OO Solo Board Gamers Guild

[hepcat]

My gripe with the Imperium rulebook is that it doesn't actually include any examples of game flow/game play. It's like reading the schematics for a microprocessor. And they do that thing that Phil Eklund does where they stick important terms that are essential to the game into a glossary at the back of the book, forcing you to go hunting for them when you're reading rules.

That being said, there appears to be a fascinating game to be found here. And Turczi can do no wrong when it comes to solo AIs.

[baelthazar]

My gripe with the Imperium rulebook is that it doesn't actually include any examples of game flow/game play. It's like reading the schematics for a microprocessor. And they do that thing that Phil Eklund does where they stick important terms that are essential to the game into a glossary at the back of the book, forcing you to go hunting for them when you're reading rules.

That being said, there appears to be a fascinating game to be found here. And Turczi can do no wrong when it comes to solo AIs.

The fans have fixed this for people: https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/2237 ... m-classics

I am still waiting on my copies. I finally cancelled my Cardhaus order and spent the extra money to get them shipped from the UK from the Book Depository. It wasn't much more, and I am impatient.

[hepcat]

Oh, excellent, thanks!

[Smoove_B]

If you want to see a full solo play through (with minimal errors) that's only about 60 minutes, check the One Stop Coop Shop from last month:



I haven't seen one that is shorter, fwiw.

[hepcat]

Thanks. I’m playing Core Space with Seppe on Saturday. Maybe I can convince him to give this a test run with me.

[Fishbelly]

Got my copy today. I tried reading the rules over lunch and I swear to god, I have zero understanding of what they're trying to do in this game. There are like 2,382 different types of cards (which is pretty impressive considering each deck consists of about 3 cards or something) and they all do something. I think some only do something on certain days of the week or when it's raining outside. I'm just completely confused at this point.

I've had my copy of Imperium Classics for a week now, and I completely agree. I had to watch some online tutorials/playthroughs to understand what I'm discovering is quite a fun game indeed. I particularly liked the videos by "Gaming Rules" and Ricky Royal.

Oddly, once I understood how to play the rulebook now makes perfect sense and is easy to use and navigate. The problem is the writing is so dry and the rulebook itself has poor graphic design (and it's criminal that there are no play examples whatsoever).

For example, in the "How to Play" section, it begins by detailing you can take one of three actions: Activate, Innovate, or Revolt, followed by the Clean Up phase. The rules then detail each phase, but the design does a piss-poor job of laying out the information--it all runs together visually, and includes info on reshuffling your deck and the Solstice phase as well. It's too much to take in and process w/o examples.

There are also a lot of keywords to learn, and even the terms for the various decks were confusing with separate draw, destiny, fame, nations, and market decks--more than once early on, I drew from the wrong deck because I mixed up the terms.

Now I understand it better, and I do think the game is well worth trying out. In fact, I have a Rome vs Celts game setup and ready to dive into this afternoon.

[Fishbelly]

My gripe with the Imperium rulebook is that it doesn't actually include any examples of game flow/game play. It's like reading the schematics for a microprocessor. And they do that thing that Phil Eklund does where they stick important terms that are essential to the game into a glossary at the back of the book, forcing you to go hunting for them when you're reading rules.

That being said, there appears to be a fascinating game to be found here. And Turczi can do no wrong when it comes to solo AIs.

I've never played a game with solo AI by Turczi before, and I must concur--his work is amazing! Definitely some of the best solo AI I've ever played. The tables are buried in the solo rulebook, but in the BGG file section someone uploaded color files of all the tables for printing, and it makes gameplay MUCH smoother.

[hepcat]

Then do yourself a favor my friend and get thee to Anachrony and Teotihuacan. The former is all Turczi, while the latter is just Turczi doing what Turczi does best...creating amazing solo rules.

I know I'm online gaming shy and continuously promise to play then never do, but if you ever want to try either out on TSS, let me know and I'll make a concerted effort to set something up.

I watched 45 minutes of the Gaming Rules tutorial where he actually plays a game and it makes a LOT more sense now. The acquire versus break through rules were especially obtuse in the rulebook, in my opinion. His video made them clear to me though. I'm hoping to tackle this tomorrow with another player or two before heading off to solo land with it.

[baelthazar]

Then do yourself a favor my friend and get thee to Anachrony and Teotihuacan. The former is all Turczi, while the latter is just Turczi doing what Turczi does best...creating amazing solo rules.

Anachrony is one of the top, if not the top, solo game in my collection. At first, it all looks very complicated, but once you get into the game it feels like a streamlined and tight worker placement game. I thought the "time travel" aspect would be overwhelming, but I found it to be something more akin to issuing stocks in the stock market of one of the Railways of XX type games. It works and it works well.

That said, I think the updated Chronossus was only partly Turczi and mostly John Albertson. I only mention this because he seems like a solid dude and often answers questions on BGG and the Rolling Solo Facebook group.

[Fishbelly]

Then do yourself a favor my friend and get thee to Anachrony and Teotihuacan. The former is all Turczi, while the latter is just Turczi doing what Turczi does best...creating amazing solo rules.

I know I'm online gaming shy and continuously promise to play then never do, but if you ever want to try either out on TSS, let me know and I'll make a concerted effort to set something up.

I've thought about Anachrony before, so I'll definitely check it out.

I'm "online shy" as well--hence the fact I've only posted here a few hundred times, but I've been a member since Gone Gold shut down. I even own TSS, but I've never managed to game with others.

[hepcat]

when I say "online shy" i mean I tend to avoid online gaming because I sometimes get a weird sense of pressure that makes me anxious about it. i'm fine with a small group that I know, but I need to venture outside my comfort zone on that.

but as far as being a loud mouthed jerk on the internet, I'm well known for that.

[hepcat]

Okay, I played two games of Imperium Legends yesterday with one other player. We loved it so much we just couldn’t stop.

Then, this morning I’m reading through the forums and there’s some updates reminding people that variable VP cards stop scoring after 10 VP.

This has almost ruined the game for me, to be honest. We were routinely planning strategy around those cards as they’re quite prevalent in the game. To find out afterwards that there’s a shitty balancing ruled placed on them that you have to take into consideration when you’re doing your final scoring is…well…shitty. It’s a fiddly mechanic they should have addressed in the game. Not through after the fact restrictions.

Edit: after a cooling down period, and a review of the cards, I don’t think it’s as bad as I originally made it out to be. I think I was just frustrated after spending an entire day playing it wrong. I’m still not a fan of balancing your game artificially like this, but if it makes scoring at the end of the game a little easier, it may be worth it (seriously, it took us a good 10 minutes to figure out our scores after each game…there’s just a lot of little things to take into account each game end).

[Tao]

Looking for a rules clarification, or maybe just a lesson in English grammar. I've been playing quite a bit of Street Masters the past two weeks, like two games per night. Each night I pick new fighters to try out. Anyway here is the card in question.

Weapon Jam - "If at least 1 figure controls an objective, this card deals the figure with the most objectives 2 general damage. Then the boss deals each fighter 1 direct damage for each objective it carries".

Who is the subject of "It" the boss or the fighter? Is the damage based on the objectives the boss is carrying or the number of objectives the fighter is carrying?

I've also played Cybor...err I mean Max and was getting hung up on the term "Otherwise" but I just called it one way and kept it consistent.

[Smoove_B]

Who is the subject of "It" the boss or the fighter? Is the damage based on the objectives the boss is carrying or the number of objectives the fighter is carrying?

"It" applies to the boss - so you count how many objective tokens the boss is carrying and it's that number of direct damage applied to each fighter.

I think they used "it" because its the game AI running the boss.

What I think is potentially more confusing is that the top half of the card can apply to the characters or the boss - because the rule says "Figure". So basically if the boss is the only figure on the board holding objective tokens and it has two of them, that card means the boss then takes 2 general damage. Then on the second half of the card, the boss would deal each fighter 2 direct damage.

I was initially really thrown for a loop with the Street Fighter rules. However, I think once you pick up on the keyword use, it all slips it place.

[AWS260]

Last night I played a two-handed game of The Vote, about the women's suffrage movement. It works well as a solo experience, since there's no hidden information.

The arc of the game is interesting. Early on, Supremacy is gaining points like a metronome, in chunks of 6 or 7, while Equality is lucky to gin up a point here or there. But as public opinion slowly but inevitably shifts toward equality, Supremacy's points start to dry up and Equality picks up the pace.

Supremacy wins if they reach 75 points; Equality wins if they pass the 17th and 19th Amendments (popular election of senators and women's suffrage, respectively) and have more points than Supremacy. At the end of my game, Equality had passed both amendments but couldn't quite pull ahead of Supremacy. The final score was 75 to 69.

Rules-wise, it can be difficult to keep things straight. There are a lot of rules that are similar-but-slightly-different, and the end of each round triggers a set of procedural steps that had me going back to the rulebook every time. It's not wargame-dense by any means, it's just easy to make minor rules mistakes.

In terms of "feel," The Vote is a weird one. It is deliberately frustrating, for both sides. Equality is constantly seeing their actions blocked by Supremacy, but Supremacy can only slow, not stop, Equality's spread. This is the designer's intent, and it's more thought-provoking than fun. Still, I am looking forward to a two-player game of The Vote this weekend.

[Tao]

Thanks Smoove_B.

[Smoove_B]

Finally managed to force myself to play through Hadrian's Wall, a "flip and write" game that I guess is a variation of the (die) roll and write style games. I'm still pretty new to this genre so I apologize if I'm wrong in my nomenclature.

Anyway, I really like this as a solo game, and while it has the possibility to play with others, I'm having a hard time imagining it. The reason is that half the fun (for me) is sitting and taking my time and puzzle through each turn, trying to maximize results. I feel like I'd feel pressure if there was one or two other people staring at me, waiting for me to finish my turn so they could go.

How to describe it...I think the closest I could think was it really reminded me of playing a computer game of Civilization. Why? Because you're given resources each round and you need to appropriate them to build things or accomplish elements. Each round you gain an income of specific resources, but then the "flip" of a card gives you a random set of additional resources (all meeples).

There's so much going on - so many areas to focus on. Building the aforementioned wall. Building bathhouses or theaters or trade centers. Training soldiers. Building temples.

The cards you draw can give you victory point goals to aim towards - things to finish or tasks to complete to earn more points. I didn't even get into trading or training gladiators for combat. I just focused on wall building for my first game and scored a 48 - what amounts to a "D" rating for total points.

A solo campaign has been provided by the creator, allowing you to add in some legacy elements where you get to start each game with resources based on how well you did in prior scenarios.

Overall, I'd definitely recommend it - particularly if you're a fan of "cascading" rounds where doing [X] then unlocks [Y], which then lets you do {Z], which then, allows you to...

Over and over again, that's the standard turn - seeing how you can stretch out each of your rounds to get the most of your limited resources. This is another kind of game that's outside my wheelhouse as I wouldn't normally be inclined to play worker placement style games. This is about as lite as that gets and the lack of dice had me even more nervous, but somehow it all works.

Here's a press shot of how it all looks - kinda busy, but once you understand how it all works, the design of the pages is actually rather impressive.

[tylertoo]

I went to a local game swap yesterday, had never done anything like that before. Didn't know anyone there, but it was a good group of people and I ended up hanging out for a while. I made one outright swap, one swap including cash to even it out, and one purchase. Came home with City of Kings (non deluxe edition), Nemo's War 2nd ed., Aeon's End War Eternal, and Tiny Epic Mechs. Should keep me busy for a while!

[hepcat]

That’s actually a good group of games. I think you’ll really enjoy them.

[YellowKing]

Came home with City of Kings (non deluxe edition), Nemo's War 2nd ed., Aeon's End War Eternal, and Tiny Epic Mechs.

The only one of those I don't own is Tiny Epic Mechs, and I'd put all three others on my "I will never get rid of these" list.

City of Kings is an intensely challenging puzzler which may turn off some folks looking for a more traditional dungeon crawl, but I found it a fantastic solo experience.

Nemo's War is my favorite pure solo game of all time, period. (Technically there is a co-op mode, but it's more of a tacked on ruleset for letting another person do half the functions you would normally just do yourself).

And Aeon's End War Eternal was my first Aeon's End game and is still one of my favorite deck builders. The mechanic of not shuffling adds such a great extra layer of strategy, and it's one of those games that plays well solo or in a group.

Great haul.

[tylertoo]

Great haul.

Thanks, I'm pleased. In case anyone is curious, here were the deals:

Deep Space D6 (KS edition, w/Endless expansion swapped for Aeon's End War Eternal (NIS) and Tiny Epic Mechs.
Sentinels of the Multiverse (1st ed., base game only) and $25 for City of Kings
$40 for an opened but pristine copy of Nemo's War.

I wasn't worried about getting good deals, just wanted to do fair swaps without sweating it out. These seemed pretty fair to me. I've always been curious about City of Kings and today this was the first of the four new games that I tried. Really liking it so far -- I spent time today following the developer's own gameplay video to learn it. I wish I had the character overlay sheets -- this is the basic edition only, and I can see myself knocking the sheets easily. But otherwise, very pleased to have it.

Next up will be Nemo's War. Though I've always been interested in it, I was on the fence about getting it at the swap (since I was just paying cash, seller wasn't interested in a swap), but the seller was genuinely convincing in his praise so I sprung for it.

Aeon's End War Eternal was my first Aeon's End game and is still one of my favorite deck builders.

Yup, I already have Aeon's End New Age, and so getting War Eternal is my second Aeon's, looking forward to opening that up.

Moral of the story -- if you see a local game swap in your town, give it a try!

[hepcat]

Back to Descent Friday for attempt two at scenario two. I took a break from games for a little while but I’m back to it. I did actually win this time. No more hard difficulty level for moi.

Today I finally beat the solo AI for Pax Renaissance 2nd edition. I still love this one and I’m glad it’s got a somewhat decent solo mode.

[Smoove_B]

I played Veilwraith last month and enjoyed it quite a bit, but generally speaking I'm having so much trouble getting motivated to do anything. So instead I'm organizing boxes, consolidating space and reading rule books. It's not been a great year for solo gaming for me, oddly enough.

I did get a copy of 5 Parsecs From Home and I am finding it quite intriguing. From the description:

Five Parsecs From Home is a solo adventure wargame where you assemble a ragtag crew of galactic trailblazers and head out to explore the stars, pick up jobs, and every now and then — engage in some action-packed, sci-fi combat!

Battles are procedurally generated with huge combinations of enemies, weapons, battlefield circumstances and objectives whether fighting rivals or carrying out jobs.

With each encounter you earn experience and loot, progressing your crew and story as you send your crew to look for contacts, trade, explore the colony, recruit replacements or train up their skills.

It's a game like Rangers of Shadow Deep where you just use whatever you have (minis/terrain) and throw together an adventure/campaign. There's so many tables of things - character traits, items, abilities, etc... so the potential for interesting things to emerge seems quite interesting (to me). The rules are a bit more detailed than RoSD, but still reasonable. If you have any familiarity with miniature skirmish combat they're definitely rooted in that theme.

But if anyone was looking for another way to use your Core Space miniatures, here you go.

[hepcat]

Oooh….I like the Five Parsecs. Just ordered a copy off Amazon for a few bucks cheaper and free shipping.

[Smoove_B]

Yeah, I should probably have mentioned you can get it cheaper elsewhere. I'm not sure when, but the fantasy version (Five Leagues from the Borderlands) is coming out soon-ish? Maybe early next year? That would be closer to RoSD, but assuming it's like 5 Parsecs, a bit more detailed and more sandbox.

This is actually the 3rd edition of Five Parsecs, though I'm not really sure what's changed. I do believe it (and Borderlands) started out as freebies or cheap PDFs on DriveThru but were so popular that Modiphus purchased the publishing rights and spruced them up (editing, layout, art...)

It's a quality book; I'm definitely impressed. There's already an expansion on DriveThru. The issue is that it was originally released in the UK back in early summer but the shipping insanity didn't have hard copies arriving to the US until last month. It was possible to get it shipped from the UK back in May but prices were insane.

[baelthazar]

I have had Five Parsecs on preorder from Miniature Market since July. I checked Amazon and I can get it by Wednesday for cheaper. So I canceled that pre-order and ordered there.

Last week I placed an order for the printed copies of Ironsworn from DriveThru. I am looking forward to delving into that (no pun intended).

[Smoove_B]

I finished reading Five Parsecs from Home and it's really a start to finish system that reminds me most of board games like Target for Today or Silent Victory - lots and lots of tables.

Here, the combat is secondary to everything else going on - leveling your crew, getting jobs, fixing/upgrading your ship, etc... -- there's a lot of stuff going on. Yes, it's seemingly driven by the combat, but the things that happen during and after combat drive the larger narrative. There's included rules to turn it into a GM-run affair or to make it fully coop.

The combat is a bit more complicated than I'd originally thought and I'll need to see if there's a quick reference sheet. The one thing I like is that it's not a you go / AI goes system or even you make all your moves then the AI goes. Instead it's tiered so that all the quick-acting characters go first. Then the enemy, then your slowest characters. So there's a bit more strategy then. You still roll initiative dice and assign them, but thematically you're still playing big damn heroes.

Not surprisingly Firefly is named as an inspiration, but what really impressed me was that the author named Warp Riders by The Sword as an inspiration as well. That is one of my go-to albums of the last - oh good lord it came out 11 years ago - well, still damn good. There's lots of inspiration he references, but those two stuck out.

[tylertoo]

I did get a copy of 5 Parsecs From Home and I am finding it quite intriguing.

Oooh….I like the Five Parsecs. Just ordered a copy off Amazon for a few bucks cheaper and free shipping.

Damn you all. I don't have time for more games. Yet it could be on my doorstep in two days...



Meanwhile, I'm still playing the wonderful City of Kings, picked up in a game swap mentioned a few weeks ago. Awaiting me still are Nemo's War (through the same swap) and Folklore: the Affliction (courtesy a later swap). Also this past weekend grabbed a copy of the RPG Blades in the Dark, which is not solo, but still quite intriguing. So little time for all this!

[hepcat]

I need to get back into City of Kings. I love that giant puzzle game.

Folklore I tried to start up again over the summer but just couldn't get into it. I think it's the rather lackluster combat and the level up mechanics, which basically consists of "add .1 percent to your 100 die roll chance to hit". It's a shame too as I love the classes and the theme of the game.

Got my copy of Five Parsecs. It's a slick little book with some great ideas.

[Smoove_B]

Also this past weekend grabbed a copy of the RPG Blades in the Dark, which is not solo, but still quite intriguing. So little time for all this!

I have good news for you - get yourself a copy of Alone in the Dark to go with it.

[baelthazar]

I finished reading Five Parsecs from Home and it's really a start to finish system that reminds me most of board games like Target for Today or Silent Victory - lots and lots of tables.

I skimmed Five Parsecs and I was sort of stunned at how close it is to Core Space. I guess this is a good thing, since I was going to use the Core Space terrain and minis to play it. But I'm a little worried that I should just... you know... play Core Space instead. But I am an RPG rules addict - I enjoy reading these books as much as I do playing them.

I just finished a long-running "five minute break turns" set up of Arena (Tanares). I think I made some mistakes and narrowly lost the scenario. Damage is fast and furious, so you really are having to learn how to mitigate the constant barrage of pain. Overall, I liked it (much better than Altar Quest, which I still have yet to connect with) but I am not sure I was blown away. Another round will help.

[Smoove_B]

Core Space (to me) is much more combat/mission focused. This has similar elements, but its way more detailed and there's so much more to do outside of the combat.

But yes, they are generally pretty close. I was going to use Core Space minis and terrain as well, fwiw.

[hepcat]

Ditto. I backed the core space expansion and this just means I’ll get double the value out of everything.

[Isgrimnur]

Not surprisingly Firefly is named as an inspiration, but what really impressed me was that the author named Warp Riders by The Sword as an inspiration as well. That is one of my go-to albums of the last - oh good lord it came out 11 years ago - well, still damn good. There's lots of inspiration he references, but those two stuck out.

Listened to it today. To me, it was a decent rock album, but the music itself didn't sell the theme to me. The lyrics might, but that's generally the last part of music that I pay attention to.

[tylertoo]

Also this past weekend grabbed a copy of the RPG Blades in the Dark, which is not solo, but still quite intriguing. So little time for all this!

I have good news for you - get yourself a copy of Alone in the Dark to go with it.

Yup, grabbed that on DriveThruRPG earlier this week. I also watched this video on playing Blades solo, and she uses some other aides, including Dark Streets and Darker Secrets that coincidentally was on sale for $3 just two days ago, so I grabbed that as well.

[Smoove_B]

Listened to it today. To me, it was a decent rock album, but the music itself didn't sell the theme to me. The lyrics might, but that's generally the last part of music that I pay attention to.

Ah, that album and the follow up (Apocryphon) tell great stories. I'm definitely into the lyrics and how they mesh with the music, but I'm also generally just a big fan of stoner rock. Warp Riders is a true concept album but Apocryphon is more of a fantasy/metaphysical-themed album. Sorta. Both of them are in constant rotation for me.

Yup, grabbed that on DriveThruRPG earlier this week. I also watched this video on playing Blades solo, and she uses some other aides, including Dark Streets and Darker Secrets that coincidentally was on sale for $3 just two days ago, so I grabbed that as well.

Awesome. I've been trying for a few years now to get into the idea of solo RPG stuff, but try as I might, I just can't crack the code. I always keep looking at stuff though.

[tylertoo]

I've been trying for a few years now to get into the idea of solo RPG stuff, but try as I might, I just can't crack the code. I always keep looking at stuff though.

You should try Ironsworn. Pretty straightforward. The pdf is free, I believe.

[$iljanus]

I finished reading Five Parsecs from Home and it's really a start to finish system that reminds me most of board games like Target for Today or Silent Victory - lots and lots of tables.

Here, the combat is secondary to everything else going on - leveling your crew, getting jobs, fixing/upgrading your ship, etc... -- there's a lot of stuff going on. Yes, it's seemingly driven by the combat, but the things that happen during and after combat drive the larger narrative. There's included rules to turn it into a GM-run affair or to make it fully coop.

The combat is a bit more complicated than I'd originally thought and I'll need to see if there's a quick reference sheet. The one thing I like is that it's not a you go / AI goes system or even you make all your moves then the AI goes. Instead it's tiered so that all the quick-acting characters go first. Then the enemy, then your slowest characters. So there's a bit more strategy then. You still roll initiative dice and assign them, but thematically you're still playing big damn heroes.

Not surprisingly Firefly is named as an inspiration, but what really impressed me was that the author named Warp Riders by The Sword as an inspiration as well. That is one of my go-to albums of the last - oh good lord it came out 11 years ago - well, still damn good. There's lots of inspiration he references, but those two stuck out.

This game sounded familiar and it turns out I bought the 2nd edition pdf from Drive Thru RPG a while ago but decided to bite the bullet on a physical copy of the third edition since the layout looks good and there seems to be some new things. With my Core Space terrain and Core Space minis I should have some games up and running in no time. Probably will throw in some Terminator minis (both robotic and Resistance) and Zombicide Invader has quite a few minis that would go quite well with the system.

[Smoove_B]

This game sounded familiar and it turns out I bought the 2nd edition pdf from Drive Thru RPG a while ago but decided to bite the bullet on a physical copy of the third edition since the layout looks good and there seems to be some new things. With my Core Space terrain and Core Space minis I should have some games up and running in no time. Probably will throw in some Terminator minis (both robotic and Resistance) and Zombicide Invader has quite a few minis that would go quite well with the system.

There's a small section in the back of the 3rd edition that details what was changed, but overall I am quite pleased with the book - the layout, the art, so quite an upgrade for me from the PDF.

You should try Ironsworn. Pretty straightforward. The pdf is free, I believe.

Yes, I own it. And I backed the space version (Starforged) that's coming out...eventually. I think I struggle with solo RPGs because they're not quite what I'm looking for. Basically I'm trying to find a wilderness hexcrawl based system that can then zoom me in to engage in tactical combat. complete quests, etc...

That's why I think 5 Leagues from the Borderlands might ultimately be what I'm looking for - theme and design.

[$iljanus]

This game sounded familiar and it turns out I bought the 2nd edition pdf from Drive Thru RPG a while ago but decided to bite the bullet on a physical copy of the third edition since the layout looks good and there seems to be some new things. With my Core Space terrain and Core Space minis I should have some games up and running in no time. Probably will throw in some Terminator minis (both robotic and Resistance) and Zombicide Invader has quite a few minis that would go quite well with the system.

There's a small section in the back of the 3rd edition that details what was changed, but overall I am quite pleased with the book - the layout, the art, so quite an upgrade for me from the PDF.

You should try Ironsworn. Pretty straightforward. The pdf is free, I believe.

Yes, I own it. And I backed the space version (Starforged) that's coming out...eventually. I think I struggle with solo RPGs because they're not quite what I'm looking for. Basically I'm trying to find a wilderness hexcrawl based system that can then zoom me in to engage in tactical combat. complete quests, etc...

That's why I think 5 Leagues from the Borderlands might ultimately be what I'm looking for - theme and design.

Heh I backed Starforge too! I think I preferred the space setting to the fantasy grimdark Ironforge setting (which I also have). I struggled a little with Ironsworn and was a little lost but there are quite a few player aids that ease you into the game system. I didn’t buy them though because I think I’ll focus more on learning Starforge which looks to be playable with the material that’s made available for KS backers.

In the meantime my copy of 5 Parsecs should come on Monday and I already have an idea for a mission involving a 5 “being” (I assume aliens can be characters) merc team and a trip to a machine outpost to steal a data core, populated by cyborgs hailing from some backwater planet where an AI computer system achieved sentience and proceeded to wipe out the indigenous population of the planet before spreading out into the wider universe. Normally with these sort of machine entities they’re happy keeping to their own worlds and colonies where they do what machine entities do and organics have their own thing. Occasionally, some AI factions get all MURDER ALL ORGANICS but they get slapped down pretty easily.