So I've seen this system mentioned multiple times now as being a good system which is not tied to the OGL.
Anyone here have experience with it they're willing to share? How does it play? Rules lite, medium, or heavy? Does it have a lot of published support and does it's support seem to be increasing over time much?
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 12:45:49 PM
So I've seen this system mentioned multiple times now as being a good system which is not tied to the OGL.
Anyone here have experience with it they're willing to share? How does it play? Rules lite, medium, or heavy? Does it have a lot of published support and does it's support seem to be increasing over time much?
Disclaimer: I haven't played it but...
It reads very OSR but it's it's own thing, lots of random tables to populate your campaign with unique fiends.
It's at the top of my "To Run/Play" systems/games
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 12:45:49 PM
So I've seen this system mentioned multiple times now as being a good system which is not tied to the OGL.
Anyone here have experience with it they're willing to share? How does it play? Rules lite, medium, or heavy? Does it have a lot of published support and does it's support seem to be increasing over time much?
I've been running a Stars Without Number game for about a year now. It's a great system! If you take the combat from a typical OSR game, and add a simplified skill list, with a resolution system very much like Traveller (2D6+mods roll over a target number) then you pretty much know the game.
Game designer Kevin Crawford real genius lies in his world building. IMO every game master should buy the books just for that.
Quote from: Godsmonkey on January 11, 2023, 12:58:24 PM
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 12:45:49 PM
So I've seen this system mentioned multiple times now as being a good system which is not tied to the OGL.
Anyone here have experience with it they're willing to share? How does it play? Rules lite, medium, or heavy? Does it have a lot of published support and does it's support seem to be increasing over time much?
I've been running a Stars Without Number game for about a year now. It's a great system! If you take the combat from a typical OSR game, and add a simplified skill list, with a resolution system very much like Traveller (2D6+mods roll over a target number) then you pretty much know the game.
Game designer Kevin Crawford real genius lies in his world building. IMO every game master should buy the books just for that.
That sounds intriguing.
I'm lazy. Well truth is I just don't have the time to build adventures fully on my own these days. Are there published adventures for it, or published adventure for other systems which are easily adapted to it?
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 12:45:49 PM
So I've seen this system mentioned multiple times now as being a good system which is not tied to the OGL.
Anyone here have experience with it they're willing to share? How does it play? Rules lite, medium, or heavy? Does it have a lot of published support and does it's support seem to be increasing over time much?
It's like B/X, cleaned up, with elements of Traveller. There are a number of good settings depending on what interests you the most. WWN is generic fantasy and I find it dull, but he has others like Wolves of God (medieval England, with a Beowulf feel), Spears of the Dawn (fantasy Africa pastiche), Silent Legions (Cthulhu Mythos but all the horrors are new instead of familiar to fans of the genre), and other.
With those specific settings, one thing I find he does incredibly well is describe the setting with the character options. With Spears of the Dawn you learn about the setting through the character classes and backgrounds, with Silent Legions it helps focus it since the setting is Earth but with a hidden horror.
I'm prepping to run a Worlds game this Spring. I really like the book for all the GM support it has. The way it lays out world building, faction creation, campaign design and adventure design along with all the charts is top tier.
Character creation is simple, but with enough there to make characters pretty unique. You basically have a Fighter, Mage and Expert class, but you can go 1/2 one and 1/2 another and still feel competent. Magic has several subclasses in it so it covers classic mages, clerics, druids, etc.
There are a few small supplements that have been put out that add some GM support, like how to make memorable villains and such. I think there are also a handful of adventures for Stars, not sure about Worlds. Worlds just came out with an atlas which is a great add on to the wonderful core book.
Both games have their core books, minus a minimal non-critical amount of material, available as free pdfs on DriveThru so go check them out.
Oh, there is also Godbound. It uses a similar system but it's for more mythical level heroes. Something akin to Exalted but playable.
It's basically D&D using the classic Traveller skill system
But yeah, because it's not open, it doesn't have much in the way of support, other than being able to use old school /OSR modules with it. Which was enough at the time, but now...
Quote from: JeremyR on January 11, 2023, 02:49:38 PM
It's basically D&D using the classic Traveller skill system
But yeah, because it's not open, it doesn't have much in the way of support, other than being able to use old school /OSR modules with it. Which was enough at the time, but now...
The emphasis is also on generating your own material with tables, so it's supposed to not be reliant on modules, and the idea is you can use those tables as a GM even with a non-OSR system. He just used an OSR ruleset because it was simple and recognisable. It could just as well be a d100 system or a dice pool system.
Magic has 2 levels to it: Spells and Arts. Spells are more mechanically like D&D where you can prep a number of spells each day and then cast a certain amount before needing to rest. At 1st level you can prepare 3 and get to cast 1. It's not a lot but it does go up and spells are generally powerful.
Arts are lesser magical abilities and most work off an Effort system. You get X number of Arts based on your tradition and if they don't just work, they have a temporary cost. You may have to commit effort for the day, the scene or indefinitely (until you want to end the effect of the art). The amount of effort you have is based on your magic skill level.
For example, the Elementalist gets the Arts Elemental Resilience (unharmed by mundane extremes of cold and heat and 1/2 damage from magical) and Elemental Sparks (create petty amounts of an element that could be useful to overcome a single challenge a session). At first level they also get one more Art which could be Elemental Blast (commit effort for the scene to hurl a blast of elemental force at a target). They could blast as much as they have effort in a fight and then have it all back the next scene to do it again.
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 01:49:42 PM
Quote from: Godsmonkey on January 11, 2023, 12:58:24 PM
Quote from: Mistwell on January 11, 2023, 12:45:49 PM
So I've seen this system mentioned multiple times now as being a good system which is not tied to the OGL.
Anyone here have experience with it they're willing to share? How does it play? Rules lite, medium, or heavy? Does it have a lot of published support and does it's support seem to be increasing over time much?
I've been running a Stars Without Number game for about a year now. It's a great system! If you take the combat from a typical OSR game, and add a simplified skill list, with a resolution system very much like Traveller (2D6+mods roll over a target number) then you pretty much know the game.
Game designer Kevin Crawford real genius lies in his world building. IMO every game master should buy the books just for that.
That sounds intriguing.
I'm lazy. Well truth is I just don't have the time to build adventures fully on my own these days. Are there published adventures for it, or published adventure for other systems which are easily adapted to it?
There are a few adventures for SWN from Sine Nomine, and none for WWN. However, there are lots of 3rd party adventures, though I've not read or played them:
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=worlds+without+number&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse.php?keywords=stars+without+number&x=0&y=0&author=&artist=&pfrom=&pto=
Also haven't played it. StarsWN is one of the top contenders for a "spies in space" campaign I've wanted to run for a while (along with Warpstar! and Savage Worlds). My chief reservation is with the D&D combat system. For a spies game, I want something less contingent on gear.
I'm also iffy on the "shock damage" system, which I believe is used in both games. Basically, weapon attacks do a small amount of chip damage even when they miss. I understand the theory: if HP includes luck and stamina, rather than just luck, then even evading attacks should cost you some. Makes sense, but in practice, everyone plays HP as if it was a 1 - 1 equivalent of health, and I prefer a game where a skilled or clever character has a reasonable chance of getting out of a fight unscathed.
EDIT: Despite my system reservations, I will second what others have said about Kevin Crawford writing some of the best GM advice/tools sections in the entire RPG industry.
Quote from: JeremyR on January 11, 2023, 02:49:38 PM
It's basically D&D using the classic Traveller skill system
But yeah, because it's not open, it doesn't have much in the way of support, other than being able to use old school /OSR modules with it. Which was enough at the time, but now...
A few rolls on the adventure creation tables, and a little imagination, and you really dont need modules. TBH, I've never been one to run pregens, beyond scavenging for ideas.
There are also stat blocks for generic adversaries that with a few simple tweaks and table rolls you can make for an endless variety of NPCs and monsters.
Oh, and the best part, the core rules are free. So find it on Drivethrurpg and decide for yourself.
I ran a lot of the SWN 1st edition, which looked a lot more like OSR with a simple skill system bolted on.
I also ran 2nd Ed for a while and at first quite liked it, but I found it was more convoluted over time with Character gen and some game mechanics.
Which was a shame, as I really liked the simplicity of SWN 1st ed.
So yeah, I preferred SWN 1st ed.
Other Dust (a post apocalyptic RPG in the style of Gammaworld sort of) works really well as a companion rulesset and background with SWN.
I also ran Silent Legions (sort of Horror, Cthulhu style RPG), which was a lot of fun.
There is a free version that's 90% of the game.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/86467 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/86467)
That being said, I rate space games on their ability to emulate Star Wars. Stars Without Number can do it, but the lack of energy a psychic can have limits your powers to only a few turns before it runs out. So, not for me.
Quote from: weirdguy564 on January 11, 2023, 07:25:31 PM
There is a free version that's 90% of the game.
https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/86467 (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/m/product/86467)
That being said, I rate space games on their ability to emulate Star Wars. Stars Without Number can do it, but the lack of energy a psychic can have limits your powers to only a few turns before it runs out. So, not for me.
From memory, SWN 2nd ed has various options to up the power of Psychics, introduce Psychic monk type characters and all sorts of varieties.. But perhaps that was a SWN supplement, I can't remember exactly.
The free edition of the rules is very good, but the paid version has these amazing GM tables for generating all sorts of content.
It's worth buying just for that, even if you don't run SWN.