Stars/Worlds Without Number (General Thread)

[TaranTheWanderer]

I’ve played WWN and we are 5th level now. I absolutely love this system. I’m not playing a magic user but I love how they handle magic. Maybe it’s the DM or maybe it’s the character I have or maybe it’s the system, I’m not sure what it is but I’m having lots of fun with it.

 

[Yora]

This link seems to be broken and I couldn’t find the article with a quick search. Possible to get an updated link?

I forgot that I had linked the file when I cleaned up my online files.
I think it would be this one. I wrote that at a note for players in a specific campaign as a quick heads up for notable differences. There might be some changes to the actual rules that I forgot I made, and I id leave out some things I don't plan on using, but I think it's still a decent summary.

 

[kenada]

Had an interesting conversation with a couple of my players after this week’s board-gaming session. They mentioned being a bit apprehensive about the town ruins “dungeon” we just wrapped up because they thought it was going to have a ton of political stuff, and they just wanted to kill some monsters. I’d put multiple challenges in there though (combat, exploration, investigation, social), and that gave it enough depth that they didn’t feel like that was something they had to deal with if they didn’t want to do that.

They also commented on the adventure itself. They were taken completely by surprise when they learned that only those who were narratively important to the creator’s story could enter the iterum. I don’t even remember which table I rolled on to generate that, but the advice to embrace incongruous results is probably some of the best the book has to offer. Anyway, one of the players mentioned being a bit exasperated after they learned that, but then he’s like: her diary (which they had) is her story (and then they wrote themselves into it).

Next session, they’re going to start investigating the deed, which will takes them towards where I plan to drop Halls of the Blood King. I’m really looking forward to seeing how WWN handles a converted OSE adventure. Given how things have gone so far, I’m expecting it to go pretty well (meaning getting to experience very interesting and entertaining PC antics as they deal with the strange situations and people in the adventure).

 

[Yora]

I think the biggest difference between WWN and OSE would be in the rate at which characters level up. OSE has a pretty clear system while WWN does not. But since adventures for these games generally don't assume that characters will gain several levels between the start and the end like a good number of larger d20 adventures, that really shouldn't ever become an issue.

The main difference in character abilities are the skills in WWN. But I think they only provide an alternative way to do certain things. They don't give characters new powers to do things that OSE characters couldn't.

 

[kenada]

I think the biggest difference between WWN and OSE would be in the rate at which characters level up. OSE has a pretty clear system while WWN does not. But since adventures for these games generally don't assume that characters will gain several levels between the start and the end like a good number of larger d20 adventures, that really shouldn't ever become an issue.

I think it’d be more tricky if I were trying to run a modern D&D adventure rather than something targeted at a B/X-compatible system. My expectation is converting the creatures over will be easy. I expect most of the work will be fixing the adventure itself, which I’d need regardless.

Halls of the Blood King is time-limited, but it’s written and keyed like it’s a site-based adventure. It uses the events table to help move NPCs around, but it feels like it will be too rigid. I’m thinking of adding schedules and using a party planning structure for the events in the Great Hall.

This is an area where I find WWN is actually pretty lacking. I like the stuff for creating exploration challenges, but the investigation and social challenge sections are pretty lacking or just bad (or at least antithetical to sandbox play).

The main difference in character abilities are the skills in WWN. But I think they only provide an alternative way to do certain things. They don't give characters new powers to do things that OSE characters couldn't.

WWN characters are generally more capable their B/X counterparts, or so WWN claims. I’m hoping (and expect) that’s true, though Halls of the Blood King doesn’t seem like an adventure where you can be successful by trying to kill everything or everyone you meet.

No one is the party even has a magic weapon. They did find some ancient salvage last session, but I don’t think a modified weapon would count as “magical”. If it were necessary, the priest could use her magic, but they wouldn’t be able to rest and recover (because of the adventure’s time limit).

 

[Yora]

That might all be true. But I was only talking about the comparison between WWN and OSE.

 

[kenada]

That might all be true. But I was only talking about the comparison between WWN and OSE.

Ah. Maybe I misunderstood your post. I think your assessment is fair. I’m going to go a bit more into my thoughts on differences since I’m actually running a version of OSE I hacked into WWN. This isn’t necessarily in response to your post (more like prompted by it).

What I’ve found hacking OSE into WWN is that WWN is pretty lacking as an exploration-based game. Stuff’s just missing to make that work, or it’s incomplete. For example, I’d expect the Dolmenwood hex crawl to run worse under WWN because WWN’s exploration rules are incomplete to missing. I’d expect adventures with a strong exploration component to suffer problems to varying degrees. That’s also why I’ve been referring to it a story-driven sandbox game.

Aside from that, the equipment chapter is also pretty lacking. It wastes a lot of space discussing different armors, but it says nothing about what various bits of adventuring gear do. Can you light oil and throw it? How does splash damage work? I know SWN has rules for grenades, but I ended pulling from 3e on splash damage. I want splash damage to feel like D&D, so no saving throws after attacking a spot.

The biggest place where I deviated was using my exploration procedure, but I also changed how XP works. I use both individual and group goals. Individual goals are decided at the start of the session. Group goals are decided at the end. You gain 3 XP at the end of the session if you complete an individual goal (player decides), 1 XP each other Pc’s goal you help complete (player decides), and 3 XP for completing the group goal (group decides). To gain a new level, spend XP equal to six times the next level. This can be done only at the end of a session.

I also replaced reaction rolls with a Cha/Convince skill check against the reaction table, and I based retainers on Cha/Lead instead of having a Charisma-based table. The retainer’s reaction to your offer is based on a Cha/Convince skill check versus the reaction table from OSE. As a rule of thumb, I want players making these rolls instead of having me roll stuff behind the screen that’s modified by their stats. That also helps keep them engaged and gives added value to their skills, and it helps reduce the number of similar but arbitrarily different mechanics.

Anyway, going through the process of hacking OSE is what prompted my questions over the last few pages. I kept running into stuff that was missing bits or lacked clarity once one dialed down the verbosity.

 

[Campbell]

I think the Expert as a character class and defining a number of skills that are very much useful within society, but not adventuring says stuff about what SWN/WWN expect play to entail. That adventuring and exploration are important, but not nearly intended to be the whole game.

 

[kenada]

I think the Expert as a character class and defining a number of skills that are very much useful within society, but not adventuring says stuff about what SWN/WWN expect play to entail. That adventuring and exploration are important, but not nearly intended to be the whole game.

Which makes the investigation and social challenges sections all the more disappointing. For social challenges in particular, it could use some advice on designing factions in the adventure (versus those that are part of the faction mini-game) and how to make their presence interesting. That can include the usual factions in the dungeon setup in OSR games, but it should also extend to the peoples and groups that are created while rolling up tags and synthesizing them into e.g., court intrigue. All it really gives is some questions to ask yourself when designing NPCs. The investigation stuff is a pure railroad, which I feel has no place in an otherwise sandbox-oriented game.

I’d also argue that social skills should always be rolled against the reaction table (or the PbtA result ladder of 6−, 7–9, 10+) and never against a fixed difficulty. That gives the GM easily guidelines for how to respond. If your advice is, “The difficulty is privately set by you based on the quality of their offering versus the magnitude of their demand,” but then you go on to say, “A failed social negotiation should almost never end in a simple flat refusal. There should always be some way forward for the PCs, and some evident means of improving their case,” then making the roll is almost pointless. It’s framed as task resolution, but it’s not. At least with rolling against the reaction table, you’re transparently treating it as a prompt.

 

[Yora]

I am finding myself in the position that I got an idea for a campaign element that will require some custom content for characters. Which I think might be interesting to discuss as a genreral topic here.

In my specific case now, I got an idea to make it that all spellcasters belong to a single tradition inspired by the warlock (the one really cool thing in D&D 5th). That seems fairly easy to do with the WWN mage. Arts and spells already use a similar format for spells (might be more than a coincidence), and the new Sorcerer tradition can simply be a comnination of various High Magic and Necromancy arts and spells. This is really quick and dirty and can be done in an hour. Nice.

But the idea also really invites the existence of demon hunters to fight demons and sorcerers, and they would have to do so without making use of spells. In OSE for example, making a simple custom variant of fighter with four anti-magic abilities would be enough to do the job.But for WWN, this is a bit more involved.
I think a good starting point would be to make it a spell-less mage tradition, like the healer or vowed. This would allow for both Warrior/DH and Expert/DH, which I think is quite cool. Two character archetypes for the price of one.
Healers get one fixed art plus seven customizable ones, and vowed get three fixed arts and seven customizable ones at 10th level. Probably a good idea to keep it at that, and go with 1+7 as well. But here it gets challenging. If you have 8 arts to customize your character, how many arts does the tradition need in total? I guess 12 would be good, but if you can freely choose when to take them, and it's really just for one or two campaigns, maybe 10 would also work. But then the next question. Even if I can come up with 10 arts that are counter-magic without looking like casting spells, how strong should each one be?

Magic Resitance: Character gets a bonus to all Magic saves. How much? +1? +2? Should it increase with level?
Break Spell: Character can make another save against a spell. A Main, On Turn, or Instant action? Commit effort for the scene or day? Limited to once per scene or not?

There's a lot of variables, but unlike d20 games, there's not a great amount of existing abilities that you can slightly tweak and reskin to have something comparable.

Do you have any thoughts on how to approach this?