Blade Runner RPG and Electric Dreams - Review

 

I got both the Blade Runner Core Rules (2022, 240 pages) and the Starter Set box. Free League always have great looking books, but their rules organization and index is always a mess. As a GM, you'd say, "Oh yeah, I read that rule somewhere, now where is it?" You can never find it easily. The good news is Blade Runner is the first Free League core book where you can actually find things. Thank goodness.

The hardcover book has dark and glossy pages to showcase the moody art.

The setting is Los Angeles 2037. The first Blade Runner movie is set in 2019. The second movie was Blade Runner 2049, so the game is set between the two movies. PCs are all Blade Runners, but they can be either Human (1st movie) or Nexus-9 Replicants (2nd movie).

Blade Runners have the job of finding and "retiring" Nexus-8 Replicants and any rogue Replicant. There are 7 character templates: Analyst, Cityspeaker, Doxie, Enforcer, Fixer, Inspector, Skimmer.

The game is designed for 1 GM, 1-4 Players. For people used to having more players, this might be a problem. The PCs are also encouraged to split up, so their investigation goes faster. Their KIA (iPad communication and computing device) allows the PCs to update and communicate with each other when needed. I can see how 6 players might be too many as each pair of investigators would leave out 2/3 of the other players from the action. Too much downtime (not to be confused with Downtime Events) for the players not in the scene.

The system uses polyhedral dice. One die for the Attribute, one die for the Skill. Base die is 1d6 and can go up to 1d12. On die rolls of 6+ = 1 success, 10+ = 2 successes. Roll both dice and count successes. Most of the time only 1 success is needed. 2 successes is a Crit in combat.

Fans of Free League games are complaining because they wanted to be able to make a mashup of Blade Runner and Alien RPG. Alien RPG uses a d6 dice pool, so the systems aren't compatible.

There are two types of Hit Points: Health (physical) and Resolve (mental). When you push a die roll, you can hurt yourself mentally or physically. Humans can push once, possible damage based on what type of skill they push. Replicants can push twice, but possible damage is always mental even when they push a physical skill. When either Health or Resolve goes to 0, the PC is Broken.

Physically Broken, a PC is down and out. Mentally Broken, there's a random chart. For Humans, ennui sets in and there's lack of motivation for further investigation. For Replicants, there's some sort of emotional breakdown and if noticed, they may be subject to a Baseline test. Failure of the Baseline test leads to recalibration and on a third strike "retirement."

Combat is deadly. Two successes = a roll on the Critical Injury chart.

Chases rules are also codified. Pursuer and Prey pick their Chase Maneuver from a list of available options and reveal their choices simulataneously (made easier with the cards from the Starter Set). Then a random obstacle is picked and that segment of the chase is resolved. Rinse and repeat until the chase is over. There are obstacles for foot, ground vehicle, and aerial vehicle chases.

Free League always seem to have a good grasp of what an IP (intellectual property) is about. For Blade Runner, it's about what makes you human. So, for longer term play, Players have to decide between Promotion points and Humanity points. You gain Promotion points by retiring Replicants and doing your job (solving cases). You gain Humanity points by doing nice things such as not turning in a harmless Nexus-8 Replicant.

The core book doesn't include a sample scenario. It does have advice and 8 random tables to help you generate your own scenario.

Starter Set

 
The Starter Set has a condensed rulebook (80 pages), large map of LA, 4 pre-gens, a scenario book (56 pages) - Electric Dreams (Case File #1), 26 scenario handouts, dice, and cards with NPC portraits, inititive, and chase options.

I've played the scenario Electric Dreams and I've run it twice. It took 2 sessions to play for a total of 6 hrs to complete the scenario. The amount and quality of the handouts is outstanding. The scenario is really well written. I did find a few things that needed clarification. I'll put that in the spoiler section.

One nit is that I looked for the Downtime Events chart in the condensed rulebook, but it is instead in the Electric Dreams case file, p.11-12.

I ran into organization issues in the scenario book. Information is spread out in different sections and is hard to find. You wind up flipping through the 56 pages over and over again, looking for stuff you swore you've read or knew must be in the scenario book such as stats for NPCs.

This is an amazing product and I highly recommend it. It does set a high bar for a scenario.

This is supposed to be the first case file in a set of 3. I'm eagerly awaiting Case File #2. 

Most of my sessions are 3 hours long. Different groups take different times, but my run times are here for comparison purposes.

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One Player mentioned that there is no fluff in this game. The newspaper handout looks like standard newspaper articles, but you'll realize that even the ads are clues to the case. It's all tied together.

Of note is the pre-gen Percival and Leah have the same Incept Date. Also Percival's Key Memory is of a Leah dying. Lazy memory designer? Does Percival have some subconscious wish to save Leah this time? Also Percival may develop the same issues Leah has, straying from the baseline because he has traumatic Key Memories also. And is his implanted childhood memory of Leah the same girl as the photo found in Leah's apartment? Does Percival have a reaction when he see's Lilith's daughter Sarah? Interesting things to think about.

Lilith is the model for Leah and Dinah (Leah's Implanted Memory of a daughter). So, all 3 look like the same person, but at different ages. Sarah, Lilith's real biological daughter, also looks like Dinah. Lilith is pretty old to have such a young daughter, so it's possible that Sarah is a clone of Lilith. These are interesting ideas to play with.

The background on Dinah's picture has the same sky as Arcadia, found on the back of Handout R, the Offworld pamphlet. This drives Leah to want to go to Arcadia and incidentally with Sarah as her replacement Dinah.

Underground Replicants (p.39) don't have their information in the LAPD database, but for some reason Styles is in it (p.24) and Handout H (p.27). This may be the reason Sandor went after Styles at the Snake Pit. In two of the games, the PCs wanted to crack Sandor's KIA and see what he knew. I decided it would require LAPD authorization and a Tech roll to do it, probably requiring at least a shift, so the PCs would have to do some other investigating before they could open it up for examination.

Styles profile (p.17) states that he doesn't know where Leah is. That is not quite correct. He believes she is at the Safehouse whose location he knows. Storywise, she'll always leave to go on her mission to kill Lilith, even if the PCs get here before Countdown Event #5. If the PCs are here early, then they might have a chance of getting to The Memory Lab before Leah gets there.

I also wondered why Leah suddenly decided to kill Lilith. The clue is the Synth magazine with the article titled, Trauma Gives Control. While in the Safehouse, Leah read the article and it triggered her and she wanted to kill Lilith before she went offworld.

PCs also wondered if there was a database of bullet rifling for registered Blade Runner weapons. In reality there should be. If you do say it exists, then it would be too easy to link Sandor's death with Leah's weapon unless she used an unregistered weapon.

Both pre-gen Replicants carry PK-D FKM890 which only shoots Sonic Rounds. But Leah carries a PK-D 5223 Blaster (p.14). I didn't see this and made the mistake of saying Leah carried a PK-D FKM890. I also found it odd that one clue is that Leah visited Bullet Bob's Runner Surplus to buy .44 ammunition. Don't cops buy ammunition for shooting practice? Don't they have extra ammo on them for reloads? So why is this a clue? I guess this is to tell the Players that Leah bought a box of ammo after the shooting which means she wasn't kidnapped. This also means she never returned to her apartment to pick up her stuff which makes sense because she left her clothes, the framed picture, and the butterflies in her apartment. When my Players searched her apartment, I left all her things there, so they wouldn't immediately think she was on the run, but there was a chance she was kidnapped. This also makes me think there should be boxes of ammo in her apartment whether she has a registered or unregistered PK-D 5223 Blaster.

I also added some extra details to Sandor's body. If you look at the picture of The Snake Pit, the mirror looks like it got hit at head height, so the bullet must have travelled upwards through Sandor's body to strike the mirror at that height. Sandor was killed by a single bullet that went through his heart. So, I made the entry wound about waist high, travelling upwards, through the chest and heart, and exiting out through his side. Sandor was facing the stage and Leah held her gun at waist level, muzzle at an upward angle, and shot Sandor. Holding the gun this way, close to her hip helped conceal the gun from casual observers. If Leah had an unregistered Blaster, did that mean she pre-meditated the murder of Sandor? She knew Sandor was looking for Styles at The Snake Pit. Wouldn't Sandor notice Leah's change of weaponry? Unless Leah had already switched weapons earlier and lied to Sandor about why she changed weapons. She could have said she wanted better stopping power.

Did Leah buy her unregistered Blaster from Bullet Bob's or Doc Badger's? I assume from Bullet Bob's. I doubt Doc Badger's would sell illegal firearms in the open. And Leah, being a Blade Runner can legally buy an used PK-D 5223 Blaster from Bullet Bob's without any questions.

PCs at the Snake Pit also questioned if there were bouncers there and if there was security video. There probably should be bouncers, but the big group of Anti-Replicant hecklers was too much for them to handle or Taffey Lewis is too cheap to hire more than one and maybe Styles unofficially works as the bouncer. There was no security video because what happens in the Snake Pit stays in the Snake Pit. I decided that once in a while there was some Anti-Replicant action, but it was always one or two guys who just get thrown out. This time KILL magazine organized a protest. Not only that, they had some people on the outside to take photos just in case the riot boiled out in to the street. One of these photos was used as the KILL magazine cover photo.

Two Animoid Row Vendors (p.45), Abdul Ben Hassan's Reptiles and Runciters Zoological aren't on the map. There are also various shops on the map (p.42-43) that aren't in the directory. Also note that there's a Metrokab waiting area on Animoid Row, so there must be a taxicab stand for the busy area near the Metrokab waiting area.

In one run, the PCs chased Styles and another N-8 who disappeared in Animoid Row. They had slipped into the The Aurelian's Shop. The PCs intuitively entered the shop and found them hiding in a supply closet and retired the N-8s. Aurelian fled the shop. Where does he go? The Safehouse.

Countdown Events (p.10) #3, The Wallace Hit Squad (p.19). I found this timing a bit rushed. Depending on how the scenario plays out, you may want to delay this. When the PCs visited The Memory Lab a second time, I decided a kill team was there staking out the place and had seen Leah enter (I moved her event #5 up and have it happen earlier). They were waiting for Leah to exit to grab her, but the PCs arrived and the kill team decided to act and get both Leah and the PCs at the same time. Two birds with one Ender Assault Rifle as it were. What was interesting was that the PCs thought the kill team was from KILL magazine. So, that could be an interesting twist. What made the Players think that was because Quell was impossible to read and she didn't make any obvious threats. Storywise, without any foreshadowing that Quell would act, it's impossible for the Players to know that they're on a ticking clock and their lives would be in jeapordy. But Quell would never show her hand for plausible deniability. I did tell the PCs several times through Deputy Chief Holden that Wallace Corp was breathing down his neck to solve the case as a hint to the Players.

The Moonbus probably goes to a lunar spaceport or docks with an interstellar spaceship after leaving Earth.

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