Five Parsecs from Home - Review

Hello and Welcome Back, 

Now I have a couple of games under my belt I thought I would cobble together a review of the 5 Parsecs rules.

5 Parsecs from home is a solo tabletop Science Fiction/Space Opera adventure game by Ivan Sorensen and published by Modiphius Entertainment. We are now at Version 3 which has grown and ironed out a few kinks.

You play a crew of a small star ship looking for work around frontier space getting into and hopefully out of trouble. The game is set in its own space opera background although the author actively encourages the players to use the rules in their own settings if they wish. If you check out various Facebook groups and discord channels you will find players applying the rules to the Star Wars, Star Trek, Firefly/Serenity, Alien, 40K, Necromunda (yeah I know its 40K) and Deadzone universes. Some players even use their own made up settings, myself included.

The Crew of the Problem Child aka Loop's Heros

The game is figure agnostic so you can happily raid your collection and dust off old figures, allowing you mixing and matching them together. There is nothing stopping you playing with paper chits for the figures should you wish.

While the game is solo, you could have someone play your opponents and there are notes for allowing players to play co-operatively either with one crew or a crew each.

Ever since getting my grubby mitts on the rulebook a couple of years ago I have been dying to give them a spin. My first impressions was that it was a nice rule book, but as it’s a solo set the amount of tables looked a bit daunting. However the tables follow each other logically and once you have used them that fear will melt away.  One nice aspect to the rules is that the Author encourages players to change or ditch rules to suit themselves. It is refreshing to see.

The first step is crew creation. You have a choice between a all human crew (for those of you wanting a Firefly style adventure) or a crew that is a mixture of races. If you are playing a different setting you can always substitute the closest alien to those in the Unity Universe.

A typical crew size is 6, although you can go larger or smaller with the crew if you wish. You roll on the various tables which gives you the stat lines for the Captain & Crew. They will also give you background to the characters and gives character motivations. The dice decide everything, all you have to do is come up with their names. You also get to roll what motivates and binds the crew and with a little creative thinking you can draft a story about how they met.

You will also roll crew equipment and weapons, which is up to the Captain to dole out each mission. This also allows for characters to be given the right kit and weapons as the campaign progresses.

After this you get to create the crew’s ship and how much your captain owes on it. All you have to do is name the hulk of junk you are flying about in.

Then you get into the meat and gravy. Each game is called a Campaign Turn. You get to choose what the end of the campaign should be (so many games played, target events, character development milestones) and you also choose what mode to play the campaign in. I am currently playing Normal but there is easy and a few harder modes which increase the enemies you will face among other things. I would keep those modes for a more seasoned crew as it can get a little exciting on Normal mode with a crew starting out in the adventure business.

Your captain has to pay the crew (they will strike!), pay off the debt on the ship (or it may be repossessed), dole out equipment and jobs. The main pregame jobs are (but is not exhaustive) is to find a job patron, trade, distract rivals (these will mount up as the campaign progresses) or hunt rivals down.

You then create the game from the job offer which says what, who, when, where, payment, bonuses, battlefield conditions, enemy numbers, equipment, specialists and their disposition.  The disposition describes how your enemy deploys and its approach to you being there.

Now all you need to do is tie it all together so the mission fits a story. I must admit I find this step fun but it can be a challenge trying to figure out. Then again you can always spend a Story point from your bank which will allow you to reroll a mission or enemy. Another option is to make up a scenario if it fits the story better or to use an enemy that fits better.

Off you go and good luck on your mission. The game is aimed at 28 to 32mm figures and a typical battlefield size is 3 x 3 foot although with smaller crews you might want to use a 2 x 2 foot board. The rules can be used with 15mm figures if you use cm rather than inches. There is also advice on how to populate your table with terrain. I tend to ignore that bit as I am lucky to have piles of terrain and I love a densely covered table, just to create headaches for everyone.

Then there is the after battle section where you get paid, figure out what has happened to your injured crew members, calculate experience and improve your characters. You can also go out trading for new kit or upgrade your ship. I think you can also recruit new crew members here. You also figure out if your opponent becomes a rival or if the planet is about to be invaded by Unity. I ignore this roll as I am using my own setting with many different factions.

Then you are back to the generation of the next turn.

The combat rules are D6 based pretty easy to learn and games seem to take 30 to 60 minutes to play. A player can burn through a few campaign turns in a evening. Or gamers like myself who find free time limited can work out a mission one day, set the table up on another and play the next day (or in my case a few weeks later).

One of the joys of 5 Parsecs is the additional rules available in the Trailblazers tool kit (which also has Ship and colony name generators and an introductory campaign), Freelancers Handbook, Fixers guidebook and Bug hunt (one for Aliens and Starship Troopers movies lovers) which all expand the game and the Unity universe (these four titles are available in the Five Parsecs Compendium). There is also plenty of player homebrew rules available online in various Face book groups.

So far I am really enjoying playing the rules and think it could be changed easily for many other Sci Fi game settings. Now all I need is for Ivan Sorensen & Modiphius Entertainment to give the Post Apocalyptic 5 Clicks from the Zone rules the same treatment….pretty pleeeaaassssseeee!

Thanks for reading and go give 5 Parsecs from home a whirl. It’s a blast.