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Message: <blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 8160377" data-attributes="member: 42582">Here's the yakuza contacts ability (OA, p 27):Another resource of the yakuza is his contacts. Contacts are NPCs who can provide the yakuza with specialized information and aid. They will not join him on adventures, but wiII buy stolen goods. provide a secure hide-out. carry messages, and provide information Contacts never do anything that might put them in peril, although they may risk their reputations. They remain cooperative with the yakuza and silent about his activities (and their involvement) so long as they are fairly treated, not threatened, and not implicated in anything. A yakuza character receives one contact for every two experience levels. The contacts are not named or defined by the DM or by a table. Instead, when the player wants his character to use a contact, he decides the name and position of the contact and tells the DM. The DM decides whether the contact is appropriate for the character. The contact cannot be more than four experience levels above the yakuza, and the yakuza character must have had some plausible reason for meeting the contact in the past. If the DM rules the contact is acceptable, information about the contact is noted on the yakuza character's sheet. One available contact of the yakuza has been used. Thereafter the contact can be used again by the yakuza as needed. (The DM may want to note information about the contact and create a fitting personality.) The player is responsible for keeping track of the names of his character's contacts. Some examples of acceptable contacts include the gate keeper of a ward, a ship captain, a minor samurai in the Service of a daimyo. a district magistrate, or a wealthy merchant. Basically, the DM must rely on his judgement when determining whether a contact is acceptable.I first read this ability in mid-1985, at which point I was familiar with B/X, AD&D and Classic Traveller. It didn't think I actually saw it in play (the PCs I remember from our early OA games were samurai, bushi and kensai (sic)) but as best I recall it didn't generate any particular reaction in me. I don't remember seeing any discussion of it in Dragon magazine as a point of possible controversy. It's hard for me to recollect any details decades later, but it probably seemed like a reasonable development of the thief ability to speak Thieves' Cant, and of the ability of thieves and assassins to attract gangs of followers at higher levels. I remember a series of articles about thieves in Dragon 115 (1986) which talked about guilds and the like - I don't recall how much player involvement they anticipated, but it all reinforced a sense that thieves could be played as characters who were embedded in their local community and situation, rather than strangers to it.I don't recall anything developing a similar idea in relation to paladins, or wizards and their academies, but obviously such ideas aren't absurd and would fit fairly naturally into the AD&D of that era.</blockquote>

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