Five Leagues From the Borderlands

A close friend of mine is semi-interested in these sort of games, now that I brought them to his attention. He watched a playthrough video for Five Parsecs, and was disappointed. He said that it didn't seem to have much of a sci-fi feel to it, and seemed more like a bunch of guys going to random locations and fighting generic bad guys. The die rolls led to results, but the lack of description for the results felt dry and mechanical. I think that is a solid criticism of this game system. If you aren't willing to use your imagination to provide some context to the table results, than it will likely feel dry and mechanical.

I think that my friend would be happier with a DM running a real RPG, or at least a Choose Your Own Adventure-style game. The big trade-off between a traditional RPG and Five Leagues/Parsecs/whatever is the need for a DM to provide the story, and his current circumstances are not conducive to that sort of role-playing. The big trade-off between Five Leagues and a Choose Your Own Adventure game is between replay and narrative. Choose Your Own Adventure is mechanically a flow chart of narrative paragraphs with perhaps some action, but the writing can elevate that narration into an okay story. But once you have played the story a few times, you have extracted most of the entertainment value. The random tables of Five Leagues can produce more variable stories, as long as the player can exercise some creativity in interpreting the table results.

Not sure if it's the series your friend saw or not, but the recent Me, Myself, and Die playthrough is pretty entertaining. Trevor does a great job bringing the game to life.

*I should specify, the play through is for Five Parsecs.

We only spent one night in Moulins, but apparently it was a lively one, as we somehow spent 6 gold marks though we only had 4 gold marks in our possession. After that we went back to the delve near Moulins and set up a camp within view of the delve entrance.

Hyuddumm's wound got infected, but he still recovered within four days, while Henri needed six days of rest before he was fit for duty. Floki picked up some Wilderness skill with his recent level-up, so we lived off the land (scavenged edible greens and berries) while he hunted deer. However, he had no luck for the first few days before finally scoring some venison and 4 gold marks worth of hides.

We headed back to explore the 3rd level of the delve. Finally, we will confront the necromancers, or at least their servitors, The Fog Born. It isn't entirely clear from the brief description if the Fog Born are alive or undead, but they are wreathed in fog, so our ranged weapons will probably be ineffective. To be continued...

With dread, the warband marched down to the third level of the delve near Moulins. They had heard that the necromancers were operating from base in this area, and this massive tomb complex seemed the most likely location.

Level three: live.staticflickr.com/65535/52728172377_f9ffe08260_m.jpg

Hyuddumm the duskling, accustomed to fighting in the dark, scouted ahead:
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In the distant darkness, three of the Fog Born conferred in front of an ancient throne:
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Hyuddumm encountered a lone Fog Born on patrol, and rushed him. In the furious exchange that followed, Hyuddumm fell and lay silent. Another patrol, consisting of three Fog Born, saw the fight and moved to investigate.

The first Fog Born charged the rest of the warband, but Henri stepped forward with knife ready. After a flurry of blows, Henri was wounded and the Fog Born was down. Quetzal cast a Barrier, which gave Henri and Floki the chance to loose arrows before further melee. All three remaining Fog Born pressed up against the barrier. Even at such close range, Henri and Floki both missed their shots, due to the rolling fog about their enemies. Quetzal cast Steelbreak on one of the undead, depriving him of armor.

Then the Barrier dropped and on all hell broke loose. At the end, only the Count remained standing, and one of the undead had fled. Hearing distant footsteps echo, DuBois extinguished his torch and dragged each of his companions up the hard, stone steps and eventually to daylight. Henri and Quetzal were not badly injured, and so were able to help with the escape.

The wounds inflicted by the Fog Born were gruesome in appearance, but Hyuddumm would recover soon. Floki was in worse condition, and would need five days to recover. Henri's dagger was lost in the melee, and Quetzal's staff was broken. The Count knew that they had been lucky, but he still did not relish the coming days of camping and foraging without hope of more venison.

[I was not looking forward to this fight. The Fog Born have a combat bonus of +1, making them equal or superior to all of my warband. Due to their localized fog, they can only be hit on a natural 6 by ranged attacks. They inflict gruesome wounds (-5% on the Injuries table) and are brave (only lose morale on a 1). I made a mistake when laying out the third level of the delve, as apparently all battlefields in this game should be at least 24" inches square, and this level was roughly 15" square. That left a couple of the patrols starting too close together, making for a rougher fight than it should have been.)

Camping while the band recovered was miserable. Game was scarce, and the rain caused Floki's bowstring to rot, leaving Henri as the only archer.

Count DuBois was determined to best the necromancers, so the warband returned to the tomb complex. This time, they encountered maddened revenants (zombies), who were slow, fearless, and very tough. After the initial skirmish, Henri and Quetzal stood triumphant, but had to drag their injured fellows up to the sunlight. Hyuddumm needed days to recover and Floki got his helmet broken.

With just three gold marks worth of pelts, they headed into Moulins to replace Floki's bowstring. Unfortunately, short supplies in Moulins raised the usual price from 3 to 4 gold marks, so the heroes left empty-handed. They camped for two more days, then returned to the delve.

This time, the warband was able to confront actual cultists of the necromancy cult. They were mere humans with no particular combat skills, though one did have a self bow. Hyuddumm and Floki succumbed to minor injuries, but the warband managed to defeat a total of 9 cultists, and a 10th ran away due to low morale. However, the loot was sparse: a fine crossbow, a scout's cloak, some rations, and three more frozen strands (spell components). They also checked to see if there might be a fourth level to the delve, but found nothing.

By this point, the warband has acquired 10 story points. After achieving a mission like this, I can spend any amount of story points and then try to roll a d6 equal or under the number of story points spent. I spent 6 for an automatic success, and the payoff is that we reduced the overall threat level of the necromancers from 5 to 4. The goal of the campaign is to reduce all three major threats to 0, which could make for a long campaign. But I am still entertained, so I will continue.

I hope that Modiphius eventually does a superhero game along these lines. Maybe they could call it Five Blocks From Justice. Instead of extensive lists of monsters, they could have a bunch of pre-generated villains with stat blocks and a few defining traits (powers). And some stat blocks for more generic types of villains, like muggers, thugs, bruisers, and assassins. The focus of the campaign could be defeating an evil mastermind villain before he can execute his master scheme. Campaign turns could also feature patrolling to keep down the general crime threat in the city, and also to bolster the reputation of the heroes. There could also be complications involving secret identity and paying the bills.

(I thought that I would need to poke around more to find where to fight the enemy, but I found that I can just declare that I am going to fight a given enemy, and then roll on tables to determine where, under what circumstances, and what the enemy stands to gain.)

We returned to Vyones to sell our animal skins and recruit a new follower. Hyuddumm and Floki took care of business while the Count, Quetzal, and Henri went to a local tavern. (Quetzal is the only party member with leadership skill, which helps on recruiting rolls.) Buying drinks cost us a gold mark, but we successfully recruited Gar, a feral follower with a literally wolfish countenance. Gar has limited social skills and no armor, but owns an axe and can attack in the same turn that he moves his full movement rate. While at the tavern, we talked to other locals and discovered that the necromancers intended to attack Cordeliers, a hamlet west of Vyones and south of Moulins.

Rather than potentially engage undead monsters amidst terrified peasants, we intercepted the enemy on an old country road (really more of a heavily-trodden path) approaching Cordeliers, near the ruins of an old tower.

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Our enemy du jour proved to be ragged fanatics, possibly left homeless after we ransacked the tomb near Moulins. They are ordinary humans, though fearless (no morale checks) and driven to fury (+1 combat if wounded). And the scarred bald one (third from the top) has a crossbow.

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This will be my first battle on an open field, so my warband took up position in the ruins of the tower, with Quetzal on high ground and the archers also in an elevated position. Gar is the new token on the upper left, adjacent to the Count and Hyuddumm.

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The starting positions were somewhat flexible, except that the scenario determined that my party start within 6" of a map edge, and our enemies start 2d6+12" away.

To be continued...

For the battle of Cordeliers, I will give you more detail than usual, so you can see how this combat system flows.

Rounds 1 to 4: The broken fanatics approach, while the war party lies in wait. On round 4, Floki and Henri both have a clear shot at a cultist with long dark hair and a beard. Normally an archer needs a 5+ (on a d6) to hit a target that is within range and in the open, but not close. Both archers roll a 4, but they both get to add their combat bonus (+1) because they were stationary. The hairy man doesn't have armor, so we proceed to the roll to overcome Toughness. He has a 3 and both archers roll 3s, which means that they both stunned him and wounded him, but the second wound means death.

Round 5: I made an amazing initiative roll with three 1s and a 2, which meant that four of my war party could move during the fast action phase. With the enemy crossbowman now having clear shots at four of my warparty, I gave all four of those characters the fast actions, letting them take cover behind brush or ruins. The cultists all continued to advance, mostly under cover. A naked cultist broke cover and Floki took a shot and wounded him. Despite standing next to Floki on an elevated section of a ruined wall, Henri didn't have line of sight on the naked cultist.

Round 6: Floki won initiative, but missed his shot on the naked cultist. The cultists all advanced, using cover to advantage. The crossbowman had a clean shot at Hyuddumm, but couldn't fire because he moved this round. Hyuddumm retreated behind full cover in the ruins, while the rest of the warparty held their positions.

Round 7: Quetzal and Hyuddumm won initiative. Quetzal tried and failed to cast Premonition, which would have allowed the re-roll of 2 initiative dice the following round. He rolled a 2 on 2d6, so he wasted one of his strands (material spell casting component). Hyuddumm pushed through two hexes of brush to attack the wounded naked cultist.

Hyuddumm's melee attack starts an "exchange" of 3 quick attack contests with the naked cultist. (For consistency, I will list each contested die roll as hero roll+modifiers vs cultist roll + modifiers.) Hyuddumm rolls a natural 1 so his first attack misses, allowing the cultist to become the aggressor for the second step of the exchange. 4+1 (combat skill) vs 2+1 (wounded cultist gets Driven to Fury bonus mentioned in previous post), so Hyuddumm is now the aggressor for the third step of the exchange. He rolls another natural 1 and misses.

Now the naked cultist begins a melee exchange with Hyuddum, 5+1 vs 2+1. Hyuddum goes on the attack, 3+1 vs 2+1 is a hit. He rolls a 2 vs the cultist's toughness of 3, for a second wound and kill.

The crossbowman stalks Hyuddumm through the ruins, and a flyblown cultist runs up to Hyuddumm but can't attack this round. The other two cultists are a male-female couple painted to look like skeletons, like voodoo houngans, and they approach Count DuBois and Gar. The rest of my war party holds position.

The battle continues...

Initiative in this game consists of rolling Xd6, where X = the number of war party members still in the fight. After rolling the dice, I choose how to assign the dice to my heroes. Since Hyuddumm and Quetzal are the only ones with a 2 agility, they are the only ones who can win initiative with a 2. Everybody else has a 1, so I need to roll 1s for them to get initiative. Floki gets a re-roll as one of his racial advantages, but it rarely helps.

Round 8: Good initiative rolls including two 2s and a 1. Hyuddumm attacks the flyblown cultist, but misses with a natural 1. The cultist attacks back, 3+1 vs 4. A draw forces the defender (Hyuddumm in this moment) to retreat, and the attacker has the option to follow. The cultist attacks again, 4+1 vs 5, for another draw, causing Hyuddumm to gladly retreat again, taking him out of line of sight with the crossbowman. Quetzal casts Mobility on himself, which could be very advantageous moving through all the brush in this section of the battlefield.

The houngan cultists were cautiously approaching the Count and Gar, because neither side wanted to run up and then get hit by the other side. But finally Gar charged the male houngan, attacking 3 vs 2 for a hit, then rolled a 5 vs the cultist's toughness of 3, for a kill.

The flyblown cultist attacks Hyuddumm, 2+1 vs 5 for a hit, but rolls a 1 against Hyuddumm's armor of 2, for no damage. He presses the attack, 3+1 vs 4, causing Hyuddumm to retreat. The cultist presses on for one more attack, 4+1 v s 5, causing Hyuddumm to retreat into the brush. The crossbowman advances slowly between two clumps of brush, hoping to get a clear shot at somebody, anybody. The female houngan assaults Gar, 3 vs 2 for a miss. Gar misses her 3 vs 4, and she misses him, 4 vs 3. (As I am typing this, Irish singer Phil Lynott is singing Attack, Attack, Attack (Yellow Pearl).)

Count DuBois attacks the female houngan, 3+2 (combat skill and flanking) vs 2, hits and wounds her. Then 4+2 vs 1, he hits and kills her. Henri and Floki climb down from their vantage point, which hasn't been useful lately with everybody skulking around in the ruins and brush.

Round 9: Hyuddumm attacks flyblown cultist, 6+1 vs 3, hitting and wounding him. Hyuddumm presses the attack 4+1 vs 4+1 (fury bonus), causing the cultist to retreat. Hyuddumm pursues 5+1 vs 3+1, hitting and lethally wounding the cultist. Quetzal sprints through underbrush to attack the crossbowman but rolls a natural 1 and misses. The crossbowman has drawn a broadsword and goes on the attack, 3 vs 6. He rolls a 5 vs armor and then a 3 vs Quetzal's toughness of 3, wounding and stunning him. He attacks Quetzal again 1 vs 2+1 (stun bonus), hitting and downing Quetzal. Is Quetzal dead?

The crossbowman doesn't know that he is alone yet, but suspects he would be safer if he could climb a tree and snipe from there. He runs for the nearest tree and manages to touch the trunk. but is spotted by Count DuBois and Gar. They chase after him and catch up beneath the tree branches. Floki runs to check on Hyuddumm, who is fine (for once), and Henri checks on Quetzal, who is not well.

Round 10: The crossbowman fires a close range shot at the Count. It would hit on a 2 or better (+1 for being stationary), but the crossbowman rolls a 1, which is both a miss and means that he is out of ammo. He drops the crossbow and draws his broadsword. The Count attacks now, 2+2 (skill and flanking) vs 3, rolling a 1 vs toughness to stun the cultist. The Count presses the attack, 5+3 (stun bonus) vs 3, hitting and wounding the cultist. Then the Count rolls a 1 and misses.

Gar now attacks the crossbowman, 3+1 (flanking) vs 6+1 (fury) for a miss. The cultist attacks Gar 61+ vs 5+1 for a miss. Gar attacks, 6+1 vs 5+1, hitting and lethally wounding the cultist.

Quetzal survives, with a moderate wound that will take 2 days to heal. Everybody gains 2 XP except Quetzal, who gains 1 for getting whupped. Hyuddum reaches 4th level and rolls a gain in his choice of Luck or Will. While Will renews each day and offers some nice single-use benefits in combat, Luck allows a character to cancel a lethal result on the Injuries table. He chooses Luck. Floki also reaches 4th level, and rolls his choice of speed increase or a skill selection. Since he currently uses a crossbow, he will be moving around less in combat, so he takes Pathwise skill (tracking).

We found a suit of fey steel partial armor, which is basically Armor 2 that can't be damaged. Maybe the naked cultist should have worn his armor! We give it to Floki, who happens to be fey-blooded and also has the worst armor of my original heroes. He hands down his leather armor to Gar. We also find a total of 3 gold marks on the bodies of the slain necromancers.

As he dies, the crossbowman mumbles something about the necromancers establishing a base of operations in Vyonnes. We also gain an adventure point, and spend all five of our adventure points for a roll to reduce the necromancer threat level. We roll a 4, so the necromancer threat is now down to a 3. That new necromancer camp in Vyonnes will yield an additional loot roll if we find and eliminate it. Until then, all of our battles against the necromancers will include a random enemy with a +1/+0 bonus to melee damage, meaning a +1 against armor rolls.

This was possibly our most successful battle, aside from the stingy loot. Only one hero injured, and it wasn't even Hyuddumm.

The end of the battle: all the blank tokens are dead enemies, except the one in the brush is Quetzal.

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After the battle near Cordeliers, we camped for a couple of days to allow Quetzal to heal. To avoid digging into limited rations, one of our two daily actions each day is Live Off The Land. In other words, scrounging for edible berries, mushrooms, greens, and the like. Both the Count and Henri were 1 XP shy of leveling up, the other daily action was Training. The Count leveled up and acquired skill in Scouting. Henri's repeated experiences as point man in the delve finally paid off, as he now has Combat +2, the highest in the party.

While everybody else was out of the camp looking for food, a wild boar wandered into camp and confronted Quetzal. If Quetzal got wounded again, he would die, but he used his point of Will to give himself a +2 on a Wits rolled, allowing him to outwit the boar until it left camp. The war party got lost while heading back to Vyonnes, but encountered a friendly priest, Monseigneur Jules. The priest stayed the night at the warparty camp, then led them back to Vyonnes the next day.

To avoid spending limited funds, the warparty worked for the Town Guard for a shift, and identified the address that they had for the necromancer hideout. The party will attack their meeting place this evening, where they will find 10 members of the Coven of the Half-Dead. They are normal people, except Brave and a little tougher than normal. If wounded, there is a 1 in 3 chance that a given coven member will turn into a Maddened Revenant (zombie). None of the coven members have range weapons or combat spells, but one has a bastard sword (+1 to overcome toughness).

To be continued...