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

 

[MGibster]

I never realized how ridiculous the PK-D Blaster that Deckard carried in the original movie was. This is the standard issue sidearm for blade runners and is made up of a 5 shot revolver firing .44 special ammunition, a single shot bolt action that rifles a .222 rifle round, and a single shot sonic round. I don't remember the revolver in the movie firing any sonic round and never noticed the little bolt action on the original prop. I do remember Deckard took careful aim to put a shot in Zhora's back as she was some distance from him as he fled. But didn't he fire two shots? I'll have to watch the movie again.

I went ahead and made a character and the process was fairly easy. My only real complaint is that I had to track down what the starting equipment was for blade runners. But it's just a PK-D Blaster, a flying car, a KIA (personal data assistant), and a badge. Every character in the game is a blade runner, but there are several archetypes to choose from. I rolled randomly to determine whether I was a replicant or human and got human. Then I rolled randomly to figure out how many years on the force I had and got rookie. You don't have to roll randomly, you get to choose, but I elected to. The advantage of being a rookie is that you have more points to put into your attributes. The more years you have the fewer points you have for attributes but the more points you have to put into skills.

 

[Colgrevance]

The more years you have the fewer points you have for attributes but the more points you have to put into skills.

This is one of very few things I dislike in Year Zero games: Attributes are much more valuable than skills/talents, thus it just doesn't make much sense to make an older (or in this case, more experienced) character, except maybe for oneshot games. I really wish they'd changed this for Blade Runner.

 

[Yora]

The Kickstarter is over, and those of us who participate have access to a PDF of the game. Has anyone read it yet? I just started and the book looks pretty cool so far.

They raised over a million just to pay for the printing for a game that was already produced? Can thay just pocket the remainder after paying the printer?

 

[Crusadius]

They raised over a million just to pay for the printing for a game that was already produced? Can thay just pocket the remainder after paying the printer?

Well, out of the remainder they need to pay the writers, editors, artists, administration, licencing fees for the Blade Runner intellectual property, taxes, insurance, office rent and other sundry expenses, and any other unexpected expenses.

I don't expect much change after that for everyone to buy their own lamborghini.

 

[Yora]

But those are costs that already happened in the past, regardless of how much money they raised. And I doubt a bank gave them a 1.5 million loan just on the expectation that the kickstarter would make that much money.
It could very well just have made 400,000 and they still would have had to pay all those costs.

 

[Fenhorn]

It is very costly to print boxes and books, especially these days. They need to do some sort of pre-order or kickstarter so they can see how many games to print. Having a kickstarter instead of pre-order gives them feedback that can be very useful (and they have changed things in the books thanks to the feedback, not only some erratas and typos).

 

[aramis erak]

The only thing I mentioned that was from the interview was the designer saying explicitly that they don't want to do the secret Replicant trope.

And yet, it's there, in the char gen rules.

Having been reading it, and having run Alien, Vaesen, and T2K... it's not truly compatible with any of them. Likewise, Alien and Vaesen aren't compatible with each other nor with T2K....
The core concepts are there, but each YZE game has an adapted core execution.

For example:
⚀ on pushed rolls...
Alien: only matter on stress dice, don't do physical damage, 2 types of d6
Vaesen: any push, does a condition (which physical damage also does) 1 type of d6
MYZ: any push but only on tool and base (attribute) dice; Skill dice don't. 3 types of d6
T2K: any push, to correct hits track. need 2d6 of color A, 4d6 of color b, 2d8, 2d10, 2d12, the d6's are base and autofire
BR: any push, to correct track. Need 3d6. 3d8, 3d10, 3d12. No kind distinctions at all

Each has a skill list unique to itself.
First Aid/Medicine bounces between atts.

Modifier methods
Vaesen: adjust total pool
MYZ Adjust skill dice only
Alien: adjust base dice only
T2K: shift dice sizes
BR: double the number of smallest die, or remove the smallest die.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

And yet, it's there, in the char gen rules.

Yeah that was a surprise. Made me wonder if they ultimately stuck it in due to backlash (or to avoid it). Seems like it’s the same approach as playing a secret Synthetic in Alien: Play like a human until the reveal, then, switch to Replicant mechanics.

 

[Morrus]

They raised over a million just to pay for the printing for a game that was already produced? Can thay just pocket the remainder after paying the printer?

Well it doesn’t work quite like that. The more you raise, the more you have to print. Those million-dollars worth of people all have to get something.

Plus 10% in fees, probably 10% to the Bladerunner IP owners. It all goes fast.

Most companies do make a profit on a big Kickstarter but probably nowhere near the amount you’re imagining.

But those are costs that already happened in the past, regardless of how much money they raised.

But you still have to account for them. You have to account for costs no matter when they happened. Well, if you want to stay in business you do.

 

[schneeland]

But those are costs that already happened in the past, regardless of how much money they raised. And I doubt a bank gave them a 1.5 million loan just on the expectation that the kickstarter would make that much money.

Well, most probably they paid it out of their own pocket/company bank account in the hope that the Kickstarter would raise enough to justify the expenses. I don't think Free League (or anyone else in the RPG industry except WotC) makes enough money to do such an investment without some sort of return.
Admittedly, they probably could have done a pre-order and decided for a Kickstarter for marketing purposes.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

They raised over a million just to pay for the printing for a game that was already produced? Can thay just pocket the remainder after paying the printer?

Do you really not get how publishing, or any sort of production works? Maybe if this were a strictly digital product you could wonder what they'll do with some of that money, but even then the profits would feed back into the time it took to pay lots of people to work on the game, and also to keep the company running. But this is primarily a print product, so how in the world could you see their pledge total as pure profit?

 

[Morrus]

Well, most probably they paid it out of their own pocket/company bank account in the hope that the Kickstarter would raise enough to justify the expenses. I don't think Free League (or anyone else in the RPG industry except WotC) makes enough money to do such an investment without some sort of return.
Admittedly, they probably could have done a pre-order and decided for a Kickstarter for marketing purposes.

That’s how we do it. Take the initial risk on ourselves and hope to recover those costs via Kickstarter in order to fulfill quickly. This year we’ve developed three hardcover books all of which will be coming to KS over the next year.

 

[Yora]

Do you really not get how publishing, or any sort of production works? Maybe if this were a strictly digital product you could wonder what they'll do with some of that money, but even then the profits would feed back into the time it took to pay lots of people to work on the game, and also to keep the company running. But this is primarily a print product, so how in the world could you see their pledge total as pure profit?

Not the total. Just the excess from recovering the development costs they had to payed upfront and the costs for printing and distribution.
Assume they would have broken even with 500,000 raised. If they raise 1,500,000, the remaining 1,000,000 only need to be spend on printing and distribution for the exess backers, plus printing stock for later sales.

The point is that they couldn't have known in advance to raise over 1 million, so they can't have calculated to break even with more than 1 million.

Not that hard to comprehend.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Not the total. Just the excess from recovering the development costs they had to payed upfront and the costs for printing and distribution.
Assume they would have broken even with 500,000 raised. If they raise 1,500,000, the remaining 1,000,000 only need to be spend on printing and distribution for the exess backers, plus printing stock for later sales.

The point is that they couldn't have known in advance to raise over 1 million, so they can't have calculated to break even with more than 1 million.

Not that hard to comprehend.

But how much of a profit margin do you think there is in printing and shipping these books and starter sets? With each additional print pledge that's more they have to spend on production. So the more backers, the bigger the print run, which is all great, but to act like they're just raking in money or like most of that funding total isn't eaten up by production and operation costs is...I don't know. I literally don't know what to say here, so I guess I'll stop.

 

[Yora]

The magic words are fixed costs and variable costs. A very simple and basic principle in the economy of production.
Some costs are the same no matter how many products you produce. Other costs are based on the units produced. If you produce 10 units or 10 million units, the fixed costs are the same.

 

[MGibster]

This is one of very few things I dislike in Year Zero games: Attributes are much more valuable than skills/talents, thus it just doesn't make much sense to make an older (or in this case, more experienced) character, except maybe for oneshot games. I really wish they'd changed this for Blade Runner.

The older characters also get more specialties, promotion points, and chinyen (money), but I don't know if that makes up for having lower attributes.

They raised over a million just to pay for the printing for a game that was already produced? Can thay just pocket the remainder after paying the printer?

I don't typically concern myself with how the sausage is made. Free League offered a product for a particular price point and I went ahead and made a purchase based on my own wants. I'm sure they have a lot of expenses, but if they pocketed the remainder after paying the printer it wouldn't bother me one iota.

Yeah that was a surprise. Made me wonder if they ultimately stuck it in due to backlash (or to avoid it). Seems like it’s the same approach as playing a secret Synthetic in Alien: Play like a human until the reveal, then, switch to Replicant mechanics.

Yeah, it reminded me of the secret snyth (so much better than Secret Santa) from Alien. I won't be using it in any game I run.

 

[Crusadius]

The magic words are fixed costs and variable costs. A very simple and basic principle in the economy of production.
Some costs are the same no matter how many products you produce. Other costs are based on the units produced. If you produce 10 units or 10 million units, the fixed costs are the same.

The best I can say about this "extra" money they now have is: great, now they have more operating capital that can be used to pay off debts, fund new products, fund cost of living wage increases, and stave off bankruptcy for another year.

 

[aramis erak]

The older characters also get more specialties, promotion points, and chinyen (money), but I don't know if that makes up for having lower attributes.

The more I see of YZE games, the more I see Traveller influences...
This is the classic aging paradigm of Traveller... as you age, you gain more skills but lose attributes. In Traveller, the balance point varies widely by edition and Ref (=GM), and one's luck (as Traveller aging is randomized to various degrees).

So, to compare it, it's easier math in all the YZE games with aging than in Traveller.

If one considers the difference per die, with the attribute being used for all three relevant skills, the attribute is 3× the overall value. Since the aging step is -1 attribute level for +2 skill levels, it's almost always a losing proposition for skills alone. But the additional specialty is about the same as a skill level, so I'd say it's almost equal. Why? many of them are advantage on a skill.
on to figuring the relative value of the dice
Let's see... calculating average value per die, unpushed.

	skill	Pushed	array
d6	0.167	0.278	0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1	1/6
d8	0.375	0.536	0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1	3/8
d10	0.6	0.840	0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1 , 1, 2	6/10
d12	0.833	1.111	0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1 , 1, 2, 2, 2	10/12 = 5/6

Attribute value is at least triple that of skill, as it applies to 3 skills, but this ignores the Health and Resilience expendables pools (ie, damage tracks). Given that the chinyen is roughly a one use auto-success... maybe count that as a fraction of a die, sa, 1/10 of worst att+ worst skill?

d6 [[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1].[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1],[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1]] =10/36=5/1=0.278
d8 [[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1],[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1]]=36/64=18/32=9/16=0.536
d10 [[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0], 4×[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2], 4×[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1],[2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2]]= (24+40+20)/100=84/100=0.840
d12[[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 0],4×[0, 0, 0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2], 4x[1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1], 3×[2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2]]= 40+48+72=160/144
but that effect is fairly minor in terms of change in relative value, tho ChinYen and Promotion Points are essentially single use autosuccesses at certain tasks, and so should be based upon a pushed roll's value.

Also, there are other aspects that are roleplay functions - reactions to the older character, the nature of contacts the GM will let your scrounge up, and character self-image/confidence/poise/dementia/despair/burnout that are best represented by experienced characters, as well, and the player's mindset for how the character is

I'd say, generally, the trade off is in not favorable if you plan on using all 12 attribute linked skills evenly, but that's also unlikely, so losing the value of a skill outside your competence... It's worth considering it.

If there's a skill you don't plan to use under the attribute you'd not raise due to the lost point, then the value is about 2.5× the value of a skill of same rating... (allowing for either health or resilience losses), and if two, it's about 1.5. FInd the difference going down on the att, and the value of 2 skill upgrades that you'd not take as a younger character.
I've done much of the math for you.... but a more general conversion analysis is dependent upon a number of concept and playstyle issues making a handy table too narrowly construed.

My gut reaction is, "Yeah, it's about right."

Yeah, it reminded me of the secret snyth (so much better than Secret Santa) from Alien. I won't be using it in any game I run.

The big difference is that in Alien, the player knows it. In BR, only the GM knows it.

 

[MGibster]

This is the classic aging paradigm of Traveller... as you age, you gain more skills but lose attributes. In Traveller, the balance point varies widely by edition and Ref (=GM), and one's luck (as Traveller aging is randomized to various degrees).

It does seem as though there's a steep drop in attributes at relatively young ages. Assuming a blade runner starts their career at the age of 25, by the time they're 35 they only have 2 fewer attribute points and +4 skill points. But maybe I'm analyzing this more than I should. Which is odd, because I sure didn't use the power of math and analyze it like you did!

The big difference is that in Alien, the player knows it. In BR, only the GM knows it.

During the Kickstarter, I thought one of the designers said that they didn't plan on having replicants who didn't know they were replicants because Rachel was a special one-time-only case. She wouldn't be all that special if you had a bunch of games with characters who were unknowingly replicants.

 

[aramis erak]

It does seem as though there's a steep drop in attributes at relatively young ages. Assuming a blade runner starts their career at the age of 25, by the time they're 35 they only have 2 fewer attribute points and +4 skill points. But maybe I'm analyzing this more than I should. Which is odd, because I sure didn't use the power of math and analyze it like you did!

Had a bit of a manic episode last night... researching LAPD rank & Promotion. Age and rank both correlate...

Well, assuming current LAPDrequirements, Rookies are indeed going to be Police Officer I's - also known as "boots" - they've at least 21 yo if human, having needed to be 21 yo to attend the Academy... assuming knowing all the right things and people...

Start Age	Minimum Years after joining	Spend X Years in this rank	rank
21 years of age	0	½	Academy
21½	½	1½	Police Officer I	assigned to an FTO
23	2	3	Police Officer II	Still "Probationary" but past the FTO stage
26	5	2	Police Officer III & Police Officer III+1	III+1 is a for special assignments...
28	7	4	Sergeant I or Detective 1	minimum; technically 26 deployments
32	11	1	Lieutenant I	Limited Field Work
33	12		Captain I	Almost desk-bound

Note that Detective II and Sergeant II are rarely under a few years at the prior grade, but it's possible to test for Lt I while a Detective I.
So this means your "rookie" character is likely a PO I, Seasoned are PO II or PO III+1, maybe an actual Detective I, Veterans will be PO III+1 or any grade of detective, and the Sgt II, LT, and Captain are all "Old Timers" as are most Det II & III. Due to the special duty nature,

If you instead count only years post their Field Training, "Rookies" are PO II, Seasoned are PO II, PO III+1, or Det I or Sgt I. Veteran becomes mostly Detective I & II, with a few III+1's and maybe Sgt I. , Old Timers are likely Det I, II or III, Maybe Sgt I. a better fit.

The most readable of the sources:

CAREER LADDERS | Join LAPD

There are two types of advancement within the Los Angeles Police Department: (1) promotion and (2) assignment to a higher pay grade. "Promotion" refers to an advance from one Civil Service class to another, such as from Police Officer to Detective or Sergeant. Promotion is always from an...

www.joinlapd.com