5 Parsecs from Home: Crew and Campaign Generation

What is 5 Parsecs from Home?

I've begun playing a neat little game called 5 Parsecs from Home, "What is that?" you ask? Well, the store page says that 5 Parsecs from home is, "...a solo adventure wargame where you assemble a ragtag crew of galactic trailblazers and head out to explore the stars, pick up jobs, and every now and then —  engage in some action-packed, sci-fi combat!" All that plus TABLES, oh so.many.tables! 

There's tables to generate characters complete with backgrounds and motivations, planets and attributes for those planets, there's even tables to tell you what other tables to roll on!

That being said, I love the tables. Yes, it requires a lot of rolling but, at the beginning of a campaign you're procedurally generating an entire crew, your (space)ship, and the first world you encounter. Plus the various backgrounds, patrons (quest givers), rivals, quests, and more that may be pertinent to your story.

Consider this the world (and crew) building that informs the rest of your campaign as your ragtag band of scoundrels adventures across the galaxy. It takes about an hour in total, but the book is laid out quite cleanly and walks you through everything without any issues!

So, that's the introduction out of the way, let's get into the Crew I rolled up!

Generating My Crew

There are a few methods suggested in the book to generate your crew, there is the standard method which is to have 3 humans, up to 1 bot, and up to 2 primary aliens - you may choose a baseline human for any of the non-human slots. However, I went with the full random method, aside from my Captain who I envisioned as a baseline Human.

So, after rolling about a dozen dice I ended up with not one but TWO "Strange" characters, which means I had to roll on another subtable to determine what type of "strange" they were. We ended up with one Mutant and one Manipulator (a species of cephalopod bureaucrats that rarely find themselves on adventures).

This is a quite atypical crew setup, so I'm excited to see where they go from here!

I rolled a bunch more times to generate my crew member's background, motivation, and class. I won't fully recount that process here but I will give a quick intro to each crew member below, and you can already see the type of emergent storytelling that can occur in this system (get ready to hear "emergent storytelling" A LOT in this blog series... or maybe not that much since I plan on having most of the following blog posts be narrative in nature).

Introducing My Crew!

Crew Name - The Riftrunners, a band of lovable rogues

Captain Zev Kestrel - A scoundrel hailing from a Research Outpost who is out for REVENGE! He's brought some high tech kit with himself, a glare sword (which is totally NOT a lightsaber) and an Infantry Laser (a long range laser rifle) in addition to some loaded dice and an extra Colony Rifle that can be found in the ship's hold. 

The rifle that is, not the dice. Those are his, hands off!

Lira Venn - Our local mutant extraordinnaire, she's the first of our "Strange" crew members. She's a Troubleshooter (someone who fixes everything, mechanical and otherwise) from the Lower depths of a Megacity. She's here to gain wealth and has even brought some of her own, bringing a whopping 4 credits to the crew! 

Dravik Tal - The second of our "Strange" crew members and they both fit the bill, he's a Manipulator - a cephalopod race that rarely venture out of their homes in the Unity bureacracy. They have multiple tentacles and word has it they can shoot two pistols in a turn, interesting. Outwardly Dravik is a humble Bureacrat but in reality he's a Special Agent and he's looking for... love? My, oh my what sort of emergent story does he have to tell!

Creed Silas - A holy man hailing from a primitive world, Silas was (is?) part of a Religious Cult and he is on a mission to find THE TRUTH. In our world I've given him some backstory and his Religious Cult is called "The Cult (or Church as they have it) of the Abyss" that believes annihilation is the natural end of all things, specifically by being devoured into a black hole. He brought us rumor of a quest, which makes sense as he's seeking leads on THE TRUTH. He also brings a gun and a blade for when the going gets tough - only the black hole can take him darn it!

Juniper Vex - Juniper hails from a Military Outpost and is a Bounty Hunter looking to get famous. You wouldn't know that speaking to her though, she's kind as can be but don't mistake that kindness for weakness, lest you end up at the business-end of her shotgun. She's tough and speedy - a rumor also brought her to the crew

Dax Holloway - Dax was (is?) a Ganger (aka Gangster but without the "t" because that's so extra) who is trying to escape from his Frontier Gang. He's got a blade and gun for when the going gets tough and he's got quick feet, quick reactions, and knows his way around a fight (+1 combat stat)

Our ship is the Emberhawk, a retired military patrol ship which means two things:

1. It's Armored

2. It's expensive

That first bit will help us shrug off damage from asteroids and the like but that second point is going to put a real dent in our wallet. We started with 16 total credits, but narratively I'm saying that the crew aren't pooling credits quite yet, since they hardly know each other - that leaves Zev with only 6 credits at the start of the game!

Did I mention we're about 40 credits in debt to begin with due to our nice, fancy, expensive ship? So we've got some motivation to take to the stars and make some quid!

Next time I'll introduce our first planet and the hijinks that ensues as the crew makes landfall (or tries to)!