|
Cheers folks, Nordic Weasel guy here to answer any questions you might have  I hope that doesn't break any forum rules.Appreciate the kind words about FiveCore above. If you guys don't mind, I wanted to outlay the reasoning behind how the combat systems work in 5P / 5L. Not to argue with anyone because obviously no system will hit everyone's preferences but just because I always find that stuff interesting. Fair? You are absolutely right that combat in 5P is very very simple and simpler than other games I have written (or other games available). There's a few reasons here: 1: Time. The campaign sequence can be fairly time consuming with assigning jobs, rolling for outcomes, fiddling with equipment, rolling up mission objectives (in the new version) and so on. The goal was to be able to squeeze an entire campaign turn or even two into a single evening of play, so people can feel like they are making progress and can see the campaign begin to progress. So to accommodate that, I wanted the handling time of the miniatures aspect to be as quick as possible. 2: Since the game was conceived as a solo game specifically, I wanted it to be very easy for one person to manage. I have a strong belief that solo games need to be a bit simpler than a multi-player game, because there's only one person to keep track of everything. Since the player is already managing the stats of 5-6 crew members as well as the enemies, I wanted the cognitive load to be pretty low. 3: Adding more tactical options can of course be done (and various expansions have added them) but any option needs to also be handled by the AI (or be purely player facing which isn't always very satisfying). This means it needs to be scripted in somehow which can lead to some brutal flow charts or it needs to be assigned randomly, which is something I absolutely wanted to avoid. If there's for example 4 different ways to attack at range (lets say aimed shot, quick shot, overwatch and suppressing shot) then that needs to be evaluated in every situation the AI finds itself in. Now, Im confident there's ways to solve this (and they may be already solved somewhere) but from my experience games with "meatier" combat (my own FiveCore, 5150 etc.) tend to avoid such options in favor of baking more results into the attack mechanic (Fivecore with different states the target ends up in, 5150 with its reaction rolls). 4: The obvious additions to spice things up would be a form of suppression (which we did introduce cautiously in Five Klicks) and a reaction type system. I opted to not include the former since I didn't feel it fit the space opera feel and the latter to avoid the player simply sitting tight on the board game and waiting. I know a lot of people enjoy AI systems with random factors to them, but that's a personal pet peeve of mine: I hate rolling for what the enemy does, though it's entirely possible that's irrational and I need to get over it 5: A bit of marketing to be honest. While a lot of folks enjoy a more involved combat system, there's also a lot of people who prefer something "stupid simple" that's easy to remember. I play ASL and I play the Neil Thomas "One hour wargames" systems, I can get down with both. But I definitely had the latter group in mind for this one. tldr - moar simpler stuff. Now, gamers being what we are, everyone likes to swap stuff out. I've gotten emails from folks who have swapped the 5L combat system for something else, including one guy who did an absolutely mental mash up of the 5 Leagues campaign with the Rangers scenarios and combat system, which was super cool. The combat rules and campaign rules are fairly compartmentalized specifically to let people tinker. Those of you who are familiar with my other games know I always try to encourage house rules and tinkering. So overall, I hope those reasonings make sense. Not saying they are objectively KORREKT or that they are the correct decision for the style of game, I just wanted people to understand the how and the why, since game writers don't tend to talk a lot about this sort of thing. Feel free to ask away
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2021 16:28
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:49 |
|
|
Ohthehugemanatee posted:Ha, holy poo poo. I did not expect you to show up. FiveCore is goddamned amazing and Squad Hammer is everything Dragon Rampant and friends ever wanted to be but better. You've done some incredibly creative work and you've got a great eye for taking wargame conventions and chucking them into a garbage can when they're boring or inconvenient. I think part of why I bounced off of Parsecs is that it was so drat traditional. haha, I don't do forums or social media very much, because I always get self-conscious talking about other people's games, but I tend to read SA fairly often. I just always worry if I say something like "well, rolling for each missile in battletech is kind of a drag" then it'll end up on someones twitter as "IVAN SLAMS OFF COMPETITORS IN FIT OF JEALOUSY" or something I appreciate all the kind words and I am glad you enjoyed Squad Hammer. Jason is slaving away at an absolutely mental "fantasy cyberpunk" hack of it that I think will blow everybody's mind. I think at the time I was also just really geared up to write a "very trad" game and see what came out. Move, shoot, morale, boom, you know the drill. I have theories about how "wild" a game system can be before people start checking out mentally, but they may be all wrong. It used to be that anything that came in a box was pretty traditional, but I wonder if maybe that is changing a bit?
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2021 18:57
|
|
|
goodness posted:Happy to have you here, thanks for providing your insight as the creator. Glad it was useful. Obviously don't let me get in the way of anyone discussing this (or other) games honestly. Not here to internet-battle anyone
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2021 18:57
|
|
|
Back in them days, the only Btech custom design we ever banned was my machine-gun-brute. 80ish ton mech with as many machine guns as you could fit in there. The plan was to lumber into the center of the table and then unload like 12 shots per turn, along with some punching and kicking. It was quite effective, but it was absolutely miserable to play with (and against) since resolving that one unit took as long as the rest of the battlefield combined.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 25, 2021 21:28
|
|
|
The phenomenal Sonic Sledge did a blog post comparing Stargrave and Five Parsecs, concluding people should buy both :-) https://sonicsledgeblogroll.blogspot.com/2021/03/choosing-your-next-sci-fi-skirmish-game.html You could probably use the same mini's too, though I try to encourage 15mm where I can
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2021 18:46
|
|
|
The stuff I usually use is: Khurasan, Rebel, Pico Armor (they have a small but very nice 15mm scifi range) and Darkest Star (which has some great cyberpunkish and Ghost in the Shell'styled figures) and when shipping returns to normal: Ground Zero Games (for army dudes). As you say, there's not a ton of consistency. Khurasan can be all over the place but tends to be large. The Rebel and Pico figures I got seems to match pretty well with GZG. There's also older ranges like RAFM and Laserburn. The latter have a ton of very charming adventurer types but the sculpts are very old and look kinda grungy. They paint up nice though. Part of the problem too is that 15mm doesn't tend to photograph well, so a lot of times you get really up close photos that make the figures look like trash, when they'll be fine on the table. Obviously for scifi monsters, a lot of fantasy critters or random D&D plastic monsters work well, and "small critters" for 28mm can make great monsters for 15mm play. Nordic Weasel guy fucked around with this message at 21:33 on Mar 27, 2021 |
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2021 21:30
|
|
|
Folks on my discord have been really excited about Billion Suns for the whole campaign-economic aspect that's integrated into it. Plus, there's really not that many good starship games out there right now. Full Thrust is getting rather long in the tooth.
|
|
#
¿
Mar 27, 2021 23:04
|
|
|
Hey man, the old stuff was taken down for a bit while I can sort through all of it and make some sort of retro bundle out of it. The idea is that the cool bits will get updated versions. If you are just after the tables, paypal me like 5 bucks at nordicweaselgames@icloud.com and I'll send the old versions over your way. Just drop me an email. For Shadow Deep, I'd grab a bunch of GW lotr guys. I always got an Arnor / Dunedain vibe from the art.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2021 16:42
|
|
|
SageNytell posted:Five Parsecs 3 pdf question - what is the deal with Soulless characters and upgrades? In their species entry, it says they can use both XP and Bot Upgrades, but that they pay 1.5 times the cost for Bot Upgrades. The species entry is the correct one. There's a few spots where the reference version later in the text contradicts the species entries and the species ones should be correct in each case.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2021 18:19
|
|
|
Springfield Fatts posted:This might be a niche angle but any other material for the Hammer series coming out? I'm a big fan of Hammer of Democracy and homebrewed some stats for Japan. A cold war version would be cool, similar to SDttRR and much faster playing than TY. Cheers. I really want to do more for HoD but finding the time is the trouble, if I am being honest. Cold War would be very cool. Doing up sets of profiles (and assorted new rules) for say 5-10 year jumps might be an option. So do a 1945-55 booklet with tank stats and notes on relevant nationalities etc. and so forth.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 9, 2021 18:23
|
|
|
Southern Heel posted:Hi dudes, There's a billion games you could start, but given that space is a concern, Battletech would be an obvious pick I think: Its kind of self-contained space wise since it's on a board and you only need a few figures each to get started.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 11, 2021 18:19
|
|
|
Helical Nightmares posted:So I finally bit the bullet. I bought Five Parsecs from Home 3rd edition from Modiphius press. My main hesitancy was paying for shipping from the UK, but I eventually caved. Having a play list is a fairly long standing NWG tradition :-) And thank you for the purchase!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 18, 2021 21:08
|
|
Also many more tables, an expanded setting, more post-battle activities, a whole section on starships, nine appendix chapters and some really evocative art. Can't wait for the physical book to show up.
|
Mr.Booger posted:Second turn of my 5 Parsecs campaign and captain went down to a pile of lucky 6s, we got the data delivered but he is out for d6 turns, ouch. Picked up 2 more crew from events, so we got a nice full boat, now to make some scratch to help pay for new guys and maybe some hospital time for the Capt. Money is not super scarce by default. Once the book is out in print, there'll be some options to make it tighter, probably in an add-on. Glad you had a good time though!
|
|
#
¿
Apr 18, 2021 21:09
|
|
|
|
| # ¿ Apr 25, 2024 09:49 |
|
|
Mr.Booger posted:My 5 Parsecs crew got caught in an ambush by their rivals, who happen to be a soulless taskforce (tough, well skilled alien robot hivemind) armed with Hyper blasters and Infantry lasers on a slippery landing dock...it was a bloodbath, with only one shocked crewman left standing, covered in alien bio-liquids. Luckily we hurt them enough that they left the system, fearing our reprisal (they were removed as a rival). Next mission might be even more dangerous, as I have only 4 crew available to go, and one of them broke his machine pistol. Really enjoying the game so far. For all I worry the battles are too easy, that's a hell of a start, like being an extra in the Terminator film future-war scenes.
|
|
#
¿
Apr 24, 2021 20:42
|
|