I'm looking forward to Blade Runner.

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Me gusta.

Shades of "The Island (with Johansen/McGregor/Bean)" or even Logans Run.

And of course you've seen "Never Let Me Go"? With Carey Mulligan, Andrew Whatisface and Pretty Skeletor?
I have not seen "Never Let Me Go."

I need to watch this.
 
I really liked Never Let me Go, even though it is profoundly sad. Felt like a great New Wave novella.

Ishiguro is an excellent writer, I need to read his fantasy novel The Buried Giant.
 
3rik, I write for Year Zero Engine games for fun and I’m a fan of the system. Can I ask what about the YZE you don’t like? I don’t intend to press, but I’m curious on what can be improved with YZE and would welcome your perspective.
I like the YZE for Twilight 2000. And some others. But the BR specific mechanics leave me cold. It could be miscommunicated but it seems to me they didn't watch the same movies as me.
 
I find sometimes difficult to imagine the description of the damage from push rolls, depending on the game, I think.

First of all, I don’t really understand what are push rolls supposed to mean? That you’ve rolled, failed and there was a consequence in the fiction, and you then had the chance to try again, putting more effort in the task? Or that your first roll doesnot mean anything in the fiction, and only your second roll counts?

Then, if you are firing a gun, presumably using AGILITY, your push roll can result in damage. Is that irrespective of success or failure at the task, right? In any case, I would find it easier to describe as stress, rather than damage.

In truth I don’t know the MY0 ruleset very well, having only played in the Genlab Alpha campaign. I also own Forbidden Lands, Tales from the Loop and Alien, but played the first two only a few times.

Because of miscommunication with a friend I‘ve missed Twilight 2000, never had the chance to read those rules.
 
3rik, I write for Year Zero Engine games for fun and I’m a fan of the system. Can I ask what about the YZE you don’t like? I don’t intend to press, but I’m curious on what can be improved with YZE and would welcome your perspective.
I own Mutant Year Zero and Vaesen so I don't have a problem with the Year Zero Engine in general. It's what I've read about the mechanics for Blade Runner that made me decide to cancel my pledge. I reacted to them earlier on in this thread.

It seems like the Promotion/Humanity/Skill Level dynamic will force all players to have their Blade Runner characters struggle with the same existential doubt that Deckard (?) had in the movie. Like meaningful dream sequences are a thing in the setting, not just for Deckard. It just feels forced, when what I was expecting/hoping for is a game to run or play in the setting of Blade Runner not in the head of one erm... a number of them.
 
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I find sometimes difficult to imagine the description of the damage from push rolls, depending on the game, I think.

First of all, I don’t really understand what are push rolls supposed to mean? That you’ve rolled, failed and there was a consequence in the fiction, and you then had the chance to try again, putting more effort in the task? Or that your first roll doesnot mean anything in the fiction, and only your second roll counts?

Then, if you are firing a gun, presumably using AGILITY, your push roll can result in damage. Is that irrespective of success or failure at the task, right? In any case, I would find it easier to describe as stress, rather than damage.
I think it's a retcon, for sure, not a second attempt. It's the PC saying they'll use some metacurrency to make sure they get the roll (in the case, the risk of a condition).

If you don't hit, you're not doing damage.
 
I own Mutant Year Zero and Vaesen so I don't have a problem with the Year Zero Engine in general. It's what I've read about the mechanics for Blade Runner that made me decide to cancel my pledge. I reacted to them earlier on in this thread.

It seems like the Promotion/Humanity/Skill Level dynamic will force all players to have their Blade Runner characters struggle with the same existential doubt that Deckard (?) had in the movie. Like meaningful dream sequences are a thing in the setting, not just for Deckard. It just feels forced, when what I was expecting/hoping for is a game to run or play in the setting of Blade Runner not in the head of one erm... a number of them.

I'm very close to cancelling my pledge for the same reason too. It feels like the mechanics, as expressed so far, force a way of playing and doing things in a specific way. It's a weird one for me because I love systems that represent theme and setting concepts (TOR's Hope/Shadow, various insanity and stress mechanics, etc) but this one feels a little too on-the-nose and will lead to players gaming it and a very specific but narrow style of play/game which just seems far too limiting to hold interest or have any real longevity.
 
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I'm very close to cancelling my pledge for the same reason too. It feels like the mechanics, as expressed so far, force a way of playing and doing things in a specific way. It's a weird one for me because I love systems that represent theme and setting concepts (TOR's Hope/Shadow, various insanity and stress mechanics, etc) but this one feels a little too on-the-nose and will lead to players gaming it and a very specific but narrow style of play/game which just seems far too limiting to hold interest or have any real longevity.
Hence why I'm not backing the Kickstarter and waiting for the official release.
 
Hence why I'm not backing the Kickstarter and waiting for the official release.

Having watched the Youtube interview with the developer, I think I'm going to wait for the official release, too. The things they are focusing on for gameplay aren't the most interesting parts of that world to me, so I'll wait to see how much value there might be (for me) in the "fluff," worldbuilding, etc.
 
I've just decided to back BR, but that's mainly because I hope there will be enough setting nuggets from the original movie (with its various cuts) as I'm not a fan of FL's systems and really don't like the 2049 movie.
 
MY0 mechanics are pretty adaptable, if there is a mechanic I don't care for in BR then I'll just not use it and adapt, maybe taking a mechanic from one of the other MY0 rpgs that I own.
 
I'm very close to cancelling my pledge for the same reason too. It feels like the mechanics, as expressed so far, force a way of playing and doing things in a specific way. It's a weird one for me because I love systems that represent theme and setting concepts (TOR's Hope/Shadow, various insanity and stress mechanics, etc) but this one feels a little too on-the-nose and will lead to players gaming it and a very specific but narrow style of play/game which just seems far too limiting to hold interest or have any real longevity.

May I ask what do you guys see in the setting that would be so interesting from a "general" point of view?
I didn't back the KS because I think BR as a setting has the exact same problem you're describing about these mechanics.

I mean, if you don't play a Deckard expy... what does BR do differently than your generic cyberpunk dystopia?
 
I own Mutant Year Zero and Vaesen so I don't have a problem with the Year Zero Engine in general. It's what I've read about the mechanics for Blade Runner that made me decide to cancel my pledge. I reacted to them earlier on in this thread.

It seems like the Promotion/Humanity/Skill Level dynamic will force all players to have their Blade Runner characters struggle with the same existential doubt that Deckard (?) had in the movie. Like meaningful dream sequences are a thing in the setting, not just for Deckard. It just feels forced, when what I was expecting/hoping for is a game to run or play in the setting of Blade Runner not in the head of one erm... a number of them.
To be honest, I expected a more genre-focused, movie-thematic game than a more verisimilar setting game. Alien includes a surprising amount of setting detail and enough moving parts to get a Living World going, but they had a LOT of reference material outside the movie itself to draw on, including a prior RPG.

Blade Runner just doesn't have enough detail for a setting builder to go to town on, so it's going to require filling in the BR world. If you don't want to do that, you're gonna move toward playing the BR movie, complete with Dream Sequences it looks like.
 
May I ask what do you guys see in the setting that would be so interesting from a "general" point of view?
I didn't back the KS because I think BR as a setting has the exact same problem you're describing about these mechanics.

I mean, if you don't play a Deckard expy... what does BR do differently than your generic cyberpunk dystopia?
Two things.
1. Actual artificial humans.
2. Offworld/Outsystem colonies with some form of FTL.
These things make it seem different to most cyberpunk settings which focus more on human augmentation and terrestrial boundaries.
 
May I ask what do you guys see in the setting that would be so interesting from a "general" point of view?
I didn't back the KS because I think BR as a setting has the exact same problem you're describing about these mechanics.

I mean, if you don't play a Deckard expy... what does BR do differently than your generic cyberpunk dystopia?

You can easily do "Blade Runner" with a generic science fiction system of some sort. The same for "Alien" and many other settings.

With any movie or book-based setting, my interest usually lies in having a good sourcebook that has already done the conversion of a lot of things into some sort of game numbers (like many GURPS books do), something that acts as a good reference work, something that is just fun to read, or some combination of those three things. Those last two things are the most important to me. I'm not really too concerned about specific mechanics beyond that, since I will just cut out or alter things that I don't like.

A big part of my disappointment with the 2d20 Conan books, for example, was that they didn't fulfill enough of those things for my taste versus the cost per book. Given the number of "metacurrency" type things that the developer has been talking about and other things, chances are I will cut out quite a bit of the mechanics from the "Blade Runner" game, if I end up buying it and running it. That doesn't surprise me, but from listening to the developer interviews it sounds like they are devoting a lot of space in the book to the stuff that doesn't matter to me. When I put that up against the price of the book, it might not be worth it to me to buy it. That's why I will wait and see the final product, and then see if that is what I want to spend my money on. I'm being a lot more careful on how I spend my rpg dollars these days.

In the end, though, I'm mainly interested in it and any supplements - and the "Alien" universe game (that I already have) - to cobble together into a broader Alien / Blade Runner / Soldier setting. That may be using some version of the mechanics from one of the games, or it may be something I do with BRP or OpenD6. The artificial life, gritty future, less-fancy-advanced-tech sort of setting is what I like about those settings. Though I can certainly just run my own universe with those types of things in it (which is what I usually do), I just like the idea of using a mashup of the established settings in this case, particularly since I enjoy the easter eggs within the movies that tie them together. I like the "Wold Newton Family Universe" and the one from Moore's "League of Extraordinary Gentlemen" universe for the same reasons. Tying universes from multiple creators together in a cohesive, detailed way is a fun intellectual exercise.
 
To be honest, I expected a more genre-focused, movie-thematic game than a more verisimilar setting game. Alien includes a surprising amount of setting detail and enough moving parts to get a Living World going, but they had a LOT of reference material outside the movie itself to draw on, including a prior RPG.

The ALIEN game is so well done. You can run an entire campaign without encountering Xenos. I think the colonial marines book may have been fan service but I'll make a more concrete decision on that when I've finished it. Alien could be a very nice generic sci-fi with a more concrete AND existential dread because of the background of the Engineers and the Xenos out there.

Blade Runner just doesn't have enough detail for a setting builder to go to town on, so it's going to require filling in the BR world. If you don't want to do that, you're gonna move toward playing the BR movie, complete with Dream Sequences it looks like.

Being a Space Trucker was established in Alien. Being a corporate schmuck also. We see that people have jobs as load lifters. We see people need money. That there's work as a colonist or a pilot. That these are definitely worlds in other star systems. And that there has to be FTL. We got that from the movies. Heck, whatever you think of the movie, Alien Resurrection was about the trials and tribulations of a very unfortunate PC group on the Betty.

I just don't see a lot in BR that wouldn't be exposition from Free League and not supported in the movie in any way. That said, I'm as interested in The Egyptian, Taffy Lewis, Cotton, Ana Stelline, or Doc Badger, as I am in anything else in the movies. But they're just not enough. We hear about the Offworld colonies but are they FTL? We don't know. They could just be Orbitals. Niander Wallace refers to nine worlds but are those moons? Or planets? Are we even outside the Solar System? All of this has to come from Free League.
 
The Off-World colonies are established as actual planets in Blade Runner 2019, although she first travels to Ramanuja Station an off-world travel nexus, she then goes on to the world called Arcadia.
 
May I ask what do you guys see in the setting that would be so interesting from a "general" point of view?
I didn't back the KS because I think BR as a setting has the exact same problem you're describing about these mechanics.

I mean, if you don't play a Deckard expy... what does BR do differently than your generic cyberpunk dystopia?

I'd immediately want to be able to play the Replicants that are being pursued and trying to escape from slavery, find a better life and help others to do the same. For me, their fight and struggle is more interesting than the BR detective's is - even if/when that detective starts to question the ethics of it; especially as it looks like every BR has to do this to develop themselves mechanically which will become dull pretty fast. So, even without expanding the actual setting (which is needed and expected from an RPG and I love the low-tech feel over many others in this genre which focus more on gear-porn) the Blade Runner game, as it stands, feels like it is just too narrow in its delivery and actually feels restrictive in how that's delivered too (through the mechanics that have been mentioned and how you get points for certain advancements when you behave a certain way). I have now cancelled my pledge though for these reasons.
 
Be interesting to see which one is more successful and also gets the better reviews , the Blade Runner rpg or the Altered Carbon rpg?
 
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I'd immediately want to be able to play the Replicants that are being pursued and trying to escape from slavery, find a better life and help others to do the same. For me, their fight and struggle is more interesting than the BR detective's is - even if/when that detective starts to question the ethics of it; especially as it looks like every BR has to do this to develop themselves mechanically which will become dull pretty fast. So, even without expanding the actual setting (which is needed and expected from an RPG and I love the low-tech feel over many others in this genre which focus more on gear-porn) the Blade Runner game, as it stands, feels like it is just too narrow in its delivery and actually feels restrictive in how that's delivered too (through the mechanics that have been mentioned and how you get points for certain advancements when you behave a certain way). I have now cancelled my pledge though for these reasons.

Didn't they say playing Replicants was in the game?
 
Didn't they say playing Replicants was in the game?

My understanding may be wrong but I thought that was still in the space of being detectives/Blade Runners as the RPG is basically a futuristic police procedural?
 
My understanding may be wrong but I thought that was still in the space of being detectives/Blade Runners as the RPG is basically a futuristic police procedural?

Just checked and apparently you can play Nexus-Nines but Nexus-Eights to play are for a later release at this point.
 
From the sound of it yes.

Which is my conclusion and why I'm not interested. Not because you play cops but more because the mechanics related to character development look railroady.
 
even if/when that detective starts to question the ethics of it; especially as it looks like every BR has to do this to develop themselves mechanically which will become dull pretty fast
Not only may it become dull, but it just doesn't make sense that all Blade Runners have to do this and it will feel almost comical to actually have a whole group of them as PCs.
 
Not only may it become dull, but it just doesn't make sense that all Blade Runners have to do this and it will feel almost comical to actually have a whole group of them as PCs.

Yep, that's my concern too. I find the sound of it almost... comical/farcical.
 
Yep, that's my concern too. I find the sound of it almost... comical/farcical.
What are you going to do this time, do a proper job or give into your humanity?
Well, I need a better gun so I'm going for Promotion Points this time, you?
I think it'll work best if we all go for the Promotion Points this time and concentrate on our humanity (and raising skills) another time.

I had the weirdest dream last night. I feel it might mean something.
Really, the same happened to me and my colleague here.
Strange, I guess it comes with the job.
 
I had the weirdest dream last night. I feel it might mean something.
Really, the same happened to me and my colleague here.

As long as you do one involving this, I'm in!

 
I find sometimes difficult to imagine the description of the damage from push rolls, depending on the game, I think.

First of all, I don’t really understand what are push rolls supposed to mean? That you’ve rolled, failed and there was a consequence in the fiction, and you then had the chance to try again, putting more effort in the task? Or that your first roll doesnot mean anything in the fiction, and only your second roll counts?
How do push rolls work in Year Zero engine?
 
Interesting point, would folks give Arnold in the last Terminator movie, Dark Fate?, the same leeway as Pris?
..alas, I feel the answer is "no". The statement that people judge by the cover is regrettably, demonstrably true:thumbsup:.

Yoy KNOW some would, especially if he was givin up dat booty...
...and that right here is what passes for "looking deep into it" among many, many fellow humans (not Gringnr Gringnr himself, he's obviously mocking them as well and I get that:grin:).

Leon punches a hole in a steel dumpster with apparently no pain, and Roy punched through walls with his hands and head, and also took a pipe to the skull with minor effect. The V-K test is pure plot device, they could have just as easy handed Leon a stubborn jar of pickles and asked him to open it. :tongue:
Yeah, now that you mentioned it...:skeleton:
Ah well, holes in movie logic, news at 11.

An obvious dilemma is to have hardened blade runners finding themselves clearly on the wrong side of right. The replicants in BR were sympathetic, but they did some awful things which made Decker's job easier to defend. Encountering non-violent replicants whose only crime is existing in a free state, I would hope that would give any players some pause before blasting away.
I've done that in a game. I don't even remember what game it was, but my attitude was that they were at my mercy. (Not replicants, obviously, just some runaways/outlaws in a dark fantasy setting...might have been Exalted, or a playtest of a game I liked, I really don't remember the details, and it all got resolved in less than a session...we were being efficient).
We found them, but they had set new lives in a place "on the butt of Geography", as we say in my city. Not all of those jobs were legal, but none were violent, which gave us pause. I think the GM didn't actually expect us to stop and check. But we knew to stop and check because we figured that just killing them might get someone that had come to like them on our heels.
The party set up contacts with the local law enforcement and approached them to let them know they were "under parole": so long as they were behaving and not being outlaws, murderers and what-have-you, we weren't going to do our jobs on them. But one slip is all that it would take, because we were taking a risk as well, including for our reputations.
Then we checked on them repeatedly, when we were passing by.
I don't remember if we reported them for dead to take the prizes, or whether we took the hit of admitting we lost track of them. Probably the former:tongue:!

So, something like this? Mind you, it was a small group and such solutions were being much easier to achieve when two players, me among them, were adamant that we're not killing people who didn't deserve it - and there was no dearth of those in the setting. In fact, we felt like we were in an XP-rich environment most of the time:shade:!
 
How do push rolls work in Year Zero engine?
You roll your dice pool and anything over 6 gives you 1 success, and anything over 9 counts as 2 successes.

If you didn't get as many successes as you would like, you can push. This lets you re-roll any of the dice that didn't roll a 1. However, after you have done the re-roll, any die with a 1 does a point of damage or stress, including the dice that already had a 1.

The official rules say physical skills result in damage and mental rolls result in stress. That mostly makes sense, but I think its best if the GM adjudicates damage or stress depending on what makes the most sense.
 
You guys are making me nervous, what with all of the "cancel my pledge" conversation here.

The thing for me is that I think Bladerunner is awesome in concept, but the PK Dick book doesn't grab me, the original movie doesn't grab me as much as I had hoped and the second one grabbed me even less. I love noir and the notion of future noir really intrigues me. I know that there are other games like this such as Cyberpunk and that kind of thing but I love other stuff by Free League and so I backed the KS because I'm hoping for "very cool" in this product.

My downside is that I polled my gaming group about who would be interested and no one stepped forward. They like fantasy and my one trip into Shadowrun was such a disaster that I had players vow never to attempt Shadowrun ever again. (Yikes!) Anyway, I pledged because I'm hoping it will be cool and not because I expect to play it a lot.

Maybe part of why the movie never grabbed me is that I don't think about deep philosophical stuff when I read or watch scifi. I read or watch scifi for the action and fun factor. It never occurred to me that Deckard might be a replicant when I saw the movie, and it wasn't until I ran into debates on the issue that I encountered that stuff at all. I'm still not convinced, but folks tell me that some of the editions of the movie have symbolism that suggest that he is.

Anyway, this thread had been getting me excited about Bladerunner, but now I'm seeing folks say that they are cancelling their KS pledge because they don't think the game will be what they had hoped and that makes me nervous. Not nervous that the thing won't be made, because they blew past "funded" long ago, but nervous that maybe the game won't be what I want, either. :sad:

I'll be watching the continued discussion with interest.
 
I'd say a safe thing is to pledge $1. It gives you access to the updates and the pledgemanager. I've gotten in after the fact on a few of FL's KS
 
You guys are making me nervous, what with all of the "cancel my pledge" conversation here.

The thing for me is that I think Bladerunner is awesome in concept, but the PK Dick book doesn't grab me, the original movie doesn't grab me as much as I had hoped and the second one grabbed me even less. I love noir and the notion of future noir really intrigues me. I know that there are other games like this such as Cyberpunk and that kind of thing but I love other stuff by Free League and so I backed the KS because I'm hoping for "very cool" in this product.

My downside is that I polled my gaming group about who would be interested and no one stepped forward. They like fantasy and my one trip into Shadowrun was such a disaster that I had players vow never to attempt Shadowrun ever again. (Yikes!) Anyway, I pledged because I'm hoping it will be cool and not because I expect to play it a lot.

Maybe part of why the movie never grabbed me is that I don't think about deep philosophical stuff when I read or watch scifi. I read or watch scifi for the action and fun factor. It never occurred to me that Deckard might be a replicant when I saw the movie, and it wasn't until I ran into debates on the issue that I encountered that stuff at all. I'm still not convinced, but folks tell me that some of the editions of the movie have symbolism that suggest that he is.

Anyway, this thread had been getting me excited about Bladerunner, but now I'm seeing folks say that they are cancelling their KS pledge because they don't think the game will be what they had hoped and that makes me nervous. Not nervous that the thing won't be made, because they blew past "funded" long ago, but nervous that maybe the game won't be what I want, either. :sad:

I'll be watching the continued discussion with interest.
I'm keeping mine and I am holding off on running a cyberpunk game until this comes out. In my group, 3 out of 5 players are looking forward to it. One for the sci-fi noir aspect and the other two want to explore the whole "what is it to be human" themes.
 
You guys are making me nervous, what with all of the "cancel my pledge" conversation here.

...

I'll be watching the continued discussion with interest.

If you just primarily want 'cool stuff' rather than hopes of playing the game then I think you'll get that by the truck load with this KS, mate, so I wouldn't worry about it. FL's production values are always top notch.

My concerns are with the (apparently from what's been described) restrictive character development mechanics of the game and how they will lead to, say, a group of 5 PCs all behaving the same (doing missions for promotion points, posing existential questions, having dreams, etc for skill points and so on) in order to get the right combination of promotion points and skill points for each of their characters. I think that will lead to farcical play and my players (very sarcastic and aware folks; "lets let this replicant go and have a chat about what it means to be human", "lets retire this one as I need a better gun", etc) utterly taking the piss out of it. If it was a 1-player-to-1-GM setup then I'd actually be less concerned about such mechanics as you'd only be dealing with one PC doing all those things, albeit the player would need to buy-in to the format. But one PC behaving like that is more believable than five of them doing it and the players all meta-gaming the investigation to game the system.

They really need to share concrete examples, or better still an actual scenario with rules, for me to change my mind at this moment but then they've smashed their target with people likely just loving the IP so there's no wider need of that other than for the peeps that share my above views.
 
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