Blade Runner TTRPG nails Ridley Scott’s vision with a great starter set

Ridley Scott’s 1982 film Blade Runner defined the cyberpunk and tech-noir genres, loosely adapting Philip K. Dick’s novel Are Androids attracted to Electric Sheep? This visionary portrayal of Los Angeles in the future shows a unit of LAPD that is charged with killing Replicants and hunting them down.

That setting proved so tantalizing that Free League Publishing’s Kickstarter campaign for a Blade Runner tabletop role-playing game was funded in just three minutes. Set between the events of the original film and Denis Villeneuve’s 2017 sequel, Blade Runner 2049, Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game December 13th, launches Polygon received an early review copy, plus the chance to spend two hours playing the scenario “Electric Dreams” (which is included in the Blade Runner Starter Set) with Free League CEO and co-founder Tomas Härenstam.

Martin Gripp/Free League Publishing

Willem Novak was still carrying his original wedding ring but he was now only married for the job. This was the hardened Blade Runner’s day off, though, and he was at his favorite noodle shop in Little Tokyo, trying to relax while listening to the toxic rain pouring down outside. He knew his day was about to get a lot worse when the LAPD spinner landed and his new rookie Replicant partner, FN9-2.39 — aka Fenna — stepped out.

“They asked me to bring you in, sir,” she stammered.

“Better make the noodles to go,” Willem said with a sigh.

Blade Runner uses a modified version of the Year Zero Engine found in Free League’s other licensed games, like Alien: The Roleplaying Game And Stories from the Loop. Instead of getting a pool of six-sided dice and shooting to roll as many sixes as possible, players only ever roll two dice, but they can have a d8, d10, or d12 if they’re particularly good at something. A character who rolls a 10 on one of their dies is considered a success.

A table in the core rulebook conveniently shows the chance of success for every possible combo, and how that’s affected if you choose to push your luck and reroll any dice that didn’t initially come up as a 1. While you might be able to turn failure into success while pushing, if you roll 1 while pushing you will take bodily injury or stress that lowers your resolve depending on whether or not you attempted a mental or physical action. The key difference between Replicants and humans is that Replicants can push twice but always take the damage to their resolve — they’re capable of superhuman feats, but they’re unstable.

Blade Runner is more than just a game of dice. Features from Sherlock Holmes’ investigative board game Sherlock Holmes: Consulting detective are spliced in..In a case that often involves corporate intrigue and murder, you will need to navigate Los Angeles in order to find clues. Because you will be triggered by events after certain hours, players must make wise decisions about how they spend their time. You could face punishment from your boss if you don’t get all of the pieces right. Of course, you might also discover along the way that whomever you’ve been chasing doesn’t actually deserve punishment. Sometimes, protecting your own humanity is more important than chasing the next promotion — a conflict that impacts not just your role-playing but character advancement options.

Martin Gripp/Free League Publishing

Captain Holden has been almost killed and shot 18 years ago by a Replicant, making him a little legend in the Rep-Detect unit. His artificial lungs cause him to wheeze a lot as he speaks. “We have an urgent situation. Yesterday night, there was a shooting at Snake Pit. The shooting involved two Nexus-9 Blade Runners. One was shot dead; the other is missing.”

He sent their files to Willem and Fenna’s data assistants. “There were human supremacists at the Snake Pit last night. It could have been something to do it. It is urgent that you get this figured out. The brass is pounding my neck. It is time to discover if someone is kidnapping Nexus-9s or murdering them. You can play this any way you want, so long as you get results.”

The Blade Runner Starter Set contains a condensed version of the rules, four pregenerated characters, and the aforementioned “Electric Dreams,” a rich adventure we only scratched the surface of in our two-hour session. You will also find a Rep-Detect case folder with high-quality, glossy handouts like surveillance footage and profiles taken from the LAPD Database. You can access the materials digitally through Foundry Virtual Tabletop.

We were able, in one case, to examine a Snake Pit photo from the night before the incident. Although the provided props may make creating your own adventures seem daunting, there are many prompts that can inspire you to come up with interesting and creative cases. Free League is planning to continue producing high-end case files.

Photo by Free League Publishing

The tech checks to zoom in and out on the images were unsuccessful for either of our characters. We would have had access to more detail if they succeeded. The case is designed with so many possible avenues of investigation that if you miss a few clues, your progress won’t be blocked. To see the Snake Pit, we had to go there ourselves. We used our social and investigative skills to find physical evidence and to get information from witnesses.

Martin Gripp/Free League Publishing

Fenna, Willem and Iris had been speaking to Iris (a Replicant dancer) on the evening of the incident. She’d seen the missing Blade Runner Leah talking to a regular named Styles who had gotten involved in a brawl with the human supremacists. Fenna had observed Styles from outside as he viewed the crime scene closely. Styles ran off before Styles could stop them from having a good chat.

Blade Runner is all about the thrill of the chase. You can use the starter set of cards to give the game a more minigame feel. There are also tables that allow you to choose whether chase scenes take place in an air vehicle, on foot or in a ground vehicle. Each round, the pursuer and the pursued secretly choose an action — such as continuing to try to close the distance, hiding, or standing and shooting — and then make skill checks to determine the results.

There’s also a deck of complications based on the setting of the chase that can modify the difficulty of the actions. It’s easier to hide if there are people around with umbrellas. A barricaded road can stop you moving, if not you have the strength to force it through. The outcome of the situation could lead to you being taken hostage, trapped, or even put in jail.

Combat is sometimes necessary, but it’s appropriately brutal. Every melee action is a combination of opposed rolls. Missing an opponent’s roll will result in a loss. Someone is getting hurt, and it’s just a matter of who. Fail by too much and you’ll wind up with a critical injury, which can debilitate you until your character gets some medical treatment. A crit could even cause your character to be permanently disabled or killed. While Dungeons & Dragons makes fighting the de facto way to handle most conflicts, Blade Runner wants you to think really hard about resorting to violence.

We didn’t get to experience one of the game’s other pillars, downtime, which allows your character to rest and recuperate. Downtime can also potentially introduce complications based on the case or your character’s backstory. Willem may have received a threat visit from his former partner, or an NPC calling with details about Leah that they would like to share. Based on our performance in the investigation, and any tough decisions made, promotion points could unlock new gear, pay rises or humanity points which can be used to level up your skills.

Blade Runner perfectly captures the feel of its source material. While it can play up to four people, it provides an experience that feels uniquely well suited to two — partners working the case together, sometimes forced to split up to cover more ground, even if it can put them in a very dangerous situation. Los Angeles 2039 is full of secrets, and I’m eager to team up with a friend and uncover more of them.

Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game Bladerunner-rpg.com will put it on sale December 13. You can purchase the core rulebook for $50 and the starter set at $47. Both are available together in a $115 bundle.

Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game Free League Publishing provided pre-release copies and a starter set to be reviewed. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. They do not affect editorial content. However, Vox Media might earn commissions from products sold via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.