While fiddling with the finetuning of the new cyberpunk2020.de page, I was wondering how blogging and other new ways to publish stuff would affect playing a Cyberpunk Media today.
Media was never a really popular choice in our games, because you were dependend on an publisher. You needed the space in a screamsheet or some time on the telly to tell your truth to the public . But it was usually rather hard to pass some dirty truth past the eyes of an editor-in-chief, especially if you wanted to go life nationwide.
But now there is blogging. During the G8-Summit german bloggers showed that they could transport news faster then classic media and correct errors the big networks made. This replaces newspapers. Podcasting replaces the radio. Now Indiskretion Ehrensache (a german blog) showed us that you can even do your own television show on the internet, without big money or an editor behind you.
So the Media has three ways to bring his message across:
- hack a satellite link
- sell your story to the big money
- move public attention to your blog/podcast/internet tv show
1. is the most classic netrun of the genre, almost boring. Can involve a techie
2. may or may not work, could involve a fixer or corporate
3. Again a netruner might be helpful
Anyway, it gives the media much more choice, loads of fresh new adventure ideas and a creditable background for him/her to hang with other ‘punks instead of brownnosing his editor-in-chief…
Aye, Medias were never popular… Hard to integrate into the typical team, and Credibility isn’t that useful to solve an actual adventure. Most often, you can accomplish the same if you have a NPC contact who you can pass on the discriminating story. The ground crew in its arm-chair isn’t an exciting role to play.
However, I guess that blogging isn’t that powerful in by-thebook-CP2020. NetWatch is pretty powerful in regards of rights alone, and the net isn’t much crowded with other audience than full-blown Netrunners.
(I’ve decided to answer to English entries in English as well… After all, they’re aimed towards an international audience, and I don’t want to exclude anyone.)
Thanks Skyrock,
I guess that you would have to rethink the ‘net on what we know of the Internet today. And that would mean, that virtually everybody is online. Not only netrunners.
Creditability comes into play if you need to get a witness to speak or if the adventure is based on moving (utilizing) the public for your goals. A mob of 20.000 angry customers can even frighten Arasaka…
Depends on how you use the net setting: Most update it to make it feel more recently.
However, I’m one of the few who prefer it retro as by the book – cartoonish NES-style graphics, BBSs mostly visited by local tech freaks, expensive long distance links, and based in no real computer science.
In the first case, sure, blogging is an interesting option, but what I want to point out is that blogging wouldn’t be that effective in the latter case.
And sure, Credibility has some more uses, but mostly it is a SA for arm-chair operations that can as well be left to NPCs. The only flashy direct action thing about it is the usage of the press pass to get into places where you wouldn’t be allowed normally, and even that can also be accomplished by everyman skills as Disguise or Persuasion.
You are probably right. But I’m looking for ways to make a media fun to play. A living a public live, always blogging what you are doing (right now people blog while they read the new harry potter book) IS interesting to play.
If you play the net by the book, its much like playing a Jule Verne-style universe – an old fashioned vision of a future that already happened. Not MY style. So I have to figure out a way to use the rules to play a rethought cyberpunk future, which works surprisingly good. The blogger-media is just one aspect of it.