02-01-2017, 08:10 AM | #41 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
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02-01-2017, 09:01 AM | #42 |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
This is one of those things where... while having both would be an option, one will always be inferior to the other due to genre conventions.
In the "street level" game having the Homeless Contact is better because everything you need to know is street level. Having the "multinational information access" Contact becomes invaluable when those specific moments come up where such access is useful, but it's very niche and infrequent. In a more "globe hopping" or "broad spectrum" game, the MultiNat Info Broker is far more valuable than the Street Contact. Until you need a street corner watched in a hurry. Again, niche, infrequent, but very useful in those specific moments. |
02-01-2017, 09:08 AM | #43 |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
In the street level game having the head of the five families as a Contact is better than the bum, and that is still true in the globe-hopping game; which is why the bum has lower effective skill. Additionally, like I said if the bum can't be contacted remotely, that should be a limitation.
The head of the five families can have a street corner watched for you. |
02-01-2017, 09:59 AM | #44 | |
Banned
Join Date: Jul 2006
Location: 100 hurricane swamp
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Quote:
Both have strong influence in their areas, one is local, one is global. Both fit well into respective genres and are less useful outside of the genres. |
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02-01-2017, 10:14 AM | #45 | |
Wielder of Smart Pants
Join Date: Aug 2004
Location: Ventura CA
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Quote:
Last edited by sir_pudding; 02-01-2017 at 10:45 AM. |
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02-01-2017, 10:43 AM | #46 | |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Portland, Oregon
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Quote:
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02-01-2017, 10:45 AM | #47 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Quote:
So, the feeling that Contacts are too expensive comes from comparing them to: 1) Just buying the skill Favours make Contacts better than having the skill personally, but getting the occasional smallish favour doesn't usually justify the point-sink. And I'm afraid that houseruling the Contact's Effective Skill into a Bang skill still doesn't make up for the fact that it's only accessible once a day, rather than being 'on-tap.' 2) Access to secret files, special equipment, etc Buying the Contact needs to be more point efficient than just buying the necessary Rank or Security Clearance personally, but this may not always be the case. As we saw in the recent "my friend lets me look in his occult library" thread, I can't see such access being worth much more than a Perk (Friend/Perk-level Claim to Hospitality) a lot of the time. Add to this other "access" abilities, that could gain the same information by other channels, such as Wealth (for bribes or permission) or Charisma. 3) Allies & Patrons Investing the same number of points into an Ally or Patron will usually seem like a better deal, especially for the higher level Contacts. An Ally or Patron's ability will increase proportionately with their point cost, but a Contact only gets better and better at providing you with the same useful-but-not-plot-breaking insight or favour. 4) Other information abilities- such as Precog, Psychometry, Oracle, Clairvoyance, Mind Reading, etc., but not Racial Memory- that's way overpriced too. (Ignoring that these are only available in certain settings as this is a generic GURPS discussion) Especially looking at higher point cost Contacts, I'm pretty sure I'd rather sink a spare bunch of points into one of these direct knowledge abilities than a social-based Contact that I can only call on once per day. To sum up, I think the issue with the pricing of the Contact is essentially it's limited from the beginning about what it can give you- some information or a smallish favour- and I can't see that ever being worth dropping more than 10 or 20 points on. ETA & BTW: I've been noodling about a Unified Knowledge Ability Mechanic that would possibly spit out fair and consistent values for all of the above ways of getting some information for the PC, and where Contacts would fit in the scheme, but this isn't the right thread for it.
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02-01-2017, 11:29 AM | #48 |
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Given that "general" is a canonical example of a Contact, I don't see how "CIA analyst" wouldn't be appropriate.
Looking over the list of Contacts, it does seem like the majority of them are probably useful outside a single region, so I guess using that as the basic pricing assumption makes sense. If that's the case, there's a couple things that I'd suggest - first, there really should be an option for a Contact who has decent skill level, but no more than regional scope. I'd propose a -50% limitation, "Limited Scope", to handle that. So you could have a fence contact who was very good within their home city, but not really effective outside it. If you don't want the Contact to have limited scope, it's reasonable to assume that a Contact whose description wouldn't really be able to provide global favours instead represents multiple different people in different areas. So your CIA analyst Contact is one person who can provide favours and information in many places, whereas your fence Contact is actually a different fence in every city, each of whom can provide favours in their local area. |
02-01-2017, 11:49 AM | #49 | |
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Meifumado
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Quote:
(David Johnston 2 asserts it here, but I can't find a Krommier quote.)
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02-01-2017, 12:48 PM | #50 | ||
Join Date: Aug 2005
Location: Saskatoon, SK, Canada
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Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
Quote:
So, let's look at an example of a 60-point Contact, and I'll suggest what seems reasonable. Let's make it a wizard with Skill 21 in Thaumatology, frequency of appearance Constantly, and Completely Reliable. What does that get you? Well, first of all, they're going to basically be able to answer any question you have about magic, automatically, only failing to provide an answer on a critical failure. With that skill level, even asking a whole bunch of questions is likely to get some good answers - it takes asking something like 6 distinct questions before a critical failure on any of them is even in the 50% chance range. I'd also liberally interpret what a "question" is. It shouldn't be just a single yes-or-no answer type thing - if the player asks "What is required for the Ritual of Doom to be cast", that's a single question, and follow-ups like "you mentioned needing 'the blood of an honest soul', exactly how honest are we talking here?" would be included in the original question, and not require a second roll. For favours, there's actually a whole list that I'd allow:
And, bear in mind, all of those happen with an effective assistance roll of 21. Rank literally never gets that high, capping out at 15. Even taking the -10 penalty I suggested for a favour being none of easy, cheap, and safe for the Contact, that's still better than 50% chance of successfully getting it. And since the Frequency of Appearance is Constant, there's literally no chance that the Contact won't at least consider your request. Personally, I'd pay 60 points for all that. It's actually quite a big help. Another thing to consider about the differences between Contact and Rank is that Rank pretty much always comes with an assumed Duty or similar social obligation assumed. Contacts don't, generally only requiring standard "social maintenance" behaviour - you might have to take your Contact out for dinner sometimes, or do them a minor favour yourself, but they can never just say "I need you to do this. Get on it." the way a superior in a Rank hierarchy can. Quote:
I could also see applying a +50% Cosmic enhancement on a Contact Group that covered a whole social strata, to ignore that limitation. So you could have Contact Group, "High Society" and be the person who literally knows a noble in every place you visit, you just have to pay +50% more. |
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Tags |
advantage, advantage of the week, contact group, contacts, week, [basic] |
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