Blade Runner rpg - having trouble getting sucked in

[payn]

I think Deckard's presence and interactions with Wallace suggest Deckard isn't a replicant. Wallace desperately wants Replicants to be able to have offspring, and so he wants to know more about Rachel and her child. He has some info about Rachel as a replicant - enough to make a physical duplicate. But if Deckard is also an experimental replicant from the Tyrell Corporation, Wallace seems to know absolutely nothing about it. If he did know, he'd be a lot more careful about him since he would have half the pair of replicants that produced viable offspring.

Same with the replicant liberationists. They seem to think he's human too or they'd be less willing to have him killed. At the very least, they seem to think he's not crucial to the idea of replicants potentially having offspring.

All of this suggests to me that Villeneuve wasn't that interested in continuing to interact with the issue of Deckard as a replicant/human. I think he's strengthening the implication he's human.

All good points. I still wonder about Deckard surviving in the wastes? It would be funny if after all this time Deckard got away (yet again) with passing as human, but I doubt Wallace would make such a mistake.

 

[overgeeked]

True, though I think the whole suppressed religion part might not have played so well in the theater. He had a reoccurring theme of ancient Christians vs the Roman Empire.

Mercerism isn’t suppressed in the novel.

Same as I doubt the game has people rolling up disabilities if human, it would probably be accurate to both the book and film, people would have a fit though. PKD did do a twist on human vs android in Second Variety, so it wouldn't have be out of character for him. The citadel press versions of his stories are really great, because they included his commentary. What would be a great film is his entry from Dangerous Visions, "Faith of Our Fathers" and that could be also be made into a SFRPG as well.

So many of his works have great potential for adaptations. Ubik. Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Beyond Lies the Wub. Unteleported Man. On and on.

 

[dragoner]

Mercerism isn’t suppressed in the novel.

So many of his works have great potential for adaptations. Ubik. Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch. Beyond Lies the Wub. Unteleported Man. On and on.

Oh well, probably me not being raised a Christian, my parents were atheist; I remember Mercer being stoned as he walked up the hill on TV.

He is one of the more adapted authors. Though for Scott, and Dick's benefit, the Melrose Ave punk scene was exploding during the filming of Blade Runner, and Scott said a lot just fell together. I sort of have to laugh that both perfect android people are Dutch.

 

[overgeeked]

Oh well, probably me not being raised a Christian, my parents were atheist; I remember Mercer being stoned as he walked up the hill on TV.

Right. The empathy box. The shortish version is humans use the empathy box to merge in community with others and their focus is Mercer going up the hill and being pelted with rocks. The point is to push empathy and Mercerism is the reason everyone wants to take care of animals. It’s the single dominant religion of all humans across all worlds. Mercer is attacked (in the empathy box scene) because he’s a Special (mutated by radioactivity) and can bring animals back from the dead. Though it’s revealed late in the book that Mercer is just an actor, the “stones” were plastic, and the scene was staged/filmed. But it’s also explicitly stated that this revelation won’t make a difference and people will go on believing.

 

[HaroldTheHobbit]

Now add in empathizing with and humanizing the goblins and having some in the town and on your team.

Well, the party is in dept with bounty hunters on their heels, and they really need that 200 g to make a downpayment to the crime boss to get a couple of weeks respite. Goblins are goblins as people say. Except Bob the Gob in our party, he's a tough mofo who does what needs to be done. And so on...

As always it's a matter of framing and campaign/character tone and concept. My players at least tend to enjoy different tone and expectations in different campaigns.

 

[DarkCrisis]

On the other hand, most groups instead play VtM as Underworld: The RPG (no, not that one, the movie), which is, of course, the snake eating its own tail.

Especially in the 1990s, VtM was the game of katanas and trenchcoats and skin-tight PVC-clad vampires being awesome. Agonizing about addiction and abuse was something that Justin Achilli told them the game was about, but the game as played, not so much.

It sounds like, for better or worse, Free League made a game that's harder to disentangle from its thematic goals (two additional decades of game design evolution will do that).

I loved the Time of the Thin-Blooded -- vampires standing in for homeless crack addicts -- but I would be surprised to learn it got much playtime back in the day.

VtM: thats why i loved the newest edition. The way Blood works makes it an addiction. You have to feed. Old way was just points that you didn't really have to worry about unless you got low.

I remember playing the old versions and my Vamp wake up and be like "Eh im at 8 blood, no need to feed tonight unless I really have to."

 

[DarkCrisis]

I understand why people want Deckard to be human, because all the other humans we see in the film have problems, like Tyrell with his glasses, or Gaff with his cane. While Deckard is a "one man slaughterhouse" taking on the replicants, we're not dying out, these are not our replacements, more human than human ... the film is beautifully done, it has a lot of layers. Batty is like Mercer, the way he sticks a nail through his hand, real stigmata.

I wouldn't call him a slaughterhouse. He pretty much got his ass kicked a lot and survived by luck.

 

[Voadam]

I seem to remember on the rewatch thinking Ford did a great job of portraying affectless depression in the original which makes him seem a bit less normal human emotionally. I remember also being annoyed by it as affectless depression is not that enjoyable to watch for me.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

VtM: thats why i loved the newest edition. The way Blood works makes it an addiction. You have to feed. Old way was just points that you didn't really have to worry about unless you got low.

I remember playing the old versions and my Vamp wake up and be like "Eh im at 8 blood, no need to feed tonight unless I really have to."

Yeah, WWGS made game design strides, but they didn't know back then how to mechanically reinforce what they wanted the game to be about, the way that designers routinely do now.

 

[overgeeked]

Yeah, WWGS made game design strides, but they didn't know back then how to mechanically reinforce what they wanted the game to be about, the way that designers routinely do now.

True. But that kind of design can also be a trap. Too focused and you only have one story to tell with the game and unless it’s an awesome story, there’s no point playing it again. The other side is games like Diplomacy where the core concept of the game is not mechanically reinforced in the slightest.