BitD p97 says “When you send a cohort to achieve a goal, roll their quality to see how it goes.”
BitD p97 says “When you send a cohort to achieve a goal, roll their quality to see how it goes.”
Is this meant to be an action roll (with position and effect), or a fortune-roll-with-loss-possible? I’m pretty sure, from hints on that page, that it’s meant to be an action roll (because e.g. otherwise how can Weakened’s “reduced effect” matter). That right?
I’ve played 7 sessions of Scum & Villainy, and am probably not going to play any more, so I’ve written up my main…
I’ve played 7 sessions of Scum & Villainy, and am probably not going to play any more, so I’ve written up my main impressions at mhuthulan.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/comments-on-scum-villainy-v1-6/
S&V worked well, helping us run science-fantasy heist missions very much in a Firefly vein. Action kept moving, the players worked together and were usually highly involved (except for perhaps one session were I unwisely let five play at once). Just about everybody seemed to get the setting straight away, with Firefly being the principle touchstone. Six of seven missions were chaotic and confused, usually starting with bad engagement rolls, but the players seemed to enjoy this.
The weakest part was the supplied setting, which I found extremely bland.
http://mhuthulan.wordpress.com/2017/11/26/comments-on-scum-villainy-v1-6/
Scum & Villainy —
Scum & Villainy —
Am I being slow, or is there no specific consequence to filling the “skipped upkeep” clock on the ship sheets? p15 of 1.6 says “A ship has to pay upkeep fees every downtime or risk damage as parts wear out” but there are no further details.
Contrast tithes in BitD — “Every time [the missed payment clock] fills up, lose 1 faction status with [the district boss’s faction]”.
Edit: I missed that it’s on the ship sheet. Not in very obvious place though if you’re looking specifically for this point.
Question – does the BitD text imply a principled distinction between the handling of the two examples on page 220…
Question – does the BitD text imply a principled distinction between the handling of the two examples on page 220 (sea demon wave and Whisper hurricance)? Or is it just saying, in essence, “the GM makes a judgement based on whatever seems reasonable to them”?
Am I right that neither the BitD book nor the generic character sheet mention Veteran advances at all?
Am I right that neither the BitD book nor the generic character sheet mention Veteran advances at all? That they’re only mentioned in the playbook specific character sheets?
“veteran” doesn’t appear in the book’s index — I don’t have the PDF so I can’t easily search.
Certain abilities (e.g.
Certain abilities (e.g. the Cutter’s “Ghost Fighter”) say that characters “gain potency”. Others (e.g. the Cutter’s “Bodyguard”) say that characters “get +1 effect”. Now, by my reading of p24-25, those are much the same except:
* Increased potency doesn’t guarantee +1 effect — it just feeds into the GM’s judgement of what the effect level should be.
* Increased potency could still leave the character with zero effect; +1 effect means they’re guaranteed at least limited effect (although I’d expect most groups would apply an is-this-plausible-at-all check to that).
Is that the intended difference? Is that how the rest of you are interpreting it?
On BitD p158, it says
On BitD p158, it says
“Choose downtime maneuvres and advance clocks for the factions you’re interested in right now … Later, when you turn your attention to a faction you’ve ignored for a while, go ahead and give them several downtime phases and project clock ticks to “catch up” to current events.”
I interpret that as “Each time the PCs take downtime, each faction should advance all its clocks and take one or two downtime actions. But for factions you’re not interested in right now, feel free to do this only in retrospect, when you think it would be interesting for them to do something now.” (i.e. for any programmers in the audience, it’s suggesting you do lazy evaluation of faction development).
A less rigid interpretation is that GMs should advance some factions each downtime, and try to advance all of them sometimes, but not worry too much about making sure they get their “fair share”.
Former will give more consistent behaviour of factions; latter is more tractable, especially given a large active set (e.g. the BitD book has detailed writeups for 26 factions).
Do we know John’s intent here? How is everyone else doing this?
Scum & Villainy – questions and comments after session 1
Scum & Villainy – questions and comments after session 1
Questions:
1. The ship sheets say “For each level of damage, mark a ship system”. Is there a specific way we’re meant to mark this?
2. … and what does ship damage do? (if you want an example, we have rogue nanobots in the engine compartment. On a PC I would model as level 2 harm, perhaps – it won’t just go away.)
3. Shields, Lucky Charm etc cost multiple “Upgrades” to buy, right? Partial upgrades have no defined effect?
4. Are we expected to treat spending Gambits purely mechanically, or is there an intent that they correspond to some fictional action? There’s nothing explicit in the text, but the main example of play includes lines like “he’s already described being a little reckless and taking a chance” as if that’s something that justified the Gambit spend. (Personally, I like to be sparing with completely dissociated mechanics; OTOH, this is a non-trivial system and justifying every little bonus will cost a lot of airtime)
Comments, mostly for Stras Acimovic et al as they work towards 1.7:
1. Generally, we found the most confusion on the ship sheet, rather than on the character sheets. Probably because the character mechanics are closer to Blades, and although I haven’t played that I’ve studied and watched more.
2. I got muddled with the terms System, Module and Upgrade. I think I got it right, but I’m still not 100%. In particular, “Upgrade” is overloaded in that it can also mean “Module”, but it’s not clear to me if it always does.
What I think in my head right at this moment:
* There are four Systems (hull, engines, comms and weapons)
* There are various Modules available for each system, some of which are already listed on the ship sheet with checkboxes (e.g. “Fake Transponder” on the Stardancer)
* There are are 28 Upgrades, including e.g. “AI module” and “False Ship Papers”.
* When creating a ship, you choose 2 “Upgrades” which maybe can be either Modules or Upgrades? (it’s not clear)
* When advancing a ship (triggered when you 8 crew xp), you get 2 “Upgrades”, which (explicitly) may be Modules or Upgrades
3. There’s nothing on the sheet that labels “Systems” or “Modules”. I think this is part of my confusion.
4. The formatting of the Upgrade list, although a clever use of space, confuses me. The grey background is more prominent to my eyes than the heading bar, so the rightmost column looks like part of the former.
5. Generally, I find that the sheet overpowers the pencil marks — the marks look small and insignificant while the grey blocks look important. I think that even in tho it’s playbook-format sheet (with useful rules etc all over it) we’d be better off with parity here.
6. When we first got to downtime the players had some cred to spend, and I found it hard to quickly answer their question “what can we spend it on?”. Probably best for players to learn that this is not the key question (that’s “what can I attempt this downtime?”) but it’s a likely early one.
7. As written, it’s not obvious that Unstoppable and the like give you the normal Push Yourself bonus as well as the ability specific one. I guess in the full version you’ll do a Blades-style expansion of these abilities, tho, and the Blades one does clarify this.
Are there any good options for getting Blades in the UK?
Are there any good options for getting Blades in the UK? My usual go-to places don’t list it, nor does Amazon, and Evil Hat’s online store wants to charge more for shipping than for the book itself.