Stat It: Five Star Wars From Home

Five Parsecs from Home looks to be the best means to play a sci-fi open world campaign (or rather open galaxy?) as it plays out in an episodic story of a motley crew of space-faring mercs with randomized events that go on between different planets, supplying both a gamist and narrativist effect while giving a simulationist feel once you get your boots on the ground in the battle portions of the game.

However, the game is primarily for skirmishes, which means you will need quite a lot of minis and terrains, as well as a different view of how to move units and attack. Basically, it’s less like playing D&D and more like playing Warhammer. Even with the Freelancers Handbook, it feels rather a little too complex for me to jump right into it…

Luckily for me, though, there’s a spacefaring game that I want to play for a very long time and this would serve as the perfect framework. Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars RPG is well known for its unique dice mechanics and character customization and I’ve been meaning to do a solo game on it for a long time. And, to my good fortune, there’s even a solo oracle that works well with the Genesys system, assuming I would need to ask questions along the way.

Let’s get to work with creating our crew first.

• Our protagonist is Gavin Ingbinn, a Jedi who wound up revealing his Jedi powers to the wrong people, got himself famous, and now he’s off to make himself scarce on the Outer Rim, five parsecs from home. [2 Patrons]
• Assisting him is NY-O, a droid that was part of the “Orphan Utility Program”, which I can only assume he was basically a nannybot. However, he in truth was a Droideka that survived the Clone Wars and, developing sentience, wanted to learn more about the truth behind the Clone Wars, having heard a rumor of how it started… [1 Patron and 1 Rumor]
• And lastly, Garan Madak, a Duros Engineer who fell in love with a rebel and that motivated him to help the Jedi get out to the Outer Rim. [1 Rumor]

Now, normally that would be the end of it, but I did say I was going to make a character for each alien. After matching each one to a species in the Star Wars RPG that had proper stats, then used the motivations and backstories to flesh them out, followed shortly by approximating a class on the table to the closest one I can find from the game.

The results? Some pretty powerful rivals comprised of…

• Line Brimen, a Mandalorian born in a peace-filled high-tech company who became a Bounty Hunter after losing faith in “the way” and beginning to believe in nothing. [1 Savvy, D6 Credits (2), 2 Rumors, 1 Speed, 1 Low-Tech Weapon]
• Bartars Aler, a Cyborg Human who was a working-class civilian in an overcrowded city and decided to rise up politically for the benefit of cybernetic implantations to be hyper-normalized (i.e. mandates). [1 Speed, 1 Patron, 1 Savvy, 1 Luck]
• Hosk Ov’Tre, a Chiss Slicer from a low-tech colony who wants to restore order to said colony after the Empire occupied it. [1 Low-Tech Weapon, 1 Patron, 1 Savvy, 1 Gear]
• Blugho Jugsmuus, a Geonosian Scientist from a mining colony who had obtained a load of wealth from unearthing a rare metal. [Toughness, D6 Credits (1), Savvy, Gadget]
• Chanheen Rika, a Cathar Jedi Scavenger who was imprisoned by an alien culture until she freed herself. [2 High-Tech Weapons, 20 XP, 1 Rumor]
• Porro, a Jawa Explorer who was a wasteland nomad pushed into exploring for the sheer glory of it. [Reactions, Low-Tech Weapon, Combat Skill, Military Weapon, 20 XP, Gear]
• And finally, Agows, Chadra-Fan Soldier who began as a bureaucrat before his lust for power got the better of him.  [60 Credits, 20 XP, 1 Rival, 1 Combat Skill]

Now, you might be asking yourself “what makes them so powerful?” aside from a few of them getting extra XP and Credits from the word go. Well, this is where I “tip the scales” so to speak and created a few talents.

• Reactions: Adds Boosts to Cool and Vigilance per rank of Reactions.
• Speed: Gain one additional Maneuver per rank in Speed.
• Combat Skills: Upgrade all Combat Skills per rank of Combat Skills.
• Toughness: Wound, Strain, Soak, and Defenses all go up by 1 per rank of Toughness.
• Savvy: Upgrade all Knowledge Skills per rank of Savvy.
• Luck: Upgrade all General Skills per rank of General Skills.

So, allow me to break down why these make the characters so overpowered.

In Five Parsecs from Home, these six stats would otherwise just be normal stats that would augment your character for rolls (mostly combat related). However, when converting them over to Star Wars, a lot of changes had to be made.

To be fair, I could have changed Toughness to become the Toughened Talent instead and made it a lot more balanced, but there wasn’t really a good equivalent in mind for the others, especially since with Luck, I would have the Destiny Points be equal to the number of Party members.

And so, they ended up getting a “bigger is better” advantage that is sometimes given as advice for when people solo roleplay. Though, now comes the task of doling out five patrons, five rumors, and one rival. Well, let’s cut the middle man and make the rival our protagonists, perhaps they have a hit out for us.

Now we need to deal with the other ten stuff. Now, in Five Parsecs from Home, the Patrons in this case are just people who dole out contracts. I figure it might be a little off if all of them are random corporations or governments. So instead, we’ll generate them as NPC companions.

• Gavin has two apprentices, Hela and Kenth, who he had put in jeopardy due to his stunt and now he’s looking to get them to the Outer Rim as well.
• NY-O’s local mechanic is Sion, who had been looking through the old archives trying to figure out just why NY-O went from this war machine to taking care of the kids. This leads to their first rumor: an extracted data file on NY-O’s first orders. (In Five Parsecs from Home, you have rumor points that accumulate and, when you roll a die, they become Quests.)
• Garan, roped into this excursion to the Outer Rim, managed to take a notebook from his rebel girlfriend that has secret information, which seemed to be notes on a battle that took place around NY-O’s time.

So, there’s only two Rumors they have. If the others join them, any rumors they have will be added.

• Line, having been hired to take out Gavin by her contact, is given an old map leading to a place Gavin once called home.
• Bartars has a contact with Jafan Tille, an arrogant heir of a corporation who is working with him as muscle.
• Hosk knows Tycho Rumarch, a philanthropic senator who is a sympathizer to the lower class.
• Chanheen, during her escape, intercepted a transmission regarding Gavin’s newfound infamy.
• Agows has a rival in the form of a wealthy noble named Omar Thif, who had competed with him in who could embezzle the most funds.

And with that, I think we’re ready to go with this campaign if I ever decide to do it. This has been fun worldbuilding and it’ll be exciting to put together the list of NPCs and threads to roll on when it comes time to play a session or two from this, but overall, it was fun just building the characters and the world with the context of Five Parsecs from Home.

Well, Bon Voyage, gamers!