Adventures in Journalism

[Agemegos]

Originally Posted by transmetahuman

Has anyone played a game where the PCs were a team of journalists?

I have. It was a non-interstellar SF game set on Earth in 2100, but we played it in about 1990, which was before we had any inkling of the changes that were going to hit journalism. We worked for a "newspaper" that distributed stories over a ubiquitous data network, on a subscription/micropayment model with a paywall. We had an "editor" who assigned us to and authorised our investigating stories.

Would you enjoy playing generally noncombatant investigative journalists?

I did, but the other players were mostly interested in the action/thriller aspect. The GM responded to their taste, I left the game, and very shortly afterwards it fell apart because no-one else would investigate.

____________

Heh!

(1) I still have the character sheet for the character I played in that.

(2) The character sheets in my character morgue seem to be sorted alphabetically by first name.

[Anthony]

A fairly standard model for adventure design is "Something weird happens, PCs poke it, things go downhill from there". It is useful to have PCs who are actually inclined to poke things, and journalists qualify. Journalists also have a job type that is convenient for odd hours.

[AlexanderHowl]

Journalists are often good for crime or corruption stories. They rank up there with PIs for noir stories, though they are less capable of dealing with violence.

[tshiggins]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

Journalists are often good for crime or corruption stories. They rank up there with PIs for noir stories, though they are less capable of dealing with violence.

Absolutely true. I rolled on a drug sweep once, out in Fort Morgan.

(Rural America has been plagued with meth for a very long time.)

I took pictures of the cops kicking the doors and charging in to arrest people, but I did it from 30 yards away while peeking around the side of the wall of a building.

The time I put a cop away, I did it after a tip from another cop and, while I knew the guy, I didn't go and talk to him, personally.

I just tried to call him on the phone for a comment.

[DAT]

Originally Posted by Agemegos

I have. It was a non-interstellar SF game set on Earth in 2100, but we played it in about 1990, which was before we had any inkling of the changes that were going to hit journalism. We worked for a "newspaper" that distributed stories over a ubiquitous data network, on a subscription/micropayment model with a paywall. We had an "editor" who assigned us to and authorised our investigating stories.



I did, but the other players were mostly interested in the action/thriller aspect. The GM responded to their taste, I left the game, and very shortly afterwards it fell apart because no-one else would investigate.

____________


Heh!

(1) I still have the character sheet for the character I played in that.

(2) The character sheets in my character morgue seem to be sorted alphabetically by first name.

Sounds like the Transhuman Space seed in Personnel Files 1.