Campaign Prep
I haven’t *quite* finished the figures, but I wanted to get rolling on my Five Parsecs From Home campaign. Today I’ll be walking through all the setup that goes into a campaign and generating our starting planet.
The next step is to choose a victory condition. I want to let this story evolve naturally rather than use the Story Track optional rules, so I’m going to set our goal as defeating 10 Unique Individuals, including all the crew’s starting Rivals. This is a crew that seems to be all about revenge and agitation, so hunting down important enemies seems to fit well. Eelin’s Rival shows up later in this turn, but with no Unique Individuals. I’ll probably tweak the rules to find a suitable Unique Individual to count as her true Rival. I’ll be using normal difficulty rules, and not adding any house rules.
A Five Parsecs crew starts with 1d6+1 Story Points, I rolled 5. These can be used to alter dice rolls, cash in for some extra money and XP, or buy extra campaign turns.In addition to these story points, we get a few limited use abilities like It’s time to go! to immediately escape a battle or Lucky shot to turn a miss into a hit. I’ve logged those in the crew sheet, they’re all one use each.
I wound up writing through my thoughts on each stage, but I finished by narrativizing all the results into some in-universe journals. If you want to see some more behind the scenes of me working through rolls and decisions, definitely let me know. But I think I’ll try to narrativize each step somewhat, and just add enough context so you can see what’s going on.
Campaign Turn 1
Captain’s Log
Meno VI is a place a good crew can find honest work, no license needed. Or it used to be anyway. I thought it was as good a place as any for the Spirit of Inquiry to find our first job, but no sooner had we touched down than we were bombarded with pings and holo-mail telling us we needed to apply for this and register for that, the deadline is approaching. We’ll need a license if we’re going to stick around. But I also picked up on some radio chatter that some sympathizers from back home are kicking around too. Maybe we’ll be moving on soon anyway. Everyone’s allowances are paid, and we have enough banked to make a payment on the ship mortgage. Now it’s time to start bringing credits in.
(Meno VI is our first randomly generated world – no license needed, but subject to an interdiction where a license will be needed in a few turns. A rival has followed us here, and later I would roll that it’s Eelin’s)
Lani’s Journal
Captain says we’ll find work here. I trust her, but a crew of mercenaries is going to need a steady flow of traditional income as well. While the rest were hunting down leads, I ventured into the heart of the city to see what I could find. Took T’Kara with me, but they disappeared almost immediately. No matter, I can take care of myself. I found some decent deals on a variety of local foodstuffs. With any luck we’ll be able to sell at a profit at our next port. Seems T’Kara found some extra income too – when we met back at the ship, they were carrying a sealed crate. Said not to ask questions. So long as they’re contributing to the crew coffers, I can respect a little initiative.
(Lani took the Trade action and T’Kara took the explore action. Lani got some trade goods we can flip at a future port, T’Kara got a job making a delivery. This has the chance to turn into another Rival)
Arlont’s Journal
Eelin has brought us to Meno VI, a place I have been only once before. But that was in another life. Today we seek honest work. Eelin, Kham, TW-K0, and I surveyed the job boards and mercenary halls for days before we found a handful of openings. One was a corpo, clearly desperate to get something done in advance of the impending licensure requirements. The other TW-K0 found – they always did have a way with people. Some kind of rich eccentric, someone a lot less concerned with the strict profit margins a license can get in the way of. TW-K0 seemed to think there would be more to come if we could impress them. I am eager to be in the field once again, I pray we act soon.
(The rest of the crew took the Find a Patron action, and I rolled so poorly I had to spend a credit to get the two patrons I wanted rather than just one. One corpo job that needed to be done immediately, one wealthy individual job that would prompt another job immediately if completed)
Captain’s Log
They’ve found me. On my way back from the mercenary hall, I spotted a gang of loyalists from back home asking around about our ship and crew. I hurried back and informed the crew. If we’re careful, we might be able to get the jump on them before they can find us. I sure don’t want them calling home.
(A Rival mission was triggered, preventing us from taking either Patron missions. It’s going to be Eelin’s Rival, which was randomly determined to be Gunslingers. The Deployment Condition was “surprise encounter, which prevents the enemy from moving on the first round. It’s a showdown, no special rules for this fight)
Next time we return to Five Parsecs, it’ll be my first ever battle report!!