Time To Die

Adapted from Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner brought the noir genre into the modern age. Released in 1982 the film’s depiction of a, then, near future Los Angeles -with its crowded neon lit streets a stark contrast to its morally grey, and perpetually rained upon, inhabitants- helped cement the vibe that would dominate science fiction in the 1980s with the rise of cyberpunk.

The original film has long been an inspiration for both roleplaying game players and designers alike and now, 40 years on from its release, Sweden’s Free League Publishing has finally brought it to our tabletops in an adaptation that is remarkably faithful to the tone of its source material. Indeed for Tomas Härenstam, co-founder and CEO of Free League and lead designer of Blade Runner: The Roleplaying Game, the most important, and challenging, aspect of adapting Scott’s series into a tabletop game was replicating that vibe, capturing the films’ themes of alienation and moral ambiguity.

‘Blade Runner, and Blade Runner 2049, pose these difficult moral questions that intrigued me when I saw the films for the first time,’ Härenstam said. ‘Deckard is not your typical hero and Replicants are not your typical villains. That made the story something more than your typical sci-fi action story. I think exploring questions like that is fascinating and when handled right and played in a group of very mature individuals, RPGs can definitely do that.’

The result is an RPG that is less focused on heroic action and more on creating the kind of atmosphere where those themes can be explored. To that end Blade Runner’s core book provides several recommendations on making your sessions more cinematic, from slowing down the pace of the game to more theatrical tricks such as employing low lighting during a session, soundtracking your games with the likes of Vangelis and, especially, making use of props and handouts. 

Importantly, of course, the rules must complement this too and the game encourages players to engage with those moral questions and experience their characters’ sense of isolation in such an over-crowded, and over-stimulated, environment. 

‘That noir feeling doesn’t really work that well in very large groups, so the game recommends maybe just a single player and the game runner or a small team of two or three max,’ Härenstam said. ‘Contrary to most RPGs, it advocates splitting the party at some points to cover more ground. That also helps to set that mood of the lone investigator that walks the streets.’

Along with eschewing the conventional RPG party dynamic, Blade Runner also doesn’t assume the players are the good guys. They’ll be playing members of the Los Angeles Police Department Rep Detect, or Blade Runner, unit. Like Harrison Ford’s Rick Deckard or Ryan Gosling’s Officer K, their job is to hunt down Replicants, androids ‘virtually indistinguishable from humans’m originally created to serve humanity but now barred from Earth following a failed rebellion

One key feature of the game is how its advancement system mechanises ethical dilemmas. Rather than earning experience points, characters can be rewarded with promotion points for performing their duties well or lose them for acting against their superiors. At the same time, they can earn humanity points for acting with compassion. Specialties and gear are earned through status in the LAPD, but humanity can improve skills, so a player will need to juggle both aspects of their character to unlock their full potential. The goal is to make players feel immersed in the series’ morally gray world.