Something that the old Shadowrun adventures always had were some press clippings that were different depending on how successfully the runners concluded the adventure.

But I think the press and the media have more potential. In a completely unrelated campaign I have discovered that there is little that is more fun than watching the reaction of the PCs as they see how the press have misportrayed their latest (mis)adventure. In Shadowrun, it could be even worse - the media could portray their latest run accurately.

So, have anyone of you used reporters and journalists in your campaign - and put them on the trail of the runners? Things could really get tense if they report on their runs - no runner appreciates seeing his secrets in the mass media - but simply killing the offending reporter might not always be the smartest approach...

yeah, tipped off a media contact once of some undercover Tir agents that were trying to screw with us.

"Ghosts in Seattle! Tonight at 9!" Good times, good times.

Assuming, of course, the reporter doesn't get shot outright.

-Siege

During a run the PCs pulled a few months back, the rigger wound up with his WarWagon™ filmed in full trid by a news drone that had swung by to investigate a disturbance downtown. Thanks to tinted windows, the runners' identities were spared, but every square inch of the vehicle was recorded and broadcast across the city.

Come to think of it, that was actually a good scene...

Did a run once where the Johnson was a rep from a news station. It was a slow week, so they figured they'd create a bulldrek run. Easy enough for a newsnet to concoct a beleivable story about why they want a guy kidnapped. The Johnson dropped hints that he was representing Boeing Metalworks and asked for a hit on an SK owned refinery that was making faster progress in developing a particular material. Team says "okey dokey," and is happy to have an excuse to truck out the big guns.

Meanwhile, Newsies load up a couple of vans themselves and are waiting around the corner from the SK plant with the engine idling. About eleven seconds into the run, the spotlight drones are swarming and armored reporters are doing live reports on the b&e they were "tipped off" to. Runners all over the trid.

Worst thing was, the runners beleived the part about the anonymous tip, creating a Resevoir Dogs type of showdown involving a couple of runners and contacts.

If you're going to use Shadowrunners to create news, it's typically easier to tell them that they're gonna be movie stars. That way, they get to A: excercise their flairs for creativity (Dressing up as people they completely aren't, etcetera,) and B: Don't come hunting news media people when they DO find out.

We have been hired by reporters to act as back up.

On occassion a corp has turned reporters loose on us to try and get us out of the shadows.

Most notably was a reporter who hired us as guards to help him while he dug around in a smuggling case. What he didn't tell us was that the smugglers were lycanthropes (house rule) who'd infect him and wanted revenge. So nice of mr johnson to tell us that he knew we were going up against infection beings with heightened senses and powers.

Although I respect and love the good old news hound backup, it's a double edged sword. Sure, exposing your enemies to the news forces their hands and may save your bacon, but on the other side it seems to me that the "guys on your side", i.e. friendly runners and fixers that hire you would not appreciate anything that sheds light on the world of shadowruns. It's been said that corps never hit each others in ways that make the whole of corporations look bad to the public, and I also thing the underworld would try to protect itself in that way.

Someone asked this a while back I think, and so I'll tell the same story as I did then. So sit ye down and I'll tell ye a tale (which has a certain amount of poetic license, but not as much as youd' think...)

The old Sprawl Sites book had a random encounter with a Fan archetype bugging a character for an autograph. Ha ha, random hilarity, how will they deal with that in the middle of a stakeout, ha ha. Yes, a nice little encounter. 'Cept, the GM we had back then wanted a bit more wind up than that. Oh yes.

There was a munchki- er, character, and I'm probably going to get punched for even nearly describing him as a munchkin, called Twinkle the Homicidal Maniac.

Now, this was in the heady days of quite early SR2 (grimoire and the Street Sam catalogue were about the only books available), when dragons were killable and the space needle got blown up every few months. And Twinkle the Homicidal Maniac, the six foot initiated elf mage with a two foot multihued neon mohican (yes, well, it would have to be, wouldn't it...) and an HMG with a quickened recoil compensating spell and gas venting wired up to a voice emulator so that it laughed hysterically whenever it fired, could get away with leaving shell casings all over the scenes of his crimes all inscribed with 'Twinkle woz ere' . Or so he thought. The GM, frustrated with how the players seemed to be evading the cops and everyone else, except in a printed adventure where no matter what steps you took the bad guys would find you, came up with a plan.

Twinkle took pains to point out that he never watched the trid because it was too depressing and ate your brain from the inside out with its Aztechnology mind control rays. Or something like that. The rest of the team didn't bother either, but Twinkle was exceptionally insistent about it.

Anyway, after a while the team noticed they were having a run of real bad luck. The cops were turning up while the runners were on their way out of corp facilities, sometimes there would for some reason be unusual numbers of people in the area when it should be deserted, that sort of thing. They tried laying low, but it didn't seem to work - as soon as they went for a job, sometimes even just a meet, things would start getting all unnecessarily... public.

Eventually, the encounter with the kid did it. And the player playing Twinkle finally exploded, fortunately not taking it out on the kid, but throwing his hands in the air and asking the world 'what the HELL is going ON?'. The GM smiled. A while later, they spotted a partially covered billboard as they drove down the freeway: 'Twinkle Twinkle' it said over the picture of a gun barrel with light sparkling off it. They didn't know what it was, but the GM had pointed it out, so they made a point of looking for more of them. They found one, which instructed them to watch channel something or other tonight at 7.

Where they were treated to 'Twinkle! The Homicidal Maniac! Series Three! FEEL the carnage!' and a half hour show of Twinkle's escapades this week, including the encounter with the fan... An enterprising media crew had stumbled upon this 'colourful' character some months back while on a stakeout and had set about tailing and tracking him, doing background checks and finally setting up Twinkle Productions Inc all completely without his permission, and it had taken off in a modestly big way with everyone, especially the characters enemies, who frequently used it to help them track the team down, unable to beleive their luck.

The look on his face...

I should point out that far from acting like a homicidal maniac, Twinkle instead approached the crew and arranged an action figure deal, retiring from the shadows for quite a while on a nice island in the tropics.

We were VERY young...

why do this thread make me think of contract killers in sla industries?

Spotlite, I love your evil GM. Why would you be afraid of callnig the player a munchkin. "Twinkle the Homocidal maniac" with a two foot neon mohawk???? Why are you afraid to call him a munchkin? You are afraid it would be redundant?

I've frequently used the media extensively in my campaign as story background, source for clues, and occasionally to mess with the players.

For example:

During an extraction run in Belgrade (which was successful in terms of meeting the primary objective), they managed to shoot up the base they had infiltrated (mind you with weapons more powerful than just pistols & SMGs). Serb Propagandists grabbed on to this and sent one of their state media "news" teams out to cover the destruction and aftermath. They turned around and sold the footage to SkyNet which broadcast it throughout a good chunk of Europe. In the report the Information Bureau claimed that Croatian resistance was behind the attack as well as on on a motorcade earlier that afternoon (another fight involving the runners which got way out of control) This resulted in several Serbian air strikes being launched against Croatia followed by a full scale invasion the following morning.

Basically the team lost Karma and face for instigating the the incident.

All could have been prevented if they heeded the words of the person who hired them to keep the whole mission hush hush (and yes, it was very possible to do so). Their Johnson, as well as the person rescued (who was Croatian) were needless to say extremely "displeased."

Spotlite, you just made my day.. *laughs* Such a good story..

Just Screams Death Jester about that "munchkin"

While the runners themselves haven't attracted the media spotlight, some of our actions have (none of which have been connected to us, I think). Like the time we ripped an executives car to peices. Or when we started a mob war. Or when we blew up the freeway.

The media have long known about the characters in my game, particularly since they were implicated and tried for using a Weapon of Mass Destruction on a stretch of the the Rocky Mountains. It was the media attention that really saved their asses, since the trial was fully televised and internationally scrutinized there could be no actually convicting them (since, really, they weren't the ones who blew up the mountains and their team of very expensive lawyers had evidence to back it up). Of course, now two of the runners in the group are very recognizable to the general public, but that doesn't seem to stop them when the need to get something done (mostly because they're not actually doing much that's illegal any more.... much).

spotlite, not only was that an excellent story (and thanks for sharing!), but it highlights an aspect of newshounds and mass media that isn't emphasised nearly often enough:

• what bleeds, leads
• the trids go not so much after the story as after the entertainment
• reality television is among the cheapest forms of entertainment to produce (no actors, no writers)
• in a competitive market, reality television catches much higher ratings when it's potentially violent (for much the same reason fights capture more of sports screen time proportionately than goals)

Put the three together: and why on earth wouldn't a network interested in the bottom line be trying to identify and then covertly follow an established shadowrun team? In a world of signature 10 (pre-modification) Condor drones which do have the firmpoint for remote cameras, it's not even that hard!

Glad people enjoyed it. I'll be sure to tell Twinkle's player that I've managed to make him an international laughing stock...

No, not laughing stock.. Sincere admiration for such a colourful and fun character!

Even better.