Stars/Worlds Without Number (General Thread)

[Yora]

Characters can use skill points to get up to five attribute improvements during the 10 levels of the game. Which is quite a lot.

The Develop Attribute focus also lets you treat the modifier for any attribute as +1 higher without changing the attribute score, and you can it multiple times for different attributes.

The Evasion, Physical, and Metal saving throws let you pick the modifier from one of two attributes, whichever is better.

The Punch, Shoot, and Stab skills add their skill ranks to attack rolls.

The rules very much take into account that attribute modifiers are quite low and works with that.

 

[kenada]

There’s also the default assumption that skills should be reliable while fighting is less so due to the chaos of combat. That’s why skills and attacking/saving use different distributions. Using a d20 would make skills less reliable. You can work around that by letting characters take 10 or by giving them passive skill scores. However, another core assumption is that you only roll in exceptional circumstances.

From an OSR perspective, one of the criticisms of skill systems in D&D is that they’re too prescriptive. If the thief has a skill that lets them hide in shadows, then only the thief can do it. If you don’t put ranks in a skill, you’re either completely incompetent at it or incapable of even trying. 3e really went down the path of using the skill system as a simulation engine. It had lots of trivial DCs that could occasionally fail. I once had a character fail a DC 0 check to climb down a ladder during combat. The effect was they just needed to take their time, but it came across as very silly in the moment. In SWN/WWN, you’re never supposed to roll when the difficulty would be less than 6 (standard is 8).

Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number assume PCs are competent at their roles in life. If you’re a sailor or a pilot, you’re going to be good at sailor or pilot things and just succeed usually at doing them. The only time you should be making a check is when the circumstances are exceptional (such as attempting to sail a ship in a storm). The mechanisms for making skills reliable in D&D aren’t really equivalent, and ignoring the check based on background is not normative as far as I’m aware. You should typically want to roll in those systems because it’s a means of demonstrating your investment in that skill.

Beyond that skill stuff and what @Yora said, you’d have to change the monster math. They’d need boosts to their AC and attack rolls as well as hit points. You’d also need to increase the damage monsters dealt, and you’d need to change their saving throws and skills. SWN and WWN are designed to be compatible with other “classic” games, so you’d lose that compatibility. Anything wanted to use (such as monsters, since the bestiaries in those games are a bit small) would require additional conversion work. I expect it’s possible to systematize the conversion, but it seems like a lot of work just for bigger numbers. It just doesn’t seem worth it.

The Develop Attribute focus also lets you treat the modifier for any attribute as +1 higher without changing the attribute score, and you can it multiple times for different attributes.

I’m pretty sure that’s specific to Worlds Without Number. However, both WWN and SWN have foci for non-human species, which can include bonuses to your attribute modifiers.

 

[Yora]

Well, this is a Worlds Without Number thread.

 

[kenada]

Well, this is a Worlds Without Number thread.

True, but @Raduin711 had mentioned picking up SWN and modifying that.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

This is simply meant to be a general discussion thread for Kevin Crawford's Worlds Without Number.

A few people have been talking about it here and there in the forum, but I am curious who has looked through it yet? What do you think of the rules, GM advice, or sandboxing toolkit? Who has run a game with it? What were your experiences? Or what do you plan to run with it? Has anyone homebrewed anything with it?

Let's talk Worlds Without Number.

I haven't run it yet, but system-wise it addresses a huge number of my concerns with D&D-style games in general, mechanically, specifically:

1) Eliminates d20-based skill checks in favour of narrower-range, more predictable rolling. Better skill system generally.

2) Possible to KO or insta-kill enemies within the rules, with a well-designed mechanism.

3) Makes warrior and spellcaster classes both significantly dangerous and threatening.

4) System stress provides a limit to magical and non-magical healing, but a sufficiently high one to not be crippling nor so high it's irrelevant (looking at you 4E!).

5) Instinct and Morale rules strongly encourage better "combat roleplaying" of enemies in a great way.

6) Half-class system is a lot better than multiclass systems of 3E/5E and offers great options.

Setting-wise I was slightly disappointed with the default setting. It has huge promise but never quite lives up to it. I get that we're supposed to randomly-generate the specifics but there's just a bit more needed to make a lot of the nations really comprehensible. Also the sea being basically off-limits was a bit meh (same with space, I get that helps to upset the aliens and feels a bit Prince of Nothing but and obviously I can ignore it, but I was surprised it was the default). Truly great take on elves/dwarves though, and indeed all the non-human races are pretty interesting and exactly in-tune with the presented broad setting concept.

About the only outright bad thing for my money is the Frail debuff you get if reduced to 0 HP, but don't get if magically healed, which means that you basically have a 5E-style whack-a-mole if you have a magical healer (which is a half-class). It also means if you only have non-magic healers, whilst the out-of-combat healing they can do is solid, if anyone hits 0 ever, no matter how briefly, they're basically out of action for a week, which seems like too big a discontinuity from the "whack-a-mole" of magical healing (to me).

I was also surprised that the "Heroic" options were treated as a block, like apply all this or don't, where in fact I think it would make sense to see the Heroic options as a toolkit, like you could have the extra HP, but not the extra half-class/Heroic class.

 

[Raduin711]

True, but @Raduin711 had mentioned picking up SWN and modifying that.

Sorry to go off topic, I figured the rules were probably similar and could probably be equally applied to WWN.

 

[kenada]

Setting-wise I was slightly disappointed with the default setting. It has huge promise but never quite lives up to it. I get that we're supposed to randomly-generate the specifics but there's just a bit more needed to make a lot of the nations really comprehensible.

I’m curious to know whether the Gyre was generated using the tools in the “Creating Your Campaign” chapter. Most of it reads like it could have been — except for the religions, which I found disappointing.

 

[kenada]

Sorry to go off topic, I figured the rules were probably similar and could probably be equally applied to WWN.

I thought it was a fair question. I was just noting the context. While WWN was designed to be compatible with SWN, there are some differences in class design and available foci. I doubt using Develop Attribute will cause problems in SWN, but it’s something you’d have to bring in from WWN.

 

[Yora]

I am trying to understand the system for Renown and major projects, which turns out to be quite difficult because the actual rules are hidden within walls and walls of examples. What's the difference between the difficulty and the renown cost for a project? In some paragraphs they seem to be the same thing, but in other places they are mentioned as two separate things the PCs have to deal with.

 

[Aldarc]

Added Stars Without Number to thread title and discussion.