[Goodwin]

Hey everyone,

Continuing my push towards getting a game finalized another question has come up while a player was creating their character.  I'm looking at the Hung Out To Dry quality.  I was wondering how other people use it in play.  I'm not sure if I should still have the character taking contacts or if they should start with absolutely none.

In summary, story wise the character has just returned to the city he left a few years ago after a run or such gone bad, resulting in the Vendetta (with Enemy 4/4).  To protect his family he left, but everyone thinks he managed to sweep up a big pile of money and leave.  Now that he's back due again to Vendetta, he has to start getting in contact with some folk.  At one time I'm thinking he had a decent network of contacts, but a lot of these are either angry or for some reason or another unavailable.

So, with this Quality my current idea is to let him have a few contacts but he'll have to roleplay and go out of his way to improve his loyalty back to what it was.  So if his talismonger was 4/3, he may only have a loyalty of 1 at the moment and is untrusted; but can eventually work his way back up to 3.

That is one example, but do you believe this is a decent way to play the quality?  Anyone whom he would have known before and meets again it will be harder to get in thier good books.  So, do I go with this, or just have him start with no contacts at all?

Thanks!

[Charybdis]

Hung out to dry is a BIG BP flaw, and it means what it says: No contacts. None, Zip Zero.

What this means is that for your first run, the GM may generously give you a Fixer call to get you involved, but other than that your previous contacts are no longer returning your calls, period.

If in character, you're going to play getting those contacts back, then that is all dependent on GM, Campaign and effort. Some particularly vicious GM's may in-fact require you to buy off the flaw before you can get 'Any' contacts in game.

IMHO, the decent way to play the quality is to:
A) Start the game at CharGen with Zero contacts.
B) In game, take significant efforts to make right whatever caused you to get hung out to dry
C) Make new contacts

[Makki]

D) pay 20 karma

[John Shull]

I have character generated both ways with this flaw.  Made contacts for the character but the character was cut off from because he was hung out to dry and had no contacts at generation because he was hung out to dry.  First way worked out better in game play as once the flaw was lifted there was a past to go back to.  That has just been my experience.  As a house rule I may even only give you so many points for Hung out to Dry depending on how many contacts you had at generation.  Many number crunchers will think it makes the neg quality no longer economiically viable if you have to spend points to get any back.  I would counter it is a very specific character flaw that has little story purpose other to lone wolf someone and has been really overused to date because its cheap points.  At any rate I think it plays out better like this.

[Goodwin]

Thanks for the help guys.

I'm still undecided if this is a good idea or not.  On one hand it does sound like the background we had for the character, on the other is does sound pretty nasty.  I'll have to chew on it and eventually come up with something.

Thanks for the responses!

[StarManta]

If you're unsure about Hung Out to Dry, maybe Bad Rep or Big Regret is more your style? It seems (to me, anyway) it would fit the description slightly better anyway.

[Goodwin]

Hey StarManta,

I actually just changed it to Bad Rep before I saw your post.  I think you're right and that does fit the situation a bit better.

Thanks!

[All4BigGuns]

Sorry about the necro, but this reminded me of an SR3 game I ran for a couple people. Both of 'em took Hung Out to Dry and Bad Reputation, so they were hired for 5500 nuyen each--by Aztech (unknown to them on the employer at first)--to try and kidnap Villiers' daughter. (Not like they could be very picky).

[raggedhalo]

Hung Out To Dry makes no sense to me unless the character spends BP on the Contacts who have hung him out to dry.  Otherwise, the net effect is the same as just not spending any BP on Contacts.

[KommissarK]

Hung Out To Dry makes no sense to me unless the character spends BP on the Contacts who have hung him out to dry.  Otherwise, the net effect is the same as just not spending any BP on Contacts.

Which is why in fact GMs need to force players to actually spend BP on contacts. This then makes this trait hurt, while still actually adding a reason to buy it off.

[Crash_00]

Or the GM could, you know, work with the hindrance and make it like the character is actually Hung Out to Dry. Sure you met that fixer last week, he's dodging your calls now though. I personally wouldn't let a Hung Out to Dry character make new contacts until he fixed whatever he botched up to get in that place to begin with.

[Morg]

Michael Westen from Burn Notice is a good example for Hung Out To Dry, The only people that still talk to him are his fellow "runners" or people he has scammed into becoming a temporary asset. It takes work for a GM get a player to feel this defect in play but when it works it's fantastic.

[JustADude]

Michael Westen from Burn Notice is a good example for Hung Out To Dry...

You know, that's exactly what I was thinking. Burn Notice is a perfect example of Hung Out to Dry.

[CanRay]

The A-Team?

[Angelone]

As much as I love the A-Team, Burn Notice is imo a better example of hung out to dry. Micheal has people actively keeping him down, monitoring him, and seem over all more proactive in kepping him from gaining much if any type of foothold.