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

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What's the deal on Gambits? If we're using them I have a character in mind that I can build out of the SaV book no sweat, using either Scoundrel or Mystic.
 
We are using gambits but hold your horses a bit. Folks aren't always online and we'll need to coordinate who does what character with the other two folks I mentioned.
 
I'll happily let them do the last two books you did up. I actually own SaV and they may not, so I'm fine with that. Whatever works. I PM'd them to see what they're interested in.
 
There's no tearing hurry - I'm not expecting to get the game underway until next week, or the weekend at the earliest. If you've never done PbP before the slow pace of the games will be a culture shock.
 
I'll bang out a couple of concepts just to get back into the rules. If I need 'em great, if not, also fine. I'm aware of the pace, so not a concern on my part.
 
I'm going over the background, it's excellent. That's some solid work Nobby-W Nobby-W. It feels like there are some similarities between the Tengoki and the Belters from the Expanse books, both physically and politically, up to a point. Is that even peripherally correct? The politics, the squatting, the smuggling, it all rings true. Anyway, I only ask because The Expanse (books or show) isn't on your bibliography, so I was curious.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I'm going over the background, it's excellent. That's some solid work Nobby-W Nobby-W. It feels like there are some similarities between the Tengoki and the Belters from the Expanse books, both physically and politically, up to a point. Is that even peripherally correct? The politics, the squatting, the smuggling, it all rings true. Anyway, I only ask because The Expanse (books or show) isn't on your bibliography, so I was curious.
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Yes. They're a bit like the Belters; other sources of inspiration include various nomadic cultures like Gypsies, Red Dwarf, an old British children's sci-fi series called Dragonfall 5, Neuromancer, Cowboy Bebop, Firefly, The Moon Is a Harsh Mistress, various displaced societies, the Quaddies from the Vorkosigan saga and even an old Heinlein short story called The Green, Green Hills of Earth. There are quite a few other items that could go in the bibliography but I stuck with the ones most relevant to the organised crime theme. If I listed all the stuff I've nicked ideused for inspriation it would run to several pages.
 
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This all looks great so far. I'll cozy up to it tonight and see if I can get my character all worked out.
 
I was thinking about using the Scoundrel playbook to make an ex-cop character. Would that suit?
 
Fenris-77 said:
I was thinking about using the Scoundrel playbook to make an ex-cop character. Would that suit?
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I could envisage an ex-MP or ex-military intelligence (see Core Character Attributes below), but not a local cop. There's no way a crime syndicate would trust that character. If you haven't seen Eastern Promises or the original '80s Wiseguy with Ken Wahl, I recommend both. Eastern Promises is a first-rate movie and picked up quite a few gongs - and the first season or two of Wiseguy (basically the Steelgrave arc) is also pretty good although it went downhill after that.

The scoundrel as a character class would not be out of place with a qualification that we're looking for characters that work as a team. I really don't want to hear players coming out with lines like 'I backstab the party and take the treasure because that's what my character would do.' Play a character that wouldn't do that sort of thing - The Outfit would find Han Solo just as annoying as Jabba the Hutt did. q.v. Omerta.

The core conceit of the game is that the party are members of a small criminal syndicate - and have each other's backs. If you haven't seen Peaky Blinders, take a look at that on Netflix (it's pretty good and well worth a watch in its own right) and try to imagine whether your character concept would fit into that without annoying Cillian Murphy enough to have them frozen in Carbonite.


Core character attributes

All of the characters should have the following attributes:
  • Descended from expat Smegs; these are ethnic ties that bind, and give the team a link to offworld factions.
  • Function as a team. Members of The Outfit are expected to have a sort of all-for-one-and-one-for-all ethos and wouldn't last long otherwise.
  • Of some background where they might reasonably be accepted into a small-time criminal syndicate (characters are all members of the syndicate). In addition to Peaky Blinders, take a look at Black Lagoon (also on Netflix), the life and times of John Dillinger or even The A-Team for another take on this.
  • Have fought as mercenaries or 'military advisors' in one of the secession wars - this is the basic origin story for The Outfit.
  • The party should be able to manoeuvre as a unit (see On Stealth Parties below).
Voros Voros, Fenris-77 Fenris-77 - If we really have nobody who wants to play a techie type character (i.e. the Hacker) I can backfill this capability with NPCs, so I'm open to character concepts that fit the bullet points above but would prefer that the party as a whole has the basic capabilities somehow.


On Stealth Parties

This is a principle that I suggest. The basic idea is that the entire party should be able to sneak and do basic adventuring, along with their specialities. That way, the entire party can go on raids rather than sitting on their hands waiting for the thief to sneak into the castle. A Stealth party may not be as tough as a pure hack-and-slash party, but they are far more versatile in terms of the sort of adventures they can be deployed on.
 
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Hey Nobby-W Nobby-W just a heads up that copying from Gsheets doesn't respect a lot of the formatting:

Name:Alias:
Look:
Heritage:Background:
StressTrauma
Harm3Armour
2Heavy
1Special
RecoveryCRED
Stash
Inventory
InsightXP
Doctor
Hack
Rig
Study
ProwessXP
Helm
Scramble
Scrap
Skulk
ResolveXP
Attune
Command
Consort
LoadSway
Notes

If this is fine with you, i'll go ahead and post in the OOC thread
 
Smith said:
Hey Nobby-W Nobby-W just a heads up that copying from Gsheets doesn't respect a lot of the formatting:

Name:Alias:
Look:
Heritage:Background:
StressTrauma
Harm3Armour
2Heavy
1Special
RecoveryCRED
Stash
Inventory
InsightXP
Doctor
Hack
Rig
Study
ProwessXP
Helm
Scramble
Scrap
Skulk
ResolveXP
Attune
Command
Consort
LoadSway
Notes

If this is fine with you, i'll go ahead and post in the OOC thread
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That's fine with me. I don't have a better solution for the formatting either.
 
I haven't finished my sheet yet, but had to remove/reformat parts to make it look a little cleaner
 
Smith said:
I haven't finished my sheet yet, but had to remove/reformat parts to make it look a little cleaner
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That's fine. You'll be updating it with experience anyway. I'll update the summary sheet like I've been doing with the other campaign and you'll have to keep your character sheet up to date as I won't be able to alter it.
 
Smith said:
I haven't finished my sheet yet, but had to remove/reformat parts to make it look a little cleaner
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Could you post a screenshot of the button to request access to the sheet if you can?
 
I was envisioning a cop who was already on the payroll when he was on the force, sort of Departed styles, but he can just as easily be ex-military intel or ex-MP, sure, that doesn't change the character much. I'll bang out a Hacker too, just to see what it looks like. If I can get a version I like I'll happily fill that role instead, but I want to see what it looks like on paper first. I can maybe combine that with Military intel, we'll see.

As for the bibliography, you'll be happy know I've either read or seen every single item except one. It a marvelous list.

Edit - Voros Voros is going Hacker. So I'll be the po-po.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I was envisioning a cop who was already on the payroll when he was on the force, sort of Departed styles, but he can just as easily be ex-military intel or ex-MP, sure, that doesn't change the character much. I'll bang out a Hacker too, just to see what it looks like. If I can get a version I like I'll happily fill that role instead, but I want to see what it looks like on paper first. I can maybe combine that with Military intel, we'll see.

As for the bibliography, you'll be happy know I've either read or seen every single item except one. It a marvelous list.
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I'm guessing the one you haven't seen is Turtle's Progress?

Voros Voros has already taking up the hacker.

The main reason I'm vetoing the local cop is that we want characters to be actual members of the syndicate rather than just hangers on or dirty cops on the payroll. The idea of the origin is that the group formed from characters who were members of a unit fighting in one of the secession wars. A character who was an intelligence officer would fit that background.

Dirty cops will make fine NPCs - check out the house rule that adds two acquaintances to the contacts list.
 
I requested access. email starts with aml and ends with gmail.com

I should have a rough cut up by tonight.

And yes, Turtles Progress.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I requested access. email starts with aml and ends with gmail.com

I should have a rough cut up by tonight.

And yes, Turtles Progress.
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Yep. got that a minute or two ago. You should have permissions now.

Turtle's Progress is a somewhat obscure British wideboy drama/comedy produced about 40 years ago. It was pretty good, although they only made 13 episodes. Razor Eddie is what I had in mind when I thought about the Muscle character. You can get it on DVD from Amazon.

The Hanged Man/Turtle's Progress: The Complete Series [DVD]: Amazon.co.uk: Colin Blakely, Michael Williams, John Landry, Michael Attwell, Gareth Davies, Paul Harrison, Carol Wilks, Don Leaver, Gerry Mill, Colin Blakely, Michael Williams: DVD & Blu-ra

Buy The Hanged Man/Turtle's Progress: The Complete Series [DVD] from Amazon's DVD & Blu-ray TV Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible orders.
www.amazon.co.uk

Fun fact: Michael Atwood (the actor who played Razor Eddie) went on to a career as a newspaper cartoonist.
 
when you say we have 3 cred to spend, does each item listed as 'under 1 cred' count towards it? Or we just create a 'list' of equipment we might pull from based on job-to-job
 
Smith said:
when you say we have 3 cred to spend, does each item listed as 'under 1 cred' count towards it? Or we just create a 'list' of equipment we might pull from based on job-to-job
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No. Any item valued 1 or 2 CRED can be purchased freely (within reason) without keeping track of money. You can buy one item worth 3 CRED but then your CRED goes down to 2. Most personal equipment is valued at 0 or 1 CRED.
 
Smith said:
when you say we have 3 cred to spend, does each item listed as 'under 1 cred' count towards it? Or we just create a 'list' of equipment we might pull from based on job-to-job
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I'm glad you mentioned that, I was just going to write down the equipment from the Scoundrel playbook and move on.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I'm glad you mentioned that, I was just going to write down the equipment from the Scoundrel playbook and move on.
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You can take one class item from the playbook for free. The class items are otherwise specials that can't be purchased normally but must be acquired through a search - i.e. they are rare items that may or may not be available on the open market.

It would help if the character sheet was pasted directly into the entry on the OOC thread so folks can read it without having to click through to the PDF.
 
I tried a bunch of ways to paste it right in and couldn't make it work, I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure. Any suggestions?

As for the equipment, the SaV rule book says: "You begin with access to all of the items on your sheet, so don’t worry about picking specific things". I don't get what you're talking about when you call them 'specials'. Is that a rule you've added?

Edit: or maybe I missed something in the custom playbooks. IDK.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I tried a bunch of ways to paste it right in and couldn't make it work, I'll figure it out eventually, I'm sure. Any suggestions?

As for the equipment, the SaV rule book says: "You begin with access to all of the items on your sheet, so don’t worry about picking specific things". I don't get what you're talking about when you call them 'specials'. Is that a rule you've added?

Edit: or maybe I missed something in the custom playbooks. IDK.
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It's a minor frig to the equipment rules; this is a different 'verse with slightly different tech from stock S&V (I was originally going to do it with FATE). There's a section on personal equipment in the OOC thread. Essentially you can have any equipment of value less than your CRED, and the standard carry rules apply. Specials like the class items have some rarity about them and are not necessarily available on the open market at any given time; opportunities to get uniques of one sort or an other will pop up during play, or you could go and seek something out. See the chargen cheat sheet in the OOC thread for specifics.

And, yes, the formatting doesn't work all that well when you cut-and-paste directly into the article but I don't have a better solution that works within the limits of the formatting capabilities of the forum software. Take a look at what Smith Smith has done with his character sheet.
 
I'm not using one of yours though, I'm using the Scoundrel. If you want to give an idea what the 'specials' are off that equipment list I'll just pick one, and then use the spend for the rest. Not everything on the pb equipment list is rare, personal memento for example, or even the fine coat. Anyway, whatever the call is I'll do that. No sweat.
 
Fenris-77 said:
I'm not using one of yours though, I'm using the Scoundrel. If you want to give an idea what the 'specials' are off that equipment list I'll just pick one, and then use the spend for the rest. Not everything on the pb equipment list is rare, personal memento for example, or even the fine coat. Anyway, whatever the call is I'll do that. No sweat.
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Yes, it's a house rule for want of a better word. Pick one to start with.

Clothes maketh the sophont and you can buy a designer suit anyway so the 'fine clothes' mcguffin is kind of redundant in context and the personal momento doesn't have any specific mechanical effect. You can assume the character has access to that sort of stuff unless they're flat broke. It's the stuff like grenade launchers where this matters. The party isn't tooling around in a spaceship lugging all this stuff around with you so the notion of what special equipment you have with you is more of a sideshow.

Once we've got the characters posted we'll set up a crew and assets in much the same way as Blades in the Dark does. Rather than a spaceship you've got a HQ, some other assets and associates.
 
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TheophilusCarter TheophilusCarter - You don't start with all the class abilitis. Start with the class starting ability and select one other. There are rules for gaining experience and learning more of the abilities.

The way the equipment works is thus:

You can purchase or assume to have purchased anything with a CRED value less than your CRED that is not otherwise unavailable or of restricted availability for some reason (e.g. heavy military weapons). You don't have to bean count this stuff. You can purchase an item with a value equal to your CRED at the expense of dropping your CRED by 1.

You decide the load that you're carrying in the field for the mission (Light: 3, Standard 5, Heavy 7). This may have mechanical effect such as how obvious it is. A Light load can be worn with street clothes, standard or heavy loads are progressively more obvious and less subtle.

You don't have to declare what you're carrying at the beginning of a mission, only how much. Then you can retcon the nature of your load with flashbacks as the mission unfolds. A simple flashback ('I'm carrying my compact blaster') costs 0 stress, a more complex flashback might involve roleplaying and paying a cost in stress. Stress has some other metacurrency effects such as pushing and does bad things if you take on too much.
 
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OK, took some Helm at the cost of my second dot in Scrap. I'm not 100% sure I'm happy about that, but we'll see. At least I get a benefit from trying all manner of desperate rolls.:smile:
 
Fenris-77 said:
OK, took some Helm at the cost of my second dot in Scrap. I'm not 100% sure I'm happy about that, but we'll see. At least I get a benefit from trying all manner of desperate rolls.:smile:
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Get in enough desperate situations and you'll start to accumulate XP to buy other skills up with.

It's not strictly necessary for the entire group to have it; if some of the group have it then you can do it as a group effort taking the best roll across the whole party. What that really means is that at least one or two characters should have a rank or two in it.

For reference, if you've ever spent any time hanging out in a large city in one of the poorer Asian countries everybody and their dog rides around on scooters - it's the best way to get around Jakarta in a hurry, for example. A lot of European cities are a bit like this as well - scooters are really big in Italy. Although the gang aren't bikers in the sense of Akira or Sons of Anarchy, I have a mental image of motorbikes being an integral part of the culture of the city. I may or may not also have motorbike chase scenes in mind for the game. ;-}

If you want a bit of inspiration, take a look at the Youtube videos of folks being yahoos on two-stroke Gileras and find some pictures of scooters in a traffic jam in Jakarta.
 
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No worries, I get why it's important. That's why I took it, it just makes me sad to lose my second die in crumpin' people. I can always get that back with experience, yeah.

Can we add scooters or bikes to our base equipment? And maybe a helmet, since failure is how we get better.:grin:
 
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