Review: Five Parsecs from Home- Modiphius

[Easy E]

I know, I know I am very late to the party on this one.  The year 2020, during the Pandemic; the history we are all trying to forget and move on from; saw a huge boom in the solo-wargaming realm.  I think the reasons were pretty obvious. 

One of the "stand-outs' from this period was Ivan Sorenson's Five Parsecs from Home.  This is explicitly designed to be a solo-wargaming experience.  It is a sci-fi, skirmish game where you create a "crew" of folks and go have adventures!  This game (and others similar to it) from Mr. Sorenson pre-dates the Pandemic and definitely pre-dates Modiphius picking it up to publish.  Ivan Sorenson had been very active in the Indie Wargaming world as Nordic Weasel Games for a long time now, and helped blaze the way for Indie Wargame designers and self-publishing games.   

I will gladly admit that I have been slow to get on this bandwagon.  However, I figured it was about time for me to check it out for myself.  Grab your jump bag, gear up, and get ready to dust-off on my mark.  3....2......1....



You can read the full review on the Blood and Spectacles blog if you are so inclined:
https://bloodandspectacles.blogspot.com/2024/06/review-five-parsecs-from-home-3rd.html

However, my general thoughts are if you want a solo-campaign that fits in with the Firefly ethos of "Keep on Flying".  This game matches that better than any other game I have seen out there, with the caveat that it is ONLY for solo-play.  The closest comparison is Stargrave, but that was intended for Versus play.  The game leans pretty hard on the Strategic element and RPG-lite.  There is a ton of opportunity for replayability and making the enemy actions unknown.  This is probably the gold standard of solo-play I have seen in a game BUT the player has to push-a-lot of buttons to make this game work.  That means, the player is operating the game more than they are actually "playing" the game.  However, in a solo-game that is somewhat expected and this one provides a lot of off-table decision making.         

[mikedemana]

I read the full review on your blog and enjoyed it. I have recently retired and am thinking of doing either a Five Parsecs or Five Leagues solo campaign just for the fun of it. I have a thriving game group, but the posts by others playing these games seem fun.

Thanks for your discussion...

Mike Demana

[brasidas19004]

Mike,
I have done a bunch of work [and posts] on the 5 Kliks / Leagues / Parsecs rules from Nordic Weasel, and I think that it would work just fine as a "group against the game" venture, where the host runs the game elements and the players show up for a bout after making a few key decisions. Sort of a combo of RPG-lite and skirmish campaigning.

I highly recommend them.

Any interest in my playtesting, the posts are here:
https://upthebluefow.blogspot.com/search/label/5%20Parsecs%20%2F%205%20Kliks%20System
Sure, I'm using SW figs for some sort of theme, but the portability into any insurgency from 1970 to 2024 is obvious...

[Burgundavia]

We tried 5 Parsecs as well. I agree with your comments about the game vs metagame parts (the campaign-y bits). I liked the idea, but my gaming group is more focused on the tabletop side of things. We found that the combats were very short and not very challenging.

I think it could work an RPG group that waned to dabble with tabletop stuff. I also quite liked the random tables and I think the idea of the way the campaign plays out could work, but I don't think the execution quite works here.

[Easy E]

I have found a lot of model-vs-model campaign games streamline the rules so much that you lose any sort of tactical play, and instead the focus of decision-making is the Strategic (or off-table) parts of the game. 

The funny thing is, very simple add-ons could add a layer of tactical and not add much complexity, even something as simple as a fire arc goes a long way to add on-table decision making.