Creating a character

CHARACTER CREATION SUMMARY

1. Choose a playbook
2. Choose a heritage
3. Choose a background
4. Assign action dots
5. Choose one friend and one rival
6. Choose your vice
7. Record your name, alias and look
8. Review

You can find character sheets at https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/19t4XEpoGLtjRXVtDDVDiPOLFvOyA5lZW

1. CHOOSE A PLAYBOOK

Your Playbookcontains all the specific rules needed to play a certain character type in Scum and Villainy. There are seven basic playbooks. By choosing a playbook, you’re determining which type of crew member your character is. The playbooks are:
Mechanic -- Muscle -- Mystic -- Pilot -- Scoundrel -- Speaker -- Stitch
Each playbook is a set of special abilities (which give your character ways to break the rules). Each playbook also has a starting ability unique to them. No playbook has a monopoly on their focus—a Muscle could be amazing at helm, or a Mystic might be excellent at scrap.
By selecting a playbook, you select a set of initial Action ratings and special abilities that will be easiest for you to access. You determine your character’s essential nature, and both your skills and nature can evolve over time.
Your playbook also describes how others in the sector view you. When Syndicates plan a job, they think in terms of crews that have a “pilot,” “mechanic,” and “muscle.”
If someone solves their problems with the Way, they’re often called a “mystic.” If they present a respectable face and have deep connections, they’re called a “speaker.” Your playbook is also a reputation.
Each playbook is detailed above.
Once you’ve chosen your playbook, follow the steps below to complete your character.

1a. CHOOSE A STARTING ABILITY

Playbooks begin with their starting ability marked. Each playbook has a starting ability that only members of that playbook get. This helps define your role on the crew and how factions in the sector view you. Note that starting abilities cannot be chosen via the Veteran special ability.
If you want to play a xeno (a member of an alien species) with a decidedly exceptional physique or abilities, you can replace your playbook starting ability with the following: Xeno: You may spend stress (0-2) to perform an inhuman feat only members of your species can do.
If you choose to go with the Xeno ability, now might be a good time to discuss with your table what some common traits of your people can be. When playing a xeno, you still have the special abilities and starting action dots on your playbook.

1b. CHOOSE A SPECIAL ABILITY

Each playbook also has a list of special abilities. Choose one special ability for your character. If you can’t decide which one to pick, go with the first one on the list—it’s placed there as a good default choice.

SPECIAL ARMOR

Some special abilities refer to your special armor. Each character sheet has three boxes to track usage of armor (armor, heavy, and special). If you have abilities that use your special armor, tick the special box when you activate one of them. If you don’t have any such special abilities, then you can’t use that armor box.

2. CHOOSE A HERITAGE

Your character’s heritage describes their upbringing or family. Pick a heritage and decide if you’re native to Procyon or from elsewhere in the Hegemony . When you choose a heritage, mark it on the list on your playbook, then write a detail about your family life on the line above. For example, you might choose imperial heritage, and then write Once powerful Core-world Nobles, now destitute. Or you might choose colonist heritage and write Dathalak farmers from closer to the Core.

Each heritage is described briefly below.

• Those with imperial heritage hail from Warren or the Core worlds. You were brought up educated in ways of the Hegemony, through a Guild vocational education, Cult teachings, or Noble family tutors.
• If you’d rather be more at home on a creaking ship, you could be from a spacer family. Ice miners, station mechanics, and most merchants are born, grow old, and die in space—and may or may not view your terrestrial ventures with suspicion.
• The exact opposite are colonist families. Farmers, miners, and terraformers form the backbone of the Hegemony. Fighting for a living on the borders of planets, these folks deal with alien beasts and odd Precursor ruins more than most.
• manufactured “families” are fundamentally controlled in some way by the Guilds —for example, a Yaru clone who’s escaped from a facility or a Urbot that’s avoided routine memory wipes. You may often have to hide your origin and independence.
• If you want to be without a planet to call home, you could be from a wanderer heritage. A small but notable portion of the Hegemony move from planet to planet, as opportunities emerge and galactic economic cycles shift. Or just follow where the Way takes you.
• xeno families are as diverse as the countless kinds of xenos in the galaxy. You were raised in a non-human culture. Xenos struggle to find acceptance in the Hegemony, and many of their practices are seen as strange or unusual.

3. CHOOSE A BACKGROUND

Your heritage covers how you were raised, but your background covers what you’ve been doing before you joined the crew. Pick a background option from the list on your playbook, then write a detail about it specific to your character. For example, you could choose labor, and then write Gas miner on Aleph. Or you might choose syndicate and write Former assassin for the Ashen Knives.
Backgrounds are briefly detailed below:

• academic: A professor, student, researcher, or other knowledge driven vocation.
• labor: A factory worker, driver, dockhand, miner, or other tradesperson. The majority of the Hegemony is of this background.
• cult: Part of a Cult, officially sanctioned or not. A holy warrior, priest, or religious devotee.
• guilder: Involved in the of machinations of a Guild , such as a ship designer, financial analyst, or logistics officer.
• military: A Hegemonic soldier, mercenary, intelligence operative, strategist, training instructor, etc.
• noble: Living the life of luxury, such as a dilettante, someone caught up in House politics, etc.
• syndicate: Part of an organized criminal gang, from the lowest lookout to ousted former crime lord.

4. ASSIGN FOUR ACTION DOTS

Each playbook begins with one Action at level 2, and one at level 1. You get to add four more ratings, to bring you to a total of seven dots assigned. During character creation, no action rating may be higher than 2 (unless a special ability tells you otherwise).
Assign your action ratings like this:

• Increase by one any action that you feel reflects your character’s heritage.
• Increase by one any action that you feel reflects your character’s background.
• Increase two more actions anywhere you like (max rating 2).

5. CHOOSE ONE FRIEND AND ONE RIVAL

Each playbook has several NPC friends. It’s important to note that you know all these people well. Choose one from the list who is a close relationship (a good friend, a lover, a family relation, or similar). Mark the up-pointing triangle next to their name. Then pick another NPC on the list who is now your rival or enemy. They may have been a friend once. Mark the downward-pointing triangle next to their name.

6. CHOOSE YOUR VICE

Fighting the odds of the galaxy is stressful. Each crew member has a way to blow off stress, described by their vice. Choose one or two from the list below, and write in specific details. For example, you might choose pleasure, then write Rare delicacies from distant planets. Ask your table if you get stuck on what kinds of vice might be fitting with the story and your character.

• faith: You’re part of a Cult, or observe specific ceremonies at regular intervals.
• gambling: You crave games of chance, or bet on sporting events, etc.
• luxury: You seek the high life with expensive, ostentatious displays of wealth.
• obligation: You’re devoted to a family, cause, organization, charity, etc.
• pleasure: You seek hedonistic gratification from lovers, food, drink, drugs, art, etc.
• stupor: You dull the senses with drug abuse, excessive drinking, fighting to exhaustion, etc.
• weird: You perform strange experiments, explore the Way, commune with Ur artifacts, and so on.

When picking a vice, bear in mind that it’s something you do to blow off steam, but it can also land you in trouble. How much your vice consumes you and how much it drives your character to bad decisions is up to you, but the more it does so the more xp you’ll earn. Discuss this with your GM—not every player may want their demons to rear their heads every session.

7. RECORD YOUR NAME, ALIAS, & LOOK

Choose a name for your character.
Many hotshots, muscles, and the like pick up monikers that the underworld of the Procyon sector knows them by. If you use an alias or nickname as part of your identity with the crew, note that as well.
Describe your character’s look.

REVIEW YOUR DETAILS

Look at the special items available to a character of your type (like the Pilot’s Urbot, for example). You begin with access to all of the items on your sheet, so don’t worry about picking specific things—you’ll decide what your character is carrying later on, when you’re on the job (see Loadout, below).
That’s it! Your character is ready for play. When you start the first session, the GM will ask you some questions about who you are, your outlook, or some past events. If you don’t know the answers, make some up! Or ask the other players for ideas.

LOADOUT

You have access to all of the items on your character sheet. For each job, decide what your character’s load will be.

• 1-3 load: light. You’re faster, less conspicuous; you blend in with ordinary folk.
• 4-5 load: normal. You look like you’re ready for trouble.
• 6-8 load: heavy. You’re slower. You look like a scoundrel on a mission and ready for trouble. Nobody will mistake you for anything other than what you are.

Your chosen load determines how many items you can carry. Items in italics count for zero load and can be taken freely with any loadout. Some larger items (like Heavy Blasters) require you to mark two boxes (2 load) in order to have them on hand. They’re marked on the sheets with multiple boxes with a connected line between them.
You don’t have to decide what items you’re taking on the job at the start of it. You’re playing smart capable scoundrels who think ahead, and bring the kinds of items they’ll need. During the operation, you can fill in any box on your items list to have that item available—up to the maximum load you have chosen.
Review your personal items from your playbook and the Standard Items descriptions.