So, I tried to whip up a "fence" for the "green deck"
Contact: Brownleaf Bennarrix
neutral, half-elf, mu/thief, level 2/3
Location: forest elf village of Volen, Badlands F8
Silver Buyer: on a successful "employment" reaction check, Bennarrix will buy silver jewelry at full retail value.
I thought that since he is so far out of the way, he would have to make a good offer for the players to bother to go to meet him. But, if they have only a few pieces of silver jewelry it would be worth the trouble (seeing as jewelry is so expensive.
The question remains, is drawing the card a "one use ticket" or can the PC add him permanently as a contact? I'd say that there could be some contacts that are permanent, others are "one shots", so I reckon it would have to be noted one way or the other on the card.
It would all depend on how the PC treats the guy. If the PC comes in and is fairly friendly to the guy, he would probably be willing to do more business with the player later on. But if the character comes in and sort of threatens him or brow beats him into better prices, then the guy would not only NOT be a contact for the player, he might be directly (or indirectly, depending on circumstances) hostile to the player (or even the player's allies) in the future. Something that players should keep in mind is that most of these 'fence' NPCs are criminals and would probably behave more like the PCs would than the rest of the NPCs we've delt with.
ReplyDeleteMost of the fences should be permanent, but I'd say you could get one shot fences for really valuable (or illegal) stuff that might travel around a bit more.
For guys like Brownleaf, I think you're right. I envision when someone pulls his card, he can write down Brownleaf as a permanent contact and fence, and then we put Brownleaf back in the deck, and other people can also get him as a contact later. But, once you've done a deal with Brownleaf, and it goes well, you can keep going back to him.
ReplyDeleteI have another example, he's an arms smuggler who takes out shiploads of used weapons on an irregular basis. Each time someone pulls his card, it means that by the end of the session they can sell him arms at a good price, and then he sails off. His card would then be put back in the deck and he's not available again until his card is drawn.