Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts

Icelander · 12-28-2018, 08:55 PM

In my newest campaign, one PC is a former Detective Sergeant of the New Orleans Police Department, the son of a senior Captain and possessed of a wide acquintance within NOPD. I bought this as a Contact Group, which even without Completely Reliable (which might be reasonable, as the character still wears a badge as a sheriff's deputy elsewhere) came to 100 points.

This highlighted a problem I've always had with Contacts. They are wildly, astronomicaly overpriced.

New Orleans is one city in a campaign area which covers much of the Gulf Coast and the entire Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The PCs don't live there and will visit it about as often as any of a couple of dozen destinations they might pass through. NOPD might still be a useful contact in adventures set elsewhere in the US, though much less so than in the Big Easy, but in adventures set abroad, in the Caribbean, they have essentially zero chance of providing any type of help on an adventuring time scale, considering how long it takes to receive an answer to the simplest thing through inter-agency cooperation at the international level.

Most of all, however, spending one hundred points on individual Allies would get the 1,000 point preternatural Monster Hunter PC a whole lot of capable Allies, who are automatically loyal without a tripling of the point cost and don't actually need to adventure with the PC, being perfectly capable of staying at home, working in the NOPD (and the Louisiana State Police, federal agencies, military, Coast Guard, etc.), and prociding the lesser services of favours and information.

It's really weird that having a friend who only provides minor favours and answers questions is not a Limitation on the Advantage that allows you to have a friend who'll do anything for you, even risking his life, but instead is a whole new trait that costs a lot more.

12-28-2018, 08:55 PM	#69
Icelander Join Date: Mar 2006 Location: Iceland*	Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts In my newest campaign, one PC is a former Detective Sergeant of the New Orleans Police Department, the son of a senior Captain and possessed of a wide acquintance within NOPD. I bought this as a Contact Group, which even without Completely Reliable (which might be reasonable, as the character still wears a badge as a sheriff's deputy elsewhere) came to 100 points. This highlighted a problem I've always had with Contacts. They are wildly, astronomicaly overpriced. New Orleans is one city in a campaign area which covers much of the Gulf Coast and the entire Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean. The PCs don't live there and will visit it about as often as any of a couple of dozen destinations they might pass through. NOPD might still be a useful contact in adventures set elsewhere in the US, though much less so than in the Big Easy, but in adventures set abroad, in the Caribbean, they have essentially zero chance of providing any type of help on an adventuring time scale, considering how long it takes to receive an answer to the simplest thing through inter-agency cooperation at the international level. Most of all, however, spending one hundred points on individual Allies would get the 1,000 point preternatural Monster Hunter PC a whole lot of capable Allies, who are automatically loyal without a tripling of the point cost and don't actually need to adventure with the PC, being perfectly capable of staying at home, working in the NOPD (and the Louisiana State Police, federal agencies, military, Coast Guard, etc.), and prociding the lesser services of favours and information. It's really weird that having a friend who only provides minor favours and answers questions is not a Limitation on the Advantage that allows you to have a friend who'll do anything for you, even risking his life, but instead is a whole new trait that costs a lot more. __________________ Za uspiekh nashevo beznadiozhnovo diela!