Editing Scum: Game Fu Ingredients (section)

=='''Genre Tropes'''==

    * Pirates

I'm being a bit liberal here with the interpretation, and going for a piratical feel rather than directly lifting window dressing from piratical trappings. My interpretation of the piratical genre is necessarily a bit darker and grittier than the standard Disney Pirates-of-the-Carribean take.

* '''"Immoral anti-heroes"''' - Like pirates, the protagonists don't live within society's codes of conduct, and don't subscribe to conventional morality. They're cruel, they're capricious, they're violent and they're all boozehounds. Nonetheless, they are our protagonists, and we root for them. Just like pirates, they are hounded by civilised authority, yet somehow from the story's point of view we are able to paint civilisation as the hated opposition. This, to me, is the core of what makes Scum a piratical game.
* '''"Buried treasure"''' - The stories will often revolve around hidden stashes of loot, though generally not actually chests of gold.
* '''"The Black Spot"''' - Every scenario has some way of a character being "marked for death", which should give them a real sense of fear and foreboding, just like the Black Spot in treasure island!
* '''"Gold over loyalty"''' - The Scum say they're all watching each others backs, but really they're just looking for a spot to put the knife in, and they'll sell each other out for small amounts of cash.
* '''"Mutiny"''' - There's an Alpha scum, but everyone's always looking to take his place.