5150 uses a “battle board,” which is recommended to be 8″ by 10″ (basically a sheet of paper), and has abstracted rules regarding ducking back, cover, etc. There are detailed rules for terrain and tactical movement, such as line of sight and objectives. 5150 has 78 pages, with only three kinds of weapons (pistol, melee, and auto) and the entire equipment section on three pages (including weapons).įive Parsecs from Home has encounters on basically a small wargaming table, ranging from 2′ by 2′ to 3′ by 3′. Five Parsecs from Home has 184 pages, including ten pages dedicated to gear. The first major one is in complexity, although that is relative to how complex other games can be. In both cases the player’s crew have that “merchant marine” vibe that has existed since Han Solo, the Traveller RPG, and all the picaresque aspects of most adventure roleplaying (including Firefly, Dark Matter, and God alone knows how many pulp sci-fi novels out there). Both have rules for spaceships and spaceship combat, creating NPC’s, and alien planets. Both have rules for character advancement. There are humans and a handful of fairly typical alien races.įive Parsecs from Home has five ability scores (Reactions, Speed, Combat Skill, Toughness, and Savvy), Luck points, backgrounds, motivations, class, and again there are humans, a larger number of alien or sub-races to choose from, and robot characters.īoth have the player’s crew participating in randomly-generated missions in which success or failure has long-term implications for the vitality and financial status of the crew.
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Both define characters in relatively simple terms:ĥ150 has a single stat (REP), two derived skills (Savvy and People), backgrounds, and Attributes (which are small quirky things the character can do). Both are solo play, with the single player using roughly half a dozen characters operating as a team against opponents. Both use miniatures, but are “miniatures agnostic” in that neither has miniatures particularly affiliated with the game so you can use whatever you like or have on hand. In many ways, the two games are very similar. No Limits is currently out of print in anticipation of the new edition. There was a recent Kickstarter for a new edition, entitled 5150 New Beginnings, but that’s released yet. The second is 5150 No Limits, published by Two Hour Wargames. It’s third edition hardcover retails for $30 and is available from Amazon or Modiphus directly.
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The first is Five Parsecs from Home, published by Modiphus Entertainment. At this point, I have narrowed it down to two choices, both very similar but with some distinct differences I’ve been writing a bit here about shifting to a solo wargame, and it feels like I’m coming to a final decision on the matter.