BladeRunner/reference/obstacle-ladders.md

# Obstacle Ladders

**Eight ready-to-run ladders for RUNDOWN.** Pick one, set the starting LEAD,
run it. Each is six rungs, played one per round in the order written. Rung 6 is
always a Terminator — it forces the chase to break one way or the other.

**Reading a rung:**

- **Toll** — a roll to avoid a penalty. Everyone the obstacle touches makes it.
  A failed Toll in crowded terrain also generates **1 Collateral**.
- **Tilt** — which side the terrain favours. Usually one advantage die.

Crowded rungs are marked **[C]** — a failed Toll there costs Collateral.

---

## 1. THE NIGHT MARKET — *foot*

**Start LEAD 3–4.** Steam, frying oil, six languages, nobody looking up.
The classic. Bodies everywhere, and every one of them a reason not to shoot.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Noodle stalls** — a wall of stools and elbows **[C]** | Mobility, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 2 | **Steam-cart collision** — scalding white-out, someone screaming about their cart **[C]** | Mobility, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 3 | **Monk procession** — slow, chanting, impossible to shove through **[C]** | Manipulation, or your role fails this round | Prey +1 |
| 4 | **Holo-ad burst** — a four-storey geisha blooms across the alley, blinding everyone | Observation, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 5 | **Plastic curtain maze** — hanging sheeting, animoid tanks, forty ways out | Mobility, or lose your roll | Prey +1; Spotter rolls at disadvantage |
| 6 | **THE SHRINE ALLEY** *(Terminator)* — a dead end behind a paper shrine. Three metres of wall, no door, an old woman watching | None — there is nowhere left to go | Pursuers +1 |

**Terminator note:** the best place in the sector to catch someone gently. If
the prey reaches this rung still ahead, they are choosing the wall over you —
play that.

---

## 2. SECTOR 12 ROOFTOPS — *foot*

**Start LEAD 3.** Wet tar, aerial clutter, a two-hundred-metre drop on every
side. Gambits are the whole texture here — expect three of them.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Gravel and standing water** — no grip anywhere | Mobility, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 2 | **Aerial forest** — dishes, guy-lines, a decade of illegal cabling | Mobility, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 3 | **The service gap** — four metres between blocks, forty storeys down | Mobility. **Failure here is a Gambit failure** — you are out of the chase and hurt | Pursuers +1 |
| 4 | **Downdraft** — a spinner passes low and the roof turns into a wind tunnel | Force, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 5 | **Skylight run** — old glass over an occupied floor **[C]** | Mobility, or you go through it | Prey +1 |
| 6 | **THE PARAPET** *(Terminator)* — the block ends. Below is the arterial, moving fast | None | Pursuers +1 |

**Terminator note:** somebody is going to jump. Decide before you start whether
this city's rooftops have a next building close enough, and tell the players.

---

## 3. THE STORM DRAIN — *foot*

**Start LEAD 4.** Concrete throat under the city, ankle-deep and rising. No
crowd to hurt — Collateral here is structural and personal, not civilian.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **The grade** — a long wet slope, no handholds | Mobility, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 2 | **Dark** — the lighting failed years ago | Observation, or roll at disadvantage next round | Prey +1 |
| 3 | **Sluice discharge** — a side pipe dumps hard across the channel | Force, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 4 | **The junction** — four identical mouths, one right answer | Observation, or your role fails this round | Prey +1; Spotter shines here |
| 5 | **Rising water** — knee-deep and climbing, the sound enormous | Stamina or Force, or lose your roll | Pursuers +1 |
| 6 | **THE OUTFALL GRATE** *(Terminator)* — the channel ends at a rusted grate and open air beyond | None | Pursuers +1 |

**Terminator note:** the grate is the question. Locked, and it is a capture.
Loose, and it is a fifteen-metre drop into a settling pond.

---

## 4. TRANSIT INTERCHANGE — *foot*

**Start LEAD 4.** Six levels, forty thousand people an hour, cameras on every
face. The most expensive place in the city to draw a weapon.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **The concourse** — a river of commuters going the other way **[C]** | Mobility, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 2 | **Turnstile bank** — everyone stops, nobody stops for you **[C]** | Connections or Tech, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 3 | **Down escalator, wrong way** **[C]** | Mobility, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 4 | **Transit police** — two officers who have noticed **[C]** | Manipulation, or your role fails and you generate 1 Collateral | Neither |
| 5 | **The platform** — a train arriving, doors about to close **[C]** | Observation, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 6 | **THE CLOSING DOORS** *(Terminator)* — one carriage, both of you, or one of you | None | Neither |

**Terminator note:** if the prey makes the train and the pursuers do not, that
is **GONE**, not a failure — the platform cameras have a face and a departure
time. Say so out loud.

**Collateral warning:** every rung here is crowded. A table that reaches for
Pressure in a transit hall will max the track by round four. That is the lesson,
not a punishment — let it happen and bill them later.

---

## 5. THE FREIGHT YARD — *ground vehicle*

**Start LEAD 4. Collateral doubled.** Container stacks, gantry cranes, and
nobody around to see it except the people who own the containers.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Standing water and rail** — the surface will not hold a hard turn | Driving, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 2 | **Container canyon** — blind corners, no sightlines | Observation, or roll at disadvantage next round | Prey +1 |
| 3 | **Gantry crane** — a load swinging across the lane | Driving, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 4 | **Yard hauler** — forty metres of articulated freight, reversing | Driving, or your role fails this round | Prey +1 |
| 5 | **Fuel apron** — hard surface, wide open, and a very good reason not to shoot | Driving. **Any Firearms Pressure here generates double Collateral** | Pursuers +1 |
| 6 | **THE GATE** *(Terminator)* — closed, manned, and lowering | None | Pursuers +1 |

**Terminator note:** the gate is a choice between stopping and going through it.
Going through it is 3 Collateral and a report that writes itself.

---

## 6. SEPULVEDA ARTERIAL, RAIN — *ground vehicle*

**Start LEAD 4. Collateral doubled.** Eight lanes, standing water, everyone
doing ninety because the traffic system says it is safe.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Spray** — the car ahead throws a wall of it | Observation, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 2 | **Lane discipline** — the automated flow does not want you doing this **[C]** | Driving or Tech, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 3 | **Underpass** — dark, loud, three lanes narrowing to two **[C]** | Driving, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 4 | **Stalled vehicle** — hazards on, occupants inside **[C]** | Driving, or lose your roll and generate 1 Collateral | Pursuers +1 |
| 5 | **Interchange ramp** — four ways off, decided in a second and a half | Observation, or your role fails this round | Prey +1; Spotter decisive |
| 6 | **THE CHECKPOINT** *(Terminator)* — LAPD barrier across all lanes, lights on **[C]** | None | Pursuers +1 |

**Terminator note:** the checkpoint ends this one way or another. If the prey
runs it, that is a citywide alert and someone else's arrest — the PCs get
**LOST, BUT** with a very good lead and a very bad afternoon.

---

## 7. OVER THE WALL — *spinner / aerial*

**Start LEAD 5. Collateral halved, but every point is severe.** Nothing below
you for six hundred metres, and everything below you is somebody's roof.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Traffic lane** — you are both in a corridor you are not cleared for | Driving or Connections, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 2 | **Rain shear** — the weather between the towers is its own animal | Driving, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 3 | **Ad blimp** — three hundred metres of illuminated hull, directly across | Driving, or your role fails this round | Prey +1 |
| 4 | **Transponder ping** — traffic control wants to know who you are | Tech or Connections, or roll at disadvantage next round | Pursuers +1 |
| 5 | **The span** — a bridge deck with clearance nobody sane would take | Driving. **Taking it is a Gambit**; refusing costs your roll | Prey +1 |
| 6 | **THE WALL** *(Terminator)* — the sector boundary, and a hard deck beyond it that is not your jurisdiction | None | Neither |

**Terminator note:** the Wall is jurisdictional, not physical. Crossing it means
the chase is over and the paperwork has begun. If the prey crosses, that is
**GONE** — you know exactly where they went and you cannot follow.

---

## 8. THE ATRIUM — *foot, corporate interior*

**Start LEAD 3.** Polished stone, filtered air, and four hundred employees who
have never seen anybody run. Every camera works. Every camera is owned.

| # | Obstacle | Toll | Tilt |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | **The floor** — wet-polished stone, no traction at speed **[C]** | Mobility, or lose your roll | Neither |
| 2 | **Reception cordon** — a desk, a rope line, and a very calm young man **[C]** | Manipulation, or your role fails this round | Prey +1 |
| 3 | **Elevator bank** — twelve doors, one of them closing **[C]** | Observation, or lose your roll | Prey +1 |
| 4 | **Corporate security** — two of them, polite, armed, and not police **[C]** | Manipulation or Connections, or your role fails and you generate 1 Collateral | Neither |
| 5 | **The gallery** — a mezzanine walkway over the whole atrium, in full view of everyone **[C]** | Mobility, or lose your roll | Pursuers +1 |
| 6 | **THE SEALED FLOOR** *(Terminator)* — the building has decided. Every door on this level locks at once | None | Pursuers +1 |

**Terminator note:** the building sealing is not on the PCs' side. Everyone is
now inside with corporate security, and the question of who leaves is a
negotiation, not a chase.

---

## Writing your own

Five minutes, six lines:

1. **Pick the location** and picture somebody sprinting through it.
2. **List six things that would interrupt them.** Not six dangers — six
   *interruptions*. Crowds, doors, weather, machinery, other people's business.
3. **Order them from annoying to impassable.**
4. **Give each a Toll** — the skill that gets you past it, and what it costs to
   fail. "Lose your roll this round" is the default and is usually right.
5. **Tilt about half of them.** Crowds favour the prey. Open ground favours the
   pursuers. Leave some neutral.
6. **Make rung 6 force the ending.** A wall, a barrier, a drop, a door that
   locks, a vehicle leaving. Something that cannot be run past.

Mark crowded rungs **[C]** so the Collateral rule is visible at the table.

**One thing to check before you run it:** read your six rungs in order and ask
whether they escalate. If rung 2 is scarier than rung 5, swap them. The ladder
is the scene's shape — that is the whole reason it is written down.