What Goes Down
Roll d66 (two dice, first as tens and second as units, 11 to 66) for the scene that moves the story. This is not Random Encounters, which stay the small stuff. These are the beats the Crew hits when they follow a Lead into a Facility: the meeting, the fight, the reveal, the heist in miniature. The type tells you the flavour of the scene, so you can reroll or cherry-pick to keep the night varied.
The loop: roll a Lead to find out where the Crew goes, roll here for what happens when they get there, and when the scene resolves, roll a new Lead and go again. Keep the loop turning until the scenario's own ending is in reach. Hand out Flow for every clever, audacious way the Crew breaks a beat open.
| d66 | Type | What Goes Down |
|---|---|---|
| 11 | Investigation | The Talking Wall. The contact never showed, but they left the answer where only a writer would ever look: a fresh piece on the back wall, the throw-up itself a code, the fill-colours spelling a route to anyone who came up in the scene. Read it (Focus+Know or Crime+Streetwise) and the next move is painted two metres tall in plain sight. Buff it by accident, lean on it, smudge the wet edge, and the lead's gone with the primer, and the contact, wherever they're hiding, is going to be extremely unimpressed. |
| 12 | Combat | Handshake, Then Sirens. The meet goes clean: a nervous face slips the Crew what they came for in a dead-end alley, hands shaking, eyes everywhere, and the exact second it hits the Crew's palm, a Talos squad folds in off both ends like a trap that was always going to spring (Cannon Fodder, 9 Grit, Basic Attack, Basic Defense). Fight through, ride the walls out, or grab the terrified face and run. Whatever's on that chip was worth an ambush, which means it's worth every bruise it takes to keep it. |
| 13 | Social | Eat First, Talk After. The one person who knows won't say a single word until the Crew sits, eats, and proves they're human beings and not just another crew on the make (Smooth+Speech, over a plate that mysteriously keeps refilling). Every course is a test: how they talk to the cook, whether they rush, whether they notice the kid doing homework in the corner. Clear the table with grace and the whole story spills out with the coffee. Insult the cooking, even slightly, even by accident, and the door was already open on the way in. |
| 14 | Chase | The Bolt. The mark takes one look at the Crew's colours and is simply gone, over a fence, through a laundromat, onto a moving tram, running with the specific desperation of someone with a very good reason (mini-chase, Need 8). Run them down before they reach whoever they're running to, because that person is the actual problem. Corner them, breathless and cornered and out of city to run through, and they trade the lead for their skin, gasping, grateful, and suddenly very willing to be helpful. |
| 15 | Infiltration | Behind the Cage. What the Crew needs is locked in a room that isn't on any floor plan, doesn't officially exist, and is guarded by one bored man counting the minutes to his break by the vending machine. Slip in on the gap (Crime+Stealth) or talk the key right out of the right pocket (a smile, a story, 1 Cash). Whatever's inside is the next thread, and the sheer amount of effort spent hiding a room this thoroughly tells the Crew exactly, precisely, alarmingly how much it matters. |
| 16 | Spectacle | The Frame Snaps Shut. Halfway through the job the truth lands like a dropped shutter: the lead was bait, the contact was wearing a wire the whole time, and the entire scene was staged, dressed, and lit to catch the Crew clean on camera for a broadcast somebody's already cueing up. The trap's sprung. The only way out is through the lens: make the footage a highlight reel instead of an arrest, so good, so funny, so undeniably cool that the clip Vivid meant as evidence becomes the best advert the Crew ever had. |
| 21 | Investigation | Follow the Money. A trail of Vivid Cash, a bribe log, a betting slip, a receipt for something no honest person buys, ties the whole job to somebody nobody in their right mind suspected. Piece it together (Focus+Detect), watch the numbers line up, and a name drops out of the arithmetic that changes who the Crew's really working against, and worse, why. The money doesn't lie. The money never lies. The money is, in fact, the only thing in this entire city that has never once told the Crew a lie, and it's damning. |
| 22 | Combat | The Wrong Turf. The lead runs straight through a rival crew's block, and they're not in a sharing mood tonight, or any night, but especially tonight. It's fists, boards, and paint, not guns, but it's real, it's fast, and it's deeply personal (rival Goons, 6 Grit, Basic Attack, Basic Defense). Win their respect with a move they can't help but admire, or win their fear with one they can't help but flinch from. Either one opens the road, and either one, handled right, turns tonight's enemies into next week's uneasy allies. |
| 23 | Social | The Price of Talking. The source has exactly what the Crew needs and a problem only the Crew can fix: a debt with legs, a bully with a schedule, a kid who fell in with the wrong tower. No favour, no info, that's the deal, stated plainly, non-negotiably, while they refuse to make eye contact. Solve it fast, clean, and with a little style, and they hand over more than they ever promised, and, quietly, become one of the Crew's for life, remembering the debt long after the Crew forgets it. |
| 24 | Chase | Grab and Go. The thing the Crew needs is already moving, and moving fast: strapped to a truck, riding a train, zipped into a courier's bag, tucked under a rival's arm as they skate away grinning. Catch it before it's gone for good (mini-chase, Need 10, and a Critical stunt is worth +1 Speed). Miss it and the lead literally leaves town, out of the sector, onto the mainline, into someone else's story, and the Crew is left standing on a platform watching it shrink. |
| 25 | Infiltration | Party Crashers. The next piece is inside an event the Crew was violently not invited to: a gala, a wedding, a corporate launch with a guest list that scans your bones at the door. Blend in (Smooth+Flirt, or a stolen invite, or the sheer nerve of walking in like you own the catering) and work the room, because the answer is a whispered conversation two loungers away, held by people who'd stop talking instantly if they clocked a single spray-stained hand in the crowd. The canapes are, everyone agrees, disappointing. |
| 26 | Spectacle | The Reveal on the Big Screen. Right as the Crew closes on the truth, it goes public without them: a name, a face, a crime, splashed across every screen in the sector by someone else entirely, someone with their own agenda and better timing. Now the whole city knows what the Crew just learned, all at once, and the quiet investigation just became a very loud race, because everyone who saw that screen is now heading for the same place the Crew is, and some of them are much closer. |
| 31 | Investigation | The Witness Who Won't. Somebody saw everything and wants, with their whole terrified heart, to un-see it, so they've buried themselves somewhere small and dim and are pretending very hard to be furniture. Coax it out gently (Smooth+Speech), or read the room they're hiding in (Focus+Detect) for the one detail they're too scared to say out loud. What they know cracks the whole case wide open, if the Crew can make them feel safe for thirty consecutive seconds, which, given who's hunting them, is going to be the hard part. |
| 32 | Combat | Enhanced. A Talos officer buzzing hard on Yellow Dust plants itself squarely between the Crew and the next step, grinning too wide, moving too fast, and shrugging off hits it has no business shrugging off (+1 Attack and Defense, and the Hot Box lands like a truck). Drop it, dodge it, or find the antidote somewhere in the room and bring it back to human mid-swing. Whatever this thing is guarding, it went to a lot of chemical trouble to be standing right here, which is the best confirmation the Crew is on the right track. |
| 33 | Social | Two Masters. Two people want the Crew's help, both dangling the exact same lead like bait, and only one of them is telling the truth. Read them (Crime+Streetwise), weigh the tells, pick a side, and live with it, because there's no splitting the difference here. Choose right and a door swings open and stays open. Choose wrong and the Crew walks into the next scene carrying someone else's knife, aimed at someone else's back, on behalf of someone who was lying the whole warm, smiling time. |
| 34 | Chase | The Signal Trail. The lead is a signal, a pirate broadcast, a tracker's ping, a Talos drone phoning home, and it will not sit still, skipping across the rooftops like it knows it's being followed. Chase it across the skyline (mini-chase, or Focus+Detect each leg) before it goes dark and takes the trail with it. Where it finally lands, panting, cornered, or simply stopping because it arrived, is the next place the Crew needs to be, and it got there first, and it's waiting. |
| 35 | Infiltration | The Long Con Corridor. The way forward is a facility that only opens for someone who belongs: the right badge, the right voice, the right uniform, the right bored confidence. Get in as staff (a friendly Face, a forged ID, a borrowed clipboard and the will to live) and walk the halls like the Crew has walked them a thousand times, because the instant anyone looks twice, asks a follow-up, or notices the paint under a fingernail, the corridor stops being a shortcut and becomes a killbox with very good lighting. |
| 36 | Spectacle | The Room Goes Dark. Mid-scene the lights die, the alarms scream, and everything changes at once: a blackout, a lockdown, a rival crew hitting the same target from the opposite side, all of it converging into one beautiful, roaring mess. Chaos is cover. Use the dark, the confusion, the strobing red, to grab what the Crew came for and get gone before the power comes back, before the enemy regroups, and before whoever else is in here in the dark realises the Crew is in here too. |
| 41 | Investigation | The Locked Blackbook. The answer's in someone's private records, and they did not want it read: a ledger, a sketchbook, a drive, locked, coded, booby-trapped with spite. Crack it (Focus+Fix or Crime+Dexterity) and the pages name every place the Crew still needs to hit, in order, with notes. Fumble it, though, and the owner knows instantly that it was opened, and now they're changing every plan, every location, every lock, staying one furious step ahead, because the one thing worse than a secret is a secret that knows it's been seen. |
| 42 | Combat | Held. Someone the Crew needs is being held: a Face, a witness, a kid in over their head, and the people holding them want either a fight or a trade, and honestly seem happy with either. Bust them out loud, all noise and paint and audacity, or smooth, with a swap, a distraction, a con. Either way the freed captive owes the Crew a name and gives it up gladly, along with three things nobody asked about and one detail that changes the whole job. |
| 43 | Social | The Toll. A gatekeeper stands between the Crew and the next place, arms folded, and they don't want Cash, they want a show: a favour done, a piece painted on their wall, a beef settled, a trick landed they can brag about for a month. Pay in style (Smooth, or a proper stunt with an audience) and they wave the Crew through, delighted, and then tell their entire block about it, which means by morning the Crew's rep has grown and a stranger's already leaning on that same gate for the same reason. |
| 44 | Chase | Everybody Wants It. The lead is one physical thing, and the Crew is very much not the only crew, fence, or Talos unit that just realised where it is: everyone converges on it at once, from every direction, in a glorious scrum. It's a scramble, not a straight fight, all grabs and shoves and desperate stunts (a chase with everyone reaching for the same prize). First one out the door with it writes the next chapter, and everyone else spends the rest of the night in the chapter about chasing them. |
| 45 | Infiltration | Under Their Noses. The Crew has to lift something from a place that's fully staffed, wide awake, and going about its busy day: a market, an office, a shop floor, a clinic. Palm it, swap it, or simply walk it out in plain sight (Crime+Dexterity, or a good enough distraction) while people work around them. The trick was never the taking, it's the timing: nobody realises the thing is gone until the Crew is three sectors away, and by then the only witness is a very confused security review. |
| 46 | Spectacle | The Villain Calls. The person behind all of it reaches out mid-job, on a screen, through a speaker, once memorably via a possessed vending machine, to gloat, to threaten, or to float a deal wrapped in silk and menace. It's the Crew's first real look at who they're actually fighting, the voice, the ego, the tell. Play it cool and read them like a mark for the one weakness they can't help showing off, or throw the offer straight back in their teeth and make the whole thing gloriously, permanently personal. |
| 51 | Investigation | Ghost in the Records. A person, a place, a piece of art has been scrubbed from every system in the city like it never existed, no file, no photo, no trace, and that flawless absence is the single biggest clue there is, because you don't erase something that thoroughly unless it terrified you. Find who did the scrubbing and why (Focus+Know), and the exact shape of the hole in the data, what fits it, what's missing, points straight at the next move like a chalk outline nobody meant to leave. |
| 52 | Combat | The Setpiece Scrap. The fight goes down somewhere that badly wants to join in: a burning kitchen spitting oil, a rooftop in a howling gale, a floor laced with live wires, a train doing eighty (combat, plus a Reaction to the room itself each turn). Use the room, don't just survive it: the wind, the fire, the sparks, the speed are all weapons for whoever's brave enough to fight with them. Whoever's left standing when the room finishes its own contribution gets the answer off the loser, along with the credit. |
| 53 | Social | The Reunion. The lead runs straight through someone from a Hero's past: family, an old crew, an ex, an enemy who used to be a best friend before the thing nobody talks about. It's personal long before it's useful (play it out, properly, let it hurt a little, then Smooth+Speech). Mend it, exploit it, or blow it sky-high, whatever the Hero can live with, but the history between them is the exact key that fits the next lock, and there's no picking that lock any other way. |
| 54 | Chase | Escort. The Crew has to move something fragile, or someone terrified, across hostile ground without losing, dropping, or breaking it: a witness who won't stop talking, a package that mustn't tip, a rig held together with hope (a chase, with a cargo penalty that punishes recklessness). Get it there whole and the delivery cracks the whole job wide open. Lose it, smash it, let it slip down a stairwell, and the trail goes stone cold, and the person who was counting on the Crew was counting hard. |
| 55 | Infiltration | The Quiet Hour. There's a short window when the place the Crew needs goes nearly empty, a shift change, a prayer, a lunch rush pulling everyone one floor down, and it slams shut fast. Move in the gap (Crime+Stealth, on a hard timer that the DJ should count down out loud, cruelly). Overstay it by even a minute and the place fills back in around the Crew like a tide coming home, workers and guards and normality flooding every exit, with the Crew still very much inside and now very much surrounded. |
| 56 | Spectacle | The Crowd Turns. A mob forms mid-scene, sudden and enormous: a protest, a riot, a market stampede, a festival crush, thousands of bodies that can be the Crew's shield or the Crew's tomb depending entirely on the next few seconds. Steer it (Smooth+Speech, or a stunt big and bright enough to give a crowd a direction) and ride the human wave straight to the next place, carried on two thousand shoulders. Misjudge it and get swept under with everyone else, into the crush, away from the door, gone. |
| 61 | Investigation | The Body of Evidence. What the Crew finds is proof, ugly, undeniable, and genuinely dangerous to be holding: a recording, a rigged draw laid bare, a name that officially cannot exist. Getting it isn't the scene, that part's almost easy. Understanding what it means, who it burns, and why someone died to hide it, that's the scene (Focus+Know). The truth points the way forward like an arrow, and paints a fat target on the Crew's backs at the same time, because now they know, and things that know don't get to stay comfortable. |
| 62 | Combat | Reinforcements. The scene's nearly won, the Crew can taste it, and that's exactly when the second wave arrives: more Dogs pouring in, a rival's backup rolling up, a war mecha touching down with a crunch that everyone feels through their feet (raise the pressure, add fresh Grit, change the whole shape of the fight). It's a stand or a sprint, decided right now. Break through and the way ahead is clear, loud, and legendary, because the whole sector just heard the Crew win a fight they had no business winning. |
| 63 | Social | The Turncoat. Someone deep inside the enemy wants out and will trade everything for a way clear: patrol routes, passwords, the boss's schedule, the boss's fears, the boss's shameful secret. Earn their trust (Smooth+Speech, and mean it), then protect it like it's made of glass, because it is. A single friendly voice on the inside can hand the Crew the next three moves at once, gift-wrapped, but a turncoat is a frightened person doing a brave thing, and frightened people break, and this one is one bad moment from bolting. |
| 64 | Chase | The Countdown. Something is about to happen and the Crew has minutes, maybe less: a train leaves, a deal closes, a piece gets buffed, a hostage gets loaded into a van with tinted windows. This is a race against a clock, not an enemy (a chase, or stacked rolls, under a timer the DJ counts down without mercy). Beat it and the lead's still warm, still catchable, still theirs. Miss it and the moment's gone, and the Crew is left chasing a colder, meaner, further version of the same thread. |
| 65 | Infiltration | The Vault Run. The next piece sits behind real, serious, no-jokes security: laser grids, biometrics, pressure plates, a full Talos detail, the works, all of it awake. This is the heist in miniature, and the Crew can plan it clever or improvise it desperate (stacked rolls, one loud failure away from total disaster). Crack it clean and they walk out with the answer and a story they'll dine on for a year. Trip one wire, one plate, one beam, and the whole place wakes up around them at once, and now it's the other kind of scene entirely. |
| 66 | Spectacle | The Turning Point. Everything the Crew's been chasing comes to a head right here, in the open, in front of the whole watching city: a confrontation, a rescue, a heist gone gloriously loud, a name painted where two hundred million people can read it. This is the beat the whole scenario has been quietly building toward, and everybody can feel it land. Win it and the ending comes into view, close enough to touch. Lose it and the stakes double on the spot. Either way, nobody who saw it, on either side, ever forgets it. |