I was curious about how people treat the acquisition of contacts during gameplay. Do you associate a karma cost? Is anyone the group interacts with significantly acquired as a contact? When do you reveal a contact's stats? What happens in long running campaigns when the groups little black book is getting to be rather hefty? BB is pretty light on this topic and there isn't much else in other books, so just looking for general community feedback here.

No cost involved and I hand them out like candy. It's a good way to reward good roleplay; almost every run they do for someone who isn't just a nameless, faceless Mr. Johnson may result in them earning contacts. Hell, they once had to find the daughter of a Russian couple as sort of a do-gooder's job and the entire Russian enclave (that I invented) ended up on their sheets as a group contact. It's not worth much, but if they ever need to find a member of the Vory, it'll be a good place to start.

As for stats -- if you mean connection and loyalty, I do that immediately. No other stats are revealed to the players, though. And, both can fluctuate based on what the players do.

That is how I handle it too but the list of contacts can get a bit overwhelming. I even had to make a specific website just to keep tabs on all of the group's contacts. I tend to use the contact maintenance rules (forget what they're called) to keep most of the random ones at 'Just Biz' or there about. I was considering a karma cost to keep a chronic shmoozer from ending up knowing the entirety of the city. Maybe I should just up his Public Awareness instead...

a loyalty 1 contact is basically someone who will do business with you at all. the runners really should get tons of those for free.

higher loyalty you would have to work for though.

I usually see the cost in nuyen not Karma. Favors can sub in for nuyen though. But you pay well to a bartender you are questioning he will remember it. While contacts can be friends but I usually think of them as business associates of some kind. All too often IMO I see people calling there snitch contact for info but not slipping him some creds. The way a lot of people play I'd be having them lose more contacts than they gain.

I don't even worry about the maintenance rules; that's just a PITA. Even with handing out contacts like candy, I don't think anyone person has more than 7 or so. Some have less. Sounds like you might give out more than me.

We just ballpark it at need. 'Hey, remember that yakuza lieutenant we helped out last month? Let's call him for X.' 'Okay, he's… Conn 3, Loy 1'. Go.

It's a two-step process for me.

First, you get a contact per se - that is, a number, an address, or such. You can start using the contact's services right away, but they are overpriced.

Second, you can pay the Karma cost - basically, twice the sum of Loyalty and Connection (but that depends on the circumstances, of course - say, if you first met the guy when you saved his sorry ass, the cost will be lower). From then on, you get the contact stats (Connection and Loyalty, Connection pre-set and Loyalty, again, depending on the circumstances involved) and can raise them via sidequests and/or Karma payment.

If it takes you a long time to jump from step one to step two, that is, to pay Karma for the contact, and you use the contact's services frequently, it ends with a sidequest for you to keep the contact.

Yeah, I know that the system is a bit meta-game-y, but it negates the problems with contacts you only need once or twice, and it gives some worth to the contacts since you've invested Karma into acquiring them.

In the old days, I would try to 'limit' the number of new contacts I introduced as freebies to about 2-3 per 'adventure' which lasted about 3-5 sessions. Sure they'd meet a lot of people, but only a couple would be worthwhile even as 'minor contacts'.

The way I saw it, well...take me IRL. I don't really have much specialized knowledge (sure social work background and child mental health stuff) that you can pretty much find out online anyway. I don't have any special connections, or access. You might meet me in the course of the adventure, I might help out with "Oh yeah, thats on K Street" but that's about it. Not everyone you meet has the quality to turn into a contact.

Do you associate a karma cost? No
Is anyone the group interacts with significantly acquired as a contact? Not always, depends on the relationship
When do you reveal a contact's stats? Never
What happens in long running campaigns when the groups little black book is getting to be rather hefty? Contacts die from time to time.

Well, you have an employer, right? You could hand over some info on its practices (and isn't that pretty much everything sample contacts like secretaries or rent-a-cops are for?) or even some dirt.
Then again, if you became a high-Loyalty contact, you could provide the runners with a place to crush when they need to lay low for a while; a place to hide their stash, and so on. Lend them your car so that theirs wouldn't be tracked.

The good rule of thumb is: Did your players roleplay awesomely well?

If they did, then go ahead and award the contact for a 1/1. If the contact is more connected then that, make them pay karma.

Every time they actually roleplay, make sacrifices, help the NPC etc that doesn't help the player, or even sets him back, don't be afraid to boost their loyalty rating.

Now, if they only do a so/so, then just offer them discounts, or raising it via karma as normal.

I tend to leave it up to the players to keep track of which contacts they want to add to there list. It almost entirely based upon role playing in my campaigns. If they shmooz with the guy or slip him some cred for his trouble then thats the start. If they use the guy again, it's up to them. How they treat their contacts and how they develop the relationship is up to them, and I think thats the way it should be.

I think using karma to take care of it is a lazy way of doing it. Make the players get involved, it's far more rewarding for the players and the GM in the long run.

My players tend to amass contacts quite quickly in my games, though the usefullness of them tends to vairy quite alot. Anyone, who the players deal with and get a number for is treated as a /1 contact, sence I tend to introduce alot of NPC's in my games my players aquire them fast. Though many are not to be trusted, and will almost always charge for their services.
Infact, many people the players openly come up in opposition against can be used to some degree as a contact, for the right price of course. For example, I've had players have a off on retaltionship with the leader of a gang specalizeing in drug distribution, even though their first contact with him after a dust up with some of his men on their first run. Their were times when both had something the other wanted, or helping them helped him, it can actualy bring up some of the most interesting kinds of rollplaying you find in a game.
My definition of a contact: Someone you have a way of contacting.
That said, usefull contacts, the kind who you deal with in a friendly matter are always at least /2 and though they don't show up as often at least one is typicaly brought in a run with good rollplaying, alot may not be usefull all the time but haveing a friend with the right skills or connections at the right time will save your life more often then anything else.

There's a quick equation that I use:

(Player's interest in the NPC + How well they treat the NPC) x My willingness to keep playing this annoying-ass character = Likelihood the PCs got a new contact.

Abstruse don't give out the universal formula, the players will see it!

In all seriousness, my name's Lurker and I'm bad at contact management. I used to be very good at it but since i moved to the Ipad I no longer rely on my notebook as much. Since then my contact database has grown to being mentally unamagable. I'll find myself forgetting the names of minor or even key NPC's depending on the situation when i made them up. It's actually on my to-do list to go around my players and write the contacts down from their sheets and get them back into a master database. Then if I'm feeling really bold i'll put them on a diagram showing their different relations.

Generally I'm very free with my players contacts but for those who actually buy them, which is somewhat rare, those contacts are usually better in some way. They can be more loyal, less needy, more useful. I encourage people creating contacts to start to design the contact. After that in play I'm very liberal and don't require karma expendatures unless the character wants something really special.

As a GM I like to give away Loy 1 Contacts as a kind of reward.
As a Player I keep those of Interest to me.
Some of my Chars have as much as 6-8 free contacts that raise in loyality in time

HokaHey
Medicineman

Yeah, low-rating contacts are a great plot-expansion tool. Definitely hand them out of the PCs deserve it: favors done, positive interactions, etc. If you're worried about the power, maybe even give them 'Loyalty 0' contacts: people they know have names and jobs, and can be called on (for a price). It's so much cooler on Burn Notice when Michael Weston calls in a favor from Sugar or the FBI agents than simply tossing in a new 1-episode character.

For my campaigns if a player want to acquire a new contact and pay with nuyen or karma, I will let them. Contacts bought with BP tend to stick around. I consider it part of lifestyle the costs of upkeep of contacts to avoid book keeping.

Just meeting some NPC during a session doesn't make them a contact.

No, 'just meeting' doesn't. But things besides 'just meeting' certainly could.

I like to give contacts throughout gameplay as rewards for roleplaying, thinking outside the box, etc.

I mean heck, if a player bribes a cop/guard to get information, access, etc. they have laid the foundation for a contact. In that regard a contact may start at loyalty 1 (or even 0) but if the players take an interest in cultivating that relationship at all they can definitely improve things.

I also liked the way the SR Missions did it. If you hired a coyote and didn't treat them like piss you got them as a loy 1 contact. This is just the general way players will fill their black book. Loy 1 contacts will probably still charge full price for most goods / services afforded, but at least you both know you didn't stiff each other last time... for whatever little that might count for. I find this also as a benefit to me when running the games because I have less names to make up on the fly as the campaign progresses.

I also tend to use contacts as plot devices quite often. A loyalty 1 contact can be a great tool for a run, to help or hinder players, to kill off in a dramatic fashion, etc.

I've always tried just giving them out as they meet people.
Contacts are as helpful to the GM as they are to the player.
Need an idea for a run...that troll bouncer contact needs some "evidence" to disappear.

I've toyed with the idea of letting players create extra characters and link them to each other through contacts.
If you suddenly need a hacker for a run, just switch to that contact character and you're good to go.

That's a nice approximation

I tend to divide NPCs into Named and Nameless NPCs. (see here why)

If the PCs make a real impression on a named NPC, that might turn into a contact, and perhaps with a >1 loyalty, if they made a particularly good impression. This doesn't really cost karma.

There's no reason ever to reveal the NPC's stats to the players. The examples in the book are merely suggestions for stats, too. Contacts should be described in story terms, not rule terms. Connection and general contact type (bartender, snitch, beat cop) abstract rule terms for what they can do.

Number of contacts growing? Not a problem so far, but I'm thinking if maybe you'd want a stat to represent how many contacts you can keep in your sphere of influence. Perhaps a stat based on Charisma and social skills?

just for clarification, i feel the need to remind people exactly what a contact's ratings mean.

connection 1: Knows very few people and has practically no social influence.
Many are useful only for their Knowledge skills. Examples: squatter,
manual laborer, academic graduate assistant.

loyalty 1: Just Biz. The character and contact have a purely mercenary relationship.
Interactions are based solely on economics. They may
not even like each other, and will not offer any sort of preferential
treatment.

so yes, you, the player, you would count as a connection 1 individual (simply being able to access a computer/the internet puts you as being at least as connected as a squatter imo). if you would do something for cash, you have loyalty 1; for example, if you would be willing to let a person stay overnight provided they pay for room and board, you are essentially a connection 1/loyalty 1 contact. that kind of contact should be readily available to anyone. (note: in the case of shadowrunners, i would argue that loyalty 1 means they're willing to break some kind of law in exchange for money, but that describes a lot of people in the shadowrun setting. naturally, at loyalty 1, they only break the law for money if it's worth the money to them; if they know they're going to get caught, they won't do it unless you offer them a lot of money and the punishment is small)

looking further down the loyalty chart, the contact isn't really anything more than a business relationship (although you get to be a preferred customer as their loyalty increases) until you hit at least rating 4, so getting loyalty in the range of 1-3 i wouldn't consider to be very difficult. obviously 3 will require a bit more development than 1, but if you use their services a lot, they'll probably get up to 2 pretty quickly, and if you start spending time with them outside of just doing business, they'll probably go up to 3.

looking at the connection side of things, players should really almost routinely meet people up to about connection 4. mostly because a lot of the kind of people who are connection 4 are specialised in knowing people like the shadowrunners; fixers, gang leaders, police detectives, mr johnsons, etc all fall into connection 4. and really, most of these people would be willing to do business with you in general; a corrupt detective will lose evidence in a low-profile case provided he won't get caught, but you'll have to pay for it. a fixer will get you that LMG you want, but you'll have to pay for it.

essentially, for most of these people, the second you meet them and they're willing to do business with you, you've gained a contact. and that's fine. really, the runners *should* have a bunch of this sort of connection. they should know a few members of the local gang that they pay for security. they should know a fixer who can get them illegal gear and difficult-to-obtain information (for a price). they should know a bunch of mr johnsons, really, because that's who they work for. street sams should know people who are willing to install cyberware for them, mages should know talismongers, hackers should have connections to matrix groups that can get him pirated software. and all a loyalty 1 contact means is that they know these people, and those people are willing to accept money for them in exchange for something. that's it.

so yes, hand out loyalty 1 contacts like candy, even going as high as connection 4 with reasonable frequency. they could even buy loyalty 1 contacts by paying another contact for an introduction (for example, you could pay your fixer to get you in touch with a rigger who can handle your escape from a corp facility; that rigger is now a loyalty 1 contact, probably connection 2 or maybe even 3).

but really, don't be afraid to hand out connection 4 or lower contacts, imo, at loyalty 1.

That's the fluff of it, but mechanically, a 1/1 contact is much more useful than those descriptions would lead you to believe.

But yes, all the contacts I hand out during game play tend to be */1 where the * means - to be be determined when it becomes relevant. And that number might be fluid too: that drugged up squatter they saved, turns out she's the local Triad boss's sister, and now she's clean...

Lot of fun things to do with contacts^^

That really depends on the GM. Someone who sticks to the fluff, since it is the only description on handling contacts won't have really useful 1/1 contacts.

They saved a guy, and you still give him as a loyalty 1 contact? O_o

Yeah, I'm in the school of thought that contacts get an initial loyalty rating depending on how they interacted with the PC. You pull a corp guard out of his burning vehicle and slap a stimpatch on him... that might get you a higher loyalty rating then Bob the Bouncer who you slipped a 100 spot to and chatted briefly with before executing someone in the club.

I'm also all about players managing their contacts, if you think an NPC was useful or cool, write him down. The worst that can happen is the GM says "Nope, he doesn't respond to your ping"

Something I haven't done yet but I want to do... Groupie contacts. If your PC has Charisma 5+ and does something flashy... I tend to think there's a good chance some random person of the same/opposite sex is going to fling their dangly bits at them.

Yeah, my bad, I kind of mixed my message there. It would be more */X where X depends on the encounter. Most of the time, outside of their regular "pipeline" contacts, I don't let the players know much about connection ratings, but I usually give them a fairly accurate loyalty rating to keep track of.

I don't change points for Contacts gained in play. It would be like charging Karma for the money your shadowrunners get at the end of the mission.

Any reasonably important NPC that they interact with has the chance to become a contact as long as the PCs make some minimal effort to that end (be polite, actually get their commcodes, etc.). Unless the interaction with the NPC is somehow exceptional (like the aforementioned "saving an executive's life"), the contact starts at the equivalent of Loyalty 1. Doing successful jobs and other nice things for the contact will raise their Loyalty, again at no cost.

Its not always so clean with "I saved his life he should be a loyalty 3+ contact!", that npc might become really loyal, or not really that loyal afterall. Doesn't mean you've made a new friend for life, they might still be inclined to sell you out, put a bullet in your head if the situation was reversed, etc.

Still tho, the loyalty rating can also be influenced by 'what would be interesting?"

Players (and GM) make contacts through roleplaying, nuyen and karma. And in some awesome cases, they make the players look like idiots, heroes and brothers in arms.

Instance: Sue Chi: Fixer & Arms Dealer. Started as a higher level contact (Connected) but I made the player roleplay the living crap outta his actions with her. It didn't help he was a stunningly pretty elf and she had certain...needs.
"I'm going to wear my armour."
"Why in hell would you wear Milspec armour to a meeting in a McHughes?"
"It's my armour. I paid for it, oh god, did I pay for it..."
<Rest of the table> SNIGGER

Another instance: Barely-teen party girl was a Rating crap-> Rating awesome contact with the use of fun (we're throwing a party for you) gear (And this is the bike you're going to be riding to the party on) cash (Keys? Sheesh, it's yours now, you're the birthday girl!) and shineys (Seriously, you want razonors implanted? And cybereyes? Hmm, well, I suppose, but you owe us, this stuff can be tricky..)
Ah, her daddy's black book made for some nice runs.

Schmoozing is one of the biggest upkeeps (you DO inforce upkeeps, don't you?) you can have for your players and best plot hooks. Sue Chi had to take a few holidays after unloading a shipment of Excalibers for the team, so anything from her takes a lot longer to trickle in from the pipeline. And contacts die, get kidnapped, made into bug spirits (oh, this is fun), made into vampires (It went down like Dusk-to-dawn, that one.) and plain disappear...

Make the NPC's memorable/useful and let your players make the attempt to keep them, don't just feed them contacts:)

Also, that upkeep takes time and money, time to go do another run to pay for Uncle Harry's bar tab as he's still got that inside ear in Ares

-Tir

I think that giving out contacts is a great way to increase the total Reward of a run beyond whatever is being paid (which, for my runs, is usually 'only' 5,000 nuyen, maybe 10k, but lets not start on that!).

Contacts, however, are never nameless mooks. I rule it that no matter who you bribe, unless there is a mechanical action involved (besides the expenditure of nuyen), there won't be a relationship.

If a particular NPC is worthwhile and is likely to re-appear as a persistent character, I will reward a 1-1 contact. While the Connection rules clearly state minimum suggested Connection ratings for upper level contacts (4 for a Detective, for example), I have always shrugged these off. Characters creating contacts are chargen are free to use these rules, but 'discovered' contacts only use them once they become recurrent.

A 1-1 is a 'burner'. Basically, it is a limited (just biz) relationship that is good for one favor, maybe.

PCs are usually warned about using such contacts, as it may be in the contact's best interest to burn the PC whenever the heat comes.

Finally, a Man of the Hour (God I love Total War games) mechanic is used. If a character managed to acquire a 1-1 and a combination of outstanding role play and some incredible rolls tells a good story, they NPC may become a contact.

Otherwise, 1-1s may be developed by spending Karma awarded during runs.

Some runs include Contacts as rewards, usually at lower effective levels than the contact actually is. For example, a Shiwase Troubleshooting Consultant (Mr. J) may become available as a Loyalty 1, Connection 2 contact for free if PCs meet given requirements. He is, however, Connection 4 or 5 and maybe even Group Connected (and thus more like a Connection 9 or 11 or whatever). His higher levels of connection will have Loyalty thresholds that will require a longer term relationship be developed. Effective connection can also be increased by spending Karma awarded during the run, 'upgrading' the reward.

I've always viewed the Connections trait not as "what can this Contact do" but as "What can this contact do for YOU"

He might very well be a Connections 5 kind of guy. But thats' only if he uses some of his favors, puts effort into it.
If you're 'just biz' or even "biz with benefits" He probably doesn't care enough to send the very best, and so for you he's a connections 2 person.

I make contacts available on a whim. If players want to list them on their sheet, I'll give them the loyalty and connection (which is more of just a reminder to me and so I don't have to do the bookkeeping).

I'll spend about 3 seconds thinking about what the connection rating should be. I may never need the contact for a hook and the players may never use the contact, but its there and is available. Its a way to make a campaign feel like a living, real world.

I'll usually start loyalty at 1, but that's situational. I've had times where a runner has saved a person's life and put them at loyalty 6 for that player. Granted, the contact then becomes more of an annoyance as they always want to hang out and check up on the player.

So, once the game starts, I just give contacts out and let them list anyone they want. I let them keep track of all that, though, so I'm not making some master list. That's the player's job and if I do need a known contact for an adventure, I just look over my players's sheets.

I tend to avoid the contact statistics as much as possible, as it can suck the life out of one of the more useful world-building tools the GM has. By making them genuinely useful, they can also serve as a check on outlandish team behavior, as they don't want to get their contacts hacked at them. Follow the rules too closely, and you can easily reduce a contact to nothing but a few numbers.

• During play, just about any named NPC the runners interact with get noted. Who they are, how the feel about the team. Ones that owe the team a favor, or had a positive impression, get noted as contacts.
• I generally try and avoid using the loyalty/connection/favor stats for rolls.
• If I must (legwork tests, typically), I assign stats on the fly based on their past history and the contact themselves.
• I haven't let players spend karma to improve a contact's loyalty - I much prefer to let that come out during play. Favors done, generosity of payments, runs that the contact approves of, etc.
• I keep a spreadsheet on hand with a listing of names, past interactions and quick summaries for just about everybody, along with the last loyalty/connection rating I gave them for NPCs that might be contacts. More important are the Charisma and Negotiation stats for them, which come up quite often (buying/fencing gear), in my experience.

With new characters in my game, I encourage "contact monkeys". In 2nd and 3rd edition I had more than one character that started with over 20 contacts. 4th ed discourages this behavior, but I have a house rule that contact purchasing costs are reduced by 50% if the base cost is 6 or less. I generally get the player to give me a quick description of the contact, and then I write up a paragraph about the contact and their history with the character that reflects the selected stats.

In my current campaign, the team has earned a contact about once every other session. Enemies have piled up at about 1/2 of that rate.

This. I figure it encourages a mentality of interacting with other characters in ways other than shooting at them, and the more involved they get with other factions, the more toes they have to worry about stepping on, and the more tools I have to make runs that involve them on a personal level rather than just pay the bills.

And I do the same for connection and loyalty as well. If you help them move up the ladder, they'll have more resources and willingness to help you. If you screw them over, expect loyalty to go down, at the very least. And again, this makes the PCs personally invested in the sprawl's balance of power, so that the runs they do have consequences beyond paying bills.

As far as actual stats goes... that's waaaaay too much detail. Especially when it's contacts like a farmer's market vendor or a peeping tom.(believe it or not, this stuff has come up) If I need them to make a knowledge check or something, I just guesstimate.

One player really tends to capitalize on this, but others have struggled with the whole talking to people thing. Still, it's lead to the others trying to catch up, and that's good. Another issue is that my games tend to have some intra-party tension, so often PCs will be trying to build up contact networks to prevent their teammates from stabbing them in the back.

I don't do what some others are suggesting where a contact is Connection 2 for you, but has the resources of a Connection 5. I figure Loyalty covers that, in that a C5L1 can probably get you some wiz stuff, but might take serious plying to do so, whereas a C5L3 is going to be more willing to be your regular source for antitank missiles or whatever.

I'm kinda puzzling over the whole "maintaining your contacts" angle. We don't have all that much time to play, and two alternating GMs and 5 other players. That would get pretty hairy, and I wouldn't want to focus all that much uptime on it.

I tend to treat them as loot by default. I may put 3 or 4 of varying usefulness into an adventure and, if role played well, offer them as contacts to characters they take to. Likewise, if an adventure includes an existing contact (either because I added them or a PC involved them) I'll increase (or decrease) ratings based on their involvement and interaction with that PC. It's all fast and loose though, no real rule for how I decide. I'm a fan of sometimes giving a 'big fish' contact out on runs where I don't offer much cash, or when the players choose to do the right thing depsite knowing it will end in less (if any) reward.

Oh the other hand tho, there have been some adventure series (2nd ed? I can't recall) that would do stuff like make all your low loyalty contacts potentially turn on you due to 'story-reasons', so having a bunch of contacts can be potentially bad if a 'hang you out to dry' situation comes up. Tho, if I were GM, I'd likely never pull something that heavyhanded ....unless I hadn't been sufficiently bribed with food and drink.

In 2e you had contacts, buddies, gang, and followers. The loyalty of contacts were determined by how they were dealt with, buddies+ were inherently more loyal since they were your friends and not just some guy you know. I much preferred that method to this buy loyalty/connection levels.

A lot of that in my game gets done in between sessions via email. Again, this is partly because many of the machinations of players, they don't want other players to see. I swear, sometimes this group feels like Diplo: the Sudden But Inevitable Betrayal more than anything.

It's not usually in a great deal of depth, either. If it's just making PC's friends not feel neglected, it's enough to say or assume they're spending some free time with them, usually discussed in an offhand manner if at all. Maybe I'll ask the PC on behalf of a contact for some information now and again, since they're usually running their own schemes, and whether they tell them or not changes things. Things like that.



Yeah, that makes more sense as a standalone, but if I was integrating those into a campaign, I probably wouldn't make it ALL their contacts, or work around it somehow. Because you're right, kind of a dick move when it's out of nowhere. I'd save it for a time when they've really botched things; if they're being chased by a Swat team, well, yeah, people are going to want to be as little involved as possible.



I can see the use in this, but it just seems overly complicated to me. Why not just keep all that in the fluff, and use the Loyalty rating as an eyeball measure? I mean, when I really think about it I haven't actually used the Loyalty rating in a mechanical sense all that often; it's mostly just a classification system.

Ditto on that, after chargen my table never really looks at those ratings. I usually describe contacts to my players in terms of what they can do and how willing they are to do it (hopefully in IC conversations with those contacts) as such very rarely have players said "So... is he a rating 4 loyalty or a rating 3?"

In my games contacts are the third part of rewards (nuyen, and karma being first two). Players do not have to pay one for other.

I just give them out any time it is important npc, that they help in any way. Connection rating is fixed. Loyalty rating depends how well they did.

In my games contacts are the third part of rewards (nuyen, and karma being first two). Players do not have to pay one for other.

I just give them out any time it is important npc, that they help in any way. Connection rating is fixed. Loyalty rating depends how well they did.

I agree about handing the Loyalty 1 contacts like candy.
They help move the game along and you are not really giving away that much.
After all it just means they are willing to do business (and nothing out of the ordinary at that).


I also like to use favors to show when a PC has done some thing significant for some one.
You save some one's life, and he is going to owe you.
So while he may never be your best bud or even want to be seen with you (you are a criminal after all), you can count of at least getting favorable treatment once or twice.
And if they want to make some one a full contact they can trade in the favors for a reduced cost purchasing the contact.
Also if you keep doing MAJOR favors for someone I will increase their loyalty rating or least add some more favors.

The nice thing about favors, is that it lets the PC have a little pull for past actions with out giving them a permanent contact for free.

Yeah, I'm all for the 'contacts as rewards'. Now on the other hand, if you want to invest karma to buy your own specific contact, that can also be discussed. Otherwise, half the fun is figuring out what loyalty and connection rating to give a new contact npc.

Where as we found 4es contact system to be overly complicated . But I guess we paid more attention to the ratings, which could fluctuate in play.