 June 18, 2010 - 2:13pm | Whether an adventurer is skirting the edge of the law or famous for discovering new cultures or defeating a Sathar horde, advertisers might be clamouring to get the characters' endorsements. This would be a great way for them to earn some cash during their travel between the stars. For the days and weeks of travel, they could be making product endorsements and sending them via subspace. Even characters who aren't yet famous could make "money from home" by making layman endorsements and working other types of online jobs between the stars via subspace. How would such a mechanic be handled to earn the characters a little extra cash on their way between assignments? View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
 June 18, 2010 - 4:38pm | I'd think the characters would have to actively play to the media to get endorsements. Think Steve Fosset, he had to engage the media for his round the world balloon flights, then he faded from view. They didn't chase him and he didn't endorse any products. But then maybe he didn't need the $ from product endorsements. Think of the two scientists in the movie Twister. One was really making the science and discovery happen, the other was playing the media. Combat heroes are commonly unknown and their fame more applied to the actor that plays them in the movie some time later. The old age of discovery adventurers that climbed Everest, reached the poles, crossed the Atlantic/Pacific by plane, etc., tended to be showmen as well. Think Lindburg and Amelia Earhart. I'm having a hard time thinking of the adventurer / hero type that was also the endorsement type that didn't have the showman gene in his DNA. I suppose there is the angle where the heroes are used for propaganda by the government(s) and pressed into endorsements by agents, their bosses, and such but that soon fades if the character doesn't join in and become a showman as well because the media goes on to the next thing. This would be fun to do in a campaign though. It could be a real pain for the characters and some round the table fun for the players to have a character be the journalist following the group around for the scoop and action to keep them famous. The agent or editor could be hassling the players all the time to one up the other guys. -iggy |
 June 19, 2010 - 2:30pm | "Streel Corporation's MK-300 Laser Rifle, the weapon used by the 2nd Zebulon Expedition team to liberate Volturnus." One can easily see how it would work... BTW Steve Fossett didn't fade from view, he crashed his plane and nobody found the body for half a year. |
 June 19, 2010 - 9:02pm | I'm using a member of the Serrena Dawn crew (as an NPC) rescued by the Ul-mor but suffering from dehydration when the PC's meet them. He thinks he's the next great Frontier Author- his novellization of the events surrounding the Second Volturnus Survey Mission will get made into a holo vid. It will portray him as the hero and minimize the PC's contributions even merging the 2 yazirian's in the party into 1 character (opportunity for someone to declare Blood enemy over that!) Lots of opportunity for NPCs to ask stupid questions of the PCs after that :) I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 21, 2010 - 12:15pm | BTW Steve Fossett didn't fade from view, he crashed his plane and nobody found the body for half a year.  I know he's dead, but my point was in life he was not sold like Michael Jordan. The media does not have the patience for adventurers when it has sports stars, movie stars, and ___stars. Product endorsements for adventurers are limited. My mind keeps taking me back about 100 years to the our last age of adventure to find independent adventures that caught the lime light. And they all were a bit of a showman to do it. I'm not saying characters can't do it. I'm saying It's won't be free money and they will have to work at it. Another idea, during a time of all encompassing conflict a few Earnie Pyle type reporters will pop up. -iggy |
June 21, 2010 - 1:53pm | I was just thinking about Charles Hadden Spurgen who was called the Prince of Preachers, with a church in London that numbered into the 1000's and powerful influence during his life (well even in death as he's still widely read), he gave up smoking the day he saw a billboard that read, "White Owl Cigars, the cigar Spurgen smokes!" Sort of a celebrity endorsement but at a time when people could use your name and not pay you for it. BTW the biggest money maker every year of all the dead celebrities is Albert Einstien- he's bigger even than elvis (as per 60 minute episode from last night on the agency that represents dead celebs) the Baby Einstien brand name pays huge money to a college in Israel. James Dean is still making money for his family who are farmers somewhere. You can expect M. Jackson to be the next hot dead celeb endorsement. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
June 21, 2010 - 4:45pm | Next? He already has been huge in the media since he died. Suddenly everyone that was holding a pitchfork for the man who sleeps with young boys are holding candles to his memory. Thanks for the ideas, guys. Any thoughts on how it would be pursued by a character? How a Referee would fit it into a campaign, and what the player would need to do? Mechanics? View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
June 21, 2010 - 9:25pm | Well the famous adventurer could sell the rights to the story: that seems to be pretty standard even for those who only got their 15 minutes of fame. Its not a Jump Boots endorsement per se but would be a lump sum payment of creds though evil GMs would just have to find a way to mess with the players over that by maybe not having their treatment on the holo vid be exactly what they were expecting. Or.... they get the pitch to go on this little info-tainment reality show for a nice little sum of money by then thing take a left turn and adventure ensues. Of course its all caught on camera and it leads to even more "celeb endorsements" I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 June 21, 2010 - 9:31pm | Iggy's Twister movie is a good analogy. There is an old movie called The Electric Horseman that is another good analogy. This link has more details about it. |
June 22, 2010 - 3:21am | Suddenly everyone that was holding a pitchfork for the man who sleeps with young boys are holding candles to his memory. I'll just keep my pitchfork honed to a razor's edge, thank you very much. Had I been given the opportunity, I'd have peed into his propofol (25ml in a single dose, on top of all those other meds...what the hell was he thinking anyways?!?) Although there was a CIA cover up to the whole event: Michael Jackson actually died twenty years ago. It was only last year that his body finally caught up to his career. |
June 22, 2010 - 12:02pm | I hadn't thought about the dead fame line of things. That would be cool to pull on a group that looses a character in a heroic save the party encounter or such. Have the character's family cash in on it and everywhere they go they see him on holo-billboards. When they meet people they are always interested in stories about the old character and not them. Then when Star Play puts out the holo series the character is always portrayed as "ACE-Rimmer" and they are always portrayed as just Rimmer types.  Or, when the party finally defeats their arch rival have his super model widow cash in on him. Then every where they go they see their past enemy portrayed as the good guy and used to endorse so much stuff that they can not even buy the popular clothing lines because they have his moniker on them. -iggy |
 June 22, 2010 - 2:31pm | If you need to remove the "fame" credits from your players just give them a manager like TLC had pre-bankruptcy. Contract law can be fun. :) -LZ |
June 22, 2010 - 2:53pm | On a related note, I have used PC fame against them in terms of gaming encounters. For example: players that are plowing through the Frontier with their inherited Gullwind will occasionally run into leftover former MalCo ops or pirates who have "fond memories"... But I do like the twists you can do with PC endorsements, especially those that can get misinterpreted or redefined. |
 June 23, 2010 - 3:56am | How would you sort this out in game; would you have a 'renown score' that pc's build up over time and can cash in for media opportunities, vip treatment, etc. Or would you just treat it fairly arbitrarily, sort of like a campaign sub-plot? |
June 28, 2010 - 6:35pm | A 'renown score' mechanic would be the traditional role-playing route. But what would be the mechanics for determining money earned from endorsements. And remember, these endorsements don't have to be based on fame. They can simply be every-man endorsements. Companies like to get the opinions of the man-on-the-street who actually uses a product. For adventurers, these would be adventuring products. People make decent money as professional endorsers. You'll see their endorsements all over websites, magazines, and television commercials. companies send them free goods to try out and sometimes a little cash on top. This could help pay for the party's equipment and such. How do you all think that could be worked out, mechanics-wise? You can't just give the party free equipment and weapons (Unless you can?), they have to earn it in some way. View my profile for a list of articles I have written, am writing, will write. "It's yo' mama!" —Wicket W. Warrick, Star Wars Ep. VI: Return of the Jedi "That guy's wise." —Logray, Star Wars Ep.VI: Return of the Jedi Do You Wanna Date My Avatar? - Felicia Day (The Guild) |
June 29, 2010 - 2:43am | Billy Mays was definitely an "every-dralasite"... |
June 29, 2010 - 9:13am |
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June 29, 2010 - 1:21pm | If you go with a renown score, PC's could 'cash in' some of those points for long-term exclusive contracts with a supplier, or a 'one-time' deal. They'd be a bit like experience points, but harder to get and harder to keep. If the PC's did something a little bit dodgy, I could imagine those companies wanting their stuff back, probably hiring some other renowned adventurers to get it back, lol! |
June 30, 2010 - 10:32am | I'd say the renown points should age as well. So a player that doesn't use them will loose them over time. Not so fast that they totally go away. Maybe something like 1/2 or 1/3 of unused points are lost so the result is that the fame fades but doesn't go away. There would need to be some interval when ageing occurs. Also, a player keeps track of total points earned and spent. So, the spent and aged points are not deducted from the total but rather tallied against it. This total would only go down when negative renown points are awarded for doing the wrong things. That way a player may find his character one day in the quandary where he has spent more points than he currently is worth and that reflects resentment in society. Just some ideas to bash around. -iggy |
June 30, 2010 - 11:23pm | The only time I used endorsements in a game was for Street Fighter the Storytelling Game. Mind you, this game setting was a stupid joke, so when I told the "troupe" (party) that their team's "stable" (the organization who pays their way) was a tampon company, they where not all that surprised by this, even though it was a team made up of mostly men. This was because the players wanted to play the setting as-is, without knowing how stupid the setting really is, and that I would made the setting far from the arcade backstory they enjoyed (this was the result of the hack-job done on the film), so I throw-out the Stable as a protest. After that, I told them that the game did not follow the original canons, and how I would handle the setting. I did not like how The Tournaments was handled like a highly organized set of events (like the Olympics or something), with special rankings and endorsements (did Ryu ever sellout like that?), and how they were tacked-on the end of every adventure. I like the adventures to focus more on Double Dragon and 70's Blaxploitation-styled action, and when I use tournaments, I play it out like the underground bouts you see in the movies - like Enter the Dragon. I also did not like how Shadowloo was a powerful and insidious criminal underworld with their fingers in every and all things. I like to use more localized criminal groups to keep things down to earth. The players kinda like the ideas I was throwing-out, and the adventures went quite well without all of the overreaching meta-plots. (sorry for going off-topic like this) |
