DrDM987
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Joined: Wed 31 May 2023, 16:43

Running Blade Runner at conventions (4 hour one-shot)

Sat 19 Aug 2023, 16:21

Has anyone ran Blade Runner RPG in a convention 4 hour time slot?

My home group took about 10 hours to get through Electric Dreams, so it seems like I'd have to cut a lot of that to get it down to 3.5 hours (with 0.5 hours as setting up, explaining the rules, etc.) and that would likely mean keeping the story coherent might be difficult. Was thinking I might try and come up with something short and sweet myself with a single crime scene that then leads to a choice of two follow on scenes, and try and shoehorn in a foot chase and a shootout at the end. Hopefully that should give enough of a feel for the system and the setting and get the players wanting more.
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DrDM987
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Re: Running Blade Runner at conventions (4 hour one-shot)

Mon 21 Aug 2023, 17:21

Still interested in others views but here are two examples of running the electric dreams case file in under 4 hours: https://youtu.be/mGfSRMZFRrs and https://discord.com/channels/8902249819 ... 4856690728
Seasoned D&D 5e DM wanting to explore more RPG systems and genres
 
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BrianG
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Re: Running Blade Runner at conventions (4 hour one-shot)

Wed 30 Aug 2023, 05:35

I JUST completed running Electric Dreams at MaricopaCon this last Saturday in a 4 hour slot! I had a full panel of 4 PC's using all the PreGens.

Frankly, for myself and my players, I wished I chose a 6 hour slot. I think you can do it but much depends on your group and your style. We got through all the scenes except for the final confrontation which will happen at Lilith Labs, their first visit to Lilith and a few other minor short scenes.

My players did not know each other IRL (it was con after all) and so they did a lot of polite checking in with each other ("what do you want to do?" IDK, what do you think?") They knew where they wanted to go but spent a lot of time verifying if everyone was ok with the decision when to go or where to go. They were reluctant to split up too much and divide the labor.

We are doing the finale tomorrow at my house. I am expecting at least 2-3 more hours of game play. I will write more my ideas for Electric Dreams in a different post. I have ideas for things to speed things up and more detail that can wrap up some odd loose ends.

When/where is your con?
 
DrDM987
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Re: Running Blade Runner at conventions (4 hour one-shot)

Thu 26 Oct 2023, 16:50

I ended up running it to (a) completion in under 4 hours online using roll20. This was as a trial run for the con which I now can't do because of child care responsibilities. It went... OK. Not as good an experience as when I ran it for my home group (5 x 2 hours sessions). I had them start in Holden's office. One PC went to do lab and computer stuff at LAPD HQ, one went to Wallace corp, and two went to the crime scene. this was all going well, but what I foolishly didn't realise is that the crime scene (and the encounter with Stiles out front) takes a lot longer than the other two scenes and even though I was trying to switch between players to even out the pace it didn't work very well and the solo player who went to Wallace corp felt (rightly) left out. My fault - I should have realised and on the fly allowed those to go do something else (i.e. against the RAW). I also got a good idea from one/two of the players at the end - to have Quell sitting in the back of the office overseeing the briefing with Holden and chipping in to deliver her info. Running out of session time I had the PCs (now together) see Leah leave the safehouse and they had the final confrontation in the ally. With 6 weeks hindsight I think it went OK and was maybe a 7/10 from the players POV (maybe a 8/10 for the players who did the cool crime scene stuff). In the future I'd suggest one PC does the computer and lab stuff and the others stick together. Sidenote: one player got quite aggressive towards the end when there was some PvP roleplay (Novak not trusting the Replicant PCs - the aggressive player being one of the reps). This was super hard to deal with and not something I've had to deal with before (and I've played and GMed quite a bit with a mixture of people). It totally soured the experience for me.
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sanjurotokage
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Re: Running Blade Runner at conventions (4 hour one-shot)

Thu 02 Nov 2023, 15:06

Hey there, just spotted this chat.

I have been running my own Bladerunner game at some UK conventions titled Life, Liberty and the The Pursuit of Happiness with moderate success on the adventure as it was a specific challenge I set myself after running electric dreams a couple of times for friends and definitely realised it is not a convention game at all.

The feedback from players when I ran it was good and even a couple shared on their blog about playing a Bladerunner adventure which was nice (even though I realise it isn't quite the Bladerunner adventure I personally want it to be)

I am in the process of fulling writing out my own adventure as I am planning to retire it end of this year and aim to write another Bladerunner Convention Adventure next year. My initial notes are bullet points and key words that wouldn't make sense to people.

If you are planning to run your own adventures, my key advise is:
  • keep the maximum number of players to 4 as this is what you are likely to get
  • Don't bother with downtime as there ain't time for that in a con game
  • Don't bother tracking shifts, just treat as event triggers to move the plot along

I have shared more of my thoughts on a private discord channel but if there is a specific question you want to ask - let me know

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