Five Parsecs from Home thoughts

Five Parsecs from Home is by Ivan Sorensen/ Nordic Weasel Games, with a very nice 3rd edition hardback book published in 2021 by Modiphius (also available in pdf). I've played one campaign of nineteen games, taking my crew through an unscripted journey of discovery and disaster. I've put up a summary page for my campaign here.

How it started.

5PfH is a solo skirmish science fiction campaign game. You run a warband of six figures. Combat is pretty simple, and a skirmish would usually take me about 45 minutes. There is a variable initiative system so it is not purely IGOUGO. On the tabletop, the enemy work with a simple AI. There are not a lot of special rules or abilities to remember in the heat of battle, which I appreciate. There were still plenty of things I forgot or overlooked! Some solo rulesets give you too many rules to play with and become too complicated-  the simplicity of 5PfH is a real boon.

How it's going.

The true joy of 5PfH is its campaign system, and numerous D100 tables of random events. Each campaign phase may see you travelling to a new planet, exploring a location, and having unexpected interactions, before even setting up a figure on the tabletop. When it comes to the tabletop, there are a vast array of potential missions and enemies. There are random events within games as well- enemy reinforcements, flanking forces and environmental changes have all affected my games significantly.

Gallius Marbec.
Wanted to become a rogue trader.
Last seen on fire.

I would usually play a game, then complete all of the campaign events and roll to see the details of my next mission- objectives, enemies, battlefield oddities. This would give me a chance to join the events into a coherent story- I would often be somewhat amazed by how a narrative would emerge from a series of D100 rolls. Ivan Sorensen calls this 'adventure wargaming', which reminds me of the '3d roleplay hobby game' logo on the Oldhammer boxes.

Furthermore, by seeing what was next, I would then be inspired to print and paint up the upcoming enemies and think about terrain.

Julio Rybeck.
Wanted to escape with his girl.
Bled out alone by the drainage pipes.

I really enjoyed rolling up characters, but the crew log sheets given are woefully inadequate for all the info to keep track of.

Venda Hezel. Liked tinkering with machinery. Shot.

The combat results can be somewhat binary- figures tend to be alive then suddenly out of action. It can be a bit unforgiving, and a series of bad rolls can see fortunes change rapidly. I never got the feeling of my ogryn Chugger, for example, tanking multiple hits and eventually going down. It was more that he was fine until he wasn't.

EF-733.
Wanted to gather knowledge.
Shot by miners in the ash wastes.

Another issue is the lack of a guiding narrative arc. You will need to do some light DM'ing to tie disparate storylines together and come up with climactic battles. Otherwise, it could be a series of disjointed scuffles. That said, however, there is much more freedom to do what you want within a campaign than you would find in a more railroaded experience requiring specific terrain for scenarios. Once I became more comfortable with not having my hand held, the narrative opportunities with the campaign were limitless.

Lady Heldycryn.
Wanted a life of adventure.
Captured by Genestealer Cultists.
Fate unknown...

Money was never really tight for my crew. They paid off their ship pretty early, and then built up a large armoury of captured and found weapons and equipment.

Roma Jyan.
Her lover died.
She was shot by cultists.

The game is miniatures agnostic. I shoehorned it into a Necromunda setting, and enjoyed making weapons, enemies, and terrain fit the scene. It would work very well for Star Wars as well, and Firefly or the Expanse without aliens.

Konrad Rathgir. Left on his own terms to become a freelancer.

I highly recommend the Compendium as well. This is a grab-bag of rules variants and options that can be bolted onto your games as you see fit. The scenarios are not always balanced, potentially being either quite easy or devilishly unattainable, and the Compendium gives even more variety and stops your games being too one-sided as your experience grows. There are many more things in here which help alleviate some of the minor quibbles I've mentioned above- but it does run the risk of become unwieldy, looking for rules all over the place.

I would like to see some ideas for light vehicles and mounts- mechs, jeeps, bikes, skimmers, horses/ giant lizards etc. Maybe something for crew-served weapons?

Stazie Rendir, Underhive Guide.
Multiple gunshot wounds.

I've had thoughts of another campaign, with a smaller crew as they try to escape the Underhive. More milliasaurs and sump spiders, less reliable weapons and ammunition. The beauty of 5PfH is how flexible the system is and how it grows its own narrative.

Corvin Akenz. Traitoris extremis. Boo, hiss!

Highly recommended for solo campaign skirmish science fiction gaming!

Chugger, the people's champion.
Retired peacefully, gives circus rides to orphans.
Definitely not dead.