Shadowrun
Shadowrun Play => Gamemasters' Lounge => Topic started by: Nautilust on <09-03-18/2329:54>
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I was wondering how you handle interactions with contacts and them asking for favors. I'm hoping to make them more organic than just being there for whenever a PC needs them. How do you guys do it?
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Before a character can get help from his contacts, though, he has to get hold of them. Since they live their own lives when they’re not helping the PCs, this isn’t always as easy as it might sound. For the most part, there isn’t a set process or test to determine a contact’s availability; that is entirely up to the gamemaster. It depends on the needs of his story. If getting hold of a particular contact would give the PCs information that the gamemaster isn’t ready for them to have, then that contact is caught in a meeting and can’t take the PC’s call. If the PCs don’t call a particular contact, though, and that contact has vital information that the PCs are missing, then he might call the PCs for reasons of his own. This can serve the dual purpose of helping the players out and setting up another run later on down the road.
If the gamemaster doesn’t care one way or another about a particular contact getting involved in the story, he should roll 2D6; the contact is available if the roll equals or exceeds the contact’s Connection rating. The more influential the contact, after all, the busier they tend to be. Other factors might also be in play, such as how the character treated the contact the last time they dealt with each other, or who owes whom a favor.
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I meant more the contacts asking favors from the PC's, and including stories based off of contacts. How often to do it, etc. There's not really a jumping point I saw in the books.
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As often (or not) as works for your table.
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I'm figuring 4 - 5 missions and then maybe 1 - 2 plots involving contacts or character development.; maybe some smaller sub-plots mixed in there. Someone said that already, but I forgot till now. It's a good base to start at, then we can alter to what works best for the group.
But I have like, 30 contacts, so I'm trying to figure out a way to just pick one, and move from there. I'm not George R. R. Martin, or Tolkien.
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First, center your runs around your players' characters and their story; whether the 'story of the day' happens to be an evolution of a PC-Contact interaction, that's up to you, but quite often it can be, particularly if your players are of the sort to have background between the character and the contact. Take, for example, a current character at my table; his mentor (and talismonger contact) not-entirely-recently lost a point of magic due to prior run events. In the not-so-distant future, I could have him call up the PC and ask him to go to, say, Tir Tairngire to get some paranormal plant or critter part to use in a ritual to gain that point of magic back.
As Spooky says, though, as often as works for your table/players. Remember that plots don't happen solely within the bounds of one (or several) missions; they expand outwards, taking place during (supposed) off-time, during another run, or whatever. Eventually, you can get to the point where you can have a contact call up in the middle of a mission and it quickly becomes a question of which to do ...
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Well, you need to have a saline solution to rinse them, and a carrying case for when you're not wearing them is a good idea...
What? Oh, I see. Wrong kind of contacts. Never mind.
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Haha, thanks everyone. I found a way to roll weird numbered dice, so if I need to pick one by random I'll use that.