Like the question says, I'm just wondering if there's an official cannon name for the Shadow Matrix in LA in any previously published material. Reason being my group is running in LA and I mostly just want it for flavour.

If there isn't one, I'm open to creative naming ideas, but if there's an official one I'd like to use it.

If there is one, it probably has it's own 'Trid show. *Shakes Head*

Fastjack actually based Jackpoint off of the Pito software

There are Shadowrunners in LA?


In-game, a good reason to not ever log onto it.

Yes, and they have their own 'Trid shows and have to keep their ratings up if they want to keep getting the good jobs.

Yeah... we've so far been mostly ignoring that part since our stuff has been too low key to really make the trid. That said this latest run might have caught some attention if the GM wants to introduce that crap to our game. We mostly went with LA for the rest of the interesting facts about the city, but it's certainly possible that we'll end up dealing with the camera drones sooner rather than later.

Nothing in any 4th Ed material about an LA Shadow Matrix. Give me a while to comb through Cal Free.
Speaking of which, if you are running in LA, I like to utilize the Mana Surge table in California Free State to give my Awakened players a sense of how messed up the mana count is in LA due to the academic war and the Lacuna and what not. If you don't want it on all the time, treat it like an Ozone warning.
"Careful out there today, magical kiddies, because the mana surge is really acting up this weekend. And here's Todd with sports."

Interesting thought. Unfortunately Cal Free State seems to be one of the books I don't have. Any chance anyone knows where that table might have been reproduced either officially or unofficially?

That's like saying reality TV and reality have something in common.

I said "Ratings". That doesn't have to do with reality so much as looking good for the camera.

You could be bad Shadowrunners tactically, but look good for the cameras in your actions and get the good jobs, while an expert Shadowteam that has zero charisma due to usage of "Practical but boring" tactics would not.

Well, that doesn't make you shadowrunners in the sense of the word, but shadowrunner posers who look good on the tube.

The only good "Reality" TV show that I ever liked was one on Spike TV a few years ago. The Joe Schmo show. Everybody but the Matt was an actor. It was a great show and if you can watch it, I would recommend it.

Welcome to LA, Chummer!

Pink mohawks in style in LA?

That's why I say there are no serious runners in LA. The omnipresent surveillance makes decent shadowruns near impossible anyway, and the most likely employer is iffy to say the least.

I'll be honest here - I'm the person you hate, because I watch a whole lot of them.

Some of them are honestly, really good documentary style work: True Life, I Used To Be Fat, Hoarders, Storage Wars, Real Police Women of X.

Some of them are so bad, they're entertaining: Toddlers and Tiaras, America's Next Top Model, Project Runway.

And then there's the ones that are so obviously fake, it's like watching a cartoon: All Wound Up, Bait Car.

Yes, I watch a whole lot of terrible television, but I do it for you. Maybe.

Hey, have fun with all of them. It's your right to watch what you want to watch. Though if you watch Teletubbies I would have to find you and... show you the error of your ways.

Like I was saying before. I know that a lot of people love those shows. I am not one of them. If you can get it, watch Joe Schmo. Yes, it is fake in that Matt is the only person that doesn't know what the heck is going on, but I found it all the more real for that.

You watch them for the same reason you post on Dumpshock. You're a masochist.

wouldn't any shadow websites extend to anywhere in the world? this is the matrix we're talking about here. I imagine you would still be able to post on shadowSEA, right?

Shadowland, yes, but I'd suspect everyone posting with an LA IP would be considered a poser there, by default, because almiost everyone is. LA's shadows ought to be the joke of the woirldwide shadows community, the way they whored themselves outt o Horizon.

The truth of it all.

Hey, maybe the Dumpshock Data Haven is based out of LA, because that would be the last place anyone would look for professional Shadowrunners and affiliates!

Hiding in plain sight, as it were? It's as good a theory as any I suppose. I'd like to think that there is actually a small community of really good runners in Cal Free that don't get broadcast because... well... they're good.

There's LA, and there's California. There is a major difference.

In LA, 'Running is a Reality Show. In the rest of California, it's business as usual. Except for when those idiots from LA come out of town and bring their camera crews... Then it's like a mirror image of Cops.

...

Actually, they'd be less likely to try to hide things from the camera than Cops would.

I'd think it's more like a season of "Survivor" where nobody actually lives to see the price. If you can trace their movements via live Matrix feed, you can ambush them good.

"This week on Survivor, New York's Central Park!"

No different than Survivor: Samoa. That had to really piss off Samoans. Surely there were a bunch of Tongans and Chimorans yelling off camera "There's a Olive Garden down the street!"

I think the survival part was dealing WITH the pissed off Samoans!

It certainly should have been.

Well, the only Samoan I know is the ADA of Guam and I don't think they're planning Survivor: Litigation any time soon.
Technically he's Chimoran, not Samoan, but then the joke makes less sense.

Survivor - Aral Desert, anyone? There's roaming bioweapons there.

Not true, you can do good shadowrunning in LA, you just have to have a dedicated camera hacker and be -very- good with disguises, and keep multiples. Potential employers don't just look at the ratings for your pito, they look at -who- is watching you, who your contacts are, how discreet you were with your filming, how well the objective was accomplished ect. You can do serious shadowrunning in LA it just requires a lot more effort than other places by way of disguise work.

I had one Shadowrunner go around LA dressed as Batman.

The group had to go rescue him.

From San Diego, which is now in Aztlan.

During ComiCon.

A good runner (or fixer, or other shadow type) would never display their contacts so that everyone who logs onto their pito profile can just read them. Otherwise, it's basically a to-do list for the cops. Contacts get arrested. Contacts rat you out. Camo won't help, then.

And with gait analysis software, pheromone scanners, facial and voice pattern recognition software, your pro runner needs to spend some 5 essence on the MBW and skillwires and facedance bioware alone to be able to have even a shot at camouflaging who he is (an agent comparing a runner's gait to all other feeds in the last few days is really cheap to come by and WILL get you). Not to mention pheromone scanners. Or technomancers.

Also, cops can and do use mass media. If you're running away from corpsec guns blaing and it's on a feed, expect an ambush (actually, expect several, because wannabes trying to cash in on your run and take your MacGuffin of the day can, too). If there is none your GM is a weenie.

Oh, and isn't there an AI who lives in LA's CCTV system?

Sorry, I don't see how this can work unless the GM cuts the group a LOT of slack. It's a dead setting. runs there are staged for entertainment purposes. Runners there are posers by nature.


ComiCon San Diego still exists?

There are still a lot of Barrens in the LA area. San Berdu, San Fernando Valley, Panoma. Plenty of places that aren't on display 24/7. I wouldn't recommend breaking into West Hollywood with an Ares Roadmaster, but scoring some Joshua Tree talisma in the Barrens from some dope fiend dealer is a run that's doable.
Or even a run where you need to get some dirt on a starlet in a club. An all social run could be fun.
There are plenty of options in LA. I wouldn't call it a dead setting, just not your normal one.

I had them make it Year-Round, a major tourism attraction that brings in the by the truckload.

My group was... Less than pleased. And failed their Legwork miserably, trying to brute force the situation badly, and... Bah, it was a bad adventure from the word go, actually, a failure on my part as well as I threw it together in an hour when my previous plan went through my head and I went, "That's total drek.", and came up with this idea.

A runner who is recorded and maybe even identified as what they are is dead. Not as in "killed", but as in "can't work in that business anymore"; at least unless they spend money remodeling their face, and then lots of time identifying themselves again to their contacts. A social run indeed is fun, but not if it effectively ruins the character for future jobs.

And those Barrens are not on display? Did you miss that the number 1 team sport in SR basically came to being because a gang war happened in a place where the Barrens were being filmed? Gang violence, live on screen, probably is great goosebumps material fopr the wage slave masses, so they won't go out too much and leave the fold of mother corp.

Not saying LA cannot be used in some ways. But it'S not a setting where you can base a recurring group. That'd be easier in, say, Tir na nOg.


Fair enough, Aztech totally could do that.

And, boy, was my group ever pissed off when they had to deal with obscure parking laws and Policía that "no hable inglés".

One thing they didn't find out about was the whole truckloads of Long Haul that was coming into the city, along with all the power drinks and such to keep the 'Con goes going as long as their vacations lasted.

I always envision Aztlaner police like the French police nationale, a combination of black uniforms, love of using their bations, and casual arrogance to anyone who adresses them in the wrong language. So yeah. I can imagine.

AZT remembers it's roots as a Narco-Terror Gang Money Laundering Corporation.