Stars Without Number

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The default setting of Stars Without Number is a far future age in which the sprawling, glorious domain of human space has been reduced to a scattering of squabbling powers and long-lost worlds. The ancient domain of humanity has shrunken with the collapse of the psi-powered Jump Gates that once stitched the remote regions of the frontier into the teeming worlds of the human core. Now, almost six hundred years after the catastrophe that ended the Golden Age of Man, new hope rises from the wreckage of a fallen empire. —Stars Without Number: Revised Edition: "The History of Space"

Stars Without Number is a Sci-Fi Role-Playing Game by Kevin Crawford (Sine Nomine Publishing), intended for sandbox gaming style. With mostly D&D retroclone/OSR-like engine and its own setting. Uses 1d20 for attacks, but 2d6 for skill checks.

• Original Edition (2010)
• Revised Edition (2017): Got the new character generation system, ascending Armor Class and Shock damage for melee weapons. Also, followed d20 fashion of reducing amount of skills.
• Other Dust: a fully compatible companion game about living with Grey Goo and/or insanity: its setting is Earth very soon after the Scream, rather than after centuries of recovery, so it's even more Post Apocalyptic.

Character Class system is kept very basic in the Original Edition. Revised Edition only gives special abilities instead of statistics (though one of Warrior's is HP bonus and Attack bonus), and adds Adventurer as multiclass having "Partial" versions of two classes.

Tropes used in Stars Without Number include:

RPG Mechanics

• Damage Reduction: Armor (as opposed to AC, and used alongside it), for vehicles and spaceships.
• Character Customization
  • Character Class: Wide general classes not unlike Alternity.
  • Background Based System
    • In the Original Edition: choose Background Package for origin — class — one of Training Packages for that class. Together packages define starting skills. Repeating skill improves (which would be more expensive with advancement).
      • Sandbox magazine #2 offers a full Lifepath expansion, with generated important Life Events and random flaws and perks.
        1. Roll attributes.
        2. Choose a home world. Optionally, roll on the hardship table for that type of world (random flaw, +1 extra professional skill roll)
        3. Roll or choose a family background.
        4. Choose a profession that fits your PC’s concept. May change professions once during character creation, after spending at least 3 skill picks on the first (may roll a Life Event to learn why).
        5. Roll ×6 for professional skills (+1 for hardship). From the 2 skill tables picked, the life skills table for the chosen home world type, and the physical and mental growth tables. Some skills can be taken automatically instead. Again, it's level 0, then level 1 (reroll if more than 2 picks).
        6. Pick a class. Pick skills from your class skills list. Roll special options for the class — special abilities for -1 skill pick (for psychics vary per discipline), hindrances giving +1 skill pick.
        7. Fill in the final details. Roll hitpoints, calculate derived and equipment dependent statistics.
    • In the Revised Edition:
      1. Roll attributes.
      2. Pick a background (gives free skill).
      3. Determine starting advances: roll (3×, each on the "Growth" or "Learning" table as you wish) or pick (2 skills from the "Learning" table for your background) or take a set of 3 "Quick Skills". Pick name and details.
      4. Choose class.
      5. Choose foci, which give a special ability and/or bonus level in a skill, and usually can be upgraded to higher level. One not class dependent. Non-human characters take "origin focus" instead. Warriors and part-Warriors also pick 1 level in any combat related Focus relevant to their backgrounds, Experts and part-Experts in a non-combat focus.
      6. Pick 1 non-psychic skill.
      7. For the Psychic or part-Psychic characters, pick psychic skills.
      8. Fill in the details. Roll hitpoints, take equipment packages or roll and spend starting money. Calculate derived and equipment dependent statistics. Pick name, goal and other details.
    • Very general class mechanics is complemented with custom focus mechanics. There are foci like "Alert", "Assassin", "Diplomat", "Tinker", "Unarmed Combatant", etc. There's also a Focus for Psychic/part-Psychic characters only — "Psychic Training", and one for non-Psychic characters only — "Wild Psychic Talent".

Foci aren't actually meant to revolve around skills- they're meant to enable concepts that aren't easily implemented through a normal reading of the rules. Often, you get a player who says, "I want to be an X", where an X can do this and this and this. They want to be an assassin, or a wandering space rogue, or a brilliant hacker, or a barbarian warrior. Sometimes competence in that concept is just a function of getting higher skill levels or attack bonus, but sometimes it involves being able to do specific things that the rules don't naturally enable; if a Fnorbian Axe-Singer can leap 20 meters, they're going to need a Fnorbian Axe-Singer focus that has "You can leap 20 meters" as an ability. —The author's explanation on Kickstarter

• • • • Also used to handle more unusual characters: Aliens and AI use an appropriate "Origin Focus" (encapsulating basic mechanics for their nature), and there's "Unique Gift" focus as umbrella for less extreme cases («Whether due to exotic technological augmentation, a unique transhuman background, or a remarkable human talent…»).
• Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: Downplayed. All cyberware inflicts permanent System Strain, and some also temporary on activation. So the more augmentation, the less a character can use biopsionic healing or pretech healing and pretech "stims", since those also inflict System Strain, and upon overload the character cannot benefit from either. There are ways to reduce it, but limited and dangerous.
• Design It Yourself Equipment There's usual starship building from hulls and components. Revised Edition allows to build mods into the hull, i.e. make variant ship classes. There's e.g. non-interchangeable mounting for particular equipment saving space and power, or special mounting for oversized equipment, which allows things like courier vessels built around overpowered spike drives, or Fighters with torpedo launchers (normally reserved for Frigate size).
  • Ace Custom: Revised Edition introduced "Mods" for personal equipment and starships. Those tend to be expensive (from 5% of the hull cost and up) require extra maintenance beyond off-the-shelf hardware. In case of ships, it can be built properly (more expensive, but without personal maintenance requirement) or included into a new hull type (which only adds the mod cost, and maintenance cost raises proportionally to the ship cost).
  • Fans try to tinker up funny things, like Bebop imitations (see here, here and here).
• Hit Points
• Planet of Hats: Averted with some help from Combinatorial Explosion, in that randomly generated planets have two world tags, and mentality of random alien species has two "lenses", which must be combined with each other and other parameters into a meaningful whole.
• Randomly Generated Levels: Core books include random generators for a sector map, general characteristics of the "main" worlds, secondary worlds, alien species, Mega Corps, etc. "Resource tables for random generation of names, NPCs, religions, political parties, architectural styles, and room furnishings excel in generating the kind of fast, smooth content that sandbox gaming demands." Splatbooks usually have random tables specific for their theme: Mandate Archive: The Dust for designs of nanobot based pretech, Scavenger Fleets on nomadic fleets, etc.
  • Combinatorial Explosion First, there are 2 World Tags (rolled on 1d100), each with entries for Enemies, Friends, Complications, Things, and Places. Then other properties (atmosphere/temperature/biosphere/population/Tech Level) are rolled, and combining tags with those entries can yield more combinations. If you generated "Beastmasters" on a world not readily habitable by humans, maybe locals use a local critter to alleviate the problem somehow? All of which can contribute to adventure plots, of course.
• Rules Conversions: Frontier Explorer fanzine issues 6 and 8 have articles on conversion of Star Frontiers to SWN Original Edition.
• The Six Stats: D&D style.
• Sourcebook
  • Rules Expansions:
    • Darkness Visible — more detailed rules for Cloak and Dagger Campaigns.
    • Suns of Gold — Merchant Campaigns
    • Starvation Cheap — Military Campaigns
    • Skyward Steel — Naval Campaigns, including black ops.
    • Mandate Archive: Stellar Heroes ("Face the perils of a heartless cosmos with a single daring hero") — solo game rules plus a free side adventure.
    • Mandate Archive: Martial Arts — rules expansion and examples of armed and unarmed martial arts.
  • Splatbooks: Includes most of "Mandate Archives" series.
    • Engines of Babylon ("The Cold Stars Await Your Tread") — more vehicles, more maltech, rules for low-tech system ships.
    • Relics of the Lost ("The Treasures of a Dead Age Await") — various extra toys like low-tech and high-tech weaponry, robot armatures, fancy pretech, maltech projects.
    • Mandate Archive: Bannerjee Construction Solutions — common space stations of the frontier.
    • Mandate Archive: Bruxelles-class Battlecruiser ("An Iron Ghost from a Dead Age...") — a typical Terran Mandate warship.
    • Mandate Archive: Cabals of Hydra Sector ("Shapes Without Names") — more sample secret societies, using Darkness Visible rules.
    • Mandate Archive: The Dust ("A handful of fear from a dead empire") — nanoswarms and some nanobot based pretech.
    • Mandate Archive: The Imago Dei ("Paladins of the Long Silence") — AI knightly orders in space.
    • Mandate archive: The Qotah — sample aliens detailed.
    • Mandate Archive: Red Sangha Mercenary Corps — Buddhist Battle Monks In Space.
    • Mandate Archive: Scavenger Fleets ("Nomads of the Uncharted Sky") — stray space fleets that became, well, wandering groups of scavengers/traders/mercenaries/etc.
    • Mandate Archive: Transhuman Tech ("Tools To Be More Than Human") — transhumanism and post-scarcity societies.
• Standard Starship Scuffle: Even more simplified. No usual tactical map stuff. Ships are either engaged or not. Speed rating means realspace manoeuvrability - mechanically it matters only as an adjustment for Pilot checks in case of chase and landing in bad conditions, and can be negative (meaning penalty on those checks).
• Wide Open Sandbox: Rules are light, random generation tables are abound, and then you are invited to mix in some more.

Naturally, you should feel free to come up with your own tags as well. Almost any science-fiction trope that you enjoy can be turned into a tag, and characteristic elements can be blended into the list of raw adventure components.

Faction Strategy

SWN includes an awesome for simplicity of its mechanics system of faction strategy, which can be used as dynamic backdrop or involve player input: PCs can donate funds or assets, destroy assets, be part of assets if they work for someone, or start a new faction on their own (e.g. if you colonized a planet not in the name of an existing faction, what you already have can be represented by a faction with [Colonists] primary tag, along with one automatic [Planetary Government] tag it gives).

• Turn-Based Strategy
  • Counter Attack: Asset attacks that result in a failure or tie invite counterattack damage.
  • Hit Points: Assets, factions, and they overlap in Base of Influence.
  • Tech Levels: Restrict asset availability on a planet, though there are ways to circumvent this.

• Cloak and Dagger/Spy-Versus-Spy: Cunning based (i.e. intelligence) attacks, [Stealthed] Special Forces assets smuggled in… Some factions are made for this:
  • Machiavellian: gives bonus to one Cunning attack per turn,
  • Secretive: purchases all assets [Stealthed], rather than as upgrade to Special Forces only and for extra price, i.e. it can be just another legitimate or underworld enterprise, only happens to be owned by a cell of some secret society — they may buy a Wealth facility or Party Machine for extra income, too. Sell if it got unmasked, and buy a new one auto-Stealthed, so it's less vulnerable even to blanket unmasking actions. Of course, a planetary government can still veto formation or movement of most military units in the first place without knowing who really stands behind them. Unless pushed through by a Popular Movement and not blocked by Lobbyists.
  • Of course, some factions have equal advantage in defence, and Imperialists or Warlike factions can try to «catch up with the opposition and return the favor… physically.»
    • Theocratic: gives bonus to one defense from a Cunning attack per turn,
  • And then Darkness Visible expansion builds another town on top of this.
  • Corrupt Politician/Double Agent/Honey Trap/etc: A lot of Cunning assets represent subversion and turncoats, and most can be [Stealthed] until they are used to attack or defend (and then again, if they survive).
  • Deep-Cover Agent: Few things can unmask Stealthed assets without wasting an Action. Being used for attack or defence unmasks, but not other actions. So a Demagogue, Lobbyists or Lawyers need to show their true colours to be useful, but Surveyors help to create Base of Influence and move on, a friendly Commodities Broker just sits there and reduces costs of all new assets, while Pretech Researchers allow to buy non-military assets of too high TL for the planet…
  • Loose Lips: Informers can reveal all Stealthed assets of a faction, and don't even need already visible assets to try. And are by far the cheapest way to do this (but require to waste an Action the faction could spend on making money).
  • Secret War: A faction with high Cunning and/or advantage in using it (and good income) can take over a world with Cunning and Wealth attacks only, nothing as blatant as sending fleets of dropships. Against attempts to purge exposed assets by direct force, guerillas jump in the way, moles get underfoot or Seditionists paralyse the whole military units via divided loyalties.
  • Seductive Spy: A successful attack from Seductress instead of inflicting damage makes the target reveal any Stealthed assets of its faction currently on the planet. Also, can be attacked only by Special Forces (granted, this includes lots of things, including 2 other TL0/Cunning 2: Saboteurs and Blackmail).
• Eagle Squadron: A faction can buy an asset anywhere they have a Base of Influence and then move it anywhere in range (of available transportation-capable assets, if it's not mobile itself). The local government may veto military units, but doesn't have to, and can be influenced by a Popular Movement. Which allows many shenanigans within the rules — including specifically forming units on allied territory and then moving to one's own; this wastes an action to move, but can be meaningful even without alliance mechanics: cost and allowed TL vary per planet, and enemy may have less opportunities to sabotage it.
• Glass Cannon: Assassins… and Zealots.

Hitmen: 1 HP, attack 1d6 / counter None.

Cyberninjas: 4 HP, attack 2d6 / counter None.

Psychic Assassins: 4 HP, attack 2d6+2 / counter None.

Zealots: 4 HP, attack 2d6 / counter 2d6.

• Hired Guns
  • Private Military Contractors: Mercenaries have extra upkeep cost, but they are a Wealth asset attacking with Wealth vs. Force, i.e. it's an unit that doesn't care about how strong your military infrastructure is, if your faction's strong side is economy, you can afford more and better hired guns, that's it. They can also be their own faction ([Mercenary Group] tag).
• NGO Superpower: Mechanically, the only intrinsic difference between the factions are tags. And no restrictions for acquiring "Planetary Government" tag for some or other planet. Thus any faction could do it via successful Seize action (if it's Secretive, well, there's "Secret Masters" World Tag), whether by fighting (Force attacks), or turning assets via Treachery or Hostile Takeover. Also, mechanically its only effect is rights to allow or veto raising at the planet (or moving in) most military units. Which involves "implicit" military force (i.e. it sits in garrisons as a part of Force infrastructure and cannot be readily thrown here or there). And possibly one-time growth if the faction had Goal to seize that planet and now accomplished it, but now the others can do the same. It can be much more useful to have a separate allied faction as a government (more actions and different strengths).
• Privateer: blockade fleets — plunder the target in addition to damage. No Counter Attack, however.
• Servant Race: Eugenic Cults have Gengineered Slaves as Force assets of either Military Unit or Special Forces type, and bonus to attack or defend with them. They are comparable with Militia at fighting, but cheaper by half and tougher by half, i.e. good Cannon Fodder.
• Suicide Attack/Last Stand: «Zealots take 1d4 damage every time they launch a successful attack or perform a counterattack.» So in full HP there's 1/4 chance of them killing themselves with enthusiasm on a successful attack, worse in a tie against anything that causes damage itself. And the rest of time they, of course, take damage normally, and any Military Unit or Special Forces does at least 1d4. So they take damage that can wipe them out whenever attack or being attacked.
  • Very high counterattack value combined with modest cost makes them good spiky meat shields, however.
• We Can Rebuild Him: If a Military Unit or Special Forces asset is destroyed, Medical Center allows to immediately recover it in 1 HP, at half the cost. The rest is up to Repair Asset action, which it also makes cheaper.
  • We Have Reserves: With a Medical Center it's easier to fix waves of cheap units than a few expensive ones, while Repair Asset does wonders within 1-2 Attribute value's worth of HPs, but is increasingly expensive if you want full repair of something tougher. So in this ruleset "the odds are on the cheaper man".