Bundle of Holding - Worlds Without Number

If you haven't yet snagged one or more of Kevin Crawford's "Without Number" rulesets, do yourself a favor and do so. Kevin is very generous with the free rulesets he gives to the community.

Currently, Kevin has a Worlds Without Number Bundle on Bundle of Holding. 

For just US$12.95 you get all three titles in our Numberless Worlds Collection (retail value $55) as DRM-free ebooks in both .PDF and ePub formats, including the complete 400-page Worlds Without Number Deluxe Edition corebook (previously in our November 2023 Sine Nomine Corebooks offer) along with two supplements new to the Bundle of Holding: the 223-page gazetteer Atlas of the Latter Earth and the introductory campaign setting Diocesi of Montfroid. 

Even if you don't run it "as is", the tools included will help ANY DM looking to run a sandbox campaign.

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Bundle of Holding - Stars Without Number

I'm a huge fan of Kevin Crawford. With every Kickstarter he's done, he's given value back to the gaming community as a whole. Stars Without Number is an awesome system - probably my top two in OSR sci-fi RPGs, standing right next to White Star. I've backed every KS Kevin has run without hesitation. His work is simply that good.

Stars Without Number is currently available over at Bundle of Holding. If you don't have a copy yet, do yourself a favor and snag it.

Adventurer! We've resurrected (for a second time!) our March 2019 Stars Without Number Bundle featuring the 2017 Stars Without Number Revised science-fiction tabletop roleplaying game from Sine Nomine Publishing. SWN sets the standard for "sandbox" roleplaying. Forget pre-packaged, pre-digested plotlines that put the players on railroad tracks. In a sandbox game the setting is wide open for adventure in all directions. The Gamemaster presents situations, not storylines – problems, not plots. The player characters go where they will, do as they wish, forging their own career. And one of the best games for sandbox-style spacefaring is Stars Without Number.

For just US$7.95 you get all three titles in this revived offer's Starter Collection (retail value $32) as DRM-free ebooks, including the complete Deluxe Stars Without Number Revised rulebook; Sixteen Stars (popular sf scene backdrops); and the SWN Revised GM Screen.

Polychrome supplement for Stars Without NumberAnd if you pay more than the threshold price of $20.41, you'll level up and also get this revival's entire Bonus Collection with five more SWN supplements worth an additional $48, including Dead Names: Lost Races and Forgotten Ruins and four system-neutral campaign sourcebooks: Starvation Cheap (ground warfare and mercenary campaigns); Skyward Steel (the Stellar Navy); Suns of Gold (merchants and traders); and Polychrome (cyberpunk).

 

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Bundle of Holding - Sine Nomine Rulebooks

Let me start this by saying I own ALL of Sine Nomine's core rulebooks in Print and PDF. They literally are that good. If you are an improv-style GM, Kevin's rulebooks are the ones you want. Tools for a long and strong campaign? These right here, there are no better. Fantasy, sci-fi, cyberpunk, post-apoc, Lovecraftian horror, quasi-historical - Kevin has them all. 

Stars Without Number Revised Deluxe, Other Dust, Spears of the Dawn, and Cities Without Number: Free Edition are all in the Starter package for 12.95. The Bonus Collection adds Worlds Without Number Deluxe, Wolves of God, Scarlet Heroes, and Silent Legions and comes to about $26 as I type this.

Seriously, you can't go wrong with Sine Nomine's rulesets.

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

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Kickstarter - Cities Without Number (Sine Nomine)

We have a new Kickstarter from Kevin Crawford, Cities Without Number.

A cyberpunk tabletop RPG from the creator of Stars Without Number.

After the sci-fi success of Stars Without Number and the fantastic response to Worlds Without Number, the new cyberpunk age of Cities Without Number is upon us. Within the pages of this tabletop role-playing game, you'll get a full-fledged system-neutral Sine Nomine toolkit for building a cyberpunk world of your own, plus an old-school game system for playing out the reckless adventures of the desperate men and women who live in it. Whether polished metal or flesh and blood, your operators will risk their lives and more to seize those precious things a merciless world would keep from them. In particular, this book contains...

• An old-school inspired game system fully compatible with the sci-fi Stars Without Number game and its fantasy sister-game Worlds Without Number
• Cyberware and sophisticated high-tech gear suitable for chroming the most discriminating cyborg and equipping the most refined of street operators
• Playability-focused hacking rules designed to give hacking-focused PCs useful and important things to do without forcing an entire separate mini-game on the GM
• Gear rules for drones and vehicles, to better equip PCs who want to bring a little extra iron on their next mission
• System-neutral Sine Nomine worldbuilding tools for helping a GM create their own custom cyberpunk world or elaborate the details of existing worlds and settings
• Gang, corp, and city district creation tools for fleshing out your world with people and places that fit
• Fifty Mission Tags for adventure creation, plus guidelines and step-by-step procedures for handling facility infiltrations, managing local heat, fencing loot, and other activities beloved of corp-hating street scum everywhere

And that's just in the free version that will be released on DTRPG for anyone to download. As with SWN and WWN, Cities Without Number will be provided in both a free and a deluxe version, the better to let an interested group jump in and play without having to spend anything. As a backer, you'll be getting the deluxe version, of course, which will also include...

• Variant gengineered human types for PCs who don't fit the baseline mold
• Spellcasting and summoning rules for GMs who want to add a dash of magic into their cyberpunk world
• Additional content creation tools to give an extra boost to a GM's creative efforts
• Several open pages to be filled with the contents that backers seem most interested in having. I've got room to add a little more here, and I'll be listening to backer comments and requests when it comes to filling them.

Here's a link to the Cities Without Number Beta  (shared with permission)

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Sine Nomine Sale - 20-40% Off Most Titles in PDF

Kevin Crawford simply writes good shit. If you want an OSR game that isn't simply fantasy, that is built from the ground up for sandbox play, pick up a Sine Nomine ruleset. 

Kevin is probably best known for the sci-fi RPG Stars Without Number: Original Core Edition (on sale for 11.99). There are also Silent Legions (Mythos on sale for 11.99), Scarlet Heroes (on sale for 8.99 for one on one swords & sorcery play), Godbound: A Game of Divine Heroes (also on sale for 11.99), and other titles. 

Seriously, it's hard to go wrong with Sine Nomine :)

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Free RPG - Worlds Without Number: Free Edition

I've been a huge fan of Kevin Crawford's work for years. To see a full-on, fantasy version of the Stars Without Number "tag system" is priceless. Getting access to such for free? Awesome!

Worlds Without Number Free Edition costs exactly that much. There is a full deluxe version of the PDF for 19.99 or you can grab it in print.

The stars gutter and the skies fade and the earth grows weary with years. Ages of men and of Outsiders have ascended and been forgotten, and only the bones of their cities and the dust of their dreams remain upon this tired world. The Legacy of their laws is woven deep now, the edicts of dead gods and fallen sorcerer-kings made to trace patterns of power we no longer understand. We are heirs to their unseen empires, and our lives are built upon their ashes.

Worlds Without Number is a fantasy role-playing game, one fully compatible with the hit sci-fi game Stars Without Number. It's built from the ground up to provide gritty, hard-edged adventure in the fathomless future of the Latter Earth, a fantastic realm of time-lost sorcery, savage foes, a
nd barbaric splendor. The cold steel in the fists of your heroes and the half-understood sorcery in their tomes must suffice to overcome the monstrous remnants of ancient alien rulers and the present depredations of ruthless lords and hideous beasts alike. The riches of lost ages await in the subterranean Deeps that once held their kingdoms, and even the heavens above are not beyond the reach of the recklessly daring.

(Note: this is the free version of WWN. If you'd like to grab the full deluxe edition with almost fifty extra pages of bonus content, head right over.)

Worlds Without Number isn't just a savage game of steel and sorcery. It's packed solid with system-neutral GM tools and worldbuilding support, with hundreds of pages of useful tools, tags, tables, and practical advice usable by any GM, regardless of their favorite setting or system. The well-loved sci-fi tools of Stars Without Number are reworked here to support fantasy gaming, whether in the provided setting of the Latter Earth or in your own carefully-crafted homebrew world. Even GMs who don't prefer the OSR-compatible game system of WWN will find more than half the book dedicated to tools they can use in the systems they like best.

So what do you get in this book?

• Sword and sorcery heroes of blade, cunning, and spell. The proven OSR-compatible character creation system of Stars Without Number is redone here for a fantasy world of blade and black magic.
• OSR-compatible rules, allowing you to plunder decades of existing adventure material for your play. You can even pull in Stars Without Number content, as it's fully compatible.
• The Gyre region of the far-future Latter Earth, a premade sandbox for quick play. Venture forth to clash with the sinister powers that gather in the shadow of the waning rule of the Reaping King.
• Worldbuilding tools crafted to the renowned Sine Nomine standard. Did you like the hundred different world tags in SWN? Then have two hundred inspirational tags to help you build ruins, courts, communities, and wilderness points of interest. Grab a wealth of tools for building histories, societies, governments, religions, and geography, all written with a keen eye toward producing good, playable content for your adventuring group.
• Adventure creation tools to soothe the pangs of a working GM, with guides for building adventures out of combat, exploration, social, and investigative challenges. Use the tags you picked in the worldbuilding section to speed up your creation of a good night's gaming.
• Faction rules for fantasy worlds, with dark cults, fierce lords, grasping abbots, and greedy merchants all serving to keep your world in motion even when the PCs aren't on the scene.

And those contents are in this free edition of the game! If you dare to lay hands on the deluxe, for-pay version, you'll get even more.

• Heroic characters, ones fired with the prowess of high fantasy heroes and epic Chosen Ones. Don't care for gritty sword and sorcery? Use these rules to turn even novice adventurers into the protagonists of mighty deeds.
• Legates, those heroes touched with the power of the Legacy itself. Reach beyond the limits of mortal prowess to embrace superhuman abilities and impossible might, and dare adventures that will live for an age in legend.
• Bonus character classes, including the Adunic Invoker, Darian Skinshifter, Llaigisan Beastmaster, Sarulite Blood Priest, Kistian Duelist, and Vothite Thought Noble. Each one is built to help support a broad character concept, such as shapeshifting, mind control, animal companions, divine blessings, or swashbuckling fighters- concepts you can import to any setting.
• Additional GM tools, including a hundred fractal adventure seeds, help with extradimensional Iterums, and a sheaf of bonus GM tables for fleshing out architecture, NPC relationships, and random adventure NPCs.

Seize your chance, bold adventurer! Earnest souls have been waiting for years for a fantasy counterpart to Stars Without Number; now it awaits your daring grasp to help you forge your own mighty deeds!

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The Tavern.  

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or wherever you listen to your podcast collection. 

Bundle of Holding - Stars Without Number Revised

When it comes to OSR Scifi RPGs, Stars Without Number is the granddaddy of them all, with both a free version and a more expansive paid-for PDF. It's a true OSR sandbox-style RPG.

You can snag the Stars Without Number Revised Starter Collection for a mere 7.95. It includes Stars Without Number Revised Edition, Sixteen Stars and the SWN Revised GM Screen.

The BONUS COLLECTION is approximately 21 bucks and adds in: Starvation Cheap, Suns of Gold, Skyward Steel, Dead Names, and Polychrome.

Damn, but it's a sweet collection. Check your account at Bundle of Holding, as you may have bought this back in 2019.

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Bundle of Holding - Stars Without Number x 2

Stars Without Number is probably the best-known D20 based sci-fi ruleset published, even more so than White Star. While WS builds off of the "Original White Box" / S&W White Box for its engine, SWN is something a bit different.

I've run SWN and it plays very smoothly. It is built for sandbox style play with rules and tables that solidly support such.

If you want, you can check out the Stars Without Number Revised rules for free. (link)

There are two Stars Without Number offerings currently on Bundle of Holding:

For just US$8.95 you get all three titles in this offer's Stars Without Number Revised Starter Collection (retail value $45) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:

• Stars Without Number Revised Deluxe Edition: The premium full-color 324-page rulebook with 80 pages of bonus content covering transhuman tech, true AIs, mechs, society creation, and even Space Magic.
• Other Dust: Kevin Crawford's 208-page post-apocalypse sandbox RPG completely compatible with Stars Without Number. Includes the freebies Grandfather's Rain, Cult of the Wraith, and Cult of the Still Lady. (Previously offered in the original October 2013 SWN Classic collection.)
• SWN Revised GM Screen: A portrait screen with eight pages of useful reference charts.

And if you pay more than this offer's threshold price of $17.12, you'll level up and also get this offer's entire Bonus Collection with four more sourcebooks worth an additional $35, including Starvation Cheap (wars and mercenaries), Dead Names (ancient civilizations), Sixteen Stars (popular sf settings), and Polychrome (cyberpunk).

There is also:

For just US$7.95 you get all three titles in this offer's Stars Without Number Classic Starter Collection (retail value $35) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks:

• Stars Without Number Classic: The complete original 253-page First Edition rulebook (2011).
• Skyward Steel: Join the Thousand Lights of the Stellar Navy and embrace both the duties and the terrible freedom of a naval campaign.
• Hard Light: The first SWN adventure setting. In the radioactive glare of a red giant star, explore the hard-bitten mining outpost of Brightside and ancient asteroid Sky Tombs.

And if you pay more than this offer's threshold price of $17.15, you'll level up and also get this offer's entire Bonus Collection with four more titles worth an additional $34:

• Suns of Gold: Merchant campaigns and far-flung trade, including trade world tags and guidelines for building your own colony worlds and merchant empires.
• Engines of Babylon: Create vehicles and low-tech system spaceships for your SWN campaign. This equipment book debuted in this offer's July 2014 revival.
• Relics of the Lost: A sourcebook of long-dead technology from the Second Wave of human colonization. This supplement debuted in this offer's original October 2013 run.
• Darkness Visible: Spacefaring espionage campaigns of classified perils, nameless heroes, and secret glory. 

Kickstarter - Stars Without Number: Revised Edition (Free Beta PDF Available - Link Included with Permission)

Stars Without Number: Revised Edition. You KNOW you want to back this Kickstarter.

Seriously. +Kevin Crawford knows how to run a Kickstarter Project.

Want to look at the rules before pledging? Here's the link the the SWN: Revised Edition Beta Rules

Want to read the stretch goals? Guess what? They've all been hit already.

- At $20,000 I will release all commissioned art for the game as royalty-free, zero-cost art available for other gamers and publishers to use for their own personal and commercial products. I've made arrangements with the artists for this game, including Tan Ho Sim, Christof Grobelski, Joyce Maureira, and Aaron Lee, to buy full rights for all the pieces I commission, and so I will be able to let others freely use these assets for their own purposes. 

 - At $30,000 I will rework both the free and deluxe versions of the core book as additional EPUB and MOBI file formats. This will involve considerable extra effort in redoing the text for these decidedly non-spread-oriented formats, but if the campaign gets this far, clearly you want these formats provided. 

 - At $40,000 I will forge the culmination of madness and bibliomanic obsession- the mighty UNIVERSAL OMNIBUS, a vast hardback tome containing every single Stars Without Number first edition product, both free and for-pay. This massive, black-and-white interior tome will consist of the Stars Without Number first edition core book, Skyward Steel, Suns of Gold, Darkness Visible, Starvation Cheap, Polychrome, Dead Names, Relics of the Lost, Engines of Babylon, Sixteen Stars, Hard Light, all of the Mandate Archive free supplements, and both editions of The Sandbox, the whole summing over a thousand pages. Everything that ever has or will be written for first-edition Stars Without Number will be contained within this book. 

Every backer at $20 or more will be given a code that will permit them to order this voluminous codex from DriveThruRPG for $100, if they so wish. This code will not have an expiration date, so they may defer the purchase until later if they wish to reflect on it. Backers at the munificent Galactic Overmind level of $175 will get one of these superdense grimoires shipped to them at no further shipping cost, provided the address is in Canada, the United States, the UK, or the European Union. 

No other persons will be permitted to acquire the UNIVERSAL OMNIBUS. Only those loyal and fearless backers who join me in my plunge into madness by contributing to this campaign will be allowed to buy the book from DriveThruRPG. It will not be made available for general public purchase. 

 - At $50,000, I will be extremely grateful to you all and have the wisdom to refrain from offering further stretch goals. I am but one man. I've completed every Kickstarter I've ever launched on-time or early, chiefly because I've known when to stop promising and when to start working.

The amount pledged as I write this is just under $65k.

It launched yesterday.

You know you want it :)

Kickstarter - Starvation Cheap: Planetary Warfare for Stars Without Number - Kevin is Early - Again - and with more Free Art

Want to learn how to run a successful gaming Kickstarter from pitch to funding to completion? Look no further than +Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing.) Kevin sets the Gold Standard that all other project creators should be looking to emulate.

Starvation Cheap: Planetary Warfare for Stars Without Number is a month early of estimate. Sure, Kevin bakes some extra time into his estimates but he knows the process better than most.

Best of all, more free art for the community to use in their commercial projects. You can download the Starvation Cheap art pack here. Did I mention it's free to use in all of your commercial work, just like the other art packs Kevin has put together?

Another tip of the hat to Kevin :)

Red Tide on Sale for $4.79 in PDF This Weekend Only

You know about +Kevin Crawford 's Red Tide I hope. It does for fantasy OSR sandbox play what Stars Without Number did for sci-fi OSR sandbox play. It's one of the resources that sits on my desk, waiting to be used at a moment's notice. 

It's on sale for this weekend at $4.79 in PDF.

In this book a Labyrinth Lord will find all that is required to run a sandbox game of adventure in the Sunset Isles. In addition to the races, classes, and sorcery of this savage land, a referee will find special tools and resources for creating shadowed courts of quarreling nobility, cities rife with struggle, wild border settlements that cry out for the help of heroes, and dark places in the earth known only to the dead and the damned. These tools will aid not only campaigns in the Sunset Isles, but also those games set in other lands of savage mystery and bloodstained blades. 

Expanding on the tag system found in the free Stars Without Number sci-fi role-playing game, Red Tide includes more than fifty new tags for fantasy cities and borderland settlements, along with more than 25 pages of GM resources including culture-specific name and place lists, unkeyed blank maps for quick sandbox use, four pages of room dressing and treasure possibilities, and a new "diagram dungeon" method of quick dungeon generation with a worked example.

And if you are looking for something that would work directly with Stars Without Number - Suns of Gold is a merchant sourcebook for Stars Without Number. Suns of Gold is also 40% off for the weekend, coming in at $5.99 in PDF.

Did I mention Stars Without Number is free?

Kickstarter - Starvation Cheap: Planetary Warfare for Stars Without Number

I'll start with the "due diligence." +Kevin Crawford always comes in early. Kevin always has the text ready to go before the Kickstarter downloads. One of the stretch goals has the art used available for free for personal and commercial purposes. Did I mention Kevin Crawford is running the Starvation Cheap: Planetary Warfare for Stars Without Number Kickstarter? 

It's simply a ground ball.

Heck, it could easily be used for other OSR style sci-fi RPG, like White Star, X-plorers and others.

I'm in.

Oh, yeah, here's the blurb:

Starvation Cheap is a military campaign supplement for the free Stars Without Number sci-fi tabletop role-playing game. It's written to provide the reader with all the tools they need for building a sandbox-style military campaign focused on planetary armies and mercenary legions. Everything from the construction of wars and vital military objectives down to the gritty details of building a battlefield adventure is provided in this 100+ page book. 

While written for Stars Without Number, the great majority of the tools in this book are system-neutral, perfectly usable with the sci-fi game of your choice. Within these pages you'll find tools like... 

Details on the typical structure of a modern ground army. Ranks and roles are described, along with the pertinent details of military justice, the chain of command, and the various types of modern military units. GMs unfamiliar with military culture and flavor can use these pages to tighten up their game. 

Guides for creating planetary conflicts through War Tags, rolling up reasons for savage conflicts and assigning critical Vital Points that must be captured or overcome if a side is to be victorious. 

Building ground armies, dividing them into units, and dealing with the potential complications of sending modern laser rifles and gravtanks against spears and lostworlder jezails. Creating a mercenary legion? Everything you need is in here, too. 

Strategic mass combat rules for resolving these planetary wars with the armies and mercenary legions you've made. The rules are quick and streamlined, meant to give a fast outcome and focus on player involvement in offensive priorities and desperate defenses. 

GM tools for building battlefield missions and adventures, with the PCs thrown onto the field to achieve some grave task or die trying. These rules interface with the mass combat tools, making PC success in their objectives the crucial factor that tips a bitter defeat into a hard-won victory. 

Hardware, of course. Lots of merciless hardware, from self-propelled artillery guns to radioactive weaponry and semi-sentient landmines. The far future battlefield is a dangerous place to be.

Bundle of Holding Brings Back Stars Without Number Bundle

Bundle of Holding has brought back the Stars Without Number bundle from last October.

If you are looking for an OSR based scifi RPG, THIS is the way to go. It is an excellent system.

If you pay beyond the average, you also get get Other Dust - a post apoc RPG using the same core system. Think Gamma World for modern sensibilities.

The expanded bundle includes Engines of Babylon, which isn't available anywhere else (and should be linked to your account if you got this bundle back in October.)

Why Does Springtime Make Me Want to Start a New Campaign?

Two years ago I kicked off the group's ACKS campaign. Admittedly, that because the group quickly burned out on playtesting D&D Next and the huge swing of introduced changes. I kinda picked up the DM reigns by default.

Last spring I decided to run the DCC RPG. The adventures were a hit, more so than the system. So, after a half dozen sessions or so we moved on to Swords & Wizardry Complete. I really enjoy running S&W, as it means I have to refer to the rulebook minimally during our game sessions. I've also been getting to play as a player again on occasions, which has been awesome.

The thing is, I'm getting that itch again.

I'm actually thinking I'd want to run Stars Without Number, but set it in a universe heavily influenced by Warhammer 40k, at least for flavor. God know I don't know shit for cannon. Or set it in a Star Wars universe where the Empire overwhelmed the rebels en mass, and the players get by by giving the finger to the Empire when they can, sucking up to it when they can't.

Yep, some darker sci-fi.

Or maybe some post-apoc with Other Dust.

That might be really cool!

Or maybe this too will pass...

Time to Bring "One on One" Play to your Stars Without Number Campaign - For Free

Mandate Archive: Stellar Heroes (free) does for Stars Without Number (free) what Black Streams: Solo Heroes (free) did for fantasy OSR clones - it gives us a short, free supplement that enhances one on one gaming with a GM and a single player. Did I mention it was free?

From the blurb:

Face the perils of a heartless cosmos with a single daring hero.

Stellar Heroes is a brief collection of rules modifications that will allow you to run a Stars Without Number game with but a single player and GM. Can't get the group together this week? Want to introduce a spouse, kid, or friend to Stars Without Number without the complications of a full table? Use Stellar Heroes to arm that daring galactic freebooter with the toughness and competence necessary to stand alone where a full party of lesser heroes might otherwise be required.

As a bonus, you'll find a free two-page side adventure inside suitable for use as a quick detour for your newly-minted hero, or as the sort of situation that could easily be used for a full party of more traditional adventurers.

If you enjoy Stellar Heroes, consider grabbing Black Streams: Solo Heroes for a version of these rules intended for compatibility with Labyrinth Lord (tm) and other similar old-school games. Keep on the lookout as well for Scarlet Heroes, my old-school-compatible game of fearless adventure for one hero and one GM!

Latest Bundle of Holding - Stars Without Number

Real simple. If you've never checked out Stars Without Number, you NEED this bundle.

Best OSR SciFi ruleset on the market. Other Dust rocks too ;)

Character Gen and Workable Hangout - Session Zero of "The Voyages of the Starship Icarus"

Tonight was a playtest of sorts. I needed to stress test the upgraded DSL at my parents' place in NE PA. Shit works well. Hell, it actually works, unlike the slightly cheaper DSL they used to pay for. The Saturday Night Game Sessions will continue throughout the summer as the escape to the Poconos on multiple weekends. Huzzah!

I did Stars Without Number character gen with 3 of my regular players. SWN is a bit deeper then any of us had expected, which just goes to prove that reading through the rules isn't always a complete reading through if the rules. Heh.

I'll need to tweak things a bit for the "Red Shirt" sessions and tonight gave me some ideas on how to streamline things on the char gen side, especially for "Zero Levels".

Did I mention there still isnt much of a breeze here? Sigh.

The Voyages of the Starship Icarus May Kick Off Next Weekend

I guess I need a name for the "Stars Without Number / Starships & Spacemen, Star Trek meets Aliens meets Warhammer 40k" drop in / drop out campaign.

"The Voyages of the Starship Icarus. It's 8 year mission: To explore strange, new worlds. To seek out adventure wherever it may be. To return. Yes, to simply survive and return after it's mission is complete."

The Icarus is halfway through its 8 year mission. All of the original command staff have met their end on one world or starship battle or from food poisoning or the like. Ensigns have been assigned to act in the ranks of the different command staff, but in truth they are all still ensigns.

Communications with the nearest Federated star base takes weeks to travel through hyperspace, and even if the Icarus turned back now, it would still take six months through occasionally hostile space to return home.

Over half the crew has been added from local populations over the years to replace crew members that have been lost. The new generation, or "New Gens" are inevitably "Red Shirts" until they prove themselves to the original generation of crew members. With experience comes added responsibilities, if not survivability.

(All PCs being ensigns and red shirts removes the constrictions of a rank based structure while still filling the requisite "rank" roles.)

Stars Without Number: Core - Now Available in Print on Demand

I just ordered my copy last night from RPGNow. It will certainly make my GAPs project a bit easier to research if I have a dead tree copy of Stars Without Number: Core.

Besides, the damn book is cool no matter how you look at it.

You can get it with either of the two covers - Star Field like the original free version of SWN of the Alien cover that has been seen previously on the SW: Core PDF.

I am not sure if the Star Field version comes with a free copy of the SWN: Core PDF, as it is linked from and packaged with the SWN Free Edition. In any case, I went with the Alien Cover myself ;)

(just realized that the Hard Cover version is only available with the Star Field cover. Ah well, I wanted Soft Cover anyway)

The Definition of a "Sandbox" - Stars W/O Number Style

I've had the free PDF of Stars W/O Number for a while. I read it through, but I bounced - I skipped over the much of the "What is roleplaying" type of stuff. I was more interested in the system, less interested in the set up.

This time with the SWN Core rules, I'm trying to read it straight through two times (I''d already done the bounce around through much of the crunch). I don't remember the following section in the original rules, it could have been there, but my trip was much more haphazard then. What follows is some of the best guidelines and definition of sandbox styled play in an RPG that I can recall (from page 6):

Every character should have a goal from the very start. This might
be something as simple as “become wealthy beyond my fondest
dreams of avarice” or “be known as the greatest pilot in the sector”.
It might be as elaborate as “engineer the downfall of the interstellar
empire that conquered my world”. Whatever it is, it should give
your character an immediate reason to go out and do  something.

This will to act is especially crucial in Stars Without Number ,
because this game is designed to support a “sandbox” style of
gaming. Unlike many other games that encourage the development
of a particular story or the playing out of a specific plot line, Stars
Without Number  presents an entire interstellar sector to your
characters and invites you to choose for yourself how to experience
it. Stories will arise based on what your characters do and how they
respond to the adventure situations provided by the GM.

As a player, you need to cooperate with your GM. This doesn’t
necessarily mean following every lead and hook you’re given
without demurral, but it does mean that you need to respond to
the situations and possibilities that are given to you.

You also need to keep in mind that your adventurers exist in a
very large world that is not scaled to your characters’ abilities. If
you insist on throwing your characters into situations or challenges
that seem overwhelming, the odds are that they will  overwhelm
you. Scouting, reconnaissance, and careful intelligence gathering
will help you recognize no-win situations before you push ahead
into them. By the same token, don’t hesitate to flee if your party
appears to be facing certain doom. A keen sense of when to decamp
the field is often an experienced adventurer’s most valuable asset.

A version of this should be distributed at the start of every sandbox styled campaign no matter the game system. Pretty much spot on.