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Hi all

Starting a 5 Parsecs game with my son. I'm running it without the tactical games, due to attention span, but we're rolling through the events to see what happens, and telling a bit of a story. Going to log it here for fun

The story so far:
Captain Megarifle has gathered a band of cutthroat outlaws together to take up arms against a common enemy. Running on the merchant cruiser Star of Fire. A bit beat up, but still runs smoothly.

Megarifle - a genetic uplift from a dystopian city and out for revenge! the Captain had been a troubleshooter for a local security network, until he got hit by some sudden but inevitable betrayal.
Currently armed with autorifle with an assault blade, frag vest and a defensive screen generator.

Doofenschmitrz - Background in alien diplomacy and negotiating treaties, but is now bored of that and is out for adventure
Currently toting military rifle and a blade, and has recently picked up an unusual hobby, which we reckon is something to do with putting mouldy cheese in peoples' hair...

Perry the empath - Hailing from an industrial world, Perry is intensely faithful, but is pretty militant about it.
Armed with colony rifle and blade

Glerk the swift - Orphaned at an early age, it ran with the gangs on its homeworld and has banded together with Megarifle for pure survival! Currently the centre of a sub-plot about the rest of the crew trying to hide his x-box away without him noticing.
Armed with handgun and a blade.

Zeth - Got bored on his mining colony and is out to get some glory in a cutthroat band of outlaws!
armed with hand laser and boarding sabre, so is the close combat expert of the team.

Ib the bot - Fantastically upgraded combat/security bot on a military outpost. Got betrayed in the same action that Megarifle is escaping from, and so has joined the team to save up enough money to buy its freedom.
armed (to the teeth) with rattle-gun (HMG) and a backup handgun



Currently investigating the opportunities for misbehaving on the planet of ZethStar 6.

Patrons -
We have struck up a close relationship with the Hales organisation, a private organisation that needs deniable plausibility in some naughty undertakings.

Megarifle is also hiring out to the local government bodies as security for hire.

Rivals -
The dastardly Flintlock security organisation has been after us for stealing their contracts with the local government guys.

Seth runs a crew of salvagers. I think we probably nicked some of their salvage on behalf of Hales and so they don't like us. Further encounters may expand on this initial position.

Henry's Hulks are a gang after us for some reason I haven't thought of

Missions to date:

We have rolled through 2 missions.

The first one we were running out of time for, but our job for the local government went well and we made a few creds. Turns out the crew "found" a trinket, that happens to be Glerk's x-box, but the cutthroats that the crew are are hiding it from him. Perry got lost while trying to find some trade goods and therefore missed the next game.

However, we also picked up Bob. Bob is from an isolationist enclave, and therefore pretty naïve. We started him with a blade only, to see how well he can handle himself.

The second mission, we got ambushed by Flintlock on the way to hide Glerk's x-box (yes, Glerk went along as well... not sure how the rest are still hiding this from him...). We were outnumbered by well armed enforcers, so we didn't even try to engage or get to the hiding place, but got right out of there.

Glerk got a bit banged up, but otherwise no long term damage. Bob took a bit of a shoeing as well, so needs to spend a turn in the sickbay recovering. On the plus side, he somehow managed to find a hunting rifle while crawling about after the battle, so he can become our resident sniper

The rest of the crew also came across some crates of excellent food and drink while scattering back to the Star of Fire, so we can replace any further losses for free.

The story will (may) continue

Fun!

Everything I see about this game makes me just a little more interested.

Do you think it would work well for an 11 year old?

I think an 11 year old should be able to deal with it. The biggest problem is keeping straight on the process of continual table rolling. If you can help keep that part rolling along then you get loads of great story telling fodder.

My face is itchy on the inside... that means no work for me today! So there was scope for a few more rounds of entertainment with The Annihilators!

First up, the local authorities (new Patron... obviously a different branch than the last ones) needed some precious cargo delivered. Unfortunately a team of salvage hunters decided to try and boost the cargo. We managed to fight them off, but it was a painful experience. Perry, Glerk and Bob each took a hit, but thankfully only Glerk was harmed for any length of time, with 1 turn needed to recuperate.

We managed to salvage from the salvagers, and picked up some stim packs and med-patches. Made a decent profit on that deal as well, but we found a flyer in one of the salvage teams' gear indicating that there are some war clouds gathering. It might be time to scoot to another world before this one becomes untenable.

Next round, and the crew concentrated on exploring. Didn't get much, though. Doofenshmirz got a free drink from somewhere and we managed to trade for a military rifle for the poor banged up Glerk (who still hasn't found his x-box).

We also picked up two different jobs from Patrons.

Each turn we've been managing to chip away at the ship debt, so should soon be able to start affording decent upgrades for it.

Next mission rolled around and we decided to take the Local Authority up on another delivery mission. This time we needed to escort a cargo of medical supplies to a camp north west of a nearby lake. The mist had really come in over the lake and it was hard to see much, and thats when it happened. Megarifle and Ib had obviously been noticed on the planet, and now the professionals were here to claim. Bounty hunters!

Thankfully there were only 2 of them against the 6 crew that were still feeling functional enough to join the fun. Saw them off in short order, however not before Megarifle took a serious gut shot. it was touch and go as they managed to drag him back to the ships med-bay. he technically died twice, but with luck he was stabilised, but needed some serious surgery (spent 2 story points and had to pay for surgery to prevent permanent stat loss).

However, we managed to lift the two infantry rifles that the bounty hunters dropped on their retreat, so Doofenshmirtz was the recipient of an upgrade to his colony rifle, while Perry swapped his military rifle to Glerk to take on the second laser.

Everyone was feeling pretty pumped after making it back to the ship, again with a decent profit, even if some of it needed to be used to stabilise poor old Megarifle! Oh yeah, and then Bob was fiddling with something on the ship and it exploded (1 turn down for Bob, and 1 damage to the ship).

However, the word was out now. The whole planet knew that Megarifle and Ib are around, and the rivals started lining up (campaign event; 1 new rival per turn until moving to a new planet!). The crew decided to stick around for one more Patron mission as the big score they had been waiting for had finally arrived.

The private organisation FleshFlash needed a local data terminal secured from a remote hacking attempt (I don't know where the little man gets his ideas... they are a mixture of awesome and worrying).

However, the crew were down their Captain and their cannon fodder... I mean latest valuable crew member! So it was time to pull out all the stops. The food that was picked up previously was dipped into, managing to attract Mira to join up.

Starting in the undercity of a local hive planet, Mira had managed to work her way up to a decent research position. But then it had all fallen apart. The dastardly Flintlock had stolen her research years before. As Megarifle's crew became more famous on Zethstar 6 she heard of their exploits against Flintlock and came to join up to get some payback! The decent food that appeared to be part of the job was just a bonus.

She even turned up with her own rifle and jump belt. Score!

Mira swapped out her kit for Megarifle's... well... megarifle (auto rifle with assault blade), and off they went.

Mira's hope to come up against Flintlock was not to be in this first engagement though. The miscreants that had been trying to tap into Fleshflash's systems were in fact a bunch of psychos with shotguns... of course they were. Probably after some kind of drugs stash from FleshFlash's extensive labs.

The mobility of Mira's jump belt, and Zeths boosted legs and movement upgrades meant that getting to the objective was pretty simple. The rest of the team kited away the bad guys and put a couple of them down before it became apparent even to the psychos that their heist had failed.

As a reward, the crew got a hefty stack of cash and extra danger money, and also a stash of stims and some frag grenades to boot.

However, Zethstar 6 is getting way too hot to continue operating on (lots of rivals incoming), so the crew is making ready to jump planet.

Will Bob break anything else on the ship? Will Glerk ever find his x-box? Will Megarifle die (again) next time? Will Flintlock follow our (anti)heroes to the next planet? (I think this might have to happen).

Oh yeah, the crew also discovered a Quest... I think it might be to take Flintlock down once and for all! Time will tell.

Join us next time as we see what other messes The Annihilators can manage to drop themselves into!

Thanks for writing about your experience! Got me motivated got another round as well. I really love how different the stories can be for everyone in this game

I'm a sucker for random tables to hang narratives off

Mixing it in with an 8 year old's propensity to come up with the most random things is also fun!

Some more good storytelling!

Kids can come up with the wildest, most fun and sometimes terrifying things. I'll never forget the time my nephew and I were taking a walk and heard thunder, and he turned to me and said "That's not any storm. That's the storm of death regenerating."

Anyhow, keep it up!