So, this last weekend my group played through the Blade Runner Starter Set scenario, Electric Dreams. This will be a brief discussion of the system, the starter set, and the scenario, including both what we liked and disliked. And for disclosure, this was my copy from the Kickstarter, paid for with my own money, Free League had no influence on this review.

The System

Blade Runner uses a variation of the Free League house system, usually referred to as the Year Zero Engine, or YZE (occasionally Y0E). I’ve had experience with this system a few times before, most notably in Vaesen and Alien, but I have to say this is my favorite version, by far.

The step dice version of the rules are easy to grasp, quick to use, and felt a little more “fair” than the d6 pool version, even though the percentages are roughly the same. This implementation of advantage and disadvantage is one of the better I’ve seen, with the die type variation emphasizing those with lesser skill being less able to bring that advantage to bear. The biggest problem with advantage systems is that they typically lack nuance, so this is a big win for me. We also appreciated the more traditional Health and Resolve systems, maintaining the simplicity of Vaesen but with variation to reward different character types. I am seriously contemplating the merits of making a Shadowrun hack with this system, taking some cues from Twilight 2000 and maybe Forbidden Lands.

That said, I still feel 12 skills (or 13, counting Driving) is just not enough. Most things flowed well, but there were a few points where we debated exactly what skill would fit the action the players wanted to do. It wasn’t much trouble, but it did come up. And Driving being based on the vehicle’s stats felt very out-of-left-field to one of my players. They did like the shift system for progressing through the investigation, though, and also felt there was a good feeling of uniqueness to being a replicant character.

The Starter Set

The box itself is high quality, like all Free League products. Comparing the contents of the starter rules booklet with the core rulebook (which I also have), there isn’t much missing, with the majority of the difference between the 84 pages in the starter set and the 234 pages of the core book being setting details. The art is fantastic, and most of the layout/spreads are either identical between the two versions, or very close.

The pregens were well done, and my group took to them well. I did give each of them a tie to the scenario on a post-it note, as the scenario book suggested, and that really took them over the top, I think. My players were all familiar with Blade Runner in broad strokes, but none of them had seen the movie within the last decade. Even with that, however, the information on the sheets was enough to get them engaged, and the issues are universal enough that there were few questions. My only complaint is that there aren’t plain black and white character sheets. I was able to find some fan-made sheets online, thankfully. The color sheets were too dark and hard to read.

Like most Free League products, there are a plethora of little bonus pieces in the box, like cards and dice. The cards were helpful, especially the chase cards (although our chase scene was only one round long), and the dice are of a good quality and marked for ease of reading the successes earned. I gave the included dice set to one player to use, while another used the similar set from my Twilight 2000 box. The third player and myself used regular, unmarked dice. Seeing both dice sets in action, the players had a slight preference for the marked dice, but it certainly wasn’t enough of an issue to slow the game down in any way.

As for the rest of the stuff in the box, I’ll talk about that below in the scenario section.

The Scenario – Electric Dreams

From here on out there will be spoilers. If you haven’t run or played the scenario, but playing it is a possibility, send your GM over to see what its all about.

This scenario has to be one of the better mystery scenarios I’ve ever encountered, both in content and layout. Its not perfect, though, and we’ll discuss the handful of places GMs may need to step in to maximize their group’s fun.

The crime scenes were generally well done, however, allowing the players to pick out clues in the room visually, which they were all very impressed with. The mug shots and other hand outs were valuable, as well, as their content held many tidbits that helped push the story along, such as the poem (Ther Tyger by William Blake) being an important clue to Leah’s mental state for one of the players, while another picked up on the physical resemblance between Leah and Lilith based on the newspaper pictures. All that was 100% awesome, and definitely a more immersive experience than usual. There were issues with some of the images, though, primarily with the ESPER image of Leah getting into the cab. The group didn’t even recognize the cab as a vehicle. Instead, they thought it was a dumpster!

Finally, the layout of the scenario booklet itself is excellent, with each scene on a single page and all the clues broken out into bullet points. Very concise and easy to navigate. The timeline was very helpful, although my group got to the bottom of things before the end of the morning shift of the second day, preventing any of the escalations from happening. Still, nice to have. The biggest issue here was that the location of the scenes in the book weren’t always intuitive, but I don’t think much could be done translating a non-linear sandbox into a linear format.

Playing the Scenario

I skipped the into sequence in which one of the players was supposed to convince another to come in for the investigation. As a rule, never give the players the chance to refuse to do the adventure. Have it happen to them. Especially if you have the ability to just order them into action because of their jobs. Not a big loss. We just started in the chief’s office getting the assignment.

This is one of the first major hurdles. One of my players (my wife) is a huge fan of mysteries and police procedurals, which is one of the main reasons I was so excited to run this for her. She naturally asked to access whatever reports had already been taken by the responding officers. There isn’t anything like that in the scenario, and I was unable to think fast enough to create something like that on the fly. This plus the strangely lax crime scene were so far outside of my wife’s expectations that she started thinking that there was a cover up, and someone was trying to destroy or bury the evidence and make it look like ineptitude. Luckily, I was able to ab lib some stuff to smooth things over, but it was a very bad first impression. Not every group is going to have someone with a special interest in mysteries and police work, but be prepared, just in case.

I reduced Taffey’s part to an angry distraction, while breaking his clues up among a handful of employees that should have been working that night. For instance, I invented a barkeeper, a DJ, and two security guards to speak with the players.

• Barkeeper (Vincent Schell): I gave him a empathetic tone, leaning on the trope of the bartender who’s there to listen to all his patron’s troubles.
  • I gave him Taffey’s information on Leah and Sandor, and if pushed, Leah’s recent visits on her own as well, and how she’d spoken with Styles before.
  • He regarded Styles as a replicant sympathizer, a view that he can agree with. “No body gets to pick how their brought into this world, ya’know?”
  • He saw Jelle Schylar and his entourage, and can confirm that they come in often, which her doesn’t really get. “About half our workers are replicants these days. Seems like the kind of place he’d want to avoid, not drop in regularly.”
  • He had stepped into the back to get a fresh bottle of gin when the brawl started. He was the one that called the cops after the shot rang out. He didn’t actually see the event.
• DJ (MG7-4.42 “Miguel”): An early N-9, I gave him an experience seeking personality, someone always looking to see, hear, or feel something they’ve not yet experienced.
  • He saw Jelle throw a bottle onto the stage, at which point Styles attacked him. Jelle was bad news, but Miguel was always fascinated watching the man and trying to understand him. He figures Taffey lets him in to create a little drama to draw folks in (this was a question my group voiced, thinking it was part of the mystery, like maybe Taffey was in on it).
  • He doesn’t know Styles by name, but he’s seen him frequently. Only comes on nights there is a replicant dancer, but he doesn’t watch the show. He watches the crowd, mostly.
  • From his vantage point he could see the brawl well, but not the shot, because the majority of the crowd was between them.
• Bouncers (EL5-9.71 “Elton” and Paco Alverez): I had the pair of them together, mostly to push things along. I played Elton as the strong, quiet type, while Paco was more effusive. The pair seem to be a good team.
  • Elton can confirm that routine weapon checks are done at the door. The only people allowed to keep their weapons are police officers and those on Taffey’s “special” list. None of those VIPs were there tonight, though.
  • Elton can confirm that Styles is a regular, and that he’s always friendly. Occasionally, Styles asks Elton about his life and if he’s doing okay outside of work. Elton doesn’t believe that Styles shot anyone, and doesn’t think him capable of it.
  • Paco can confirm that Taffey has given orders to let Jelle in, but to throw him out if he gets too rowdy. Paco figures they might as well take the bigot’s money, and he enjoys roughing him up a little when he gets tossed out.
  • Paco saw the two officers enter the crowd as the brawl broke out. Sandor first, and then Leah just behind him. He saw Leah’s hand on her weapon.

You will also want to decide why there isn’t security camera footage . You can go with “there are no cameras in this future” but that seems far fetched, given the ESPER system. Instead, I stated that the angle of one of the two cameras was from across the crowd, near the DJ station, preventing the shooting from being visible. The second camera has a better angle, and can see Sandor shot from behind, but not who did it, as they are just out of frame. This information can also be gleaned from the body, and I also had a player determine it with a observation roll based on the bullet’s location and possible trajectory, given the positions they were able to figure out from the statements of the employees, so this was just a nice way to tie everything up.

Finally, there should be some form of statement from some of the other club goers, mostly just echoing statements already given by the named witnesses. I understand the need to reserve some details to make an RPG mystery story work, but most investigation games don’t have you playing actual cops, and that makes all the difference to how things feel and what the players can expect.

That said, things go great from there. As they leave the club looking for Styles, see him take off running, and initiate the chase sequence. Fenna takes off after him Willem goes for the car to try and cut him off. They choose their chase cards and then I draw the “Protest” obstacle, which stops Styles from making any headway while Fenna gets three successes on her roll and tackles him to the ground. The players cuff him and she offers to take him back to interrogate him (she is the best with soft skills) while Willem (who the players had lovingly nicknamed Lt Boomer) agrees to go meet with Quelle.

Fenna and Styles begin a nice conversation on the way to the station, and I decide to play him as something of a philosopher. While she gets good Manipulation rolls for her interrogation attempts, I have him give his answers couched in arguments about how replicants are treated, how some replicants seek to appease the human society that hates them, and asking her if she’s ever read “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” He then points out that Leah had come to see the truth, but Sandor was a “Tom.” Fenna has to admit that sometimes she wonders about their lot in life, and how much they truly get to chose. After reminding her of the standard “sentence” for a Nexus 8, she decides to stage an accident to free him. He kicks a few good dents in the door and she makes her Drive test, reducing her damage to 2 and breaking a finger (per the charts). It was one of the better roleplay moments my group has had in months, and, while it deviated from the script of the scenario, it felt natural.

Meanwhile, Percival had spent his first shift with Coco in the lab, then got busy with the ESPER wall and mainframe. It didn’t take him long to establish for himself that Leah was the culprit, but his extra tie to the mission was that he’d been Leah’s original partner and knew she was tormented by her memories, just not what those memories were. Feeling protective of her, he decided not to disclose those personal observations to his allies, although he did alert them to her cab ride, visit to Bullet Bobs, and her failed evaluations. He then decided to spend his third shift investigating Leah’s apartment without telling the others.

It was great seeing the players work against each other, and my group is great about compartmentalizing information. If your group isn’t, you may want to go with the classic pad of paper to pass secrets with. Regardless, based on the info he found at Leah’s he decided to forgo rest and spent a fourth shift following up with Doc Badger about the photo to confirm his suspicions, which led to a hilariously awkward roleplay moment in which Percy was so far out of his depth in his “out of the office” adventure, Doc Badger basically called him on it, and asked how long he’d been on the force. The best part was Percy’s player deciding that this constituted “making a friend.”

Catching back up to Willem, his visit to Quell went well, in that the player understood immediately the subtext of Quell’s conversation (this group has played Shadowrun a lot in the past). He leveraged the information about Leah’s failed evaluations to get her to mention Lilith Memory Labs, which the entire group all recognized from the newspaper handout (and they had all had a negative reaction to the story, which was perfect). He took his third shift to meet up with Fenna again to talk to Jelle.

Fenna’s tie to the case had been a bad history with Jelle, which her player took as her going undercover within his organization, which he had discovered. That made this interrogation especially tense, which was fun, as Fenna decided to Manipulate Jelle by antagonizing him. Her Manipulation rolls are huge, so success was basically guaranteed, so I had him shout the truth at them, daring them to arrest him for something he didn’t do and which they had no evidence of. With this information solidifying what they had already sorted out, the pair split up again, with Fenna taking her fourth shift as Downtime at her apartment, reading psychology books and playing with her kitty Mazaruin.

Willem instead used his “Married to the Job” ability to take a fourth shift and go to Bullet Bobs, which was closed (being after midnight at that point). I did remind him, however, that the ESPER footage showed Leah leaving and going down a nearby alley and not coming out. Investigating he found the (now abandoned) safe house and was able to collect the clues there. Fenna awoke to a text message from username “NotATom” asking if she new where their “mutual friend” was, as she never “came home.” Understanding that Leah was on the move again, she called the others to meet at Lilith Memory Lab, as this had been where all the clues were pointing.

This primed us for the final showdown, with Percy down two Stress due to being on his fifth shift without rest, and Willem being down one. They had never been to the memory lab before, but they found the door ajar. Pulling weapons, they found Terry shot in the waiting room as they hear a gunshot further into the facility. Rushing in that direction, they find the memory lab itself and find Leah threatening Lilith with a gun, her hands shaking, screaming “No! You murdered by baby! You killed my little girl and now you have to pay for it!”

Willem noticed Sarah hidden under a desk nearby and moved to put himself between her and Leah while Percy and Fenna call out to Leah to try and deescalate the situation. Leah spills her guts to the pair, leaning on the “you know what I mean, you’ve had these same experiences” angle. My players were especially touched by Leah’s understanding that the girl in her memories wasn’t real, but that she still called the memory of her death murder. In fact, it was this very fact that “Memory murders don’t leave evidence! The LAPD won’t charge her for her crimes!” that had driven her to vengeance instead. And that was when I had her notice Sarah, sending her off on another, even more confused rambled about how Sarah deserved a better mom, and that she would be that for her, and that this was going to be her justice, taking Sarah from Lilith, but how she was better than Lilith, because Sarah would be happy and safe, not hurt and killed.

Sensing the deteriorating situation, Fenna rolls Manipulation with advantage (because she used Sarah’s presence to speak to Leah’s motherly instincts). “You don’t want to make a memory for this little girl that is as traumatic as the one that Lilith made for you, do you?” Since advantage gives a third die equal to the lowest die to be rolled, Fenna had three d12s to roll, and I’ll be damned if she didn’t roll two tens and a twelve, giving her six total successes. Convinced, finally, that traumatizing the girl would be the exact opposite of what she had hoped to accomplish, she dropped her weapon and turned herself in.

It was emotionally charged enough that I decided not to spoil it with the Wallace goon squad. Instead, I just left that whole section out of the adventure, and everyone was satisfied. It felt like one of those nail-biting conclusions on one of my wife’s favorite shows, and everyone raved about how the loved the end and how perfectly morally ambiguous it was, knowing that Lilith still wasn’t going to be punished for her actions, only Leah would.

Conclusion

All in all, I would say that Electric Dreams was a great mystery scenario, even if you’ve had trouble with those kinds of scenarios in the past. While we did have a few small hiccups, they were very specific to my group, and probably not going to come up for most others. It was an emotional rollercoaster that really did manage to ask a lot of those big questions that are so important to science fiction stories, but which don’t often translate well to RPGs.