Four sessions in, we finally played our first game of Scum & Villainy.
Four sessions in, we finally played our first game of Scum & Villainy.
We’d played before, of course, but not really. The first session was the getting-to-know-you version, with players A, B, and C. It was character creation, lots of rules explanations and examples, and trying to move away from the classic D&D, “I roll Stealth.” I used the starting scenario from the v1.7 handouts and plopped the players onto rails. I stuck a progress clock in there, but it was clunky. I managed to avoid any vivid descriptions and the players avoided roleplaying. I forgot about position and effect a few times (until after the dice were rolled).
The second session had players A, B, and D, and got better. I started off with a little exposition to customize my galaxy a bit, and put the gun on the mantlepiece. I used small gang rules and we hashed out the differences between Consort, Sway, and Command. I still had the rails down, but the NPCs were better (and present) and I found time to describe a few things. Player A roleplayed, and B used their playbook ability and Attune a couple of times. Played D, new to the system, took the first Trauma when Chekov’s gun finally went off in the last scene. I remembered to introduce factions and to use the characters’ friends.
Third session was Players A through E, and was rocky (from my point of view). I had issues keeping everyone involved and in the spotlight, and the challenges I presented kept getting knocked down by great rolls. On the plus side, I had a couple more, and better, NPCs, I tied the job to a couple of players’ backgrounds, and we did Downtime at the beginning of the session to keep things exciting until the end. In addition, I finally got the train off of the rails (for the most part) and kept factions involved.
Last night, though, finally felt like we weren’t playing a learning game. I had a player roll for Entanglements the night before so that I could think about how it might lead to a job; it worked really well, involving both a +2 faction and a friend of the ship. We had Players A, C, D, and E there, but the episodic nature of the game made it easy to leave the missing character out.
I made a (in my opinion) creative handout for a little more exposition, which was received well. I reminded the players about XP triggers at the beginning of the session, and the roleplaying was more frequent and better than before. Position and Effect were easier to come up with and skills were getting intuitive. We used Flashbacks, Gambits, varied Load, individual player equipment, Assists, Set-up Actions, and Devil’s Bargains. I split the action up so the players had to divide their attention, and it was easier to move the spotlight around.
Finally, the players took a lot more responsibility for the story, coming up with unexpected plans and involving their Trauma and fictional positioning even when it made things worse for them (three of four players overindulged their Vices, one for the expressed purpose of hitting Wanted Level 1, which everyone loved). Everything just flowed better and felt more fun, and there was so much roleplaying that we had to pack it in before the job was done.
The players are looking forward to finishing the job next time, and to see what’s next. For my part, I can’t wait to get the final draft of the S&V PDF.
