Tuesday, March 11, 2014

Networking in the Gamer Mindset Part II

Contact Ally Freq-6

Depending on how the GM arbitrates Freq-6 MOST contacts in the real world fall into this category! Imagine that contact you can talk to once a month if you know it won't bankrupt your Favor balance. No one likes dealing with someone who is not self sufficient and can FILTER the leads they get, also people get negative reaction when presented a "under cooked" (hilaw in Tagalog) lead. If you think things half baked then you cannot bring that to a business or professional contact seriously (over dinner where you ask about it and what their opinion is but never in a serious proposal like fashion). 

Free Contacts

The GM can even give you "FREE" Contacts and Allies that are accessible once or twice based on your back-story (the GM rolls their skill level in secret), these people can be contacted maybe at the same frequency or more IF you pay or you can give them something in return in the future. 

Off the bat the GM can give you a generous number depending on the backstory word count and how many RP situations are in the character's story which is strongly correlated to the amount of people your character can feasilby interact with. Then with as many Positive reactions as reasonable with your character.

The more extra Curricular with your characters the more circles he is able to tap. Imagine Gaming Circles and related Hobbies like Wargaming, LARP, Anachronistic Simulation, and a bit farther out Airsoft/Paintball or Milsim games. Now if you really play often and go to the events often enough you meet A LOT of people... if you don't sound to much of a user asking what they do and their contact information, and have the presence of mind to get their contact information without being creepy then cool.... also the presence of mind to write down notes about the interaction... that's hard. 


Contacts with Terrible Reputations

Lolz this should be tackled, people with terrible reputations will basically tell you otherwise. Rarely are people truly rational when it comes to these things: 1) no one directly says Ill of someone if they are professional because its unprofessional to do so (if they tell you then be worried about how quickly they talk about you with other people); 2) the Terrible Person will Fast Talk and Lie their way towards getting connected or asking a favor - Promises are Cheap as spit. 

ANECDOTE TIME lolz. 

I know one particular scoundrel that exploits the benefit of the doubt and initial talks when it comes with professional engagements. If you call the contact information of an entity, someone will answer and send a representative - some small representatives represent a lot of people and various interests and not just their company. This scoundrel basically gets various representatives and make outrageous claims of their Interest in a project... to the people who don't do due diligence this is a remarkable claim and like SPAM and Phishing done often enough with a large enough target market will snag some people in their moment of weakness (the more desperate one is the more one is in their moment of weakness). 

Due Diligence should have a Tricky mechanic. Exploit last word in Rules if the player did due diligence, if they have it as a Perk, make it eat up their time... if they have it as a perk with a dedicated Analyst and A contact on retainer then well they enter any event with intelligence. As the GM the question is: "What information is the PC going into this situation". As a frustrated biz person steeped in theory and the academic I always see opportunities I miss and those that I am not in a position to exploit too often... which cycles the frustration. 

Strangely even in "Professional Circles" and even in some Financial Due Diligence firms.... they don't do due dilligence as frquently as you'd expect with if you had the same resources. So I find myself curious when a professional firm that can afford the manpower and should have the habits fail to do their homework. You know when you have that resource, you can even delegate the Connect-the-Dots with the PA who works with the same information and ask the PA to do the analysis for the higher ups with you just doing the editing and the higher critical thinking function (Basically Thomas in War Beneath Heaven when he works with Jeni)... although too soon your PA will learn Intelligence Analysis and might get bored and leave for greener pastures lolz... but such man power concerns are for a discussion of Modern Day Patron-Client relationships.

Maybe as a Due-Dilligence habit once a week just do basic notes recap of all contacts made in the past week... that sounds like a lot of work lolz. 

No comments: