The Player, co-created by John Rogers of Leverage fame and sometime RPG writing, is naturally a pretty game-friendly premise. The House (questionable history here) predicts crime using somewhat SFish computing and lets rich assholes bet on whether someone, the Player, can stop it. Aiding him is the Dealer, with all the information in the world, and overseeing operations is the Pitboss, who being a questgiver is called Mr. Johnson. It is indeed a Shadowrun reference. Split the Player into a group with different skills and you’ve got a campaign.
It has been noted that the small group working with advanced intel to predict crime makes it look like Person Of Interest’s jokey cousin. This is not a problem, of course - the shows address different concerns in different ways with a similar device. It also makes me think of 100 Bullets, people working in secret and outside the law at the behest of rich conspiracies who can call off the police if they have to, but stopping crime here rather than committing it - which is a big difference, of course! (I also hope it runs as far with the premise... the Gamblers deserve to be brought down.)
The pilot features a kidnapping - getting someone back is more gameable than stopping someone being taken, as I rambled about here. Presumably the House will make sure that the Player gets the call too late to defuse a situation easily... even as the Dealer tries to help on the inside...
Some people are disturbed by concept of #ThePlayer, rich gambling with people's lives. You SHOULD be. Alex did not join the good guys ...
The question is ... what's he going to do about it?John Rogers on Twitter
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