There's no news like bad news..., Journalism and news in the Sixth World Options

[ProfGast]

Cameras are EVERYWHERE in Shadowrun. In peoples' eyes, on your commlinks, on street corners and even in peoples' cars. Information flows everywhere and people can even invest in equipment that records their emotions and their senses for review or resale.

Given the way today's internet with social media, twitter and the like goes how do you handle this sort of video-prevalence in the Sixth World? Does anyone know any sourcebooks that explores how the media of Shadowrun is handled or distributed? I know Horizon is the big propaganda-ist mega, and the Sunshine for example is a reporter of some sort

But what little I can find seems just to be mentions of P2.0 as used in LA, (kinda your dystopian social networking gone to the ever-loving extreme) and a very short entry in Attitude.

Anybody have insight or references on how they handle the information side of a Wireless World like SR has?

[Happy Trees]

I doubt you'll find much canon on it. SR, I've found, is designed to be heavy on house rules to allow for GM creativity. I personally use the ubiquity of cameras to propel the story. I recently ran an extraction where the hacker forgot to shut off the cameras. The following news stories about how they managed to finish the job with no casualties (by accident, they were using tranq rounds to keep from accidentally killing the target) attracted the attention of a humanitarian group who wants to steal water without hurting anyone. They now have a Johnson looking for them PERSONALLY due to the media coverage. Since they pulled the job at night, I decided none of the pics were good enough to make a positive ID, but WERE good enough to make it clear in the runner community who did it. Similarly, you could use cameras to generate a need to infiltrate a police investigation and destroy the evidence, or lead into a revenge quest with the runners as a target. Conversely, you could use cameras as a way to make the team think harder about masks and the like.

[ProfGast]

Another thing I Was thinking of is how can 'runners use cameras and recording devices actively to their advantage. 90% of 'runners will be in possession of a high quality recording device of some sort, and some even have their simrigs. I know Street Legends lists Rigger X to take data on his teammates.

How would you A. ensure that's prevented in a team (A healthy team is built off of trust but sometimes that's not enough…)
and B. how could runners use their own recordings, cameras and simrigs to their own advantage? With the team's no doubt high access to video editing and forgeries.

And on that note, would editing videos and footage be under Computer? Artisan? Forgery maybe?

[Curator]

forgery of documents and pictures are specializations of the forgery skill along with credsticks, and fake sins

logic + skill (mental) is the test w/ thresholds like working conditions, tools, plans, etc and perhaps it can be an extended test depending on GM discretion. number of successful hits equals value to how many hits it takes to detect it's a fake vs a intuition + perception or forgery test.

[Tymeaus Jalynsfe...]

forgery of documents and pictures are specializations of the forgery skill along with credsticks, and fake sins

logic + skill (mental) is the test w/ thresholds like working conditions, tools, plans, etc and perhaps it can be an extended test depending on GM discretion. number of successful hits equals value to how many hits it takes to detect it's a fake vs a intuition + perception or forgery test.

But Only if you are Forging that Data. You would Use Computer to piece together footage and edit it, probably in concert with a Professional Skill and Professional Grade equipment.

[Sendaz]

You would Use Computer to piece together footage and edit it, probably in concert with a Professional Skill and Professional Grade equipment.

Which of course is how the underground SkinSim hit 'Sexcalibur' about a heavily converted Excalibur now used as a weapon of mass pleasuring was put together.

It has proven to be popular among the metalheads and gun nuts alike, especially as it certainly has a better performance rating than the original does. (IMG:style_emoticons/default/wink.gif)

[Blade]

I'm talking a bit about news and newsfeeds in Style Over Substance (link in sig.)

[ravensmuse]

Find a copy of Shadowbeat. There's a good section in there about journalism in the Sixth World, and how to run it.

The rules are for 1e, but they're easy enough to translate forward.

Remember that you could use the constant surveillance as a failure penalty for sneaking rolls or the like. Always an opportunity.