Shadowrun Trideo, How Runners are featured in the Media Options

[Drraagh]

I was originally thinking about what sort of stuff would be on the trid, but that's been covered by the themebooks that Fanpro did as well as Shadowbeat. Not to mention some movies have given some ideas like "The Running Man" (not to mention "Climbing for Dollars"), "Anthrax Cat", "The Record with Robert McX" and "The Sex Puppets" from Transmetropolitan, "Buster Friendly and His Friendly Friends" from Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, and the list goes on. Fictional TV Programs at Wikipedia for a good selection, not to mention Shows within a Show. I've even used a few of the movies that were mentioned in F/X the Series as stuff that would be playing, and I had a Hitchcock movie playing in a theater where Runners met their Johnson, partly because of the tastes of the Johnson, and partly because I didn't want the table making jokes while they dealt with their Johnson during an adult film.

But what I ended up with, after seeing someone ranting somewhere about why shadowrruners would ever become a media icon, having trid shows and moves done about them since they are supposed to be secret, is exactly how the Shadowrunners are shown in the movies, since Karl Kombatmage apparently proves that they are to some degree known.

I mean, to the entertainment division, Shadowrunners could be little more than their generations A-Team or The Fugitive, people on the run from the law, doing what they can to survive. Throw in a magic user, change the metatype of a few characters and they might fly. However, given the audience's taste for violence you could probably have them killing people.

Then you've got shows like COPS, or movies like Series 7: The Contenders and even the SQUID in Strange Days showing the holdup, where you've got live recording of a specific event in their lives. I could see that working for Shadowrunners, though there are a few problems I see at the same time. Even if you digitally blur out the faces, you're still leaving evidence of where you've been. You could blur or cut out any references to a company or identifying landmarks, but even then... sure it might make it onto a pirate channel that is spreading the word against corporations, or if you're lucky might get on some action channel.

And finally, let's not forget children's markets. Just look at cartoons and live action childrens shows of today. Ninja Turtles, The Tribe, Power Rangers, Justice League, Kim Possible and so forth. There's a lot of action, a lot of fighting, and usually a lot of marketing as well. So, you could create a Shadowrunner cartoon show, sort of like the Commander Cash show in Robocop, but put it in a criminals perspective though you paint them to be the good guy, fighting the corrupt law. Lone Ranger, Zorro, ring any bells?

But what would this do for public opinion of the Shadowrunners. Sure, some would think them nothing more than trideo characters and maybe see it as a catchall term in the news like 'Hacker' is today. But then might there not be some to whom a Shadowrunner is a cool thing? Imagine on the playground, "When I grow up, I'm going to be a Doctor." "When I grow up, I'm going to be Lone Star." "When I grow up, I'm going to be a Shadowrunner". Not to mention in the teenage age range, there might be those that would help shadowrunners, seeing it either as a way to rebel against authority or something.

Just my ten cents, since I'm sure this is more than just two of them.

[hyzmarca]

Remember that in Queen Euphoria the Johnson took footage from the run and edited it into a blockbuster movie. The contract pretty much screwed the runners out of any royalities, too. This is why my shadowrunners often explicitly retain a percentage of the film rights whenever they make a contract with a Johnson.

[Drraagh]

[cetiah]

I was planning on having a television broadcast at some point in my next session, as a sort of foreshadowing for later. It was going to be a scene where the governor says in a public statement:

"The destruction of AmmoMax's warehouses were tragic, and many good people were killed. A detailed investigation proved the explosion to be the result of misapplied packaging constraints of sensitive materials. All the appropriate legal measures are being taken against AmmoMax at this time. I don't understand why the media is so fascinated with inventing boogiemen at tragic times like these. I want to reassure the people of Seattle, once again, THERE... ARE... NO SUCH THING... AS SHADOWRUNNERS."

[Kagetenshi]

(Note: I'm very tired and haven't made sure this is actually what I think. It seems reasonable right now, but again, very tired.)

My view seems to be that there are two primary depictions of Shadowrunners. On the one hand you've got your Good Shadowrunners, who fight against horrible things like insect spirits and rogue magical threats and criminal organizations and corporations who happen to be the major competitor of the corporation where the show is being broadcast. These Shadowrunners may really be company men, but such distinctions are not dwelt upon. On the other, you have your ruthless horrible killers who butcher nice security guards and shoot babies in the face so they can steal their candy. These are the Shadowrunners that attack friendly corporations, and they always get their comeuppance when Storm Saxon (or his local corporate analogue) enters the picture.

~J

[Thane36425]

How Shadowrunners are presented depends on the runners and the bias of the presenter. Shadowbeat had some to say about this in the form of an interview. Some of the people were prorunner and some were anti-runner. Those were the "experts". On the other hand, most people on the street didn't think runners were real or that they were something created by the media to get ratings and make movies.

Another way to look at it is how the runners do their work. If the runners are discrete, get in and out with being detected, then it isn't a newsworthy story. If they do their job and just take down some guards without killing them, that might get a small mention buried way under the main stories in the local media. On the other hand, if they really hose up, set fire to a major office building and have a big shootout on the streets with corpsec and Lone Star with all kinds of news drones flying around, then it will be national news and be seen very negatively.

Generally though, most runners should try to be so low key that they don't get media attention. Those that do are probably trying to retire from the scene and are getting publicity to use it as a shield. If a major pop star like Karl Kombatmage got whacked, then there would be calls for an investigation. Even if the guilty party was not brought in for trial, if the attack was linked to a corporation, it would be bad news for them businesswise, at least for the short time it took the public to go from Karl, hurray! to Karl who? or about 5 minutes.

Runners probably are big in entertainment. They are today after all. Look at all the movies like Mission Impossible, Ocean's 11, Ronin and all the other "spy" thrillers. There are so many it would be impossible to list them all. But bascially anything spyish or where a small group is given a non-military mission against a corporation or crime gang fits the bill. There are loads of them.

Some of the older canon material did mention a show like Cops with runners. It didn't last too long though after one of the runner teams was whacked because the corp they raided figured out who they were from the filming company. Still, if the runners find something really nasty going on, they coudl shoot their own video and sell or give it to a reporter contact to air, then hide deep for some time.

As for the violent games, those exist too, Shadowbeat talks about them. Some games are really fun versions of Survivor. One example would be a bunch of "players" are dropped into hostile territory and only the first person the reach the goal will be "rescued." One of the places mentioned was the Sahara Desert complete with hostile tribesmen offered bounties one the players, just to make it more interesting. Others were from prisons where inmates had to fight for food, space, etc. The shows you mentioned also exist in one form or another.

[Thane36425]

[DV8]

Please, someone, anyone -- Flak! Paul! Quick, stop me before I engage in this thread...!

[eidolon]

In my last game, one of the characters was a huge fan of the "Shadowrun" movies, and actually decided to leave Africa and move to Seattle to be a Shadowrunner after watching a marathon of such movies while drunk.

Shadowrunners are portrayed in my games, but are usually done so much in the way gangsters are portrayed in most movies. There are "bad guy" shadowrunners that always get theirs, and there are "good guy" shadowrunners (usually subtly or not so subtly employed by the "good corp"), and very few of these movies/shows/etc. are very accurate in the way they portray the shadows.

Also in my games, you will never see a "real" or direct connection between the fictionalized version of SRing/ers and the real thing. You won't see, for example, a Shadowrunner with a corporate sponsor, wearing their logo on his Ares shoes, etc. (I seem to recall hearing that that was actually the case in the canon fiction somewhere, I think it's silly). There's no more connection between the Shadowrun of the movies and real shadow ops than there is between James Bond and the run of the mill CIA operative. It's all eye candy for the masses (and of course, pro-corp advertising).

[FlakJacket]

Please, someone, anyone -- Flak! Paul! Quick, stop me before I engage in this thread...!

Bwahaha! Shoe rant! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/biggrin.gif)

[b1ffov3rfl0w]

Remember that in Queen Euphoria the Johnson took footage from the run and edited it into a blockbuster movie. The contract pretty much screwed the runners out of any royalities, too. This is why my shadowrunners often explicitly retain a percentage of the film rights whenever they make a contract with a Johnson.

I retain animation rights and we go back to single dip.