Actual Play – Into the Brig of Samarra Yarr (6/22/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

In which the Stardancers damage the central core of a powerful ur-bot (on accident), fight off drilling drones, acquire another strange black box, shoot poor Felix, impersonate pirates, and wind up in the bring of Zamara Yar, the Red Wolf. There was much trauma to be had. (SO MUCH TRAUMA).

What Rocked

As we noted at the start of Episode 7, after this session (which as really tense) we spent half an hour off screen talking about the game and expressing what was tough about it. We went from frustrated by understanding to really, really, excited about the next session. These are some of the finest humans I’ve gamed with and I’m so, so glad I get to spend my evenings romping through space with them.

What could have improved

Our rolls. Hah! It did really seem like we had three jobs all under lock and key. Deliver the plants to Amerath, help Conclave 01 recover the pre-cursor artifacts, and rescue the Suneaters to boot. Then it all fell to pieces.  But as we saw from the next session, this just set us up to stage and awesome escape!

Scum and Villainy on Air

Actual Play – Here be Dragons (6/8/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

In which attempt to work three jobs in one go, evade pirates, sail through fire, respond to a distress signal, and hear the roar of the Old Dragon! This session was so good, you just need to see it!

Skum and Villainy on Air

What Rocked

We ended on a cliffhanger “Organics! Get me out of here!”

We flew through dark hyperspace lanes, like offloading but in a spaceship

Faye blew through everything she had to appear competent in front of her crew.

We were chased by pirates!

We answered a distress signal!

We heard the dragon roar!

We broke into an ancient ship with commandos!

We got leverage on a Tier IV faction!

We met an deranged Ur-Bot!

We did it with friends!

We learned more

We did all the things that make Scum and Villainy so good!

What could have improved

Just wait till Episode 6, in which it all falls apart!

Actual Play – #Feminism with Big Bad Con Guests (6/5/2017)

Facilitator: Alex Roberts
Players: Laura Simpson, Hakan Seyalioglu, and Sean Nittner
System: #Feminism nano games

In joint celebration of the Pelgrane Press re-release of #Feminism, of the Big Bad Con 2017 Kickstarter, and of the Actual Play Twitch channel, Alex and I organized a game (or a few games of) #Feminism! Thanks to Laura and Hakan for signing up!

We played: 

  • Mentioning the Unmentionables: Dances with Vulvas (a fun warm up game that gets you really used to saying the word “vulva”)
  • 6016 (the utopian game set in 6016 where students study history from 4,000 years ago with only a soap opera as source material)
  • First Date (never mind the wage gap, let’s ruin this first date justifying the orgasm gap)
  • A Friend in Need (how we respond to street harassment, and then how people respond to that response!)
  • Lipstick (Sophia is uncomfortable both with and without lipstick on)

#Feminism on Air

What Rocked

Getting to play these awesome games with awesome people!

Promoting rad stuff!

Tackling some things that put us all out of our comfort zones and doing so mindfully and respectfully.

What could have improved

Some folks in chat weren’t prepared for the content that came up, so I think we could have done better at setting expectations in the beginning.

Some folks on YouTube objected to us playing #Feminism games. It’s unsurprising but still unfortunate that some of our audience doesn’t appreciate these games.

 

Actual Play – Perhaps you wish to put your thumbs on things (5/18/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

What do you do with them?

Which one, David or Burden, the Ponydog? Both!

Bhaz brought Burden on board into the cargo hold. He seemed to like us, and she told the previous owner she’d take good care of him.

Faye rushed David, the clone, into a seat and like a flight attendant helped him strap in. He was very obedient until she was about to leave and then he reached out and grabbed her wrist “Zero, where are you taking me?” Faye looked perplexed, then smeared the sigil made of makeup on her head away, and told him, “That’s not me. I’m a person” (which she instantly felt terrible about). She pointed to Bhaz and Burden “Where talking you away. She’ll tell you about it” and then fled to find a place to hide on the ship.

Bhaz watched Faye be very uncomfortable but at least not super rude. She tried to make David comfortable, where as Laren was annoyed that she wasn’t treating David like cargo. Bhaz persisted in being gracious to our clearly harmless guest. In the galley he fell right into motion, assembling a meal and food with expert precision. Bhaz told him he didn’t have to do that and he stopped, as though he had been caught doing something wrong. Laren entered, annoyed that Bhaz was still talking to him and then way more annoyed that David used Laren’s pâté. He took the sandwiches angrily and stalked off.

Hate eating sandwiches, Laren went and found Faye, who was getting high on Emerald Dreams in the engine room, which she tried feebly to hide. Lauren asked if she was okay and Faye, struggling to remain cogent, dodged his questions.

Flashing back to the galley, once left alone David resumed making food, and finally fed himself once the others were are done.

Three awkward days of travel

“So you’d never believe this, but I didn’t actually get all the details of this job before accepting it.”  – Faye. And thus a discussion about what to do with someone who might or might not want to be here.

And then we had the discussion about what David is. Is a clone a person? “They are people-ish”. We disagreed on some fundamentals but agreed to go forward with the job, there was nothing else to do. It was a good conversation I can’t encapsulate here, you should watch it!

We decided to pick what to do with David when we arrived. But what if we can’t make up our mind when it happens? Faye picks. Nobody (besides Faye) likes this plan. So it comes to this, rock-paper-scissors… which we threw mutual annihilation.

Faye’s final position “I think we should wing it.” “That sounds like a terrible plan, but I think we have to go with it.” – Bhaz.

On our way there, Faye, when she wasn’t inebriated, did sneak up on David to see what he was doing, and she’d find him twisting wires into little figures…of Burden.

Lauren gradually warmed up to Burden. Leaning into him when nobody was looking.

Bhaz kept trying to make David feel comfortable, but he resisted most of her attempts at conversation. Finally he asked Bhaz a questions “Why does Zero stay with you?” “We call her Faye. She stays because she wants to. Because we’re a team.” The answer confused him however and he went back to his blank expression.

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Oh, wait. The other thing.

When we arrived at the stated location, we saw a massive black frigate, Sah’hiir in make. A powerful group of Xeno merchants, known for their ansible network (or FTL communications systems). In the TV show version of the show we all knew it was called the Void Key.

When we entered, Lauren leading the way, we noticed the ship was warmer than we were used to and had some strange smells in the air. We were lead to a Sah’hiir, an 8′ tall entity, clad in black robes and their face covered with a nearly featureless golden mask that still revealed metal feathers from behind it. When we approached, one of the many attendants greeted us “right on time, I assume you have the goods.” Laren knew the correct forms and bowed appropriately, which Faye tried to follow but failed, and did it too late.

Laren also accepted their generosity and was happy to drink of the Sah’hiir wine and we sat pleasantly, though Faye declined “no thanks, I don’t drink.”

The small talk person was full of things like fine wine and comments on recent events. Another was there to tell us that the warn temperature was just the temperature we were going to deal with. Another was there to tell us that what they did with David was not our concern.

Faye, very high on Green Emerald, and very against this entire endeavor, made the meeting very awkward by interrupting and asking rude questions, all of which put extra pressure on Laren to keep the deal in one peace. There was 8 credit on the line here!

We agreed to walk back to the ship together (Faye made up a lie about all of them needing to enter the ship together, thumbprints that had to come from living thumbs and all), along with the individual that had been shutting down Faye, and they tried to interrogate him about what David would do. He answered some of the questions and inferred that clones who weren’t imprinted didn’t have the artificially shortened lifespan, and that he enjoyed his job, and that David would have a similar job, that he was “chosen”. It still wasn’t enough though to win Faye over into believing she wasn’t selling David into slavery.

As the conversation got really awkward, the Sah’hiir speaker said “oh look, your ship, perhaps you wish to put your thumbs on things.”

Are we okay with this?

Inside we had some discussions about the value of eight credits vs. human trafficking. We came to an impasse where Faye didn’t want to finish the job, and then when pushed to the edge about whose fault it was that we took the job without knowing what we were in for, blamed Laren.

Bhaz tried valiantly to keep them from fighting with each other, but the shit was on now! Faye then kept goading Laren “You should have known better. You knew the Sah’hiir bow, you knew what we were in for!” Laren stood up straight and got in Faye’s face. “This is not my fault. I don’t take jobs that I don’t know about just to fund my drug habit! You’ve been useless this entire trip!” As be berated her, he backed Faye into the wall and got very close to her. Faye tried to poke Laren in the trust and blame him again but Laren grabbed her writs to stop her “this is not my fault!”

Cutting away, Bhaz entered the galley where she found David cleaning up. She told him why he was here, or what the Sah’hiir were paying us to bring him to do. David thought on it for some time and then put his hand on her shoulder “It will be okay.” As they walked out the camera lingered on a plate with one each of our favorite sandwiches and a letter that said “Thank you”.

When Bhaz returned to the hold Faye was yelling at the top of her lungs “You only care about your nice things, and your space caviar, and how pretty you are, and your fancy shirts than make your shoulders look even broader, and all your fancy stuff!” Laren caught her other wrist (she was trying to poke at him with that hand too) and became very loud himself “I don’t only care about fancy things.” He looked intensely at her as though was going to say something he did care about, but instead blushed, and then drop her wrists, and turns away.

Bhaz walked right on past with David. They are having their feelings. I’m busy. She handed David over to the Sah’hiir speaker and Faye said she would go with the speaker and David to “collect they money for the cargo!”

We get paid

As we walked through the Sah’hiir ship, Faye whispered to David to ask her about why he called her Zero. “That is your designation.” Faye asked more about what that meant, and if it meant one of them had some kind of status or authority over the other. He then turned and for the first time we saw real human emotion on his face (concern in this case). “We do not impose upon each other.”

She agreed and then asked if you wanted to do this. He responded with a question of his own. “Why do you do what you do?” She persisted though and asked again (mostly because she didn’t have a good answer for him) and he said he didn’t know what he wanted, but this seemed good enough. As they entered he said “They called me brother, perhaps this can be my family”.

As we entered the Sah’hiir stood up (strangely, albeit) and seemed excited. Money was pressed into Faye’s hands and they asked her to leave promptly. It was going to get weird in there!

Payoff

Cred: 8
Heat: 6 (Iota system)
Entanglement: to be found in downtime

Downtime in the Iota System

Twin Stars of Iiota burning brightly we landed on Indri, the industrial world of the Iota system covered in acid rain and otherwise toxic atmosphere. People moved around in gas masks. This was Faye’s kind of place. “Welcome to the orange sky of Indri!”

Upkeep: 1 Cred (paid… no more messing around with this)

Burden had to be locked up to allow the maintenance to be done and our crew quarters to be installed.

We did downtime actions!

  • Faye indulged her vice (retroactively, all the time she spent on the ship high)
  • Laren satisfied himself with the professional ladies of space (Indulge vice as well). Laren usually feel he has to adhere to different rules of propriety, and with all the tension he had with Faye, he needed a release.
  • Bhaz indulged her vice (pleasure) as well, by spending time with dock workers who related to her and made her feel at home and welcome (with a working persons background). She went to a dive bar called the Jump Drive, filled with smoke and music and people gambling pennies. Bhaz was drinking, smoking, and cavorting. There were plenty of Cobalt folks here making union talk along the lines of “damn those Malklaiths.”

We flashed back to the ship and saw Burden perk his ears up and outside we saw another ship docking, the same ship that has been after us the whole time.

  • Faye talked to dock workers trying to find a job and when she heard a new ship came in from the Rin system, and asked her friend Ora, an info broker, about helping to cover her tracks. [Lay Low]. She also tried to convince Ora to help her find out about the Malklaith ship. To which she laughed…very, very hard. Finally Faye agreed that she would investigate the Black and Green ship herself, but any chance that Ora had a job for her [using the I Know a Guy move to get a job]. Sure, there was some plant matter that needs to get to Amaranth before it dies and Amaranth is on the other side of the Iota suns. Normally an easy job but right now the suns are burning bright! While Ora and Faye were out, Faye was contacted by Ur-Bot who gave her an encoded message from Conclave-01
  • Laren found Bhaz and Burden playing with each other, and saw how agile her parkour moves were, and asked if she could teach him how to do that [Prowess Training]. They bonded over running around and wrestling.
  • Bhaz took that same energy and applied it to her fellows in the Cobalt Syndicate, training them and doing it without the same mirth that she had with Laren. [Indulging Vice]

Faye wasn’t content to learn all of the nothing that Ora had to offer, and so she did the very sensible thing, and skulked onto their ship! And in there she found that they had EXTENSIVE information about the crew including the genetic sequencing data Faye inadvertently left on Lithios. And she also found Kor! [Desperate skulk. Bad outcome].

Meanwhile in the Badlands

Faye had passed on the missive from Conclave-01 so Laren and Bhaz were out in the badlands, filled with abandoned factories and the rusted metal carcasses of ships. Out there, they met BarHazuk, a very large ur-bot who’s body had become patchwork over the ages of having to repair himself. He greeted them with a happy metal grinding sound “Human Friend! How is that fine little ship that we fixed up for you? And Laren, have you been practicing your growing things?” [BarHazuk is fascinated with gardening].

In awkward but adorable ur-bot fashion BarHazuk said “where are my manners?” and invited them inside where he told Bhaz and Laren about a ship that entered the Rin system recently that carries a concerning number of ur-bots on it. There is a rumor of an object (pre-cursor artifact?) that would allow someone to directly control a large number of ur-bots and he suspects that since they all match that model number, this person is seeing out this object.

The Prime has sensed this and his fear is great. This object should be left along, but if they are going to wake it, it would be best if we woke it instead.  If you can find it and retrieve it for us, well that would be good. It’s dangerous and time sensitive, but the ur-bots have no way to get it themselves. They couldn’t offer credits but they would offer us parts for our ship (maybe a six cred ship part!)

Run for your life

Faye saw Kor and ran in terror, but she could not lose him. The she ducked around a corner and tried to topple boxes on him, but he cut right through them. Then she pretended to surrender and when he put his guard down fired her blaster at him, but he deflected the bolts with his blade. Then she tried to run again but he caught her. Then she tried to break free from him but he held her fast.

And when there was really nothing else she could do, Laren, Bhaz, and BarHazuk showed up, fired some blaster bolts of their own and which freed her from his grasp, and then they all ran back to the ship and flew like the wind out of off of Indri and away the from the Malklaith ship. Thank you good engines. Thank you cloaking device. Thank you ship hull and factory buildings for not caring to much about that last coat of paint we just scraped off!

Scum and Villainy on Air

What Rocked

As Laren was making one of his only emotional connections with Faye and she’s too embarrassed to accept, so they both say “Oh, I should probably go -” and break away uncomfortably. It was pretty amazing.

The moral quandary of what to do with David was a wonderful one. I’m so glad we took the time in game to have it.

Chester and Phyllis Atherton! The best of all aliases.

Bhaz and Laren exercising together in a friendly fashion and then Bhaz becoming very stern about training the members of the Cobalt Syndicate to fight. Similar training, very different Bhaz.

Kor is indeed a terrifying villain. He’s stronger, got more resources, has power over the Way. He creates all the dread that Darth, er, that a powerful Mystic should! Barely getting off world at the end was great.

BarHazuk. I mean c’mon, who doesn’t love a friendly robot? “Humans!” Also, re-watching the video I think it’s hilarious that Stras present Bar as this slow moving, cane using ur-bot who we then immediately were like “lets go run away from things together!” I feel like it’s as if Jyn met Saw Gerrera on Jedha and immediately said “c’mon uncle Saw, lets get booking!”

What could be improved

I think I fought a bit too hard to be free. When Kor caught Faye (or maybe when he caught her for the umteenth time) instead of running I wish I had just gone into his custody and had a good quip to go with it. The flight was cool, but a break out scene would have been cool to. Then again… (/spoilers)

Actual Play – David (5/4/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

We arrived on Lithios, impersonated clone buyers (Faye and Lauren posing as a married couple looking for a domestic servant), wandered the halls (Bhaz impressing the half-tiger people guards), found our mark (an un-imprinted clone named David), and snatched him just before his sigil could be placed (Lauren now impersonating a progenitor and Faye placing the mark on her forehead that she had seen in a nightmare to impersonate a Yaru clone).

We fled the compound (Faye accidentally using her thumbprint to get through a door, thus leaving behind her genetic code), sailed across the ice on a sled pulled by a giant PonyDog (which we decided to keep and name Burden) and narrowly escaped the Yaru security.

There was so much more however, which you can find on:

Standancer on Air

What Rocked

Stras, Andi, Jory… and all the words that came out of their mouths. Really, this show was that good.

Faye returns home and it totally freaks her out.

Lauren’s story about Matthew (“How could you?”)… and how awkward the scientist was after that!

Salteens and soda water.

Bhaz out-aplha-ing the tiger people clones.

Escaping with a thermal detonator!

Making off with a giant PonyDog.

The inevitable moral dilemna to follow.

Stras’ awesome art:

Lithios (Surface)
Lithios (Underground station)

What could have improved

I didn’t decide that Lithios was Faye’s home until a little ways into the mission. I think would have played her differently if I had committed early.  A good reminder to be less precious. Jump on something, see how it works. If you don’t like it, try something different next time!

 

 

Actual Play – Oasis 64 (4/20/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

After fleeing House Malclaith, the station officials, the Ashen Knives, and some other unknown faction with our cargo under guise of cloaking device, the Stardancer crew was happy to dock at the oasis to recoup, recover, and get our bearings (not to mention another job). We also learned the name of our new friend, Kor, the personal bodyguard of Ritam al’Malklaith, and a consummate bad ass.

Payoff

Cred: Donut – Nada – Nothin’ but an ole box.
Heat: 2 (in the Rin System)
Entanglements: Ship Trouble (Engines strained, -1)
Faction Changes: Ashen Knives -1, Cult of the Seekers +1 (folks who sent us to do the job)
Upkeep: Not paid, but nothing went wrong (Fortune Roll. Result: 1-3. Phew!)

Not sleeping well

The scene opened with Faye’s nightmare. Running down the halls of the Stardancer, pursued by the relentless Kor, cutting through any barriers she put in his path. Faye’s nightmare ended as she hid in a cramped bathroom and looked into the mirror. There she saw a red sigil forming on her forehead. She reached for it and then woke, falling out of the pilots chair she had fallen asleep in. Woken by the proximity alarms indicating that we were coming out of Hyperwave.

We transitioned out of Hyperspace back into real time through the giant Hyperspace ring and then fired our ships thrustsers to dock at Oasis 64.

On the comms, Lauren called over, announcing that dinner was ready!

Downtime

We landed on Oasis 64 but before docking, Lauren had a surprise for us. Wearing an apron, he  presented an array of glistening roasted meats, sauteed vegetables, and other provincial delights. Faye enjoyed the food…avidly. Lauren helped her with a bit of etiquette. That napkin was by her plate for a reason. Bhaz practiced defensive eating. She first secured her food (she did grow with seven siblings) and then ate it slowly.

After the meal we discussed plans for docking. We’d pay for the ship to get fixed up… or not. “We just ate our ship repair? Is that right Lauren? What are you doing?” “I just thought we could all have a nice meal together…” and the fight between Lauren and Bhaz broke out! [Indulge vice: Home cooking. Bhaz overindulged and started a fight. +1 Stress for all of us]. She threw a platter of food and Lauren and stomped off.

Once on the station we saw it was a buzz with activity. Vendors hawking wares, shrines to the Church of the Stellar Flame surrounded by people  with dockers loading ships into bays, and holo H&N News blasting through the air:

  • The Vorron ambassador has entered the Rin system and house Malklaith hopes to open negotiations with them soon. There was image of them shaking hands with Ritam al’Malklaith:
  • Strikes continue with the Cobalt syndicate.
  • A guild shipment was hit by pirates and the Legion is positioning their battleships to address the issue.
  • It is fire season in Iota… recommend that you don’t fly between the stars.
  • The Holt gate appears to be unstable. Deliveries may delayed by several hours.

Faye set off to check her messages…and find out if she could get us a paying job. Firing finger guns the whole way.

Lauren was keenly aware of the Vorron ambassador’s visit but decided she’d first reach out to contacts who might be able to tell her more about the box! She didn’t have an mystic friends, but he did know Church of the Stellar Flame people that might help…her old friend the ex-heretic Theron, the right hand to Elana (also an ex-heretic who converted, and the current leader of the Church in the sector). An old friend, a good one at that! [Acquire asset. Result: Crew Quality +1. One Space Church Mystic]. Theron, blessed in the light, offered to look at the pre-cursor artifact for his old friend… and some atrocious fish eggs as well.

Lauren then went to the “showers” and found some space sex workers and used his charm and good looks (and some luxury items!) in place of cred. [Indulge Vice]. They rented a hourly motel coffin pod…but it had a mattress!

Bhaz checked her comms and found there were a couple of messages. One from Aya that said “Call me.” We flashed back to a younger Bhaz learning martial forms from Aya, and being smitten with her along the way. While Bhaz was admiring her, that’s when Aya would flip her on the ground beat her in another match. The others were photos from the family posing in front of a new engine. She spent some pocket change to print these out so they could be pinned up later! She enjoyed the family pictures for a good long while… thought about Aya for a while and decided to close her session and go back to the Stardancer to practice some of those martial forms [Train: Prowess]

Down an dark rusted chrome ally a courier whispered a password through a door and then was admitted into a smoke den, where they dropped off a message that changed hands several times until it came to Faye, who was busy cheating at cards with her friend Jax, the ship mechanic. [Acquire Asset. Result: Crew Quality]. He comes out sooner than she would have expected and said the damage wasn’t as bad as he thought it might by [Fortune roll made by Stras to have him actually repair the ship]

On her cracked and way outdated data pad, Faye pulled up the job and found it. We flashed to Faye speaking on the comms with Citani to ask for the job. But first… Citani wanted to know what we should tell the person who gave us our last job (to deliver the box) and Faye asked her to lie. “Tell them you haven’t been able to get a hold of us… now tell me about this new job!” A client who needs an extraction from the ice planet Lithios!

Faye then went drinking with Jax…her drink of choice being a Startini. She spend the night socializing [Train: Resolve].

Bhaz reached out to Aya (who picked up instantly!) to find out just how bad things were with her. Aya was peeved about being put in a lurch, but she did say she though that Bhaz’ new crew looked good on her. Aya told her that this only a missed opportunity, not a responsibility, but still, she was in trouble for failing. “Do you even know what you are carrying? Some big players moved really fast and really hard to get that thing.” And nobody was really sure exactly what it was. Our pictures were posted in the star port, which means the Janus syndicate saw them…who are probably now looking for us as well. [Gather information]

Bhaz then practiced moving through the crowd of people and attuning to the energy of the people around her [Train: Resolve].

We got a job…or lets go to Space Church

Let’s go to Lithios and pull someone off planet. Easy money.

Or, we could go talk to Lauren’s friend and find out more about the box… let’s go find out more about the box. To Space Church we go!

And thus we found out that Faye’s father was a preacher who said something that was out of line with Church doctrine and disappeared for a week because of it. When he came back, he would never talk about it but he changed his sermons.

Bhaz knew that the Ashen Knives use artifacts to get an advantage on their jobs and when one of them used an artifact that was causing major disruption, Battlesister Diana (all clad in her exoskeletal armor) came after them to seize the artifact with violent effect.

But that wasn’t going to stop us. We set off…

…and just as we did a Malklaith ship arrived. Three people stepped out and began asking questions about our ship. When the dock master was reluctant to be forthcoming with ship records, he suddenly was unable to move, as blood began running from his nose. The system cop that was with Kor, walked over to the panel and said “Drat, I think we just missed them.”

When dropped out of Hyperwave, we arrived incredibly close to the star (we were all blinded in the cockpit) and then docked on the giant battle cruiser that was parked there, The Way of Light. In his chambers was say Laren meditating covered in a pure ray of light. His star medallion of the Church now visibly hanging around his neck.

When we docked we were met by Theron, who of course was branded by the “kiss of light”, and he warmly greeted all of us. He offered us food and time to lounge, but Faye, who was super uncomfortable, pushed them to get the point… and tell us what this artifact was! (Faye making no friends here).

In Theron’s chamber he performed ablutions before attuning to the star and then focusing his energy on the box we began to see the star map appear on the box and the light of a star in his eyes. While he attuned to it, Faye approached the box and studied it herself, becoming fascinated with the cube [Risky Study. Devils Bargain: Obsessed with the cube: The Voice of the Box 2/6. Full Success]. What they both discovered (though Faye discovered it better, hah!) was that it’s a star map…and what Faye realized is that it’s a treasure map!

While this was going on Bhaz was studying him. [Attune. Bad outcome]. Bhaz realized that he was not attuning to the way but to the light within the star. She couldn’t learn more though, because it was so alien to her.

Fancy Theron brought over his fancy safe to put the box in…I guess our lunchbox wasn’t good enough. 😛

Lauren thanked Theron profusely and they got all chummy again as we walked to our dock, Bhaz carrying the safe because it was heavy.

On her way out Theron tried to give Faye a word of warning “Stay away of temptation.” Faye tried to convince Theron that he had completely cowed her into fearing the faith, which he believed but also thought he should keep an eye on her lest she slip in the future [Risky Sway. Partial Success]

As we parted Lauren passed off a small gift to Theron. As we took off and he opened the box, it was red velvet coated and included a handmade cupcake inside [Luxury item!]

Stardancer on Air

What Rocked

Lauren taking our one cred and spending it on food without asking anyone! So good.

Bhaz’s family. Oh my goodness, so adorable. Also, her pining for Aya…. loved it so much.

“Faye flounders in such a exquisite and sparkly way, it’s fantastic.” – Kind words from Andi

Our complicated relationships with people are so good. I just love that we all have such strong feelings about our contacts, friends and the factions we’re connected with. Space jail!

“He’s with the Church!”  … “And that’s supposed to make me feel better?” I love that Lauren and Faye are so at odds about the Church of the Stellar Flame.

Bhaz thanking the ur-bot who cleaned up after us. So good.

Our little metal lunchbox for the treasure map cube!

So fun being so jealous in the most petty ways.

I love this crew!

What could have improved

I totally didn’t catch that Stras said that Lithios had a Yaru installation on it. So Faye’s reaction to the job wasn’t quite what I would have liked, but hey, I pass it off as Faye wasn’t paying enough attention either!

Actual Play – Our First Delivery (4/6/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

Our first session of Scum and Villainy, and how cool it was! We created our characters offline so we started this session filling out the ship details for the Stardancer and then jumped into our first job!

Stardancer

She’s a good ship, stolen from the Janus Syndicate and installed with an illegal cloaking device by Conclave 01. A very good ship. Also, super illegal but thanks to some false ship papers, we can even dock her in port!

Here’s the upgrades we picked:

  • Hull +1 (but no crew quarters yet)
  • Engines +1
  • Cloaking device added (thanks Conclave 01): Doesn’t necessarily render the ship invisible to the eye, but masks the heat and electrical signature of the ship, making it very hard to detect or identify once detected. Super illegal.
  • False Ship Papers (thanks to Laren!): A few well forged or transferred documents giving the crew and ship papers that are less wanted in any given system. Often simplify gate travel if the transponder and ship look match. You have a couple sets even if you have to practice responding to a new name.
  • Home Cooking: Your whole crew gains Home Cooking as a vice. Right after a job in space, you may spend 1 cred and a downtime action to cook for everyone, allowing the whole crew present to make a vice roll. If anyone overindulges, a fight erupts, and everyone gains 1 stress after the vice roll).
  • Our close contact is Alor, a keen-eared barkeep: A memish (aquatic xeno from planet Mem) barkeep who has taken all of us in and helped us on many occassions. Yay, Alor!

Dropped into the thick of it

We started en media res trying to deliver a package to someone in a bar. Citani, our info broker contact had gotten us the job and all we knew was that we had to deliver a box that had something inside it…but when we pulled back the sheer curtain and we found or contact dead in the booth. This is where we were supposed to hand off the package (and get paid!) but instead we had a dead guy, no money, and over our shoulders a growing collection of gathering security officers. Bam!

How did we evade the local officers, House Malklaith security (including the deadly mystic Kor), the Ashen Knives assassins, and one more group of unidentified yet poorly disguised agents? Only one way to find out…

Scum and Villainy on Air

What Rocked

It was so great how quickly we jumped into the action and into our characters. I can’t say I know exactly who Faye or Bhaz or Laren are yet, but I’ve got a gosh darn good idea. And there are place where’re we’re surprised as well. Bhaz an Aya, Laren rolling up her sleeps, Faye getting testy about someone grabbing her jacket (okay, that last one wasn’t a surprise at all).

Scum and Villainy is a great example of how to dig into the bones of Blades in the Dark, take what you want and dump the rest. There are a lot of the core systems there but every place that needs to be about a space faring crew Stras and John have created the systems needed to support that. A ship with upgrades and custom moves. Multiple sectors and heat tracked in each of them. A ton of very cool (and freaking very dangerous) factions. Scum and Villainy is such good work.

I love my fellow peeps. This is my first timing gaming with Jory and I’ve only played once before with Andi. They are both so rad, and Stras is such a rad GM. YAY!

What could have improved

Producing a show (i.e. starting up the stream, watching chat, changing scenes in OBS, watching the clock, setting up the timers, pulling up the right stuff in roll20, etc) while playing in a game is still really new to me. I’m sure that with time the overhead will go down, but if you watch the episode and you see my eyes fluttering all over the place, that’s just me checking on stuff in the background. I’ll get better at it!

Actual Play – Stardancer: Origins (4/2/2017)

GM: Stras Acimovic
Players: Jory Bowers, Andi Carrison, and Sean Nittner
System: Scum & Villainy

Yay, we’re streaming Scum and Villainy on twitch.tv/actualplay.

So excited! Only this session wasn’t streamed, because were we doing ship/character creation and sound/video checks all in one. I recorded, but the video is a mess. Here’s the highlights:

Ship Selection

We talked about all three ships, including the Cerberus and the Fire Drake but quickly settled on the Stardancer. I mean, who doesn’t want blockade running, space smuggling adventures the like of Firefly and Guardians of the Galaxy. This was an easy one for us:

This freighter has seen some miles, but with a loving engineer, and some illegal modifications it’s become a fast little ship that’s equipped to get places it’s not supposed to and carry things it shouldn’t.

NO. BRAINER.

Character Creation

So who are our plucky criminals?

Bhaz Viridian (Andi) is a spacer from the rim. Part of a family of miners, she went to the guild of engineers but dropped out and ended up working with the Cobalt Syndicate because Shod, a friend of hers got her the job. She helped them get arms to fuel their constant war for workers rights but also decided that syndicate life, though a boon to her family, wasn’t the life for her. When a deal with south with the Janus Syndicate (the arms dealers that were supplying them) she ended up narrowly escaping an ambush with her contact from Janus, Faye. Since then they’ve been hopping the stars together.

Laren Hex (Jory) grew up in the centeral system, an orphan taken in by the Church of the Stellar Flame, who both straightened him out in a religious way, and supported him through his studies. He worked his way up the ranks in the Hegemonic News Network until he had his own show. Unfortunately for Laren, he poked around in some places he shouldn’t have, and a scandal was manufactured to oust him from the network, and effectively force him out of high society. He’s now laying low on the out on the Rin sector, but his trouble has followed him here and House Malklaith, members of the Hegemony dog his ever step.

Faye Null (Sean) was given up for adoption by her Yaru parents who were forbidden to have children of their own. Faye grew up resenting her adopted parents because she knew they were always keeping secrets from her, and soon found herself with unsavory, crowds, specifically the Janus Syndicate. She formed a kind of father-daughter bond with the leader Victor Bax, for some time made deliveries for him. When the House Malklaith footmen ambushed her delivery, Faye bolted with Bhaz at her side and together they made off with the Stardancer. They’ve been stepping lightly ever since, badly in need of someone…like Laren Hex who can help them look respectable!

Can’t way to start playing this game. We’ll be streaming on twitch.tv/actualplay and videos will be available on youtube.com/c/actualplay

Actual Play – Thieves’ Cant (3/23/2017)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Hakan Sayalioglu, Karen Twelves, and Kathryn Hymes
System: Blades in the Dark (mash up with Dialect)

Our second and final episode of Thieves’ Cant. We picked up from the first session (where we played Dialect) and continued the story with Blade in the Dark. Playing the Grey Cloaks (for reals this time) we saw one of their early scores on the docks as they were still trying to find their footing in the Doskvol underworld.

Our Language

Here’s our Thieves Cant!

Our Characters

Since we had a short session we made up our characters before hand, they were:

Usa Waydrind – A petite Severosi ex-soldier who thought she could use her skills to better ends on the streets of Doskvol.

Aiz Anserekh–  A disgraced Iruvian noble who still keeps him mustache perfectly groomed despite other effects falling by the wayside. When he arrived in Doskvol he joined the Bluecoats (and gained many scars in the process), which he left alongside Nessa and Hutch.

Vond Comber – A natural born street urchin, tall and guant, but very much at home on the docks. Vond still carried a coin with the symbol of the Weeping Lady to remember where he came from. Vond used to do work for Long Strangford (one of his many street level agents) but run afoul of Needle, a vicious Bluecoat

My Prep

Prep, what is this thing? What is it doing in Blades in the Dark?

Well, I knew we had two hours to game and I wanted to make sure we weren’t spending all of it just figuring out what score to go on (very easy to do). I also wanted to make sure that the Grey Cloaks were surrounded by people at all times, so they would need to use their cant to communicate if they didn’t want others to overhear them.

We talked some online about possible scores and settled on “lets’s mess with people on the docks”, which still wasn’t very specific but it game me a start point, so I started jotting down notes about what was going on at the docs, both the status quo, as well as the scores that other factions were pulling off, which some enterprising scoundrels might pick up on. First, the status quo:

  • Chief Helker runs the docks. From his warehouse office perch he can see across nearly all of them and with a constant stream of reports from his clerks as well as other informants, he keeps pace with the hundreds or thousands of transactions that happen daily at the docks. Diamond, a tough old wold who hires day laborers to fill in and do the work that the union dockers don’t want to do.
  • Lord Strangford‘s leviathan hunter, the Nightbreaker, is in dock getting repaired from it’s last hunt. A bevy of Bluecoats and dockers alike stand around near the boat doing security and making sure only the right people make it on board. Eager to abuse his power whenever he could the rough Bluecoat Needle paraded around the docks as though he owned the place (which wasn’t entirely untrue).

Crime aplenty. Here were the various scores happening on this sunless day:

  • The Red Sashes, disappointed with their share of the extortion rackets the Crows allocated them had sent members to fleece merchants on their way off the docs. If they could get to them before they paid their bribes to the Crows or the Lampblacks, they cold cut in on the action. And if someone was foolish enough to pay them, they got what they deserved. Zora Hakar, a Red Sash who is dangerous but looks authoritative enough to get people to cough up bribes, was on the dock, pilfering from whoever she could!
  • Strangford’s Bluecoats were intentionally interrupting the transport of leviathan blood, and blaming everyone else for their delays, so that they could sneak it into a warehouse and dilute it. The Nightbreaker didn’t bring enough to make it’s quota, so they were covering up for it. Needle as in charge of keeping this operation secure.
  • The Grinders, eager to derail imperial supremacy have a plan to get on-board the Nightbreaker as “workers” and sabotage the repair operation, while also trying to rob from it’s coffers if they get a chance. Derret, tough, smart, and willing to take risks, got in line with the other day laborers to get himself work so that he could get close to the Hunter and find out how to get his crew on board.

I figured with four accessible characters (Diamond, Needle, Zora, and Derret), each representing larger forces (Dockers, Strangford, Red Sashes, and Grinders respectively) we’d have plenty of opportunities to interrupt other scores or plan one of their own!

The Play is the Thing

In short things went well for Aiz and Usa (they made off with Zora’s take) and very poorly with Vond (he was last seen entering a boat house and Needle following after him. Gunshots were heard, Needled walked out and Vond didn’t).

But for all the juicy details, I recommend checking out the show. I’m pretty proud of the production quality this time:

What Rocked

We used our cant, it was so cool. Derret was trying to figure it out and didn’t get it. Needle knew what it all meant but wasn’t close enough to overheard. I loved it.

This group was great, they honed in on place they could rob the robbers and went to town. I love that it ended in a duel.

Poor Vond. I wonder if it was bugskot for him or if he made it.

Having the prep for a short game like this was definitely helpful. It’s not my style normally, but I was glad that we had lots of low hanging fruit to pick from.

What could have improved

Oh, several things, some more important than others.

I thought it was novel and fun to have the scoundrels take actions just to get day work, and it did offer a lot of opportunities for me to reveal the setting to them through complications. I just felt bad that we spent the first hour with them just trying to earn a few slugs for carrying boxes. It was about the lowest stakes I’ve ever seen in Blades and I was concerned both for the players and the the audience that patience for it might have been wearing thin.

At the end, because we were well over time, I asked them to wrap everything up with fortune rolls and then that determined the outcome. The trick there as that when I assigned consequences to the results, chat (correctly) suggested that they could resist those consequences. Which normally would be totally true but I wanted these fortune rolls to reflect the sum total of all the actions. It didn’t matter that much in the end but I think that when doing one roll resolution, I may elect not to allow resistance rolls and abide just by what the fortune roll tells us.

Ship names are hard.

Someone said something offensive in chat, which I wish I just deleted, but I was caught off guard enough that I just said it out loud. This was clearly the case of me needing to hone my chat moderation skills and not be as quick to blurt out something I read. We were pretty quick to move past it. Next time hopefully I’ll catch it before I open my mouth!

Actual Play – Thieves’ Cant (3/11/2017)

GM: Kathryn Hymes
Players: Hakan Sayalioglu, Karen Twelves, and Sean Nittner
System: Dialect (mash up with Blades in the Dark)

This game was like woah. So many new things. A mash of of Blades in the Dark and Dialect. Playtesting a new backdrop. Streaming on Twitch! Woah!

To make this happen we coordinated a fair bit ahead of time to suss out:

  • The Doskvol Setting
  • What events we’d set the game around (we chose the forming of the Grey Cloaks)
  • Our three aspects (see below)

Aspects

To define our community we picked three aspects that were very particular to our crew.

Bluecoats, because that’s what we are. But the aspect has a lot of nuance to it. It stood for keepers of the peace and the legalized thugs. We are a cogs withing a system of oppression, being shit on, and shitting on those beneath us.

Crushing Debt, a few weeks ago our patrol had gotten in a fight with a few sailors and pushed them around. We took it too far, and then only realized after the fact that they worked for the Leviathan Captain Lord Strangford. He might night have noticed under other circumstances but we slowed down his launch date and found who we were. After that, we were constantly having to pay up to him to keep him from making things official. And the payments due, they just keep growing!

Extortion, because, of course. I mean, this has always been our livelihood, but now it’s more important than ever. We’ve had to step up our graft to pay our new debts!

Characters

Claive aka “Needle” – Our zealot leg breaker who believed above all other thing that extortion is what we we’re here to do. Needle doesn’t even make a pretense of doing his job as a Bluecoat. He just cleans his coat on a daily basis (we’ll be defining that in a bit)

Stev Templelton –  Our oracle who had been in Blue for a decade and could see the writing on the wall. Stev believed that our extortion racket was going to be our downfall.

Braeden Vale – Our healer both literally and figuratively. Vale’s temperate and enduring nature frequently put him in the position of patching us up. Of all of us, Braeden identified the most with being a Bluecoat, and believed our extortion rackets were causing us pain and misery.

Syra “Bug” Haig – Our jester and ne’er-do-well believed that calling ourselves Bluecoats was a joke. She was always happy to run down a business for money, but hoped people would see that we’re no better than any criminals on the streets… we are the criminals on the streets.

Our Language

In Dialect we create a language, and our language was a thieves cant. So cool.

The rule we made for our game was that our language has to use common words that wouldn’t draw attention that would mean other things. That way they could be used in front of our watch commander Krop or other Bluecoats without raising suspicion. This was a great justification for twisting words around and making cool phrases. Thanks chat for helping us out with them!

Here’s our Thieves Cant! Since we’re going to try and use it in a follow up Blades game, and we may develop more, here’s the living google doc.

Our Story

I’m keeping this short, because I really want people to watch the VOD because it’s my first VOD ever! Woot.

We were terrible Bluecoats under the thumb of Lord Strangford. To get out of his crushing debt we tried ever more extreme actions (starting with extortion, then stealing from our own coffers, then trying to stick up one of Strangford’s Leviathan Blood caravans) until we finally burned down the that had evidence against him and blamed Nessa and Hutch, our fellow Bluecoats, for the fire.

The end result was that we earned Strangford’s favor, became his cronies exacting his will, and Stev was promoted to watch commander and took over command in the new barracks. This was a big twist for us as we expected to play the Grey Cloaks, but it turns out we were the assholes that created them!

Here’s the VODs:

What Rocked

Oh my, this game and these words were so great. Bad Weather. How’s your coat? Strange Devils. I loved how the language we made formed our story and the larger narrative of what our scoundrels did with their lives.

The twist at the end was huge. We walked into the game expecting that we would play the characters who eventually became the Grey Cloaks and then in between the third and fourth hour, Karen pointed out that what made more sense is if we were the group that framed the bluecoats and burned down the watch tower ourselves. I mean, afterall, we had a flamethrower! There were a few mininutes of hesitation, we were all holding onto the the original idea, but once we went for it and killed our darlings, the story was so much better and make so much more sense. Plus that allowed for me to have a…

Great scene with Needle and Hutch. In the third act you can bring in NPCs and since Bug was dead, I framed my scene with Hutch trying to overpower Needle but failing terribly. One detail was his blue coat covered in grey ash. I loved getting to put that bit in!

One top of the game and the streaming, we were also playtesting a new backdrop for Dialect, which is also great because it means Kate and Hakan got to take back some good playtest results to boot!

Without really planning for it, we ended up fitting our story into the fiction perfectly. It wouldn’t have made much sense for Krop, who hated our rag tag group, to frame the Nessa and Hutch, but it totally made sense for us to do it. So when Stev was made watch commander, that was even better. Also, I didn’t realize that the Grey Cloaks had there HQ in the old watch tower (I could have just read it, but I missed that part) so it was doubly good to have the confrontation with Needle there!

Talk about killing your darlings. I respect Kate so much for letting Stev change fundamentally. She started out as the one who tried to get us off the path of extortion and ended up the watch commander running a precinct of Bluecoats entirely dedicated to carrying out Strangford’s dirty work. I am genuinely scared of the Bluecoats in the Docks now!

Chat. Thanks chat for both helping me with some technical issues, letting other folks know

What could have improved

The big one is video quality. Because our bandwidth at home is really poor, and because both Karen and I were using the same connection for Zoom (plus streaming) the dropped frames were massive. I had set the bit rate way down (400) which helped but it was still choppy. Thankfully the local recording is much smoother. We order a faster U-verse plan which hopefully will improve performance in the future.

Other thing (thanks Jon Edwards for catching some of these): Our audio levels were off for a while. I thought I had the all dialed in but then I leaned back and was too far away from my mic, and Kate was coming in louder than I expected. I couldn’t label the stream while it was running. I kept getting a language error when I tried to set it, despite selecting English. Luckily I was able to name it after the show.

I didn’t have any bots installed so there was a lot of repeat copy and pasting of links. Moobot is installed now.

Mostly I was just nervous about it all coming crashing down and the performance being intolerable. Thankfully everyone in chat was understanding and we got through it fine. I was exhausted by the end though!

 

 

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