Should a thief have his fence as a Contact?

[Grayscale]

As per title, on a TL3-4 setting: should a thief have his fence as a Contact, if:

a) The fence simply buys the thief`s goods?;

or

b) Should the fence also be available for information (my preferred approach), how would that differ from the thief`s own Streetwise? Simply higher skill level? Can a Contact have more than one skill (Streetwise, Current Affairs, etc)?

[Refplace]

Fortunately a book should be coming out soon that will shed a lot of light on the topic. But yes a Contact (Merchant -Black market) is a good one for a thief.
Contacts are very useful for information even for characters with the same skill. Specifically a Contacts skill reflects their resources and equipment which the PC may not have, and they can spend time researching or asking around saving the PC a significant amount of time.

[evileeyore]

Originally Posted by Exallted

As per title, on a TL3-4 setting: should a thief have his fence as a Contact, if:

a) The fence simply buys the thief`s goods?;

or

b) Should the fence also be available for information (my preferred approach), how would that differ from the thief`s own Streetwise? Simply higher skill level? Can a Contact have more than one skill (Streetwise, Current Affairs, etc)?

A) If the thief wants the fence to be "guaranteed" to be available (at whatever Availability is set when the Contact is purchased).

B) Contacts are useful for hunting down info while the PC is too busy to pound the pavement themselves. In this case, yes, the Fence is probably also Available to be an information source (depending on their relationship). If the Contact and the PC share a skill and the PC works with the Contact to gather the information (or perform the skill if not information gathering) I treat the lower skill as a Complimentary Skill as per Action 2 Exploits.

[jason taylor]

In some cases the fence would have to be a Patron. The TV style thieves that break in to places that sneer at Alcatraz to get MacGuffins that are pretty obviously impractical to sell could only work on commission. It wouldn't be worth it otherwise as they would not be able to have a buyer unless their fence had already brokered one for them.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Exallted

As per title, on a TL3-4 setting: should a thief have his fence as a Contact, if:

a) The fence simply buys the thief`s goods?;

or

b) Should the fence also be available for information (my preferred approach), how would that differ from the thief`s own Streetwise? Simply higher skill level? Can a Contact have more than one skill (Streetwise, Current Affairs, etc)?

As characters Contacts do of course have more than one skill. But they have one exceptional skill they will exercise on behalf of the player. Their other skills can be presumed to be unimpressive, redundant or just unavailable, like a Contact who is an expert with a gun but has no intention of ever risking his life for the PC.

A fence contact with Streetwise would be both redundant and unavailable. Your fence isn't going to be out there on the streets negotiating with gang members and finding weed dealers for you and presumably your criminal PC has that skill anyway. He's more likely to provide you with a skill like "Current Affairs: Criminal Underworld" or "Expert: Art".

[jason taylor]

A lot depends on what you are stealing. If you just grab a laptop, the fence can cannibalize it and no one will be the wiser. A real MacGuffin requires a buyer to be prearranged.

That's what always makes me groan about cop shows. If someone steals something interesting he better know what he is going to do with it. Sometimes they account for that, sometimes not.

[Grayscale]

Originally Posted by Refplace

Specifically a Contacts skill reflects their resources and equipment which the PC may not have.

This was my thinking as well - I was just having trouble explaining through raw what would be the difference from the Thief's Streetwise-12 vs the fence's Streetwise-12. Though I don't really need to justify it with rules.

Originally Posted by evileeyore

B) Contacts are useful for hunting down info while the PC is too busy to pound the pavement themselves. In this case, yes, the Fence is probably also Available to be an information source (depending on their relationship). If the Contact and the PC share a skill and the PC works with the Contact to gather the information (or perform the skill if not information gathering) I treat the lower skill as a Complimentary Skill as per Action 2 Exploits.

That's a very nice idea.

Originally Posted by David Johnston2

As characters Contacts do of course have more than one skill. But they have one exceptional skill they will exercise on behalf of the player. Their other skills can be presumed to be unimpressive, redundant or just unavailable, like a Contact who is an expert with a gun but has no intention of ever risking his life for the PC.

A fence contact with Streetwise would be both redundant and unavailable. Your fence isn't going to be out there on the streets negotiating with gang members and finding weed dealers for you and presumably your criminal PC has that skill anyway. He's more likely to provide you with a skill like "Current Affairs: Criminal Underworld" or "Expert: Art".

Good points too, though the question arises again, for say, if there's Current Affairs: Criminal Underworld, why wouldn't the thief have it and how would it differ from the fence use of it?

Ofc, hand waiving the differences story-wise (the fence has contacts and connections the thief doesn't) is easy enough, and probably preferred, I think.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Exallted

Good points too, though the question arises again, for say, if there's Current Affairs: Criminal Underworld, why wouldn't the thief have it and how would it differ from the fence use of it?

Ofc, hand waiving the differences story-wise (the fence has contacts and connections the thief doesn't) is easy enough, and probably preferred, I think.

Also the fence is probably maintaining his Contacts and can be doing the work and putting in the time to main the skill (Current Affairs has its own penalties) where the thief might be spending his time on other things. Even more so if the thief travels or has to remain below radar.

[whswhs]

The alternatives to having an established relationship with a fence are to shop your take around, looking for an interested fence, or to sell it yourself to an interested buyer. The first one would require Streetwise rolls to find a fence. For the second, in theory you could just do IQ rolls to search for a buyer—but really, selling stolen goods is a somewhat specialized enterprise with distinctive risks; you'd probably want to have Merchant skill with an optional specialization in stolen goods or black market transactions.

Either type of search is going to take time that you could otherwise spend on stealing more stuff. That's probably the main reason to have an established fence.

[David Johnston2]

Originally Posted by Exallted

T
Good points too, though the question arises again, for say, if there's Current Affairs: Criminal Underworld, why wouldn't the thief have it and how would it differ from the fence use of it?

In the course of his trade the fence will meet easily twenty times as many criminals as the thief does. The thief meets the fence and maybe an accomplice or two.. The fence meets all the other thieves, and a lot of people who want to buy stolen goods as well. Plus the "rent" collectors. That the fence knows more underworld gossip does not require more explanation. All the gossip will come to him. Of course if he listens but keeps his mouth shut always then that won't be his Contact skill.