Scum and Villainy
Unwise deals. Blaster fights. High adventure among the stars. Welcome to the world of Scum and Villainy. 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?
Originally created by Stras Acimovic, John LeBoeuf-Little
Details
Themes
Publisher
Release Date
Play Scum and Villainy online
Scum and Villainy Reviews (4)
See what other Game Masters and players are saying about Scum and Villainy
Excellent system for pulpy and cinematic sci-fi adventures in the style of shows like Mandalorian, Rebels, Firefly and Cowboy Bebop. In fact, you can easily adapt the game to any of the settings mentioned above! The game focuses on adventures of a less-than-fortunate crew of a spaceship, who can choose to be primarily Rebels, Smugglers or Bounty Hunters. Will you rise to the top of the most wanted list? Will you be able to leave a dent in the tyrannical rule of the oppressive system? Or will you come crashing down? We play to find out!
Looking to play in a Star Wars-type world? How about Firefly? Well, if you like fast-moving action that mixes Blades in the Darks' style of play with pulpy action, it's hard to beat Scum and Villainy. Since it uses the Forged in the Dark mechanics, it's quick to put together PCs and get playing. And the rules are cleaner and clearer than Blades in the Dark, making it easier to pick up for Game Masters.
Scum and Villainy (and the underlying Forged in the Dark System) excels at marrying scenes of narrative heft with nailbiting gameplay choices. Story is a consequence of gameplay as much as gameplay is a consequence of story. While much of that has to be resolved in metatextual/above-game conversations, it's all at the behest of arriving to the next thrilling moment as meaningfullly and efficiently as possible. What could take an entire arc of 4-5 sessions in other more "immersive" or "GM led" RPGs, Scum can resolve within a job, if not a single action. Be prepared to face heavy stakes often, and of your own (deliberate) making. Regardless of the narrative scenario you're in, the elegant Position/Effect system - which allows players to "tailor their poison" in exchange for anyhing from better action outcomes, to XP, to Cred, to Assets, and beyond - allows GMs and even players themselves to award their daring and bravado with worthy rewards, both in failure and success. This in turn allows the whole table to think of bigger and broader strokes versus traditional RPGs' moment to moment progressions. In that sense, Scum and Villainy might be too much of a "writer's room" experience for certain players - where you will be going over the details of your story as much as you might roleplay through them. However, what time you lose in immersive roleplay, the whole table gains in collaborative story-crafting. This is truly an all hands on deck system and as long as you're onboard with what this game offers, you and your crew will end up creating a truly unique and memorable time each and every session!
Scum and Villainy is a variant of the Blades in the Dark system utilizing many of the same rules, but adding options to shift the game towards a science fiction style. This game utilizes shows like Firefly, Stargate, Star Trek, and Star Wars as bits of inspiration. With players able to pick playbooks to determine their specialties, they’ll be able to cover a number of different roles. The playbooks are made to feel special in what they do, and each usually contains examples of characters or styles that would fit what they do. This makes it much easier to visualize the kind of character you want to play. Introducing ‘The Way’ as a cosmic force that is present throughout the people and places of this setting allows you to play around with other forces that exist in science fiction if you wanted to shift the game to a different setting than the one provided. This game lives up to its name encouraging a Players vs the Galaxy style that blends the lines of right, wrong, convenient, and dangerous. The system uses the d6 to determine levels of failure and success allowing one to critically fail, fail, succeed with consequences, and fully succeed during any number of scores. The Game Master typically isn’t responsible for rolling dice, but instead focuses on providing consequences for the results of what a player is doing. One of the best ways to separate this system from others as well as to set up what sort of game you are running is the ship. Every crew chooses a ship as part of character creation. The style of ship grants mechanical benefits to the party and levels up the same way as characters would. Whether you pick a ship focused on exploring new worlds, running blockades, or infiltrating off limit facilities, you will find a number of options and abilities to keep your crew flying… at least until the next score. For Game Masters, this game allows you to flex your narrative muscles. Like many other games utilizing this style of dice rolling, your job becomes describing consequences rather than having to determine the specific actions of the world around them. The lore of the system is actually pretty solid, and it gives hooks for the planets and locations creating a mechanic for wanted levels depending on which area your crew are currently present. The factions also add to the potential of inspiration for the creation of your own stories with information about their outlooks, goals, and secrets to determine which ones might interest the players to help or might be interested in permanently taking your players out of the sky. I would suggest this to anyone that enjoys story heavy science fiction stories that have the players forming strong connections with each other and allies in a story that encourages bold choices and morally questionable characters.
How to Play Scum and Villainy
Dirty 20 Gaming walks you through everything you need to know about Scum and Villainy, from the basics mechanics and how to create characters to how build your own spaceship!
Online Scum and Villainy campaigns
Scum and Villainy community artists
Brett Barkley
Explore ArtTomasso Renieri
Explore ArtJuan Ochoa
Explore ArtMichaela DeSacco
Explore ArtTazio Bettin
Explore ArtFrequently asked questions about Scum and Villainy
Explore Scum and Villainy Playbooks
Mechanic
A gearhead and hacker. Play a Mechanic if you want to make new devices, keep your ship in good shape, or hack systems.
Muscle
A dangerous and intimidating fighter. Muscles are good at winning fights. Play a Muscle if you want to be unstoppable in combat.
Mystic
A galactic wanderer in touch with the way. Mystics are good at dealing with the Way. Play one if you want to use artifacts and weird powers.
Pilot
A ship-handling wizard and danger addict. Play a Pilot if you want to be a daredevil at the wheel and widely traveled.
Scoundrel
A scrappy and lucky survivor. Scoundrels love getting into and out of trouble. Play a Scoundrel if you want to press your luck
Speaker
A respectable person on the take. Play a Speaker if you want to be the respectable one and use connections to get your way.
Stitch
Spacefaring healer or scientist. Play a Stitch to deal with science, patch people up, and be the crew’s moral compass.