High Colony Sam Landry turn 1 - a 5 Parsecs from Home Campaign

Introduction

I solo play though the first campaign turn of a 5 Parsecs from Home adventure using my own combat rules.  The adventure is based in the High Colonies setting – a colonised solar system in 2228.

Background

So there I was, starting a THW Future Tales solo adventure and had run through the first few scenes. 

But Five Parsecs from Home (2^nd Edition) has been in the back of my mind for a year. Regularly looking at it and in denial I was interested. Finally at the end of October 2019 I started automating as best I could everything in Five Parsecs from Home into a spreadsheet (everything but the combat part!).  I finished this in late November.  I did not want to specifically play with the 5Parsecs combat rules. I have some (unpublished) rules I have used for some previous pulp games and (unpublished) rules I use for WW2 skirmish.  I wanted to combine these rules into something I could reuse across a number of pulp-type games I plan to play (The Department, Pulp Alley campaigns, Battlestations boardgame, possibly the original Warhammer Quest).  I realised my original pulp rules were good as a basis but not suitable for a wider scope so quickly modified them.  A work in progress, they do map directly to the character abilities in 5Parsecs and so are compatible with them.  The main difference is everything is opposed GoalSystem dice roll pools.  Each side will roll 1-5 six-sided dice and compare successes.  GoalSystem is that on each die, a 1-3 is zero successes, 4-5 one success and a 6 is two successes.

I decided to run the adventure using the newly unearthed (by me) High Colonies RPG set in the near future Solar System.  I have a blog page for details on HighColonies setting.

All the campaign turn narrative is generated by the spreadsheet, except the actual encounter.

Changes to the rules

I tried to limit the changes to the rules as much as possible but here they are:

•  Combat rules are different but are compatible with character and weapon stats.  Also, I will be playing encounters on a 2’x2’ board.
• The XP required to level up is different for each level and generally harder than the rules (this aligns to how the abilities are used in combat).
• Luck was added to the rules in version .10 but I have not included it.
• Story Points are tracked but I think I will only use them to save PCs from death.
• I added in some terrain generation rules (the encounter objective aligns to 4 terrain types that then generate a 3x3 matrix of terrain.
• I added in additional mission types from the 1^st edition for Opportunity and Quest missions.

Getting the team together

The team met through a random meeting in a bar and are best characterised as Lovable rogues.

The 6 person team:

1. Samantha Landry is a Female Scavenger with a Space station background and a motivation for Survival. Stats: Reaction 2 (body wire increased reaction), Speed 4, Combat 0, Toughness 4, Savvy 0, XP 0. Items: Body wire reflex enhancing implants.
2. Elijah Wagner is a Male Scientist with a Industrial world background and a motivation for Adventure. Stats: Reaction 1, Speed 4, Combat 0, Toughness 3, Savvy 1, XP 0.
3. Omari Crawford is a Male Working class with a War torn hell hole background and a motivation for Escape. Stats: Reaction 2, Speed 5, Combat 0, Toughness 3, Savvy 1, XP 0.
4. Cain Randolph is a Male Scoundrel with a Bureaucratic class background and a motivation for Adventure. Stats: Reaction 1, Speed 5, Combat 0, Toughness 3, Savvy 0, XP 0.
5. Santos Kirk is a Male Enforcer with a Wasteland nomads background and a motivation for Truth. Stats: Reaction 2, Speed 4, Combat 1, Toughness 3, Savvy 0, XP 0.
6. Jaylin Wang is a Female Working class with a Tech guild background and a motivation for Order. Stats: Reaction 1, Speed 4, Combat 0, Toughness 3, Savvy 2, XP 0.

Stash

Low-Tech Weapons: Shotgun, Handgun, Brutal melee weapon, Handgun, Rifle, Shotgun.

High-Tech Weapons: Hand flamer, Hand cannon, Clingfire pistol, Glare sword, Blast rifle.

Military Weapons: Blast rifle.

Gear: Dazzle grenades, Purifier, Nano-doc, Combat armour.

Gadgets: Duplicator.

Credits: 16. Patrons: 2. Rivals: 0. Not on a Quest. Clues: 2. Rumours: 0.

Campaign turn 01 – A fight with raiders

Period 1. Location: Cook. Cook is a Colony station and is at Earth-Moon L3 with a population of 1200,000 that are Wary. The government is Australia and ruled via a Multi-Party Parliament.

The team of 6 is currently Samantha Landry, Elijah Wagner, Omari Crawford, Cain Randolph, Santos Kirk, Jaylin Wang.

Credits: 16. Patrons: 2. Rivals: 0. Not on a Quest. Clues: 2. Rumours: 0.

The team decide to not travel.

Upkeep is 1 Credits.

No one in Sickbay.

Jobs

Crew available for jobs are: Samantha Landry, Elijah Wagner, Omari Crawford, Cain Randolph, Santos Kirk, Jaylin Wang.

Omari Crawford and Cain Randolph look for a patron. 2 Credits are spent to help out. Existing Patron found: Sector government.

Job on offer pays 2 Credits and have 1 turn to execute.

Samantha Landry trains and goes from 0XP to 1XP.

Elijah Wagner trains and goes from 0XP to 1XP.

Santos Kirk explores and finds an Arms dealer. 3 Credits each, in order: Shellgun, Blast rifle, Rifle, Suppression maul, Rattlegun.  Team buys the Shellgun and Blast Rifle (6 Credits).

Jaylin Wang explores and gets a few drinks. No effect.

Total spent on jobs is 8 Credits.

Assigning equipment

Samantha Landry is assigned: Clingfire pistol, Brutal melee weapon, Combat armour, Body wire reflex enhancing implants.

Elijah Wagner is assigned: Hand flamer, Glare sword.

Omari Crawford is assigned: Hand cannon.

Cain Randolph is assigned: Blast rifle.

Santos Kirk is assigned: Shellgun.

Jaylin Wang is assigned: Blast rifle.

Mission

Ok, now for the admission – I have no SF figures.  Well, OK, I have some 15mm unpainted figures that are in storage and did a quick look but cannot find.  I also have little in the way of SF terrain.  So what do I have: 20mm WW2 figures and some terrain not in storage and 20mm railway characters I plan to use for Pulp Alley and similar games.  So the raiders look just like WW2 soviets and our team look like they are waiting for a train 😊 I can suspend my disbelief as I assume the team could look like normal people but with weapons.  Imagine the weapons.  And Cook I a space colony so the terrain could be anything – just so happens to look very “Earthy”.  I thought about adding some SF bits to at least give a semblance, but did look around the house very hard as I was focussed on playing.

No quest.

Mission selected is: Patron mission.

Patron for the mission is Sector government.

Opposition is 7 Aggressive Raiders with a Morale of 2.

Boss: S-4 C-2 T-4 Rifle, Old fashioned blade, Hand gun

Lieutenant: S-4 C-2 T-3 Rifle, Old fashioned blade

Specialist: S-4 C-1 T-3 Shotgun

Raiders: S-4 C-1 T-3 Rifle

Raiders: S-4 C-1 T-3 Rifle

Raiders: S-4 C-1 T-3 Rifle

Raiders: S-4 C-1 T-3 Rifle

The opposition.

Deploy Conditions: None

Notable Sights: None

Mission Target: Patrol. Fight a normal battle and hold the field at the end.

Objective: Store.

Terrain Type: Mixed

Terrain layout (3 x 3 areas):

Open, Open, Open

Open, Crops, Crops

Park, Light woods, Light woods

Store location: 3

The team on the mission:

• Samantha Landry: R-2 S-4 C-0 T-4 Svy-0 Clingfire pistol Brutal melee weapon Armour: Combat armour.
• Elijah Wagner: R-1 S-4 C-0 T-3 Svy-1 Hand flamer Glare sword.
• Omari Crawford: R-2 S-5 C-0 T-3 Svy-1 Hand cannon.
• Cain Randolph: R-1 S-5 C-0 T-3 Svy-0 Blast rifle.
• Santos Kirk: R-2 S-4 C-1 T-3 Svy-0 Shellgun.
• Jaylin Wang: R-1 S-4 C-0 T-3 Svy-2 Blast rifle.

Our team.

The final number of enemies opposing the mission is 7.

Deploy enemies: Set up in one “blob” with 1“ between each figure.

The team seizes the initiative. Any character in your crew may either take a normal move or may fire before the game begins.

The game table with both sides deployed.

Encounter

Note: combat rules used for this encounter are here.

For seizing the initiative, Omari moves up to get into range.

Omari dashes up the side of the road.

For the Quick Phase, only one roll available to assign so give it to Omari to fire as he is a little exposed.  Omari fires at the raider to his front for no effect.

The raiders are aggressive enemies so most advance.  For Omari this is bad as three enemy converge on him.

Aggressive enemies charging forward.  Omari is a target in reach of three of them! 

Omari Vs three Raiders:   Omari does not do well and The Boss is hard to beat (especially when he rolled really well).  Omari is out of the fight.

Omari is out of the fight.  Not unexpected.

The rest of the team now get to respond, revenge for Omari!

Elijah has a hand flamer that can reach the three raiders. Pins the Boss; suppresses a raider.

Jaylin with the blast rifle:  nothing.

Cain with the blast rifle:  pins a raider.

Santos’s shellgun: suppresses a raider.

Sam then charges into melee with the Boss!

After some fire have suppressed some of them, Sam charges into melee with the Boss!

The Boss it out of the fight!  But Sam is pinned in return by one of the other raiders that managing to get in a melee hit even while suppressed.

(turn 2)

Sam, Elijah and Cain go in the Quick Phase.

Sam melees a raider that goes out of the fight

After putting the Boss down last turn, Sam manages to put another raider out of the fight.

 Elijah advances then fires his hand flamer to pins the Lieutenant.

Elijah uses his flamethrower but is obviously unfamiliar with it as it surprisingly does nothing!

Cain uses his blast rifle at raider at the back who is out of the fight!

In response to the above, a raider melees Sam for no effect.

Cian blasts a raider out of the fight!

 The Lieutenant and the Specialist charge at Elijah.

The flamer doing nothing, the two enemy that were targeted charge Elijah.

Elijah out of the fight.

Not surprisingly, Elijah is out of the fight.

The raiders have lost three members, one above morale level.  The raiders decide to retire.

The team has the field!

Post-Encounter

The mission was a success!

The team held the field at the end.

The team did not run away.

The team managed to kill the Boss.

Survival: 4 are OK.  2 are not OK

Elijah Wagner is not OK. Crippling wound Require 1d6 Credits of surgery or suffer -1 permanent reduction to highest of Speed or Toughness. 1 terms in SickBay.

Omari Crawford is not OK. Crippling wound Require 1d6 Credits of surgery or suffer -1 permanent reduction to highest of Speed or Toughness. 1 terms in SickBay.

The team did not make a new Rival.

Pay/salvage is 3 Credits plus Patron bonus of 2 Credits. Total earned is 5 Credits.

Loot! Recreational supplies. Can be sold for 1D6 Credits and crew does not require Upkeep next campaign turn.

Samantha Landry awarded 4 XP for an overall total of 5 XP for surviving and holding the field, inflicted a casualty on the enemy Boss.

Cain Randolph awarded 3 XP for an overall total of 3 XP for surviving and holding the field.

Santos Kirk awarded 3 XP for an overall total of 3 XP for surviving and holding the field.

Jaylin Wang awarded 3 XP for an overall total of 3 XP for surviving and holding the field.

The team do not spend anything shopping.

Equipment malfunction.  A random item in your stash is Destroyed - the Blast rifle.

An event occurs for Cain Randolph. He gets hurt while working on the ship. Spend 1 turn in Sick-Bay.

The Campaign turn has ended.

Verdict

I actually had the game set up for a month to play.  I was uncertain if I could handle playing with 6 unique characters.  So uncertain that I put off playing.  I did play in the end but it was a constant flip to see what characters had what.  I had a 2 page QRS that I now need to make one.  And another good idea would be a second sheet that has the characters, and opposition and weapon descriptions and chances to hit/melee already worked out.  I can do the latter easily from the spreadsheet.

Luckily 2 were knocked down, I fudged it so they were out and left with 4.  I have changed the sheet so 3-4 characters is the norm and hard to recruit after that.  Consequently enemies roll two d4 and chose the best, rather than the best of two d6.   Other than that I had fun and will continue on for a few games at least.  I may also change the combat rules as the distances are so close.  Although I do like the fact that the games are at close range shots and involve melee.  It was also a result of the enemies being aggressive so advanced.

I also need to check out Version 1.13 – I am a minor Patreon supporter and it has a lot more on the Enemy side of things that looks good.  Not sure I am ready to change the sheet yet as have only encountered one enemy so far.  Maybe later.