Bladerunner!!!!

[WritingWolf]

I would love to see a Bladerunner RPG. The film and the game show just watch a rich setting this could be.

You could even have two stories, one as a Bladerunner, and the other as a Replicant.

There could be several books made for this (in the Lone Wolf style) or it could be done as an RPG. Personally I would prefer a Lone Wolf style as it is easier to do, and then perhaps bring along an RPG.

[AKAramis]

I would love to see a Bladerunner RPG. The film and the game show just watch a rich setting this could be.

You could even have two stories, one as a Bladerunner, and the other as a Replicant.

There could be several books made for this (in the Lone Wolf style) or it could be done as an RPG. Personally I would prefer a Lone Wolf style as it is easier to do, and then perhaps bring along an RPG.

Better off goign for the source novel: Do Androids Dream of Electronic Sheep?

[Mikko Leho]

The almost forgotten science fiction series, Total Recall 2070 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Total_Recall_2070) is a very good alternative take on Blade Runner and definitely worth checking out.

[WritingWolf]

I must admit, I haven't written the original novel (something I have always meant to), but I gather the overall feel of it was similiar to that of the movie.

[Mikko Leho]

I must admit, I haven't written the original novel (something I have always meant to)

No need to: Philip K. Dick has already done it

The novel is actually quite different and worth reading even though one has seen the movie.

[WritingWolf]

Oops - written, read, same difference!

[Gist_Engine]

Yes, the book (Though, "Electric" not "Electronic") is quite different and contains... -dramatic music- ... a point! Without Mercerism or Phil Resch, the story is just a cops 'n' robbers piece. Granted, the movie has generated the "what if Deckard is a replicant" interpretation, but that is simply because of a script change that came after filming a few scenes (saying there are six and not five replicants to hunt). I think the Director's Cut might actually "fix" that for us, though, so really the movie leaves much to be desired.

Oh, and I'm not one of those guys who thinks all books are better than movies. LOTR was better as a film as far as I'm concerned.

But, as to an RPG, one would have to try hard to distinguish the game from Shadowrun. The setting Ridley Scott gave 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' looks closer to William Gibson's novels than Dick's. So, I think there would need to be some clarification about which world you were in, Dick's or Scott's.

[weasel_fierce]

Shadowrun is cyberpunk for people that dont actually want to play cyberpunk

I was always a Cyberpunk 2020 guy...

A cyberpunk book for Traveller would be swell

[Omote]

I agree, forget about Shadowrun as it is not really cyberpunk. Though, a cyberpunk supplement for Traveller would be a nice alternative if a Bladerunner style of RPG is not possible.

-O

[Greg Smith]

Shadowrun is cyberpunk for people that dont actually want to play cyberpunk

Shadowrun did fit the usual definitions of cyberpunk: 'high tech and low life' or 'Classic cyberpunk characters were marginalized, alienated loners who lived on the edge of society in generally dystopic futures where daily life was impacted by rapid technological change, an ubiquitous datasphere of computerized information, and invasive modification of the human body'.

[MarkNorfolk]

Shadowrun is definately cyberpunk. I was always a Shadowrun kind of guy - although second edition is enough for me.

The PC do need a 'point' though. Just running around robbing the megacorps isn't enough.

Cheers
Mark

[AKAramis]

"Sticking it to the Man!" isn't good enough? then your players are not cyberpunkish enough for Shadowrun.

[127th Angry Angels]

Does anyone remember the Computer game by Westwood? (i think)

I LOVED that game. All these years later it still pops into my head every now and then.

First game i ever owned that had 4 CD's. I think i'll hit google about it and find me some nostalgia.

[Da Boss]

"Sticking it to the Man!" isn't good enough? then your players are not cyberpunkish enough for Shadowrun.

We used to to play within the Corps - just as dangerous and we found it more fun

[Da Boss]

I played both Shadowrun and Cyberpunk - but stoped buying the latter after the Stormfront campaign and the superpowered kids book

I love the novels and background of Shadowrun.............and enjoyed much of Cyberpunk's - except their deeply annoying "main" characters - Blackhand et al...............

[TrippyHippy]

But, as to an RPG, one would have to try hard to distinguish the game from Shadowrun. The setting Ridley Scott gave 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?' looks closer to William Gibson's novels than Dick's. So, I think there would need to be some clarification about which world you were in, Dick's or Scott's.

Bladerunner predates William Gibson's Neuromancer by a couple of years. It was an influence on Gibson's vision, not the other way around.

[Gist_Engine]

I see how that was unclear, but I was only trying to say that the film looks more like Gibson's cyberpunk than it does Dick's cyberdirt; I really wasn't making an argument of derivation.

That was my original point, actually: If Shadowrun derives from Gibson, and Gibson (sorta) from Bladerunner, then Shadowrun is already the RPG of a world much like the one illustrated in Bladerunner. After thinking it over, however, I couldn't sell Gibson short like that.

I'm not going to say Gibson took nothing from Scott, but he had been writing things (like Burning Chrome) before Scott's film debuted, and he has done enough to prove that his mind was working in that world before Scott came around. One might somehow argue that Scott was reading up on underground sci-fi. The point: I really can't see a game being more "Bladerunner-ish" than Shadowrun, minus the metahumans.

Between Gibson and Scott I don't think anyone needs to argue who came first. I'm not a fan of Scott's execution in Bladerunner, or the complex, silly prose of Gibson. Bladerunner is cool visually and for its seminal place in sci-fi tradition. Gibson is cool for legitimizing 'cyberpunk' and opening people's heads. I think Dick was better than both, honestly, and not because I'm some old sci-fi buff who only enjoys "classics."

[AKAramis]

Dick's world is pretty much well represented by Scott's imagery.

I doubt Gibson had much influence on Scott. The similarities are due to similar experiential and artistic themes.

Gibson's big "breakout" was Neuromancer. He just about creates the subset of Cyberbunk focussed on net-running... but Dick was writing cyberpunk well before, as were others.

And as for Shadowrun: it was the third major game focused upon he cyberpunk genre. First was Cyberpunk 2013, by RTG. Next was ICE's Cyberspace. Plus, before them was Traveller:2300 which had a cyberpunk sourcebook.

[Gist_Engine]

I'd agree with calling Gibson and Scott contemporaries within emerging trends, but I would not say Bladerunner looks anything like Dick's novel. Of course, I read it before seeing the movie, but I had a very different feel. They wore codpieces, walked through streets littered with kibble, lived in buildings mostly abandoned and rotten. Ridley Scott adds the Hong Kong feel intentionally, making things overcrowded and flashy, all commercial and full of kitsch, marketplaces, bazaar-style food vendors, and the like. That was not present in Dick's novel from what I remember. Dick painted a San Fransisco covered in a layer of soot, poison in the very air, where business-as-usual meant wading through "kibble," leftover junk from ages past. Scott has littered streets, but he calls that pollution or garbage. Dick had leftover technology, as though things were changing so fast older technology was just tossed out the window, replaced to the point of perpetual turnover.

I don't mean to criticize. We can all imagine Dick however his writing moves us. I just felt there was less "punk" in his setting and more "junk," less subversive counter-culture hairstyles and more tired daily life, less Tokyo gadgetry and more unusable, outdated technology. And, I feel that tone/mood lends to a great reading of the text's major themes, which come about at the collapse of Mercerism and the character of Phil Resch- both totally left out of Scott's portrayal. Subsequently, I've always treated them as unrelated works of art that might share similarities in character names and basic plot.

[AKAramis]

I'd agree with calling Gibson and Scott contemporaries within emerging trends, but I would not say Bladerunner looks anything like Dick's novel. Of course, I read it before seeing the movie, but I had a very different feel. They wore codpieces, walked through streets littered with kibble, lived in buildings mostly abandoned and rotten. Ridley Scott adds the Hong Kong feel intentionally, making things overcrowded and flashy, all commercial and full of kitsch, marketplaces, bazaar-style food vendors, and the like. That was not present in Dick's novel from what I remember. Dick painted a San Fransisco covered in a layer of soot, poison in the very air, where business-as-usual meant wading through "kibble," leftover junk from ages past. Scott has littered streets, but he calls that pollution or garbage. Dick had leftover technology, as though things were changing so fast older technology was just tossed out the window, replaced to the point of perpetual turnover.

I don't mean to criticize. We can all imagine Dick however his writing moves us. I just felt there was less "punk" in his setting and more "junk," less subversive counter-culture hairstyles and more tired daily life, less Tokyo gadgetry and more unusable, outdated technology. And, I feel that tone/mood lends to a great reading of the text's major themes, which come about at the collapse of Mercerism and the character of Phil Resch- both totally left out of Scott's portrayal. Subsequently, I've always treated them as unrelated works of art that might share similarities in character names and basic plot.

To be honest, Dick's work is FAR more mainstream to early 1980's cyberpunk stuff than is Gibson.
Scott's vision of Dick fit very well my mental maps developed from reading DADoES... but I'd seen Blade Runner before reading Androids. When I read it, I kept thinking "This sure reads like Blade Runner"... I read it in a strip-cover in basic.