Scum: Game Fu Ingredients

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The Selected Ingredients

Rules constraints

   * Ten statistics. (Skills/Attributes/wounds/whatever.)

I decided to take the "ten statistics" limitation, and break it down into five pairs of two, as detailed in the character generation section.

   * Multiple Characters per Player.

Regarding multiple characters, while Scum isn't designed with the idea you control Multiple Characters at once, it is designed with the idea that over the course of a story you will end up controlling multiple characters in a game session, by virtue of high PC mortality!

   * Must allow for random character creation.

Allow for? Hell, its compulsary.

   * Characters with changing characteristics.

Inspired by this I came up with the idea that the ten traits would all be fluid pools, depleted by use and restored through... well, just read the game rules and see.

Genre Tropes

   * Pirates (Parrots, Jolly Roger, Safe Port, Swashbuckling)

Three things, it says, so I'm dropping the swashbuckling.

The Parrot is, of course, the mobile phone. No scum is complete without the constant sound of text message alerts and squawks from NPCs on the line. In a way, they fulfil the same role as parrots in pirate stories - they let the scriptwriter interject with humorous comments without having to introduce a whole new character.

The Jolly Roger is gang-colours, or marks of tribal identification. I've made it a bit more explicit by having the skull and crossbones as the main gang symbol of the protagonists. Essentially though, in piratical fiction the "Jolly Roger" is a sign that our ne'er do well protagonists have arrived. It is a sign of contempt for authority, and a declaration of war against society. It invokes shudders of fear from "normal people". Sounds like a gang marking to me...

Safe port is "the flat", which we talk about more in the rules. The council estate is the equivalent of the high seas, but once back in your apartment, you can lock the door and have a kip in peace, knowing that you're not going to get knifed, because your mums there keeping an eye on you.

I'm going to play up other piratical themes as well:

• "Buried treasure" - The stories will often revolve around hidden stashes of loot, though generally not actually chests of gold.
• "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.

Images

http://flickr.com/photos/8077261@N08...7611108521927/ http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/118083.jpg

These two pictures for me broadly depict the sort of "urban decay" setting which I'm looking to evoke. Its a shame there wasn't a picture of a council estate tower block!

The barbed wire and the prison camp, however, gave me the idea that the game should be contained within a small space, where the Scum can run rampant, but that they are closed into it, both metaphorically from lack of social mobility, and literally, by the fact that outside of the estate the police will arrest them. Hence the Estate becomes the prison camp, the police the prison guards, and the law is the barbed wire fence. In fact, I figured why not go the whole hog, and have actual barbed wire around the estate?

Other

   * Board game. (I moved this out of rules, because put here it could be a setting element instead.)

Not using the rules of board games, but rather used them as inspiration points for the various stories.

   * Family.

This is a strong theme.

On the one hand, we have the real families of the Scum, who represent their link back to normal society.

On the other hand, we have the Scum gang themselves, who are like a family, albeit a massively dysfunctional one.

   * Angst.
   * Hope, as a physical element that is as essential for existence as water, oxygen, and fire. (Yup, this was in the last challenge, but no-one used it. It will recur until someone steps up to the challenge )

The Full List

The following section was cut-and-paste lifted from the TRO thread on rpg.net.

Sorry it's very slightly late.

Wow. I had to cut down some of the lists fairly harshly - but here we go.

Choose at least five ingredients total - at least one from each category. And then build a game with them. You've got until the morning of Monday next (the 16th). (The intention is that you've got that Sunday. I doubt judging will happen quickly, given the number of contestants and we've historically been fairly lax on the deadlines.)

Rules constraints

   * Ten statistics. (Skills/Attributes/wounds/whatever.)
   * Multiple Characters per Player.
   * The game must use colors (as a mechanic).
   * Players create their own playable race.
   * Must allow for random character creation.
   * Characters with changing characteristics.
   * Mechanics use some form of a draft.

Genre Tropes Put the three things given into a different genre. (That is, the listed genre is forbidden.)

   * Sentai team. (Super Mode, Attack of the Fifty Foot Whatever, Conservation of Ninjutsu)
   * British Conspiracy Thriller(omnious form of transport, Conspiracy, Public Security)
   * Pirates (Parrots, Jolly Roger, Safe Port, Swashbuckling)
   * Noir (Murder Mystery, Dame in Red, Object of Desire)
   * Superhero (Secret Identities, Flying, Capes)
   * The Pulp Space Opera set: Cosmic Scale, Individuals Against an Empire, Common Fantastic Technology
   * The Police Procedural set: Murder Is a Puzzle, Rules/Law Over All, Mostly Methodical with a Touch of Luck

Images Use anyhow you like. Directly, as inspiration for rules, as something in the setting, anyhow you like.

((see thread))

Other

   * Board game. (I moved this out of rules, because put here it could be a setting element instead.)
   * Family.
   * Angst.
   * Obscure words. (Sorry, I couldn't stand the huge list of obscure words. But this way you can still use them.)
   * "Nature always takes back what was hers."
   * Family Trees
   * Hope, as a physical element that is as essential for existence as water, oxygen, and fire. (Yup, this was in the last challenge, but no-one used it. It will recur until someone steps up to the challenge )