Just recently I have found out none of the players in one of the groups I gm have seen Bladerunner!!! Unable to let this opportunity slip, I am going to make a run around it; this team will be hired to hunt down a team of "rogue operatives" who have ran away from their corporate masters.


-and if you haven't seen the film, stop reading right now and rent it!!!- It is, in my opinion, a fundamental cyberpunk reference and quite a terrific flick!! - be more cultured than this bunch of guys, please!





The runners have already heard through the grapevine about that job opportunity and how they are coming to replace a
seasoned veteran who was thrown down a building while interrogating an alleged rogue operative...

Now, all is fine and well, but I have not decided what the rogue operatives are, mechanics wise... I would very much appreciate interesting ideas for the replicants true nature -I am somewhat allergic to use replicants and introduce something blatantly new to the SR gameworld in my campaign- so...

... rogue clones of former top operatives?

... bioengineered soldiers with lotsa genetic modifications?

... what would you use in lieu of the empathy test?

who would you stat Roy Batty?


anyway they are going to include a "internal clock", a genetically induced deficiency which is going to kill them shortly... but not before they cause some mayhem and lecture the shadow group about bursting stars and the meaning of life over rainy rooftops.

Cheers,

Max

p.s. aargh!!! I have just noticed the horrible double negative that I slipped in the topic title!!! And I cannot edit it, can I? I want to kill myself! This is what happens when you post SR stuff while working with excel sheets at the office. So much for multitasking!!!!

If you haven't read through the stuff at the end of Augmentation, now might be the time to do so! There are lots of theoretical and potential future science that the corps are working on, many of which could be used to create replicants in some way that would work well for your plans, though specifically something like a replicant is going to be far outside the normal scope.

And just because I know I'm in the minority, lemme just say thank god they released the original theatrical version of the movie. Yeah, the VO may have been the studio execs thinking people are stupid, but it was a happy accident. A far better film than the director's cut.

What about the final cut, is it good?

Excellent question, but I haven't watched that disk yet because I just haven't had the time

I thought the final cut was solid. But I do really like that the original is in there too.

the original is good enough. And I saw the director's cut and liked it too. I believe what's best of the film remains unchanged and the end... well... I think a sad ending is more fitting....

Cheers,

Max

Heck go a little weird... I'd use Flesh Form spirits of some inhabiting tradition...

Oh God. You can quote Roy Baty and they *won't know*!!
[jealous]

exactly!!! priceless!!

That's a pretty solid idea, once you figure out the 'why' of it all...

Hmm... Some kind of spirits trying to infiltrate er... a megacorp?

"All those moments will be lost, in time, like...tears in rain." The most poignant moment I've ever seen in a movie. Fun fact: Rutger Hauer wrote those last lines himself, and Ridley Scott approved their use. For reviews of the film, see the Final Cut thread under General Gaming.

Since you don't want to introduce new concepts into the game, I would go with humans who were genetically modified as embryos. Make use of the various positive qualities in the main rulebook, such as high pain tolerance, etc.; this could represent how the Tyrell Corporation (or it's SR equivalent) tweaked the genetic structure. Augmentation would be invaluable as well; I seem to recall a mod that increased the max for physical attributes by one. Also, I believe it states that bioware represents modifications that go beyond what can be acheived through geneware, so if you want something more powerful, along the lines of the replicants as they are portrayed in the movie, you would effectively have to invent a new race. Negative qualities that would need to be invented would be the four year life span, as well as some mental NQ to represent the emotional state of replicants...but maybe a version of Uncouth would suffice, one which is detectable by the Empathy test. Also, in the film, a replicant's irises glowed slightly when feeling a powerful emotion.

As for stats on Roy, I would give him the max augmented attributes posible for a human (i.e., a nine in strength and body).

Damn, Speed Wraith, don't say that on the internet! You'll get killed!


No, spirits trying to exfiltrate the metaplanar colonies where they've been forced to mine....I dunno, mana or whatever....But now they've gotta gain access to their spirit formulae before their evanescence kills them off. (Like I'm gonna kill off whoever decided SR players should have to think about one of the crappiest bands ever every time they mention a spirit that loses essence on the physical plane...)

Yeah, I know, I've been beat up for it before...Of course Scott didn't like it: the studio made him do it. It happend to be, IMHO, a smart move even if it was done for all the wrong reasons. The Film-Noir quality truly seems to add something to the flick that the DC didn't have.

I'm not sure I could really come up with a compelling way to deal with the flesh-form spirits, though I like it. Maybe it is best to use the whole thing to tie into the Sapient's Rights theme?

I would probably go with genetically engineered humans, load them with qualities and use genertic heritage to smuggle some built-in bioware. The corp will probably be AGC Europa, as we are playing in Hamburg -but the run will have happened in Franckfurt, Jena or Berlin- I like the Genera angle.


Cheers!

Max

yep... these operatives will have returned from some work in Africa when they went rogue...

Cheers

Max

Have to agree with you wholeheartedly here. I was extremely disappointed in the DC.

I, too, liked the original theatrical version better than the DC. But then, I LIKE voice overs... always have and have never understood why people get so down on them in many movies. For detective type stories, I have always thought htey added that perfect noir quality to settings that otherwise wouldn't have had it so much. An example of htis is the terrific series Veronica Mars. That show would not have been nearly as good without Veronica doing voice-overs. It really made her feel all private-eye-y in a setting that could have too easily become Nancy Drew Goes to 90210. Magnum PI is another series that utilized voice-overs to marry noir to a setting that did not immediately lend itself to "detective."

I like the Blade Runner run idea! Of course, my players have all seen it many a time, but, I was working the stroyline into my "Marshals of 2070" campaign. Recently, the players were set to protect the daughter of a Corp President. She was kidnapped right out from under their noses. What they weren;t aware of is "why." I didn;t have it all fleshed out yet, but I was going to make her a "replicant" utilizing an AI concept inhabiting a bioware body. A prototype, basically. I figured that later on, they would discover her after she had escaped her captors and it would spawn an investigation where they discovered finalyl what she was... and see how they dealt with the concept.

Vlad, who realizes that he did just come out of hte closet as a Veronica Mars fan.

i think there is a double negative in the title...

"...because none my players had not seen it!! amazing!"

so all your players have seen it?

Beware...

Blade Runner is a movie. It has a fixed scenario, a fixed script. Shadowrun is a PnP RPG, and players can do what they please with the GM's scenario.
Deckard reacts the way it's written he'll react. PC will react the way they want.
More importantly: Deckard is a human (well, maybe not exactly but that's not my point). More than that: he's a hard-boiled detective, a tough-but-sentimental guy. He's not a team of 4 killing machines, with 2.7m tall members, members who can stun everyone in a six meter radius in less that 3 seconds and members who can put 12 bullets in the head of an enemy before he even hits the ground.

In Blade Runner, Roy Batty is a powerful machine, compared to human standards. If you stat him the same way in SR, he'll be about as tough as the next troll, or the next cybered-human. If you stat him tougher than that, you'll get an über-character and chances are your players will be more likely to tag him as an unfair overpowered boss than as a complex and sad individual.

So beware, you might end up disapointed.

"What the hell is a Tanhauser gate?"

Drillbit Taylor was a crappy and un-funny movie, but it partially redeemed itself by using a Blade Runner quote.

Also, the most important thing in Blade Runner was the ramen stand. With the neon.

@hobgoblin: of course I noticed... just a little too late. look at the edit line.

@blade: don't worry. What is most important is the concept and the mood, plus the rewarding inclusion of many bladerunner elements and quote without my players' knowing what I'm doing. I will roll with the punches, trust me.

@wounded ronin: the ramen stand is awesome! I thought I was it's only fan!!!

Cheers all, and keep it coming, I find your comments most interesting.

Max

Hell no! I've used a neon noodle stand in the middle of the street in just about every SR game I've ever run! (normally people think of the 5th Element, but that's ok, because I think of them as simpletons)

Replicants are easy enough using Augmentation's biodrone technology. The Tanhauser Gate is substantially more difficult.


If you are prepared to drop the philosophical implications of Blade Runner and replace them with similar philosophical implications, you could make the antagonists high-functioning cyberzombies. The emotional and spiritual detachment produced by the cybermancy process can easily replace the voight-kamph test, though it makes identifying them too easy if you have a magician on your team. This can be compensated for by making a cyberzombie an initiate magician with Masking, but the background count will still be a dead give away.

Its only a give away if the team have ever seen a cyberzombie before or are not annoying meta gamers. Cyberzombies would work "limited" life span powerful and seen as semi-expendable. Now correct me if my view of cyberzombies and or replicants is off I last saw blade runner at the age of 12 not to long ago for me but still an age away relatively.

You could always say they found some new procedure for making cyberzombies in which the subject kept more of his personality but died faster as a result.

Dang, I was thinking flesh form (maybe slightly/heavily modified) also when I read the first post and then later on when I read y'alls posts I thought, noooo... dang, some other people are thinking similar to me. Use Ares with the spirits/humans escaping. It's just typical that the corporation didn't tell the runners what the folks were other than being escaped assets who they want captured/killed.

The cops attitude I follow completely, but I have to discard the Ares angle. These runners have a long story with that corp and they would definitely avoid any contact with them. Plus, the corp Johnson might realize they are not actually dead. =)

Cheers!

Max

p.s. I did not get the how to on biodrones

There is nothing wrong with being a Veronica Mars fan, that show was awesome! Well, the first and second season were. My buddy and I noticed a lot less VO work in the third, which may be part of the reason it wasn't as good. Well, that and a lack of a cohesive mystery.

I think it is interesting that this is the only place I haven't been slammed for preferring the theatrical cut of Blade Runner. Says something about real cyberpunk fans, neh?

"Give me two, with the noodles.'

Absolutely one of my favorite movie scenes ever.

I honestly should just have that 5 minute scene on repeat behind my GM screen, it'd help me stay in theme a bit more than I do

I'd go for modified Otomo-body cyborgs with Mimic Upgrades, Turbocharging, Body Stabilisation, etc. The shadowpostings in Augmentation suggested that cyborgs have a very limited longevity. They would also be incredibly well adapted to extreme, airless and pressureless environments. Doesn't one of the corps have an operation on Mars? Evo or Ares?

Maybe Roy was a scout or soldier, designed to be able to spend large amounts of time on the martian surface. Priss could have been a joy-bot for the scientists "recreational use".

If you don't want to go the cop angle, maybe Rachel could even be Mrs. Johnson, she was the template or prototype for the Martian cyborgs. When she finds out that everyone in the facility was murdered, and a shuttle was missing, she wonders if these cyborgs have a clue to help her with her own longevity crisis.

I think Evo has the Mars base.

As I get older I find that the final Roy's final monolouge grows more poignant. I think you could play up that the creature is sentient but has experienced things in a way that a baseline meta will never fully understand. To that end I'd suggest using an AI, but a broken one that has been deprived of the immortality normally afforded it's brethern. I've always liked how the replicants are the classic candle burning at both ends.

I personally would be less interested in recreating the specific characters or plot points and would focus more on the themes of loss and humanity.

heh, makes me think of another take on the comment in gits:sac about selling their soul to section 9 as payment for getting high spec bodies and regular maintenance.

could be that these are otomo drones that develop AI and want to get hold of their "kill switch" codes or something like that. or maybe the plans to make some parts that needs to be replaced on regular intervals or something.

If you really want to mix it up you could steal from GitS and implement a little "ghost dubbing" a process where a persons personality and memories are copied and burned into a fresh mind (For Blade Runner flavor you of course have to them fabricated ). Perhaps the problem is that the technique is far from perfect and the copies minds degrade at a rapid rate. In a couple of years they're bodies will still be fine but they'll be senile or comatose.

The why of this could be that they're something like expendable specialists. You need a scientist to go on a suicide run you burn his brain into a copy and send the copy to do the research for him. Of course he survives whatever was going to kill him and he's come back to trying to figure out why his mind is falling apart and who he really is. Or something.

Probably be a pretty popular technique for soldiers and joygirls/boys too. Why not have an entire battalion of 30 year vets (Old Mans War?)?

On the subject of "Ghost Dubbing", Man and Machine (SR3's Aug book) had an interesting write up on simsense programming, which involved implanting fabricated memories, among other things.

On another note, Shadowrun canon has always held a cloning dilemma. They can clone bodies, but clones are always mental vegetables that need to be kept sustained through tubes. Perhaps they gene-tailored some soldiers for extreme environments, but decided to use bioware simsense technology to "dub" clones with mental functions, using fabricated experiences and p-fix technology to create clones that in a roundabout way can think and even learn. Unfortunately the process is incredibly unnatural for the brain and cenral nervous system, and the clones mental abilities begin to degrade.

This would co-incide with a degradation of the central nervous system, and for a movie example this would be Roy putting a nail through his rapidly atrophying hand.

So basically take the rules for cyborgs but apply that to a vat grown body. Apply an element of rapid physical and/or mental decay tempered by improved physical capabilities.

Insert doves, acid rain, ramen shops, and voice overs (or not).

There you go, instant Bladeshadowrun -er.

Haha, you poor deluded fool! Of course we'll slam on ya now for preferring the theatrical cut ver- wait, that's without the idyllic drive through the woods? Gack, I didn't like that ending... nevermind then, you're off the hook this time...

As for the vat grown clone bodies and the ghost dubbing, don't forget to watch the episode in ghost in the shell, first season episode 7 'Idolatry'.

The aging Che Guevarra-esque revolutionary/drug-lord character?

I liked both cuts, my buddy is supposed to be bringing the final cut back with him so I'll reserve judgement till I've seen both of them together.

Still, I hated the idyillic walk in the park. Even as a kid I was like "Dad? Aren't they all going to die in a couple years anyways?" To which he should have responded "Sure they will, but who really lives?"

I wish my gaming group hadn't seen Bladerunner -- I'm stuck gming Stuffer Shack over and over, you'd think a bunch of 30y-olds would tire of it after the 30th time ...

Yuppers

I wouldn't mind playing Stuffer Shack through a bunch of times but with random player characters and opposition. I see it as a tactical exercise.

there, there, we are getting somewhere now. Thanks doc for the idea. And I will surely bring the focus to the humanity theme... [I am a former Vampire TM narrator, can't say I have lost the touch yet.]

Cheers!

Max

Good luck! Just make sure that after they complete the mission they realize that they too are actually simply short lived constructs...

I personally don't think that introducing elements like that by surprise into the characters' backstories works well, because that would be too jarring against the player's own concept of his/her character.

of course not, ha! doc is just kidding, right doc?

Cheers

Max

Blade Runner was not a good movie, I don't care what you all say. The book it was based on, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? was not bad though.

I cannot recall exactly what they were in the movie, but the book had them as androids (robots/anthroform drones) that had escaped to Earth from off-world colonies (Mars I think).

What? No I think it's OUTSTANDING GMing to take all those carefully and lovingly constructed characters and then randomly announce that is was "Just a dream, a series of memories implanted in a force grown body. Oh by the way you're going to die in 6 months."

You know because it's totally awesome when any other media totally pulls the rug out from under you, just when you were starting to get attached to interesting characters.

In fact I recommend that they're all actually brains in vats hallucinating being Shadowrunners...

(Yes I am kidding. God help me, my players would shank me if I tried to pull some horrible shit like that)

Blarg, I have been slain in mortal debate! The logic...is...too...much....

Im glad they did too because I have never gotten to see it
people complain but I would personally like to make my own decision
I also dont agree with what many people say and that Deckard is obviously a replicant
I have never drawn that conclusion and I've even looked for it
supposedly Ridley Scott has stated that he was trying to imply that and that yes Deckard is, well if that's true he did a piss poor job of it because I'm not convinced, and I'm the guy who catches all the references to plots and things going on in movies way before anyone else. Dont take from that that I don't love the movie, because I do, I just dont feel there is enough evidence of the Deckard thing