OK, so now I have completed an entire solo campaign of Five Leagues On The Borderlands 3rd edition. It was quite a ride, with a lot of casualties involving dear companions, and many epic fights to the death with Threats. I've got some thoughts about the campaign and the game itself after 47 Campaign Turns and 25 tabletop battles.
I've been playing Ivan's games since FiveCore was his flagship product, and Five Parsecs From Home was a wild, superpowered expansion for it. When Five Leagues 1st edition launched, I fully expected Fantasy FiveCore and was very disappointed that it wasn't. But as I read through the rules, I saw something wonderfully sophisticated emerge, and by the time I had pushed around some miniatures to learn the game and learn to love it, 2nd edition was released. I played several games of it, some skinned for RuneQuest's Glorantha and some as generic medieval fantasy, but it was all fun. And then Modiphius launched the latest edition of Five leagues (after they had done a new version of Five Parsecs, which was very popular but I did not get into until later,) and I was hesitant. There were a few things I didn't like abut the new game, not the least of which was my general suspicion of bigger companies. But I persevered and gave it a try. I'm still not sure it is a better game than 2nd edition, but there is certainly a lot more to it, and more coming all the time. Ivan broke into the big time with both Five Leagues and Five parsecs, and I couldn't be happier for him!
I learned a lot about using the Map over the course of the Campaign. I wasn't too thrilled with the whole concept of the map when I first read the new rules, and honestly I'm still not 100% on board with it. But the mechanic is well integrated into the rest of the rules, and the extra enhancements available in Paths In The Wilderness make it more useful and less clunky. After using it poorly originally, I learned how it ties into the rules better and my next campaign will have a much closer relationship between the map and the tabletop games.
I tried playing through both the Quest and Contract rules, with one of each being undertaken. I did not really see the point of them, as they did nothing to advance the campaign. Sure, they gave some rewards (including a Quest reward not otherwise available) but did not eliminate the Threats at all. So they both wound up being under the "side quest" banner for me, and not being pursued further.
I played through only one Delve as a part of the campaign, and only because it was a part of the Quest. Again, it did nothing to advance the storyline and wasn't particularly hard to complete. Another "side quest" activity that also requires a certain amount of physical resources to set up. I used tiles from the "Imperial Assault" Star Wars game, which worked well enough, but I don't have enough of those to really do justice to the whole delve theme. But that's on me, as I am the one who did not put more effort into delve tiles.
The Monster rules also didn't really affect the outcome much. I only had one monster Lair scenario, again as a part of the Quest, but these encounters also do nothing to reduce the threats. I also added a Monster to a Threat encounter once, and it was a helluva speed bump but not really very important from a story perspective.
I really enjoyed the new "Adventure Milestone" mechanic. Wagering Adventure Points versus a d6 roll to accomplish something "meta" is brilliant. Reducing Threats, promoting Followers, cashing in your reputation for some gold... all good stuff. At the end of the campaign, I used all of my remaining Adventure Points to gain more gold, as well as selling off a lot of unused gear from our Stash.
So, what becomes the point of all of this? Learning, of course. What if it were possible to tie Quests, Contracts, Delves, and Creatures Most Vile into the greater Campaign framework? What would that even look like? As it turns out, it is surprisingly easy. As I am preparing for my next Five Leagues campaign (using "The Ancient land Of Dust" expansion) I decided to simply include them in the Campaign victory conditions. In addition to eliminating the three Threats, Our Heroes will need to complete three Contracts, three Quests, and so on. Now, all aspects of the game can be rolled into the Campaign victory conditions, which means they can all be enjoyed for the progress they bring!
Another thing that I discovered is that, after a certain point, the Experience advances create a warband that is very effective at eliminating the enemy. I ran into this with my Second Edition games as well. I didn't want to rock the boat too much with rules changes in my first campaign, but I've got some experience in doing just that from my Glorantha campaign. So the new campaign will hopefully bring new challenges for a warband that is already powerful. And now I will be more open to changing things on the go if they seem to easy!
And, what now? I want to acquire some new miniatures before I start up Five Leagues again, but that might be a while (I am looking at a better figure for Tundaline and something special for a Chitter.) And I need to implement my new easy method of making plenty of Delve tiles quickly. So in the meantime, I want to continue my Five Parsecs From Home campaign, try out Five Parsecs: Tactics, and try some of the solo Stargrave material. Also, my friend Kurt has just retired, so he is going to have evenings free now; the plan is to get together a few weekday evenings a month to try some two-player gaming. We have a Forbidden Psalm: The Last War campaign we'd like to get back to, and it would be nice to get some Colonials action back on the table. Only time will tell for sure, but one ting we can count on is that we haven't seen the last of Weppi and her friends yet.
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