Interest Check: The Outfit - Scum and Villainy/Blades In The Dark hybrid

Best Selling RPGs - Available Now @ DriveThruRPG.com

Nobby-W

Not an axe murderer
Joined
Oct 7, 2018
Messages
7,046
Reaction score
15,891
Since the treaty 70 years ago, the Neutral Zone has been a hotbed of lawlessness, intrigue and villainy. Criminal syndicates, corporates and spies from the Aferasi, Federation and the old Commonwealth weave their webs and dance about each other in their intrigues. 20 parsecs of anarchy, somebody called it.

Denaspar sits in a strategic position at the bottom end of the major trade route through the zone. Situated between the old Commonwealth and the new Federation, it's right on the nexus of the dance. Since it broke free of the Commonwealth it's grown from strength to strength and now it's an up-and-coming power in the region, with its power brokers flexing their muscles on the interstellar stage.

Nova Nusantara is the ascendant nation on Denaspar, situated in the eponymous archipelago and home to 460 million people. The capital, Vetawa, is the major city in the conurbation of Nova Batavia, a mega city formed of the conurbation of the six - Vetawa, Barryar, Moseli, Devaki, Armus and Shonen. Situated at the north end of the island of Ilthar, 45 million people live in these urban centres with 140 million people making their home on the island in total.

It's a true mega city, situated at the confluence of power, politics and dirty, dirty money - a wretched hive of scum and villainy.

You'll be right at home.

Moseli Starport was once the major hub for this world, supporting trade links through the Neutral Zone. It was a busy hub until the massive new Korova port was constructed south of Vetawa.

Althouth Korova has taken a lot of the corporate traffic the Mosili city council and its backers won the battle to keep the port open. Lacking the crippling overheads from the investment of Korova, its low cost structure kept most of the free traders and smaller operators running out of it. Moseli's glory days may be behind it but there's life in the old town yet.

You are The Outfit - a small criminal syndicate based out of Mosili startown, the seedy district surroundng the eponymous starport. Currently you're making a crust in minor racketeering and facilitating smuggling in and out of the starport. Backhanders are paid and deals sealed with a nod and a wink. You're a part of the underworld, with a bit of a name for yourselves now.

Now, you've just made a major score, which just might be your ticket into the big time. It's up to you what you do with it.

Currently I'm planning this to run with an Scum and Villainy with some bits and bobs adapted from Blades in the Dark. One option I'm floating is to do it with FATE, as I have already done a fair amount of material to run this 'verse with that system.

This is a deep dive into the seedy underworld of the 'verse that the S&V game here is set in. You might want to take a look at the Scum and Villainy game that I'm running on rpgpub here.

Looking for around four players - the fixer, the muscle, the hacker and the sneak.

The game will be run play by post here on rpgpub.com. Links below.


IC thread -
OOC thread

NorthIlthar.png

Shuttleworth.png
 
Last edited:
Sorry Nobby, just to confirm I saw this and would have a go if others join.
 
Sorry Nobby, just to confirm I saw this and would have a go if others join.
Thanks. It took a while for the last one to pick up a quorum (in fact it was dead for a month or so before it started picking up interest). I'll keep you in the loop.

I'm keeping the option of using FATE open if folks prefer that; I was originally planning to run the other stuff in the 'verse with FATE so I have materials for FATE that I can use with this as well.
 
This sounds interesting to me, but I'm not super familiar with S&V. Is it something I'd be able to dive into without too much trouble, assuming I'm a generally experienced gamer?
 
This sounds interesting to me, but I'm not super familiar with S&V. Is it something I'd be able to dive into without too much trouble, assuming I'm a generally experienced gamer?
The system is not overly complex, although not as well explained in the S&V rulebook as its predecessor Blades In the Dark. It's a descendant of the PbTA family, although it uses different mechanic featuring a D6 based dice pool where you roll several dice and take the highest value.

If you take a look at the other Scum and Villainy PbP game I'm running it might inform a bit. It's got a few folks in it who weren't familiar with the mechanics so I just got in the habit of prompting folks with what to do when it came time for a roll for something.

IC Thread for existing S&V game
OOC Thread for existing S&V game
Link farm including rules cheat sheets.

I'm just writing up some of the background material in the OOC thread for this game here.
 
Colour me interested! I'd happily slide into any of the roles listed. I am not familiar with the FATE system at all, though.
 
Colour me interested! I'd happily slide into any of the roles listed. I am not familiar with the FATE system at all, though.
I'll take a poll of punters once we have a quorum and see what folks prefer. For context, I was originally going to do the other S&V game with FATE, so I've got a fair amount of FATE-based collateral in my horribly disorganised OneNote collection.
 
Oh, wow - a quorum. I'll give it a day or two and see if anyone else turns up. Then we can kick things off.
 
Last edited:
Oh, can I call "fixer"? I like the idea of a character that's one part Sam Axe from BURN NOTICE and one part Ash Morgan from HUSTLE. (Except, you know ... in space ... )
 
Last edited:
Sorry Nobby, just to confirm I saw this and would have a go if others join.
Interested!
Oh, can I call "fixer"? I like the idea of a character that's one part Sam Axe from BURN NOTICE and one part Ash Morgan from HUSTLE. (Except, you know ... in space ... )
OK - you can be the fixer.
I'd be down to be muscle or the hacker!
Pick one, I guess. First come, first served.
 
I'll be the sneak, but if somebody else wants it I'll happily give it up.
 
I'm cool with either, but it'll take a bit more to get me up to speed with S&V. I'm certainly game, though.
 
Either is fine but I don't have access to Scum & Villany although I do have BitD.
 
Either is fine but I don't have access to Scum & Villany although I do have BitD.
I'm writing up the playbooks as we speak, so if you're familiar with BITD the playbooks are probably all you will need for the moment. There are a few rules such as gambits (a party-wide metacurrency that you get from successes), and the setting canon is different obviously.

You can use one of the stock S&V playbooks if you want to obtain an electronic version.
 
I'm cool with either, but it'll take a bit more to get me up to speed with S&V. I'm certainly game, though.
I'd go with FATE since I've never played it.
Either is fine but I don't have access to Scum & Villany although I do have BitD.
OK, we've got one who wants to go with FATE, one ambivalent and one with maybe a slight preference for S&V.

Smith Smith - what sayeth thou - would you prefer S&V or FATE?
 
I am on the fence and will leave the GM to make the decision :tongue:
 
I haven't played it here on this site, but I have played and run it elsewhere. Not tons and tons, mind you, but enough that I feel like I understand the system pretty well.
 
I haven't played FATE before, but I really don't mind using S&V.
 
I haven't played it here on this site, but I have played and run it elsewhere. Not tons and tons, mind you, but enough that I feel like I understand the system pretty well.
OK. I just had a horrible thought that I'd be having to explain how to design aspects to a bunch of newcomers.
 
It seemed like a good idea at the time but I have to confess I've got a mild case of cold feet about attempting FATE PbP with a bunch of new-to-FATE players.
 
Last edited:
I love the original pitch here by Nobby-W Nobby-W, really great stuff!

I cannot commit to anything at present, but I will watch this with interest as the setting is really good, and I've recently picked up Scum & Villainy.
I also picked up Blades In The Dark a little earlier, but in truth have not been able to really get into it due to time constraints.

(As a big Fate fan I would suggest that it may be more difficult to run Fate online, and by the looks of it may be easier to run S&V RAW).

I'm going to try and give the S&V rules a good read this month, whilst watching this game with interest.
(Depends on the other rubbish going on in my life at present whether I get to do that or not)

I just want to wish all of you the best with this! :thumbsup:
 
I love the original pitch here by Nobby-W Nobby-W, really great stuff!

I cannot commit to anything at present, but I will watch this with interest as the setting is really good, and I've recently picked up Scum & Villainy.
I also picked up Blades In The Dark a little earlier, but in truth have not been able to really get into it due to time constraints.

(As a big Fate fan I would suggest that it may be more difficult to run Fate online, and by the looks of it may be easier to run S&V RAW).

I'm going to try and give the S&V rules a good read this month, whilst watching this game with interest.
(Depends on the other rubbish going on in my life at present whether I get to do that or not)

I just want to wish all of you the best with this! :thumbsup:
Pity you don't have the bandwidth. Maybe I should ping you next time I spin something up.
 
Last edited:
Séadna Séadna Smith Smith, TheophilusCarter TheophilusCarter, Voros Voros -

I think I've got everything we need to generate characters up on the OOC thread now. Link.

There's a character sheet template, a chargen cheat sheet a background blurb and various other resources. Make sure you take a copy of the character sheet template on google docs and link it to a post on the OOC thread. Not sure how well cutting and pasting from google docs into the thread will work but we can give it a try.
 
Séadna Séadna, Smith Smith, TheophilusCarter TheophilusCarter, Voros Voros -

I haven't completely given up on FATE, btw - I just concluded that this probably wasn't best done with it. I do, however, have a one-shot adventure (actually based off something from the old JTAS) that I may spin up with FATE at some point once this is underway.
 
Hey all, I'm the new guy. I'm going to go check out the character gen thread.
 
So which playbooks are actually spoken for? I see Fixer and the Sneak above, and Smith Smith asked for either Muscle or Hacker. Is that it? If so, and if Smith Smith doesn't mind, I'll play the Muscle. If that's spoken for I'll work something out of the SaV book, which I do have.

Edit - I would be just as happy to build something off the Scoundrel from SaV, so I'm flexible here. Hmm, wait, are we playing with the Gambits? If not the the Scoundrel is less appealing.
 
Last edited:
Fenris-77 Fenris-77 - We've got folks with dibs on fixer and sneak, plus some ambguity about the remaining ones.

Contact Smith Smith and Voros Voros by PM and see if you can co-ordinate something.
 
Banner: The best cosmic horror & Cthulhu Mythos @ DriveThruRPG.com
Back
Top