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sanctusmortis
I was inspired by a few of the sample missions I'd seen in the various major books (extractions of sports stars, Zoe in SSG...) and Big Brother came on. This led me to think: what would Reality TV be like in the SR setting? After all, the reality TV bug only really hit post SR3, and so it's not really been covered. So, in a nod to certain SLA entertainments, I've been coming up with a few.

*Survivor: Big Brother - a melding of two old reality TV stalwarts, S:BB pits two teams of competitors against each other. One team is sent out into the Sprawl, to integrate themselves into it and hide out. The other team has to hunt them down; they have the methods of search anyone would have, which basically amounts to hunting down a source of info on the streets, surveillance cameras and clues fed to them by the show's producers. The people in hiding have their wits, 100:nuyen: a week, their phones (for their reports; see below), and more hints from the producers.

Every week, three members of each team are voted by the public to be put through a "trial" - a game of cat and mouse where the 2 people who do the worst leave the show. For example, if one "investigator" manages to hunt all three "quarry" down, his fellow 2 investigators would leave as they were totally ineffective. As all 3 of the quarry had been found they would not go, but if one had escaped the other 2 would be going.

As following the quarry with cameras would make capture too easy, every day they each have to call in and leave messages for the investigators. The location from which the call is made is given to the investigators as their small clue of the day, and a further clue is given later. The quarry are tagged so that producers can create the clues that have to be earned, and the clues they earn inform them of where the investigators are looking for them currently or of someone (planted, of course) who can help them hide further. Of course, tied to all these clues are tasks, and it is on these tasks viewers are supposed to judge who they want to be put to trial. Of course, this isn't what people really judge them on at all, and so someone really good at their task but who people just don't like may be as likely to be up as the most useless member of each team.

The interest for Runners is simple: some of the contestants really do "blend in"; they shed their tags and become truly one of the people of the Sprawl, doing Runs for cash and such. The producers aren't keen on this, and as such excuses have to be made or even filled in for. The producers may hire Runners to find a "quarry" and bring them back to be filmed as being eliminated, or even ask Runners to put in their daily reports and masquerade as them. As obviously the quarry voices are voicemasked to preserve their identity (otherwise, Sprawl denizens would just sell them out or even kidnap them), it's not like anyone would know. On the other side of the coin, like Zoe from SSG some of them get attached to their new life and ask Runners to help them exit the show without anyone knowing.

*Trid Idol: every year thousands of Trid star wannabes enter this talent competition to be hired by a major Trid film company and star in their products. The auditions are quite humiliating, and the judges can be quite scathing.

Often, contestants who are voted off the show try to enact vengeance on the show and other contestants; indeed, it hasn't been unknown for someone to hire people to eliminate competition or try to "persuade" the judges...

Those are just two quick ideas (seriously, I added to the first as I thought of it); what other types of reality TV can you imagine, and how could you incorporate players in them?
Aku
i could definately see something like "running man" i think it was being used, where convicts are offered release, if they're they last of a bunch to survive, everyone else gets released as well... to death.
Trax
The Running Man sounds more like something the Aztlan would do, since they already use convicts and such in their sports to the death. And isn't Dessert Wars considered reality tv?
John Campbell
Here's one:

Real Survivor.

There's a corporate-owned (read "no laws apply") Pacific island, unpopulated save for critters - including an unusually high concentration of moderately dangerous paracritters - and the entire place is wired for vid, trid, and sound. Every so often, a dozen contestants, ordinary citizens, are dropped in, naked and with nothing. At the end of the game period, or when there's only one contestant left, a million nuyen is evenly divided between any survivors.

Disabling the cameras is grounds for immediate disqualification. There are no other rules.
Req
Doesn't Street Survival Guide have a reference to the show Survivor: Renraku Arcology in its section on trid shows?

Along with my personal favorite, Hard Corps: They're company cops. They're lovers. Can they save the world without having their secret discovered? All my players make sure to mention that if they're home from a run, they're watching the Corps - ever since that one unwilling extraction when it was on the target's trid set. nyahnyah.gif

(note: show description paraphrased, didn't bring SSG to work today.)
Nyxll
from what I could gather from the source books I have read, instead of cameras and video, it will be mainly simsense.

I would imagine that the most intense shows would be a "mage duals" and some undercover ops. I cannot see home renovations being in a huge demand like they are now, since you would be able to buy debbie travis skill softs. slot your queer eye fashion sense skillsoft in the morning and when you go shopping. Oddly enough I see shows that give hope of a brighter future. (something like the movie the truman show)

By then they will probably have tried to set up an international mars station, and you can be there via simrigs signals that the astronaught's beam back.
ShadowDragon8685
"Who wants to be a Shadowrunner", the Reality Game Show. smile.gif



What you do is you take 20 ordinary people who may have no cyber other than a datajack and any biofilters, no bioware, and in the case of the mage (they always get a minimum of one per season,) no spells that are classified as illeagal. They are armed with permits for anything they can get their hands on, their SINs flagged as dead, and released into the sprawl.

Release them into the sprawl to survive. Every week and a half, the survivors are rounded up and put through a 'Millionare' style quiz show. The worst loser is released from the show. The company behind it charges them a 5,000 nuyen.gif SIN reactivation fee. If they don't cough up, tough cookies. The rest walk with whatever money they won, and may select any equipment they can ask for. (Incentive to have researched stuff.) This includes any bio and cyber. The company installs it all, and takes the Nuyen.

Every week, the company arranges a 'Shadowrun' for the team. Usually it's a bulldrek run, and often it's a competitive sport - such as getting an objective or an extraction done before the others. Sometimes they put out a hit on one of the contestants.


The possibilities for this game abound. The runners can interact with the show's contestants, they can hire them on (and yes, any friends you make on the street are allowed to be used in the game,) they can join with them, etcetera. They can try to sabotage a hated team, or to help a favored underdog. One of the contestants might want another to meet with an 'accident' in a dark alley, or he might want to be extracted from the show. A failed contestant might want the runners to reactivate his SIN, or get some vengeance on the producers.
Edward
Tasmania has been suggested for a criminal survivor show, the camera drown budget however would be steep.

One way to get the first suggestion on the trid would be to rule that the contestants must work as a teem of 3 and install simsense recorders including transmitters in each of them

Edward
Ancient History
Two Words: Blood Sports.
Nyxll
actually ... I bet you reality TV shows like a day in the life of a dragon or simsense progs that let you feel like a dragon would be huge. (Who wants to be a dragon) would be a hit. Lifestyles of the rich and immortal.

what other spoofs?
ShadowDragon8685
I think A: No dragon would want to get cybered, even if they have the essense to spare, and B: No dragon would be desperate enough (or could even be offered enough,) to get cybered like that.


And would Simsense even be compatable with Dragon physiology? And even if it is, would it be compatable enough for human brains to process it?
Ancient History
I can picture Lofwyr, in human form, doing a Deutsch Hugh Hefner impression: bathrobe, silk pajamas, slippers, pipe.

"This is Helga, she'll be taking care of my needs tonight. Heidi and Hildagarde are getting ready for later. Tomorrow, I move on to the 'I's..."
ShadowDragon8685
AH: You forgot the big beer stein. smile.gif
Nyxll
I was thinking that it doesn't necessarily have to be recorded in a dragon.
of course no dragon would get a simrig recorder installed. I didn't mean it that way....
I figured that they would be able to somehow generate the sensations with technology.
Kind of how they oversample emotions, magic and sensations with btl.
Ancient History
"You ain't you. You can't be you. There ain't no comin' back. This is the really-real world and there ain't no comin' back."
--J. O'Barr, The Crow

YOu don't need full-blown implants. They have portable rigs, y'know.

Faking sensoriums realisitically is difficult. It would require at least an SK, possibly an AI to handle truly alien sensoriums or those not experienced by anyone before.

Lofwyr doesn't need no steenking bear mug. He pops the cap off a keg and chugs it, then squashes the empty against his forehead.

[/edit]Otherwise, when it's time for Lofwy'rs big love scene, the director slaps sim-rigs on his pet iguanas and amps the signal ratings to the max. Might be fun for Scalies (like furries, but for dragons), but the rest of the population might find itself a bit miffed at not getting the Real Deal.
ShadowDragon8685
Loffy's in germany. Of COURSE he needs a stein. A keg-sized stein, to be sure, with authentic ceramic and pewter, but a stein. smile.gif
DocMortand
*chuckle* How about Deus's hidden files? Perhaps part of his amusements was the filming of the running of the people during the shutdown...who would make it next? Would the runner team die against the plethora of Medusa, or in the midst of the Labyrinth...

Then it could be released in the underground under fictitious titles with various copyrightable references video editted...instant "Big Brother"!

*evil chuckle*

[edit] Why? It's one way to raise money for his lackeys in preparation for the Big Crash....
Ancient History
QUOTE (The Gospel According to Lofwyr)
Yea, and the Stein was made from the bones of a thousand Shadowrunners, ground to dust and mixed with clay from the Eifel mountains and water from the Rhine, to signify the extant of his Dominance over Europe. It was inlaid with bands of gold and orichalcum to Lofwyr's design, and baked in a kiln heated by the dragon's own breath. Dwarves toiled for an Year and a Day, to carve and paint the fine scenes of the Dragon consuming Beowulf. And Lo, it was placed upon the mantle, that all may see and marvel at it.
mattness pl
In Corporate Shadowfiles there was something about "Red Alley" - illegal show. Rumor was it's backed by Renraku.

I've been read this years ago and correct me, if I'm wrong
Drraagh
Not sure how popular this one was when it was released, because I only saw it at a movie sale, but Series 7 : The Contenders. It's a movie about a reality TV show.

Basically, the movie is a reality TV show where people get chosen by a lottery to compete in the game. And it's kill or be killed.

Then, as I mentioned in the Shadowrun :Survivor thread, there's also taking the Cube movies and turning them into a survival challenge. Basically giving the people their bread and circuses, to keep them happy; or ,maybe just rather fat and passive.

Which makes me wonder, when corps control the airwaves, would they not try some subliminal advertising? I don't know how many people have played Paranoia...

Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Snow_Fox
The Amazing Race will probably still keep going but with more corporate product placement and possibly other corps' made to look bad- such as if a Japano-corp runs it a session through the less savory parts of Vladavostok or maybe showing the people in CFS happy with the Imperial troops.

or

to point out one of the last episodes of the Christopher Eccleston run as Dr Who: "You ARE the weakest link, goodbye" BANG
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