I sometimes hear Worlds Without Number being mentioned, but it’s usually as a world-building tool, since the main book has lots of good tables for that. I rarely hear anyone talking about it as a game.
I only really learned what it is recently. It’s a lot like Old School Essentials but with a proper skill system (you can choose which skills to increase when you level up, etc) and a feats system (although they call them “foci”) which you can use to customize your character.
It does have a weird class system, though. It’s based on three base classes: Mage, Expert, and Warrior. There’s also Adventurer, but what that basically means is being multiclassed. So from those three classes you customize your character to become more specialized. Want to be a monk? Sure, pick the Warrior class (or the Expert class if you want more skill points) and then pick the Unarmed Combatant feat. It gives you better unarmored AC, and makes your unarmed attacks basically as good as a sword, etc. There are other foci which basically turns your Mage into a cleric, and so on.
I also find the combat to be better than, say D&D 5+E, with more types of actions to choose from in combat.
So, like the title says - to me, this game is great. And it surprises me that I see so few people talking about it. The basic edition, which has about 90% of the content of the full edition I think, is free on DriveThruRPG (non-affiliate link).
At least in my local community, with 50 % of the games being D&D/pathfinder
D&D/Pathfinder >> Local games >> Other big names RPG (Vampire/Chtulhu) >> PBTA >> OSR and not being translated make it even less popular
Based on what you said, here are my reactions. Maybe they’re informative (or maybe not!):
- Loci/skills: this adds cognitive load compared to having minimal stats, like in Cairn. It’s also more cognitive load than something like Shadowdark’s no skills (since there are no skill checks).
- More options for combat and better combat than 5e: When I hear this I think this might mean crunchy combat. And that means more cognitive load.
I want to clarify that having complicated systems is not negative by itself. Cognitive load is relative to what people learn. If players are willing to learn a system well, then complicated games could be exactly what they want to play.
But I’ve had new players think Nimble is too complicated, when it seems trivial to me. That is why I favor systems that are even simpler than Nimble: Knave 2e, Cairn, Shadowdark…
Not sure how foci is pronounced, but in my head I’m hearing ‘fuck eye.’
It’s a normal English word taken from Latin: the plural of “focus”. The O is a long O in both words.
Foe-kai, like cacti or fungi… A plural of focus
I like it, and I’ll suggest to my group when we finish our Pathfinder campaign in a couple of years.
I will buy any Sine Nomine Publishing books unseen for their amazing worldbuilding tools, but I’m not particularly fond of OSR rules as a whole. I can deal with D&D 5E or Pathfinder 2E, but beyond that I have little interest in level-and-class systems.
Yeah great game. People prefer old TTRPG philosophies I guess which bring them to DnD
Stars Without Number is the equally solid Sci-Fi equivalent. My players like their fantasy as DnD, but I plan to win them over with this.
I love the ship combat mechanics - everybody mans a different station according to their skills.
I also love the way that the galaxy keeps going outside of what the players are doing.
I also love the way that the galaxy keeps going outside of what the players are doing.
Is Stars Without Numbers packaged with rules to facilitate this, somehow?
Because that’s just something a good GM should be doing, regardless.
I’m not the one you replied to, but yes, I believe it is. At least Worlds Without Number - which is based on Stars Without Number - has such tools.
Can you recall any specific examples of those mechanics? Not an interrogation, just curiosity.
Yes, I love that Worlds Without Number have tools for deciding what factions and important NPCs do in the background while the PCs are doing other things. It’s been my intention to create my own tools like that, but I think I’m going to try these tools first - both for my own solo play in WWN, but also for my Pathfinder 2E campaign that I run in the same world.
