On RPGs and Blade Runner 2049

Friday morning the boss came into the office raving about Blade Runner 2049.  "You have to see it this weekend, on the biggest screen you can."  Normally I ignore stuff like that, especially when it comes from a new boss that I don't know, but since I was a huge fan of the ORIGINAL Blade Runner and a fan of the four subsequent re-cuts I decided to go see it yesterday.

It was worth it.

There are a number of things I like about the film but the two that stand out are:

a) It preserves the universes established in the original film.  It's darker (figuratively not literally) and more dystopian now (and there is a big climate change narrative) but the universe established in 1982 is the same universe in the 2017 movie.

b) The story is the inverse of the story from the original film (and in my memory of the book closer to what Dick originally wrote), which nicely bookends the two films.

There are a couple others things but those are the main points.

One of the ancillary points I will mention is that Robin Wright does a great job as the M. Emmett Walsh analogue.

I also liked how the universe was consistent with the Kurt Russell film Soldier

There were also a few things that I didn't care for:

a) Jared Leto - the dude is just always creepy and I hate seeing him on screen.  Beyond that his character was just a waste.  A messiah whose immediate response to a problem was torture.  There is no real explanation of his motives beyond wanting to breed replicants.  It just felt kind of out of place.

b) I missed the Vangelis soundtrack.




I'll probably see this movie again.

So why you are asking did I title this "On RPGs and Blade Runner 2049" when all I have talked about is Blade Runner?

Well, because in my mind Blade Runner and RPGs are inextricably linked to the 1980s and Chris over at Carnifex.org has been talking about RPGs a lot lately.  Mainly discussing the strengths and weaknesses of various systems.  His group (which I have been a part of , and probably will be again when schedules sync up again) is currently playing D&D 5E.

I hate 5E.  Actually I hate most systems beyond 1E and I'll tell you why:

Lack of story and imagination.

I spent years in our high school gaming group being chastised for my lack of ability as a role player, and I will fess up to that.  I like the side conversations, drinking, eating pizza and joking that used to go with our games far too much to "immerse" myself in the character. But, I always tried to come up with a character that had an interesting story that at some point would add to the overall narrative.  Some reason to have a special skill that might not have been in the rules but which would be handy.

In 1E you had to do that, because the rules were so basic.  You want critical hits?  Dream up a way to do it yourself.  (Also I liked the race / class restrictions because if the GM made an exception for your character for whatever reason then it made your character even more special)

That isn't the case now.

In games today they attempt to define everything and reduce it to a die roll.  That sucks and it reduces the game from a large narrative to some die rolls like monopoly.

Die rolls destroy drama.

So what do the too have to do with each other?  I don't know, maybe I am high on 80's nostalgia but I kind of feel like the Blade Runner universe is a lot like 1E.  There are stories there waiting to be defined and I like that idea.  So much sci-fi now is just formulaic, (and maybe Blade Runner is too but it doesn't feel that way to me), just characters reduced to die rolls by the system in use. 

Of course I say this every year as winter sets it seems like the world is getting smaller and the sense of wonder is disappearing.  Don't get me wrong I still have fun on a day to day basis but we need re-invigoration.  Which makes this a good time to repost this:

(in some weird way this is probably why I like Googie Architecture so much too)