Author Topic: Using informants and contacts  (Read 1394 times)

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Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Using informants and contacts
« on: November 01, 2017, 04:02:01 AM »
The use of informants and contacts will now be more formal in my campaign. The setting is a small city.

Each pc will list their contacts and the region of the city they typically operate in. eg. Mungo the urchin. Bazaar and City Wharf. The number of NPC contacts each pc has is equal to the number of ranks they have in streetwise.
Starting pcs who do not have streetwise will still be given a few contacts when they begin the game. Streetwise ranks get you more contacts.

Each contact will have 2 or perhaps 3 city regions where they operate most of the time and one or two specific locations where they can be contacted in person or a message can be left for them.
Contacts will be further divided into Public Contacts and Secret Contacts.

Secret contacts will often use a code or middle-man to relay information so as to protect their identity. Face to face meets with secret contacts are rare and require a minimum of 12 hours to set up unless some prearrangement has been made for a meeting at a safe-house or safe location. Secret contacts will often use a disguise or alias when out in public and if urgent information is needed to be passed on can meet with the pc in a public place using the disguise or alias. Such a meeting would be dangerous and most likely require skill in signalling/lip reading or ranks in a coded language in order to relay information verbally or a written/written and coded message could be passed to the pc depending on the importance of the information.

​Contacts can deal in commodities such as information, resources, rumours, introductions, black market goods, poisons, maps, weapons, fencing goods, crafting, healing etc. There will likely be some type of contact or agreement regarding payment for a contacts services and a contact who is not made to feel they are getting a fair deal will simply refuse to help with the pc again in the future. Information is valuable and secret information can be traded for large amounts of money to the right person.

Through the course of play pcs will meet and add new contacts. I encourage my players to buy ranks in streetwise when this happens. If a contact is lost or discarded then a new contact can be added, even without adding any new ranks in streetwise.

I know most GMs probably dont use such a formal system for contacts but my campaign has a super complex plot in play with many factions and lots of possibilities for interplay between them by use of spies.

Offline Spectre771

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #1 on: November 01, 2017, 06:13:44 AM »

Starting pcs who do not have streetwise will still be given a few contacts when they begin the game. Streetwise ranks get you more contacts.

This is a really cool idea, borrowing from Vampire:tM where ranks=contacts.  I'm going to introduce this into the campaign I'm running now.

However, the method you stated, I would just not buy any ranks in Streetwise at all and take the few free contacts you give me as a player.  If I buy 1 rank in Streetwise, I only get 1 contact.  If I have no ranks, you give me a few for free.  There's nothing wrong with telling the players up front "if you have no ranks in Streetwise, you don't get contacts."  In real life, I'm not a nefarious character, I have no streetwise, and if I were to attempt something illegal, I would have no idea where to go, who to talk to, or where to even look as I have no contacts in the underworld to assist me.


...... the more I think about this, this is an excellent idea!  I love it.  The contacts will definitely come in handy and it will be based on Streetwise.  Thank you sir!
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Offline Dragonking11

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #2 on: November 01, 2017, 07:08:34 AM »
I think it is a great idea !

It reminds me of Shadowrun's contacts for character generation.

I could easily integrate this kind of system in my campaigns

Offline Peter R

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #3 on: November 01, 2017, 07:29:57 AM »
If I were to do something like this then, I think as GM, behind the screen I would include another factor such as reputation. A character with a reputation of 100% gets 1 contact for every 1 rank but a character who has turned in a contact or is thought of as a snitch would have a lower reputation and so would get proportionally less contacts.

OR

Do not use 1 rank = 1 contact.

Give each contact a quality score, like a star rating. So a useless urchin is 1 star, a minor official is 3 stars, a person with contacts at court has 5 to 10 stars. Now you can use the total skill bonus to give them a pool of contacts.

I would still use the reputation factor so being bad to know will drive contacts away while being good to know and work for will make it easier to make new contacts.

A third option would be to get your players to name their contacts which you then agregate in a spreadsheet. You then use the number of ranks in Streetwise as the total DPs available to apply to skills or ranks for that contact. So if I had 6 ranks in Streetwise and I want to find a safe cracker then with my contacts list I could find a guy who knows a guy that has 6 ranks in Pick Lock.

As soon as you assign a skill to an NPC contact like this you add it to the spreadsheet so that is fixed in stone. You start out with just a list of names but over time you fill in more details as and when players use their contact network. The sort of things you individual players do and ask of their contacts will, over time, change the very nature of their contact network.
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Offline Spectre771

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #4 on: November 01, 2017, 08:24:16 AM »
If I were to do something like this then...

OR

Give each contact a quality score, like a star rating...

A third option would be ...


Great options.  That's even more food for thought.  I think I may give the players the choice at PC creation or when they start purchasing the skills.  You can have A) one average contact for each rank of Streetwise, or B) you can have a quality contact based on the number of ranks of Streetwise.  This would give the players a little freedom in developing the PC.  They could go with "I have eyes and ears all over..." or "I have friends in very high places."
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let's all be heroes and run away!

Offline Peter R

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #5 on: November 01, 2017, 08:30:00 AM »
If I were to do something like this then...

OR

Give each contact a quality score, like a star rating...

A third option would be ...


Great options.  That's even more food for thought.  I think I may give the players the choice at PC creation or when they start purchasing the skills.  You can have A) one average contact for each rank of Streetwise, or B) you can have a quality contact based on the number of ranks of Streetwise.  This would give the players a little freedom in developing the PC.  They could go with "I have eyes and ears all over..." or "I have friends in very high places."

That is sort of what I was thinking, not all contacts are equal.

Also as Druss already said the players already have to name all their informants so it makes sense to take that list and let it develop over time with more details coming from the players. No more work for me but the detail of the campaign growing all the time.

If I only had 4 ranks in streetwise then I would choose a couple guild leaders, a royal valet and a guard captain as my four contacts. You can pay an urchin to do a task any time.
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Offline Dragonking11

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #6 on: November 01, 2017, 08:53:48 AM »
In RMSS, some training packages specifically give "contacts" or "high ranking favor" from their special item list.

Maybe in order to keep them relevant and to balance things out, it would be better to make the contact streetwise cost more expensive (e.g. 1 contact / 2-3 ranks). In RMSS, Streetwise is in the Urban category, and is quite cheap to invest for a lot of profession

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #7 on: November 01, 2017, 12:25:56 PM »
I totally agree that all contacts are not created equal.
The contact themselves would have a reliability rating that would be at first unknown to the player. as they deal with them more they will get a feel for how reliable they are. Information is really important in most rpgs but especially in a campaign like mine that has spies, traitors, turncoats and plenty of rumours, part truths and misinformation passing hands.

A devious NPC could plant a 'reliable' contact in the pcs path and after a time feed them misinformation or simply use them as a spy to keep tabs on the parties activities [cue evil GM laugh here]

I might even go as far to have a 3rd category of contact called either ORGANISATION, GUILD or FACTION.
This sort of contact could be used to find out information specific to a topic the guild specialised in (eg. need a rare poison? weapons? or information about the high ranking official that just arrived at the docks? your assassin's guild contact will should be able to help you here... of course they might also want to know why you need the information :)

Each contact should also have a proficiency rating such as:
POOR = 20%
AVERAGE = 40%
GOOD = 60%
EXCELLENT = 80%

This would be the the chance that contact would have information or a whatever the player was looking for. as i mentioned above, this rating would not be known to the player at first, but after a number of encounters with them they would get a feel for how useful they were.

I dont mind that different professions have cheap streetwise skill cost. That burglar pc should have access to more contacts in an urban setting than say a paladin or magician who would still have contacts but most of these would be linked to their guild/temple/faction eg. the mage has an alchemist (good) contact and a scribe (excellent) contact who are a good/excellent source of info/resources about rings/scrolls.
Compare this to the burglar who might have thieves guild contact (Good) and a fence named Jake (Poor) as well as an outfitter name Saul (Excellent) a retired rogue who is a great source for rumours about possible 'jobs' and can even get his hands on black market goods for the right price.

Offline Druss_the_Legend

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #8 on: November 01, 2017, 12:47:27 PM »
I also like the potential for one pc in the party to be the contacts guy who you can rely on to know someone to get information, specific resources, rumours or knowledge about a specific topic.

I think we have all met people in real life who are connected or say stuff like "I know a guy who..."

This system really lends itself to some great roleplaying opportunities as well. Not every interaction needs to be roleplayed out. You can just make a secret roll and tell the pc what they find out but some, and probably the first 2-3 for sure should be roleplayed so the pc and the GM can get a feel for what the contact is like and it is likely they can recommend additional contacts as well, just as in real life :)

Offline intothatdarkness

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Re: Using informants and contacts
« Reply #9 on: November 05, 2017, 10:27:53 PM »
I've been doing stuff like this in espionage games for years, but I prefer to have players actually develop their own contacts rather than generating them randomly. In those games Streetwise is more an indication of knowing where contacts might be found or determining methods of approach...the actual recruiting falls to the PCs. I also don't use Streetwise to limit the number of contacts a player can make...but the player has to maintain all those contacts (and prevent them from finding out about each other). They quickly find out that maintaining a number of contacts is hard work and can attract the wrong sort of attention.

In terms of Reputation, you'd need to have a couple of different flavors, I think. I'm starting to mess with some of this in an undercover law enforcement game and it's an interesting proposition. How, for example, do you define a 'good' reputation? It's going to mean different things based on who you're dealing with. Currently I'm working on a parallel system with one value for the cop's 'real' identity and another for her 'cover' identity. Many modern (or at least non-magic) settings spend some time on reputation, and Aces & Eights has a pretty decent system. Gangbusters did as well, going so far as to have separate systems for cops and criminals.
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