I began wondering how the models acted when they weren't being photographed when we're talking about really weird or artistic porn. It's one thing to be approached by an employer who says, "I want you to dance naked with this G string for generic customers at my strip club." I suppose that it's either possible to approach that with a strictly pragmatic mental outlook, or else to get caught up in your own display of sexuality or sensuality and wage a personal battle against social repression by taking on such a job. But, imagine the weirdness of (especially if you don't particularly follow anime), "I want you to dress up in this sentai uniform and then pretend that you're being molested by a monster with a raygun. Okay, now for this next series of shots he's using his fire breath on you so roll around like you're on fire." How do you react to that? Can you chat in a friendly way with the producer afterwards about the latest Hollywood movie or is the degree of weirdness just too much to allow for that?
So, imagine the flavor and strangeness that a French porn director in the tradition of French surrealist film directors from the 60s and 70s could bring. I figure that if he's going to be a French surrealist porn director that there should be some kind of underlying psychosocial map to his porn films. Being French, he should be preoccupied with finding a kind of philosophical unity of the principles of porn. He should be able to quote Freud, Jung, and most certainly Simone de Beauvoir's "Must We Burn Sade?". In the tradition of Sartre he should abuse both wine and stimulants which makes him talk very forcefully and rapidly and uninhibitedly about his newest psychosocial theories of porn. In terms of role playing he should be a bonfire of intellectual passion who abuses his body with drugs at an almost ascetic intensity.
In order to make the porn director more funny he actually recieved a top-notch education in philosophy and psychology at the Sorbonne where he was at the top of his class. He is an able academic debator and can probably make any player character who calls bullshit on him look stupid...from an academic, philosophical standpoint.
Remy Cocteau, porn director extraordinaire!
Age: 49
Gender: Male
Hair: Light brown with streaks of grey, always covered by a beret
Eyes: Piercing blue
Appearance: Overweight, always wears a striped shirt and black trousers. Usually smoking a cigarette and has wine and stimulants close at hand.
B 2
S 3
I 8
W 8
C 5
Q 2
R 5
Init 5 + 1d6
Combat Pool: 9
Skills:
Cinema Direction (pornography) 7 (9)
Still Photography (pornographic) 7 (9)
Ettiquette (models) 4 (6)
Instruction (academics) 2 (4)
Unarmed Combat (savate) 1 (3)
Psychology (antiquated) 6 (
Debate (academic) 6 (
Knowledge Skills:
French wines 6
Stimulants 6
Freudian psychology 7
Jungian psychology 7
The writings of Simone de Beauvoir 5
Japanese fetish culture 5
The writings of Camille Paglia 7
The writings of the Marquis de Sade 7
The writings of Nietzche 7
French 7
English 4
German 5
Russian 5
Japanese 5
Gear:
Black beret
Several packs of premium cigarettes
2 bottles of Bordeaux
A crumpled paperback edition of "Man and His Symbols"
Film production studio
Quotes:
"Ohhkay. Now, zee monsteur avec les tentacles, it represents zee sexuality warped, corrupted, by social disapproval! Now, as zee eroine, eet eez your rhole to kill zee monster with zee Ares Monosword, which reprezents the traitment of logic in revising zee excess of society. But, after you have slayed zee monster, you must roll around naked in zee green sticky blood, which represents how zee rest of society now villifies you, unable to accept your logical 'andling of...LA SEXUALITE!"
"Ohhkay. Monsieur, you reprezent zee ubermensch of Nietzche. When you ravage zee nun on zee altar as zee muscular tanned barbare, you represent zee ubermensch overcoming zee slave morality and shame which society has uzed to shackle you! But, at zee moment of climax, we stop zee camera, remove zee nun, and leave you zhere alone, as if by zee magie! Because it represents zee emptyness, zee gulf, zee loneliness zhat comes rushing on when zee society is vanquished and vanished from zee mind! Eeet ees because zee ubmermensch is godless, alone, and must invent 'imself!"
At this, I think that Remy needs a daughter, a lovechild from long ago who is now in her early 20s. I think I'll call her Sabine, which is funny because of the implied reference to the Sabine women. Anyway, I figure that a father like Remy is probably emotionally distant because he's so caught up in his abstract ideas, so Sabine usually does things which are calculated to piss off her father and get him to pay attention to her. She also hates thinking about or talking about sexuality in any way, form, or manner, because she's goddamned tired of hearing about it for the last two decades. Since Remy doesn't see his work as being particularly dirty or sleazy but rather a high artistic calling he's probably pressued Sabine into appearing in a couple of his films which probably just contributes to her general dislike of this whole sexuality thing. (Since it could be a major plot point I'll leave it up to the GM to decide exactly what kind of role she played in these films).
In spite of her exasperation with her father she is related to him and has inherited the same academic mind. She's absorbed a lot of his philosophy without realizing it. For example, even though she is tired of his fixation with sexuality, she takes it for granted that Jung was right about his archetypal symbols unifying mankind.
In order to try and live seperately from her father Sabine has begun working as a corporate security guard and living on her own in a tiny Low lifestyle apartment. She probably could have gotten a better job in acadamia and may persue that in the future but she is at this moment (subconsciously) rebelling against her father and trying to make him worry about her. Also, this makes it more likely that the PCs would encounter her.
Sabine Cocteau, the pornographer's daughter
Age: Early 20s
Eyes: Piercing Blue
Hair: Long, light brown, carefully coiffed as you'd expect of any self-respecting French woman
Appearance: French hottie, but her Charisma is only 5 because in casual conversation she tends to speak in very academic ways which is off-putting for many people.
B 3
S 3
I 8
W 8
C 5
Q 3
R 5
Init 5 + 1d6
Skills:
Cinema Direction (pornography) 3 (5)
Still Photography (pornographic) 3 (5)
Ettiquette (models) 3 (5)
Instruction (academics) 1 (3)
Pistols 3
Unarmed Combat 3
Shotguns 3
Tasers 3
Clubs (stun baton) 1 (3)
Psychology (antiquated) 3 (5)
Debate (academic) 3 (5)
Knowledge skills:
French wines 4
Stimulants 4
Freudian psychology 5
Jungian psychology 5
The writings of Simone de Beauvoir 3
Japanese fetish culture 3
The writings of Camille Paglia 5
The writings of the Marquis de Sade 5
The writings of Nietzche 5
French 7
English 4
German 4
Russian 4
Japanese 4
Security guard procedures 3
Gear:
Security guard equipment
Optical chip containing the complete works of Nietzche
Tube pass
Corporate issue medkit.
Quotes:
"Sometimes, I think zhat zhee reazon I work security and carry zhee gun is because I seek zhee phallic empowerment."
"'Ey! You zhere! What do you think you ahre doing!? Don't make me get all sadistique on your collective assez!"
"Oh my goodness, zhees is perilous!"
Run ideas:
Remy Cocteau might happen to be really good friends with a few academically-inclined corporate higher-ups who buy into his ideas. Perhaps Sabine is abducted from her security post by maurading gangers and Cocteau's corporate buddies help him hire shadowrunners to get her back. This could be a viable assignment for a team which is having rep problems because the job isn't vitally important to anyone who is truly important but is rather a favor to a friend.
Remy Cocteau could be a contact; a man who knows a lot of high-social-class artistic types. He could be important to ingratiate if the runners must mingle in certain high society circles. For a group that is into roleplay the back and forth between Remy and Sabine could be very funny.
One of Remy's porn stars turns out to be the son or daughter of an exec. The exec hires runners to destroy all the footage and intimidate Remy into not making any more films with that particular person. Remy and Sabine can have an amusing argument with the PCs.
