In our series "The most basic questions no one ever dared to ask" (as previously featured in "Hiring a Runnerteam 101" and "Reputations in the Shadows")
this is another installment. This time we are going to dissect the man behind the scenes, the great weaver, the center of the net: the fixer!

Who is he? What makes a good fixer? How does he go about his job? How does he get into the job and what might cause him to go out of it again?

Seriously, I think we all know what a fixer is, but have you really thought about a person like that in-depth?

I'm always trying to flesh out my NPCs as much as possible. Would you think it would be possible for a fixer to run a little store or a bar or something and make shadowy deals in a backroom? How does a fixer build his web of contacts and his rep? What kind of relationships does he have with his contacts? How do the Johnsons get to know him? How do they contact him? How does he earn the money he needs to survive?

Also feel free to introduce some of your fixers and expose their backgrounds as an example (names changed for safety reasons).

Red from Shawshank is a good example of a fixer. He's a man known to locate certain items from time to time.

Another good template is the putz with the 2 drag-queen makeup looking bodyguards in Johnny Mnemonic

They don't oversee anything directly. They don't buy the loot, they don't sell the loot. They know who does, they put you in touch with those people. The less they know, the better off they feel.

You need talent, they can set up a meeting, you need a new gun, they can set up a meeting. They are the talent scouts and walking Amazon.com people. Give them time and enough cred, they'll find you the better mousetrap.

So much is clear I believe. Anybody playing shadowrun should have grasped this concept. But how do people like this go about their business? How do they know the people they know? What do they do for a living until they can live of provisions? I'm primarily interested in all this background stuff, details that are not so common knowledge.

Sounds like a good idea for a supplement book. kinda like Mr. J's Little Black Book

Fixer's Rolodex anyone?

Seriously though:
I see a good many of these guys being like clinger, maybe even radar, they know who is willing to trade, they make a call, see what's out there. Hell maybe most of them are former supply sargeants and the like.

There was one Fixer that was detailed in a book (don't remember the particular one) that was named 'Strings' she was a former madamme that used her connections from running a whore huose to pull together favors and talent for her clients.

My crew is running into this problem now -- the primary problem is the "fixer" in SR wears too many hats to be plausible (from our point of view).

So we're tinkering with breaking the fixer into various sub-entities that deal in more specific goods and services.

New Schema
Dealers -- sell product. Legal, illegal, gray -- you want it and there's someone dealing in it.

Fences -- buy product. Not just your granddad's pawn shop. Fences will often specialize in a product or more precisely a type of product to buy and re-sell to more interested parties.

Fixers -- talent agents. Fixers will never actually handle product, but they will refer clients and customers for a fee to people who do. They have friends of friends and will represent talent looking for a job as well as referring clients to other clients as appropriate.

Extremely rough draft, but you get the idea.

-Siege

I think most fixers will have a legit business front. It's just too useful. You get a legal front to launder aaaaall that dirty cred you deal in, you get a place to stash some goods and a home base where you can meet people, shoot people and anything in between. Also allows the right (and unfortunatly the wrong people too) to find you when they need you.

The thought has occured to me (a long time ago) that the only contact you'll ever need is a fixer - preferably at level 2. Simply because he can get you any contact you need and once you have contacted this other contact you can do so again whenever you want without consulting the fixer first. So a fixer is a very effective way of buyin new contacts. (And don't tell me he's taking 5000 Nuyen just to refer you to a good streetdoc...)

Well, there's something to be said about not being dependant on a single person.

The problem with dividing the accomplishments of fixers is that they overlap.

A dealer to one runner is a fence for another.
Dealing and fencing gives you an idea of what talents people have by what they (try to) buy or what they (try to) sell.

This doesn't mean that every fixer is an expert at everything on the support side, but that they are excellent middlemen who know who to chat with to get things done.

As a GM, I have my fixers tack on a hefty "service fee" for anything they do (obtaining gear, fencing paydata, etc). The more specialized contacts work "at cost." In general, fixers don't have much in the way of specialized info, either. I think that keeps players from constantly hounding their one fixer.

If a fixer hooks you up with someone who has access to the shiny new toy you want, that person is sitll the fixers contact, not yours. I'd imagine that characters who start showing up on the doorsteps of the fixers contacts are going to anger both the fixer and the contact. The fixer because you're trying to cut him out of the deal, the contact because he really doesnt know you from Adam.

Essentially I play fixers as the ultimate face/contact web of doom. Yes, They can get weapons, but they charge a lot more that an armorer and take longer. They can get cars, but not as fast or as cheaply as a mechanic. ect ect...

Fixers double or triple (or more!) the cost after SI of any gear or equipment gotten through them, btu the odds are they can get it when others cannot. They also double base time.

Fixers can get what you need, but for info go to an info broker... Use the right contact and it'll be cheaper and faster. All those expenses add up after a while.

The prototype fixer is "The Finn" from Neuromancer et. al. He was a techno-wonk, a pawn shop owner who could get you anything, for a price. I've always "specialized" my fixers to a greater or lesser extent, but the basic street fixer has always been based on the Finn.

If you want a completely different tack, try creating one based on Mama Morton, from "Chicago".

I think Fixers are like any other business man. The only difference is he deals in mainly illeagel goods. Their personality will be the same and the skills a good businessman needs a fixer will have. Fixers hear the samew stuff the characters hear even before the characters do. So thye know what i going on and who to talk to. Besides fixers are not born they are made. A fixer at one point in his career will have been someone in th ebusiness like any other character. he may have been a runner, and now retired he relys on the friends he made while running. Fixer is just a generic term for a man who can do a lot of things for you. A mobster who has a good gun contact is a fixer, a guy who can unload pay data is a fixer. It is just that I thik alot of games are ran were the Fixer is a Underworld Wal-Mart. Nothing wrong with that, I can see a few reallly good fixers that have a hand in everything, btu I feel the vast majority of fixers are going to be two bit hoods running a pawn shop.

Money is the great motivator.

Say I am a pharmacy assisstent, I can get the good stuff. First I will have to find a way to cover my tracks after that I can set up shop. I can peddle shit to a few friends. After a while my few friends start to peddle it to their friennds. Eventually I am supplying 20 or 30 pill poppers. So I make a comment to one of these people like, I need some heat to protect my supply. You find me a piece I will give x amount of pills. After 2 or 3 trys you are bond to find something. It might be this guys third cousin from up state but you get a piece. If you play your cards right you can get a face to face with this guy. If things work out you just might find a guy with a few pieces to sell. A few hundred pills and a few guns change hands. If you are smooth you might be able to see if he can get some more. If he is a pill head or the money was right he'll get back to you. Now you have some heat to unload. Eventually you will find a few pill heads that can't afford the pills but know a guy who needs a gun. So for a finders fee they get him in contact with you. If things go smoothly you can unload a gun or 2 to this guy. Depending on the guy he might be in a postion to help you unload some more weapons. While you are cultivateing a gun hook up and possibily a gun outlet, junkies will start to come to you with things they think you might want, tvs, vcrs, more guns, other people, drug users and other people that you have expressed interest in meeting. Junkies are like the scavengers of the city, they can find most anything. Eventually the pharmacy you have been robbing will start to draw heat or the pharmasist will get suspicous so you will need to branch out. A few trips south of the border may do the trick. You can pick up all kinds of pills. Gong to night clubs and chumming up to the bartenders is a good way to make new friends. Just be sure to hook up the bartender and to see whos toes you might be stepping on. You just need to know how to network and fiscally plan the next step and be prepared to take a dive or 2.

There are many other ways business oriented people with no moral scrupuls can make a business.

Some times just being in the scene you have things fall in your lap. I have had many occasions to take on a fixer type role. Just hanging in the bar, I have made many friends that offered things you would not believe. Sitting in the bar with a high school friend another guy we knew walked up to us and asked if we wanted to make some money. Always looking to make money, being 18 and broke sucks, we take a walk out to his car and he opens the trunk. It looked like Christma had come in his truck, he had coke stacked to the gills. After a few minutes conversing between me and my friend we decided that was not a realistic way for us to make money. We just didn't know enough coke heads, we didn't want to go into debt to a coke king pin, not to mention the coke dealers in my neighborhood, though on good terms with me, might not like me trying to get in on their action. Luck would have it a few days later my local coke dealer needed a new hook up for coke, his was looking at major time. I grew up with the dealer from grade school, supposedly he was a distent cousin 20 times removed but, to little kids that is like being brothers. Any way a couple hours later we all were at the bar again and things happened I made afew bills for nothing more then getting to people in touch with each other. End of the story, the local dealer, my cousine is now in hideing and I have a new batch of dealers in my hood, but I don't talk to them. I have went straight and want nothing to do with it any more.

Frag, you have good stories, but I don't know if it's wise to talk abou these things on a public forum, especially one that is probably bookmarked by Homeland Security...

Some reason Frag reminds me of the theif in KotD who uses the group to plan hiests...

All thing said...the Fixer is the middle man. Most of my group has one, just so he can help them hook up with contacts that aren't on a players list. My players figure the Street Index is just the extra they pay the fixer (of course I roll d6* 10 to see what the fixer takes as markup and add it to street index...but I told my players SI was going to be mutiable in the game...)

On the side note of specialized fixers...my uncle could be considered a mafia fixer.. he works in "real estate" in Detroit, and was big back when Sinatra and the crew loved Detroit..he could hook you up with what ever, but he specialized in custom houses and "low rent-short term" housing... He keep offering to bring me up to Detroit and get me some "real" work too...I think I'll stay here in Ohio...

Forgive my ignorance, what is KotD?

Knights of the Dinner Table

Frag, some day me and you need to talk over a few drinks, we would make good friends.

For some ideas that have already been done, you might try digging up a copy of Wildside, the CP2020 book on fixers. If I remember correctly, they got broken down into several categories and quite a bit of info was put into the way they work. Of course, SR and CP are completely different in a lot of ways... but fixers are probably pretty similar.

BGMFH if you are ever in Baltimore.

I wrote a lot of other stories here just getting things out of my head, after looking at it, it would have probably taken a week for you all to read, so I cut it out.

Fixers are nothing more then a face that does nothing but wheels and deals, like a ferengi. True some will specailise but, many will take anything that comes down the pike. Some won't touch certain things for varioous reasons but, if a decker fixer runs into a gay trying to unload a box of grenades you can bet he'll make an offer.

It's more than that. Fixers find needs and fill them in exchange for favors and cash. Those favors then fill the needs of others and those others then fill someone else's needs. Eventually, the favors, markers, debts, and general influence spread out around the fixer like the proveribal spider web.

It's less about what the fixer can directly do and more about who he knows that can do things (and will).

And it's not like the "underworld" or criminal fixers are the only ones out there. I know a couple of "political" fixers. Those people are scary.

At my old high school I was a small-time fixer of sorts. I didn't deal in anything more illegal than a few Hong Kong DVDs of questionable legality (or unquestionable illegality, really), but more than a few people owed me favours for stuff.

~J

A good Fixer-Book is the Wildside-Sourcebook from Cyberpunk2020

Back in college, I knew a couple of Fixer-like people. People who had so many contacts that their handphones didn't have enough memory.

Need permission to use a lecture theatre urgently? No problem, I got just the number to call. Need that textbook held for you without the silly booking charge? No sweat. Need to expediate that transfer of funds? I got a friend in the Registrar's office. Need to tickets to the hot new nightspot? OK. Need the duty security officer to give your late night drink session a pass? I just know who to call. Need to get irritating professor off your back? I see what I can do.

A proper SR-style fixer will have access to things proportionate to his or her reputation. If they're good and their rep is strong and someone asks them for something they can't get, someone who owes them a favor probably knows someone who can get it. They call in a favor, get a new contact, and now they can deal in another type of item.

~J

If anyone wants a double-post, I got one real cheap.

~J

Wildside, huh? I'll have to look for it. I love good background sourcebooks.

I had a character who was begining to turn into a fixer before the game shut down. He was a mage/gunbunny with around 300-400 karma. After a lot of runs, there were plenty of people he knew, was owed favors by, or whatever. So one day, one of his arms dealer contacts come to him and says, the heat on me is pretty bad, I need to disappear for a while, can I sell my remaining inventory to you?

So there I was with a truckfull of guns, explosivs, armor, etc. So of course I needed to contract some security for my new warehouse... So I call on ye local gang boss, and say want to work security for a place in exchange for guns?

This eventually led to trading the guns, for a bit of this or a bit of that. and when you have a lot of contacts, sometimes you can't help them personally, but you know someone who owes you a favor...

You don't just wake up one morning and decide to be a fixer, it's just that your web of contacts eventually grows to the point where you know somebody who can do 'X'.

I think he means management and corporate problems.

What's wrong with the Mr. Studd? Do you honestly think that helping old men with their sexual disfunction will ever be a money loosing proposition? It's not "mature" I guess, but it seems more viable on the open market than quite a few cyberware items that are currently in the SR books There was an amusing story in one of the books about a guy who had a trouble out of his implant. It involved an exploding zipper, if I remember correctly.

The big thing that doesn't translate is the full body conversion.

...Latest bad idea: Making Bill & Ted into shadowrunners.

The cyber-torso is not quite the same as ripping someone's brain out, putting it in a jar and sliding that jar into a new vehicle/cyborg/etc.

-Siege

Bill and Ted's Bogus Milk Run

There are a surprising number of things that fall in that category.

No more than what I've caused when bored?

Probably true enough. But they could at least compete.

You say that now, but when my next character starts a mob war...