loyalty 6 their answer will be "When do we leave".


Just because someone will take a bullet for you does not mean they'll ruin their lives or violate their ethics at your command.
Sengir
QUOTE (Karoline @ May 1 2010, 09:28 PM) *
but I've always viewed connections as more ability than a pure count of how many people your contact knows.

Me too, because many contact types do not serve as "guys who know other guys" and you have to quantify the usefulness of a hacker or mechanic contact somehow.


Would I allow a free sprite as contact? Sure, but a contact who would gladly give his life for the player requires a good background - and remember that relationships work both ways. So high-rated contacts can lead to all sorts of trouble, especially if that contact's mindset is very much different from that of a human.
Jaid
i would probably allow a free sprite contact, but don't expect it to be any more generous than any other contact; if you're expecting it to follow you around and do what you say, then you're in for a surprise.

but yes, i do absolutely feel that you could have a free sprite contact that you pay in some form or another to do stuff for you. just don't expect that you'll easily get hundreds of free services out of it, any more than you expect a fixer contact to give you free gear on a regular basis. as was pointed out, if you want a loyalty 6 contact, you'd better have a really good explanation for it, it had better be a major part of your backstory, and it had better continue to be a major part of your roleplaying in the future, or that's going to drop.
Udoshi
I'd allow a Free Sprite as a contact, using the RC's advanced contacts/group contacts rules. This seems like exactly the thing Matrix Resources and Area of Influence cover - leaving out Membership and Magical resources, because they don't make sense for a single sprite.


Figure out how good at its job it is(Connection), how much it likes the TM(loyalty), add in either National(+4) or Global(+6) to represent where this sprite can hop around, exactly, and help out. For Matrix Resources, either Broad(+2) or Pervasive(+4). The matrix is, well, rather global, and a sprite can end up pretty much anywhere due to resonance access.
Johnny Hammersticks
I generally wouldn't allow this without 1)a really good explanation and 2)the player understanding that sprites are not human, do not think like humans, have human motivations, etc.

I suppose the same would go for free spirits.

Rasumichin
Funny that no one has mentioned sprite bonds yet.
I mean, you can start the game with one for just 5BP.
Yes, it's a lame Edge 1 sprite. This is gonna change soon once you start merging, though.
Banaticus
You mean a resonance bond with a free sprite. Yes, a free sprite grows through "absorption" (merging with a normal technomancer sprite), but it is still a free sprite. It may have its own goals -- your decision to make it grow may come back to bite you. Additionally, the resonance bond quality says... "The specific nature of the bond should be discussed with the gamemaster and is subject to his approval..." and the resonance bond section says, "The gamemaster should consider game balance carefully before introducing resonance bonds into her game or allowing a character to take the Resonance Bond quality." If you were in my game and you started abusing this power for free uberness without any karma, well, things would start going bad.

It's impossible to "beat" the GM or ever gain more power than the GM since the GM controls the world. "Rocks fall, everyone dies." Seriously, I think part of the LA crash into caverns came when a Shadowrun developer just wanted to kill off a troublesome PC.

So, if someone spent the BP to get an allied free sprite or spent the karma to upgrade the quality for a higher Edge, no problem, I'm fine with that. Buying a cheap little 5 BP edge then blowing up the ally sprite to Godzilla-like proportions for ultimate uberness for no cost? Oh, something would be going wrong with the PC or the sprite...
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