Disposable Contacts

Couple thoughts on contacts today...

First, the short one... I think some contacts should move around their zone. Could this occasionally be inconvenient? Yes. Is it much more realistic? Oh, yes. Sorry, heroes, these guys have lives. Some should wander at random, some would have regular "hang outs." I wouldn't be surprised to find Virginia Hoffman up the road at the Paragon dance club. And I imagine Willy Starbuck wanders all over the zone, networking with everyone. You wouldn't have to chase these guys around... They'd stop when you got into perception range... but you might need to check the zone map to find out where they are currently. The balance here? Added realism vs. reliability of game play. I think this maintains that balance.

Now, the longer, more insideous one. Just who are all these guys anyway?? We pass bunches of them on the streets every day... Nobody knows all of them! "Oh, that's someone else's contact," we think. What if some of these guys weren't on the up and up? Here's the setup...

With one of the new issue releases, Cryptic introduces several new contacts. Perhaps one-shot contacts, who I'll call "Informants." This is so there's lots of new names floating around and won't look suspicious. Now, one of your regular contacts introduces you to someone new... Nothing unusual there. This contact sends you off on missions to beat up specific gangs and to retrieve assorted items of power and return them to him.... Still quite normal. Then they give you a mission that's incredibly deadly. Or you find you've been sent to an empty warehouse... Expecting more villains, when you enter, you find a short timer running, the doors locked behind you, and several bombs hidden (and I mean hidden) around the warehouse. It's a death trap! You've been set up! (Now, to avoid it being a complete hosing, there's no debt accrued for dying in these missions and the bonus for succeeding, without dying once, is really high.) When you return to your trusted contact to demand an explanation ...or kick his ass... you find he's not there any more! But there is a clue there waiting for you (perhaps some informative item or some stranger comes up to you saying they saw this guy go somewhere... it would vary depending on the situation), which leads you to a location. The big battle ensues, in which we learn the "contact" has actually been duping the hero into doing things for him to further his carreer as a villain.... or that the man the hero's been dealing with has been a doppleganger and the real contact is there, needing rescue. The villain will, of course, be using all the things the hero obtained for him, against him.

Intrigue? The unexpected? These are the things that will get players talking... And returning with renewed interest.