A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Stars without Number’s Game Master Resources chapter discusses common complications, interstellar trade, converting prior from edition, house rules, name generators, and one-roll generators.

First a discussion about ensuring the game is played and prepared for your table:

The most important thing you can remember as a GM running Stars Without Number is that you are running it for a specific group of people …

Whenever you consider making a house rule, or adding a tweak to the game, or even basic considerations of what kind of sandbox excitement you should be offering to your players, you must always think about the specific players you have.

I find this advice critical; Don’t play and prepare for abstract fun, but for the fun that your group will have. This section also implies the near unattainable game balance of a rules system for more than one game group. Each group brings its own style, preferences, and approaches to a game. The group should refine the rules to account for their preferences.

Common Game Master Complications

Death

All throughout Stars without Number, the game speaks about the lethality of the system. This section dives into how you might, in discussion with your players, alter the rules about character death.

And we get additional discussion about adding new characters into the mix; Hint: get a new character into the game real quick, and make them the same level (or one less). The player lost a character don’t further punish them by forcing them to wait a long-time to bring a new character to the table.

Skill Checks

Be charitable about success; Don’t force trained characters to make routine checks.

Don’t spam checks; One role for the general course of a skill’s usage. Once you determine success or failure push additional choices onto the player (e.g. you failed, and can take additional time to get it right or its a quick fix and I choose when the fix fails).

Don’t require skill checks if there is nothing associated with the failure.

And remember character actions may obviate the need for skill checks. If they say they are searching the room by looking under the bed, then if something is under the bed, give it to the players.

Combat

“GM Splash” by Tan Ho Sim

Again, a reminder that combat can be fairly lethal. Give players bonuses or automatic success for ambushes and tactics.

And do not forget morale.

The morale system does a few things:

• Increases the likelihood of shorter combats
• Provides tactical options for players
• Increases the likelihood of recurring characters
• Resolves the immediate conflict but may leave open future conflict
• Highlights that not everyone is in it to the death

Negotiation and Diplomacy

Any RPG that has social skills needs to discuss the relationship of a character’s social skill and the player’s social argumentation.

Stars without Number discusses expectations of players when they spend points on skills. And that players may not have experience in the skills that their characters do.

This tension is most notable when you have a glib player that has a no-social-skills character. Or a tongue-tied player that has a master elocutionist character.

The key…is to let both skills and player argumentation have a visible effect on the outcome, so that players feel that both matter.

Searching and Investigation

Advice about not attaching critical information to a dice roll.

Some GMs just let the PCs all make Notice checks to see if they notice some- thing hidden. This has the advantage of being quick and simple, but it also can put vital information at the mercy of good dice. Other GMs require the players to specifically say what parts of an area they’re searching, what they’re looking under or inside, and otherwise describe the specifics of their search. This can penalize players who don’t correctly envision the area the GM is describing. One compromise is to simply give players vital clues when they say that they are searching, and then use one or both of the other methods to let them search for supplementary facts and helpful details.

As a GM, be generous with information. Do not assume they will read through the lines.

Salvage

It can be tedious to handle the logistics of salvage and unbalancing to the game to allow PCs to cash in on every alien fork and wall panel they can drag back to civilization.

Have a conversation with the group to determine what interests them. Few are eager to play “Papers and Paychecks: The RPG.”

Interstellar Trade

Perhaps most importantly, there is no such thing as interstellar bulk shipping in Stars Without Number. Even the largest spike drive ships have cargo capacities measured in a few tens of thousands of tons, while a modern oil tanker has a capacity of around 500,000 tons. Trying to run a meaningful trade in bulk commodities has been a lost cause ever since the jump gates failed and massive system-ship freighters could no longer make the jump between worlds. Such commerce can exist inside a system, with huge slowboats moving from planet to planet, but modern trade relies on carrying small loads of high-value goods or expert services.

The above emphasis is mine. Adventurers can make their wealth with a fast ship and precious cargo. Provided within this section is a set of quick trade rules: encoding skill, risk, and reward. Take a look at Suns of Gold: Merchant Campaigns for Stars Without Number if you are interested in more exhaustive trade rules.

Converting First Edition Stars without Number

It’s a rather quick and easy switch from the prior Stars without Number edition to the revised edition.

House Rules and the Game

The House Rules section discusses some house rules and their possible impact.

• No Shock Damage
• Use Original Skill List
• Don’t Use Command Points
• No Ranged Weapon Binding
• Use a Grid in Combat
• Eliminate Psionics
• Drop FTL Starfight
• Boost Starting Levels
• Add Universal Psionics
• Use Plot Points
• Make Combat a Bloodbath

Name Generators

Stars without Number provides generators for Arabic, Chinese, English, Greek, Indian, Japanese, Latin, Nigerian, Russian and Spanish names.

One Roll Generators

Stars without Number provides a single page to generate a random NPC using a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. Below are the results of one of those rolls.

Stars without Number also provides a single page to generate a one roll patron using a d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, and d20. Below are the results of one of those rolls. Build this upon the above NPC.

And last we have two one roll tables to generate Urban and Wilderness encounters.

Wrapping up the free version we get character sheets, an index, and list of kickstarter patrons.

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Stars without Number’s Factions chapter provides a system for setting the campaign in motion; With tools for mechanically describing campaign elements and pitting them against each other.

The section on Using Factions in Your Game argues that a formal, yet simple, system to manage factions creates surprises for the GM; A lucky die roll from an underdog faction becomes a major news story in your campaign. Something that the players might be curious about. There are analogues to Random Encounter tables, Reaction rolls, and Morale Checks; Let a system decide how creatures of the world react. Thus creating surprises for all at the table.

Stars without Number describes factions with: Hit Points (HP), Force rating, Cunning rating, Wealth rating, FacCreds, XP, Homeworld, Tags, and deployed Assets. Each Faction Asset has HP, purchase cost, Attack value, Counterattack value, Type, Location, and Tech Level.

The Faction turn is something the GM resolves in between sessions. And looks to take no more than 30 minutes. During a Faction Turn, each Faction may take one type of action: Attack, Buy Asset, Change Homeworld, Expand Influence, Refit Asset, Repair Asset/Faction, Sell Asset, Seize Planet, Use Asset Ability.

Faction actions are informed by their faction goal: Military Conquest, Commercial Expansion, Intelligence Coup, Planetary Seizure, Expand Influence, Blood the Enemy, Peaceable Kingdom, Destroy the Foe, Inside Enemy Territory, Invincible Valor, and Wealth of Worlds. When a Faction achieves their goal, they gain XP.

The Faction’s rating for Force determines the highest “level” Force asset they can buy.

The above table encodes quite a bit of information. Cunning, Force, and Wealth each have about 25 different asset types.

Stars without Number provides a page detailing how PCs can interact with factions (or even run their own). And a page on example factions:

Colony World

Thinly-populated worlds with limited infrastructure tend to have weak colonial governments concerned chiefly with issues of basic survival rather than expansion or intrigue.
Attributes: Force 4, Cunning 3, Wealth 1 Hit Points: 15
Assets: Guerrilla Populace/Force 2 and Saboteurs/Cunning 2
Tags: Colonists

Regional Hegemon

This world is the mightiest military power in the sector and leads a half-dozen neighboring worlds in a “voluntary confederation” that it ever seeks to expand.
Attributes: Force 8, Cunning 5, Wealth 7 Hit Points: 49
Assets: Space Marines/Force 7, Planetary Defenses/ Force 6, Blockade Fleet/Force 5, Extended Theater/Force 4, Pretech Manufactory/Wealth 7, Shipping Combine/Wealth 4, Tripwire Cells/ Cunning 4, Cyberninjas/Cunning 3
Tags: Imperialists

Closing out the chapter, Stars without Number provides an example of Faction Play.

Conclusion

I appreciate having an easy to adjudicate system to advance the background events of a campaign. As a GM, I would spend some time setting up the initial campaign factions. And as the campaign moves forward, these charged factions would exert their own influence on the campaign and adventures that play out at the table.

This system reminds me of a streamlined version of the AD&D 2E Birthright campaign system, and it’s domain level play.

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Stars without Number’s Xenobestiary chapter sets the tone by reinforcing a sandbox-style play. The following paragraph opens the discussions about encounters; Give players notice about looming hellbeasts; Street thugs won’t likely fight until the bitter end; And most importantly, reiterating that combat is dangerous!

Before picking foes from this chapter, however, a GM should make sure that the enemies chosen and the perils generated are appropriate for the situation. This does not mean that the enemies have to be an “appropriate” combat challenge for the PC group, one that they have a reasonable chance of defeating. It means that they should be appropriate to the location and role they fill in the setting.

From here, Stars without Number dives into the Reaction Roll: its usage and importance—“they help a GM adjudicate a situation in a potentially surprising or interesting way.”

Humanity Section

A brief discussion on the degrees of danger, with a reminder that when the GM should ignore the PCs when setting an NPCs potency.

Then we dive into the stat blocks. First off a “Humanity” section. Below is a table of general stat blocks as reference.

Robots and VIs

Robotillo by Grzegorz Pedrycz

This section dives into Robots and Virtual Intelligences (VIs), clarifying that each sector, and by extension campaign, has a varying presence of robots. With one clarification, True AIs are almost impossible to create in bulk (but they can exist, and have their place).

Basic robots are governed by Expert System; Janitors, Civilian Security, Repair, Industrial Work Bots, Companion Bot, Soldier Bot, Heavy Warbot.

If something is outside their programming, they need to make rolls against confusion. They are also destroyed if dropped to 0 HP.

Virtual Intelligences cost 10x their Expert System counterparts. Dropping to 0 HP does not destroy VIs. Some VIs are capable of learning; players can choose to be a VI character.

To be a VI, a character must spend their free focus to pick one of the origins: Android, Worker Bot, or Vehicle Bot. Everybody wants to play Crushinator.

Beasts

A quick chapter on basic beast stats, and random tables for styling your beasts. One benefit of using SWN, is its immediately compatible with other OSR products. So grab The Random Esoteric Creature Generator for Classic Fantasy Role-Playing Games and Their Modern Simulacra and make some alien creatures.

Let’s make one. I’ll choose a Gengineered Murder Beast (HD 10, AC 18, +10 x4 attacks, 1d10 dmg, 20m, ML 11, +3 Skills).

Aliens

The last section goes into Aliens. And as with most sections, Aliens are entirely optional. Or limited to non-player characters. Or playable by players.

When adding an alien race to your sector, it’s necessary to keep in mind the ultimate purpose you have for including them. A given species might be fascinating to you, but if they don’t actually help to accomplish something for your game it’s likely that the players will simply gloss over their existence. By having a concrete purpose in mind for a race you can ensure that the players have a useful reason to interact with them.

We get a table to generate Alien Biology. And more fascinating, a table to generate the the Lens (or Lenses) through which their society, relationships, etc are viewed.

I’ll roll up two of them…Subtlety and Journeying.

Journeying

This species has an incurable wanderlust. Perhaps they roam the stars in fleets of massive spike drive ships, or they may make steady circuits of the nearby stars to connect their worlds and exchange people among them. More technologically primitive species might sail the waves of alien seas or make nomadic journeys across the continents of their world. Few of these aliens can ever be happy in remaining in one place for long, and they are forever scouting new worlds and new lands simply for the pleasure of being there a little while.

Subtlety

Such a species is enormously cunning and patient in character, willing to endure years of suffering calmly in order to bring about some intricate plan. They shun open display of emotions or opinions, masking such things behind protocols of bland correctness. To reveal one’s true opinion about some contentious matter is a mark either of profound trust or a sign of obvious incipient treachery. The true ruler of such a species is almost never who it seems to be.

Imagine a species of tacit travelers, always in the background of space stations and transport ships, tourists each and every place. Yet reserved and distant. How would humans react to these silent travelers? What conspiracies might run rampant?

Especially, when we roll up their social structure: I got a monarchy. Why do they travel? How do they demonstrate allegiance? What does the monarch desire of this sector?

Stars without Number further discusses Alien Technology. Some may be primitive, others contemporary, and fallen alien technology could be “magic”.

Last, there are rules for making Alien characters; This is some work on the GM and Players part; And is frankly something I wouldn’t allow in the first batch of characters for a new campaign.

Conclusion

There are a few more chapters to go, but I love the short stat blocks. I despise multi-paragraph stat blocks (adding lots of unnecessary overhead to GM-ing).

I very much appreciate the discussion about Alien Lenses; How to make something not human (while building on an exaggerated human emotion/approach).

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

Within this chapter Stars without Number provides a mix of advice, tables, and examples. Four major sections comprise this chapter: Adventure Creation, Adventure Rewards, Creating Adventure Elements, and an Example of Adventure Creation.

The method that follows is by no means the best or only way to devise an adventure, but it’s a procedure that will do the job for a working GM. This method work best if you’ve already generated a world using the tools in the Sector Creation chapter, but the basic outlines can function even without such support.

A fair disclaimer, as adventure creation is, in my experience, a personal affair.

Adventure Creation Section

Art by Tan Ho Sim

From here, Stars without Number breaks down five steps, common to the writing process.

Identify Your Needs

At the end of the session ask your player’s about their intentions for the following session. But remember, as players are prone to do, hold those intentions lightly.

Choosing Ingredients

Review the sector you’ve created. Sift through those Friends, Enemies, Complications, Things, and Places. Bring those forward, tweak them, and look for callbacks to previous adventures. Look for cohesion of these elements.

Assemble the Outline

Create an unstable or untenable situation from those ingredients; A situation that will change as the characters interact with it. Connect problems to people; either Friends or Enemies.

Fleshing it Out

Answer the following questions:

• What maps do I need?
• What places do I need to make interesting?
• What NPCs will I need to detail?
• What default outcomes will you need to establish?
• What are the rewards to dealing with the Problem?
• Lastly, how will the PCs get involved?

Polish it Up

Think through the adventure as your players. Is the adventure logical? Approachable? Engaging?

Stars without Number discusses adventures created with in a “sandbox-style” and “story logic-style”. In a sandbox-style adventure, there aren’t written-out paths. You navigate a situation. In story-logic style, the adventuring makes efforts to maintain genre feel.

Creating Filler Adventures

An advice section for GMs; Have an adventure waiting in the wings. It should be something that demands their immediate attention (e.g. a terrorist attack, a close friend calling for help) and it should be short (less than a session) and simple (and perhaps somewhat isolated). It’s purpose is to help out a GM that is caught flat-footed by player actions.

Adventure Rewards Section

A discussion about approaching adventure rewards: Not worrying about too much money or keeping them hungry for more money. Instead ensure that rewards are logical (and Stars without Number provides a table with guidance on reward types).

You can use this principle when the PCs want anything, whether it’s a ship, a particular ally, a base of operations, or anything else that can’t reasonably buy. Make them adventure for it. You can give them suggestions and ideas, but it’s up to them to come up with a plan for getting their hands on what they want.

I know as a player that I am somewhat conditioned to “take the adventure path in front of me.” And in my next campaign, I’m certainly going to call out the “Adventure for It” mindset. Adventures in Middle Earth’s creates a separate Adventuring Phase and Fellowship Phase. The Adventuring Phase is very much in the Loremaster’s control, what are the problems in front of the players. The Fellowship Phase is a chance for the Player-heroes choose direction (e.g. train, create a Sanctuary, create a holding, etc.). The Fellowship Phase is used to telegraph what is important and interesting for the players. Not quite “adventure for it”, but it is instead a subsystem that allows players to get off the adventure path and bring more breadth and depth to the character’s context.

Closing this section is a discussion on Awarding Experience Points, with five possible award systems:

• Session-based
• Personal goal-based
• Mission-based
• Loot-based
• Spending-based

Creating Problems, People, Places, and Adventure Seeds Section

Stars without Number provides a series of tables to flesh out a Problem, People, and Places.

Problems are comprised of: Conflict Type, Overall Situation, Specific Focus, Restraint, and Twist.

Rolling on the tables, I get:

• Conflict Type: Revenge
• Overall Situation: Someone was murdered
• Specific Focus: Both sides were wronged
• Restraint: Religious principles are constraining the conflict
• Twist: The PCs could really profit off the focus of the strife

A classic case of revenge, with religious considerations, and a chance for PCs to exploit the overall situation. That sounds like a problem that will just keep making problems.

People have tables for: Their Motivation, Their Want, Their Power, Their Hook, Initial Manner of Approach, and Default Deal Outcome.

Rolling on the tables, I get:

• Their Motivation: A sheer sadistic love of inflicting pain and suffering
• Their Want: Kidnap or non-fatally eliminate a particular NPC
• Their Power: They have pull with the local religion
• Their Hook: Always seems to be in one particular mood
• Initial Manner of Approach: Extremely well-informed about the PCs’ past
• Default Deal Outcome: They’ll want a further small favor to pay up on it

That dovetails surprisingly well into the Problems roll.

Places have tables for: Hazards, Specific Example, Possible Danger, Reward, Civilized Ongoings, and Wilderness Ongoings.

Rolling on the tables, I get:

• Hazards: Environmental
• Specific Example: Gear-eating microbial life
• Possible Danger: Lose some equipment
• Reward: Forbidden but precious drug
• Civilized Ongoings: Merchants and peddlers active
• Wilderness Ongoings: Refugees are hiding here

I rolled both Civilized and Wilderness Ongoings, and think both could work as locations for the Problem and Person.

Pulling Problem, People, and Places together, I’m envisioning a preacher that arose from a flock of refugees. They’ve learned the secret about harvesting a drug from the byproduct of the microbes. In their flock, strife broke out (sadism a psychological byproduct of the drug?) and someone was murdered. Both, were in fact trying to smuggle the microbe off-world.

Adventure Seed has a d100 table. This table stands separate from the Problem, People, and Places.

Rolling on the table I got:

A courier mistakes the party for the wrong set of offworlders, and wordlessly deposits a Thing with them that implies something awful—med-frozen, child-sized human organs, for example, or a private catalog of gengineered human slaves. The courier’s boss shortly realizes the error, and this Enemy tries to silence the PCs while preserving the Place where his evil is enacted.

Looking at the results, substitute Enemy and Thing with one of the Enemy and Thing from generated sectors; In the case of a Pilgrimage Site system, I might choose the Enemy as the “Saboteur devoted to a rival belief” and the Thing to be “Precious offering from a pilgrim”.

An Example of Adventure Creation

I found this section to be a nice “transparency in thought” exercise in using the random tables provided. Use the tables to spark ideas. With each roll, interrogate the results to understand why that result is true.

Conclusion

Another great chapter to add to a GMs repertoire.

A part of my Let’s Read “Stars without Number” series. Go grab your free copy of SWN and join in.

For this section we’ll dive into Sector Creation: the wheelhouse of all Sine Nomine products..

Where there are starships, there are sectors and star systems.

Most campaigns are going to involve substantial world-hopping, however, and the GM needs to be ready to deal with this. This chapter will give you the tools you need to fashion a sector of the void that will be worth the reckless daring of a band of heroic PCs.

Within the first page of sector creation is the following advice/admonishment:

You are advised to carefully read the following pages and take heed of the advice on how much content you should create for each world. A GM would not be a GM if they did not take pleasure in creating wondrous new worlds to explore, but the most enthusiastic demiurge still has a limited amount of creative energy, time, and focus to spend on a campaign.

Stars without Number goes on to provide a procedure for populating an 8x10 hex map. You’ll place 20 + 1d10 systems on random spots on this 8x10 map (roll a d8 and a d10 to determine location).

Each system will have a primary world. And you’ll roll up 2 random tags to give it shape (from the d100 table, each result providing a list of possible Enemies, Friends, Complications, Things, and Places).

Below is an example:

Pilgrimage Site

The world is noted for an important spiritual or his- torical location, and might be the sector headquarters for a widespread religion or political movement. The site attracts wealthy pilgrims from throughout nearby space, and those with the money necessary to manage interstellar travel can be quite generous to the site and its keepers. The locals tend to be fiercely protective of the place and its reputation, and some places may forbid the entrance of those not suitably pious or devout.

Enemies: Saboteur devoted to a rival belief, Bitter reformer who resents the current leadership, Swindler conning the pilgrims

Friends: Protector of the holy site, Naive offworlder pilgrim, Outsider wanting to learn the sanctum’s inner secrets

Complications: The site is actually a fake, The site is run by corrupt and venal keepers, A natural disaster threatens the site

Things: Ancient relic guarded at the site, Proof of the site’s inauthenticity, Precious offering from a pilgrim

Places: Incense-scented sanctum, Teeming crowd of pilgrims, Imposing holy structure

Its on you to connect the systems via known trade routes, polities, factions, and relations.

Once that is done, you’ll roll up each star system’s Atmosphere, Temperature, Biosphere, Population, and Tech Level.

From there, it’s on you to decide if there are additional points of interest: other worlds or other things. Stars without Number provides random tables for each of these options.

Conclusion

This chapter is the heart and soul of Sine Nomine products; Random campaign creation tools.

There are several online generators for sectors:

• The SWN Sector Generator
• CLI GM tools for Stars Without Number
• Sectors without Number

Personally, I enjoyed rolling up these sectors, as I see the star systems that emerge. Instead of having a massive