Blade Runner the Roleplaying Game: too good not to talk about

I don't normally review role playing games here. I do spend a fair amount of time playing them, but I feel that the experience of playing an RPG is so vastly different than that of playing a board or card game that I honestly don't think the two types of games have all that much in common, the fundamental difference being that in a role playing game, the game mechanisms serve the story being told by the players, while in a board game, the story (if there even is one) is secondary to the game mechanisms.

However, Free League's Blade Runner: the Roleplaying Game is just too good not to talk about.

Swedish publisher Free League has a much deserved reputation for high end design and production value, and that is certainly on display here. The rulebook is beautifully designed and illustrated, using entirely original artwork by Martin Grip and Gustaf Ekelund rather than stills from the Blade Runner films, and the starter set comes with a wide variety of maps and other props created to the same high design standard.

The starter set contains an absurd amount of material: a condensed rulebook, four pre-made characters, two sets of engraved dice, a giant poster map of future L. A., a mountain of player handouts, and one of the best-written roleplaying adventures I've ever seen.

The game takes place in the year 2037, roughly midway between the two movies. Players take on the roles of replicant-hunting Blade Runners in a world that has just recently reintroduced a replicant work force and is still wary of them, in spite of assurances that they will obey every command. The starter set gives players two human and two replicant characters to choose from, and drops them into a murder investigation where they will need to interview suspects and witnesses, gather evidence, and make some interesting moral choices along the way.

The game system is a variation on the Year Zero game engine that forms the backbone of most of Free League's games, modified here to focus on gathering clues and pursuing investigations, with short bursts of violent combat that are very evocative of the setting. Dice rolling to accomplish tasks is very straightforward, with a system for rerolling failures that supports dramatic storytelling. One of the game's more interesting features is a card-based system for resolving chases, something other role playing games often struggle with.

 In place of experience points, players are rewarded with promotion points as they uncover vital pieces of the story's puzzle, and also humanity points when they make choices that favor compassion and humanity, or when they interact with important background characters. Characters can get into combat situations and take damage, but more interestingly, they also take on stress, and the game has a whole mechanical system for how they spend their down time, whether it's drinking in the local bar or relaxing at home with a beloved (and most likely artificial) pet.

In addition to the starter set, Free League has published a core rulebook that provides rules allowing players to create their own characters and case files in order to continue the adventure, but honestly, after how excellent the starter set adventure has been, the idea of having to come up with my own material for the game is daunting to say the least. Hopefully they will continue to publish further adventures and maintain the game's current high standard.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) Playing through the starter set adventure has been the most fun I've had with a roleplaying game in quite some time.

• Blade Runner: the Roleplaying Game official website

Unmatched: Now that's an epic duel

“A quick temper will make a fool of you soon enough.” -- Bruce Lee

To the best of my knowledge, there is only one tabletop game that lets you determine the winner in a fight between Bruce Lee and a tyrannosaurus rex. That game is Unmatched, and it deserves your respect.

Unmatched began its life as a Star Wars game called Epic Duels, published in 2002 by Milton Bradley and sold primarily in the toy store market. As a grid-based tactical combat game, Epic Duels was quite a bit more interesting than the usual toy store fare of the time, with players invited to imagine match-ups between characters from across the Star Wars timeline (as it existed in 2002, anyway), and realize those battles with a unique game system using miniatures, dice and cards. It was an interesting little game, especially by the standards of the time, but its nature as a piece of mass market movie tie-in merchandise meant that it didn't stay in print for long.

Robin Hood fights off a pack of hungry velociraptors

Fast forward to 2019. The core structure of Epic Duels has been revised, refined, and freed from the chains of the Star Wars license. Each player takes control of a character drawn from a wide range of mythology, literature, and popular culture, featuring everything from the aforementioned Bruce Lee to King Arthur, Sherlock Holmes, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the velociraptors from Jurassic Park, and even a selection from the more obscure side of the Marvel comics universe such as Moon Knight and Ghost Rider. The game then uses miniature movement and card play to imagine a duel between whatever unlikely combination of characters have been chosen.

Most games of this type such as Heroclix or Firefly Adventures use a reasonably large board or map printed with a grid to determine movement and distance. Unmatched instead employs a small board illustrated with a series of connected, color-coded circles to establish each character's position. Miniatures can move along the connections between circles, and the circle's color indicates areas where ranged attacks can be made, eliminating the pesky line-of-sight arguments that are the bane of most miniatures games' existence.

Character actions are determined by a deck of cards, unique to each character. Cards represent attacks, defenses and special abilities that can be employed throughout the game. When combat ensues, the attacker plays an attack card with a numerical value face down on the table, then the defender plays a defense card, also face down. Both cards are revealed simultaneously, and the defender takes damage equal to the difference between attack and defense. Most of the cards have an effect that takes place either before or after the attack, which spices up the game and gives players a lot of tactical options to consider, both when attacking and defending. Damage is tracked using a simple dial. It's a wonderfully elegant system that handles attack and damage in one play, and eliminates the egregious "luck factor" of dice rolling.

Apart from the simple yet elegant game play, each Unmatched set is a class act from start to finish. The game is sold in stand-alone sets of 2, 3 or 4 characters, which allows players to try out the game with minimal investment, and also to stick to only the characters that they find interesting. Are you a Marvel fan with no interest in Little Red Riding Hood or Bigfoot? No problem, Unmatched has you covered. The boxes all come with a high quality plastic tray for all the components (a rarity these days), and while the cards are plenty durable, the trays will even accomodate sleeved cards. The miniatures don't come pre-painted, but they do come with a wash applied that brings out the details of the figure, and also a colored ring for the base that makes it easy to tell each player's characters apart.

The artwork on the cards is all original (even for the characters from licensed properties) and consistently excellent, and the graphic design is slick, contemporary and (most importantly) easy to read. The rulebook is well organized (also a rarity these days), but honestly, once you have the basics down you will rarely need to look at the rules -- the game design really is that good.

Ghost Rider artwork from the "Marvel: Redemption Row" set.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) Not just a great dueling game, but a great card game and a great miniatures game all rolled into one.

• Unmatched official website
• Unmatched on BoardGameGeek

PARKS: the magical quest game

PARKS (I don't know why the title is always in all caps, it just is) stands out in the overall world of hobby gaming for two reasons: its high end graphic design, and its theme, which avoids the usual wizards, goblins and Marvel superheroes who still seem to have a stranglehold on the industry. I don't want to say it's a game for adults, but it's definitely a game that should appeal to those who might be a little turned off by the more juvenile trappings of the gaming hobby.

The game is about hiking through the national parks of the United States. Each player has two pawns which move along a path, with spaces representing different types of terrain such as forests, or lakes, collecting resources that are spent in various combinations in order to pick up cards representing different national parks, with stunning artwork from the Fifty Nine Parks print series. Along the way, players acquire equipment such as trail guides and water bottles that make collecting cards easier, and take photos for extra points. after four "seasons" of play, the player with the most points worth of parks cards and photos wins the game.

As I mentioned earlier, the sedate theme, amazing illustration and design, and high quality components make the game stand out from the pack, but in terms of game design, it still has its roots in "quest" style adventure games like Talisman, which in turn call back to "move around and pick up stuff" classics like Monopoly or Clue. You're still moving around a board collecting treasure, which you then use to make the game play easier, with the ultimate goal of earning points to win. The only real difference is that in PARKS, your thematic goal is to take a nice hike and see some amazing scenery, rather than defeat the dragon king or whatever. It's a tried and true game concept, the innovation is in making it appeal to a new audience. And the amazing artwork builds a world just as compelling as middle-earth or the Marvel universe, with the added bonus that the world it describes is real.

As I understand it, this game is widely available in national park gift shops and the like, and the publisher has done a good job of getting it into mainstream venues like Barnes & Noble and Target, which is great for the hobby -- it brings in new players rather than competing for the existing ones with more of the same.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) While it's not necessarily a game of subtle complexities, it is a gorgeously designed game with an extremely solid, dependable structure.

• PARKS official website
• PARKS on boardgamegeek