Not sure why I’m still subscribed to r/wwn when I’m working on a switch to a homebrew system, but I saw today that Kevin Crawford posted several more countries from the upcoming Atlas of the Latter Earth.
Stars/Worlds Without Number (General Thread)
- Thread starter Aldarc
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Aldarc
Legend
Because it's still a good system whose writer produces quality content?
While I wouldn’t call it bad, I wouldn’t call it good either. When I first read the rules, my impression was very positive, but my opinion of the system has dropped the more I’ve run it. I think some of it is the kind of sandbox WWN offers is not actually the kind I am interested in running, and the system clashed with that, but there are a few things that I think are general problems.
- The game is too verbose. It’s difficult to find things when you need to look them up (even if you know the right section), and it gets in the way of leaning and understanding the game;
- The rules are incomplete. This seems to affect what I want to do than the story-driven sandbox style that WWN seems designed around. The game would be better if it picked one style and didn’t pretend it could do the other;
- The GM tools kind of suck. The faction rules are heavily oriented towards factions that deploy assets as detailed in the book. Projects are basically GM fiat. I found myself wishing for a fiction-first approach and something more robust for projects.
There are also some issues I have with the game’s attitude towards mining real world cultures for ideas and its depiction of the anakim and blighted. After seeing the way blighted played out the first time they were introduced in my game, I think I’m going to need to revisit their portrayal in my homebrew setting.
Update: To avoid derailing this thread, I’ll be bowing out unless someone responds directly or @-mentions me.
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It seems like it doesn’t get most of the benefits of being a partial expert class, but Kevin explained in the comments why he went that route (more hp, having more non-mage partial classes). I agree with one of the responses there that effort seems like a very mage-y thing. It’d be neat if it tied into something more expert-y feeling like their skills.
Aldarc
Legend
One could probably make a good "warlord" with a Warrior/Bard.
Aldarc
Legend
And now the Illusionist mage. Crawford is prodigious.
AdmundfortGeographer
Getting lost in fantasy maps
Glad I caught this in time to get the limited $70 level in time before it filled.
Aldarc
Legend
I also used the opportunity to get an offset print copy of WWN, since I didn't the first time around.
Jaeger
That someone better
In looking at my copy's of both, I think that there is a great game in there if you combined the class abilities of OSE + selected class ability and Foci from WWN...
On of my main complaints about 5e was that over 20 levels you made no meaningful choices after 3rd when it came to PC advancement. IMHO WWN solves this without crazy numbers of feats per PC 5-7. But lacks the solid niche protection of OSE class abilities.
But I also would prefer somethings to be more unified mechanically. Like with OSE - Do we really need thieves skills to be percentile, with turn undead 2d6, With a few abilities on a 1-6 d6 scale, scattered through the classes... Uhh, no.
I like WWN take on a 2d6 skill system - and I think something similar can be carried into OSE classes to unify the disparate class ability rolls. I'd translate everything into a 1d12 scale (You could do 2d6 if you want more reliability).
For me this would be ideal as that scale would translate straight into how reaction rolls and Morale work. So I'd essentially have combat, saves, and magic using a d20, with everything else d12 or 2d6. Roll high for everything.
Kind of a more unified/modern version of OSE.
Not sure about the wide appeal of such a game though, as most seem to be for old school mechanics and aesthetics, or 3-5e systems only.
That’s pretty close to where I started. I used the WWN classes as bases and then layered OSE on top of it. I was using 2d6-based skills (because I like non-uniform distribution for skill checks) and had unified mechanics similarly to how you described.
That didn’t really last. It worked okay, but I ended up finding myself wanting to go in a different direction after running a few sessions of it. Skills (currently 3d6 and likely staying that way) and customization are currently going through another big revision*, but you can see some of the classes and groups here.
* The current idea is to reduce the skill list to seven skills plus the three combat skills, and handle customization completely via specialties. Some specialities are combat-related (subsuming feats) while others are new skills you can acquire. One of the problems I found with trying to handle specialities informally as a something your character gets from their background and class or learned from someone is my players found it confusing.
Nikosandros
Golden Procrastinator
I was late in backing the Kickstarter, but I just saw that someone dropped a pledge for the limited level and I switched to it.
Yora
Legend
I've been using the sector generation tables and the planets I got are surprisingly mundane.
Of the 22 planets, 12 are Earth-like, 5 are breathable with no plant life, 1 has inedible plant life, 3 are airless rocks, and only a single one has corrosive atmosphere with inedible plants.
There's various cool and interesting things on the table, but rolling 2d6 for them and having only 25 planets, those don't come up a lot. Of course, SWN assumes that all these planets have a local civilization that's been living there for centuries. But for more adventurous explorations, I think those tables could use some tweaking to make the more extreme options more frequent.
Of the 22 planets, 12 are Earth-like, 5 are breathable with no plant life, 1 has inedible plant life, 3 are airless rocks, and only a single one has corrosive atmosphere with inedible plants.
There's various cool and interesting things on the table, but rolling 2d6 for them and having only 25 planets, those don't come up a lot. Of course, SWN assumes that all these planets have a local civilization that's been living there for centuries. But for more adventurous explorations, I think those tables could use some tweaking to make the more extreme options more frequent.
Thomas Shey
Legend
The tables that will in the new edition of Fragged Empire tend to be set up to more produce interesting situations, but of course they're also based around that setting and its quirks.
Aldarc
Legend
Ten more hours to go on the Atlas of the Latter Earth Kickstarter!
Eyes of Nine
Everything's Fine
Anyone know if there's a Gauntlet style google sheets character keeper?
(A character keeper, made well known by the Gauntlet gaming community, is a shared document where everyone keeps their character. It's great because everyone can see everyone else's character on the various sheets in the google spreadsheet. It's not jus great for the judge/GM, but other players can see each other's character sheets, and maybe try to play to the interesting parts of the other PCs characters.
Anyway, anyone know of character keepers for SWN?
(A character keeper, made well known by the Gauntlet gaming community, is a shared document where everyone keeps their character. It's great because everyone can see everyone else's character on the various sheets in the google spreadsheet. It's not jus great for the judge/GM, but other players can see each other's character sheets, and maybe try to play to the interesting parts of the other PCs characters.
Anyway, anyone know of character keepers for SWN?
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