I think what may help is look at this from a macro-verse instead of the micro-verse.  I'll go back to my Emmit Smith relation.

Emmit Smith has thousands of Cowboy fans who absolutely love the man.  That may get him a free dinner, easy access to the VIP in a club.  Maybe backstage to his favorite artist, or his kids (does he have kids?) gets to meet the performers @ Disney on Ice.  All of that is well and good.. but.. normally.. its a "one per scene" thing.. and.. do you really think he keeps a record of every person who loves him?  

Now... if player wants to do that.. remind him that's not what his skill is doing.  It's not winning the hearts and minds of someone so they can be life long friends, it's a little glammer and glitz that makes the NPC want to party with that character for awhile.

And.. if you REALLY need to get your Courtier to stop making every NPC he sees friendly.. Subplot:  STALKER FAN! DUN-DUN DUNNNNNNNN!!!!

Having interesting social mechanics without an overabundance of rules seems like a very tricky aspect of RPG design.  I have seen some interesting ideas (like Duel of Wits in Burning Wheel), but they can be difficult to fit into a larger framework.  I think it's neat that FantasyCraft is trying to broach this area from a very traditional framework.  D&D4E seems like it took the other route, and just threw out any sort of social mechanics.

With Disposition, I think of it in terms of what I would like to see from the perspective of the Courtier.  In a sense, I see them as rockstars, so your analogy to professional athletes probably works.  That said, I would probably be happy seeing Disposition as something that just non-Contact NPCs have.  And the terminology change from something like Supportive and Devoted to Starstruck or Charmed, etc.  Something to convey that there really *isn't* any sort of deep devotion going on.

Contacts I see as essentially outside the realm of Disposition.  They have narrative reasons for being by your side, and don't care if you're the high Impress Courtier or the low Impress Burgler.  But, in order to get Contacts, you have to spend Reputation.  They have their own scale (Acquaintance, etc) that doesn't fall along the axis of Disposition.

I think things like have an NPC become a stalker could lead to fun stories, but you have to be careful not to turn what should be a positive (Courtiers are very socially adept) into a negative (Courtiers get attacked by stalkers).  That could undermine what makes them cool.  But, in rare situations, it's probably fun.  That was actually one idea I had when I was thinking about Disposition - that having too many Devoted NPCs might mean they start coming after each other.  However, tracking anything like that mechanically is too much bookkeeping for the gain, I think.

How about separating Disposition and Attitude a little? If a courtier meets a person and fires off their courtier lasers, getting them to 21+ at the first go, it's not so much 'love at first glance' as 'gee, this person is awesome, if I'm as accomodating and helpful as possible, maybe they'll keep gracing me with their presence.' So, very helpful but still things he won't say or do (like outright betraying his boss, killing former allies in cold blood, or revealing too much of the mastermind's plan).

Whereas if that courtier spent time with that person, plying every trick of the trade, eventually the attitude would hit Devoted and... the courtier more or less owns him. Still got a sense of self-preservation (won't throw his life away for nothing) and basic morals (killing children), but most everything else he could be persuaded to do.

I think that's the right way to play it - but even when their attitude hits Devoted, the Courtier doesn't own them.  After all, mechanically, the NPC won't help out all that much (they aren't a Contact, so you can use Persuade for one action a scene, but that's normally it).

That's what I'm struggling with.  I can understand rationalizing Devoted certain ways for non-Contacts (it's only superficial, they're mostly unavailable, etc), but at some point it becomes difficult when a character has many Devoted NPCs.  At that high of a level of Disposition (the NPC feels about as strongly toward them as they do anything) it becomes tricky to rationalize why they don't help more.

We actually had this because of our Courtier.. who played a .. *ahem* Female companion for hire.  After trying to nail down the difference between Contact and just an NPC with a high disposition, another player hit it on the head.  "Let's say your fabled legend Running Back, Emmit Smith.  You want to get into a night club.  You smile your whites and pose for a picture with the bouncer.  You're in.  That's your 'loving NPC'.  Now, you want someone to drive you around and find you 'stuff' to do while you're in town.. that's a contact.    You want someone who will do your shopping, go to your meetings, and shake hands with the new born babies?  That's a Personal Lt."  And.. for the most part.. we liked that rationale and ran with it.

That's not a bad rationale, and I'll probably end up doing something similar.  However, I'm not sure it fits with the text in the book.  I would argue that someone "madly in love" with another person would normally be willing to do all of those things you described (do your shopping, go to your meetings, etc).  Of course, these NPCs may eventually feel taken advantage of - but I don't see any difference there between a Contact who may feel taken advantage of (particularly when the Contact could have a much lower Disposition).

I was thinking about restricting the Disposition level that non-Contact NPCs could reach.  But that runs the risk of stomping on the Courtier too much.

As a more general issue, it seems like it will be easy for my Courtier player to get NPC attitudes up to Devoted with not too much trouble (aside from some NPCs with really, really high Resolve).  Having lots of NPCs that revere or worship the Courtier seems like it undermines the Contact rules?  Or is it the intent that Courtiers essentially don't need to spend Rep on Contacts, since they're already so adroit socially?  Reading the rules, it seems like Contacts will help for a whole scene, while non-contacts are generally Persuaded, which is only one action.  So, there are mechanical reasons to buy Contacts, but it seems somewhat incongruous that NPCs will be in love with a character, but will only help out for one action in the whole scene.

What about this point, has anyone found it to be an issue in practice?  It seems like mechanically it isn't, but having too many Devoted NPCs that aren't willing to help much seems like it becomes difficult narratively.

Yes, and even if the cultist really likes you, there's no reason for them to open up about their being in a secret death cult or whatever; quite the reverse, if they think you might not approve.  They may try to protect your PC from trouble from the cult to a point, but then they may also try to mislead your PC in order to avoid them ending up in conflict with the cult (because nobody likes it when their friends fight), say by pointing them in the direction of that other secret cult on the far side of town.

This is somewhat the route I was going to take, although it's a little less important now that the cultist is only Intrigued rather than Devoted.  But, I was going to have the cultist secretly warn the Courtier about a plot to poison her food - so she would be spared from that.  But I was debating how much of her dark secrets to work in.

Also as per p373 a character's disposition may not change more than 1 grade during the same scene, so the cultist would have had to be friendly to begin with?

I vaguely recall reading that - then totally spacing on it, thanks!

So, I just recently started running a game in set in the Warhammer Fantasy setting using the FantasyCraft rules set.  Lots of really interesting concepts in the game, and on the whole I think it shows promise.  I've been writing up session reports on http://rpggeek.com/rpg/3069/fantasy-craft, if you're interested.

One area, though, that I'm struggling with are the rules for Disposition/Influence.  One of the players is a Courtier, and really boosted up the Impress skill.  In our last session, he used the charm ability, an Influence skill check, and great rolling to get an NPC to +18 Disposition in one scene.  The scenario in question is an investigative one, and this NPC happened to be a secret cultist.  Granted, this was some impressive rolling, combined with a character built around Impress, but having one of the baddies nearly fall in love with the character (in one minute) seems pretty powerful.  Do any of you have Courtier players in your game?  How do you handle the Impress skill?

I'm sort of conflicted.  On the one hand, this is the player's key ability - so I don't want to stomp all over it.  I'm even fine with the character being essentially a rock star level of Impress.  But it can wreak havoc on an investigative game.  I noticed that the Persuade option allows for the use of action dice to ignore the result.  Perhaps Influence needs something like that for special cases like this?  Or, maybe I'm not accurately getting a picture of what a Supportive NPC means in this case.

As a more general issue, it seems like it will be easy for my Courtier player to get NPC attitudes up to Devoted with not too much trouble (aside from some NPCs with really, really high Resolve).  Having lots of NPCs that revere or worship the Courtier seems like it undermines the Contact rules?  Or is it the intent that Courtiers essentially don't need to spend Rep on Contacts, since they're already so adroit socially?  Reading the rules, it seems like Contacts will help for a whole scene, while non-contacts are generally Persuaded, which is only one action.  So, there are mechanical reasons to buy Contacts, but it seems somewhat incongruous that NPCs will be in love with a character, but will only help out for one action in the whole scene.