Stras Acimovic I pitched S&V to my face-to-face group and I’m excited!
Stras Acimovic I pitched S&V to my face-to-face group and I’m excited! We have these intermittent Friday night games where we try one/two-shots in new systems and there’s a 90% chance we butcher whatever it is to run Star Wars. We just finished a two-part Edge of the Empire thing where there was this Old Republic Korriban Sith artifact heist in the background, like Three Kings and Saddam’s gold.
The guys were all like “THAT sounds badass!” I was like “Korriban artifact heist? Let me sing you the song of my people!”
So now we’re gonna try that in Scum & Villainy, and it’s nice because even if I skin it as Star Wars, it’s Old Republic so I can probably just use most of your factions as-is. Who’s to say there weren’t Ashen Knives back then? 🙂
I got some design validation from an unexpected source the other day.
I got some design validation from an unexpected source the other day. The amount of ammunition Battlegrounds hands out maps really well to my ammo rules in Glow in the Dark. You typically have enough ammo for murder but not battle.
“As you expend ammunition, you’ll mark off ammo dots under Items. This represents the foresight to bring enough ammo. Follow these guidelines for marking ammo:
Mark the first dot when you engage in a gunfight that uses a raid action (as opposed to hunt).
Mark the second dot if you squander ammo; suppressing fire, full-auto, two guns at once, and so on.
You’re out of ammo if you don’t have the load to spare or if it makes sense in the fiction. It might also come up as a devil’s bargain.”
The Dead Setters steal the Eye of Kotar on the high seas in the I’m Still On A Boat Caper.
Last time, using Lord Scurlock’s patronage, the crew hit Tier IV and decided that’s all they needed the old vampire for. They proceeded to plan scores that would release Setarra’s children from the harbor as per their bargain with Scurlock, but this was just to allay suspicions. They’re totally going to betray him.
Their machinations started with a “two birds, one hand grenade” plan. The Setters were in a leviathan blood smuggling ring with the Cabbies, who were already moving weight for Lady Clave of the Leviathan Hunters, secretly of the Circle of Flame. They discovered Lady Clave had in her possession the Eye of Kotar, a mysterious artifact rumored to have influence over demons. Thinking they could get Clave out of the picture, recover the Eye, and grab a monopoly on the Cabbies’ distribution network, the crew smuggled themselves aboard Clave’s ship, the Sussurrus, in barrels, dwarf style.
They rolled the devil’s crit on engagement. Three sixes. The Sussurus was damaged during its last leviathan hunt and had multiple crew injuries. The Setters would have an easier time moving through the chaos and fewer sailors would be present to stop them. Furthermore, it was a lucrative hunt – 12 Coin in blood rested in the ship’s stores.
Roll20 immediately betrayed the crew, however. Group Prowl actions with a single 4 across 6-7 dice, nothing higher than 3s on resistance rolls, and so on. They got hung up in a corridor being used for medical overflow and decided the easiest way to the captains’ quarters was to simply murder the wounded sailors and the Sussurrus’ one surviving ship’s doctor. Deemo the Leech and Richter the Spider stayed behind, playing dead and pulling off a wildly successful ambush on the inevitable reinforcements. Teatime the Whisper and Raven the Hound made it to Lady Clave’s quarters. Teatime summoned a spirit, ripping the fresh firey entity from one of the poor teenage ensigns they had just killed in the prior corridor. He compelled it through Clave’s door to see what she was up to – BLAM BLAM! Two barrels of double ought electroplasmic buckshot later, Teatime learned that Clave did indeed know they were there, and his ghost helper was summarily obliterated.
Raven figured she didn’t have a triple barreled shotgun and kicked open the doors. She was faster than Clave’s first mate, a beardy Russell Crowe-looking dude who- well, he got stabbed in the face by Teatime’s psychic Krull-glaive (WHISPERS CAN CRAFT SHIT TOO AND IT IS HORRIFYING). Clave ducked behind her sturdy desk to reload as Raven winged her. The leviathan hunter captain blasted out a bridge window and flung the Eye of Kotar into the Void Sea.
#nope. Pope of Nope. Raven resisted with Resolve, calling her ghost-form hunting bird, Zeramore. The spectral avian plucked the Eye from midair and returned it to Raven’s feet, although the artifact burned Zeramore to the point she had to return home to “roost” or whatever it is ghost birds do to heal.
A meager plea from Lady Clave. A headshot from Raven. Teatime picked up the Eye of Kotar, safely bound inside a chain-wrapped pendant and glowing like the sun in the ghost field.
“It’s so bright you have to look away. ‘Bright’ doesn’t do it justice. You don’t have the words for it. Your ‘sun’ isn’t bright enough – you can’t even draw a parallel.”
Deemo used her stock of hand grenades to scuttle the Sussurrus and the crew raced against time to load the blood harvest onto their own vessel, the Colossus. Remember, kids: Loot, then burn.
~~~
It was a good session. Ups and downs from the dice, a complex plan handwaved by engagement with a simple execution during play. The guys are Tier IV and I’m trying to keep that in mind. Two sessions ago they’d have been looking for fine equipment and pushing themselves to match up with the Sussurrus’ crew, but they were on equal footing now and often stacked the situation in their favor. Richter almost trauma’d out thanks to a resistance roll that should’ve been a gimme, but he had special armor. Everyone continues to burn stress like gasoline.
I love how Rep gains changed during the quickstart to final version. Their advancement feels much better to me.
I feel like we’re in an endgame, like the inevitable Lord Scurlock job could be the series finale? Deemo’s on her way to making herself a hull, Raven could probably safely become a Reconciled should she die, and Teatime? 3 Traumas and Lifestyle 4. He’s setting himself up to usurp Scurlock.
~~~
Post-credits scene!
Back at Tinriver House, Teatime attunes to the Eye of Kotar. It’s a six, of course. The polished, eyeball-sized stone artifact shows Teatime how to use it. It grants the Compel ability but for demons, not just spirits. It gives a vague sense of when supernatural forces are around. And it only works if it’s sitting in an eye socket.
Teatime doesn’t even hesitate. He presses the Eye into his own and the stone burns away his eye, vitreous running and smoking down his face. He doesn’t cry out.
We had to break last session in the middle of underground shenanigans against the Monarchs, insect/plant mutants who take slaves to work their irradiated narcotic fields in the Boneyard. The tribe had come to the Boneyard to raid their lair for drugs, which they could then sell for food, which they sorely needed.
It’s tricky to handle scheduling conflicts when you have to cliffhanger, but Rooster the Driver and Tuesday the Shark were the only ones who could make it. Luckily, they were both in Rooster’s dualie Boss Mustang, Layla. Nestor and Torch had ambushed a Monarch guard and it was easy to rule that Rooster’s desperate drive up an escalator weakened the subway nexus they were in. A freak cave-in separated the present players from the missing ones, and we continued on, having turned our frowns upside down.
Changing what the conflict’s about: In my last post, I mentioned that I was worried that the Shark (a social class) might not be the best fit for the wasteland, but I’ve had a Shark in 2/3 of my playtest groups and I think it’s good now. Tuesday wanted to convince the remaining Monarch guard that the previous violence was a big misunderstanding and that the tribe was here to barter with the Monarchs, tech for drugs. It wasn’t completely impossible – the guard was outmatched and alone (at least until the “reinforcements” clock filled up), and with her “bogus trade goods” item, Tuesday boosted her effect. It was still a desperate roll, but she pulled out a partial success. Rooster protected her from the wasp-thing’s claw-hands by putting Layla into a quick J-turn, throwing the mutant free.
Trauma club: The next major challenge was meeting Queen Hymenoptera and reducing her suspicions to the point where she’d actually barter. The Monarchs’ leader was all of 4′ tall, a bug-headed Brundlefly mutant whose legs had merged into something of a thorax, with twisted toes and long nails curved in mockery of a stinger. Vine-arms wrapped around the heads and necks of four human slaves, which supported the tiny monarch like a living palanquin. When Hymenoptera spoke, it was through the mouths of these slaves.
This was mainly a handful of Barter and Sway rolls, but the devils’ bargains were juicy AF. Tuesday’s first offer was a flashback, where she and Rooster combined their playbook items (a “speed inhaler” and “party drugs”) into a chem cocktail they could offer as a goodwill measure. The Monarchs happily offered some of their own supply for Tuesday and Rooster to try, and Rooster traumaed out resisting the drug-harm (in keeping with his poor decisions, he took “Reckless”). Tuesday accepted the harm, and a tick on an “Addicted” clock. Finally, Tuesday offered tech for the Monarchs’ drugs and she was truthful (and compelling) enough about the details that she piqued the Queen’s greed. Deal or no deal, the Monarchs would try to find out where the tribe’s Hidden settlement was.
Escape: Hymenoptera took the pair of PCs topside to show them the Monarch’s territory, less a friendly tour and more a prideful show of force. Look at how much turf we have. Look how the very plants here do our bidding. Getting the actual drugs was fairly straightforward, but considering Tuesday and Rooster hadn’t brought any tech to trade, things got sticky once they got back to their car.
Rooster (who was now back among the conscious) flashed back to giving wirecutters to the slave pens. They broke free and swarmed the guards just as Tuesday pepper sprayed them and Rooster ticked off “Ballistic Weapon” and “+Big” on his playbook. He refused a devil’s bargain to shoot up some slaves as he hosed the three escorts, but accepted a counteroffer to simply use up all his ammo for his SAW. He squandered ammo here (squandering resources like entire belts of 5.56mm gives +2 friction, like killing does in normal Blades) but would be able to tick that Reckless XP. The guards were overwhelmed and then they were dead. Spent brass littered the subway platform. Rooster and Tuesday clambered into Layla and gunned it into the tunnels. We had a brief chase but Rooster, driving in the dark with NVGs on and no headlights, was more than a match for the handful of winged Monarchs who pursued them.
Next time! Payoff, Friction, Fallout, Upkeep, and Downtime.
~~~
We probably could’ve finished sooner. I probably called for a few too many action rolls during the negotiations. My best guess is that I was mentally prepared for your more typical assault/sneak kind of session, and I (mistakenly) felt that switching to a social approach needed the same volume of rolls? I don’t think it did. After Tuesday managed to shift that paradigm, there was plenty of complications to go round. Hell, Rooster got the group’s first trauma! I glossed over it in the writeup but I called for probably 2-3 extraneous Barter or Sway rolls, and it eats up time when you only have 2 hours to play. I also didn’t want to feel like we were rushing the scene or not giving it pride of place, either. I was caught off guard but I know now, in hindsight, that it was way more interesting doing this socially.
What happened also wasn’t really in line with what I had in mind for Relics. This turned out to be a Dealers score (we all agreed, too). That said, I had half-assed some Relics tribe XP triggers that I thought were maybe too broad, but I feel more vindicated about my choices now since we couldn’t contort the action into something “Relics-ish”. I don’t know if the starting situation’s to blame. Anyway, here’s what I’ve got for the Relics’ tribe XP triggers so far. Yes, it’s just a 4X game. 🙂
Execute a successful exploration, exploitation, expansion or extermination.
Explore: Gather data on the locations and factions of the wasteland.
Exploit: Reclaim pre-war technology or culture.
Expand: Rebuild the wasteland in your image.
Exterminate: Subjugate or destroy those who stand in your way.
TL;DR: Made 2 additional survivors, presented starting situation, started first score which was mostly a sneaky Assault or blitz Infiltration.
~~~
I’m late with this writeup, since we actually finished the first score this past Wednesday.
Logan Shoup
(“Torch” Constance, a Junker) and Matt Schwaninger (“Rooster” Cole, a Driver) joined Jason Eley (Nestor Carlisle, a Leftover) and Thomas Berton (Tuesday Grace a Shark). It took about half the session, and now all my playbooks have actually been played at this point. We also nailed down Nestor’s bodytank (powered armor) and Rooster’s custom ride. The gear/vehicle system I use for Glow is a mishmash of the Smugglers crew from vanilla Blades and Mark Cleveland Massengale’s Runners in the Shadows hack (and probably some parallels with Apocalypse World), and so far it works out okay.
Nestor’s armor has heavy plating, but has limited power and a leaky core. It made the most sense for him to have salvaged the suit from his spaceship wreckage, which is why it had two flaws but no obligations like it would have had he stole it or had it loaned out to him by another faction.
Rooster’s custom ride is a sort-of dualie Boss Mustang called Layla. He salvaged her as well, but took Eleanor as his starting ability, which lets you mitigate a flaw if you name your custom ride. Then he doubled down on perks, ending up with fast and sturdy but finicky and thirsty.
Torch was a former pawn of the rogue AI Noah who took off after she learned she was being used. Her vice is drink, an oldie but goodie. Rooster was a promising deathracer with the Blacktop Society, but was exiled after he threw a race to save a friend’s life. He still follows the Society’s deities, however – the Big Three, the Holy Trinity of Ford, Chrysler, and General Motors.
~~~
Starting Situation: Glow in the Dark adds the pressure of scarcity to the Blades economy. My starting situation highlights that, opening with the tribe running out of food. This is a strength of making Supplies (my Coin replacement) more of a general resource – I can say “you’re out of food” even if they didn’t spend their starting Supplies on faction relationships. Maybe those starting supplies represent gas or ammo instead. As it happened, however, the tribe did spend all their supplies on faction status boosts, so they decided to raid the Monarchs (plant/insect mutants who take slaves to work their irradiated narcotic fields in the Boneyard) for their drug stash and then trade those drugs to Hightower (Bartertown meets Tenpenny Tower, one of their allies) for food.
The tribe gathered information – one of their settlement’s scavs, Kalat, was a former slave of the Monarchs and, like Sean Connery in the Rock, provided exceptional intel and a potential way in through the lightly-guarded abandoned subway tunnels.
Rooster drove Layla down into the labyrinthine passages. I believe engagement was… risky? There were three mutant guards standing watch in a subway nexus, along with some slave pens. Nestor and Torch got out of the car and ambushed one Monarch, burning it to death with Torch’s namesake. Rooster crushed another under Layla’s wheels as he aced a desperate two-wheeled stunt up an escalator to reach the high ground.
The third Monarch, a wasp-thing, landed on the roof, poised to strike.
~~~
As we wrapped up this session, I was once again concerned that the Shark, the social playbook, might inadvertently be “hard mode” in a wasteland setting. I was also worried that going into tunnels would make it difficult for Rooster to participate with his car. I shouldn’t have been worried.
Next time: We wrap up this first score and see what cross-country trips and cave-ins do to party cohesion! Also, someone Traumas out!
The Dead Setters’ player attendance lottery continued, this time with Deemo the Leech and Raven the Hound able to attend. The Setters had a lot of irons in the fire, but decided to go after the equipment they’d need to make use of the coin minting dies they forged from Charterhall Bank. They had an expert forger, Valeris, and they had a crew workshop in which to do the work, but they needed minting equipment. Not only that, but their loftly goals were to print money that ghosts could use. The crew had the Ghost Market ability, and given recent overtures towards the Reconciled, it seemed the Dead Setters were about to corner the market on some sort of spectral economy.
Making money was one thing. Making ghost money would require Sparkwright technology. Two crits in a row after that made the score a piece of cake. Their intel was beyond exceptional, and although a poorly-timed industrial accident inside the Sparkwright factory in Coalridge made moving around the building risky, the two scoundrels pulled off the heist. I made a clock to represent the PCs’ efforts to create an opportunity to get to the large, heavy minting press they needed. Deemo basically resorted to college pranks to keep the Sparkwrights distracted, while Raven Splinter Celled the shit out of a handful of too-curious-for-their-own-good engineers. One berserk crane and industrial hull exoskeleton accident later, and our “heroes” poured Drift Oil on the minting gear and floated it out the roll doors to their Rovers cohort, waiting in their boat.
We had a boat chase then, because you can’t steal a floating industrial-strength minting press and take it out the giant open side door without being spotted. The Setters exchanged fire with the Sparkwrights, who unleashed a horrible electric net prototype which prompted a whole mess of stress and resistance rolls, then Raven critted on her Hunt roll and shot the lead Sparkwright in his volatile backpack. Flinders of boat and ropy strings of gore rained across the canal as the Dead Setters made it back to their lair.
This was a quick, simple, and honestly refreshing heist. The crew looted 5 Coin worth of precision parts and expensive-looking prototypes as well, which filled up their crew Vault. The Dead Setters were at 16 Coin. Their Rep track had been full for weeks now. They had Lord Scurlock as a Patron (for now – they also had 2/4 ticks on Lord Scurlock is Annoyed With You).
The Dead Setters went to Tier IV and I cried silent GM tears.
In the aftermath of the Narcoleptic Dire Goat Caper, where the Dead Setters got the Charterhall Bank hit squad off their backs, only Raven the Hound and Rook the Cutter could make the game. Last time we broke after payoff but before entanglements, so we rolled two (the crew has Slippery), and got either 1) Show of Force or 2) Reprisals or Unquiet Dead. So three choices, really:
1. Lady Clave, who was using the Cabbies to move refined leviathan blood on the black market, would try to strongarm the Dead Setters out of their own distribution contract with the Cabbies. Clave was set up as a pressure point in this 3-way smuggling network with the Setters and Clave both using Cabbies to transport their leviathan blood, but the players didn’t want to go there yet.
2. They weren’t very enthused about a random victim of Raven’s coming back to haunt her either. Neither was I, really – it’d be a round of electroplasmic ammo and Ghost Fighter and then the entanglement would be over.
3. Raven’s physicker contact, Melvir, however, would be victim of Reprisals by none other than the Bluecoats, who were – 2 status. The cops beat up the street doc but Melvir hadn’t had much contact with Raven. I made a fortune roll to see how effective the Bluecoats’ interrogation was and they crit. I told Raven to change her up arrow to a down arrow. Melvir was intimidated into being an informant for the cops, but Raven didn’t know that yet.
On top of all that, Raven had been forced to part ways with the Path of Echoes (her vice purveyor). Her vice was basically being a serial killer, and the Path used her to eliminate certain people whose spirits were deemed important somehow. Or that were obstacles to the Path of Echoes’ goals. Raven tracked down one of the Reconciled, a possessor ghost named Nyryx, and on a gondola floating on the canals, Raven agreed to let Nyryx “ride along” in exchange for the Reconciled providing her with targets. Raven hunted down some offscreen/montage informants to reduce heat, and she had to go (her player was ill). I’m excited to see how the Reconciled will use Raven, though. She hasn’t cared much about who she kills as long as their bodies aren’t immolated correctly afterwards. Her first victim will be a priest of the Church of Ecstasy of the Flesh. More on that below.
Meanwhile, Rook had to get his burned hands looked at, and with the crew’s Leech indisposed, he had to go to his own physicker contact, Sawtooth. Rook took Sawtooth as an enemy a while back, and we hadn’t seen her appear before. A Tycherosi with jagged, awful needle teeth, she usually wore some sort of mask for hygiene as well as to hide her heritage. Rook didn’t know she hated him, and she knew Rook could easily kill her with his bare hands. She also knew Rook rarely had to use outside medical help. This was her one shot to get revenge-
– Wait, revenge for what? At this point in the session, I was racing to keep up and at the same time, I was overjoyed that something as simple as a Recover downtime action was proving so dramatic. A while back, Rook and Ulf Ironborn incited the Skovlander refugees to riot. In fact, I still had a “Martial Law” clock looming over the city, waiting for more trouble. I decided that Sawtooth’s husband was killed during the riots and she manifested her grief as a hatred for Skovs, but Rook and Ulf in particular.
And that’s why the burn ointment for Rook’s hands also came with a topical application of the poison Heartcalm. Best case scenario, Sawtooth would go about her business and several days later Rook would die, possibly during one of his pit-fighting indulgences. Noone would suspect Sawtooth.
It didn’t go that way, of course. Heartcalm is unreliable, and I rolled crap on 4 dice. Rook resisted level 3 harm, not fatal harm (he’s got 4d in Prowess and +1d for Forged in the Fire), and what’s more, also resisted (via Insight) Sawtooth’s subterfuge, so he pieced together who must have poisoned him.
Rook did end up going to the fighting pits, as those rolls nearly trauma’d him out and he needed to unwind, short of breath as he might have been. Unfortunately for Sawtooth, Rook also had Calculating, the bonus downtime action ability. He tracked her down seeking refuge at a Church of Ecstasy of the Flesh – I deemed it likely that the pious there wouldn’t look down upon Tycherosi like most regular Duskwallers might.
Rook found her. She was not a physical match for him, nor were the handful of acolytes or priests or other citizens hoping for ascension into demonhood. Rook tried to convince her to drop her vendetta, but was spectacularly unsuccessful. The acolytes intervened and asked Rook to leave. It was late, and none of these people would hold their own against Rook in a fight. I decided a choice was in order, rather than a roll:
1. Rook leaves (as blustery and savage as he likes, but he leaves) and Sawtooth stays at the Church.
2. Rook takes Sawtooth with him and I mark -1 status with the Church.
It was a hard decision, but we jump cut to the church doors slamming open and Rook dragging Sawtooth into the rainy street. One more jump cut after that, to her body hitting the water of the canal and sinking beneath.
The Dead Setters are 4 Coin away from Tier IV, but they have nearly the entire Tier IV structure of the city annoyed or actively pissed at them. The Church of Ecstasy of the Flesh is just another in a storied lineup that includes the Bluecoats, The Unseen (harboring a mild beef from literally a year ago, I just don’t know how to use them), Ironhook Prison (again, not sure how wide-ranging this is outside prison), and The Leviathan Hunters (currently with Lady Clave as the face of that enmity).
I also started a clock called Lord Scurlock is Annoyed With You. They said they’d free Setarra’s children and haven’t done dick about that yet. Scurlock misses his demon, backstabbed in highly-rational-but-cold blood after she was weakened by conflict with another demon. Considering Scurlock is their Patron, and the only way they can possibly get to Tier IV with the coin requirements being so high, I feel like they should take this seriously. We’ll see!
