Episode 082 – Contacts

 Paul Zombie by iPhone Ukraine
Paul Zombie by iPhone Ukraine

In which Vox and Mr. Johnson talk about contacts in Shadowrun. Also, listener questions and a new story!

Show Notes:

Inspirational reading and listening about gangs (thank you to Landsknecht!):
(Word of caution – some of these, particularly Insight Crime, have graphic content):
The Our Thing podcast (http://ourthingpodcast.com/) is a fascinating listen, delving into the practices and histories of actual organized crime. I recommend the Quebec Biker War episodes as an interesting place to start.
Diego Gambetta’s book Codes of the Underworld is on the academic side, but is incredibly revealing regarding motivations and strategies for how criminals undertake strategic decisions and interact with each other.
Insight Crime (http://www.insightcrime.org/) looks at organized crime (and government corruption) in Central and South America. There’s a lot to wade through, but there are some really pertinent articles in there.

Electronic tools for campaign management:
Scrivener (software for writing): https://www.literatureandlatte.com/scrivener.php
Obsidian Portal (campaign management software): https://www.obsidianportal.com/
Realm Works (campaign management software): http://www.wolflair.com/realmworks/

5 thoughts on “Episode 082 – Contacts”

  1. Friends in high places are great but are a double edged sword. Friends in low places want small favors and occasionally big favors. They may exchange them for nuyen. Friends in high places want big favors and occasionally huge favors. Damien Knight may want you to deliver an unpleasant bit of news to Lofwyr – personally – after bypassing Lofwyr’s secretarial and security gatekeepers. Offering to trade nuyen for that instead will provoke laughter – if they have a sense of humor. I’ll touch on what happens if they don’t farther down.

    Also, friends in high places have enemies in high places. The tighter you are with your friend the more likely you’ll get to be a pawn in their ongoing power struggles. Bear in mind the 6th World movers and shakers, more than ever, don’t have friends. They have interests. You may be the last to find that out and at an awkward moment. Friends in high places can also mean alienation from others. After all, how will your neo-anarchist team mates feel about your buddy buddy relations with Damien Knight? Or your native Californian contacts with your hanging with Hitomi Shiawase? Or for that matter visa versa?

    Your friend may be disappointed if you can’t reciprocate a favor as your foremost priority. She expects the 6th World, with damn few exceptions, to revolve around her. Her disappointment can project in immediate and concrete ways. Simply withdrawing favor green lights those who hate your guts to geek you. Or may drive scheming, jealous, or just misguided minions to do the same. (“Who will rid me of this troublesome priest?”) And obviously, disappointing someone once known as “Lady Death”, now “Empress of the Japanese Imperial State” = Ill advised.

    The wise ‘runner keeps a respectful distance from the high and the mighty.

  2. Friends In High Places never seemed very wise to me for the simple reason that, when a team is on a corp level run and finds out an exec has your criminal scum runner for a friend, congrats chummer, your character just became someone’s legwork.

  3. A small correction.

    My youtube is more about gming shadowrun than it is just hub stuff.

    Also I have put up more videos! a full email will be coming shortly

  4. Someone was asking about Relative Dimension, so I am here to answer. My name is Joe, I go by Agonar on the Shadowruntabletop.com forums (and some of my players refer to me as that as well).

    So first, you can find us at Relativedimension.com
    Search Relative Dimension in iTunes,
    find us on facebook at facebook.com/relativedimensionpodcast
    and on twitter @RelativeDPod

    As to the rest, I was getting long winded on the information About us, so I decided to just make a post about it on my site and link to it. In it, I talk about the modules I have run, which I have yet to run still, etc. Hopefully it answers questions. If not, my contact info is provided.

    http://www.relativedimension.com/data-dump/about-relative-dimension/

    Joe/Agonar
    Relativedimension.com

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