Mentioning Paris in another thread brought up something that I've been thinking about for awhile now - running a campaign for "high society" runners.

A little background: my girlfriend is a nerd. Not a roleplaying nerd (though she is that) but we're talking, went to art school, got exposed to high art, fashion, that sort of thing, and has a minor addiction to reality tv shows. So a lot of what she's interested in I'm exposed to via geek osmosis.

So I watch all of these celebrity shows and look at high fashion magazines and of course, my Shadowrun GM mind comes out. "Hey wait. These people are in desperate need for some leverage," if you know what I mean. Sabotage a rival's fashion show so that yours takes the front page. High jack that model everyone wants to keep her from attending the show that would break another competitor. Expose that famous sports star's illegal dog fighting ring - or cover up any of the evidence. That sort of thing.

Two questions:

1. Has anyone ever run something like this?
2. Is there a book published that highlights the entertainment / fashion culture kind of stuff?

I'm figuring that for #2, I should go re-browse through Shadowbeat and SOTA: 2063/64, right? But are there any other references for say, what clothing companies exist in the 70s, or what fashion houses still run, or even where the hottest spot for fashion is now? I know that people are going to say LA for the States, but would Shadows of Europe cover this sort of thing too?

I really shouldn't be thinking about this with the whole of next month tied up with NaNo...

Check out LA in Runner Havens. It's got everything you're looking for, right down to a Facebook / MySpace social networking system that some Runners actually take under the guise of reality stars.

I think you mean Corporate Enclaves, that's the book that goes in detail about LA including Horizons P2.0 social network. I'm running a LA based game and ravensmuse you have given me some good ideas for runs.

Bah. I KNEW I had the wrong book. Fabe is correct. Wish there was headware, I'd just copy all my PDFs to it. God bless digital formats..

And there was Shadowbeat (FASA 7109, ©1992)

“Shadowbeat is a sourcebook for use with the Shadowrun game system. In no particular order it describes rock and rockers, the popular media, journalism, and sports as they have come to be in the Sixth World, at least in North America.
Shadowbeat also provides rules and guidelines for players who want to get out there and make big nuyen and big trouble as rock stars, or who want to dig up the muck as crusading reporters. For those who like their violence gratuitous, there are complete descriptions of Urban Brawl and Combat Biker, which have never been explained until now.�

Just started a campaign with me using a pito feed, currently. It's a bit funny to run with a simrig on, but it seems to work. If nothing else, the GM has decided that since I'm so blatantly flamboyant with my magic and.. well, just blatantly flamboyant, I'm getting reasonable ratings to my livefeed for runs. Actually had the horizon johnson paying more because of it.

Shadowbeat sounds a bit like they converted over some CP2020 material. Not that it's a bad thing. But if you're interested in CP2020 conversions, you can probably find those around, possibly on the Plastic Warriors site. They've got all the Chromebooks converted, which include a good amount of gear for some kind of High Style game.

I just played through a one off LA P2.0 game and i have to admit that it was pretty damn fun. It's very workable to build up a game around the unreality present in the LA setting. It's definitely the place to bring back the pink mohawks and shoot for "over the top". Powerful people have used deniable assets to met out their petty rivalries since the dawn of time. LA just reasserts that mythos.

Okay, so add Corporate Enclaves in the list of books to read then.

Shadowbeat is a great book, but it's a little dated by now. Worth it for the reference material for the 50s though.

Gee, why do you not think this happens in RL already? soem regular judge is unavaiable for this week's reality show on Bravo and there is a stand it. Were the runners hired by someone looknig to torpedo the show or by the stand in's agent so he would get the gig?

Look at the nitwits being exposed to a high lifestyle -litterally- and the show needs you to get back that footage of their cute little innocent princess being not too innocent or maybe their he man guy in bed with a same sex partner- before it goes to the press.

Seriously, we do a lot of this stuff. In the game I mean.

Shadowbeat was awesome. I'm sure I'm not the only one excited about the 2070 update that Synner keeps teasing.

*sigh* I'm losing further geek credentials here, but you're not talking about the series finale of Project Runway, are you? Your situation is so close to what happened there it's scary.

Here's an idea I had this morning. In the 70s, you don't need camera crews any more. You've got simrigs and drones that you can run from a cozy little hotel room or trailer. People are bored of the same old same old - making them eat awakened bugs or hellcow penises or something, so let's give them something new.

Our new show will be called "Who Wants To Survive And Be Sirap Nothil's Best Friend?" and will be taped live in the middle of the Yucatan. The idolista wannabes will also be set up with simrigs (of course, Sirap already has one, hedonist that she is) for the prime Matrix release. People can tune in on the Matrix or simply wait for the edited "Director's Sim Release" sure to come out when the blood and fur has stopped flying.

Where do our runners fit in? Well, someone has to make sure that Sirap gets home to Daddy, but all those idolista's signed contracts...

Obviously the fix is to make them eat hell cow penis....

Still attached to the hellcow.

Pardon me while I wipe down my screen.

I think DLN was not thinking of Project Runway. J-lo pulled out as a judge saying her ankle hurt (yeah she sits on it?) but reports are she wanted more bucks than they were willing to pay. Knowing DLN's viewing habits I think she means on Top Chef when the usual celebrity chef (Collochio?) was suddenly unavailable and Anthony Bourdaine had to stand in. ( know about htis because she told me about it "did you see..." knowing I love Bourdain's style)

but as she's pointed out our crew had lots of runs like this. The early preprinted adventures with show biz themes-Mercurial, One Stage Before, Dark Angel, Queen Euphoria etc got us a rep in the show biz industry as trustable contacts when things go south. Covering up celebrity screw ups, body guard work, and extractions so we saw lots of high life stuff.

In one of our SR3-campaigns, one runner ended up an actress, and hired another runner to silence a critic.

In the current camapign, the whole team is involved in simsense productions, from special effects by magic to stunt jobs as well as straight simsense work.

Yeah, we had a serries of runs in the Chicago sim business, then freaking BUG City trashed the GM's long term plans.

We ran a few times in LA and my BTL scorched hacker "Ziggy" was an ex-porn sim technician. One of his contacts was an old director friend name Milo Wentz. Milo actually turned out to be an awesome contact because he logically had ties to the BTL trade, nightclubs and hot spots, organized crime, and legitimate entertainment industry icons.

Exactly. It's like 6 degrees of seperation. once you're 'in' there's lots of contacts and biz to grow. "Ya, know I think I got someone who can help with that problem, Met them when I has a similar prob. Sure I was leery but the guy who use to run set ups for Concrete Dreams vouched and they were as good as promised..."

That sounds like potential greatness (though I'm afraid they'll put the emphasis too much on WiFi stuff and Mary Sue inc. aka Horizon, and thus have mixed feelings about this).