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.

 

[Olgar Shiverstone]

Nice product. I won't back this one, though I did back T:2000 and TOR and they are both fantastic. I just don't see how they keep up with all of these!

 

[sevenbastard]

Wait the sea wall is built on the 405? Well I died in the blade runner universe because no way I'm living east of the 405.

 

[Bill Zebub]

FL does beautiful spreads, but I find my Alien very challenging to actually read, and this looks like more of the same.

 

[Teo Twawki]

FL does beautiful spreads, but I find my Alien very challenging to actually read, and this looks like more of the same.

We have found that Free League has become a company of style over substance.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

We have found that Free League has become a company of style over substance.

Is that the royal we? Please, spare them!

 

[Aldarc]

It's not my thing, but it looks good. It has a similar ('80s) vibe as their Alien RPG.

 

[John R Davis]

Is it the same system as alien, loop, etc

 

[Grendel_Khan]

Is it the same system as alien, loop, etc

It is.

 

[ctorus]

I'm torn. Looks like a beautiful book. I'm not a huge fan of the Y0 system but can live with it. More substantially though, I don't really want my BR game filled with BR2049 lore. 2049 was a decent enough movie, but for me with this setting less is more. The more Ridley Scott and others spelled out about what certain things were supposed to mean, the less I liked it. Prometheus did something similar with Alien for me (but to a much worse degree because what they added was terrible).

My ideal BR RPG would give me locations (with maps and plans), NPCs, technology and gear, corporations, adventure seeds, but neither too much lore about the wider world nor too narrowly restricted to the perspective that Deckard had. As a result I'm also a little suspicious of the heavy use of quotes from the movie, and images which look like storyboard art from it. I hope this game isn't going to focus too closely on re-enacting the plotlines and themes of the movie(s), in a sort of pastiche, rather than developing the wider setting.

I do realise that's something that does appeal to many people - indeed it's essentially what The One Ring does for Tolkien, and the Alien RPG, both also Free League games. With Alien lots of people got excited about the prospect of re-enacting stories about freighter crews or marines encountering xenomorphs. Is Free League's BR going to be all about blade runners coming to terms with being replicants and musing on the human condition.. I want something that helps my imagination explore my version of the setting, not directs it down fixed avenues.

 

[Grendel_Khan]

I'm torn. Looks like a beautiful book. I'm not a huge fan of the Y0 system but can live with it. More substantially though, I don't really want my BR game filled with BR2049 lore. 2049 was a decent enough movie, but for me with this setting less is more. The more Ridley Scott and others spelled out about what certain things were supposed to mean, the less I liked it. Prometheus did something similar with Alien for me (but to a much worse degree because what they added was terrible).

My ideal BR RPG would give me locations (with maps and plans), NPCs, technology and gear, corporations, adventure seeds, but neither too much lore about the wider world nor too narrowly restricted to the perspective that Deckard had. As a result I'm also a little suspicious of the heavy use of quotes from the movie, and images which look like storyboard art from it. I hope this game isn't going to focus too closely on re-enacting the plotlines and themes of the movie(s), in a sort of pastiche, rather than developing the wider setting.

I do realise that's something that does appeal to many people - indeed it's essentially what The One Ring does for Tolkien, and the Alien RPG, both also Free League games. With Alien lots of people got excited about the prospect of re-enacting stories about freighter crews or marines encountering xenomorphs. Is Free League's BR going to be all about blade runners coming to terms with being replicants and musing on the human condition.. I want something that helps my imagination explore my version of the setting, not directs it down fixed avenues.

Sounds like you definitely shouldn't get this book. You're not into YZE or BR 2049 lore, and unlike with the Alien RPG there's less total material to draw from (some comics, but nothing like the wealth of comics, videogames, unproduced screenplays, etc. in the Alien the setting that FL drew from).

Also, in terms of developing the wider setting, remember that the deals FL has to work on the Alien and BR RPGs means they're basically using and creating canon material. So there's only so much they can really do without starting to contradict the movies. And it's a much smaller setting overall than Alien, unless they wind up getting into the offworld colonies--in future material, if anything.

I'd suggest waiting to see what their first major supplement is. The Colonial Marines book is packed with lore, story seeds, maps, etc. If they can pull off something similar for BR that might be what you're looking for.