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I feel like the freedom to develop a non-Blade Runner character would probably be a bit limited, for reasons that were previously mentioned in this thread. It would be fun for sure to add a couple different options, maybe on a more case-by-case basis - and I mean literally just adding a character type or two to an individual case file that gets released sometime in the future. Not sure how much they could develop in the long run, and if they have conflicting goals with the other PCs, I could see it becoming problematic. But I also figure, as a Game Runner, I can try to make the NPCs more interactive so that the PCs have a more fulfilling experience that they can kind of build upon, to influence their decisions and thoughts later on. I considered letting some of the players control NPCs in scenes where their PC isn't involved, but I think that just gets too messy (and I'm the only one in the group who's read the rulebook lol).

Expanding on that suggestion to add a couple more playable character types to future cases, it wouldn't be such a bad thing to release some short-length "side story"-type case files that don't involve any of the existing PCs, so that they could set the background scene for a future case file involving the existing PCs. Then the PCs in those "side stories" could reappear as NPCs in the next case file, but some of their attributes would be determined by how the "side stories" played out.

Whereas I for my own part would love to see Ligan make Blade Runner into just as much of a "sandbox" game as ALIEN.

You have a large world, you are given the tools to expand it, you can make player characters out of a fairly wide selection of archetypes, and you can subject them to a great variety of survival horror type challenges ... without necessarily ever showing them more than an occasional Alien.

The LA of Blade Runner is a vast place; as a "Neon Noir" setting is is all but perfect — and as I noted just a little while ago, potential protagonists in Noir stories can come from a highly diverse variety of walks of life.
So why necessarily constrain the game to explore only a minute subset of them, when the potential is so much greater?

No ... I must say I already look forward to those "future game expansions adding rules and guidelines for other types of characters". Lovely as the game already looks to be able to be (some glaring beauty spots notwithstanding), to me it is these that hold the promise of unlocking its full potential.

But as noted earlier: YMMV.

Listen to Ridley Scott and how he describes the first movie. It’s a Marlowesque story, inspired by Raymond Chandler’s detective stories. If you don’t get that, you don’t understand what Bladerunner is. It’s a neo noir story put in a dystopian L. A.. The film noir tradition is rich and diverse. Of course, a Bladerunner game should reflect the genre, not just the movies frame by frame...

I agree with most or all of the stuff Vader said above. I haven’t read all of the game yet. It looks good visually (like a coffe table book), but as a game, I’m still trying to wrap my head around what it’s really supposed to be... To me, L. A. is the real main character in this setting. I want to play a noir character in that city, not just repeating the movies.

It's probably supposed to be a game about Blade Runners.

Whereas I for my own part would love to see Ligan make Blade Runner into just as much of a "sandbox" game as ALIEN.

You have a large world, you are given the tools to expand it, you can make player characters out of a fairly wide selection of archetypes, and you can subject them to a great variety of survival horror type challenges ... without necessarily ever showing them more than an occasional Alien.

The LA of Blade Runner is a vast place; as a "Neon Noir" setting is is all but perfect — and as I noted just a little while ago, potential protagonists in Noir stories can come from a highly diverse variety of walks of life.
So why necessarily constrain the game to explore only a minute subset of them, when the potential is so much greater?

No ... I must say I already look forward to those "future game expansions adding rules and guidelines for other types of characters". Lovely as the game already looks to be able to be (some glaring beauty spots notwithstanding), to me it is these that hold the promise of unlocking its full potential.

Question for you @vader: Setting aside the existing case file for a moment, is there anything you've suggested above that you feel you can't do? I understand the rule book doesn't explicitly show you how to create non-Blade Runner character (journalist, PI, geneticist, bounty hunter, corporate fixer, etc.), but you could certainly create those on your own if you wanted to.

It's probably supposed to be a game about Blade Runners.

Well, obviously. But you should be able to do other things with the setting too, right? I know some future products have been mentioned, but I think the basic rules should give us some more stuff to work with. As I said, this is (or should be?) a genre game.

It's probably supposed to be a game about Blade Runners.

Well, obviously. But you should be able to do other things with the setting too, right? I know some future products have been mentioned, but I think the basic rules should give us some more stuff to work with. As I said, this is (or should be?) a genre game.

It's fine-tuned to Blade Runners, but as the Archetypes topic is pointing out, there is nothing holding you to those. We have all the skills and attributes. There's really nothing stopping anyone from branching out.
I also suspect it would be difficult to make premade adventures for a party of "whatever you want to be in Blade Runner world."
I'm personally not surprised at all that the Core Book focuses on being a Blade Runner.

Question for you @vader: Setting aside the existing case file for a moment, is there anything you've suggested above that you feel you can't do? I understand the rule book doesn't explicitly show you how to create non-Blade Runner character (journalist, PI, geneticist, bounty hunter, corporate fixer, etc.), but you could certainly create those on your own if you wanted to.

While I'm not Vader, one of the issues is that the listed equipment, costs, and availability are very much geared towards investigators, with very little info on just purchasing stuff for yourself for fun or profit. It's actually more than a little concerning since, unlike a system like in Vaesen, chinyen is finite and not 'renewable' each case or session. The game sort of uses chinyen for bribery ... either bribing other cops to get access to equipment you were originally denied, or bribing contacts to give you info or equipment you need. It's not even clear how 'permanent' anything you get outside of standard LAPD requisition really is.

So no, as written, it's not easily possible to play a non-Blade Runner civilian. Best you could do is maybe play an LAPD cop who's not a Blade Runner.

Question for you @vader: Setting aside the existing case file for a moment, is there anything you've suggested above that you feel you can't do? I understand the rule book doesn't explicitly show you how to create non-Blade Runner character (journalist, PI, geneticist, bounty hunter, corporate fixer, etc.), but you could certainly create those on your own if you wanted to.

While I'm not Vader, one of the issues is that the listed equipment, costs, and availability are very much geared towards investigators, with very little info on just purchasing stuff for yourself for fun or profit. It's actually more than a little concerning since, unlike a system like in Vaesen, chinyen is finite and not 'renewable' each case or session. The game sort of uses chinyen for bribery ... either bribing other cops to get access to equipment you were originally denied, or bribing contacts to give you info or equipment you need. It's not even clear how 'permanent' anything you get outside of standard LAPD requisition really is.

So no, as written, it's not easily possible to play a non-Blade Runner civilian. Best you could do is maybe play an LAPD cop who's not a Blade Runner.

To add to @Kaybe’s already very to-the-point answer, @CitizenZero — it seems to me that by your line of reasoning, the book could justifiably be a whole lot thinner than it is. You can always home-brew pretty much anything you like into any game.

So, as long as the game provides some bare bones for you — why rely on the authors to provide any of the details for you, since you can do it yourself? Ever?

In that case, there are some details I could have hoped the authors had not chosen to invest space on, since what they’ve come up with simply doesn’t cut the mustard for me (in particular Deckard’s Blaster, which I feel is, quite frankly, [redacted]), and I’ll have to home-brew anyway!

As @Kaybe pointed out, while you could create a wider variety of character archetypes easily enough, the game doesn’t provide any structure to actually play them in. It seems it hardly even provides structure to play the Bladerunner characters, when they’re not actively Investigating Case Files.

Of course, all of that is always possible to home-brew. But for my own part, I don’t buy game for what I can home-brew into them; I buy them for what I can play in them.

And thereby again going full circle back to one of my earlier posts: I look forward to those "future game expansions adding rules and guidelines for other types of characters". To me, it is these that hold the promise of unlocking the game’s full potential.

I might have wished Ligan had put some of it into the base game, but I am content with their commitment to release expansions on the subject.