Starport Scum Crew Creation House Rules
Number of Starting Traits
The core rules of Starport Scum define the starting dice pool for a character and also offer a table where you can roll to determine a random number of starting traits based on character class. This is suitable for a new campaign but if you are converting from an existing game to Starport Scum you might want some guidance how to pick a reasonable number of starting traits. I suggest the following system:
| Character Class | Dice Pool | # of Traits |
|---|---|---|
| Goon | 2 | 0 |
| Bruiser | 2 | 1 |
| Ace | 3 | 2 |
| Hero | 3 | 4+ |
I am primarily basing this on two sources:
- Core rules, “Assigning Traits”, page 44
- The Faction subsystem that came with the Starport Scum Storyteller’s Guide.
The Assigning Traits section contains this table:
| Roll | Ace | Hero | Player Character |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 |
| 2 | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 3 | 1 | 2 | 3 |
| 4 | 2 | 3 | 3 |
| 5 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
| 6 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
(Player characters are “used for campaigns where each player controls a single character only.”)
The Faction subsystem gives this guidance for creating a Faction:
| Status | Dice Pool | Number of traits |
|---|---|---|
| Minor, trivial or insignificant | 2 | 0 |
| Modest | 2 | 1 |
| Expansive | 3 | 2 |
| Major power player | 3 | 3 |
| Defining in its field | 4 | 4+ |
I think these status labels map pretty well to the character classes:
- Goons are minor or trivial characters
- Bruisers are modest characters with human average abilities in most areas and possibly one area that they have some specialization in
- Aces are “expansive” characters in that their role in the story is like a “co-star”
- Heros are major power players in the story
Number of Character Classes per Crew
Again there is a system in the core book where you can randomly roll to generate the composition of your crew. For an established crew I think having an array of pre-defined choices makes more sense. For this I suggest the following options:
- 2 Heroes
- 1 Hero and 2 Aces
- 4 Aces
- 1 Hero, 1 Ace, 2 Bruisers
- 3 Aces and 2 Bruisers
- 1 Hero and 4 Bruisers
- 2 Aces and 4 Bruisers
- 1 Aces and 6 Bruisers
I don’t suggest the use of Goons for PC characters as I think they work better for NPC “minions.”
(Thanks to Scott Pyle’s Super Skirmish Gaming for the example starting team arrays which I’ve borrowed and mapped to the Starport Scum classes.)
Starting Gear
Page 46 says:
“All characters will begin the game with a basic firearm and any mundane equipment needed.”
This should cover most of your needs when starting with existing characters. If you have characters that have specialized gear (the game builds these out using gear TAGS & CONDITIONS - which are just TRAITS by another name) then I’d recommend giving Aces character 1 piece of cool gear and Heroes up to 2 pieces of cool gear.
I hope these tips help you get your Starport Scum game off the ground!