Blade Runner: The Next Million Dollar Kickstarter?

Free League's Blade Runner Kickstarter has just launched, and is tearing through stretch goals after funding in just 3 minutes. It looks very likely that this will be the company's second million dollar Kickstarter (following last year's The One Ring campaign, which raised over $2M). It will also be the third million dollar Kickstarter in the last month, following Matt Colville's Flee Mortals!, and Monte Cook Games' Old Gods of Appalachia.

Blade Runner was voted the Most Anticipated TTRPG of 2022 by readers of EN World right here.

Free League's other million dollar Kickstarter, The One Ring, did $521K on the first day and finished with $2M. Compared to the other million dollar campaigns in the last few weeks --

• Flee Mortals! did $788K on the first day.
• Old Gods of Appalachia did $679K on the first day.
• Only one campaign has done $1M+ on day 1, and that was Avatar Legends with $1.15M on the first day.

Check Out These Bladerunner RPG Previews

Free League has shared some previews of its Bladerunner RPG, which comes to Kickstarter next week on May 3rd and looks very likely to be the third million dollar Kickstarter in the last month.

www.enworld.org

BLADE RUNNER – The Roleplaying Game

Walk the neon-noir streets of Los Angeles 2037 in the official BLADE RUNNER RPG from Free League Publishing and Alcon Entertainment.

www.kickstarter.com

 

[overgeeked]

Free League's other million dollar One Ring KS did $521K on the first day and finished with $2M. Compared to the other million dollar campaigns in the last few weeks --

• Flee Mortals did $788K on the first day
• Appalachia did $679K on the first day
• Only one campaign has done $1M+ on day 1, and that was Avatar Legends with $1.15M on the first day

It's exciting to watch!

Million Dollar TTRPG Kickstarter Club

Avatar Legends leads the pack in an exclusive club -- Kickstarters for tabletop roleplaying game products which have broken the $1M barrier! It is currently the most successful TTRPG Kickstarter in history with a funding total of nearly $10M, and over 80,000 backers. 24 TTRPG campaigns have...

www.enworld.org

They’re on pace to get $1 million today. Hope they do. That would be amazing.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Btw for those who like to post Kicktraq numbers, note that right now their model has BR trending toward $11.6M.

As ever, the algorithms are not our friends.

 

[Morrus]

Btw for those who like to post Kicktraq numbers, note that right now their model has BR trending toward $11.6M.

As ever, the algorithms are not our friends.

Yeah, ignore Kicktraq.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

I was thinking about Blade Runner adventures and I think there is more there than for Alien. In Alien, everything basically boils down to monster eats people, monster is killed, a few people survive. Usually in a small contained setting like a ship or colony. Hence, many Cinematic adventures so far where this violent clash works more easily than in Campaign play.

We've seen two stories in Blade Runner about hunting Replicants. But think of the hints of the world around those two stories.

Overpowered corporations. Post-apocalyptic parts of LA. Environmental crisis. Overcrowding. Off world colonies. Artificial life. Abject poverty. Crime. Vice. Violence. Life is cheap; living is expensive. What it means to be human. What it means to not be human.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like... tears... in rain."

On the other hand, imagine playing a whole campaign in LA when off world colonies exist. What an interesting idea. Your PCs are not willing to pay whatever it would cost to get off world or what they pursue in LA matters more. I'm getting noir vibes mixed with sci-fi vibes.

 

[Charles Dunwoody]

Half a million. They are going to run out of stretch goals.

 

[Morrus]

They just overtook TOR's first day total in about 2 hours.

That said, Tanares had a similar early bird gift, and had nearly $1M on the first day but support dropped right off after that. It'll be interesting to see how much of a spike day 1 is on this campaign. I tend to feel that people who arrive after day 1 and realise they missed the gift sometimes feel they've missed out. It's a risky gamble!

 

[overgeeked]

I was thinking about Blade Runner adventures and I think there is more there than for Alien. In Alien, everything basically boils down to monster eats people, monster is killed, a few people survive. Usually in a small contained setting like a ship or colony. Hence, many Cinematic adventures so far where this violent clash works more easily than in Campaign play.

We've seen two stories in Blade Runner about hunting Replicants. But think of the hints of the world around those two stories.

Overpowered corporations. Post-apocalyptic parts of LA. Environmental crisis. Overcrowding. Off world colonies. Artificial life. Abject poverty. Crime. Vice. Violence. Life is cheap; living is expensive. What it means to be human. What it means to not be human.

"I've seen things you people wouldn't believe: attack ships on fire off the shoulder of Orion. I've watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhäuser Gate. All those... moments... will be lost in time, like... tears... in rain."

On the other hand, imagine playing a whole campaign in LA when off world colonies exist. What an interesting idea. Your PCs are not willing to pay whatever it would cost to get off world or what they pursue in LA matters more. I'm getting noir vibes mixed with sci-fi vibes.

View attachment 156648

Yeah, that’s literal the point. Sci-fi noir.

For even more ideas and world building, read the novel BR is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. There’s so much there that didn’t make it into the movie. Also the rest of Philip K Dick’s fiction is a gold mine of utterly brilliant sci-fi stories, settings, and ideas.

 

[Reynard]

Yeah, that’s literal the point. Sci-fi noir.

For even more ideas and world building, read the novel BR is based on Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep. There’s so much there that didn’t make it into the movie. Also the rest of Philip K Dick’s fiction is a gold mine of utterly brilliant sci-fi stories, settings, and ideas.

One day i was listening to a PKD collection on audiobook and I was floored with a story called (If I remember right) "The Third Kind" -- from which the entirety of the post-bombs world of Terminator is stolen. I mean, almost word for word in places.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

They just overtook TOR's first day total in about 2 hours.

That said, Tanares had a similar early bird gift, and had nearly $1M on the first day but support dropped right off after that. It'll be interesting to see how much of a spike day 1 is on this campaign. I tend to feel that people who arrive after day 1 and realise they missed the gift sometimes feel they've missed out. It's a risky gamble!

The early bird gift seems pretty minor (imo) in this case. I'm sure it's a nice art print, but I know I'm about 30 years too old to be displaying that anywhere.

On a related note, though, I hope Martin Grip makes as much money from this book as anyone else involved, if not more. His art is why core books like this and Alien work as well as they do.

 

[MGibster]

On the other hand, imagine playing a whole campaign in LA when off world colonies exist. What an interesting idea. Your PCs are not willing to pay whatever it would cost to get off world or what they pursue in LA matters more. I'm getting noir vibes mixed with sci-fi vibes.

They might have some other reason they can't leave. In the first movie, I think Sebastian mentions that he has some sort of physical ailment that prevents him from being qualified to live off world.

I backed the Kickstarter at the Off World bundle level. I'm looking forward to this and hope I can get people to play the game.