Howdy folks. Long time listener, first time caller…
Today in our BE session my PC wanted to use Resources to purchase some AIC upgrades to his ships internal security systems (someone had placed a bug on him and ships sensors caught it, but, one can never be to careful about this stuff.) I used the stats on p390 and w/a +3D system it would be 8 points, therefore Ob 8. I have 9 resources, it’s during a building phase so that becomes 10 dice, and, I want to use Bargaining to bring the Ob down. Oh, Bargaining…
So one player said that the person I’m bargaining with in the scene has to be burned up. I thought wtf? Does every scene involving someone who already isn’t a FON or a FON’s minion or another player has to have a burned up character? We were towards the end of the session and short for time so we just went with an arbitrary obstacle. But for future sessions, do I/we now have to burn up various merchants or fences, etc? Seems like there would be NPC surge and Resources aren’t supposed to be complicated, right? And what if one of those bargaining situations has to become a Duel of Wits?
I ended of getting the resource through a Gift of Kindness and only taxed one die (didn’t even have to use my Shrewd trait
Yes, AFAIK all Resources rolls to get stuff must be preceded by Circling-up the contact that provides the stuff (p.362, at the bottom). But as the guys say; Circled-up NPCs are mere Contacts, not fully-fledged NPCs. I’d say the process would be 1) Roll Circles to find someone with Fabrication as skill, 2) Bargaining to reduce the price 3) Resources to pay up.
I don’t know how you’d rate the Contact’s Bargaining skill though (¿the basic, 3?); this is a side of the rules we’re having trouble with, and tend to fudge it up a lot.
Skip the Bargaining roll and go straight to Fabrication. It’ll let you fit everything into a single scene in addition to focus the intent of your actions.
… plus it lets you split the roll into two more achievable ones, which is way better than what you get by bargaining in terms of probability. (See p.395-396)
