Freetrader “Destinys Child”: How It All Started

[Ithoriel]

A run through of the first campaign turn of my 5 Parsecs 3rd Edition game.

Having preordered the rules from Modiphius I got a PDF version a few days before I got the hard copy and I was impressed. The hard copy is small format, 175 pages, lavishly illustrated and well laid out. Logical (to me at least) layout coupled with the upper page corner being colour coded and labelled as to which section you are looking at made navigation of the rules easy. Would recommend! If a solo sci-fi RPG sounds your sort of thing. It is more whole crew and campaign focussed than Stargrave, which I also have and like.

So dice (D6s,D10s and some 00-90s to make up a D100) in hand I launched into crew creation.

I opted for the completely random method, just roll and see what you get, rather than the suggested 6 humans suggested for newbs. This has caused no problems so far.

I have 3 humans, a bot, a Stalker ( a blue-skinned alien who can teleport short distances) and a Bio-enhanced (cyborg).

The humans are Mila "Call Me Captain" Voronezh, The Reverend Micah Green of the "Church of the Infinite Void" and Mr. Smith, formerly a special agent. Backstory suggests Mila and Micah grew up on the same industrial world while Mr. Smith grew up in a well-off megacity on their current world. Mila is in it for the thrills, Micah is looking to spread the faith, Mr Smith is looking for romance so I have decided that his wife died and he is looking for someone worthy to replace her. An old boss of Mr. Smith's is on their current world and may have work for them.

THK07, the bot, gets no backstory or bonuses but starts with enhanced stats. So I decided  THK07 was Mrs Smith's bodyguard. With her death he has transferred his allegiance to Mr. Smith. With a built in 6+ save he is currently the only crew member with a saving throw.

The Stalker, Tam "Scrapper" McGee, is tough (human base is 3, he's 5) due to his upbringing on a mining world. The cyborg, Ion "Gunner" Bradley has enhanced legs which boost his speed from 4 to 5. They are in this just to survive.

They have a quite a bit of money (17 credits) but owe 21 credits on the unreliable merchant cruiser they call "Destiny's Child." Time will tell if the crew are indeed destiny's children

I'm using my own background rather than 5 Parsec's own Unity setting so my crew are in the Imperium of the Sentient Mind on one of the core worlds, known as The Throne Worlds, specifically Pax Imperialis, a world known for it's bot factories. Cheap bot upgrades might be useful if the crew can make some cash.

So the crew spend some time trading, training and looking for work. They make a little more cash and spend 11 credits paying off some of their debt on the ship but spend 1 credit in interest on the loan and another credit for upkeep of ship and crew.

Their patron has no work for them but a few die rolls see them offered a chance to make a little cash hacking an interstellar comms relay. One of the bot corporations is using an off the book landing site and a competitor would like to know what it's being used for.

(Basically, die rolls are an Access job and the opposition are 4 war-bots ... and a story is born.)

There are 2 credits worth of Extra Shiny Bits on the battlefield.

The field of battle (alas atmospheric conditions have interfered with the clarity of the image)



The crew Seize The Initiative, getting a free move or shot (needing natural 6s). The crew use this to reposition.

We then roll 1D6 per crew member to see if they act before or after the enemy. They need to roll their Reaction value or less. Apart from the bot, who's a 2, the rest are all 1s so I'm not hopeful.

Ooh! That's better than expected. So Gunner, the Rev and THK07 will act before the warbots



Gunner opens fire first with his Rattlegun (MG) – three shots at targets in the open but more than 6 spaces away so needing 5+ on a D6. Shot one hits, needing 4+ to beat the bot's toughness, which it does and Warbot 1 fails it's saving throw of 5+ so it's down. Combat in 5 parsecs is pretty brutal.

Gunner adjusts aim a little and the second bot joins the first, but although the final shot hits Warbot 3 it fails to beat the warbot's toughness. But, the bot is stunned and knocked back a space.

Rev Green takes a potshot at Warbot 3 with his Colony Rifle but misses by miles..

THK07 rushes towards the big blue relay, using it's bulk as cover. As a bot and with the best Savvy bonus they are best placed hack the relay. (+1 for being a bot, +2 Savvy)

The Boss bot rushes forward to take cover behind a cargo container, out of sight of the crew in their current positions. Warbot 3 shakes off the effect of being shot. (Switch it off and switch it on again, maybe?)



Turn two reaction tests are not so good but THK07 gets to the relay but his attempt to hack it fails (2 rolled + 1 for being a bot + 2 for Savvy = 5. 6 needed .... soooo close!

Boss bot moves from the cargo container to a pile of fuel drums. His plasma rifle's first shot puts Rev Green down but he just misses Scrapper with his second.

Turn three, THK07 is the only crew member to act before the bots and they successfully hack the Relay!!

The Warbots might now decide to quit the field but opt to stay and fight.

Some repositioning and ineffective fire ensues.

Turn four, all of the crew get to move before the bots except Mr. Smith.

Gunner strides forward on his bionic legs, pouring fire into Warbot 3 which is no longer in cover. The bot goes down in a hail of fire.

Inspired by this, or flushed with their success  at hacking, THK07 moves to get to close range and clears the cover so Boss bot counts as in the open .... and then misses. Doh!

Despite needing to roll 5+, Mila hits Boss bot and puts him down.



The crew collect the Extra Shiny Bits from the grey generator in front of the relay and carry Rev Green off with them.

Turns out the Rev Green is not badly hurt but will need to miss the next fight to recuperate.

They collected some weapons, gear and cash from the field and from their greatful sponsors, some of it probably in that cargo container.

Everyone gains experience.

Whoever owns the warbots doesn't hold it against them enough to become Rivals, so that's good.

A bit of paperwork and we're ready tor campaign turn two.

I'm sure I got stuff wrong but everything flowed well and I don't think any mistakes were crucial.

[Ben Waterhouse]

Verrry interesting... thanks for the AAR.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Sounds excellent

[fsn]

You put this in my head.

Thank you. 

[pierre the shy]

Looks excellent Mike 

Nice to see you're getting in some tabletop gaming.

The background stuff really helps to make the campaign flow well.

Solo RPG?....hmmmmm 

[Ithoriel]

Thanks folks! And, "you're welcome!" fsn

[Raider4]

Aye, good stuff.

Although I keep reading it as Dr. Smith, rather than Mr.

"Danger! Danger, Will Robinson" . . .

[Ithoriel]

Thanks Raider. Of course, at one point, he would have been Agent Smith.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

Looking good

[Ithoriel]

There has been a little more of a hiatus between the first campaign turn and the second than I'd intended. However, the real life interruptions have at least given me time to slap a coat of paint on THX07.



In the downtime since the last fight the crew have been able to pay their bills and still have enough left to put Micah through enhanced recovery at the local Med-Centre so he'll be available for this fight after all.

Gunner had learned enough from the last fight to spend some time speeding up his reaction time.

Mila andTHX07 went off trading. Mila scored a couple of Med-packs and a couple of Stim Packs. THX07 traded some odd bits and pieces from the cargo hold for some treasure ... which turned out to be worthless shiny baubles.

Scrapper and Mr Smith went off to explore the local area and came back with a broken boosted arm set, which Gunner will try to repair, and a military rifle.

The crew's local contact, Special Agent Jethro Gibbons, got in touch to say he had a small job for them. He had an agent undercover in a local gang and needed to get some items to him. They were to take a package into a quiet corner of the Undercity and hand it to the agent. If the package was lost, damaged or opened the job would be failed.

So they set off with Scrapper, as toughest crew member, trusted with the package and it's delivery.

Closing in on their contact they discover that some Undercity Nomads, scavengers  living on what they could beg, borrow or steal, had set up in a nearby storage area and the tribe's boss is leading his lieutenant and a half dozen tribesmen out to drive off the interlopers. (There's a second batch of four nomads lead by the Lieutenant off the bottom right of the image)

When I rolled nomads I was about to change it to gangers as I had no nomad figures but then I remembered my old micromachines Star Wars collection.



On a roll of 9 plus 2 for THK07's savvy and plus1 for being outnumbered the crew easily make the 10+ required to seize the initiative. They move cautiously forward.

The grey areas on the map are counting as voids over a lower level. The guy in blue near the centre of the map is their contact, one level down. The brownish square next to him is a lift which the crew must reach to make contact. All of the upper areas are assumed to have barriers to stop people falling over the edge so most shots are going to require modified scores of 6+.

The initial reaction rolls are pretty good for the crew ...



... and Gunner once again steps forward and hoses the enemy with fire. Rolling a five and two sixes (+ 2 for his combat skill but -1 for moving with a heavy weapon) he puts the leader and a tribesman down and stuns another tribesman!!



Other fire from the crew is ineffective.

The nomads are armed with hand lasers that can only fire 12 squares so they are well out of range but they are fast (6" move as opposed 4" for the crew) so rush forward.

At the end of the turn I roll 2D6 (1 per casualty) needing a 1 or 2 for a nomad to leave the battlefield. I roll a 1 and a 5 and decide that the stunned nomad considers that honour is satisfied.



Initiative rolls for turn two are not so good. Only one crew member will get to go before the nomads.

Scrapper moves forward, trusting to his high toughness to see him safe. He pops off a couple of shots at the remaining nomad from the leaders group and the second shot puts the target down.

The Nomads move forward and are now in range with their hand lasers. They all snap off shots but only manage to stun Scrapper and Mila.

Mr Smith fires and puts down the Lieutenant. Micah fires and puts down the tribesman who was behind him.

Mila fires, misses but is now unstunned.

THK07 fires and puts down one of the two remaining tribesmen. The last nomad decides discretion is the better part of valour and flees.

So swift, so brutal. 6 nomads down and the crew unscathed.

Scrapper recovers from stun and wanders down to hand over the package. Mission complete!

The nomads (not unsurprisingly) decide they want nothing to do with a rivalry between them and the crew.



I'll do the after action die rolls tomorrow.

[Techno II]

This looks rather fun, Mike !

Cheers - Phil.

[fsn]

hmmmm.


Makes me want to get out my "Traveller".

[fred.]

Scrapper recovers from stun and wanders down to hand over the package. Mission complete!

The nomads (not unsurprisingly) decide they want nothing to do with a rivalry between them and the crew
.

That was brutal and quick - overwhelming firepower wins the day!

Aah, memories. I had many of those little black booklets - but I have no idea what happened to them.

[Duke Speedy of Leighton]

Awesome report. Thank you. 

[Scorpio_Rocks]

could i ask where the "terrain mats" are from, please?

[sunjester]

Great reports and sound like you are having a lot of fun!

[Ithoriel]

could i ask where the "terrain mats" are from, please?

The Undercity map used this time is a Stafinder Flip-Mat from Paizo bought from Amazon. I have a collection of them bought from various on-line sources. Most of them have been just under a tenner.

The map used in the previous game was from the Giant Book of Sci-fi Battle Mats from Loke, also bought on-line. It's a ring bound book of 62 A3 maps that can be used alone or as a double spread.

I have some other maps from Ryan Wolfe's www.0-hr.com site. Beautiful ship and building maps but pricey when you include postage and handling to the UK.

[Scorpio_Rocks]

Thank you, Sir!

Orders winging their way for some as we speak.

[Ithoriel]

In game rule terms, the crew rolled on the Loot table and the die rolls saw them acquiring a suit of Battledress armour (5+ save, +1 to Reactions to a max of 4).

Or as the narrative of the story, Mila checked the downed nomads but found nothing useful. Bio-locked weapons and vermin infested robes weren't going to be worth the effort of carting back to the ship. Just as she was about to return to the others she spotted another body, victim of some long forgotten combat. The corpse was little more than dessicated shreds of flesh holding the skeleton together but the battledress it wore seemed to be functional. Separating the armour from as much of the previous occupant as possible she hauled it back to Destiny's Child, cleaned it, fumigated it, replaced the batteries and hey presto! Working armour, fit for a captain.

Their patron put them in touch with a friendly doctor for some free treatment, not realising that none of them were hurt.

Micah was given access to the Agency Armoury and came back with a "slightly-used" Screen Generator (5+ save, not negated by enemy weapons having the Piercing attribute) which he now wears.

THK07 repaired the Boosted Arm set and helped Gunner fit it. A modified roll of 6+ is required for a repair. A natural 1 is a permanent fail. The crew decide to spend 2 credits to buy a couple of spare parts to boost the roll by 2 and THK07s Savvy of +2 is added as well. Anything but a 1 and it's fixed. Die roll .... 6. Doh! didn't need those spares after all.

Mr Smith and Micah go exploring and find an Arms Dealer with military weapons for sale but given that funds are short and the crew are pretty well armed they opt not to buy.

Gunner and Scrapper go trading, doing a deal for a Glare Sword (think Light Sabre). I like to imagine they traded those unneeded parts for it. They also hear an interesting rumour.

Clearly impressed by their performance, Jethro Gibbons offers them a job escorting a VIP to a pick up point.

Princess Irulan has given her Imperial Guard "minders" the slip to slum it in an infamous nightclub and pissed off a bunch of gutter-scum in the process.  Half a dozen no-marks armed with Saturday Night Specials shouldn't pose a problem for the now well armed and kitted out crew. The fact they are headed by the leader of the recently routed nomads may be a bonus or a hindrance. On the up side, Jethro has promised hazard pay if they kill him. There are rumours of an alien artefact in the area that might be worth checking out too.

I have a couple of new figures lined up for Mila and Gunner. So far, merely undercoated.

[Ithoriel]

Meanwhile, the crew (with new models for Mila and Gunner)



manage to get Princess Irulan to a nearby monorail station



Only to find some of the punks looking for the princess have arrived there too.




The leader has a powerclaw and a scrap pistol rather than a shotgun. The guy in the duster is local mob muscle sent to beef up the unreliable punks.