 September 6, 2012 - 5:35am | The conversation in another thread got me thinking about this one what does the news media look like in the Frontier Certainly not newspapers as we remember them though an outpost or light population world might just have a local newspaper that gets circulated. Medium and High population worlds will be more modern and futuristic in how news is disseminated. Classic newspapers in the real world are discovering that their old business model needs to evolve to survive and move to a online electronic format in someway and I beleive this will be the case in the Frontier. In fact the Frontier has holo news. I remember one sci-fi setting where the author talked about news faxes- and I'm envisioning the news paper and print journalism evolving to fax news articles to your chronocom to keep you upto date. Holo news might would be more immersive and possibly interactive- allowing you to experience some of what the camera "man" experienced while he was filming- commercials will seek to stimulate the view in new ways How long before the news anchors have product placement with a can of coke at their elbow like some Reality gameshow judge? honest to goodness books wont disappear (they'll just get older and more expensive) but libraries will become electronic and experienced by VR headsets where you can sellect a Victorian looking library and browse the shelves pulling out VR books and read them before checking out that book by down loading it to your comp or chronocom. Of course that will be the death knell for the free lending library as all of that has to be paid for and they only one's using the library will be those with credits to do so. I think the FNN (Frontier News Network) site is still up somewhere on the web and this is a pretty good fan creation. I'd love to talk to the fan that created that sometime if he's still active in the community. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 6, 2012 - 8:03am | In my campaign we use more of a 'tv news' approach. I'll generally have a couple of news reports written out before a session, and at some point the PCs pass by a video screen - in a markeplace, a tavern, etc. and there will be a reporter reporting some event. I don't go the whole paper route for pretty much anything since my kids can't really relate to that. I treat is as though local media do live broadcasts, and affiliates transmit their news reports similar to an AP wire, but via subspace radio packets throughout the frontier. I never saw the frontier news network site until now. What a gem! In my campaign, the PCs met a lot of reporters after Volturnus, when they got waylaid by reporters on the return to White Light. So now I have reporters they have met posting reports from time to time. And just like the current news situation where one has to choose between left wing or right wing propaganda, all the different news agencies in our campaign have bias based on who funds them. The active news agencies (and their leanings) in our campaign are: Pan-Galactic Holo-News (PGHN) – From "Dark Side" UPF Gazette – PRO-UPF – looking for patriotic anti-worm angle Corporate Interest Magazine – Pro Corporate (Streel) |
September 6, 2012 - 11:11am | Wow, great material OFO! I may have to rip it off, or twist your arm till you write a submission. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
September 6, 2012 - 11:27am | No arm twisting necessary. Steal away. I made up all the organizations besides PGHN which was from the SF module. I sort of tried to emulate the current news culture here-everyone has an angle. I have a few reporters with names that the PCs in my campaign have met. I actually got the idea from a SPICA Traveller book called "Allies, Contacts, Enemies and Rivals". There is an enemy contact in the book who is a paparazzi that is convinced the PCs are up to something and he is going to be there when it goes down. From there I decided that the Sathar war on Zebulun would be big news in the Frontier, so why wouldn't reporters flock to where the scoop was? I wanted to have the PCs interact with this paparazzi guy, so I stuck him in with the reporter pool on a cruise liner called "The Ambassador" for which I used the Truane's Express deck plans. I figured Star Play would get a publicity coup by giving the "Heroes of Volturnus" free passage from Prenglar back to White Light. The PCs got to mingle with the rich and famous, get pestered by reporters, and survive an assassination attempt. |
September 6, 2012 - 11:35am | Here's the reporters for the organizations: Candace Tyson – UPF Gazette – PRO-UPF – looking for patriotic anti-worm angle. Patience Preston – Frontier Free Press – Conspiracy Angle – Anti Corp/Govt Malcolm Donovan – Corporate Interest Magazine – Pro Corp (Streel) Emilia Warren – Cassidine Star – Investigative – REAL DEAL – ALLY I had the PCs give the information tracing the Star Devil's involvement to the Truane's Star government (found in the pirate base slave city one) to a councilman from the Truane's Star government. The PCs didn't know that he was in on it. So Emilia Warren - who I think of Lois Lane when roleplaying - interviewed the PCs and they gave her a copy of the data from which she took the councilman and several others down. So now I plan to use her as a contact for the PCs and for plot hooks later.
I'm not sure how I would structure ANY of this for a submission to FE but would be willing if I could twist your arm for some guidance |
September 6, 2012 - 12:49pm | Well OFO, if i was Perry White handing out assignments to staff writers and artist I would say the proprer treatment would be 2 or perhaps 3 paragraphs of blah blah introducing the topic of news media in the Frontier then a paragraph on each of your news agencies with a logo for each like the ones in Zebs guide for the mega corps and since you named reporters then a stat block and back ground for each (actually I don think a stat block is required but people expect it so...) tag a character portrait to each reporter (commission that artist that did the character portraits in that Mooks article in issue #1). Finallywrite up a list of plot hooks/ adventure seeds involving the reporters ( Dark Side of the Moon had the PCs being hired by a news agency IIRC or at least it did the way my referee ran it). perhaps even an adventure outline involving a reporter. I think all of the above would round out a submission such that it would provide a referee with enough material to get rolling and it would meet my unofficial view of the FE's mission to explore the Frontier and shine more light on unexplorered corners. I'd brief my staff reporters on what I remember from the GASLIGHT rpg about including a reporter in a party and PCs only get exp if the reporter sees what they did and reports on it when he gets back to civilization, if he's kept too close to the forefront of action he could get killed and would report nothing thus the PCs dont get any exp but if he's kept too safe the PCs can't earn EXP for their actions. (GASLIGHT is a beer and prezels 1880's ish steampunk rpg and wargaming system). at any rate the inovative news reporter EXP system was optional and something to think on. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
 September 6, 2012 - 2:19pm | I handle media almost like modern Earth, but teched-out. There are a number of local holo-vid news outlets with their own angle on things, but Pan-Galactic is the biggest, with carriers on all established systems, and they have a network of subspace radios to transmit their programing. They maintain the illusion of objective journalism, but are pro-PGC straw-men. On the other hand, books and news papers have been replaced by E-books, and that is not a problem. Today, newspaper outlets are dying out, and writers and publishers dont know how to deal with E-books, but in Star Frontiers, they figured that out long ago. You can buy books at a "Book Store" terminal, get a temporary copy at a "Library" terminal, and you can even print-out copies on whatever they use for paper. A wide range of news print subscriptions are also available for download. Electronic media is ideal of spacers, as data weights virtually nothing (unless you are such a bean-counter, you would count all the electrons needed to hold the data), and takes up vary little space. It is not unusual to have a ship's databanks full of E-books, movies, pictures, video games, and so on. I can also imagine the blurring of movies and video games in the form of theatrical choose-your-own-adventure books (set-up so you can make choices as you watch, or watch without interruptions, with preset settings). That is, a movie with replay value, and multiple endings. |
 September 6, 2012 - 3:48pm | Great ideas! Perhaps we could all contribute to a "D100 News Reports", much like the d100 Starport Layovers table. Fairly generic reports that help make the Frontier come alive for players. Check Issue #7 for news from; The Frontier Tribune, Pan Galactic Gazette, Zebulon Free Press, Star Law Times, Frontier Wide Sports Telecom. All part of Inter-Galactic Wireless. Another idea is to use current events to fuel ideas.
"Damali Obamma Faces Another Defining Moment - After two successful addresses at past Clarion Royal International Conventions, the president of Dia-Tech hopes to go three-for-three tonight as he makes his case for re-election into the House of Commons." (Inspired by msn.com front page) Triad News 7 "Several teenagers arrested yesterday for dressing up in sathar costumes and storming a public library. More at 11." Star Law Times "We can confirm Lari Moor has been given unilateral support from from the UPF and FEF (Frontier Expedition Force) to take the latest high-tech explorer-scout class ship past Snowball for an excercise were calling "Silent Run". Sorry folks, that's all I can say at this time." - Reporting live from PORT LOREN/GRAN
QUIVERA/PRENGLER |
 September 7, 2012 - 9:55pm | @ Malcadon, I think your handling of the HOW is great. I would probably do the same thing. The game has the chronocom to begin with. I always envisioned it as a universal Dick Tracy watch. But the way things have changed, it is easily transfered into a tablet form or something like our smart-phones. I love paper books the best, but I don't mind reading things on an e-reader. I feel like I am in a sci-fi novel just doing it anyway. |
September 8, 2012 - 12:29am | @Karxan: I hate reading books from a (convectional) computer screen, but if I had a hand-held or tablet computer, it would not be so bad. I can carry tons of files on a card smaller then a fingernail, the screens are easier to read from now, I don't have the hassle of book-spines (with thick books, you have to push the pages apart to read the texts near the spine, and sometimes pages give way to your thumb as you are reading), and you can adjust the font size. And yeah, they are vary much like something only dreamt-up on an old sci-fi novel (then again, the screen saver was first featured in Heinlein's Stranger in a Strange Land, back in 1961). As for futuristic paper books, they have been working on a type of plastic film that can hold images of whatever you wish to read or look at. Such "E-paper" can be bound like a book (with a hard-drive in the spine), and be semi-textured to give it the feel of real paper. On top of displaying text and images, you can even load animated .GIFs or equivalent (imagine the newspapers in Harry Potter, with all the animated photos--but then again, we have been working on real-life invisibility clocks). I think I seen an anime (?) with a guy places the top of a blank newspaper into an ATM-like terminal, and articles flowed-down the sheets like Play-Doh out of a spaghetti-maker. That was cool! |
September 8, 2012 - 5:41pm | I actually put the StarFrontiersman onto my smart phone and even though it was small it make a great reader. I want to get something bigger eventually. The thing with books though is the smeel of old paper. I like it. Maybe I should have been a librarian but that would bore me. I like the e-paper idea, I am going to look that up. I think for Star Frontiers though a handheld reader tablet would fit nice into the game. |
 October 1, 2012 - 11:20pm | Yeah, I have handheld readers, sort of like the old Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. Books & magazines come like an SD card, and you plug them into your reader. I've tried to avoid giving the Frontier an internet per se, and so you can't exactly "download" stuff in the game. The Osakar have a type of wireless planetary communications network, but it works differently. I also use the FNN! A lot of my media ideas were inspired by Heinlein. Tri-Dee sets tend to disguise themselves as other things when not in use, like aquariums. |
October 2, 2012 - 5:35am | Tri-Dee sets tend to disguise themselves as other things when not in use, like aquariums. that's a great idea, I had a pastor who had an aquarium in his office and he had ripped the front off a TV and mounted it on his aquarium so that looking at the aquarium was like watching TV. Pretty cool effect- i think the aquarium was his "this keeps me sane hobby" There is a possibility there for a game hook- the office computer is accessed through the tri dee interface except the PCs only see an aquarium and cant find the computer they are looking for. I might not be a dralasite, vrusk or yazirian but I do play one in Star Frontiers! |
