The Ghost/It's Connections or Nothing

The Variant in a Nutshell: Contacts and Influence are both horribly broken backgrounds, especially if the GM allows them to be taken at 5 dots at char gen. Either or both can derail entire plots effortlessly and both are not something that GMs should allow casually, but they are actually SUGGESTED for players to take. This rules change fixes that by replacing both of them with Connections for ALL characters, not just DBs and Sids.

The Base Rules

In basic exalted Solars get contacts and influence, two separate backgrounds, but with a nigh universal scope at high levels. The Dragon Blooded meanwhile, who are supposed to be the social butterfly's and established order of the setting get over 20 separate backgrounds which combine the two over a drastically narrowed focus.

The Problem

I don't know who at white wolf said "Let's give the social outcasts of the setting who are supposed to be hunted ruthlessly by nearly everyone the strongest social connections backgrounds!" but whoever it was ought to be slapped. Contacts makes a lot of sense: right up until you start trying to abuse it, as players always will, and then you realize it is BROKEN. (Not that some other backgrounds aren't but in most cases it's a case of too weak, not too strong.) Think about it: how does an anathema from Chiaroscuro know who to talk to in Great Forks? For one thing he may not even speak the language! But OH NO: if he has contacts 5 he can find someone who knows something about what he wants to know about in Great Forks, some tiny village in the far threshold that has never been visited by outsiders for 300 years, the court of a Raksha, or the Imperial City! Sure, in theory the ST is supposed to 'adjudicate' these kinds of things but what about when you have a bunch of Ludus players? You need to make it abundantly clear to them that they cannot pull that kind of stunt, that the RULES wont let them pull that kind of stunt. That's where this change comes in.

Meanwhile Influence is bad for both similar and opposite reasons: On the one hand it is so broad and vague that it ether dominates the game or is a meaningless background: both of which will lead to angry and resentful players. Just to add insult to injury having enough of it to be useful calls down the Wyld Hunt on your head, and by association that of all the other players. This is capitol B Bad...

The Goals

So, we have two backgrounds, one of which is incredibly prone to abuse and the other of which is so inconsistent that you cant feel safe taking it, what to do? We need to make it so that you can get a sense of what your character is capable of with only a few questions to the ST and consulting one or two books so you can know what you are getting into at char gen and plan your character secure in the knowledge that their purchases of backgrounds are not useless.

The New Rules

Well, the authors of the game have already solved this one: combine them into ONE background with a more limited focus, so you KNOW what it can and cannot do in most situations by asking the ST a few probing questions! Instead of Contacts and Influence characters can purchase Connections out of the Dragon Blooded book with a few easy modifications: Instead of "Connections: Thousand Scales" you purchase "Connections: Great Forks Administration" or instead of "Connections: Immaculate Order" you buy "Connections: Brides of Alhat". That's all you need to do to button up this hole: people want contacts and influence they buy it place by place, type by type. This has the added benefit of making it easy to hand out non XP related rewards: instead of XP for completing a story goal they gain a dot of Connections, they perhaps just made friends with the constable, or the mayor now owes them. It also give you a huge sink for the ton upon ton of unspendable XP that mortals get as they age: not so unspendable when you can have dozens of connections backgrounds at 3 XP per dot!

Bringing Sexy Back

Now some of you might think: "But what about having a really broad degree of influence and an exhaustive network of contacts? Why cant the PCs do that?" Well, if as ST you LIKE that idea, but are uncomfortable with starting PCs having that, as I am, there is a middle ground. In this "Variant of the Variant" these two backgrounds become, to appropriate some terminology from another popular game, 'Prestige Backgrounds'. Pick a number of normal Connections backgrounds, three, four, or five is best depending on how easy you want this to be; when a PC has that many sets of Connections in one area such as Harborhead, The Realm, Great Forks, or The Skullstone Archipelago they can begin to buy Contacts and Influence backgrounds for that area. This can never be done at char gen, no matter how much the PC begs and pleads, this must be earned in play and paid for out of the PCs own XP totals, it is never given away as a story award. These backgrounds can never be higher than the lowest of the prerequisite backgrounds, so if you set the total to 5 prerequs and they want Contacts 5 in the realm, they have to have 5 realm focused Connections Backgrounds at 5 dots.

If you are comfortable with it for very high power long running games you can set a total of Contacts or Influence Backgrounds which allow you to buy GLOBAL contacts and influence backgrounds: if you have influence 3 in Skullstone, The Realm, Harborhead, The Lap, and The Hansilati league you can now buy the ability to exert influence anywhere in creation say. Two words of caution about this step: this runs into the same problems that started this rule change, but at the level players would have to be at to buy such influence in the first place this may not be as big a problem as you might think compared to the players raw power. Second, when buying global influence and contacts the prerequs should be at least 2 higher than for the preceding level and should be required to include at least one nation in each cardinal direction as one of the prerequs, making The Realm a mandatory purchase for prerequ Connections networks: and therefore cutting off this level of influence and contacts to all solaroids until they have already surmounted olimphalos and bested the Scarlet Dynasty. For sids this is somewhat easier, requiring them to have Connections backgrounds with all the bureaus of heaven and some or all of the branches of the bureau of destiny in each cardinal direction, but that is it. They are after all supposed to be the ultimate spy masters and manipulators.

Final Notes

Loyal Abyssals and Infernals can sidestep most of this by purchasing the Spies background. The Death Lords and Yozis have after all spent hundreds of years building up their networks of agents and informants. However as the background description says it cannot represent general ability to find out anything, the ST is free to rule that you have no spies in any local she wishes by the book's own admission, and ergo she may keep her murder mystery plot in some tiny village a secret. In both cases however they should be treated separately from the Connections, Contacts, and Influence trees: if you wish to have global reach with your contacts you must do it the hard way.