[Bull]

With Season 4, we decided to try and have the contacts be more involved with the adventures, so that they show up regularly, allowing players to interact with them more often and more directly.

For those that have been reading/playing Missions, how do you like this so far? 
Is it cool to see the same NPCs popping back up, or annoying? 
Do you like the NPCs? 
Do you want to see more (or less) or them? 
Would you want to see some fiction based around some of them?

[Frankie the Fomori]

I like them, use them as normal none mission Seattle NPC's and would love to see more.  I really like the fixers.

[wylie]

interesting so far
my players swear there is no secrets with the reporters around

haven't figured out Pip yet, as in why is he there
Bull,well, he is just an old ork 

[Bull]

Pip is there because he's just interesting and fun, IMO.  And because he served a vital function in the first couple Ork underground adventures i wrote.

The underground is a VAST place, and it's not designed logically, and it changes on a regular basis as tunnels collapse and new tunnels are built.  So Pip's function was to provide some roleplay opportunity, a way for runners to find their way around the maze that is the OU if they didn't have any knowledge skills or contacts down there, and to put a specific "face" on the denizens of the OU.

He also rapidly became a favorite character after Jason Hardy's son ran wild with the character at the Origins ad Gen Con scrambles.

Bull

[Critias]

Potential Rally Cry spoilers below.

[spoiler]The reporters came on a little strong for our group's liking, with one after another barging in just after a top-secret meet and all asking us about the job we'd barely even said 'yes' to a minute or two before.  It broke the normal Shadowrunner paranoia/secrecy thing a bit, IMHO. 

Likewise, when What's-Her-Face (the microphone avatar'ed chick) matched, instead of beat, the initial offer for information, it was a little strange.  Normally if you're covertly supplying someone a counteroffer to an offer made by a direct rival, you...y'know...BEAT their offer, to provide them some incentive.[/spoiler]

Neither issue was game breaking, just felt a little weird.  All my other interactions with contacts this season went swimmingly.

[Bull]

I'm playing up two aspects that Shadowrun often overlooks (And something Shadowrunners often fail to realize):

1)  There are no real secrets in the Shadowrun world.

With the prevalence of the matrix, cameras, drones, grid guide, and countless other surveillance devices out there, it's nearly impossible for anyone to avoid being watched, followed, and spied upon.

2)  The contacts are all part of organizations.

Even if the individual contacts are very good at what they do, the fact is they all work as part of a group.  This means that someone knows what they're doing pretty much all the time. 

Basically, the Atlanteans and Draco foundations have moles in each others organizations, as do the dragons (Lung and Lofwyr).  Same goes for the ORC, the Seattle Government, and the news Agencies. 

And right now, the 2 Faction groupings are watching each other VERY carefully.  MacCallister doesn't get a cup of soycaf i the morning without a report being put on someones desk in City Hall, and much to his chagrin, Lin Yao Chang knows every time Simon Andrews does a line of novacoke off a strippers ass.

The news agencies basically have a standard "finders fee" for news they're interested in, hence why it's teh same amount.  That, and we want to try and balance the secondary groups some, so that the players have a real choice in who they work with.  We don't want someone to feel like they're missing out if they've been working with Athena at KSAF for several Missions, but Joe Martin is offering a little more money this week.

It's a wierd balancing act, and sometimes, yeah, it comes off a bit stilted.  When you're playing in a con game where times a factor, things get rushed.  Normally, I would hope the GM would balance out things a bit better, space the offers out a little.  But considering that Athena and Joe are watching each other like hawks (as well as the ORC, MacCallister, the government, Dana Oaks, and Tosh), they'll move in as quick as possible to try and "lock down" informants.

Bull

[PH_dungeon]

I've run all the missions now, and I'm quite liking it. Some contacts have showed up more than others. MacCallister, Tosh, Laurent, and Joe Martin have been the main ones for my group. I ended up running Extraction yesterday (ran Rally Cry first), and this just met Yao after he walked into the bar where they handed off Parker and then walked back out with Parker's head a minute later. Laurent decided not to try to stop him. That freaked them out.

Any idea when the next one will be out? I've got a game to run in a couple of weeks and would really like to get my hands on the next mission.

[The Wyrm Ouroboros]

I'm playing up two aspects that Shadowrun often overlooks (And something Shadowrunners often fail to realize):

1)  There are no real secrets in the Shadowrun world.  With the prevalence of the matrix, cameras, drones, grid guide, and countless other surveillance devices out there, it's nearly impossible for anyone to avoid being watched, followed, and spied upon.

2)  The contacts are all part of organizations.  Even if the individual contacts are very good at what they do, the fact is they all work as part of a group.  This means that someone knows what they're doing pretty much all the time. 

I have to tell you, Bull, If these were both as true as some of the Missions come across, there'd be little to no reason for shadowrunners.  The sheer volume of information is going to put the kibosh on some of this stuff -- and the entire idea behind a rogue Johnson/operative means specifically that the organizational left hand does not always -- or even often -- know what the right hand is working on.  There is counter-surveillance for everything, and unless you have a novahot team of deckers slashing into every camera left and right to track your one guy in the organization, then you'd think there'd be counter-action -- or else Mr. One Guy would go somewhere completely suspicious and let them watch him while his second (or better yet, someone unrelated but clueful) makes contacts with the PCs.

It's a wierd balancing act, and sometimes, yeah, it comes off a bit stilted.  When you're playing in a con game where times a factor, things get rushed.  Normally, I would hope the GM would balance out things a bit better, space the offers out a little.  But considering that Athena and Joe are watching each other like hawks (as well as the ORC, MacCallister, the government, Dana Oaks, and Tosh), they'll move in as quick as possible to try and "lock down" informants.

Yes, this is true.  But when Athena meets you virtually in a bar, and literally thirty seconds later Slick oozes up to you as you step outside ... stilted isn't the word.  Laughable might be.

That said, however, the games I played at Dragon-Con moved well, were interesting, and had some nicely tense moments.  Let me see -- CMP 2011-01 Moving Day, CMP 2011-05 Burn Notice, SRM 04-00 Back in Business, and SRM 04-01 Hiding in the Dark.  Would have liked to play CMP 2011-07 – Super Brawl Sunday! and CMP 2011-04 – Ancient Pawns, but that's 'cause I know Critias and would have had a blast with them.

Regarding the contacts themselves, they seem fairly well done, if somewhat squirrelly.  Going in order of their connection ratings:

• KE Detective Tosh Athack, Connection 2, has the same sorts of contacts and influence as a gang member, bartender, mechanic, mob soldier, corner hustler, or corporate wageslave.
• Joe Martin, NewsNet Reporter, has no better contacts than a beat cop, private investigator, street doc, corporate secretary, club owner, street-level fixer or fence.
• Moreau (Fixer), Lin Yao Chang (Elven Adept Assassin for the Great Dragon Lung), Assistant DA Dana Oaks, the KSAF Chief Editor Athena Tatopoulos, and Simon Andrews (Troubleshooter for Saeder-Krupp), are equivalent in knowledge and influence to a gang boss, mob lieutenant, police detective or sergeant, corporate middle manager, low-level Mr. Johnson, fixer or fence with regional ties, with Connection 4.
• Only Laurent Nazaire -- President of the local Atlantean Foundation chapter -- and your personal character, Bull (Fixer), have Connection 5, with regional influence and national reach.

What would I do?  Well, going by a) the book and b) their job title, description, and faction:

• Connection 4:  Tosh Athack, Joe Martin, and "Bull" MacCallister.
• Connection 5:  Dana Oaks, Lin Yao Chang, and Moreau
• Connection 6:  Simon Andrews, Laurent Nazaire, and Athena Tatopoulos

In every case, someone with a high level position in an organization that has a national/international reach gets the top Connection pick.  An ADA should have at least the pull of a police captain, and a detective should certainly have the pull assigned to him by the book.  As always, the PCs should not view a contact with a high connection rating as a 'get out of jail free' card, but by no means should the reach of someone who likes them be understated -- or worse, of doesn't like them.  Joe Martin sure doesn't like me right now ...

[DarkLloyd]

The Conatacts are pretty good so far, but if I could request something?
Could we get Qoutes from the NPC's like the old contacts used to have. I just lends a voice to the npcs and their personalities.

[Black]

The Conatacts are pretty good so far, but if I could request something?
Could we get Qoutes from the NPC's like the old contacts used to have. I just lends a voice to the npcs and their personalities.

I would like to second this idea.  Its great to be able to capture a character's personality by the way they talk and a quote is perfect.  My most successful NPC ever was the slimy talent agent from Mecurial.  He ended almost every second sentence with ' Am I right? Of course Im right'.  Really gave me the fast talking, self-centred personality right from the get go.

[Zilfer]

^Indeed I do like the qoute that was given for MacCallister.  "Not a hacker! I'm a Decker Frag'it!" Helped kind of get a feel for his personality, and i do like the fiction at the beginning of the missions.

As for the contact's thus far i've got two favorites which is MacCallister, and Tosh. Not sure my group favorites, but i know they like Pip for sure and I believe they like MacCallister. (Though it took me actually reading "on a silver platter" to realize MacCallister was your character "Bull". That just added another level of coolness for me. We'll see if the group ever discovers that.

It's also nice to have reoccuring characters, that way they don't loose track of who's who.

[Gnomercy]

haven't figured out Pip yet, as in why is he there

When I was running my game, most of my players loved Pip...although they tend to love any kid NPC that I toss at them :-)

[CanRay]

haven't figured out Pip yet, as in why is he there

As my group doesn't have any characters that are from the Ork Underground, they often call up Pip just for cultural information and details on the ways to get into and out of the Ork Underground.

They pay him very well for that info.

[Black]

haven't figured out Pip yet, as in why is he there

As my group doesn't have any characters that are from the Ork Underground, they often call up Pip just for cultural information and details on the ways to get into and out of the Ork Underground.

They pay him very well for that info.

Based on a previous comment you made elsewhere, I assume it's in stuffer snacks?   

[CanRay]

Based on a previous comment you made elsewhere, I assume it's in stuffer snacks?   

No, that's me, not them.

They've dumped a few grand on the kid in a couple of months.  He's pimpin' for a Ork Underground kid.