I was running a Beacon game online since Covid and finally had to change it up due to various issues I won't go into here. I had been running Blades in the Dark with another group and I found myself wanting to fire up Scum and Villainy again as it was the first Forged in the Dark system I ran (or played) and I was figuring out all the things I had missed or not got right the first crack at it. I did enjoy S&V quite a bit but I had used a lot of my own setting and extra rules the first go round, which didn't always sync well with the existing systems. I had taken some ideas from Ashen Stars and Traveler to shoe horn in to S&V, and while it worked pretty well, it did have some rough edges when we played. I found it was a great system to run exciting scenes but fell down in creating a lived-in world where players drove their story. After playing Blades for a while and finally running the game and getting some more experience with the fluid Forged in the Dark narrative game style, and after experiencing those rules for turf, heat, etc. I kept thinking how those things worked (or didn't work for me) in Scum and Villainy.
This time I wanted to really leverage what was in the book as much as I could before changing things. I have been trying to use the existing factions, the existing systems and the existing game rules and so far its been working very well. As the PCs encounter these factions they are choosing sides and making decisions based on their encounters which would not have happened if I had fleshed out similar institutions for them like in the past. I have a greater appreciation for the game world content this time and the brief outlines of content provided does fit the open narrative play style better than the more contrived worlds and situations I tried to wedge in the first time around. My initial reaction to the game was that the rules were really good but the setting material was only sketched out, however after actually playing I see how the simple but evocative setting info lets you and your players really make the game into your own rich story. I can easily grab a name or a faction from the list and then fit it into the situation at hand, but they all come with environmental baggage, something a random name generator does not.
I did decide to use the optional rule for Fuel which I think works brilliantly to keep the PCs from gadding about too much in the early game and being more choosy about where they go in general. The fuel rule says that you can store 2 fuel per engine rating and use 1 fuel to make a jump or use a jump gate. This means it takes minimum 3 fuel to leave a system (jump to gate, use gate, jump to destination) and so unless you start with level 2 engine you need to work a bit in system before you can bugger off. You can't easily travel across multiple systems until later in the game, which has a nice parallel with increased player knowledge and story momentum. There is also some psychology here because although Fuel is pretty cheap (it costs 1 CRED to refuel no matter what your engine rating) 1 CRED is still enough to think about and lots of times the PCs have chosen to jump somewhere else in system and use up fuel instead of 'wasting' it with a top up at the local port. That's even when I implied a really bad jump might leave them stranded. As the PCs improve their engine rating, they have more fuel to work with and also there are fun things you can do to have fuel loss lost be a consequence or have them dump the jump fuel into the afterburner to make a fast escape.
Fuel also puts a limit on outrunning heat in the early game, since heat is distinct for each system and you can't reduce heat locally. Heat is a great story driver and the first time I ran the game it wasn't even an issue as the PCs simply kept moving to avoid it. Fuel keeps things feeling a bit more like the pressure cooker of Blades in the Dark and I like that side effect. It also makes the closed space of 4 systems seem a lot bigger, with the PCs spending more time in each location. I think its better to have a lot of heat build in the early game as the hungry crew starts out and then later as they improve their lot, they can start managing it better. If gives a real sense of progress that other ship system improvements might not.
Related to this, I also house ruled that there is no instant communication between systems and all information had to be 'pony expressed' through the gates which also contributed to this feeling of bigness and explained why you couldn't just do all your legwork online. If you needed to talk to someone on Vos you had to go to Holt (or send them a letter). The first time I ran S&V I had added in 3or 4 extra systems and it still felt smaller than my current game simply because they could call anyone or go anywhere when they liked. I 100% recommend using jump fuel and limiting coms/Nexus link to the local system if you like the idea of the story opening up as you go.
I'm having a great time running the game this time around and as I figure it out I may post some more updates. I was always more interested in the Sci-fi theme of Scum and Villainy than the steampunk horror of Blades in the Dark but I had thought Blades did the rules better, a big part of that was I brough some baggage to that first game and so wasn't really comparing things fairly. A big part of that for me was how Blades focused on consequences by using the Turf and Heat mechanic but S&V seemed to shoot it's consequences in the foot by making the lair mobile and spreading Heat around more. However my second time at the plate I can see that although it is a looser game with gambits and regional Heat, it is just as good at what its wants to do as its parent system. Good job to the authors Stras Acimovic and John LeBoeuf-Little on this one as Scum and Villainy is a real treat.
