From:	Marc A Renouf <jormung@*****.UMICH.EDU>
Subject:	Re: What is a Contact?
Date:	Tue, 5 Sep 1995 12:46:11 -0400

Quite a few people have put up some really good thoughts on just
what makes a contact. I'd just like to add some food-for-thought.
Consider the following:
Your contact doesn't need to like you. Your contact can, in fact,
hate your guts. But maybe you have something to hold over them.
Blackmail photos, evidence of embezzlement, or some such.
As a GM, it is my job to make things interesting for the
players. Contacts are the perfect opportunity to flesh out your campaign
world. They are people and as such they have their own motives, methods,
prejudices, beliefs, and fears. GM's should think about *how* the player
knows the contact. Why does Jaques Egnard, maitre d' of the chiquest
club in town give info to Leonard Dubrovnik, samurai scumbag from the bad
half of the Redmond Barrens? Why would Jaques tell Lenny what the movers
and shakers talked about while dining? Perhaps it is not friendship at
all. Perhaps Jaques Egnard was Harold Calloway in his earlier years, a
fact that Leonard (who went to the same elementary school) remembers very
well. A word dropped to certain members of the press...scandalous!
The nature of how the character knows the contact shapes the
interactions between them. As a GM, contacts are your chance to let your
theatrical creativity go gonzo.
Almost as important as who the contact *is* is what the contact
*knows*. For this one, all I can say is "use your head." Gang members
are going to know next to nil about the intricacies of multinational
banking and finance and who's conducting hostile takeovers of whom.
Likewise, bankers probably won't be able to tell you who's in control of
the Blue Devils right now and what that means to the local BTL traffic.
And probably niether of them will be able to tell you why the operating
parameters of this Sleaze VI are different from the norm. Likewise,
don't be afraid to have contacts get pissed-off at PC's for asking stupid
questions. Once the players figure out that certain contacts have
certain areas of expertise, they will cease in that annoying habit of
calling everyone they know every time they need a single piece of
information.
More rant later once I have some time to collect my thoughts...

Marc