I think Blame! would make an excellent pen-and-paper RPG using the d20 system. The whole manga is, essentially, a dungeon crawl: explore dungeon, fight baddies, get special item, kill big foozle.

Additionally, the "online game" thread has been kicking around forever, and I'm fairly certain it's never going to happen. Such an undertaking would require many hours of work from a dedicated team of artists and programmers. A pen and paper rpg, on the other hand, I can create in a weekend. I say, if we're ever going to play Blame! online, this is the best it's gonna get.

I have a fair bit of experience writing writing special rules for the d20 system, so that it can accomodate various sci-fi settings. Blame wouldn't be too difficult; some things would be out of balance, but I think that's in the spirit of the manga. The hardest thing for me would simply be coming up with the list of races, classes, items, etc... that would need to be codified. Though I've read Blame several times through, I'm still not sure I really understand everything.

So basically, I'm wondering if anybody would be interested in playing a game like this? It could be played on a site like . And if anyone is interested, would you also be interested in helping me come up with the rules and stat things out?

I would -love- to play a pnp BLAME! RPG, and I think the rules could easily be adapted for any of Nihei's other universes, like Biomega, Digimortal or Abara.

I'm not sure how much help I could be, but it's certainly an interesting prospect.

If anyone actually does want to get into something like this, I could be of help. I dm/gm'd a few obscure campaigns of D20/D&D so I have some experience. I even made my own rule system in a full rulebook form for a naruto d20 game. I could help with class making and rule making, as well as mapping out dungeons and even story creation. I would love to play it.

sounds like it could be very fun. Only element missing is the visual aspect which happens to be one of the best parts of the BLAME universe. But that's D&D for ya

Ok, It seems like we've got a few interested parties. I think the first thing to do is to just brain storm a list of things we'll need to stat out and/or invent mechanics for. Then we can establish the the unique attributes of these things-- in generic terms at first, and then once we've decided what everything is, we can work out the specifics.

So, races, for example:

it's important to keep races and classes balanced

+ advantage
- disadvantage
= nuetral

Human
= base attribute scores
= requires food (as opposed to electricity)
= sleeps to regain HP (as opposed to repair)

Fisherman
+ DEX bonus
- unable to use high-technology

Silicon-being
+ STR bonus
+ Ability to interface with cybernetic entities
- ???

Safe-guard
- INT penalty
- WIS penalty
+ regenerates HP
+ can call on the aid of nearby netsphere constructs

So, those are just examples, and poor ones. I'm not really sure what the strengths and weaknesses should be for different races, or what the classes should be, or what type of equipment and weapons exist. So, I think we should all pool our knowledge together to come-up with the outline of the system.

My GM invited me and another friend over to play a BLAME!-esque pnp rpg yesterday. He basically took the BESM Cyber Punk rules and mixed them around ... for example we used a new stat called "Compatibility" which states how compatible your charater is with alien eq in general, to make it simple.

I chose to play a character without any compatability at all but with a decent melee combat skill, brandishing a short sword
My friend played a cybernetically enchanced character with implants to record visual data and heavy focus on compatibility, heavily armored and with a decent marksman ability. He played one of the taller races you come across in the BLAME! universe (much like Killy himself), while I was more like the electric fishermen in terms of size. We complemented each other rather well.


The party I normaly play with and our GM nearly always prefer freeform when playing, so we try to only use rules in combat and pvp situations, or where our GM thinks the dice should decide.

For example, once during our session we were walking through a narrow but tall corridor where pipes were leaking out hot and explosive gas.
Suddenly, a surge of electricity crawled down the wall behind us and a few powercords caught on fire, acting as a fuse for the gas ahead of us.
After quickly deciding to run away the GM said my friends sensory devices told him we couldn't make it before the cords ignited the gas, so we tried to cut them instead.
My teammate fired a volley of bullets with his assault rifle but missed, because he failed to roll under the requierd stats.
I then tried by standing on his shoulders (beeing 70 cm smaller and not even having half his wheight made this easy) and cutting it with my shortsword, which also forced a dieroll. I succeeded, and we could continue our journey.


We created our characters in two hours and played for another two.
The result was great!
Using moody pictures from BLAME! and other similar enviroments (marathon infinity maps, sci fi alleyways... ) and ambient music (, and more heavy stuff for the battle scenes) our GM managed to create an immersive atmosphere.


[Level seven from the game Marathon Infinity, our GM used it as a map at one point to show my friend basically how his mapping device displayed its data to him.]

I've been thinking about this myself, but I started to wonder how well the D20 system could adapt to a setting with so much dependent on the archetecture and its desruction/navigation. Some of the weapons also seem too destructive to be ballanced, and some of the action scenes usually too intense for such a laid back system. I'd expect a more easily adaptable system, such as white wolf's stuff, to adapt better. Of course, I'm sure it's do-able.