[Basic] Advantage of the Week: Patrons

[johndallman]

Patrons [variable] is a mundane social advantage. An NPC, perhaps a group or organisation, is prepared to assist you in your adventures in some way. They don’t go with you (those are Allies) but they use their influence to assist and protect you. This advantage appeared in GURPS 1e, and hasn’t fundamentally changed.

Patrons have highly variable cost, depending on their power level, their frequency of appearance, and a range of special enhancements and limitations.

The basic cost varies from [10] for an individual with about 150% of the PC’s point total, or a moderately powerful organisation, with assets worth at least 1,000× starting wealth for the setting, to [30] for a national government, huge multinational company, or an actual god who intervenes on your behalf. The god requires enhancements, described below, which increases their cost significantly.

Frequency of appearance uses the same table and cost multipliers as Allies, Contact Groups, Contacts, Dependents, Enemies, and Secrets. As always, while the rules say that the GM should roll for the appearance of Patrons for each game session, they are at liberty to overrule this for plot and plausibility purposes, provided they don’t deprive you of reasonable value for the price of the advantage. If several characters in a party have the same Patron, they do not get to share the cost out between them, but they do all get separate chances for the Patron to be involved. From limited experience in play, allowing characters to share the cost, but only allowing one chance to invoke a Patron, doesn’t break anything, provided your players are mature enough not to invoke it competitively for individual gain.

The special enhancements for this advantage start with Equipment, where the Patron gifts you equipment, rather than loaning it for specific tasks, which any Patron might do. This is +50% to +100%, depending on the value of the equipment. Highly Accessible, +50%, means that you can contact your patron from almost anywhere, and it’s hard to deprive you of the ability to do this. The canonical example is a god or spirit that you can contact via prayer. Special Abilities is +50% for a patron with significant social or political power, or +100% for extraordinary powers, such as equipment from a TL higher than the campaign, the ability to give you special powers, use of magic in a non-magical setting, or extraordinary reach in time or space.

Minimal Intervention, ‑50%, is for patrons with many demands on their resources, such as gods. When your patron appears, they make a reaction roll and only intervene on Neutral or better. They also give the aid they think you need, rather than what you ask for. The only thing you know about a Secret (‑50%) patron is that it exists. You don’t know who they are, and you have no specific way to contact them, although you may have a way to leave messages for them, or expect them to see public communications. Their aid comes in the form of apparent windfalls or strokes of luck, and they take care to avoid being traced. They may well have an agenda of their own, and be using you as a catspaw. An Unwilling (‑50%) patron is coerced in some way, by you or someone else, and does not have your best interests in mind. If they can find a way out from supporting you, they will, and may become an Enemy.

An employer may be a Patron, but most are not. If an employer is willing to go to significant lengths to get you out of trouble, it probably is a Patron. Local police departments often are for their officers, but armies usually aren’t, except for commanding officers’ favourites. Inventors and other creative types can try to get their Patrons to pay for projects (p. B474). That’s rarely relevant to professional adventurers, but it’s good to have a way to represent a historically common style of patronage. Of course, Patrons may impose Duties, and sometimes other disadvantages, such as a Code of Honor, Secret or Sense of Duty. Supernatural Patrons may require a Pact limitation on their patronage. And a Patron’s Enemies may decide to be your Enemies too!

Patron is widely used in GURPS supplements. Interesting forms include noble houses, for their members (Discworld), a range of sizes of mercenary company (Action 7: Mercenaries), patrons who are also Enemies (Watcher) (Adaptations), a convoy of nomads (AtE), a Guardian Owl (Creatures of the Night), deities (DF, and other fantasy settings), bound spirits with gadget limitations (Fantasy), and patrons operating under “false flags” (Horror). You can have historical people (Hot Spots: Renaissance Florence), cross-world patrons (Infinite Worlds), different mechanics that separate Budget and Influence (Monster Hunters), one-off patrons bought with character points (Power-Ups 5: Impulse Buys), limitations on calling supernatural patrons like Costs Fatigue and Immediate Preparation Required (Powers), or an entire “magic system” (Divine Favor). You can add subtly coercive patrons (Psionic Campaigns), entire countries as patrons (Realm Management), individual patrons with lower point totals (Social Engineering), schools as patrons (Back to School), contact groups that become patrons (Keeping in Contact), rank as a proxy for patron (Pulling Rank), a super identity that’s a patron to the same person’s civilian identity, a super-team as a patron, and a patron that only provides a base of operations (Supers). Finally, consider magic items as patrons (Thaumatology), patrons for robots who have Social Stigma (Ultra-Tech), and even patrons for Zombies.

I think the only time I’ve had Patron on a PC was in a Madness Dossier game, where Patron (Project SANDMAN) [90] is standard issue. I’ve benefited indirectly in the occult WWII game from our commander’s Patron (British General Staff, details not clear)[45]. He bought that gradually in play, as his team acquired a reputation for solving weird problems, and it has been very helpful.

How have Patrons helped you out?

[Phil Masters]

Originally Posted by johndallman

I’ve benefited indirectly in the occult WWII game from our commander’s Patron (British General Staff, details not clear)[45]. He bought that gradually in play, as his team acquired a reputation for solving weird problems, and it has been very helpful.

It's a straight Powerful Organisation, 15 or less. (They won't generally divert the entire Royal Navy to our aid, but let's face it, a phone call vouching for you from Alan Brooke has weight.) It seemed like a logical way to make being in charge of a very idiosyncratic group powerful in its own right; Lt. Col. Kingsthorpe isn't the most capable member of the group, but he's the one whose name is on the reports, and who has the personality to be happy wrangling the brass.

My Cabalist character acquired the god Hermes as a Patron (minimal intervention, 9-), but that was late in the campaign, when (as I recall) it felt like an appropriate marker for our successful team-up with the Olympian gods.

I guess that both reflect one of the two common models for a PC ending up with a Patron; either "This campaign is about you working for this organisation or being [so you probably have a Duty], but at least you start as a recognisably useful or competent minion, so they'll provide you with some backup", or "You've done some really quite impressive and/or helpful things for or with this powerful entity, and they have Noticed you in a beneficial way" (so you buy it with experience or receive it as a gift from the GM).

[Phantasm]

I've used the variant in Pyramid #3/71, The Captain's Boat which lets you take a starship as a Patron for the captain/crew.

Mostly, however, I've used Social Engineering: Pulling Rank for organizations that qualify for Patrons.

[Pursuivant]

Patron is incredibly useful for the GM if they don't want the party to get bogged down with accounting for money and equipment. If the Patron acts as an employer and supplies equipment it keeps the focus on the campaign action rather than shopping trips or job rolls.

Patron is also a very handy advantage for characters with serious Social Stigmas - like animals, kids, or slaves. As long as they are acting on their Patron's behalf or with their permission, they can temporarily ignore their social problems. If they get into trouble, the Patron can bail them out.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Phantasm

I've used the variant in Pyramid #3/71, The Captain's Boat which lets you take a starship as a Patron for the captain/crew.

Mostly, however, I've used Social Engineering: Pulling Rank for organizations that qualify for Patrons.

Thank you, I was going to suggest that article added to the initial post.
Pulling Rank and Divine Favor are probably my favorite uses of Patron after they came out, though I have used Patron for my characters in many campaigns - mostly as background and a plot hook.

[Micah Davis]

It feels like there should be some kind of variant on minimal intervention/secret for forces like God and Fate that are very much helpful to you but whom you do not meaningful exert influence over. Galahad, for example, definitely has Patron (God) but I don't think he exerts much influence on how God intervenes on his behalf.

I'm also curious as to if anyone has used powerful patrons with high frequency of appearance like genies and how it worked out for them.

[Prince Charon]

Originally Posted by Micah Davis

It feels like there should be some kind of variant on minimal intervention/secret for forces like God and Fate that are very much helpful to you but whom you do not meaningful exert influence over. Galahad, for example, definitely has Patron (God) but I don't think he exerts much influence on how God intervenes on his behalf.

That might be some form of Blessed, rather than Patron.

[Micah Davis]

Originally Posted by Prince Charon

That might be some form of Blessed, rather than Patron.

This is how it’s represented in GURPS Camelot, but what God DOES is a lot closer to patronage than to any extant form of Blessed. Distributes equipment, guides on quest, and provides social backing.

[RogerBW]

The cost of a trait only matters if some of the party have it, and my experience is that in a typical Agency campaign, every PC has to take the package of Patron plus Duty plus whatever (and it might well make sense to make the appearance or intervention checks just once for the whole party). Where it becomes important, I think, is in a more faction-ridden game, where I may work for the Shadowed Lady, you for the Grey Prince, and that guy over there is a public hero so they had to give him a good job… but we're all cooperating in service of some greater objective. Then I invoke my Patron when we're dealing with the magical schools, you when we need an in with the aristocracy, and he uses his Reputation on the common people.

In my head Patron often goes along with Duty: the Patron is big and powerful, so why do they help you? Because they get you to do stuff for them too, stuff they can't easily get done in other ways.

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by RogerBW

The cost of a trait only matters if some of the party have it, and my experience is that in a typical Agency campaign, every PC has to take the package of Patron plus Duty plus whatever (and it might well make sense to make the appearance or intervention checks just once for the whole party).

By the RAW, if I have Patron (Secret Agency) and you have Patron (Secret Agency) and Fred has Patron (Secret Agency), we all roll independently. And then if my odds are 9 or less, and so are yours, and so are Fred's, there's only a 24% change that all of us will fail, which is equivalent to a 12 or less for our party, roughly. So if we want Secret Agency to show up 76% of the time, we only each need to pay to have it show up 37.5% of the time. I worked out a table for this in GURPS Supers, for superteams that share joint Patrons.