Five Parsecs Q&A

[Ivan Sorensen]

Response to these rules have been super great, so thank you 🙂

Quite a few questions have come in through email and a few of them were asked more than once, so I figured I’d address those on the forum too.

Q: Is this just adventurer/gangs/treasure hunters or can you play army games?

A: The campaign rules are geared towards the former: Adventurers and trouble makers/shooters in the style of Traveller or Firefly.
Absolutely nothing stops you setting up a squad of troops and slugging it out over a military objective but the campaign rules might not be a 100% good fit (though you could easily run a small mercenary squad using them).

Q: What kind of miniatures do I need?

A: Most anything really. You need 5-8 cool figures for your crew and then a random assortment of stuff for the bad guys. People with collections of strange scifi characters will have a good time here.

Scale isn’t too important. They need to be based individually and you need to be able to tell them apart.

Q: Are there vehicle rules?

A: Not in the main rules no. There IS a FiveCore supplement covering vehicles (Heavy Metal) and hopefully this week, I’ll get to update it with some futuristic stuff.

Q: Is the setting important?

A: Not terribly. I happen to think it’s kind of clever but its mostly there to give some direction to things and then let you make up your own stuff. Some of the special characters you can meet are tied to the setting but they’re generic enough you could fit them in anywhere or just change the explanations a bit.

Q: Why is it a supplement?

A: There wasn’t a great option either way. I didn’t want FiveCore players to be paying for essentially the same movement and combat rules again.
On the flip side, making it a supplement will make some people upset. In the end, I made the bundle with core rules and Five Parsecs fit under the 20 dollar mark and the two combined are well over 100 pages, so I felt that was a good compromise.

Q: What mini’s are displayed in the rules?

A: The phenomenal Rusk from Armies Army. You should all go buy these. They really are wonderful little figures.
Most 15mm packs give you 3 poses for 8 figures. These guys give you 10 unique poses in an infantry pack.

 

As an aside, next month, if all goes well, there will be at least one Five Parsecs supplement. Likely a military one but we’ll see. If people have stuff they want to see, I do take suggestions (and bribes paid out in cash or 15mm scifi mini’s).

[Stroezie]

I’ve been reading thru my copy and will definately be using them for my resistance vs secret police encounters.
I was thinking of getting the FiveCore Expansion Bundle to see if I could use the Heavy Metal supplement to play out some VOTOMS mecha style action , like this campaign here http://www.ironhands.com/v2camp01.htm , do you think that would be possible, or would that be something for the new Five Parsecs supplement?

[Ivan Sorensen]

At the moment, it wouldn’t do mecha at all. That WILL be remedied in the future but I am thinking anime style Mecha may need something a bit more detailed than the usual fare. People would want hit locations and whatnot, wouldn’t they?

 

edit: Let me clarify:

When I update the vehicle rules, I will add walker rules and they’ll be able to run a mecha style thing. I want to do something that is more properly mecha focused in the future though. Does that make sense?

[Stroezie]

That’s just it, in VOTOMS the mecha are relatively small and fragile, more like big powered suits, and are often destroyed quite easily.
I’ve thought of just statting them out as normal grunts but the problem with that is that I want to have the option of having the pilots be able to exit the mecha and still be part of the game and then there just isn’t enough difference between pilot and mecha if that makes any sense?

[Ivan Sorensen]

Aha, that should be pretty easy to figure something out for. Let me do some thinking and I’ll try to get some basic ideas together tonight and put them on my blog.

I was thinking more in the style of Full Metal Panic and such, which is a different kettle of fish.

[kyoteblue]

You know a link to the rules would be helpful….

[Ivan Sorensen]

http://www.wargamevault.com/product/132176/Five-Parsecs-From-Home

Just for you old man 🙂

[kyoteblue]

Thanks Dude!!

[Ivan Sorensen]

http://fivemennormandy.blogspot.com/2014/08/big-power-armour-or-tiny-mecha.html

 

A quick draft at some mecha stuff that seems to fit the smaller design of the VOTOM’s. As an aside apparently neither Netflix nor Amazon has it for streaming. I was quite dismayed last night.

It does make reference to the Threat dice from the Heavy Metal supplement. If you don’t have that, just roll a Kill die for weapons that are capable of hurting a vehicle.

[Author]

Posts