Contact

Cost: Variable

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. The point value of a Contact is based on the skill he uses to assist you, the frequency with which he provides information or favors, and his reliability as a person.

Effective Skill of Contact

First, decide on the type of Contact you have. He might be anything from a wino in the right gutter to a head of state, depending on your background. What is important is that he has access to information, knows you, and is likely to react favorably. (Of course, offering cash or favors is never a bad idea; the GM will set the Contact’s “price.”)

Next, choose the useful skill your Contact provides. This skill must match the Contact’s background; e.g., Finance for a banker or Forensics for a lab technician. Since the GM rolls against this skill when you request aid from your Contact, you should select a skill that can provide the results you expect. If you want ballistics comparisons, take a Contact with Forensics, not Finance!

After that, select an effective skill level. This reflects the Contact’s connections, other skills, Status, etc. It need not be his actual skill level (the GM will set this, if it matters). For instance, the president of a local steel mill might have business-related skills of 12-14, but his effective skill might be 18 because of his position in the company. This skill level determines the Contact’s base cost:

Effective Skill Base Cost
12 1 point
15 2 points
18 3 points
21 4 points
Frequency of Appearance

Select a frequency of appearance, as explained under Frequency of Appearance (p. 36), and apply its multiplier to the base cost of the Contact. When you wish to reach your Contact, the GM rolls against his frequency of appearance. On a failure, the Contact is busy or cannot be located that day. On a 17 or 18, the Contact cannot be reached for the entire adventure! On a success, the GM will roll against the Contact’s effective skill once per piece of information or minor favor you request.

No Contact may be reached more than once per day, even if several PCs share the same Contact. If you have several questions to ask, you should have them all in mind when you first reach your Contact. The Contact answers the first question at his full effective skill. Each subsequent question is at a cumulative -2. Don’t overuse your Contacts!

A Contact can never supply information outside his area of knowledge. Use common sense. Likewise, the GM must not allow a Contact to give information that short-circuits an important part of the adventure.

You must explain how you normally get in touch with your Contact. Regardless of frequency of appearance, you cannot reach your Contact if those channels are closed.

Reliability

Contacts are not guaranteed to be truthful. Reliability multiplies the Contact’s point cost as follows:

Money Talks

Bribery, whether cash or favors, motivates a Contact and increases his reliability level. Once reliability reaches “usually reliable,” further levels of increase go to effective skill; bribery cannot make anyone completely reliable!

A cash bribe should be about equivalent to one day’s income for a +1 bonus, one week’s income for +2, one month’s for +3, and one year’s for +4. Favors should be of equivalent worth, and should always be something that you actually play out in the game.

The bribe must also be appropriate to the Contact. A diplomat would be insulted by a cash bribe, but might welcome an introduction into the right social circle. A criminal might ask for cash but settle for favors that could get you in trouble. A police detective or wealthy executive might simply want you to “owe him one” for later . . . which could set off a whole new adventure, somewhere down the road.

Contacts in Play

You may add new Contacts in play, provided you can come up with a good in-game justification. The GM might even turn an existing NPC into a Contact for one or more PCs – possibly in lieu of character points for the adventure in which the PCs developed the NPC as a Contact. For instance, the reward for an adventure in which the party helped solve a bank robbery might be a knowledgeable, reliable police Contact.

Examples of Contacts

The list of all possible Contacts – and their skills – would fill an entire book. Here are just a few examples: