Scum & Villainy – Playbook examples
I am going to be running a S&V one shot at the FLGS this weekend, and am putting together some additional materials to smooth out the process. One of the things I am making is a guide to the playbooks with multiple examples of each from “Small crew spaceship” SF TV and Film.
I’m able to come up with multiple examples of Mechanics, Muscles, Mystics, and Pilots. But I can only come up with one clear example each of Scoundrel, Speaker, and Stitch.
But for the remaining, the only clear examples to me are:
Scoundrel – Han Solo (I thought about Peter Quill, but I’m not sure he’s unambiguously a scoundrel.)
Speaker – Inara Serra
Stitch – Simon Tam (I thought about Shed from the Expanse, but he didn’t last long enough to become Iconic.)
Any thoughts? Who am I missing here?
I think of Mal from Firefly as a Scoundrel, also Spike from Cowboy Bebop. Both Bones and Spock are Stitches.
I thought of Bones, was deliberately avoiding Trek references, skewing more towards the “space ruffians” subgenre than the trekkish “explorers/capital ships” subgenre.
Heh. Dr. Zoidberg.
AD Kohler Xeno stitch!
Spike from Cowboy Bebop is a muscle (though he mostly only equips the custom martial art).
Scoundrel is half the main characters from every non-military sci-fi show. FAYE from Cowboy Bebop is a scoundrel. Gene Starwind from Outlaw Star is a Scoundrel. Peter up above is right—Mal is definitely one, as is Starlord from the movies. Both Chiana and Chrichton are Scoundrels in Farscape (though Chrichton definitely picks up a bunch of Mechanic powers and weird dimensional permissions as the show goes on).
Jet Black is a Speaker. Look carefully at how he has a contact on every planet, is still considered respectable despite leaving his job, and generally deals with official and legal channels for the group including smoothing things over with the cops. Another good Speaker is Lando Calrissian. Smooth person, official channels, scummy connections. Rygel from Farscape is one too (speakers are not always nice).
Stitch: The one we drew most from was Stephen Franklin from B5. But there are lots of doctors oddly in older shows (Helena Russell from Space 1999, Cottle from Battlestar, Beckett from Stargate Atlantis, Crusher from Trek). You’ll find a bunch of doctors in older space anime too (from Yamato on).
Since you are talking about firefly it’s also worth mentioning that sometimes a character’s archetype may not match their technical profession. For example, I think Shepard Book would actually be represented quite well as a Stitch. He has surprising skills from his former life (see the Stitch’s core move), he has abnormal access to places because of his professional garb (spiritual collar instead of doctor’s coat) and he has that caregiver approach to problems.
And for another Speaker example: Lando Calrissian.
As I have seen multiple characters now that multiple people would have put in different playbooks than each other (and/or me), I am beginning to doubt the utility of this exercise.