Worlds Without Number
| Worlds Without Number | ||
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| RPG published by Sine Nomine |
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| Rule System | D&D Retroclone | |
| Authors | Kevin Crawford | |
| First Publication | 2021 | |
Worlds Without Number is a fantasy adaptation of Stars Without Number Revised Edition, created by the same author: Kevin Crawford.
How Does It Play?[edit | edit source]
If you've played D&D, you know. D20 dice rolls for combat resolution. Characters have skills like Traveller, which are resolved on rolls of 2d6.
There are threefour classes: Warrior (fight stuff, turn failed attack or dodge rolls into successes), Experts (double skill points, turn failed skill rolls into successes), Mages (cast spells and utilise arts), and Adventurers (pick two of the above, dip into their skillsets). Combat is highly lethal, thanks to low HP upgrades and high powered weapons. This is backed by one change from the classic formula: Shock Damage, which evens the odds for melee characters by making sure that even on a "miss" they inflict damage if the enemy isn't wearing sufficient armor. This means a swarm of goblins with sharp sticks can be just as deadly as a dragon if you let them close in and swarm you. So don't do that. PCs can make a "Snap Attack" in the middle of an enemy turn if they haven't gone yet, but it gives you a pretty big penalty to-hit.
Beyond that, the game's simple. Crawford wants you to be able to translate your B/X stuff into this and replace the orcs with Anakim, Liches with imperators, et cetera.
Like many of Crawford's books, there's more random tables than you may know what to do with. This is a very good thing, since it's optimized for sandbox campaigns.
What's the Story?[edit | edit source]
It is the latter age of the Earth. Humanity was conquered by aliens known as the outsiders who drove them underground and created all the fantasy races (except elves). Eventually the outsiders left/were driven out, leaving ancient technologies and terraformed regions behind.
The main setting is a region of the latter earth known as the Gyre (northern South America). 2000+ years ago there was an empire of evil thought nobles who ruled the region. they were overthrown and became a republic. 1000 years ago an outside army lead by the Reaping king came in and conquered the Gyre. 100 years ago the Reaping king had stopped paying attention to the kingdom and his kingdom splintered into civil war. Crawford later released the Atlas of the Latter Earth, expanding on the world outside the Gyre
Regions include:
- Emed Kist - Traditional Medieval fantasy land
- Ka-Adun - the capital megacity, fallen into disrepair and neglect
- Llaigis - Conan Land
- New Voth - Fantasy roman Republic/American West
- Sarul - Fanatical Crusader state of outcast Blighted (orcs)
- Thur - Magical Victorian England
Classes
- Experts: Can reroll skill checks once per scene and gets extra skill points
- Mages: Have a certain number of spells per day they can cast as well as effort that can be spent on minor arts. There are a many magical traditions.
- Warriors: Revised can reroll once per scene and has d6+2 HP (averaging higher hit points)
Standard Magical Traditions:
* High Mage: Your OG Wizard * Elementalist: I cast Fireball * Healer: heals people and cures diseases. * Necromancy: Summons dead stuff * Vowed: Masters of Kung-Fu
Deluxe Magical Traditions
* Adunic Invoker: More Flexible casting, fewer spells. * Darian Skinshifter: Turns into animals or other people. * Kistian Duelist: a Gish * Llaigisan Beastmaster: Animal Companion * Sarulite Blood Priest: Your more conventional Cleric * Vothite Thought Noble: Literal psychic mind readers.
Free Version vs Paid Version[edit | edit source]
The paid version of the game adds a number of modifiers for GMs to play with, including but not limited to
- Extra Magical traditions
- Heroic Classes, which changes the gritty combat into something more akin to dnd 5e or pathfinders combat where the characters are less squishy and more capable.
- Legates which take characters from heroes to Demigods. PCs take less damage, while NPCs drop like flies.
- Iterums and tools for generating them for all your Spelljammer and Planescape needs
- A ton of extra GM Tools
Links[edit | edit source]