Scum and Villainy

by Stras Acimovic, John LeBoeuf-Little

Scum and Villainy is a Forged in the Dark game about a spaceship crew trying to make ends meet under the iron-fisted rule of the Galactic Hegemony.

Work with the members of your crew to thrive despite powerful criminal syndicates, warring noble families, dangerous aliens, and strange mystics. Explore the ruins of lost civilizations for fun and profit. Can your motley crew hold it together long enough to strike it big and insure your fame across the sector?

Scum and Villainy is a stand-alone RPG based on the Forged in the Dark game engine. In this book, you’ll find:

- A clear gameplay structure that puts the focus on the criminal undertakings of the crew. A session of play consists of a job followed by recovery, downtime projects, and advancement.
- Ship “character sheets” that allow for XP spends, upgrades, and leveling up alongside your characters.
- Crew advancement opportunities to reflect the change from a ragtag group barely flying in the black to a reputed crew that has built a name across the sector.
- Forged in the Dark tools to help keep the focus on the action of the job rather than the extensive planning needed to make it happen.
- Character and ship types to help create a unique and interesting crew at light speed.

May your ship fly true, and may your blasters never jam.

Genres: Role Playing Games, Science Fiction, Gaming, Space Opera, Games, Reference

368 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2018

Reviews

[Michael Burnam-Fink · Rating 5 out of 5]

Blades in the Dark is one of my favorite fantasy roleplaying games. The system is exceptional, and this scifi adaptation doesn't vary far from the core. What you get is a tightly tuned and evocative game about scoundrels on the rim of space, in the vein of Firefly, Cowboy Bebop, Killjoys, Mass Effect, and of course the Mos Eisley cantina.


KILLJOYS: My favorite underappreciated scifi show.

Scum & Villany comes with seven character classes that cover the usual crew, from Mechanics and Pilots to Mystics and Doctors. The clever bit is that your ship is like a character itself, covering much the same area as your gang did in Blades. The Stardancer is a light freighter specializing in smuggling jobs; the Cerberus is a swift hunter for retrieval of difficult people and artifacts; and the Firedrake is a bruiser of a corvette that can take the fight to the corrupt Hegemony. The rest of the system is pretty much the same as Blades, with three exceptions: The action list has been rejiggered to be appropriate for scifi; character action ratings (think skills) are limited to a max of three instead of four; and Gambits are a new meta-currency that can add dice or an effect increase to a roll, and are recharged on a six or crit on a risky action.

The setting is an eminently gameable mashup of things you've seen before. There's an oppressive and corrupt Hegemony, with many officious factions in opposition all declaring what can't be done, and a spectrum of outlaw groups doing it anyway. Moderate magitech is an integral part of the setting, with Precursor artifacts enabling travel along hyperspace lanes, semi-sentient AI, and other effects. The mystical Way and the Precursors are fortunately less overbearing than Blades ghost field, and can be mapped to your choice of spooky unknown effects in fiction, from The Force in Star Wars to Mass Effect biotics or River Tam's psychic abilities. It'd be hard to remove entirely, so this system may not be suited for rock hard scifi.

Compared to Blades, I think the downtime sections are a little more streamlined, and the setting is a hell of a lot more gameable, or at least it is with my taste in fiction. I have some quibbles with the economy, and the lack of a 'last score' mechanic, but this is a great game, and a solid goto for science fiction.

[Benjamin]

How? Another pick-up at the Round Rock Library.

What? Do you remember Blades in the Dark, the RPG about a bunch of scoundrels trying to pull jobs in a fantastical Victorian-esque city, avoiding (or beating) the cops and other criminal factions? This is that, but in space.

Yeah, so? After Blades in the Dark came out, they licensed/made free the core rules so that other games could be played with the same mechanics; this model is referred to as "Forged in the Dark." (That's one trend the D&D OGL/SRD helped formalize: even small games will sometimes put out their core rules for other people to make new games of.)

I'm playing in a Forged in the Dark game right now called "Slugblaster", about a crew of high school skateboarders (who cross dimensions) trying to make a name for themselves. It's fun, but I'm still getting my head around the rules and the lingo. (Some of the game lingo in Slugblaster may be specifically confusing because it's skater talk.)

Which is all a lead in to say: there's still some things about "in the Dark" games that feel a little confusing to me; and while being fiction first (i.e., the goal of the game is to tell a story, you invoke rules by doing things in the fiction), there's still a lot of rules here.

I confess I found my eyes sort of gliding off the descriptions of the characters -- yes, yes, this is a mechanic, this is a pilot, I know what they do -- and off the description of the setting -- yes, yes, there's precursor artifacts and ruin, there's a mysterious Force that some people are attuned to. But that's sort of the point, innit? This isn't meant to be ground-breaking in the setting; this is meant to be Star Wars: the Han Solo and Friends story. And I'm sure it can be very fun at what it does, it just doesn't (for me) make a very compelling read at this length.

[Steven · Rating 3 out of 5]

Having played the game, I’d give it 4 or 4.5 stars, but the book itself was not doing it for me. I found it confusing. I don’t know if it was the order in which things were presented, the explanations themselves, the lack of charts and tables to help me make sense of things; all I know is that I was more confused about the rules after reading them, even though it is a relatively rules light game.

There are some great ideas, and I love the vice system, but I felt there was an imbalance. For instance, after the Ashen Knives were mentioned in example after example throughout the book, I was looking forward to learning more about them, but they get a vague half a page. I wish I got a little more detail on the factions, planets, and technology. Also, there were more typos than typical; I’m not bothered by a few typos, but when there are more than a few, I wonder how much care was put into the product.

[Dylan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although the game itself leans into a genre or style of sci fi that is not my style ( a feeling of more whimsical space opera more akin to Star Wars) I am still impressed by its creation. Stras is the leader is probably the great face of the Forged in the Dark community.

My biggest qualm with the game is that it seems to make things very easy on the players. Giving new characters two starting special abilities and introducing Gambits into the game (which also prioritize Risky rolls as opposed to Desperate ones) cuts the early game struggle even shorter. Blades is my favorite RPG of all time and Ive gotten to Gm a lot of sessions of it and I can count on one hand the number of scores the PCs have had to abandon. Chances of getting a partial success are already so high I am surprised by the perceived need to make it even higher.

[Garrett · Rating 4 out of 5]

Seems like a really fun game. I like the whole space scoundrel vibe (I was inspired to get this after watching The Mandalorian). The setting is pretty cool too, with plenty of locations, factions, and characters to work with. But my struggle with this, as it was with Blades in the Dark (which this game is based on), is that I just don't think I have the chops to run a game in this system. I have yet to even be a player in a Forged in the Dark game, and until I get that chance, I don't think I could run a game like this. I'm still pretty inexperienced, and I suspect that this system might be good for new players, but not so much for new game masters. I hope I get the chance one day.

[Adeen Ellicott · Rating 3 out of 5]

Sci-fi systems are hit or miss personally. I'd prefer something with a little more fiction baked in to every step of a system. Love the Forged in the Dark core gameplay, just doesn't provide me the tools to functionally run a game outside of my expertise. If you already love and know sci-fi with a Cowboy Bebop feel? Go for it.

[Isaac Timm · Rating 4 out of 5]

Scum and Villliany gave me a clear understanding of the action and dice rolling mechanics.

On the down side it mentions "Veteran Advanemets", but doesn't explain what they are or how to get them. Growl

[Kyra Bea · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm super excited to run this game, I wish the world felt a little more lived in, like the original blades setting, but it *is* a much larger world.

[Guy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Very entertaining, I cannot wait to play. Or more likely to run a game for my friends.

[Andy Hoover · Rating 4 out of 5]

Blades in the Dark kicked off a rabbit's hole of reading, and this was the third book in my delve. I didn't find Band of Blades intriguing enough to get it, sorry, no quadrology for you.

I think the space-opera setting is a bit more interesting and fun than Dark Dunwall present in BitD itself, so this game got the Five Star the system itself deserves. I feel the action first madness fits the dashing space-rogue better than the bullying criminal scum of BitD, just my opinion. The system leaves plenty of room for The Wierd and the Wild, and Space just feels "more right."

I also think, after reading three of these, that the GM has a bit of a hard task with Risk-Effect rulings and I can see some tables bogging down in politic and logic-wrangling to try to get the ideal Risk-Effect without catastrophic consequences or, even worse, futile rolls - which are both very possible.

These are Player First games that emphasize action and story over rule interactions and power-efficiency builds, and that is the best part to me. These games reward vibrant descriptions and not just reading the description already printed and parroting it. I really like what EvilHat is doing, I just don't want to run it!

[Chuck · Rating 4 out of 5]

It seems like a fine system, but it didn’t resonate with me in 2019. However, looking to play a Star Wars campaign in 2021, I looked again and it clicked.

[Michael Miller · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although complex, this game really understand what makes space opera exciting and emphasizes it. I'm excited to get this to the table.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cool ideas for quick scenarios, that develop into a full story. Same system as Blades in the dark, interesting fun.