Scum and Villainy “playtest” session 3
Our final playtest session. The PCs raced to the Hantu Gate with the Aleph Key, managing to beat the Nightspeakers there, but also blowing off the Vigilance and getting embroiled in a faction war with them. That caused problems because, while the PCs beat the Nightspeakers to the Hantu Gate, they didn’t beat the Vigilance there. We then had a two-dimensional struggle with some PCs fighting off the Vigilance while others were trying to install the Key and open the Gate (some mechanics, some negotiation with the Precursor Ur-intelligence they woke up). They just about got there in the end, with some judicious use of Gambits.
Some playtest comments:
We rolled “Reprisals” for the entanglement, and that brought out that there’s no Rep in S&V, so you can’t pay off an enemy Faction with Rep, only Cred. And in terms of presentation, that little parenthetical statement in the core BitD book: “An enemy faction makes a move against you (or a friend, contact, or vice purveyor)” really helps the GM at the table see what that looks like in the Fiction.
Another thing we drifted into was that the crew creation guidelines are, I think, presented unclearly. All the information is there, but it’s not obvious to a new reader on first run through. I’d put an additional section (of a paragraph or two) about Quality on page 113, before “Choose Initial Reputation.” That section would be something like:
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” Crew and Ship System Quality
“Both your Crew overall and the various parts of your ship have a Quality rating. Your Crew Quality is a measure of the quality of the equipment you have and how together and professional you are as a team. You compare your Crew Quality to other Factions’ Tiers to judge whether you outclass them or they outclass you. You use Crew Quality for things like Acquiring Assets (page XX) and the effect of your reputation when you namedrop. See page XX for how to advance in Crew Quality.
“Your ship has different systems: engines, hull, comms, and weapons. Each system has a Quality as well. Use the ship system rating as base dice pool when you’re rolling for how well the ship does. Roll the Engines Quality to race another ship; use the Comms Quality to cut through the Hegemonic frigate’s jamming. (PCs can use Teamwork, page XX, to boost the ship systems as needed.)”
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It might also be worth spelling out the rough equivalence that ship system quality is a bit like PC action ratings, and ship modules are a bit like PC special abilities. I know I got confused on first reading, thinking that system quality was somehow tied to the number of modules installed.
Another playtest comment as about Gambits. They seemed quite easy to get, and made the crew rather effective. It didn’t help that they were a reward for doing well. We thought they would be better if awarded on a 1-3 result for Risky (and perhaps Desperate) rolls, to help get people out of a nasty situation. We’ve not tried that, as it only came up in a post-session discussion, but the existing way of generating Gambits seemed off.
(Just in case it wasn’t clear: the suggested text for the Quality section is pretty rubbish, and I’m sure people can come up with better.)
I like the idea of getting Gambits when you need them, seems like it would help balance out the rolls. Though I would keep the odds the same or make them lower. Awarding a Gambit on a 1-3 Risky is 50% of the Risky rolls (that you don’t use a Gambit on).
This is pretty cool to hear about! We’re about to do our edit pass of S&V so it’s good to have some feedback about the smaller things like the text around reprisals and crew quality.
For gambits, we’ve playtested a lot of variations and there are subtle design choices in how gambits work: for instance, gambits encourage play in the risky position, as opposed to desperate (for which you get XP) and controlled (for which the consequences are minimized.) And if you award gambits on 1-3s rather than 6s, gambit generation falls off in the late game.
These are the choices that Stras and I ended up with, but if you feel like they don’t mesh well with your game, it’s totally cool to try a variation and see what works best for you. Maybe we’ll put that into the rules hacking section. 🙂
John LeBoeuf-Little re the gambits: we didn’t play with any variation with the gambit rules, but we noticed that we were never short of a gambit for when it was needed. That’s why we suggested the change. We agreed with the notion of rewarding Risky rolls: that’s a good idea.
John LeBoeuf-Little would you mind explaining
“…if you award Gambits on 1-3’s rather than 6s, Gambit generation falls off in the late game.”
From my understanding, if you roll a Risky position without using a Gambit, you have a 1/6 chance in gaining a Gambit per die rolled (with a maximum of gaining 1 Gambit per roll).
Toimu my reading is that Gambit generation is based in the best die rolled in a pool, not the value of each individual die.
Toimu Sure thing. The number of dice you roll dramatically alters how likely you are to get a gambit. For a single die, it’s 1/6 (17%). For two dice, it’s 11/36 (30%). For three dice, it’s 91/216 (42%). You’re more likely to generate gambits doing things that you’re good at.
On the other hand, your odds of getting a 1-3 drop as you add dice. For a single die, it’s 3/6 (50%). For two dice, it’s 9/36 (25%). And for three dice, it’s 27/216 (13%). With this approach, you’re more likely to generate gambits doing things you’re worse at.
What I meant by ‘gambit generation would fall off in the late game’ is that stats, particularly the stats you’d be rolling frequently, tend to go up as the game progresses, so more of your rolls are in these multi-die skills. If you think about how many gambits you’ll generate per session, that would mean you’d generate less gambits in a more mature crew than one that’s just starting out.
Toimu Neil Smith Reading a little more closely, and just to clarify, yes, only the final result of the roll is checked to determine if a gambit is generated – if that is a 6 or a crit, you generate a gambit. It’s a subtle point that would only come up if you decided to monkey around with the actual number you generate gambits on. ^_^
John LeBoeuf-Little This question revolves, I think, about what Gambits are meant to represent in the fiction. Our view was that they represented that little bit of undefinable luck to get you out of a tight spot. I think your view is that they’re a representation of “togetherness” or momentum, something that accrues to the successful.
I don’t know whether the fiction or the mechanics came first when you created Gambits, but these different interpretations seem like the root of our disconnect. Perhaps something else to expand on slightly in the final text?
Edit: I’m very tired and was nodding off while trying to type this.
+John LeBoeuf-Little “only getting Gambits on a die you keep” was the part I was missing. I need to reread all of the rules!
Custom Gambit generation idea.
Since you always keep the highest, then every time you roll a 6 on a Risky without using Gambit, you always generate a Gambit.
I’m going to try the idea of “every time you roll a 1 on a Risky without using a Gambit, you generate a Gambit (no matter what die you keep).
I have no problem with a team being down a resources and hurting. But I don’t want them to be ahead and continue with good luck because of more Gambit generation.
Toimu Cool! Let us know how it works out!
Neil Smith I think we have a section on gambits and what they represent in the 6×9 text, so hopefully that’s already accounted for! But I’ll double check and make sure. The mechanic does shape the tone of the game slightly – this was just the one that shaped the game in the way we enjoyed the most. Having a little note about that in the text wouldn’t go amiss, particularly in the hacking chapter. 🙂