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Fringe Benefit - Membership or Organizational Contact - or both


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Hey all

 

I'm wondering when one should use Membership and when to use Contacts (Organizational).

 

For example: a character is a special agent in the FBI. So they should have Membership at the 2-3 point level (6E1 p103). But does that give them the same benefit as Contact (6E1 p100): 11- Contact (2 points), +3 very useful skills or resources x3 Organizational Contact = 15 points; and that's not taking "access to major institutions" or "has significant contacts of his own".

 

It seems unreasonable that a 2-3 point Fringe Benefit would give the same benefit as a 15 point (or more) contact. Should an FBI Special Agent take both the Membership and Contact Perks? Or just one? And if only one, which one?

 

Thanks,

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5 minutes ago, thorngumbald said:

Hey all

 

I'm wondering when one should use Membership and when to use Contacts (Organizational).

 

For example: a character is a special agent in the FBI. So they should have Membership at the 2-3 point level (6E1 p103). But does that give them the same benefit as Contact (6E1 p100): 11- Contact (2 points), +3 very useful skills or resources x3 Organizational Contact = 15 points; and that's not taking "access to major institutions" or "has significant contacts of his own".

 

It seems unreasonable that a 2-3 point Fringe Benefit would give the same benefit as a 15 point (or more) contact. Should an FBI Special Agent take both the Membership and Contact Perks? Or just one? And if only one, which one?

 

Thanks,

Membership gives the character the "perks" of the position--police will speak to him, access to crime scenes, he can go into the FBI office or a forensic lab, log into the national crime database, etc.  Contacts means a more emphatic/substantive request for assistance--extra agents, getting lab results expedited, getting your boss to call the local cops/politicians to make them more cooperative, and so forth.  

 

It seems to me one could take either, or both.  A high level administrative position certainly would take both to represent the level of resources/power provided by having such a position within a powerful organization.  If subordinates are directly loyal to the character first, the organization second, then the character should buy followers(and possibly a base if that, too, belongs to them in practice).  

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6 hours ago, thorngumbald said:

Thanks ... so you suggest that Membership provides access to the basic facilities of the position, but to get anything done outside the strict limitations of the office, then a Contact would be needed. I like that interpretation!

Yeah that about sums it up. Next time you watch a Cop show and when the Cop says “I know a girl down in Forensics” then when she meets and says “I shouldn’t show you this but...” that to me is a Contact.

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Thorngumbald, your question about which to take, perks or contacts or both depends on a few things. It depends heavily on GM and slightly less so than character concept. So as usual I’d check to see with GM if you need any of those and how much based on campaign. For example if I give contacts, then they are usually the 8- variety. Now if you have a big budget point wise, heck buy everything you think the character should have regardless if it’ll be used. If I had to choose which one? It would depend on background. Crusader is an old Hero character whose background was he was an FBI agent captured by Viper then became vigilante. So should he have perk FBI? No can he still have a contact-Friend in the Bureau? Yes. And if this was done in game I would’ve had the player traded in his Perk-FBI for KS: FBI or at least given one for the other. If the character is supposed to be FBI then at the very least I would give him the Perk.

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  • 3 weeks later...
On 6/20/2020 at 10:29 AM, megaplayboy said:

Membership gives the character the "perks" of the position--police will speak to him, access to crime scenes, he can go into the FBI office or a forensic lab, log into the national crime database, etc.  Contacts means a more emphatic/substantive request for assistance--extra agents, getting lab results expedited, getting your boss to call the local cops/politicians to make them more cooperative, and so forth.  

 

It seems to me one could take either, or both.  A high level administrative position certainly would take both to represent the level of resources/power provided by having such a position within a powerful organization.  If subordinates are directly loyal to the character first, the organization second, then the character should buy followers(and possibly a base if that, too, belongs to them in practice).  

 

That's what I think.

 

I used to work for a major US airline. I had a badge that would let me into HQ, into employee-only areas of multiple airports without needing a justification, let me fly for free on my airline, and let me completely bypass security when I traveled. I could fly on other carriers, even abroad, for pocket change (like US to Britain, UK, mainland Europe, Greece, Egypt, Israel for $25-$50). I could chat to the CFO and CEO in the halls. I had access to starling amounts of sensitive information.

 

And I was about as close to a complete nobody as you could be. The badge and travel were benefits any employee had. The reason most people didn't chat with the bigwigs in the halls were that they didn't have the guts to strike up a conversation. I had access to information because having access to that information was a vital part of my job.

 

I couldn't ask anyone for assistance with anything outside the scope of my job with any expectations that I'd get it. My bosses depended on me but I couldn't convince even them to do their owns jobs, much less do anything out of the ordinary.

 

 

 

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The other difference between a membership and a contact is that with a membership you still have to do the work.  With a contact someone else is doing the work.  For example if you are a member of the FBI you have access to their files and information, but you have to find it, which may skills or abilities to properly use.  Having access to the FBI database without having the skills to search it does not get you much.  On the other hand if you have a contact with an FBI agent they probably do have the skills and may have them at a higher level than your character.  

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Another thing to consider in the example is that contact with an organization means you can get multiple people involved.  Contact with an FBI agent is only 5 points.  For the 15 points you know multiple people willing to help you.  With the 15 point contact you could arrange for agents in multiple agents to help you.  So for 5 points you could have one agent you know feeding you information.  The 15 points could allow you to setup surveillance on multiple targets around the clock, or it could be you have agents in multiple cities looking into the problem. 

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