Free League announces Blade Runner RPG in 2022

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Against the Darkmaster has to be one of the worst names for an RPG ever.
Yeah. I guess they wanted it to be a humorous *Wink Wink Nudge Nudge* that this is a semi-retroclone of MERP.

"One of those Not-IP-Licensed games somewhat similar to but in no way derivative of Midnight and Hellfrost." might have been too close for the Legal guy. :devil:
 
still surprised that no one's thought to name an RPG "The Inklings"
 
Mid 80's. But the Korn remake was in mid-2000's.

Well, 1985 I think my favourite song was probably "Rubber Ducky in the Tub" if that gives a clue to how tuned-in I was to pop culture at that age

I know of Korn, but I think I've only ever heard two of their songs - "Twisted Transister" and "Down with the Sickness", both from films
 
Well, 1985 I think my favourite song was probably "Rubber Ducky in the Tub" if that gives a clue to how tuned-in I was to pop culture at that age

I know of Korn, but I think I've only ever heard two of their songs - "Twisted Transister" and "Down with the Sickness", both from films
Down with the Sickness is Disturbed.
 
Well, 1985 I think my favourite song was probably "Rubber Ducky in the Tub" if that gives a clue to how tuned-in I was to pop culture at that age

I know of Korn, but I think I've only ever heard two of their songs - "Twisted Transister" and "Down with the Sickness", both from films
Disturbed's frontman is David Draiman, you've had to see this by now.
 
lol, no that's my first time encountering that cover...
 
I don't really even think of Blade Runner as cyberpunk. It is near future (at the time) dystopian science fiction, but doesn't really have any of the elements of "cyberpunk," at least when it comes to how I have always heard and used that term.
Really? That's interesting. Which elements are you talking about? Just curious, since Philip K. Dick is usually cited as a key writer when it comes to the emergence of cyberpunk.
 
A nice article, but it really just boils down to: the mood of the movies is really important for the genre's drama... which is... true, I guess?

I don't see how that couldn't be done with other game systems though. Then again, I was wrong about Free League's Alien, so there's that!
I mean, other than a few additional setting details, Altered Carbon could be said to be close- you could run BR in Altered Carbon easily.
 
Really? That's interesting. Which elements are you talking about? Just curious, since Philip K. Dick is usually cited as a key writer when it comes to the emergence of cyberpunk.
Philip K. Dick is more of Proto-Cyberpunk, he's part of the New Wave of Sci-Fi that led to the Cyberpunk writers themselves. For example, Blade Runner has no hint of free AI's controlling computer networks (or even the concept of an internet), there's little merging of man and machine with cyberware (although replacing people entirely with Replicants isn't quite the same thing), there's a sense of Mega-Corporations, but not necessarily the demise or lessening of Government power in response. It's certainly on the way, but not quite there, still in the seminal stage before many of the signature elements are present.
 
Philip K. Dick is more of Proto-Cyberpunk, he's part of the New Wave of Sci-Fi that led to the Cyberpunk writers themselves. For example, Blade Runner has no hint of free AI's controlling computer networks (or even the concept of an internet), there's little merging of man and machine with cyberware (although replacing people entirely with Replicants isn't quite the same thing), there's a sense of Mega-Corporations, but not necessarily the demise or lessening of Government power in response. It's certainly on the way, but not quite there, still in the seminal stage before many of the signature elements are present.
I met Gibson back in my bookstore days. He says he never got into Philip K. Dick. He said that Alfred Bester and Thomas Pynchon (specifically Gravity's Rainbow) were his big inspirations. There is no question that Dick was influential on the genre as a whole, but it isn't a straight line.
 
Once I found out Gibson's opinions on Shadowrun, I stopped caring about his opinions on cyberpunk.
 
I met Gibson back in my bookstore days. He says he never got into Philip K. Dick. He said that Alfred Bester and Thomas Pynchon (specifically Gravity's Rainbow) were his big inspirations. There is no question that Dick was influential on the genre as a whole, but it isn't a straight line.
True, Sterling’s biggest influence was Ballard, I believe. But the New Wavers in general were major influences on the Cyberpunks.
 
Once I found out Gibson's opinions on Shadowrun, I stopped caring about his opinions on cyberpunk.
The guy who coined “the street finds its own uses for things” is upset someone added fantasy to Cyberpunk (even though Gibson flirted with it himself). Gibson’s a cast-iron prick, but I still like his novels.
 
The one thing that attracts me, kinda, to a Blade Runner game is the possibility it might not devolve into the same 'do a job, get paid, upgrade... repeat' that every cyberpunk game I've played seems to fall into. The fixation on guns and equipment has really put me off that sub-genre, despite once having a lot of enthusiasm for the whole 'near-future dystopia' thing.
 
The one thing that attracts me, kinda, to a Blade Runner game is the possibility it might not devolve into the same 'do a job, get paid, upgrade... repeat' that every cyberpunk game I've played seems to fall into. The fixation on guns and equipment has really put me off that sub-genre, despite once having a lot of enthusiasm for the whole 'near-future dystopia' thing.
It always seemed to me to add to in-setting immersion. Look at how far down the rabbit hole people go when getting a new phone, video card, or whatever. They’re gonna be at least as consumeristic as that for body replacements.
 
Look at how far down the rabbit hole people go when getting a new phone, video card, or whatever. They’re gonna be at least as consumeristic as that for body replacements.
Shopping Simulation Games (SSGs) don't much appeal to me. I'm glad the Director's Cut left out that whole sequence where Deckard goes to the mall looking for cute shoes.
 
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Really? That's interesting. Which elements are you talking about? Just curious, since Philip K. Dick is usually cited as a key writer when it comes to the emergence of cyberpunk.

CRKrueger CRKrueger already covered some of this, but to reiterate and expand a little bit on it...

Though Philip K. Dick probably influenced a lot of cyberpunk writers, as did the other "New Wave of Science Fiction" writers, I wouldn't say "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" was really cyberpunk, per se. It had some of the story elements that later became common in cyberpunk, like powerful corporations in a dystopian near future, but the focus is more on the nature of what it means to be human and questions about empathy. "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" puts a LOT of focus on the nature of empathy as a defining feature of human-ness, and is almost post-apocalyptic in the way it describes the rapidly decaying natural world. "Blade Runner" the movie combined shifts into a more old-fashioned noir-ish aesthetic, and isn't as direct in the way it explores empathy, but is still largely focused on the nature of what it is to be human.

I tend to think of cyberpunk as focusing more on the interaction of technology with people's everyday lives in a dystopian future largely controlled by corporations, with a particular focus on the individual's struggle against the powers that be. Technologically it tends to be more oriented towards things like cybernetic implants, "jacking into" computer networks, artificial intelligence, etc. It usually explores the expansion of the human condition when merged with technology and how that is utilized by disenfranchised individuals in their struggle for power, or (at least) self-determination. "Do Androids..." and "Blade Runner," on the other hand, are more along the lines of looking at the evolution of machines (or man-made organisms) towards an idealized state of becoming more human.

I was reading science fiction before the term "cyberpunk" was in common use in sci fi publishing. I first heard the term in the 1980s, when Gibson and Sterling became popular, and remember thinking that they were really helping to define an interesting new subgenre. They weren't bringing anything wholly new to science fiction, but the things they tended to focus on in the books and stories they were writing at the time were pretty focused on certain themes and ideas that only popped up in earlier works (by various authors) here and there. It wasn't until the 1980s that a more definable subgenre really emerged, at least when it comes to how I tend to view it, and how I conceived of it at the time.
 
The guy who coined “the street finds its own uses for things” is upset someone added fantasy to Cyberpunk (even though Gibson flirted with it himself). Gibson’s a cast-iron prick, but I still like his novels.
I can definitely understand Gibson here, though. Given the time when this happened, it would feel more like "Big Elf" taking over than "the street". You got a genre where you can "say a few things", and wham-bam, it's Shannara-fied complete with covers by people who should stick to van sides and camaro hoods.
I think that SR actually tried to deviate from just making cyberpunk more conservative, but there always was too much going on.

Kinda how I feel about the new BR movie, and interesting to see where game takes us. I'm hoping for a more streamlined core book and fully expect to be disappointed by the first expansions, when they take us eco-warrioring or introduce replicant space marines.
 
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