[Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Last Week: Constriction Attack
Next Week: Cultural Adaptability, Cultural Familiarity, Xeno-Adaptability

Today we cover Contacts and Contact Group. Though we are not reviewing them at this time, other traits which seem at least somewhat related are Ally, Ally Group, Claim to Hospitality, Dependent, Enemy, Favor, Patron, and Puppet. Some of these are Disadvantages and both the similarities and the differences between how they function and are priced can be illuminating. Originally, we were going to cover Favor in this thread, but as it encompasses more than just Contacts plus Contact Group and this is already going to be somewhat long, we will look at it another time.


A Contact is a Mundane Social Advantage found on p. B44-45. It is used to represent the relationship between the purchasing PC and an NPC, one where the NPC will help the PC with tasks of a certain nature, and not necessarily for free. The primary use is to obtain information through a Skill roll made by the NPC but can also include other things so long as they can be classified as two (or more) of the following: inexpensive, non-hazardous, or quick with respect to said NPC. The Contact is not intended to be a fully realized NPC with its own full character sheet. As far as the Advantage is concerned, all that is required is a basic idea of who or what the Contact is, its effective Skill level, Frequency of Appearance (p.36), and Reliability. There is also an additional cost if your Contact has access to means exotic for the campaign. [Basic] specifies supernatural means, but as sometimes those are common place to a setting, I would appreciate if anyone who could, would provide clarification.

A Contact is defined by a single Skill, specified when the trait is purchased, and appropriate to the Contact's background and the information or tasks you'll want the Contact to handle. The base cost for contacts is 1 CP for an effective Skill of 12, 2 for 15, 3 for 18, and 4 for 21. Should it prove relevant, it is important to note that the actual Skill for the Contact need not be the effective Skill for which it was purchased; the effective Skill is a useful abstraction of a general character concept. The example in Characters is the president of a steel mill, who would likely have business related skills ranging from 12 to 14, but due to his position within the company would be purchased as if he had an effective Skill of 18. While not part of the example, this is where an additional point is charged if your Contact has some unusual, more effective means of gathering information like ESP, magic, etc.

Next, we apply the Frequency of Appearance (p. B36) multipliers: x1/2 for 6 or less (round up), x1 for 9 or less, x2 for 12 or less, x3 for 15 or less, and x4 if no roll is required. This represents how easy it is to get a hold of your contact, not whether or not they can provide the information. That would be a roll against effective Skill, though Reliability also factors in; it covers what happens if the Contact fails its Skill roll. Completely Reliable means tripling the cost, but minimizes the risk of using the Contact: only a critical failure results in the Contact telling you it doesn't know (and can't find out), while a regular failure means it still gets you the information, just 1d days later. A Usually Reliable Contact costs double means your contact will lie to you only on a critical failure, while a regular failure means it can try again 1d days later (a second failure here means your Contact cannot find out at all). A Somewhat Reliable Contact doesn't increase or decrease the cost further. On a regular failure, your Contact cannot find out the desired information. On a critical failure it lies, and a natural 18 means your Contact also informs someone you don't want about your inquiry. An Unreliable Contact reduces its effective Skill by 2. Any failure means the Contact lies, and any critical failure (not just an 18) means it rats you out.

The good news is that with this advantage, money talks; bribery - for that one task - can increase the Reliability level of a Contact, but not beyond Usually Reliable. Once that level is hit, then compensation results in a Skill bonus. It also doesn't have to be cash; you can also exchange a favor, and depending upon your Contact and the campaign setting, a cash bribe may be completely off the table. A +1 bonus to skill costs approximately a day's income, +2 a week's, +3 a month's, and +4 an entire year's income! It does not explicitly state so in the text whether this is relative to the PC or the NPC; I assume it is based on the Contact, or else whichever one costs more. It makes little sense for a Dead Broke PC to pay a pittance to receive assistance from a Contact that could have personal Wealth several levels higher. This is another area where assistance would be appreciated.

Contact Group is a Mundane Social Advantage found on p. B44. This is a potentially great point saver, as it represents a network of Contacts. If you want said network to cover a vast array of diverse skills, this is the wrong trait; you'll need to just purchase those Contacts all separately. Now, if you have several Contacts in the same group (organization, social stratum, etc.), like an entire criminal syndicate or police department, or all the upper class or merchants of a particular town, then you may have a Contact Group. You still request information or favors (still at least two of quick, non-hazardous, and inexpensive), but with a Contact Group you don't pick one Skill but an entire category of Skills, such as all business Skills, all military Skills, etc. As with a single Contact, you specify this when you buy your Contact Group, and it needs to match their backstory. You purchase them as you would a singular Contact: effective Skill, bonus for supernatural goodies (if applicable), Frequency of Appearance, and then Reliability. Then you multiply the cost by five. When the GM rolls for the Contact Group's effective Skill, you don't specify which Skill; the GM will provide appropriate information based on any applicable Skills within the group's category.


GURPS Powers does not have anything for Contacts or Contact Group; I must confess to being somewhat surprised, but also oddly relieved. There are many creative uses for other traits in this book, but this means we can move onto something else I have handy, GURPS Power-Ups 2: Perks. No Contact or Contact Group related Perks here, though it does bring up Friend as an example of a Claim to Hospitality; this includes explaining how a Friend is not like an Ally or Contact. I may be reading too much into it, but this seems to clarify the relationship between Ally, Ally Group, Claim to Hospitality, Contact Group, and Contacts a bit. Those with PU2 handy, feel free to weigh in. GURPS Power-Ups 3: Talents also doesn't contain anything for Contacts or Contact Group, but the last choice definitely does: GURPS Social Engineering. It adds the Advantage "Contacts!", a "wildcard"-like version of the regular Contacts Advantage. Also included are more guidelines and uses for Contacts.


Pending. Feel free to make suggestions.

• Have you or someone in your group ever used Contacts or Contact Group? How did it go?
• Anything you like about these traits?
• Anything you don't like about them?
• Anything you might change or, conversely, think is just right as is?

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I've used Contacts a fair bit. They've tended to be generalised a bit, but without becoming a Contact Group. For example, one may buy the local US Marshal as a Contact with Criminology or Forensics. However, at least half the time, the benefit of that Contact is that you can tell her things that are relevant to her responsibilities, and she'll listen and consider acting on them.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Contacts are a nice idea, but looking at them they seem a bit too limited:

1. The way their built around makes them very limited, at least as I see the RAW. For instance the example of a president of a steel mill probably gets Market Analysis but you should probably also be able to take questions about Metallurgy to him! Other cases like would be those people Delvers sell to, they should have both Connoisseur and Merchant, and a memetics expert should have both Psychology and Propaganda.

2. Getting them to do something that doesn't require a skill, like a secretary slipping something into her bosses in-tray.

3. Magic users, how to do a Mage that will occasionally cast a spell for me? Arguably Contacts! would work, but #1 also applies he should probably be good for Thaumatology and other magic skills, or maybe that's what I paid for in the first place.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I give Contacts Professional Bang skills. Like Profession! (President of Steel Mill).

That should be fine. Too much more and they tread close to low frequency Ally territory.

[strike]That is a very low frequency Ally.[/strike]

[EDIT]
Upon reflection that would be "pick any two of 'quick', 'non-hazardous', and 'inexpensive'" favors. In this case 'quick' and 'non-hazardous'.
[/EDIT]

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Soo what's left for the contact group then ? Is their collection of closely related skills even more bangier?

Edit: Note I do agree with such houserule otherwise the contact would be seriously weaksauce. It also does not good consistensy make - for example an engineer contact that for some reason cannot help you at applied mathematics.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

As written, contacts just don't feel like people. They feel like skills. I don't think I've ever bothered with fixing that though, at least formally. I think I've worked with the "Two of quick, inexpensive, and nonhazardous", though.

The reliability statistic has always bugged me. It feels like it belongs in a specific genre, not as a significant stat on every contact.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

It would be even 'broadier'.

The above President of a Steel mill probably wouldn't be able to give tips on welding or where to make cuts to a steel structure so that it would fail under duress (the Pres also wouldn't be able to to do those things as favors)... but a shop foreman or cutter or welder might.

So Contact Group (Steel Mill and Workers) is still valuable.

And while the Pres could clear out the plant for a weekend or two so the PCs could work in it, he couldn't keep the workers from getting curious and he couldn't get them involved to help necessarily. The Contact group clears that up.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Agreed. I tend to either ignore it, or bump the cost down (setting Usually Reliable as the base x1)



And with my above post: The Contact Group also can have skills that fall outside the 'broad' Professional Bang. On a good roll when dealing with the group one of the Contacts might mention that "Why yes, I did do underwater welding in the Navy, I could definitely give you tips/do you that favor".

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

One thing that has never been clear to me is what the "skill" is for a contact whose main role is to provide inside information about the activities of their organisation. If my character is a PI and I have the secretary of the Fire Commissioner as a contact, presumably they don't have Professional Skill (firefighter) as a skill, nor do I expect them to perform analysitcal tasks with Administration - I want them to give me insider information about suspicious fires and the progress of arson investigations. Current Affairs (My Office) seems like an odd skill....

This is the sort of thing that, if the Contact were the PC instead, they'd probably just know automatically, or roll against IQ, but as a Contact they're meant to be assigned some specific skill.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

In one of my attempts to redo contacts, I figured that indeed the primary reason to take a Contact, instead of just taking the same skill personally on the PC's character sheet, was to get access to what's going on in their workplace. Quite often a legitimate Contact will have the same skill as what the PC already has (e.g. a PI and their Contact in the police force will both have basically the same investigative skills, such as Criminology). I then gave the main skill of a Contact as Current Affairs (Stuff Related to my Position). If the Contact was also for access to a special knowledge skill, then this was an extra enhancement and cost was related to the skill of the PC. Likewise access to special equipment or to files, books or databases off-limits to the PCs would also be an enhancement.

I think it's a bit broken, for at least two reasons-
1) Patrons and Allies don't have an equivalent mechanic, and are automatically considered to be Completely Reliable without a x3 point tax on them. Thus, having a "good" contact becomes way pricey in relation for what they can do for you, i.e. give you a piece of knowledge or a small favour. Changing Completely Reliable to x1 and then having lower levels be Limitations can help fix this.

2) Because with Completely Reliable there's no failed roll, it's more cost effective to take this together with a low Effective Skill level on your Contact. Effective Skill is supposed be the defining attribute of a Contact, not their Reliability.

3) (Told you there were at least two reasons...) It's not clear what the Reliability axis is meant to represent. A Completely Reliable Contact is so good at what they do, and persistent, that they can always get an answer- measuring skill and persistence. A Somewhat or Unreliable Contact will lie or rat you out to your enemies- which is a measure of loyalty.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I think the advantage first appeared in Cyberpunk, where backstabbing is part of the genre. Altering the cost for a less backstabby environment would be appropriate.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Ahah! this is why I follow these thread. For little nuggets like this. Thanks. This helps a lot.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

ISTR it was an issue of Roleplayer, but the current write-up might owe more to the version in Cyberpunk.

Searching...

Here it is!
http://www.sjgames.com/gurps/Rolepla.../Contacts.html

Hmmm... seems Reliable was in it from the get-go. Effective Skill was later made more general.

ETA:... and much cheaper.
Actually, the Roleplayer and Cyberpunk versions are basically the same, which is expected as they were published within a year of each other.

ETA2: As the article says, it was written for Cliffhangers, which I guess could be as backstabby as Cyberpunk.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Which is another reason I just give them a Bang skill.


That persistence is also a measure of Loyalty. They like the PC, are loyal, and so if they don't know they'll go out of their way to find the answer (or deliver the favor) in a few days.


And your comments on Patron and Ally are why I bumped the base cost to Usually Reliable.

I did toy once with a slight rewrite of the Reliability/Loyalty settings:

Completely Reliable: Even on a critical failure on his effective skill roll, the Contact’s worst response will be “check back in (1d) days.” On an ordinary failure, he will find information in 1d days. x3.

Usually Reliable: On a critical failure, the Contact cannot find the information. On any other failure, he doesn’t know now, “. . . but check back in (1d) days.” Roll again at that time; a failure then means he can’t find out at all. x2.

Reliable: On any failure, the Contact cannot find the information.

Somewhat Reliable: On a failure, the Contact doesn’t know and can’t find out. On a critical failure, he lies – and on a natural 18, he lets the opposition or authorities (as appropriate) know who is asking questions. x1/2.

Unreliable: Reduce effective skill by 2. On any failure, he lies; on a critical failure, he notifies the enemy. x1/4 (round up; minimum final cost is 1 point).



But I didn't exactly like it, so just went with the bump up.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

To make Contacts/Contact Groups useful compared to just buying the skills yourself, I feel there's a critical consideration, and that's to remember that Contacts absolutely can provide more help than just a roll against the skill in question could. It's right there in the description: "useful information or... favors". It does specify "small" favours, but I feel that needs to be read in comparison to something like Allies or Patrons, who are usually willing to join you in life-threatening situations or provide significant political, social, or economic pull, respectively.

I think a good way to handle the sort of favours Contacts can grant is to use the Assistance Rolls rules from Social Engineering: Pulling Rank. Use the Frequency of Appearance on the Contact as the target number for the assistance roll. Don't bother with the modifiers under Personal Abilities (those are assumed to be subsumed into the general Frequency of Appearance already), but do apply the specific modifiers for any particular item. Additionally, apply some general modifiers based on the "Easy, Safe, Cheap" qualifiers: +5 if all three apply, +0 if only two do, -5 if only one applies, and -10 if none apply, or just disallow the roll entirely.

A contact can draw on the resources of a group they belong to, but if they can't do so legitimately, the favour will usually not count as "safe".

So, for example, say you have a Contact, a banker with Finance as the skill. The banker can simply roll against Finance for you, of course, if you need to set up a plan to get some cash to set up a business or something. They could also provide access to files or records from the bank they work at related to finance, provide pretty much any of the aid listed under Social Privilege as it pertains to the bank, or provide facilities relating to Finance (top-end computers with financial transaction software, for example). The banker could probably even provide you with cash or funding directly, drawing on the resources of the bank, though that would almost certainly fail the "safe" test, or the "easy" one.

Another general principle that I apply for Contacts is that they have access to the facilities necessary to use their skills. So a police Contact with Forensics can be assumed to have a forensics lab handy, a gunsmith with Armoury (Small Arms) has a gun-repair shop, and so forth. Generally, using those facilities should be within the range of favours they'll provide.

One thing I think Contacts/Contact Groups does need is an option to expand the geographical scope it covers. "One city" just doesn't cover a lot of the Contacts that appear in fiction. I'd suggest adding another multiplying factor, "Scope", which would be based on a similar progression to "Area Class", under "Geographical and Temporal Scope", p. B176. "Neighbourhood" would be 1/3rd cost, "Village or Town" would be 1/2, "City" would be X1, "Barony, County, or Small Nation" would be X2, "Large Nation" X3, "Planet" X4, "Interplanetary State" X5, and "Galaxy" X7. A Contact could provide answers or favours related to things in the area one larger than its default, but at -3 to effective skill.

So, for example, a homeless person who really only provided their Streetwise roll within the small neighbourhood they stay in would be 1/3rd normal price, but would be able to help with things in the village or town their neighbourhood was part of, at a penalty to their skill.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Yeah the scope is my main issue with Contacts and Contact group.
I have gone over Contacts extensively and changed some of my initial conclusions over time in doing so.
As pure skills there typically a bad deal but the favor and offloading of time intensive tasks makes them a reasonable value. Reliability appeared to be an issue but once you add in bribes and really look them over most Contacts are fine. Rarely, if ever would I buy Reliability up very high. I have a chart saved for a project I hope to publish someday.
The two issues I have are Scope and that the "I know a guy" archetype seem overly expensive to do.
Adding Cosmic, Accessibility (from Patron), or Kelly's idea above can address Scope. This is important as Contacts are pretty limited to city based adventures and not doable for a typical traveling adventure campaign. Unless your sitting in one place you need another option.
Getting a lot of different Contacts is doable with Modular Abilities, Wild Talent, and another power I'll have to hold off on.
The trick is using a Contact in MA or Wild talent is still a one shot so you may pay too much a premium to afford multiple Contacts in any but high powered campaigns.
Another thing that Contacts wont do is build a Network but again there is a simple and rather obvious way around that as well.

With the current rules and typical impression most have of Contacts i find few people bother with them, including myself so I had to figure out better options and presentation for certain character types.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

But are they a good value when compared to Allies?


That's where I've had the issue and why I broadened the skill to a Bang and bumped up Reliability. Otherwise, I had PCs with Allies that would have been better served as Contacts showing up, and no PCs taking Contacts.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

For large scope Contacts, are you talking about them being a single individual with galactic-scale information (say), or a Claim to Hospitality-like group that you can get information from in different parts of the galaxy?

I think having a further option than a Contact only being available in one city is needed, but I don't think basing it on their geographic scale works. To broadly generalise, a GM will either base their campaign in one single limited locale, like a city: in which case the PC will potentially have access to the Contact any time; or it's a travelling, trading and exploring campaign, where a single locale Contact would be useless. Making the galaxy-travelling campaign PCs pay x7 more for galactic-scope Contacts doesn't actually get them any further utility. It just means that they're now available any time they need, which is the same utility as the city Contact in the city-based campaign.

Not sure how to fairly price the idea of Scope though. One way is just to fold it into the Availability, as a percentage of how often adventurers will be near their Contact network.

Or, I previously suggested a Specific/Generic enhancement for Contacts. A Specific Contact is a named individual and works as-is. A Generic Contact is a class of Contact that could be contacted in different locales- such as at the local guild office or Cardassian tailor's shop, priced as a +50% enhancement. Generic Contacts can also cover faceless contacts who can change from one instance to the next, such as Lord Varys' little birds or Batman going out on the street to shake down some thugs for a lead.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Either approach works, in my opinion. The banker Contact with Finance and galactic scope could be a single person who happens to work at the central branch of the First Imperial Star Bank, gets information from all across the stars, and who you can ring up with your handy hyper-phone when needed. Or it could be a matter of you making a point to cultivate a banker in every system. Each approach has its tradeoffs - a single person is easier to butter up and bribe, but conversely is easier to be taken out in a single hit, compared to the group.

This problem also occurs with other social traits like Claim to Hospitality or Patrons however - there can always be circumstances that take you out of effective communication with the people who can help you. The GM should ensure that players are aware of what the circumstances of the campaign are going to be, and warn them if they take traits that aren't likely going to come up.

Also, I think there's a bit of an excluded middle in your range of possible campaigns. Lots of games will have reoccurring places that are nevertheless not the permanent setting. A game of "travelling, trading, and exploring", for example, could easily have a home port location that the group keeps coming back to for resupply, new missions, etc. where a Contact could be quite helpful, but not useful while out on an actual mission.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

PK suggested Accessibility from Patron to handle much of the former and Contact Group handles the latter.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I suppose it's true that only Contact Group specifies that it can only applies in one particular town. But I think that's working with the assumption that a Contact who isn't a group is always a single person, and thus will have a naturally limited reach. The problem, though, is that leaves the person who knows a person in every city paying a lot. Highly Accessible doesn't really help that much - it means you can get in touch with your Contact from pretty much anywhere, but as written, they can still only help you with stuff in their own area. And Contact Group doesn't actually help if you just want one skill provided, just spread over a larger area than a single city.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

AFAICT, there's nothing that says you can't call your buddy at Quantico from Johannesburg.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Sure, but they probably won't be able to help you, or at least not with the full range of help. And if a Contact can provide a vastly different range of assistance than another, I think that's something that should be paid for. It's not really fair that me and another player both paid 4 points for a Contact, but because I declared that mine was an analyst with the CIA, and theirs was defined as a homeless person on the streets of Washington DC, mine can be useful any time I can get on the phone with them, and theirs is only narrowly helpful when they're specifically looking for help in DC.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Why not? They can still look stuff up in the archives, talk to Special Agent Jones about what really happened in Nebraska in November or whatever they could do if you were in Virginia. You being elsewhere doesn't change what they can do. To some extent this should figure into their effective skill, but yes it is probably a bad idea to take a useless Contact. That homeless guy is probably better defined as a friend perk.

I do think there's a lot of room for modifiers to Contacts though.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I agree - a Contact should be able to provide favors and information logically, even if they're not in the same place you are, if they're described in a way that that's appropriate. I just think that those features should be paid for. Either Contacts who can't provide that sort of assistance should be cheaper, or those that can should be more expensive.

I would disagree - a homeless person could actually be quite useful. Besides providing Streetwise, they can do favours like watch a location for you, find a safe (if unpleasant) place to hide out for a while, point out good places to do your own observation or panhandling, make some introductions if you want to hire some other street people for a quick job, provide introductions to Beggars' Guild "officials" (if such exist), or even call up a few stronger or more unhinged street people to act as a temporary "goon squad". All stuff I certainly wouldn't let a Friend perk cover!

But if we're still thinking of a homeless person as "useless", let's use another example. Say you've got a fence for a Contact, who also provides Streetwise. That's definitely a classic example of a Contact, I'd say. But their utility is likely sharply limited outside the city they're in. Most fences aren't internationally connected, so the fact that you can call them up from anywhere doesn't help, they're still going to tell you "I can't help you sell that illegal thing you've stolen unless you come here". I think that's clearly less useful than the CIA analyst Contact, but not so much so that it deserves to only be worth 1 point. I think that if your Contact has a bigger scope, you really should be paying more.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I would prefer to assume that full cost contacts aren't impossible to contact from remote locations, and give a limitation to those that can't be.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

That is more about infrastructure and TL though. In a modern era game contacts are easier to reach from far away than in most LT games, same with UT unless there are setting switches. Switches like no FTL radio in a star spanning UT game (like Traveler) or prevalent communication magic make a difference.
Only add Accessibility modifiers if the Contact has better than setting average. As written Contact group needs something like that to simply be spread out over the setting instead of just one city.

As for the person who knows someone in every city, your right that is prohibitively expensive. Making it a -6 appearance roll for cost but allowing use when you visit his town for instance can help. So for a traveling group that spends little time in any city you could go for low freq but still have them available when in town. Also the other more cinematic options i wrote above can help. Its still more likely to be too expensive compared to just having high skills so other uses of the Contact need to be taken advantage of.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I'm not saying Contacts shouldn't be impossible to call from distant locations. What I'm saying is that if you can, and they can provide useful assistance no matter where you are, then they should cost more. I can definitely see an argument that the scope multipliers that I posted earlier could be tweaked. But in a game where one person could buy a Contact that was only useful in a single city, and another could buy one that's useful across a whole interstellar empire, the first person should be paying less.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Contact Group is actually, RAW, literally forbidden from covering more than just one city - "You must specify a corporation, criminal syndicate, military unit, police department, or similar organization, or the underworld, merchants, upper class, etc. of one particular town. Broader Contact Groups are not allowed." (Emphasis in original, p. B44).

I'm confused as to what you're suggesting here - certainly, buying a low FoA and just having them be automatically available in one particular place works if you only have the one person. But what about the situation I actually talked about, when a character does have a buddy in every town? It's not an uncommon narrative device, and I feel it should be doable in GURPS without crippling point costs.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

The base cost should be for a Contact that answers the phone, receives and answers mail, can be found by the king's messengers, isn't immune to communication spells, whatever. People already complain that Contacts are overpriced! Besides, for most Contacts this is true; most people are going to respond to remote communication as appropriate to the setting.

Contacts that must be met in person should be discounted.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Yes, as I've already said before, I agree that Contacts should be reasonably contacted. However, being contacted isn't the issue here. What is the issue is that some Contacts can provide assistance over a wider area than others, and that it's not really fair for those that cover more area to be equally priced to those that can't.

I feel that the feeling that Contacts are too expensive stems much more from people simply treating them as skill-replacements, and discounting their value for doing favours. Consider this example: a low-level CIA analyst, one who can't reliably do things across the world, but is limited to acting more or less in Washington DC. Let's make them Skill 15 in Intelligence Analysis, frequency of appearance 9, and Somewhat Reliable (keeps the math simple). That has a base cost of 2 points. Besides rolling Intelligence Analysis on behalf of the player, I'd also allow this person to do the following favours:

• Provide entry to CIA facilities in the city, that they had clearance to access themselves.
• Give access to certain CIA tools like drones, supercomputers, etc. physically located in Washington.
• Grant access to CIA files physically stored in Washington offices.
• Provide introductions to other CIA members in Washington.
• Arrange invitations to CIA-related social or media functions in the city.

Now admittedly, several of these will fail at least one of the "Easy, Cheap, Safe" list for the Contact, so would be more difficult to get. But they'd still be possible. I think that's well-worth 2 points, even if the campaign only visits Washington every 5 sessions or something. I don't feel that someone should be able to get the same level of favors anywhere in the world for the same two points, just because they've defined their Contact as a higher-level CIA analyst.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

All of those favors are still useful regardless of where the character is located relative to Washington. Especially access to Classified information, which is probably mostly why you want an Agency contact in the first place.

GMs should probably be pretty lenient about making what unmodified Contacts can affect relevant to the game, just like contacts in most adventure fiction. If your man at Langley really would need to have the ear of the chair of the Intelligence committee to get thing done you need, well might as well assume he does, at least this once. Maybe he runs into the Senator at a function, or his niece is an aide or whatever.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

The CIA contact is an example of the sort of things contacts are priced for. He might have decent skills, but you didn't really pay for his skills. You paid for his security clearance and access to information.

These sorts of contacts are just fine. Its the other sorts of contacts that cause trouble: having a contact who you primarily use for skills, like the village blacksmith. And this is compounded by making you choose a "Skill" that the contact has.

I wonder if some of this can be relieved by focusing on the organization and access that the contact has. You're not paying for Information analysis, you're paying for the CIA.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Presumably that blacksmith has a shop, tools, suppliers, ect. So it is still more than just having the skill yourself.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

It is, but are you going to claim that having a working shop is worth as many points as having inside information to the CIA in most campaigns?

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Knowing a blacksmith in a game with the CIA is probably a perk.

In fact it is probably a Supplier perk in nearly any game.

I guess the exception would be Hatori Hanzo, but in that case getting a sword was a huge part of the film, so he probably isn't a Contact for Beatrice but rather an NPC she needed to seek out and interact with.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Depends on the game's genre conventions.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Which is my point: efficiently purchased contacts aren't primarily bought for their skill. They're bought for in world benefits the character otherwise would struggle to access. I'm going to guess that the blacksmith in the film isn't just a blacksmith, but a legendary cinematic maker of impossibly sharp blades.

I said most games for that very reason

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

In most games I've run, CIA Analyst isn't even an option for a Contact.

Realign your assumptions.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Most games where both are an option. Or their equivalents.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

If the equivalent isn't an option, then Contact probably isn't worth it in your game.

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.

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.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

A better comparison would be "Head of the Five Families" and "Station Chief of the CIA of XXXistan". Thanks for bringing it up!

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.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I still really don't see how this whole locality thing is relevant. If you are in Hong Kong, Don Gambino can still be useful if you call New York. He could still provide information about questions you have, "That Johnny Chen guy you were talking about is a major Triad executioner, he hit Vince Molari back in '97", he can use his influence, "I pulled some markers and got you invited to the Deputy Chief Executive's daughter's wedding, you can thank me later", or even his wealth "The hotel room is on me, so fugetaboutit."

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

A station chief is almost equiv to a mob boss. He depends on a network of local contacts and enforcers who will usually be illegal or at least looked at askance by the law. His contact at the capital is likely not to be as important as his local one's. They do come into play in some situations; if for instance the PC wants an emergency evac the station chief .

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Contacts can easily reach 10 or 20 points at fairly modest skill and reliability levels, and if you push all the dials to the right, can hit 48 pts, 60 pts with supernatural abilities, or 240/300 pts if we look at Contact Groups. But in the end, a Contact can only provide some information which may enable the party to continue on their quest, but never enough that it will circumvent the GM's plot; or a minor-ish favour- which also shouldn't circumvent having the PCs engage in an interesting side-adventure.

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.

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.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

In some previous Contacts thread, it was determined that the "one particular town" limit only applied to the "underworld, merchants, upper class, etc" clause of that sentence in Contact Groups, meaning corporations and military units could span as large a region as necessary.
(David Johnston 2 asserts it here, but I can't find a Krommier quote.)

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I think the restrictions on what sort of info or favours a Contact can provide should be taken in light of the point cost. If you've shelled out 60 points for a Contact, the GM should be taking a very broad view of what constitutes a "minor favour" and a narrow one for "information that circumvents the plot". Advantages should be worth the points you pay for them. If the GM is not willing to have someone who's paid 60 points for a Contact get a lot of use out of them, they should just forbid it, not nerf it into uselessness, IMO.

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:

• Entry clearance into wizard guild halls, ancient centers of learning, and so on.
• Licenses to perform magic.
• Bribe or hush money.
• Cover-ups, magical or just using the wizard's organizational power.
• False IDs, created magically.
• Insertion/Extraction, using magic to move you.
• Safe houses, protected with magical wards.
• Access to documents, records, etc. relating to magic. If you want to research in the wizard's private arcane library, this is the thing.
• Searching all records relating to magic for useful stuff.
• Cash.
• Funding.
• Gear, specifically enchanted equipment.
• Bailout, using the wizard's contacts and power to convince people to let you go.
• Evacuation, using the wizard's magic to retrieve you.
• Treatment, using healing magic or curse-removal.
• Buying or selling magical items.
• Finding magical hirelings.
• Introductions to other wizards, organizations that deal with magic, etc.
• Invitations to magic-related social functions, like the Wizard Guild Ball.
• A job working for the wizard or one of their colleagues.
• Access to magical facilities: alchemy labs, summoning circles, etc.
• The services of various magical specialists - alchemists, enchanters, and so forth.
• Shipping various items safely by magical means.
• Sending the players various places they want to go with magic.
• Magical "fire support" - dropping a Flame Strike on a target, summoning up a demon and letting it loose in a specific place, and so on.
• Magical servants or combat-capable individuals with magical powers, ready to back up the player or come to their rescue.

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.

Interesting. I can see that interpretation, now that I look at it. It would definitely help keep Contact Groups in line with regular Contacts, utility-wise.

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.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

That's certainly a good justification for the 60 pt cost of that Contact, but 60 pts also gets you an extremely powerful individual (at least double the PC's point value- 15pts), available all the time- x4. I'd expect similar support from such a Patron, with everything on your list, without any worry about whether that favour is regarded as quick, nonhazardous or inexpensive for the individual; no stated limit on the amount of aid available (although the GM could of course try to keep things to a reasonable level); as well as the bunch of other stuff that sits in the gap between what a Patron would provide that a Contact wouldn't.

I'm not sure what this is referring to- is it from Pulling Rank? But in any case, 60 pts on Rank would be Military Rank 12- which would have to be something like the Supreme Overlord High Commander of the Intergalactic Navy, with trillions of troops under you. In a fantasy setting, with 10 pts/level of Status/Rank, you'd be Status/Rank 6- Prince of the Realm, as well as general of an army of soldier and wizards that would have to help you.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

That probably just means that you probably shouldn't ever spend more than 20 points on a Contact.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

One of my players had a Contact (a smuggler). When she tried to contact him, I role-played it out fully. Due to the time her message received him and he had time to respond I managed for him to be useful at the right time so the players had to think first instead of just making use of a contact. And then at last, when the need is highest, he slipped some crucial information to the player.

This was in a Star Wars campaign during the first year of the Clone Wars.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I would recommend subsuming Contacts into the Ally advantage. You don't have to stat the Contact fully, just estimate the point cost of the NPC and apply a Limitation on it to reflect that it will only do minor tasks. -50%? -80%

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Ally, Contact, and Patron should have been rolled into one with the only differences being level of favors and whom is in "control" of the relationship.


Though honestly the difference between Contact and Patron on the control axis is superficial at best.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I think Patron does come with a couple of effective limitations that Contacts generally don't, however, which goes towards balancing them. First, Patrons will typically require more from you than a Contact would. Contacts, as I mentioned earlier, generally only require basic social maintenance to keep them in with you - friendship stuff, basically, and doing small favours for them. Patrons, on the other hand, usually require more commitment from you - a Duty to an organization, disadvantages suitable for a Pact for a god, Enemies the patron has are now yours, etc.

Second, while a Patron will help if the frequency of appearance roll comes up, they won't always help you the way you ask. If you ask for a goon squad to help you out in a fight, your army general Patron might decide the mission is lost, and send evac instead, even though you think you could win the fight.

These factors together means that a Patron will generally represent a loss of autonomy for the player who takes them, compared with a Contact.

Another point of comparison - I was assuming that the wizard Contact in the example above was pretty well-connected overall, highly ranked in the Wizard Guild or whatever the equivalent was, and also reasonably connected in society in general. Contacts in general seem to assume that - default examples include military generals, business owners, police chiefs, and Dons of crime families. Whereas Patron includes the Special Abilities modifier, and says it applies if "Your Patron wields power out of proportion to its wealth or point value... if your Patron has extensive social or political power (e.g., the Governor of New York or the Pope)". Arguably, at least, the wizard I've described qualifies for that, since they not only have their own spells, but significant social pull. So as a Patron, they'd cost 90 points instead of 60.


Yes, sorry, that's correct. I referenced using the Pulling Rank rules for Contacts upthread, and forgot to specify I was still using that assumption.

True, but the tradeoff with Rank/Status vs. Contacts is, again, player autonomy, I feel. Rank almost always comes with some sort of Duty or other obligation attached to it, and while Status is less set than that, it does generally require that you act accordingly - dressing the part, attending social events, associating with the right people in the right ways, and so forth - or risk losing it. A Contact, in contrast, since it's a personal relationship, could hypothetically be possessed by anyone, regardless of social standing or overall behaviour. A beggar with Status -2 could happen to be the old childhood friend of the wizard we're talking about, and get all the benefits of the Contact even though society at large considers them less than dirt.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

You'd have to drop the 150% cap on an Ally's point value too. But a "information requests and minor favours only" limitation would be good.
I'm not totally sure what you mean by "control axis" here, but I think Contacts that only respond to a PC's request is only one type of contact that is seen in fiction or real-life. There's also the informant who randomly brings you information when they come across it. But as this would be basically a GM's plot point introduction mechanism outside a PC's control, they probably shouldn't pay for it.
But Duties, Enemies, Pacts or whatever are separate disadvantages explicitly written out on the character sheet with their own point costs which vary from one instance to another. They don't enter into the calculation if we're comparing the benefit given from having a Contact with having a Patron. You could just as easily tack on Sense of Duty or Dependent to a Contact if you wanted to write them up that way- your PI character's Contact on the force might sometimes call on him to return the favour, for example.

Perhaps, but I think that's how you might choose to play it- RAW just seems to say they'll provide help. But I still don't think that makes up for the "benefit disparity" in having a Contact versus a Patron.

As above, that either means you're listing the disadvantage separately, or the drawbacks of being a prince and general are far outweighed by the benefits when compared with a Contact of the same point value.

The test is, if a PC is designing a character for a game, and they're familiar enough with the ins-and-outs of the rules, which would they choose to drop 60 pts on- a 60-pt Patron, 60 pts in Rank and Social Status, or a 60-point Contact? That's if they don't want to just drop 60 points into the skills they were thinking of the Contact having.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I've always taken Patron (for being the word Patron) as having an element of control over the PCs lives.

Of course that's not actually in the advantage, which I forget all the time as it's one of those biases I brought prepackaged with me.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Just because 60 point Contacts are a waste of points, doesn't mean that 1-5 point Contacts are.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Unfortunately, not all character concepts want only low-key Contacts, and it's hard to build a useful, connected Contact without feeling the points are wasted.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

The problem with having inside information to the CIA is that it comes with a substantial downside. Unless you laid out the points for a security clearance making use of your contact is generally going to be a crime for both of you. Also of course if his position gives him greater access to information and equipment he can use to help you, his effective skill goes up.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

If you're paying for Security Clearance, you might as well pay for the Free Access (and possibly Broad Range), for 10-15 points, and skip needing a Contact to get the secrets. Perhaps add Informal -50% if appropriate.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

This assumes that every character concept is appropriate in every campaign (and probably that you have infinite points too). In most games you aren't going to be able to be the boss of the Jersey mob, a Chinese bureaucrat, both a CIA and an FSB agent, the CEO of Nokia, an Interpol agent, and a doctor with a discreet local practice all at the same time. You might however be a person with all of those contacts.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I disagree. Point value isn't everything. If I'm deciding whether or not to take a Patron vs. a Contact, the question of "what sort of social disadvantages am I going to have to take if I get this as a Patron?" is absolutely going to enter into my calculations. Just like, for instance, Magery vs. Power Investiture - they cost the same, but the question of what sort of behavior your god will demand, and hence limit your Power Investiture, is absolutely going to be a consideration.

In any case, though, I'm definitely feeling that any Patron who can provide the sort of significant social pull and connections that are inherent to a Contact should be taking the +50% enhancement for Special Abilities. So the comparison is not "one very powerful wizard who can provide social favours and personal power" for the Patron, it's "one very powerful wizard who can help you with their own spells and supernatural abilities, but isn't socially connected enough to allow for significant favours. If you want the wizard who can do both, you'd be paying 90 points, not 60.

However, those are optional - a player might choose to have a Sense of Duty to their Contact, but it's not required. Whereas with Patron, it's explicitly spelled out in the advantage that the GM can require you to take various disadvantages if you get a Patron, and I'd definitely say that losing or violating those disadvantages loses you access to the Patron as well, at least until you resolve the situation. Basically, Patron comes with a built-in Pact limitation.


This greatly nerfs Contacts, and I wouldn't do this. A Contact should provide their information. As long as the player behaves reasonably with it (e.g., doesn't go on the national news and says "General X said that the lights in the sky were definitely aliens"), then the character and the Contact aren't going to suffer serious consequences for being used. At worst, I'd say that some results for lower reliability could be interpreted as the Contact being punished for leaking info, rather than betraying you.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Just the fact that your contact is providing illegal information or favors isn't a "nerf". Willingness to provide illegal aid should be the default for Contacts, IMO.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Yes, that's precisely what I was saying. Not being willing to provide illegal information or favours, which is what David Johnston2 seemed to be suggesting, would be the nerf.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

As per p. B44

You have an associate who provides you with useful information, or who does small (pick any two of "quick", "nonhazardous", and "inexpensive") favors for you.

As long as the information request or favor is still "quick" and "inexpensive", they can risk something hazardous, like breaking the law. Word of GM handles whether or not breaking the law is hazardous; one of the reasons I believe that 1 CP added to Contact base cost ought to not just be for supernatural means of gathering information, but instead represent any unusually potent capabilities. Someone capable of skirting or flat out breaking the law with little to no consequence would be such a feature. Basically, this is the Special Abilities Enhancement for Patrons but highly simplified.

Huh, blew all my time addressing just this one point. I reserve the right to comment on some of the other prior comments at a later date. ;)

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I don't think I said exactly what I meant to. I was actually thinking about the idea that a CIA contact with 15 Intelligence Analysis is more valuable than a weaponsmith with 15 Armory because he could let you into the CIA and let you use CIA gear. But that would expose you both to a lot of risk of exposure of your highly illegal relationship.

Perhaps the most valuable thing about having a contact with a skill rather than the skill yourself is that the contact can be using his skill while you are attending to other business and using facilities that aren't necessarily mobile, like an office in the CIA, or a workshop.

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.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

As suggested upthread, the first fix to consider is making the highest rank of Reliable be the x1 version, then lower ranks have smaller fraction multipliers (or just make them Limitations).

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Somewhat Reliable is usually good enough so helps keep cost down.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I like that.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I've been toying with the idea of using Accessibility, but I don't think it brings the cost down enough.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

I think as the advantage of a Contact is access to privileged information, then that's what you should pay for- probably at a base of 5 pts. Then all the other things which expand what kinds of info and how good it is would be Enhancements on that. I wrote it up here once, if you're interested.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

The advantage of a Contact include more than just information however.
People often underestimate the value of favors

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Sure, but Allies should do you favours as well. Contacts will always be compared to Allies, who are people who will do anything up to and including taking a risk of death on your behalf.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

True.
I just blogged some thoughts on this subject.
https://refplace.blogspot.com/2018/1...-in-gurps.html
No ads, just the more places we talk or post about GURPS the better IMO.
I liked the Gossiper modifier myself.

Re: [Basic] Advantage of the Week (#30): Contact Group, Contacts
 

Actually, I was about to add favours and only dropped it to keep the premise simple.

Let's put it this way- the utility of a Contact lies in their ability to provide information or favours, not in their skill level.

Reasons for this:
- A PC can just put the same skill on their character sheet, usually for much cheaper.
- A PC would often have the same skill that a Contact would have, if they're from the same profession or background.
- A Contact's skill level may not be the same as the skill level on their notional character sheet, as things like their status or connections can be reflected with a higher effective skill.
- A single Contact shouldn't be limited to providing access to one skill. If you ask something to your buddy on the force, is he using Computer Ops to check something on the criminal database, Law to let you know how to get off a speeding ticket, Forensics to tell you how not to contaminate a crime scene, etc?
- For many Contacts, it's their position which is important. A guard in the Queen's prison can tell you which cell the Count is held in or give you a map or arrange to slip you a key. Alfred can tell you which rooftop to meet Batman on or grant you an audience with Bruce Wayne. Which skill best represents those?

So basing a Contact's power on their skill level is confusing, doesn't work the way skills work in the rest of the game, isn't actually the skill it's called or the level it's listed at, and so on.

Now some Contacts may be useful because they have certain skills the PC doesn't, but I'd make that a secondary case, not the primary way the advantage is defined.