Modified Contacts Talent and Expanded Social Talents

[eldritch_hobbes]

For some reason, the "Contacts" talent as listed in the book just seems... well, lame. At least to me. So I came up with the following revision:

Contacts
Requirement: You must have Communication 1 or higher.
You know many people, sometimes in the unlikeliest of places.

Novice: You have managed to make friends in many places. You may reach out to your contacts whenever you enter a new area or wish to acquire information by making an extended Communication (Investigation) test. Each test takes approximately one hour.


Journeyman: You’ve done enough favors for enough people that at least one of them should be willing to pay you back. You can try to get a favor from your contacts with a successful Communication (Persuasion) test. The TN of this test is based on the nature of the favor and whether it puts your contacts in danger.


Master: Your network of spies is vast indeed. So vast, in fact, that you are rarely ever short on manpower. You may take on a ‘hireling,’ a low-level NPC that will do his or her utmost to help you. Examples might be a skilled lockpicker, a trained poison-maker, or a bodyguard. You may dismiss a hireling whenever appropriate and take on a new one.

EDIT: Added some additional social talents that could be used to replace "Contacts"

EDIT 2: Added a GM option to dis-allow certain specializations in the Master rank of Diplomacy.

EDIT 3: Modified the journeyman rank of Brutality to account for Set 2 warrior bonus.

Diplomacy
Requirements: Communication of 2 or greater

You have trained in the art of diplomacy, and have some skill in convincing others that your way is the right one.

Novice: You have begun to specialize in one particular manner of influencing others. When taking this talent, choose either Persuasion, Deception, or Seduction. When you fail a test made with this specialization you may re-roll the test, but must keep the results of the second roll.

Journeyman: You have developed a barbed wit and are able to fire off pointed jabs at your opponents with ease. The "Taunt" stunt now only costs 1 SP.

Master: You have mastered the art of steering a conversation in the direction you want it to go. When making Communication rolls as part of an advanced test, you gain a +1 bonus to the result of each dragon die. In addition, pick any Communication specialization. When you fail a test made with this specialization you may re-roll the test, but must keep the results of the second roll. Note, your GM may exclude certain Communication specializations at their discretion.

Brutality
Requirements:You posses the "Intimidate" specialization

You are a scary, scary person. Some might call you a bully, but few would be brave enough to say that to your face.

*Note, for the purposes of this talent, you may want to consider the following house rule. When a player takes the "Intimidate" specialization, they may choose whether or not they want to apply it to Communication, Magic, or Strength. Communication (Intimidate) rolls cover verbal threats, Magic (Intimidate) rolls cover shows of magical power (threatening to turn someone into a toad) , and Strength (Intimidate) covers direct, physical threats of bodily harm.

Novice: You know how to push someone just far enough to get what you want out of them. You may re-roll a failed Intimidate test, but must keep the results of the second roll.

Journeyman: When you make threats, people know better than to ignore them. The "Threaten" stunt now only costs 1 SP. If another ability is acquired that reduces the SP cost of "Threaten," Threaten now becomes a 'free' stunt, costing 0 SP. It can be used any time a stunt is rolled.

Master: You have mastered the art of breaking your enemies. Enemies suffer a -2 penalty to any Willpower (Morale) or Willpower(Courage) tests they are required to make in your presence.

[Crazydwarf]

Hmm still 0 replies.
Guess I have to toss in my 2 coppers after all, though I was hoping to see some discussion about the topic first.
As I didnt want to land the first comment and have it sound all negative

Your version is a step up from the original for sure, but either seems to just be a window where the GM can come up with whatever he wishes to suit the story.
There seem to be no well-defined mechanical bonus for taking this talent or any in-game incentive to do so, because honestly...The GM is probably going to do whatever suits the story best anyway.

It's like trying to make a rule for how to roleplay, but then not acctually adding any rules
"you roll something and then something happends...or not"

Maybe I just have my powergaming goggles on too tight or something, but I just don't see any point in taking the contacts talent over something with a more tangible bonus ?

[shonuff]

And anything a hireling can do, a PC will be able to do better...

And anything PC's can't do would be worked around by the GM.

All of that said, this might be handy if the PCs work against each other.

[exhominem]

Eh, I feel like I should sort of defend this a little bit. First off, my main problem with the Contacts talent is, like crazydwarf said, is that it doesn't really offer bonuses comperable to other talents. This was an effort to bring it more in line with Thievery and Scouting, while scouting represents a stealthy rogue and Thievery represents a more thief-type rogue, Contacts is supposed to represent a rogue that's better at getting other people to do his work for him. To explain this, I'll give some scenario's and ideas for how each rogue might approach them at different levels.

Novice Level
Say, for instance, that the party is trying to break into a castle. The Scouting rogue sneaks in behind the castle guards and opens a door to let the party in. The Thieving rogue finds an unguarded, but locked door and picks it open. The Contacts rogue reaches out to his network of informants and discovers that a particular entrance to the castle is routinely left unguarded while a guard sneaks off to visit The Pearl or somesuch.

Journeyman Level
The party gets into the room, and is faced with three possible routes to their objective. One, the party can try to sneak past some guards, the Scouting rogue's natural choice, as he gets a combat bonus at this level. In case things get ugly, he'll be better prepared than the other two rogues. The second route is to try to bypass some traps the Arl's men have set up in the courtyard, the Thievery rogue's choice. Finally, the Contacts rogue can try to call in a favor, and convince the castle servants to help them find an alternate, less dangerous route.

Master Level
The party confronts the corrupt Arl in his chamber, but he flees through a hidden passage after a brief skirmish. The Thievery rogue and Scouting rogue can both search for the entrance, but the Contacts rogue has brought along a hireling, a disaffected member of the Arl's staff who knows the ins and outs of the castle well enough to help the party find the secret entrance.

As you can hopefully see, the goal of this talent is to present alternate routes to common adventure-y problems based on the idea of the "social" rogue. While this talent doesn't do much in combat, it should help the player avoid combat and handle other exploration or rp encounter problems that come up. Finally, hirelings wouldn't necessarily be weaker than players. The idea is that they would excel in one particular aspect. For instance, a bodyguard might be essentially a walking meat-shield, able to take incredible amounts of damage to protect the rogue. Or a skilled poisoner, or someone very familiar with the current situation or the problem the players are facing. They should essentially be at least as powerful / helpful as the current players, but only for a single, specific task.

[Crazydwarf]

This was an effort to bring it more in line with Thievery and Scouting

Both of those supply the PC with re-rolls, still not as tangible as a straight +whatever, but a very real and solid bonus.

Contacts is supposed to represent a rogue that's better at getting other people to do his work for him

That is sort of one of the problems.
Either the GM vetos the result, making the talent worthless, or goes along with it and the the PC twiddles his thumbs while the GM tells about all the cool stuff his NPC's are doing, making the talent overpowered and IMHO kind of boring.

The Contacts rogue reaches out to his network of informants and discovers that a particular entrance to the castle is routinely left unguarded while a guard sneaks off to visit The Pearl or somesuch.

Let's say that the Thief-rogue acctually does some legwork rather than relying on a roll.
He goes about town, the pearl included, and acctually has dialogue with the NPC's...You know roleplaying and all that jazz
Is the GM then going to deny him this information because he does not have the talent ?
Or if he just wants to roll Communication (Investigation) to find out stuff, is he disallowed because he lacks the talent ?

Giving the PC a bonus or a do-over on that roll is something I can see the talent is good for, but the text is confusing to me.
I can "reach out" by making this roll, but to what end ?...Just to say hi ?
I can "acquire information" with this roll, but whats keeping me from doing that anyway without the talent ?

The original talent is even worse.
I have to roll to see if people are friendly to me, is everyone in Thedas rude and hostile by default or something ?
"Hello good innkeeper, we would like some beer and a room please"
"No ser, Y'all lack the contacts talent, we don't serve your kind in here"

the Contacts rogue can try to call in a favor, and convince the castle servants to help them find an alternate, less dangerous route.

Again, a bit of roleplaying can lead to all sorts of rolls to get the same result.
Unless the PC's are banned from trying to take communication (persuation) tests spontaniously, the talent seemingly does absolutely nothing.
Having the talent provide a bonus, or a re-roll in such scenarios makes much more sense IMHO.

hirelings wouldn't necessarily be weaker than players. The idea is that they would excel in one particular aspect.

If the hirelings are as good as PC's then the party can effectivly double their numbers.
The PC's can each have one hireling and totally curbstomp every combat scenario.
To counter this the clever GM would just double the number of enemies....Wich basically makes the talent worthless as it's about the same as veto:ing it.

Certainly having a hireling can be useful to fill out a weak party, but I think it's not so nice to make the available players pay in PC resources such as talent slots, just because the GM doesn't have enough friends to invite to gaming sessions.

Also "hireling" seems to be a misnomer, as they apperantly work for free.
If the PC's has to also pay them in gold, then it begs the question, why can you NOT hire help without the talent ?

[musoholic]

Well at least we're all agreed that the talent, as written, is pretty poor.

A player in the campaign I run decided to build a rogue around the "spymaster" concept, and naturally took Contacts as a talent, and the way I've been running it for him seems to fall somewhere in between the approaches suggested by crazydwarf and eldritch_hobbes; I use it as a roleplay generating talent. A sucessful roll on the talent means that the character can locate someone (whether by personal acquaintance or reputation) who has the information or skills the character is looking to access, but this doesn't necessarily guarantee their help or mean it's free - the player must then roleplay with the NPC and gain their assistance through paying, intimidating, bargaining etc. Also you could rule that the higher the roll/easier the favour, the more likely the Contact is to be helpful.

Example: My player wanted to forge a document while in Denerim and wanted the quality to be very high. He used the Contacts skill, rolled well, so I allowed him to know (by reputation) a master forger and where to look for him. The forger in question was more used to hanging out with high level organised criminals than small-time adventurers and the character nearly got stabbed for saying the wrong thing... but the character negotiated well, paid a substantial sum (20 gold) and the work was passably interesting enough to command the forgers attention.

Second example: Same character wanted to smuggle some people quickly out of Denerim. He made a Contacts roll, didn't roll great, so I gave him a small-time smuggler who might do that sort of work. The smuggler wasn't much interested but the players made some threats about revealing his activities to the guard, paid him a litte money, and the deal was done.

Also it's worth bearing in mind that Contacts is quite a situational talent, more suited to social situations than combat so directly comparing with Scouting isn't really valid. Also, I don't feel it either shouldn't work everywhere in the world or should at least get a higher difficulty when out of the character's usually environment. (my Denerim-based spy player might find a helpful contact in Kirkwall due to trade, but not the middle of the Brescillian Forest, for example). It's common sense really.

[eldritch_hobbes]

This was an effort to bring it more in line with Thievery and Scouting

Both of those supply the PC with re-rolls, still not as tangible as a straight +whatever, but a very real and solid bonus.

Contacts is supposed to represent a rogue that's better at getting other people to do his work for him

That is sort of one of the problems.
Either the GM vetos the result, making the talent worthless, or goes along with it and the the PC twiddles his thumbs while the GM tells about all the cool stuff his NPC's are doing, making the talent overpowered and IMHO kind of boring.

The GM would have to use a bit of their own savvy here, but generally how I would see it play out is that the player has to ask something specific, make choices, and plan in advance with NPCs in order to get something done. You couldn't use the talent to tell an NPC to "break in the fortress and kill the Arl for me" without probably an absurdly high TN or, more likely, a GM veto. A better request would be at the novice level "do any of my contacts know something that would help me get into the castle undetected?" or at the journeyman level "can any of my contacts pull some strings to get me into the castle?"

The Contacts rogue reaches out to his network of informants and discovers that a particular entrance to the castle is routinely left unguarded while a guard sneaks off to visit The Pearl or somesuch.

Let's say that the Thief-rogue acctually does some legwork rather than relying on a roll.
He goes about town, the pearl included, and acctually has dialogue with the NPC's...You know roleplaying and all that jazz
Is the GM then going to deny him this information because he does not have the talent ?
Or if he just wants to roll Communication (Investigation) to find out stuff, is he disallowed because he lacks the talent ?

Giving the PC a bonus or a do-over on that roll is something I can see the talent is good for, but the text is confusing to me.
I can "reach out" by making this roll, but to what end ?...Just to say hi ?
I can "acquire information" with this roll, but whats keeping me from doing that anyway without the talent ?

The original talent is even worse.
I have to roll to see if people are friendly to me, is everyone in Thedas rude and hostile by default or something ?
"Hello good innkeeper, we would like some beer and a room please"
"No ser, Y'all lack the contacts talent, we don't serve your kind in here"

The question is how would the rogue even know where to start looking? I mean, without knowing anyone in denerim, what are the chances that an 'average' rogue (one who has taken the talent) would be able to find someone with the specific ability to help them with a specific task? Especially, as per this example, in a huge city like Denerim. What the contacts talent would do is basically give them the means to find a needle in a haystack. "Reaching out" would mean asking around from people you know if they know anyone can help you out. As a GM, I'd probably have the players RP out the actual encounter, but far be it from me to necessitate this in the letter of the rule. If some GM's just want to make a roll and move on, that's fine too.

Another point is specialization. If a rogue has the Thievery or Scouting talent instead of the Contacts talent, they'd probably look for an alternate route to begin with. The trick to being a GM is to shape the rules and the encounters around the abilities your characters have, making challenges difficult, but not overwhelming.

the Contacts rogue can try to call in a favor, and convince the castle servants to help them find an alternate, less dangerous route.

Again, a bit of roleplaying can lead to all sorts of rolls to get the same result.
Unless the PC's are banned from trying to take communication (persuation) tests spontaniously, the talent seemingly does absolutely nothing.
Having the talent provide a bonus, or a re-roll in such scenarios makes much more sense IMHO.

Again, I'm not seeing how someone could acquire the ability to locate this information without either getting very lucky purely through GM fiat, or by having access to a network of contacts, as per my talent.

hirelings wouldn't necessarily be weaker than players. The idea is that they would excel in one particular aspect.

If the hirelings are as good as PC's then the party can effectivly double their numbers.
The PC's can each have one hireling and totally curbstomp every combat scenario.
To counter this the clever GM would just double the number of enemies....Wich basically makes the talent worthless as it's about the same as veto:ing it.

Certainly having a hireling can be useful to fill out a weak party, but I think it's not so nice to make the available players pay in PC resources such as talent slots, just because the GM doesn't have enough friends to invite to gaming sessions.

Also "hireling" seems to be a misnomer, as they apperantly work for free.
If the PC's has to also pay them in gold, then it begs the question, why can you NOT hire help without the talent ?

[/quote]

Okay, first off, it's a master-rank talent. Unless your party consisted of all rogues all at the master level of the same talent (a rather boring, and, possibly, quickly dead party) you wouldn't "double" the size of the party at all. Also, as I said, they would be as good as or better than a PC at one specific task. A bodyguard would just stand around and take punishment, not attacking (or attacking weakly). A master poisoner could brew up some potent stuff, but would be useless in combat. An inside informant in the Arl's castle might be able to tell you all about the castle, but he'd run at the first sign of trouble.

[Crazydwarf]

The question is how would the rogue even know where to start looking?

Well I figure in our example, the first person the rogue is likely to encounter is the innkeeper.
They usually have news about the general goings on in the city, they probably live there and know many people by name and trade, especially their regular customers.

There is also the option of hanging around the castle gates, who goes in, who goes out.
Who makes deliveries of goods on a regular basis, but it's likely to take more time than a few hours this way.
A few coins can probably make you a friend real fast too.
Once inside there are likely more than a few servants roaming the halls that might be bribable or intimidatable, or just plain stupid and simply answer a question without pause to think if the PC belongs in the castle or not.

Also what's to say the PC didn't grow up in Denerim or visited the castle in a previous adventure, maybe even was employed there.

My point is, if they DO know where to start looking, or make an intelligent guesstimate about it, and furthermore make a compelling RP encounter about it....Then I see no good reason for the GM to deny them this, other than to try and force the contacts talent to matter more than it should.

Without it they can't really find out anything, and NPC's will conveniently forget about them as soon as they walk out the door, unless they pissed them off somehow.
Both the original, and in part your version, seems to me to handle venues that should be open to savvy adventurers anyway, without a talent.

if the PC's want to play it smart and lie/talk/bribe/intimidate their way into the castle, the talent should not be a necessity to do so, but should provide bonuses to the rolls they need to make.
Atleast thats how I see it. You don't absolutely need archery style to shoot a bow, or scouting to sneak, or thievery to burgle a house...They just provide bonuses when you try this.

The trick to being a GM is to shape the rules and the encounters around the abilities your characters have, making challenges difficult, but not overwhelming.

Ah well...I don't run games in this manner.
While I do not activly try to overwhelm the PC's, I do not cater to their specific expertieses either.
Scenarios should be flexible to many approaches at solving them IMHO, but the rules wich are used to do so need to be absolute and firm.
Vague things like "ask a favor" does not sit well with my GM:ing style at all, unless the rulebook provides a list of favors and their respective TN's, or atleast a few comparable examples of such.

I guess this is why I react so negative about your modifications, they are an improvement of the original rules for sure, but still too vague IMHO.

Okay, first off, it's a master-rank talent. Unless your party consisted of all rogues all at the master level of the same talent (a rather boring, and, possibly, quickly dead party) you wouldn't "double" the size of the party at all.

Firstly, the talent is open to all 3 classes, (unless you changed that aswell and I missed it, the original version is anyway.) 4 archers or mages, each with a bodyguard NPC that just stands there and tanks...Sounds like double to me. They don't really need to do anything else, they are just an underpaid wall of flesh
And even if the party is of mixed variety that should be able to handle the combat fine normally, will completly overun their enemies with 4 NPC archers just pushing out additional damage.
Unless the GM compensates for this, wich basically means the talent has no value as combats will be equally difficult with or without it.

Additionally the master of contacts has just nullified the need to have a whole slew of talents. They all just need this one talent and they can have their personal staff of poison appliers, trappers and animal trainers just hanging back until they are needed.
This frees up alot of talent slots for the party as a whole, that the PC's can then put into combat stuffs to protect their staff with.

It's good out of the box thinking with the hirelings, but to me it seems too abusable, or too pointless.

[Loswaith]

The big difference with Contacts as to Scouting and Thievery is that scouting and thievery have defined situations in which they can be used, contacts on the other hand is allot more fluid. You can gain information from just about anyone though the type of information varies.

The premis as I see it for Contacts is while any character could get the information eventually they are after through coersion and persuasion, however it will take allot longer as they arent going to know the best place to start (and the character may step on a few toes in the process). Contacts help quickly find out where to start or where the best place to look for any needed information may be.

eldritch_hobbes spin on contancts defines it a bit better, and would help players to see more broard view of how it could be used. Which is a good thing.

A scenario a player with contacts over someone that doesnt. Say they get caught sneaking about the castle and locked in a cell. The character with the Contacts talent may have a contact inside (that likely doesnt want that fact revealed either) that can leave the cell door unlocked, distract the guards and generally assist them in making their escape easier. The player without contacts is likely stuck to their own devices.

As I see it having the contacts talent implies some loyality from a characters contact, or even from NPCs the character's contact knows, not having it doesnt imply any loyality from those the player deals with.
In the case above there is no saying that someone the non-contacts character contacted doesnt just turn the character in for a quick promotion or favourable bonus for themselves, while a Contact is less likely to do that.

Just taking the Contacts talent I would assume a character then has a network of favours to call on so to speak that hasnt been earned through the course of the campaign, like somone that doesnt have contacts would be limited too.

As the the hirelings I likely wouldnt go that path but have more accessability to specialists and professionals to gain those extra tasks someone may need.

[Crazydwarf]

eldritch_hobbes spin on contancts defines it a bit better, and would help players to see more broard view of how it could be used. Which is a good thing.

Absolutely !
I hate that I'm all negative about this, as I'd really like to see the talent improved.

Just a quick and dirty example of how I'd do it.

Novice: In a roleplaying encounter, you may reroll with a -2 penalty any of these
Communication (Bargaining, Deception, Etiquette, Investigation, Leadership, Persuasion, Seduction)
You must take the second result.

Journeyman: You may re-roll as per the novice level, but there is no penalty.
Furthermore the "flirt" stunt now costs 1 SP less.

Master: You are a true mentalist.
Whenever you make an opposed communication roll, you gain a +1 bonus.
Furthermore the "tower of will" stunt now costs 1 SP less.

[Admiral Yacob]

eldritch_hobbes spin on contancts defines it a bit better, and would help players to see more broard view of how it could be used. Which is a good thing.

Absolutely !
I hate that I'm all negative about this, as I'd really like to see the talent improved.

Just a quick and dirty example of how I'd do it.

Novice: In a roleplaying encounter, you may reroll with a -2 penalty any of these
Communication (Bargaining, Deception, Etiquette, Investigation, Leadership, Persuasion, Seduction)
You must take the second result.

Journeyman: You may re-roll as per the novice level, but there is no penalty.
Furthermore the "flirt" stunt now costs 1 SP less.

Master: You are a true mentalist.
Whenever you make an opposed communication roll, you gain a +1 bonus.
Furthermore the "tower of will" stunt now costs 1 SP less.

Stupid work, I was going to write something like this before I left but was running late. If you want to compare it to Scouting and Thievery, you should use similar bonuses to them. They are all "If you fail a X test, you can re-roll it, but you must keep the results of the second roll." The only exception is Journeyman Scouting, which is cheaper SP on a stunt that is very situational to begin with (after all, you already have a decent Dex so are likely decently high on the Initiative chart).

I was thinking more of I was thinking more re-rolls of Deception then Persuasion then Investigation rather then the opposed re-rolls at -2 then no pen then +1 but this works too. That being said, the warrior (yeah, warrior) in my group who took it likes it as is and uses it as a role-play opportunity ("we've done good for this guy, can I make him into a contact and ask favors of him?").

[Crazydwarf]

If you want to compare it to Scouting and Thievery, you should use similar bonuses to them.

Sure, I just thought this up quickly before heading out to work myself.
I thought it was a bit more flavourful and interesting like this, but yeah straight re-rolls work just as well.

[Loswaith]

@crazydwarf's Contacts:

Not realy something I'd consider a Contacts talent, but for someone with a "Silver Tongue" it could work reasonable well. Though I'd likely drop the -2 and say have 2 types each tier, or a choice of focus types, along with the cheaper stunts.

At a guess
Novice gives Etiquette and Persuasion
Journeyman gives Deception and Seduction
Master gives Bargaining and Investigation.

While I'd likely leave off leadership as it dosent realy fit with the whole convincing/decieving people and fits more with an authorative tone suited to a different talent.

Alternativly it could be broken into two seperate talents being Ettiquite, Barganing and Investigation in one and Persuasion, Deception and Seduction in another.

[Crazydwarf]

Not realy something I'd consider a Contacts talent, but for someone with a "Silver Tongue" it could work reasonable well.

Certainly, I think I was influenced by The Mentalist TV show when I tossed that together.

Just taking the Contacts talent I would assume a character then has a network of favours to call on so to speak that hasnt been earned through the course of the campaign

I think this concept is a major hiccup for me.
I would much prefere the talent to make earning those contacts easier.

[exhominem]

Just taking the Contacts talent I would assume a character then has a network of favours to call on so to speak that hasnt been earned through the course of the campaign

I think this concept is a major hiccup for me.
I would much prefere the talent to make earning those contacts easier.

Isn't that what the original talent does?

[Crazydwarf]

Isn't that what the original talent does?

No.
I think contacts should be earned by interacting with the NPC's. This is regardless if you have the talent or not.
Having the talent should make it easier to successfully establish such connections.
The original version demands that you have the talent to even make contacts at all.

[Loswaith]

The Contacts talent doesnt proclued a character making any contacts in the usual fashion of gaming, it just makes it easier to make more contacts out of lesser NPCs.

While the group may not have any interest in say interacting with a smith ('haps they are an exceptional smith) or other merchant ('haps does a bit of fencing on the side) out side of their shopping, or even Jim the guardsman (the players walk past each day, but dont realy notice), the character with the contacts talent can turn them into one still, without draging the rest of the group or taking up a significant ammount of the GMs time with role-playing it out.
Then that character has the option at a later date can call on that otherwise insignificant (to the group) NPC.

Personanly I think you are reading too much into the letter of the rules, it doesnt say that Contacs is the only way to make a contact. The Contacts talent more so lets you do so behind the scenes.
Say you do a major job for (working on the examples above) for a prominant smith, it all goes well and the group achieves the desires of said smith. That smith is likely to be someone the party can call on in future, or may call on the party for future assistance. In all essence the smith is a contact.

Is the smith likely to become a contact unless the group actually does them some favour? It's unlikely, though a character with the contacts talent can attempt to convince them otherwise, likely by promising all sorts of favours, and following up with the smith anytime the character is around the area to keep up a good rapport.

[shonuff]

The problem with the talent, imo, is that it's not the only way to make contacts. It's somewhat redundant, because as it is re-written, it takes the place of either role-playing or scheduled off-time. And even then, any GM I've ever played with would still require off-time being spent to make use of the talent.

[Crazydwarf]

While the group may not have any interest in say interacting with a smith ('haps they are an exceptional smith) or other merchant ('haps does a bit of fencing on the side) out side of their shopping, or even Jim the guardsman (the players walk past each day, but dont realy notice), the character with the contacts talent can turn them into one still

If the NPC is insignificant to the group. Like some random farmer, selling onions out of his wheelbarrow at the market. Then he's likely not going to matter as a contact either, not enough to warrant taking the talent anyway.

And if he IS significant (exeptional smith, fence etc.) Then he's likely worth taking the time to roleplay with and get the contact that way, again rendering the original talent useless.

without draging the rest of the group or taking up a significant ammount of the GMs time with role-playing it out.

I'd consider time spent roleplaying, is time well spent.
If most of the party is getting impatient that one player is keeping them from rolling dice at the monsters, and is not amused at all of hearing about the onionfarmer, then there is likely a more pressing issue at hand with the group dynamic.

Personanly I think you are reading too much into the letter of the rules

Yeah maybe, I'm a rules-lawyer, it's what I do.
But I'm comfortable with that

it doesnt say that Contacs is the only way to make a contact. The Contacts talent more so lets you do so behind the scenes.

As I said, I don't like the "behind the scenes" variant.
It's the stuff for background stories, I don't think it intergrates well when it tries to bleed into the rules to retrofact in some event when it's convenient to the player.

IMHO to make a contact, here must be some in-game interaction with the NPC.
If the PC does a huge favor for the smith, he naturally becomes a contact.
If the PC wants to make a contact out of him without a favor, then there should indeed be a roll of some sort, seduction or persuation..Whatever angle the PC is going for. I would like the talent to provide a bonus of some sort at this point.

The group can apply as much or little acctual roleplaying to this as they desire.
Though I'd personally like a minute or so of dialogue at the very least.

[shonuff]

I don't see this as taking too much time in-session. In fact, most of what Crazydwarf is suggesting can happen between sessions, if necessary. And imo, the majority of it can be relegated to narration during off-time (unless obviously there's a crazy specific plan). During the next month, Bill is training with his weapons, Sam is making potions, and Jimbo is ingratiating himself with the local merchants or the thieves guild or whatever.

[Loswaith]

...

without draging the rest of the group or taking up a significant ammount of the GMs time with role-playing it out.

I'd consider time spent roleplaying, is time well spent.
If most of the party is getting impatient that one player is keeping them from rolling dice at the monsters, and is not amused at all of hearing about the onionfarmer, then there is likely a more pressing issue at hand with the group dynamic.
...

It's not so much the party getting impatient (they can be off doing other stuff), its the other players. Taking 10 minutes (beign conservative) to deal with just making a contact means the other players have little to do. Making a roll and using the Contacts talent, means a couple of minutes spent resolving things. Both the player and GM know the outcome and if it's realy wanted the player and/or and GM can work out the specific details later.

The thing is even insignificant NPCs can be important enough to make into a contact, you simply cant know what information an individual has access too unless you try. Maybe that insignificant onion farmer is more important and because they are well known by all the farmers in the area knows everything about everyone. Though to most adventures who cares about some simple onion farmer.

Though like most of an RPG its a talent that is about what the GM lets the player do with it, its not hard coded in mechanics, much like the Linguistics, Lore, and Music talents. They are useful for rounding out a character but offer nothing the GM or players cant work around anyway through role-playing anyway.

...If the PC wants to make a contact out of him without a favor, then there should indeed be a roll of some sort, seduction or persuation..Whatever angle the PC is going for. I would like the talent to provide a bonus of some sort at this point.

Typically a thing as a GM I'd ask myself is Why would the NPC want to be a contact for someone, who is just persuasive? If there is some reason the NPC would want to (or the player adds some extra points for persuasion) I likely let just a persuasion stand, if not the character will have to work harder for it.
Conversly if the character had the contacts talent, I typically dont bother with asking that question, or know an answer already. The character has extra skills above and beyond to convince the NPC, reasons I'd see they would throw in with the persuasion roll, as a representation of the conversation between the character and NPC.
So for me as a GM it has tangable benefits, and my players would see the same thing.

I guess it realy comes down to different tastes and different styles.

I don't see this as taking too much time in-session. In fact, most of what Crazydwarf is suggesting can happen between sessions, if necessary. And imo, the majority of it can be relegated to narration during off-time (unless obviously there's a crazy specific plan). During the next month, Bill is training with his weapons, Sam is making potions, and Jimbo is ingratiating himself with the local merchants or the thieves guild or whatever.

This is quite a valid point, its about the character, Jimbo likely has the contacts talent because he spends time doing that, if he didnt he may be off training to be sneaky, stealing stuff or any other powssible thing thats of more interest to the character. Its a mechanical feature to show what the characters interestes are and gives them some benefit for spending downtime doing that. While any character could do what jimbo was doing its less likely they will gain anything concrete from doing so, other than having been seen about the place, and maybe getting some gossip.

[Crazydwarf]

It's not so much the party getting impatient (they can be off doing other stuff), its the other players.

Yes, I meant the players getting impatient, not the PC's. Bad use of the word party there on my part.
My point was that, in this case the crunch revolving the talent is a secondary problem to one player not fitting into the group dynamic. He's off chatting about onions with a insignificant farmer while the rest are sighing because they havent killed and looted any monsters the last half hour.

Taking 10 minutes (beign conservative) to deal with just making a contact means the other players have little to do.

In both groups I'm in, listening to roleplaying, even if you character isn't directly involved (wich usually they are in some way) is considered an enjoyable part of the game.

Making a roll and using the Contacts talent, means a couple of minutes spent resolving things. Both the player and GM know the outcome and if it's realy wanted the player and/or and GM can work out the specific details later.

Of course that woks just aswell. You don't HAVE to get heavily into the dialoge every time.
Even if you dismiss the RP, I still think every character should be allowed to roll if they wanted to, but he with the talent should get a bonus.

The thing is even insignificant NPCs can be important enough to make into a contact, you simply cant know what information an individual has access too unless you try.

If he seems insignificant, he probably IS insignificant.
If the farmer has information that the party misses, because they thought he was insignificant when he wasn't...Doesn't really make the talent any better, because they wouldn't bother using it on him anyway, most likely.

I guess it realy comes down to different tastes and different styles.

Aye, I guess it does.
It's not hard coded into the mechanics, and I don't like that, especially when it does cost the PC a mechanical resource.
And I disagree about comparing it to the Linguistics, Lore, and Music talents.
They all provide something defenite for their cost. Whereas Contacts just seems to say everyone mildly dislikes your PC if he doesnt have it.

[shonuff]

This is quite a valid point, its about the character, Jimbo likely has the contacts talent because he spends time doing that, if he didnt he may be off training to be sneaky, stealing stuff or any other powssible thing thats of more interest to the character. Its a mechanical feature to show what the characters interestes are and gives them some benefit for spending downtime doing that. While any character could do what jimbo was doing its less likely they will gain anything concrete from doing so, other than having been seen about the place, and maybe getting some gossip.

Except (as written) it doesn't say the a character is better at building contacts, rather he or she has already done it. And if my contacts-less character spent months in Denerim befriending poisoners and armorers, could I not call in a favor? Of course I could, which is why (imo) this talent really doesn't work.

Furthermore, because the help acquired is fairly low-level, I don't see it as being much use. I don't see a party needing a hireling to advance a quest (eg, an all mages party is most likely not going to go on a lock-picking/pocket-picking quest); although I could see the hirelings being very useful if the party is relatively antagonistic to each other.

[eldritch_hobbes]

Modified the top post to include two additional talents on account of people's feedback.

[shonuff]

The two new talents feel very in line with DA:O's coercion system or Mass Effect's Paragon/Renegade scale.

I like 'em.