Contacts as Starting Resources

Allowing players to begin the game with some number of contacts from their character's past experience is an idea I've been tossing around recently. Based on my last article last week, it's obvious that I see starting characters as generally inexperienced in the world of adventuring. However, it would be a grave error to assume that they sprang fully formed into the world with no past connections or experiences whatsoever.

Giving players the opportunity for their character to have a few contacts right at the start of the game has several benefits. To begin with, it gives them some much needed resources at the beginning of the campaign when they are still inexperienced to help them accomplish their goals by calling in (or incurring) favors. In a sandbox game it also gives the GM a ready source of new adventure hooks for the GM as he/she can then use the contacts to offer jobs for pay or favors to the characters.

To do this, I'm toying with the idea of allowing the players to start with 20% of their Cha (or some other score) in Contacts. At character creation they may make a Charisma check to determine if any of these Contacts owe them favors (if they crit-fail the PC owes the CONTACT a favor). Then, once the game begins, it is assumed the character knows how to contact his/her contacts and any favors, jobs or resources can be acquired through direct role-playing with a few diplomacy type rolls as necessary.

I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. Would you use this? Do you already use something like this? If so, how has it worked out?

In other news, I'll be moving the rest of the week, so there may or may not be additional updates this week. It's entirely dependent on how long it takes to get the study set up and ready for PC occupation.