I was supposed to get some IRL work done yesterday, but that all went out the window when I got an email saying there was a brand new shiny PDF in my Drivethru account.
I like that the Blade Runner mechanics start with the Twilight: 2000 version of the Year Zero Engine as a foundation. This version feels more mortal, more human than the heroic feels of Mutant Year Zero or Forbidden Lands. A simple Skill die + Attribute die. Sixes or better is a success. 10+ equals two successes. I’m a fan.
You play Blade Runners in a Rep-Detect unit. You can be a Human, or a Replicant, or a Human who might be a replicant! Replicants get some physical buffs, at a cost. You work cases in L.A. 2037. Blade Runner has mechanics to support creating and running investigations. I’m always skeptical of mystery scenarios and investigation adventures. Gumshoe system has an excellent approach to this as does Dirty World using the One Roll Engine. Blade Runner's text says while investigations are a core activity, it isn’t what the game is about. It seems like investigations are the means to explore what a character is made of through scenes of adversity.
Key Memory and Key Relationship are two stats a player defines and gets advantages when invoked during game sessions, or awarded for engaging with. The character advancement cycle has promotion points and humanity points for “leveling up”. The actions you take to gain these…seem like they conflict. You’re probably gonna be better at ‘copping’ or ‘humaning’ in this game.
The early access PDF comes with a starter set case. It’s got cards, handouts, pregens, and maps. It’s pretty neat, I’d start with it. The book hints at future books expanding the setting beyond playing Blade Runners in LA -which, YES-take my chinyen!!
At first look, I’m intrigued, I want to play this soon. There is plenty of setting lore and detail to pull into a session. From the city of LA 2037, and how it got there. What Rep-Detect units are about down to the gear they use and the chinyen spent to get it. Year Zero Engine is a solid game framework in my book. I got my chinyen worth out of Mutant year Zero, and Forbidden Lands. I feel like anytime now someone is gonna say I owe them more money for the Twilight 2000 games I’ve played. In my Blade Runner play through I’ll want to see replicant characters contrasted with the human ones. I’m interested in what kind of experience we get engaging the Key Memory and Key Relationships of characters. Most of all, working cases, the investigation mechanics…how do they fair RAW on the table. I wanna know!!
See ya back here for my first play-through.
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