Stars/Worlds Without Number (General Thread)

[Aldarc]

The Atlas of the Latter Earth Kickstarter is live.

I also used the opportunity to get an offset print copy of WWN, since I didn't the first time around.

 

[Aldarc]

According to the comments section of the Kickstarter, Crawford will be adding some nautical rules to the book.

 

[Jaeger]

’m not trying saying that needing different classes is a virtue or that OSE is doing it right. I was just surprised by how little you actually get in WWN (as well as how much classes in OSE got since it had been my perception they were pretty meager compared to their counterparts in newer editions). Aside from your class abilities, which are impactful, most customization is done through foci in WWN. That’s like only getting feats to customize your characters and few to no class abilities in 3e.

I just found it surprising that OSE classes get more mechanical stuff than what you can build in WWN even with all its extra customization options. That’s not what I expected.

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.

 

[kenada]

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]

Glad I caught this in time to get the limited $70 level in time before it filled.

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]

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.

 

[Thomas Shey]

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.

 

[Yora]

Question about spaceship weapons: Getting an additional set of ammunition storage for a weapon always takes up 1 unit of mass, regardless of weapon or ship size?

 

[Aldarc]

Ten more hours to go on the Atlas of the Latter Earth Kickstarter!

 

[Eyes of Nine]

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?