Contacts (mage V20)
Contacts
You know people who know things. Although such contacts aren’t as helpful or reliable as Allies, they can help you dig up information, spread messages, pull strings, and call in small favors (scoring tickets to a sold-out concert, locating a low-rent apartment, getting a meeting with the police chief, and so on). Naturally, these folks will want occasional help from you as well. So long as one hand washes the other, though, these folks can prove remarkably helpful.
The nature of your Contacts Background depends upon your character’s concept and backstory. The runaway Jinx, for example, would have contacts among the street-folk community, whereas executive Malcolm has contacts in the business world. Within their area of experience, contacts can usually find or pass on appropriate sorts of information; Jinx might learn how to hotwire a car, and Malcolm might secure data about automotive stocks, but Neither Jinx nor Malcolm is likely to know someone who could trace a car’s license plate number. If you’re looking for contacts outside your area of expertise, you could always nurture some new ones, or else you could use your existing contacts to find out what you need. (In game terms, this second option raises the difficulty of your roll by +2 or more.)
When calling on your contacts, roll an appropriate Social Attribute + Contacts. The difficulty depends on the nature of the information you’re trying to circulate or the favor you’re trying to get. Success gets you what you needed, but failure reflects flawed data, a mangled message, or no benefit at all. A botch means you’ve pissed somebody off; either your contact sells you out or else tells you to go to hell and then removes herself from your network for a while.
Each dot in this Trait reflects one major Contact, a fleshed- out character like an Ally. You could also establish casual contacts with a successful Social or Mental Trait + Contacts roll, but these sources will be harder to work with (that is, the roll has a higher difficulty) and they’re not reliable with sensitive information.
This Background can go above five dots. For information networks that deal in sensitive or secret information, see the Background: Spies.
- X -- Nope – it’s all on you.
- • -- One contact.
- •• -- Two contacts.
- ••• -- Three contacts.
- •••• -- Four contacts.
- ••••• -- Five contacts.
- ••••• • -- Six contacts.
- ••••• •• -- Seven contacts.
- ••••• ••• -- Eight contacts.
- ••••• •••• -- Nine contacts.
- ••••• ••••• -- 10 contacts.
