Blade Runner rpg - having trouble getting sucked in

[MGibster]

I have not read the adventure material yet. I was hoping the game would focus more on the existential piece "am I a replicate or not?". Though, I have long been worried too many folks would lump BR into the cyberpunk general bucket. To me this seems like an ideal bespoke one shot or short campaign type game. Not a long term play loop of retiring renegade replicants. YMMV.

There are rules for playing a replicant who thinks they are a human, as well as randomly determining whether your character is a replicant, but it's not the focus of the game. One of the beanutiful parts of the game is that the Blade Runners investigate pretty much any case involving replicants, so you might very well investigate a crime where the replicant is a victim. I'm working on a case that begins with a replicant who has an organ harvested and ends with the runners having to make a choice: Let the replicant escape to San Diego or retire him as required by policy.

 

[payn]

There are rules for playing a replicant who thinks they are a human, as well as randomly determining whether your character is a replicant, but it's not the focus of the game. One of the beanutiful parts of the game is that the Blade Runners investigate pretty much any case involving replicants, so you might very well investigate a crime where the replicant is a victim. I'm working on a case that begins with a replicant who has an organ harvested and ends with the runners having to make a choice: Let the replicant escape to San Diego or retire him as required by policy.

As much as I like the sound of that twist, I see an expiration date sooner than later on campaigns with BR RPG.

 

[MGibster]

As much as I like the sound of that twist, I see an expiration date sooner than later on campaigns with BR RPG.

As do I, which is fine. My typical campaing is measured in months rather than years. In three months, when we're meeting regularly, we'll get about 10 games in.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Got my set and book. Good system, but thematically I'm having trouble getting sucked in. In fact, I have this odd feeling that something is turning me off. Something isn't sitting right. I keep stopping reading the adventure.

Partly, it is the 6 point body text font which is a huge mistake for GMs reference and prep in an adventure, but thats my only presentation complaint.

Something else is bugging me though. Rep-detect officers are about retiring homocidal and defective/problematic models (e.g. n-8). All models have the potential to be problems (Wallace's big secret no matter the model anyways..as they can have their own emotional response in addition to reps being innately narcissistic.
There are groups of people who are organized to hate or always-give-a-pass to reps. This rpg really plays up for rep sympathy and youre a crap person if you think otherwise.
It smacks too much of today's popular extremism news trends. Every criminal/shoplifter/murderer is misunderstood, drow/orcs arent really evil, and every policeman is a bigot, etc.

Am I not seeing this correctly? Help me understand how I'm supposed to enjoy a game that feels like a mirror of the worst un-fun current news tripe and just more cop-trauma rather than cop-drama.

We played it at a recent convention and the themes were presented accurate to the rpg. Now Im prepping to run for my group. I get that youre supposed to be conflicted, but this seems a bit cliche, depressing, and I worry about redundancy during multiple adventures on the 'fun' factor. Inflicting real-world ptsd on my players seems like a pretty miserable way to spend my gaming time.

How is it that Cyberpunk and Judge Dredd can be fun themes and this seem so icky?

I'm very confused by this because it seems like you're complaining about exactly the themes that permeate the original movie.

Did you think it was a movie about a hero cop doing the right thing or something? Because like, it wasn't. It's noir. He's a killer essentially working for a corporation killing rogue slaves who are basically humans, and he's probably one too. It was never a "cop drama", it was absolutely "cop trauma".

I mean "today's news"? Buddy, this was the approach in 1982. If 1982 is too modern for you, I'm not sure what to tell you.

This seems a lot like someone buying Dungeon Crawl Classics and complaining about the "death funnel" lol. What did you expect?

With Judge Dredd and Cyberpunk they're very different things. Judge Dredd judges aren't meant to be good people, they're just brutal enforcers in a society that's basically collapsed, and sometimes they make the hellish world a slightly better place (the PC ones anyway). The criminals they deal are generally not people fighting for a better tomorrow, or rogue slaves or the like, but rather people preying on those even weaker than them. I mean, in Judge Dredd if you had a Blade Runner situation, Dredd would find a way to shut down the people making the replicants, whether that was busting into the boardroom and judging them, or by causing their factory to "accidentally" explode due to the gunfight he decided to have in it or whatever. And he would be distinctly vexed by having to shoot the replicants. Not that it'd stop him, but that stoic face would be frowning just smidge more than usual.

And that's the thing - just like the original Blade Runner, you should feel pretty dirty doing that job. You're not "doing the right thing". You're cleaning up the mess of hugely amoral (or even evil) corporations making megabucks selling slaves. How would that ever be clean?

Cyberpunk the norm is that you play the criminals (edgerunners), doing crimes, so that's a whole other thing.

 

[Teo Twawki]

I'm very confused by this because it seems like you're complaining about exactly the themes that permeate the original movie.

Just the same as great novel material doesn't mean great film material, what makes for great story in a film does not necessarily translate to an rpg. On this point, I completely agree with Emirikol that the game falls short of its IP title.

And that's the thing - just like the original Blade Runner, you should feel pretty dirty doing that job. You're not "doing the right thing". You're cleaning up the mess of hugely amoral (or even evil) corporations making megabucks selling slaves. How would that ever be clean?

Cyberpunk the norm is that you play the criminals (edgerunners), doing crimes, so that's a whole other thing.

While it is indeed a common theme in Cyberpunk to be a criminal doing crimes, but there is a difference between working for a corporation doing their bidding in one's criminal activity and breaking the laws enforced by corrupt corporations.

I've seen a very common complaint with players saying they can't bring themselves to play a police officer or a government official in something like Delta Green because they cannot separate their own perception of the so-called real world enough to be play an LEO in any character guise, and yet the same people brush those feelings aside because the candy wrapper for another game is promotes something sweeter to their perception, and yet the character they are playing is, in fact, morally and ethically worse. Such morphing ethical lines is itself neither a "good" nor "bad" construct, it shows cognitive dissonance at work. Such mental gymnastics is a reminder that personal rationalizations are a more important human need than sex.

 

[Malmuria]

I was curious about this game. I find most cyberpunk games put a lot of emphasis on action: missions, shootouts, etc + cool cybernetic upgrades. Whereas Bladerunner (the films) are much slower and ponderous. They use noir investigation to ask questions about what it means to be a "real" human. The fact that the protagonists are bladerunners is not inherently problematic in this sense, as the films are very much about questioning the whole moral framework of a society built around a human/replicant split (a recurring theme in science fiction).

After watching the below review, it seems that the game does do this somewhat, but is perhaps also shallow in this regard. I think if I was going to run a Bladerunner-eque game I would start with the mechanical framework of a game like Cthulhu Dark.

 

[aramis erak]

I don't understand why anyone thought that playing a death squad for an evil establishment to murder for their corporate interests could be a viable RPG product.

That accurately describes about half the CP2013, CP2020, Tank Girl, and Shadowrun adventures I've seen... and is really beaten like a drum on SLA Industries 1E...

CP as a literary genre really is heavy on the in-your-face slave to the corporate overlords themes. Both movies are pretty much CP in tone and plot...

Many people playing CP, especially CP2020 or Cybergen, are not running in the CP genre, but the related but far more optimistic Transhumanist genre. Not a few groups running Shadowrun are avoiding the CP genre, making it a fantasy transhumist game.

Basically, the CP games work well because most people aren't actually running them as CP. Excepting SLAI. SLAI, if running what's in the book, can't avoid the corporate oppressors motif.

I was curious about this game. I find most cyberpunk games put a lot of emphasis on action: missions, shootouts, etc + cool cybernetic upgrades. Whereas Bladerunner (the films) are much slower and ponderous.

The chrome fetishism is what leads to the CP and Transhumanism genres developing separate identities.
There still is some hardcore CP being written, but it's not focused on metalling up, but on fighting the system.

 

[MGibster]

I'm very confused by this because it seems like you're complaining about exactly the themes that permeate the original movie.

I think there's an important distinction to be made between fiction I enjoy and role playing I enjoy. I'm certainly down to clown, but I can certainly see why someone wouldn't want to engage with a role playing game where their character is essentially tracking and killing runaway slaves. We all have our limits, and that's okay.

Many people playing CP, especially CP2020 or Cybergen, are not running in the CP genre, but the related but far more optimistic Transhumanist genre. Not a few groups running Shadowrun are avoiding the CP genre, making it a fantasy transhumist game.

As much as I like CP2020, I agree.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I think there's an important distinction to be made between fiction I enjoy and role playing I enjoy. I'm certainly down to clown, but I can certainly see why someone wouldn't want to engage with a role playing game where their character is essentially tracking and killing runaway slaves. We all have our limits, and that's okay.

I had been interested in Blade Runner as a possible Earth sourcebook for the Alien RPG, which it turns out not to be suitable for. But the themes were always ones that I knew I wouldn't want to play (and I really liked 2049 and enjoyed the original movie).

Stripped of the setting, it's hard to imagine many people signing up for Slave Catcher: The RPG.

 

[MGibster]

Stripped of the setting, it's hard to imagine many people signing up for Slave Catcher: The RPG.

Context certainly matters. You likely wouldn't get a lot of people to sign up for Addict: The RPG of Emotional and Physical Abuse, but Vampire the Masquerade has had a lot of success over the years. The game has predator types, which is the primary method of how they get their blood. Some examples of predator types includes Alleycats who are brutes beating people up (mugging them) and drains them, a Cleaver is someone who feesd from their mortal family or friends, a Sandman sneaks up to people who are sleeping to drain them, and a Siren is someone who feeds almost exclusively on someone during or while feigning sex. Any player who picks Siren, needs to come to grips with the fact that their character is a serial rapist. Hell, my players were directly involved in human trafficking and all the horrors that surround that.

But the game doesn't treat the player characters as if they're the good guys, and that's really important. You're a monster who has to survive by doing bad things. Even if you manage to avoid doing those bad things for a while, there's a good chance you'll lose control and hurt someone you love. How do you hold on to a shred of your humanity while surviving?

But the themes were always ones that I knew I wouldn't want to play (and I really liked 2049 and enjoyed the original movie).

I can certainly understand why you feel that way. Like I said, that's perfectly okay.