I think "System Delve" is going to be the phrase I use to describe an in-depth look at an RPG or wargame; if it sounds like a review, it basically is but with the plausible deniability of someone who lacks the confidence to call themselves a critic. I am critical of many things--my body, certain flavors of Takis, certain types of testicular trauma--but that's only because I have the experience and authority to be critical. I am an expert in my own body, having been imprisoned in its bloated and always-oily confines since I was born. I am an expert in Takis, having made my flesh-prison bloated and always-oily with them. With RPGs, wargames, and the like? I don't know. I've played them a long time. I think about them a lot.
Fundamentally, I don't need you to think of me as a critic or to give my thoughts any undue weight in your brainparts-- all I need you to do is give them space up there. Don't take me too seriously, but take me as I am.
Anyway.
5 Parsecs from Home is one of many offerings from Ivan Sorensen (Nordic Weasel Games); like a lot of indie designers, Ivan has found a niche and burrowed into it with voracious energy. Ivan makes games like my dog Samwise makes turds in my backyard-- recklessly, prolifically, and with apparent joy.
Behold, a satan
His shtick is often that the games he makes are a) solo-friendly and b) lightweight enough to hack. That second one is a real balancing act. Too lightweight and the game feels anemic, but too heavy and one might feel like you need some kind of degree or special permission before you start mucking around in its pendulous cogs and stolid gears.
5 Parsecs From Home works on a very simple, very tight conceit. First, you create a little band of misfits; the various supplements ("Gang Warefare", "Salvage Crew") of the game could mean you're salvage professionals, space-gangsters, or just space-freelancers a la Cowboy Bebop. As a player, you resolve a pre-game procedure which will contextualize the wargame scenario you're going to play. Then you play the scenario.
The Characters
Your misfits are typified fairly simply, with only five statistics:
Reaction is how likely they are to act before the baddies during a scenario.
Speed is how far they move when activated
Combat Skill is how talented they are in the act of violence
Toughness is how durable they are when subjected to violence
Tech is "lmao the rest". Ivan includes it as a catch-all for anything that isn't pew-pewing or being pew-pewed. Each of the supplements handles this statistic in a slightly different way.
These statistics are, initially, generated randomly and often result in awkward .5's littering your statblocks-- but that's just a vector for some granularity, and you always round down when faced with these fractional stats during play.
Remember when I talked about the balancing act? It's here. The way you generate misfits is by rolling a 'background', 'motivation', and 'class'. Taken together, there's a surprisingly good texture to the characters you end up with and the expectation is that you'll spin these prompts out into a more satisfying dossier for your space-criminal.
It's emblematic of most of the game. 5 Parsecs From Home doesn't build your setting, your characters, your opposition for you-- but it does a pretty great job of handing you the tools to do so yourself without really even thinking about it.
The Pre-Game
The actual system calls it a "campaign turn", but that does a disserve to how much it sets up your eventual wargaming scenarios. There is some homework to be done, here, where you pay upkeep for your little dudes. But more of it is split between a) choosing what they're doing when not pew-pewing (are they training, going shopping, getting hammered?) and a) checking a variety of things which could complicate your little dudes' lives (has an Enemy caught up with them, is a Patron demanding their skills?).
The "campaign turn" isn't a game by itself, and it isn't just busy-work. You are given clear mechanical prompts which demand your fictional embroidery; the process feels a bit like the oracular act of sorting through goat entrails, but in a way that won't make your child tearfully ask what happened to their pet.
The Game Scenario
Again, my attention to language is superb and handsome. I could have just said 'the game', but that would ignore the quiet pleasure of rolling to see whether one of your misfits changes their hair significantly (an actual very real result on one of the "Gang Warfare" tables). I could have said 'the scenario', too, but I think that would risk underplaying the very wargaming-oriented nature of these. So, handsome as I am, I combined the two. The game-scenario. You can win, you can lose, but at stake is more than just winning and losing.
The mechanics themselves are delightfully simple; a turn is functionally split between three phases. You roll d6 equal to the number of models on your side, then assign those dice to models. Those whose die is lower than their Reactions will get to activate in the first phase, while everyone else activates in the third phase. The second/middle phase is therefore the exclusive purview of the NPCs. So there is a fun analysis to be made deciding, based on your rolled pool of d6, which figures you want to activate early and which figures are your least favorite child (also called The Colin in my family).
And if I'm going to mention NPCs, I should mention the soloability of this. Opposition is vaguely typified between certain suites of AI. As far as AI goes, it is not complicated. "Cautious" enemies have guidelines that keep them from advancing too far, too quickly. "Tactical" enemies try to hug cover. And so on.
The game, I think, hands players such loose reigns because as it notes-- you can just cheat if you want. It gives notes on how to make things easier or harder, to taste. You are, after all, playing with yourself. Why play in a way you don't want to? Whether that means the game's AI is sufficient or rigorous is harder to say, but like so much of 5 Parsecs From Home it is tremendously functional.
