30 Fixers
You need a job, you need to find someone or something, or you need to lay low or need to sell something, you need a good fixer.
1. Mr. Johnson
A senior fixer, a big wheel, a man with his fingers deep in many pies and with many irons in many different fires. Johnson is a shadowy kingpin with ties to major corporations, world governments, and secret organizations. You barely want him as a contact, his jobs are high pay, but absurdly high risk, and are never what they seem. An easy job ends up being something horrible, like delivering a cannister to a blind drop, weaponized anthrax spores later used in a terrorist attack. Or a basic abduction/ransom gig turns into a missing princess and the PCs have the princess. He is charismatic in a dark manipulative way. He wears a very nice custom tailored suit that looks like its been worn for the last two days. Johnson usually looks a bit tired and a bit haggard and has a chronic cigarette addiction. If he doesnt have a smoke between his lips its because he's getting a fresh one from the pack. Â Dealing with Johnson is making a deal with a devil and a politician. He has a slight southern accent.
2. Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson is a physically imposing black man with a neatly groomed beard and mustache. He is wide shouldered and carries himself with the manner of a seasoned police officer. He should make the PCs nervous because while he looks like a fixer, he acts like a cop. He favors a tan coat and has an openly carried large calibre revolver. He has strong physical abilities and is nigh impossible to intimidate due to this. He doesn't take any crap off of anyone, and his jobs are street level, and he is a good contact for dealing with criminal and gang elements, not so much high society.
3. Mr. Johnson's Associate, Mr. Johnson
The PC's usual fixer is unavailable for whatever reason, and while he is on hiatus he has a personal friend Mr. Johnson cover his contacts and work. Johnson is thin and drawn and seems constantly nervous. He does a good job with his contacts and jobs, but he is constantly rubbing his hands and looking around like he is being watched. His lips are thin and he speaks in a slightly high pitched voice that does not inspire confidence. If the PCs go fact hunting, they cannot find anything on Johnson, he simply doesn't exist in the system and simply searching for him can lead to them running into problems.Â
4. Mr. Johnson
A suave and handsome business man, Johnson has sandy blonde hair and is artfully unshaven and has a carefully manicured look of being unkempt. He doesn't wear a suit and tie, but rather favors a colorful shirt unbuttoned at the top and a sport jacket. His manner screams wealth, from his Cartier watch to his italian leather shoes. He is a con-man and bullshit artist without peer and while he will sometimes screw someone over just to remind them who has who by the genitals, he is generally just abrasive and self amusing. He doesn't act like a typical fixer, in that he maintains sports cars and fast women rather than the usual non-descript black sedan.
5. Mr. Johnson
Looking more like a JC Penny suit clad football coach than a Fixer, Johnson is in his late 40s to early 50s and cannot be described as anything other than unfortunate looking. He is coarsely featured with a head reminiscent of a lumpy jar and his hair doesnt seem to be attached in the right place. There is nothing wrong with him, some people are just, well, unfortunate. He is a brisk operator, quick and efficient with a game plan and contingencies. He speaks in sports metaphors and will openly mock intellect first PCs while favoring the brawny types. He isn't dumb, he just knows that muscle tends to be more loyal than brains. Johnson can pull out some surprising contacts, but it seems he has played a few rounds of golf with everyone from the local police chief to the CEO of MegaHugeCo. He will name drop when complaining about needing to work on his game. When speaking in golf metaphors specifically he will be very direct, but this will be in relation not to the golf but to who he is talking to and where they are sitting/standing in relation to him. If he knows that someone is a target, or will be a problem and they are sitting on his left hand side, he'll mention something about needing to work on that hook shot coming out of the 5th green. If the PCs push too hard, they will find out Mr. Johnson was a professional assassin before fixing.
6. Mr. Johnson
Johnson is a large and powerful man with a slight European/Slavic accent and the appearance of a bodybuilder stuffed into a business suit. Despite his concealed but bulging physique he is keenly intelligent and a major player in the political arena and has hidden access to all sorts of things that the PCs can only guess about. He can deal in surprisingly heavy weapons, and his jobs are decidely explody. He has a jovial manner and a light hearted take on violence and will laugh off PC protests about collateral damage or incurring civilian casualties.Â
7. Ms. Johnson
An older woman with blonde hair and the acumen of a style magazine editor, Johnson is a no-BS type of woman who has a sort of motherly charm to her. She isn't violent, but she doesn't flinch from violence. She does good quality work, but sometimes comes up with some really oddball or off the wall jobs. She has strong beliefs about aliens and hidden agendas, and some of her jobs seem to be working toward thwarting some other agenda at work. If the PCs investigate or are very observant, they will be able to deduce that Johnson has prosthetic legs, and there is a chance that she is possibly more machine than human.
8. Mr. Johnson
Elegant and imposing, with close cropped white hair and a startlingly dark mustache, Johnson has a very refined accent, carefully manicured to obliterate any sort of hint as to where he is from. He is incredibly wealthy and powerful and the PCs should suspect that many of his contacts are simply him by proxy. After dealing with Johnson the PCs should feel like they have been contaminated or corrupted just be being around him. Johnson is a reborn Nazi and has very disturbing plans, but has very lucrative contracts for the teams that work for him.Â
Note: There should be no obvious clue that Johnson is a Nazi other than in the back of the mind of the DM/GM as he portrays Johnson.Â
9. Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson has a trustworthy and charitable face, the sort that belongs in a friendly corner coffee house, or in an indie/hipster production. His hair is carefully tousled and his eyes and bright and rather than looking angsty in his beard there is something of Aragorn's quiet strength to his character. Johnson is a bit naive, and young. He is becoming aware of the game of chess that is constantly being played and is working on creating his own side on the board. But until then, he is still working for someone else, a fixer's fixer. He handles small jobs, fences small items, and is basically small time.
10. Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson is better than you, and really that's all you need to know. He's a bit taller, he's stronger, his smirk is better, and his game face is the model that people aspire to. His gun is bigger, his car is faster, and his girlfriends are all better looking. This isn't bragging, this is simply fact and Mr. Johnson handles it as such. Being around him too long makes it obvious that he is simply better than the PCs. He is a consummate actor, and can evince police officer, take a step federal agent, take a step marine, take a step retired pro football player, take a step firefighter. No matter what roll he decides to play, he is a natural physical leader.Â
11. Mr. Johnson
There is that uncle in every family, upstanding but no one really knows what he does, sometimes has a girlfriend but sometimes not. He's hard to describe because he is so very normal, so very average. Mr. Johnson is this sort of man, easy to recognize, but almost impossible to describe (medium height, medium build, brown hair, blue eyes). He is very smart, wears glasses, and always is a step ahead of the competition. As a side note, he has an eidetic memory, and almost savant like ability to solve math problems.
12. Mr. Johnson
The PCs first inclination is to not take Johnson seriously, he is a midget after all, or a dwarf, they're really not sure. He is short, has a dark beard, smokes, drinks, and will relentlessly hit on anything female that strikes his fancy. Rather than coming across as a comic character, he is competent and confident, and even though he strikes out, he still goes out with more women, smokingly hot women, than the PCs will. He is a ruthless fixer, sharp and cunning, and if he's caught off guard, it probably because he's setting someone up and needs them to think they have the upper hand.Â
13. Ms. Johnson
Johnson looks different every time the PCs meet her, she can be a curly neo-italian brunette, then two weeks later a straight from the valley blonde. She can change a huge amount about herself with just a change in make up and her hairstyle. She isn't the typical fixer, but rather one that deals with special jobs, the sort that requires a light, professional touch. Thugs apply elsewhere, Johnson needs infiltrators, spies, hackers, professional grade actors, and human ciphers.Â
14. Mr. Johnson
Or just Johnson, he is an obvious former military man, crew cut and stiff as a board. He wears a nice shirt and a leather coat, and has a cutting acerbic way of speaking that is both insulting and irritating (if thats what you think is a good job, well). He's curt and to the point, makes his fairly high demands, offers low prices and isn't the sort of fixer the PCs want to rely on. His deals are also on the shady side, moving obviously stolen goods, or supplying goods and services to the sort of people that the PCs would generally not associate with. There is always some sort of implied menace or sense of danger with Johnson, either from himself, the other people he works for, or just the general environment he is in. This is the guy who sets up a clandestine meeting at the gun range...to settle an argument.
15. Dr. Johnson
He is a tall and ruggedly handsome man, with a winning smile and pretty eyes. The sort of man that women melt for and men start questioning their own sexual orientation. He is obviously a medical man, it is obvious in his attention to detail and in the way he observes and speaks to people. How he ended up working as a professional go-between is a mystery that he will not shed light on, and asking about it is a sure way to end up unemployed and locally blacklisted. His jobs are not all that special, and he is good at being a fixer. Where he does shine through is in being able to do medical work, either himself or through his contacts in the medical realm. He does cosmetic alterations and trauma care with ease, leading some to believe that he did some seriously high end medical theatre work before his fall from the Ivory Tower.
16. Johnson
Not Mr. Johnson, just Johnson. And this wise-cracking hippie haired fixer has a nickname for everyone, and few of them are flattering. He is chauvinistic towards women, but has enough charisma that instead of being pissed off, for some reason they respond favorably towards him. He is a bad boy, the sort of guy who steals your car and your girlfriend and leaves you with his bartab. And up until you realize everything is gone and your holding the bill you thought he was you best pal. Then a few weeks later he shows back up with an apology, a convincing story, and a job sweet enough to make up for the old in and out last time around. Johnson gravitates towards the second in command, black sheep in the group, and of course, anything with a vagina and a pulse. He will come quickly into conflict with anyone with high charisma, or leadership ability, he likes to be in charge of the boat.
17. Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson is a big man, tipping the scales at over 300 pounds. He is also unfortunately on the short side, making a semblance to a hairy Jabba the Hut all the more obvious. His beard is black and curly,his hair generally looks unwashed and while he is technically wearing a suit,the dress shirt is unbuttoned, showing off invariably some comic or pop culture tee shirt underneath. While the initial impression might be Fat Comic Book Guy Who Lives in Mom's Basement, he is an excellent and underrated fixer. His jobs are top of the line, and the stuff he can move is really impressive. He is also superstitious and plays the numbers on the lotto, and is a student of numerology. Conversations can start either with business or the hook of 'Do you know the relevance of the number eleven and the Green Lantern?'
18. Mr... Johnson
Mr. Johnson is an actor, and not necessarily a good one. His spiked hair and round sunglasses seem to belong more in the 60s than the modern era, and while he has an almost perfect memory for names, faces, dates, and the sort of thing, he hesitates over basic things, like his name. Johnson is nervous, his jobs and goods are hot and questionable, the sort of things that seem to invite trouble. He has either been in the business too long, or seen things he shouldn't have seen, or has started working actively against a higher power than himself. Either way, he is a fixer who knows that there isn't much time left, and he has so much to do. Look nervous, act nervous, and make a deliberate show of how fake certain things are, from the backers of this company to the real identities of the PCs, or even yourself. Play for fun, call characters with established false IDs and nicknames by their birth name, like referring to Magneto and Professor X as Max and Charlie.
19. Ms. Johnson
Ms. Johnson is a stone cold fox, and known to the PCs, a stone cold killer. She is the black widow of the fixer world. Her jobs are top notch, and top pay for goods and data. Until the final mission ends in a TPK or a deal ends in a gunfight between the PCs and someone Johnson wants iced. No one really wants to work for the Black Widow Fixer, but sometimes times are hard, and she is very very pretty. Usually the lead in is a solo job, one on one she is a social/sexual manipulator, shedding secret tears to a machismo laden PC, imploring for their help, for the help of their team. Her life is on the line, and if they come through for her, she will make their payment (innuendo check) memorable.
20. Mr. Johnson
Educated, urbane, worldly, with a curiously hard to place but very likely European accent, Mr. Johnson is a man who was born to some position of wealth and prominence. And by the affectation of his manner, unlike other fixers of former prominence, has not fallen from his lofty stature. His three day stubble is artful, as is his carefree bedhead. He is very likable, and he is a consummate professional in his work. What the PCs do not know is that almost every deal or job he runs is a deal with or for the devil. Johnson represents a very elusive and pretty much absolutely evil clientele. He keeps the work compartmentalized so that when he is running an assassination job, the three teams he has working towards the same end have no idea about the other teams, and when he pulls the trigger and kills the VIP, the three teams all think they have failed their job. (Bodyguard is an assassin, find and eliminate the assassin) team 1 distracts the security detail by appearing armed and dangerous, they have been tipped off to a close range assassination attempt. (Steal car job at speaking event, stunt by VIP rival to embarass him) Team 2 draws off a large amount of personnel to either stop, or recover stolen cars. Police are activated and move away from area. (Hack computer comm system to broadcast anti-VIP propaganda, stunt) team 3 scrambles communications systems. Everyone is running around like mad, and when the .223 snipe round takes the VIP in the throat there is a scattered and weakened police responce, bodyguards are tied up in firefight with team 1, escape routes are gone, and communications are blown to shit. Mr. Johnson walks two blocks and is picked up by his black sedan.
21. Mr. Johnson
Mr. Johnson is a tough man to work for. He could teach philosophy or history at a collegiate level, as a tenured professor, then vanish into the wilderness with nothing but a knife and reappear a month later dressed in animal skins and armed with a dozen home made weapons ranging from knives to 'discovered' firearms. He is the modern renaissance man, with a gleaming bald head, and a face that hints at a formerly mountain of a man who discovered he had cancer and then killed it with his own bare hands. His former strength might be gone, but he has responded with an increased wariness and intelligence that shows why man thrived and the sabertooth tiger was turned into a rug in a sex cave. His work is complicated, dangerous, and demanding of his contacts. If they want easy money and easy jobs, prostitution and running drugs are safer and easier. If they want to learn who they are, learn what they are made of, then he is their man.
22. Mr. Johnson
There is simply no way that Mr. Johnson was not formerly part of a band in some form or fashion. He is always dressed at the height of popular fashion, and has that pop-rocker look going. But that look isn't just clothing, is attitude. He can play an instrument, and he can do heroin and walk out of the room fine. He is snide, cocky, and full of himself, but can laugh at himself without going red faced ballistic. He has a faint British accent, and can be infuriatingly laid back, especially when there is a deadline looming, or when something valuable to the PCs is on the line. He does good work, and can handle most jobs and goods, but he is always fashionably late, and usually accompanied by a hot and likely slutty girl.
23. Mr. Johnson
Some people can make the words 'my friend' sound like a threat, and Mr. Johnson can do just that. Of Arabic descent, Johnson has dark skin, dark eyes, and curly black hair. He will laugh and speak friendly words, but his posture, his mannerisms all seem on the verge of being threatening. He can make almost any statement into some sort of threat or black promise. When he says 'I'll be seeing you', the PCs cannot help but think of him smiling over them, locked in a grimy torture cell in some god forsaken place. The disturbing thing is that their fears are fairly accurate. Johnson is former military, the sort of military that did enhanced interrogations and detention work. He always has a smile, because few things are as disturbing as a smile in the right situation.
24. Ms. Johnson
There are many former cops who give up the badge and take up fixing once they leave the force. Johnson left the force, her files were shredded in a cyber attack, and now she is just Miss Johnson. A latina from southern california, she is the dirty side of the LAPD, racist, violent, quick to anger and quick to action. Johnson is a small to medium time fixer and most of her work deals with supporting Latino organizations, taking down LAPD operations, and generally supporting anarchy, the drug trade, and undermining the White Man/Established System. Before her record was expunged, she had multiple black marks for police brutality, compromising crime scenes, unwarranted discharge of firearms and reckless driving and excess collateral damage during police pursuit. Her deals don't always pay well, but she is a fixer who can get her hands on military grade weaponry. Just as long as you don't look too much like a dirty gringo.
25. Mr. Johnson
The face of the inscrutable oriental, Johnson is some persuasion of Asian. He is North Korean, though few in the western world are able to correctly guess that. He is a mid to high level fixer, dealing with Asian and Oriental work, he is multi-lingual but makes his English very bad, though he speaks it rather fluently. It makes deception on the part of the PCs more difficult, and easier on his part. He doesn't know martial arts, nor does he particularly like tea, but he knows how to find these things and use them to his advantage. His area of real speciality involved aircraft, air freight, and ships on the sea. He is impeccably polite, but has one or two bodyguards with him that are very fluent in the art of hurting and killing people who threaten him.
26. Mistah Johnson
Hailing from Australia, Mr. Johnson is a charmer with his Australian accent, tanned and weathered skin and outdoorsy can do attitude. Job wise he is a middle range fixer, but has a great fondness for speaking in cyphers and riddles, and referring to everyone by friendly names. Unlike most fixers, this speaking in riddles isn't a trick, or cultivated skill. Rather, Johnson has some sort of mental condition that makes it very difficult for him to speak directly about something or to a matter at hand. So instead of saying something along the lines of 'I'm hungry and we should get something to eat while we talk,' he will lay out a verbal challenge, 'If you want to dance words and dollar signs you might find my and mine at the arches by the bay. (If you want to make a deal, I'll be at the McDonalds on Bayside Ave.)
27. Mr. Johnson
Symbols are everywhere, and symbols have power. From the Illuminati fingerprints on the currency to the Freemason design of Washington D.C. The clues are there, in plain sight. The hidden masters are sometimes bold in their demonstrations of power over the nations of the world. Mr. Johnson spent years, decades unraveling the secret language of symbols,both intentional and accidental. This almost mathemagical ability has given him some impressive insights in the realm of the larcenous and underground. His jobs are middle level, but somehow always tie into larger schemes, or undermine larger schemes. Johnson has the bumbling demeanor of a academic, one not generally used to dealing in a one on one manner, and he generally has notes, or a small bound notebook with cramped handwriting in it. He is generally likeable and his jobs are middle of the road for pay and danger.
28. Mr. Johnson
A government man, Johnson is an active Senator, and sits on several important committees. His is a grandiose man with a certain innocent charm and savoir faire that takes people out of their hostile or wary zone. Let us discuss certain business that needs to be done with a great deal of discretion, and for the sake of simplicity, you may call me Mr.Johnson in our arrangement here. I am certain that some of you know of my daytime profession, and it would be most ungentlemanly to call such things into question in the open. We are all certainly friends here. Senator Johnson is a poweful fixer, and if the PCs dont deal directly with him, it is through his trusted aid, Mr. Johnson Jr. The downside of working for Senator Johnson is that if something goes wrong or a deal goes belly up, the PCs are all politically expendable, and he can only remain a solid fixer as along as he remains in office. He is very high profile as far as fixers go.
29. Mr. Johnson
Johnson speaks with a medium thickness Scottish brogue and despite his balding white head, is probably more of a ladies man than all of the PCs rolled into one. He knows all sorts of secrets, like who shot JFK, to where the Moon Landings were faked (to hide the truth of what's on the moon) to where Jimmy Hoffa is. He dresses well, only carries a single pistol and his impeccable taste in cars and women. He runs the highest level of jobs, and the top level of equipment. He will call in the best of the best for the impossible jobs.
30. Mr. Johnson
Johnson is a cold dead fish of a man. He is pale complected and he makes ventriloquists dummies look animated by comparison. He speaks in a measured stilted cadence that is unsettling and he has a laser beam intense glare. He oozes malice and an almost inhuman atmosphere. He treats the PCs like trained dogs, doling out 'pay' like treats. Unearned, undeserved treats. In typical fixer fashion he has large amounts of money, and is very well connected. He can do more with a smartphone and a wifi connection than most hacker teams can do with full terminal workstations. He looks at humanity the way most people look at pests or vermin, and he makes only the most transparent attempt to conceal this distain.
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? Responses (8)
I giggled when I first realized that ALL of them are named Johnson.
Another really great 30.
And the 30s now have another good submission.
Alright, it's obvious to me that I haven't played in enough of these kinds of games to vote on this piece. Perhaps you could explain in a paragraph or so what a fixer actually is? How do they normally function and how do the characters interact with them? And how the hell do you contact one of these guys to begin with?
A fixer is a professional guy who knows a guy. They come from the Shadowrun game system. A fixer is a professional go between for criminals who do the dirty work, the proverbial shadow runners, and the people who want to hire them. This creates plausible deniability, keeping legitimate employers from getting in trouble for hiring thieves and criminals to undermine their rivals. They also do criminal underground legwork, they find jobs, and help supply black market goods for PCs. The fixer can also on occasion sell hot goods or find buyers for stuff PCs have taken. Your fixer is something like a manager, promoter, and advisor all rolled into one. This being said, all fixers are different, and can range from government agents working undercover, illuminati agents, etc etc etc
I love it. My favourite is Mr. Johnson.
Can't believe I missed this. Started howling when I hit Mr. Johnson's Associate, Mr. Johnson.