Scum & Villainy Solo - Spitfire - Part 6

This is the first time I’ve played this with just a solo PC. Let’s see how that goes.

Setup

Snaps knows something has happened to his mother and suspects it is in reprisal for the prison break, or perhaps otherwise having angered the authorities. But he doesn’t have a lot of detail beyond “she’s missing”.

What have we previously established in the fiction?

• His family are farmers, or at least they were in his childhood
• They reside here in the Procyon sector, possibly in Brekk (this was implied but not explicitly stated)
• Despite the occasional contentious conversation, he feels a strong sense of obligation
• He has previously written a long message to his mom

So we’re going to assume that, for whatever reason, only his mother is in the picture. Where could she live in Brekk right now? The planet Shimaya (where we exfiltrated Ed Ursis has a “substantial civilian population” and consists largely of desert with significant electrical storms.

Gather Information

Snaps arrives on Shimaya to check on his mom. He needs to be careful because he is wanted in this system, so he’ll check in with neighbors and friends. We’ll roll Consort for this, 1d => 4, standard information with some follow-up. From here we need to use Starforged oracles to establish the context:

• Action: Capture
• Theme: Phenomenon

One of these makes sense (she was captured in reprisal), but “phenomenon”? What does that mean here?

With Ursis gone, the storms are poorly controlled as he was the chief engineer for the electrostatic array that protected the settlements. So the city is wracked by severe electrical weather and she’s in custody because the Guild of Engineers wants Ursis back.

Engagement

The job is to get Snaps’ mom out of custody. We could do this on the up-and-up (Social plan) or not (Deception). Are we willing to give solid information on Ursis (and thus the Janus Syndicate) to do this? And who could help? Nisa was Cosmo’s friend, but Snaps might be able to talk to her. Is her partnership with Ursis (which at one point was on shaky ground) working out? He’ll consort in an interplanetary message, 1d => 3, we can’t get a good signal out due to the electrical storms.

Let’s not start off by angering one of our better clients, the Janus Syndicate. So we’ll give up some false information, which makes this a Deception score. He has a limited stress pool, but with On the Trail we can do one additional downtime action to prepare. We’ll acquire an asset in the form of an attorney, which means rolling crew quality, 0d => 3. That’s a crummy lawyer; instead, Snaps will pay 1 cred to get one who’s at least minimally qualified.

• First Look: Scruffy
• Initial Disposition: Demanding
• Name: Cole Stafford

Ugh, he’s not even easy to get along with. We might not keep him around in the future. To make this deception work, we can’t tell him what the real thing is. Time for the roll.

Two factors each give us a die: Sheer Luck and a Daring plan (we’re lying to our own attorney). 2d => 6, controlled.

Action

We meet with the Guild representative, Kwan Jen.

• First Look: Slight
• Initial Disposition: Indifferent
• Goal: Scheme World

She just wants off this out-of-the-way planet so she can keep climbing the Guild hierarchy.

We’re lying to her about exchanging Ursis’ location in order to sway her to release Snaps’ mom. At the moment we’re in a Controlled position, but initially I think this will have Limited effect (we’re not easily believed). So we’ll exchange Position for Effect by loudly insisting we have that information the Guild really wants, moving us to Risky / Standard (they could just arrest him, after all). With the assistance of our attorney (cohort), we’ll have +1d. Even at Standard effect, we’ll probably need to start a clock to get her sprung. 1d => 5, we’ll start two separate 4-clocks.

• “Mom released”: 2/4
• “Snaps arrested”: 2/4 (this really means they fully figure out who he is)

We’ll tell them Ursis is in Iota and can be found in that slum bar on Indri. As a Devil’s Bargain, we’ll take +1 Heat in that system as we try again to sway Kwan. We’re still at Risky / Standard, so we’ll also spend a gambit. I forgot to add the +1d from the cohort, which means I rolled 2d => 3 (it would possibly have helped, oh well). As a consequence, we’re losing the opportunity and adding +1 Heat here in Brekk. Snaps will resist losing this opportunity with Resolve by admitting Ursis is still here in Brekk. 2d => 6 - 6 = 0 stress taken for this.

Instead, we tell the Guild that Ursis is hiding out with the Paxton Raiders. This time, the risk is filling that arrest clock. We’ll remember our +1d from the attorney cohort and push ourselves, 2d => 6, Mom is free.

From here, we send a warning note to Janus which risks losing some status with them. This means a Consort role, 1d => 5, we’re still at +1 status but we’ll clear the credit from having done 1 job for them. That’s okay, we just won’t focus on Janus for a while.

Payoff

No cred on this one. We’ll boost up our status with the Guild of Engineers (now at 0) and take -1 with the Paxton Raiders, now at -2. Snaps pays for ship upkeep out of the ship funds. No heat on this job, but when we roll for Entanglements on the Wanted 1 table, 1d => 5, Reprisals - again. We’ll review this later.

Downtime

Snaps will indulge by focusing on spending time calming down his mom and trying to get her to believe she’s safe now. 2d => 3 stress cleared, but he feels like that’s not enough. He’ll take her to Rin (where he needs to find Cosmo anyway) and indulge again, 2d => 4, he’s at exactly zero stress.

XP and the future

The crew advances, which we’ll hang onto so we can improve crew quality in the future. Snaps also gets a third dot in Helm.

When we roll for a job, we get:

The child of a diplomat was kidnapped in transit. Spring them from pirates.

That said, I notice how much I’m depending on Starforged oracles for this playthrough. Blades in the Dark didn’t require as much of this because it had more extensive random tables in the book. Maybe I should try playing Starforged itself for a bit.