Coming Home and Less is More

The thing I love about BX is that it will never get any more complicated, slow, in-depth, or heavy than it already is. There are implementations of "heavy classes" in BX, where they go into an almost 5E level of depth in a class design, but the base gameplay is not affected as much as you might expect.

There is no dozen-page character sheet hidden by thousands of pages of JavaScript code on a VTT, making the game playable. This "backend code support" that makes 5E work is also what will kill the game. 5E was never designed to be played by hand, and once you get to a certain character level, you will find out why. Like a mobile game that eventually forces you to buy something to play more, 5E, after a few levels, requires you to sign up for some online service somewhere to "make it all easier to manage."

BX never, ever, needs a VTT or a digital character sheet.

5E is an inferior game for designing software code support into the game's requirements.

"All you need are pencils, paper, dice, some friends, an imagination ...and a subscription website with a few million lines of JavaScript code maintained by Wall Street."

Yeah, it is that last part that makes it a hard no from me. The problem is, I liked the websites! Roll20 is cool! Shard is amazing! Foundry VTT is mind-blowing! They were cool ways to play the game, and massively convenient. The maps and tokens are cool. Roll20 with the multi-game support is amazing.

I don't have time for any of it, though.

And a game that requires that much time from me is going to be a net negative in my life, and I will eventually need to cut the game off to make myself happier. Sorry, subtraction theory as a life-improvement strategy is a valid way to deal with a life that asks too much of us.

Yes, "D&D makes me happy" is a valid statement for me.

"5E sucked every free moment from my life" is also a true statement.

To make myself happy, I make a dramatic choice, kick 5E to the curb. Stick with an easier game that does "most of the same thing." Eliminate the constant revenue drain of VTTs and crowdfunding projects. Box up, sell, or store all the 5E books. Stick with a few, small, easy, simple OSE books.

Subtraction theory is life simplification.

Less is more.

Pathfinder 1e was this way for me. I enjoyed the heck out of that game. My library got too big, and the game died. The game needed software to build characters. It is in storage now. OSE does most of what it did, and exists as two tiny books on my shelf. One thing I found with these "huge games" is that they often try to make up for weak stories, worlds, and adventures with hyper-detailed characters. With BX, I need compelling adventures, worlds, and stories to engage players. I can't "fall back on the rules" to maintain interest, which often happens with 5E and other big games.

If OSE and BX do 80% of what 5E and Pathfinder do, and take ten times less time, space, shelf, software support, and "head space" requirements - then OSE and BX are the winners for me.

And BX is such an easy game; I can store the entire thing "in my head," like a micro "operating system," and run it from memory. From here, I have science fiction with Stars Without Number or White Star. I have the cyberpunk genre with Cities Without Number. I have post-apoc with Ashes Without Number. I have a few different fantasy games: Old School Essentials, Worlds Without Number, and Swords & Wizardry.

Even without OSRIC and ADAD, I have enough here to keep me busy for a lifetime. GURPS is a guilty pleasure of mine, my last "big game" that isn't actually all that big. That is non-negotiable and sticks around. If I am playing a game with complicated, in-depth characters and relying on "rules interest to drive game interest," I am sticking with the best character-building game ever invented, GURPS. GURPS killed 5E for me. If I am playing one game that in-depth, GURPS will kill anything else that it is put up against.

Plus, I don't need game designers to tell me what my characters can do. I decide that. I am the game designer. I always do a better job. And GURPS can be played with just two books; it is never a huge game if you take it on the road. With 5E, I do not have a choice.

Swords & Wizardry sticks around as "AD&D Lite," honestly. It is math-compatible with OSE, gives me a huge monster list for both games, and is a different way to play. If I have a world that feels more "1E" then S&W will do nicely; otherwise, OSE covers it.

OSE, S&W, Without Number, and even the 2d6 sci-fi games like FTL Nomad exist happily with each other, and alongside GURPS. A collection of "tiny games" and one heavy one that does it all makes a nice library where I can sell everything else off, and be happy again.

Less is more.

Games Without Number

Right there on the same shelf as my Old School Essentials games sits my collection of ...Without Number games. There are some of the most amazing games in my library, easily complementing OSE games with fantasy, science fiction, cyberpunk, and post-apocalyptic gameplay. Yes, there is another fantasy game in here, and it is worthy and BX compatible.

If a game ever fails me, these will do them all, and keep me in my beloved BX framework. The best thing about these games is that they are all BX-compatible, so I am not wasting library space keeping these or my OSE books out on the same shelf. I am gravitating towards games that work together and support each other, rather than the new "system of the week" pushed on crowdfunding sites, or the mess that 5E became.

Worlds Without Number is an interesting fantasy game. It reminds me a little of Numenera, a post-civilization fall into a feudal world where the old world is forgotten, and the advancements of that age are lost to the sands of time. This can be played more like straight traditional fantasy, too, with your typical elves, dwarves, halflings, and other fantasy races and monsters pulled directly from OSE. Either way you go, and even using this as your world-building book for OSE, you can't go wrong.

The magic system seems very strange at first, and almost like it doesn't do as much as a Vancian BX system, but it actually does more and operates on a higher power level. It is a very strange system, but once you wrap your head around it, you find it gives a magic-using character a lot of power and flexibility that a bog-standard BX wizard just does not have. Plus, you will gain world-breaking spells of power if you find them. The magic system here is very different, feels more materially satisfying, and offers greater tactical flexibility than BX, despite seeming far less in-depth.

The system itself is BX, but nothing like BX in feeling. It feels really good, strange enough to transport me to another time and place, yet familiar enough to run fast and stay out of the way. It is (and is not) your typical race-and-class system and feels fresh and amazing at the same time. If anything, the characters feel fully realized, like characters from a novel, and there are clear specializations at play here.

Shadowrun? Cyberpunk? Why do I need them? I got Cities Without Number right here, drop in some OSE races, and I have a Shadowrun-like world ready to go. Better yet, I get Tieflings, Dragonborn, Ratlings, Drow, and all my OSE favorites, along with OSE magic - and full OSE monster lists. It is honestly a better experience that plays on all my favorites, and allows for a true fantasy world inside a modern sheen of chrome and oppressive mega-corps.

The d20 System tried to do "D&D Shadowrun" with Urban Arcana. The pairing of OSE and Cities Without Number does it better since the races, monsters, magic items, and spells of BX all port directly in. This is a trivial conversion, and who cares if it does not make any sense? Some wizard somewhere blew a wish spell big time, and we ended up with a fantasy world put on top of Earth.

Or, you could say "this is not Earth" and randomly generate a modern world hex by hex, saying "this is a fantasy modern world waking up," and they uncover the "fog" and start discovering new cities, ruins, lands, and places in the world as the New Era awakens. There is a dragon over there, orcs over here, a ruined subhere there, a megacity over here, and whatever you want.

Now, I love GURPS Space.

But Star Frontiers, Space Opera, Traveler, Star Trek, Starfinder, and many other games can be done as well, and in the comfort-food framework of BX with Stars Without Number. Again, I can do a Starfinder or Dragonstar science-fantasy game easily with the OSE races and magic. It is easy, I get a full monster list to use as-is or reskin, and I can have a laser-basilisk if I want. A robo-dragon. A mutant ogre-kin. A metal-eating chrome-slime. The OSE monsters reskin so well, and even the spells can be converted to "space force" powers if you want. There are OSE psionic books, too, and you are free to do whatever you want here.

Why do I need Traveller 5E, again? This works, has no issues working alongside a BX game, and SWN does not need an online VTT character sheet to be playable. SWN does a great Traveller, and in fact, the star generation methods here are more tag and adventure-focused, and work out better for space exploration and discovering new adventures on worlds.

And I wrote a conversion article about 5 years ago where I renamed everything to fit different ideas, and it still works well...

SBRPG: Empires & Federations (Without Number)

You can play any variant of science fiction with SWN, and just swap the names of things, and you are good to go. A rock-solid BX engine, compatibility, and ease of play with any sci-fi genre? Drop in BX classes and monsters at-will? This is a solid, great game, and you are not getting fleeced every few years for a new crowdfunding sci-fi game.

And the ships and weapons of SWN are reskinned easily, too, and I could name the weapons one thing and have Star Wars, and another thing and have Star Trek. A procedural space hex-crawl BX "Star Federation" adventures style game? Where did I hear about that before? 

I had the Starfleet Voyages game in 1982 (my Sister bought it for her birthday, and we played it with her), and I miss it. I really miss those BX-Trek adventures; they were so silly and stupid, beaming down to a colony, hearing about trouble in the space mines, and exploring them with phasers and encountering Klingons like they were Orcs in a room, stealing space gems.

We were kids, dumb, and had the time of our lives with this one. We even ported in BX monsters to live on planets, like a planet with space giants attacking colonists. That is when you break out the big phaser rifles and photon grenades. BX-like systems, back then, could do anything. SFV was slightly different, but similar enough to feel like BX.

I can do BX-Trek directly with Stars Without Number, and the classes, powers, rules, ships, and universe generation are all right here. I just have to add Klingons as Orcs, Romulans as Dark Elves, and Vulcans as the Elf race, and we are nearly all set. It was such a rip-off of the obvious franchise, but we loved it; it was pure kitsch, with an innocence and wonder that few other games could capture.

SWN does this, Star Wars, Star Trek, Traveller, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, Firefly, Star Frontiers, Alien, Space Opera, Starship Troopers, and everything else you can imagine perfectly well. I hope this gets a new edition someday with the updated rules found in Cities and Ashes.

Ashes Without Number is the new game, a massive post-apoc toolkit good for any post-apoc game, doing the game itself, or meshing with any BX rules. This game is the perfect companion to Gamma World, Rifts, The Walking Dead, Aftermath, Mutant Crawl Classics, Mutant Epoch, Car Wars, or any other post-apoc game you have in mind. The rules work well, too, again, mixable with BX if you want drow, goblins, and elves running around the wastelands. Play it on its own or with other games; this is a toolkit that will give you decades of fun.

Ashes can be used alongside Cities pretty closely, with Cities providing the system for urban environments, and Ashes filling in the wastelands between massive fortress cities. Most Car Wars games will work this way, with the places between fortified towns savage wastelands, while inside the walls is a more urban, almost Cyberpunk level of control and politics.

And again, I can reuse all my BX monsters directly in this game, reskin them as mutant beasts, give them laser eyes and radiation blasts, launchable quills, electified tentacles, or sonic attacks, and they are terrifying beasts of the wasteland. Why do I need to buy post-apoc bestiaries again? My imagination and a good source of BX monsters do far more, bonus points if I have a mutation table handy. Oh, wait, the game has that, too.

If you are planning a BX library to be your be-all end-all games you will support, the ...Without Number games are must-haves that support every other game on your shelf.

Off the Shelf: ...Without Number Games

...I pulled out all my "...Without Worlds" recently, including:

• Worlds Without Number
• Stars Without Number
• Cities Without Number
• Other Dust (soon to be an expanded edition Ashes Without Number)

Kevin Crawford is a genius in the gaming world, keeping the games simple and universal while delivering generation systems many other games struggle to reproduce. The games are written with the attitude of "play this game with the book's rules, or just use whatever rules you like."

The books are the best idea and setting generation books ever written and are also worthy games. They are White Box-style masterpieces of creativity and imagination.

I am searching for a great science fiction game, and there is no really getting any better than Stars Without Number. What I love about these games is how they borrow from B/X games, and the author says, "Go ahead; every B/X game you own is content for this game!" You can borrow monsters, magic items, races, spells, and even classes and powers.

Stars Without Number is also very easy to reskin. I can instantly transform it into Star Wars or Star Trek by changing a few weapon names and seasoning it with lore and flavor. This is much like the Cyber System's universality: it can be genre-neutral, X, Y, Z, or anything you want. This game could also easily create "game universes" like Traveller or Star Frontiers and any science fiction movie, TV series, or B&W serial.

SWN is also killing the new Traveller for me. I don't have the time to devote to a massive library of books, and for my needs, a simple, skinnable, d20 science fiction game that works with all my B/X books fits much better with my time and play preferences.

SWN is the Shadowdark of science fiction gaming, at least for me. This is my Star Trek, Star Wars, Starfinder, and anything else I need it to be.

I like the d20 vs. AC combat and 2d6 skill check systems. Some want "all systems on one die," but there is no reason. The skills feel different than "just another d20 combat roll" and give me that great-feeling 2d6 Traveller vibe while keeping the standard d20 combat system many are used to. Given their vast scopes and world-building tools, this uses the best parts of many classic games and mixes them into a game that is easier to manage.

All three of these games are the perfect jumping-off point into other genres from Shadowdark. You will get that "Shadowdark feeling" here, with a simple base system, level progression, parallel skill system, and straightforward gameplay. It is not 5E, but it is close enough you probably won't notice. If you like advantages and disadvantages, there is no reason not to use them. On a 2d6 roll, the A/D mechanic will roll 3d6 and then drop the highest or lowest die.

Oh, and all the "Without Number" games have free versions, so anyone can jump in and play without needing to buy a book. They have fewer tools (mostly gamemaster stuff) but are 100% rules-complete and playable. The free versions here are far more generous than Shadowdark's Basic Set, and the rules can be printed out on a two-page summary sheet players can print out and use during play.

Cities Without Number does Cyberpunk or Shadowrun-style games effortlessly and can put you more on a "street level" than either. The mission-generation system puts many other games in the genre to shame, and just one "gem in the rough" result from any of these charts can create a signature location, NPC, enemy faction, gang, or other element your campaign can latch onto for an entire campaign.

CWN introduces a "trauma" mechanic that makes gunplay dangerous and is a general advancement in the system for more gritty, realistic gameplay. If you want, you can back-port this to SWN and WWN; they will guide you through the process.

To do Shadowrun, just create a focus for your "fantasy race" and use the magic system in the book, one from another Without Number game or any from a B/X game. Equip your favorite B/X bestiary with monsters with body armor, implants, cyber-tech, and machine guns, and you are good to go for a cyber-fantasy game. Hit points and AC? Use them as-is.

Unique races are a focus pick. Still, I like how these games stick to a human base and let you interpret if there are fantasy races in your world at all. It is up to you. You don't need to accept a game that gives you a billion race choices and forces the game master to understand how the world works with all these cultures and kin. I just can't play some games because all the variety turns the game into a "junk soup" of everything in the pantry, cupboards, and fridge thrown into a pot.

Humans are incredibly wonderful and diverse—just look at our planet. Just humans in a setting are an excellent, diverse, player-engaging, and utterly representative game world.

If I want one or two unique backgrounds, they will be a part of the game's world, history, story, and factions. They will be "done right" and not just tossed in there because someone wants to cosplay a Tiefling dragon-born half-vampire again. I am done with the constant cosplay in some games; it distracts from the game, pushes out new players, encourages 'play as myself' behavior, and enables too many terrible player habits.

These games are the glue for building a million worlds.

Worlds Without Number is the game I feel the furthest from in the series since I already have a lot of fantastic fantasy games on my shelves. Still, there is no reason the toolboxes here could not be used to create worlds for Shadowdark, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Swords & Wizardry, OSRIC, Dungeon Fantasy, Old School Essentials, or any of my other go-to fantasy games.

The magic system in Worlds is a bit "movie-like" and not as mechanical and "sell list-centered" as I would like. Of all my fantasy games, the ones that "hit" on my ideas of what magic and classes are Swords & Wizardry or Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Magic use in this game is compelling but also very limited in scope and "casts per day," with most low-level mages only being able to fire off one or two significant spells daily. It is more "Conan" style magic, focusing on the melee and expert characters. There is an "art" system for lesser-magic spells that can be cast repeatedly, drawing from an "effort" pool that recharges daily. It is an interesting two-tier system that splits "big" spells (ones you see in the movie trailer) from the lesser spells (like throwing a magic bolt at an enemy).

If you want a "magic missile" spell, simply create art from it since it is minor. Make it create one 1d4 missile per level of caster, give it a range of 20' per caster level, and make it auto-hit.

Want a more high-magic game? Double the effort pool, or make a mana-potion resource to restore it. As it is, the game makes magic powerful but limits the number of uses to a few, which buffs the expert and melee classes. Too often in game design these days, casters take over the game, and those without magic are "why bother" classes that suffer because companies want to sell books full of spells and powers.

There are also options to create or borrow spells from other games. You either borrow profusely or use another game's class and magic system; it doesn't matter what you do if you keep consistent. I bet you could feel like a mysterious and powerful mage in this game if you put the time in to learn the system and how it works; as it is, the magic system in the game feels different and strange, which is a good thing.

You can't ignore your warrior and expert friends, which is good. Again, many 5E games and their clones put casters on a god-tier level of power, and the game goes superhero and never comes back. They feel like a waste of time, putting you in a "fake world" of "freely given power," and they divorce you from reality and any sense of challenge or "real world feeling." If you are doing things that make no sense in a realistic world, feel the rules protect you from what should happen, ignore your friends constantly, and live within a framework of magic powers instead of a realistic simulation - you are likely playing 5E.

Ashes Without Number is coming soon, too. It is a love letter to post-apocalyptic gaming, including Gamma World, Aftermath, Mad Max, gonzo-fantasy settings, and many others.

These are all some of the best genre games out there. They have super-generous free versions. They are straightforward games that are easy to play. These games are like Shadowdark; I can pick up and play with anyone at the drop of a hat.

If the industry sees a "Shadowdarkification" of gaming, that is a great thing since it means many more people will be able to pick up and play games with anyone else. Games like D&D, Pathfinder 2, and other complicated "cathedral gaming" heavy, multiple-shelf-spanning systems create "gaming cultures and cliques," which hurt the hobby. I don't want subscription websites or characters that must be made on computers. That isn't gaming that can be played with anyone, anywhere.

Complex games promote the lie that "I have more options. Thus, this is a good thing for me."

It is a selfish choice.

And yes, if this means my love of GURPS is a guilty pleasure, it means I accept that. I can't push GURPS on people who won't like it, be such a total fan that I can't enjoy anything else, or create pick-up games with others using systems everyone can join in on.

Shadowdark and games like it tell us, "It is more important to be able to play with everyone."

Off the Shelf: Stars Without Number

When you are done with the stale and over-exposed Star Wars, tired of the endlessly morphing Star Trek, out of steam with Traveller, not finding excitement for Starfinder, and done with science fiction as a genre, there is only one game left.

Stars Without Number.

And it even has a nearly complete free version. Like Shadowdark, having a free version is key to getting others to try the game.

Stars Without Number is this generation's Space Opera. It is complete enough to cover everything you would ever want, and if you wished to have "IP flavor," then all you need to do is rename the starship and personal weapons.

The cruiser-class "Spinal Beam Cannon?" Star Wars: Ion Cannon. Star Trek: Phaser Bank. Star Frontiers: Disruptor Cannon.

Spike drive? Star Wars: Hyperspace Drive. Star Trek: Warp Drive. Star Frontiers: Jump Drive.

We're done. You can now play whatever IP you want.

You don't need to spend money on licensed games or get ripped off when the IP moves to another company, or they release a new version far too quickly.

And this game could use every Starfinder pawn you have if you bought into those. It can also mix "magic and science fiction" with rules for importing spells from other OSR games and having spellcasting classes. They have a generalist "Arcanist" and a single-school "Magister" framework for these caster classes, and you can also use the magic systems from Worlds Without Number if you want.

The game includes a sample spell list but requires you to import ones from other OSR games or the other Without Number games. Importing magic from other games, monsters, treasures, and other OSR content is trivially easy.

Alien PCs are easy, too. You can pick two foci and combine them or create your own. Any alien species is easy to make. Games with many aliens, such as Space Opera, Starfinder, or Star Wars, are straightforward to support. The dralasite of Star Frontiers? Shapeshifter plus a custom "lie detection" ability.

Done.

Playing Star Frontiers with this game gives you a better experience and lets you focus more on the story, worlds, factions, and exploring strange planets than the original game. The random tables will fill out every unexplained planet on the game's included map, and every planet beyond.

This game makes it easy to port in any science fiction universe, videogame, movie, TV show, or idea.

This kills Traveller and Starfinder from my most-played shelves, and everything is in one book. I still like this game, but SWN replaces the need to have two shelves of books out with this many options. SWN does more than Traveller; it is faster in any universe, has familiar mechanics, and has a small investment.

The random tables and space combat are also better than both of those games. They use a straightforward B/X-style combat system that supports starship crew actions (with command points) so everyone can be involved. There is a ship design system, and it is easy.

Like Shadowdark, this game is so easy that I could explain and play it with anyone in minutes. The game has a more expansive free edition than Shadowdark, so anyone could play a nearly complete game for free. The tables and generation systems fill out universes. The game is easy for a player and game master. By default, this game will win in the most important "playing with others" category every time.

This is another "stealth game" that I keep trying to ignore, but how easy it is to support anything and play with anyone will win out in the end.

Off the Shelf: Stars Without Number

I have looked at many sci-fi games, and none have completed the package, like Stars Without Number. The Kevin Crawford games are masterpieces of simplicity, function, and design. The Worlds, Cities, and Stars Without Number games are all amazing.

One page of rules on an easy reference sheet for each game.

The ship combat in this game is a breath of fresh air, playable and functional without the overwhelming complexity that plagues many other games. Some starship combat systems are so convoluted that it's a battle just to understand the rules, let alone enjoy the game. But in Stars Without Number, you can navigate the rules and one turn without feeling defeated, making the game a truly enjoyable experience.

Not in SWN. The system works like B/X combat, and characters in different crew positions matter.

The base rules? A mere one page, consistent across all the games. This simplicity is a testament to the game's design, making it easy for players to grasp the fundamentals and dive into the action without feeling overwhelmed.

Fantasy? Got it. Worlds Without Number.

Cyberpunk? Got it, Cities Without Number. This can even be a Shadowrun with magic and monsters. Each game is a toolkit with random tables for creating anything in these worlds. They are each hex crawl masterpieces. You can even play Cities Without Number as a dystopian, violent city exploration hex crawl where you encounter random factions, gangs, government types, citizens, and other pieces of a post-modern civilization lying in squalor, decay, and post-prime ruin.

They don't have the "sim power" of GURPS, but they do have fun and content creation included with the game. These also beat many other OSR games for me, just because of the toolkit and simplicity of the rules. While the generators can be used with any game, the game itself, in one book, just begs you to play and explore.

Some games are just rules to use in a universe.

The 'Without Number' games come with infinite universes.

Empires & Federations (Without Number)

From the Stars Without Number rulebook we get this quote: 

Above all, Stars Without Number is your game now. There is no one “correct” way to play it. There is only your way to play it, and you should feel free to make it the game you want to play.

Let's take this great OSR space game and turn it into a quick OSR Star Wars or Star Trek style game. Yes, I know there are official licensed games for both of these, and they are great, but back in my day when all we have was Basic and Expert D&D, we hacked that game to play whatever we wanted to play. If the numbers and systems were "close enough" and "like the movies" then that was mission complete.

Note: None of this is official material, Stars Without Number and all content is property of Sine Nomine Publishing, and Star Trek and Star Wars are properties of their respective license holders. This is presented for free as fan material for simulating genres "like" the ones mentioned. The names of weapons and defenses from the Stars Without Number game are NOT presented in their entirety, but only as names for possible conversion notes between genres, and are not official.

Generic Genres

Because we don't want to step all over licensed products, we will be using generic genre names for our new universes, such as "Star Federation" for a genre like Star Trek, and "Space Empire" for a genre like Star Wars. This way the genres are a bit more generic and we can use the standard names for what they call things here, like "blaster" or "phaser" since those are generic sci-fi terms but some more closely associated with one genre than another.

Also note, while those two properties are used as examples, there are plenty of other movies, books, anime, and games in those genres you could be simulating. Never get stuck on the names given in the book, and if you want to change them - this is your game and do so!

Remember, what we are trying to do here is OSR-ify the genres and make them play like an OSR game. We are not looking to create a game that plays like a licensed game, or create anything super complex and detailed. All we want is an "OSR hack" for each genre, and only making minimal changes and fixes to make things work.

When it comes down to it, being able to quickly spin up an OSR space hero and jump into an iconic starship and start having adventures is what the goal is with this project.

Rename Everything!

So, what is the strategy? Well, since I don't want to be creating huge lists of items and equipment lists for each new genre, I am just going to change the names of what we have in the main rulebook to make what we have - and what is tested and well-balanced - into the things we need for each genre.

For example, we need a hand-blaster for out Space Empire setting. I would use the laser pistol, and the laser rifle for a larger blaster rifle. What about the hand phasers of Star Federation? We have those too in the thermal pistol and the rifle-like plasma projector for our "phaser rifle."

Is this cheating? Heck yes it is cheating. But when you look at it, calling a Vortex Tunnel Inductor a "Heavy Ion Cannon" in the Space Empire setting or a "Heavy Disruptor" in our Star Federation setting makes sense from a movie perspective. The main, heavy energy gun in each setting if used in a movie would produce approximately the same dramatic effect. Also, since the source material, the VTI weapon in the main game, was play-tested, our balance in play is guaranteed.

And this is quick-and-easy, we don't want to get bogged down in creating huge lists and conversions, and we are done.

Limit Genre Equipment

The Stars Without Number has a lot of cool personal and starship equipment, such as the perfect for our use "teleportation pads." We need to limit equipment availability by each genre and this is just asking the question, "Does this item work in this universe?" For teleportation pads, yes for Star Federation and no for Space Empire. Cold sleep pods? Have not really seen them used in either setting that much unless they were medical stasis pods, so limit them for that use only. 

Most items are dual use in either genre, such as cargo space or luxury cabins, so just use them as-is. If you need something genre-specific, such as a holo-deck, use the closest approximation, such as an advanced lab or workshop - whatever feels closest in terns of function and technology, rename it and use that. Write it in like "holo-deck (advanced lab)" and you are good.

Again, convert something already there that is close enough and get playing.

Defenses

One issue that may come up is shields, which are prevalent in both genres. I say, these are included with the ship's AC and hit points. There will be some inconsistencies with things said in the movies like, "max power to shields" or even "shields full forward" but when you get right down to it that all could be just letting the audience know the ship has shields and a dramatic device. If the ship's AC is ever lowered by a crisis, that means the shields are down.

As an option add a "Full Power to Shields" combat action for 2 CP under Engineering Actions and make it work exactly like Evasive Maneuvers, adding the engineer's Fix skill level to the ship's AC, usable once per round. Note this may affect balance if stacked with evasive maneuvers, so if you find is it causing issues only allow one or the other (or better yet, the higher of the two) to be used in a round.

So, a list of suggestions? Sure, let's do that, and your may vary but here is a start that I could come up with:

SWN Defense	Star Federation	Space Empire
Ablative Hull Components	Enhanced Shields	Enhanced Shields
Augmented Plating	Armor Plating	Armor Plating
Boarding Countermeasures	same	same
Burst ECM Generator	Electronic Countermeasures	Jammers
Foxer Drones	Decoy	Decoy
Grav Eddy Displacer	Angled Shielding	Deflector Screens
Hardened Polyceramic Array	Super Dense Hull	Hardened Armor
Planetary Defense Array	NA	NA
Point Defense Lasers	Point Defense Phasers	Point Defense Lasers

You could use the planetary defense array as an anti-orbital bombardment screen, a large solid force field projector, or a sort of energy projector that can stop fission reactions, so this is still useful as a plot device or "large defensive thing" replacement.

Starship Weapons

Given all the crazy things they did in the movies, you could come up with really any reason for something to "work" and fit in the genre. For example, point defense lasers as anti-starfighter weapons are pretty apparent in the Space Empire genre. In a Space Federation genre they would be anti-torpedo weapons, and while not really seen too much in films, it is possible they exist so use them if you want to in this genre or don't - it is up to how you see the genre working.

Some ships in Space Empire have these "forward mounted turbolasers" so that is like a spinal mount. Could a Star Federation ship possibly have a single large phaser mounted forward? It could, though we haven't see this too much, it could be done.

Also in Star Federation you see a difference between the accurate "phaser" style ship weapons versus the more destructive and clumsy "disruptor" style weapons. In Space Empire these are Ion Cannons.

Also, some weapons are listed as NA since they don't have a great match in each genre. This doesn't prevent you from using them, or you may know of some obscure weapon that was used in a TV show, movie, or book that fits into that space, so just fill it in yourself. So let's do my suggested list of replacements for each genre, and yours may vary:

SWN Weapon	Star Federation	Space Empire
Multifocal Laser	Phaser (small craft)	Laser Cannons (starfighter)
Reaper Battery	Disruptor Beam (small craft)	Ion Cannon (starfighter)
Fractal Impact Charge	Photon Torpedo (small craft)	Proton Torpedo (starfighter)
Polyspectral MES Beam	NA	NA
Sandthrower	NA	NA
Flak Emitter Battery	Point Defense Phasers	Point Defense Lasers
Torpedo Launcher	Photon Torpedo Launcher	Proton Torpedo Launcher
Charged Particle Caster	Disruptor Cannon	Ion Cannon
Plasma Beam	NA	NA
Mag Spike Array	NA	NA
Nuclear Missiles	Atomic Mines	Orbital Bombardment Bays
Spinal Beam Cannon	Phaser Cannon	Turbolaser Cannon
Smart Cloud	NA	NA
Grav Cannon	NA	NA
Spike Inversion Projector	Phaser Battery	Turbolaser Battery
Vortex Tunnel Inductor	Heavy Disruptor	Heavy Ion Cannon
Mass Cannon	Heavy Photon Torpedo	Heavy Proton Torpedo
Lightning Charge Mantle	NA	NA
Singularity Gun	Anti-planetary Phaser	Anti-planetary Laser

Sandthrowers and mag spike arrays make good "gauss weapon" replacements for universes that use those. The Polyspectral MES beam could be seen as a high-tech phaser or laser variant that is highly armor piercing. The plasma beam seems like an ion cannon or disruptor variant that sacrifices power for aim, so if you had a "light" version this would be a good fit. Smart cloud is like a laser armed drone cloud and that was used in at least one modern Star Federation movie. A grav cannon is like a weaponized tractor beam, so again, use it if you need it. The lightning charge mantle is an energy field weapon, good for an alien force field weapon.

Again, we are not trying to be sci-fi nerds here and asking the question, "Is a phaser battery better than a turbolaser battery?" In movie effects these are similar enough to a "large energy weapon for a large ship" that we just handwave away the differences and call them functionally equivalent. The weapon names are deliberately generic, since through the source material of these genres they do change frequently.

Federation versus Empire

This is where the fun begins. Now that you have a common set of rules and conversion notes, you could run a campaign where the Star Federation takes on the Space Empire. You know all those memes where the universes get crossed up and the what-ifs start flying around? Those are all yours now, and the OSR nature of the game provides the common framework for everything to work together.

The characters can all interact, the ships can fight each other, and given a little care on converting personal equipment, everything just works and you can even play a sandbox campaign where the two sides fight for control of various worlds, work together, or get caught in situations on neutral worlds where they are forced to interact.

Want a battle between a Space Destroyer and Federation Cruiser? You got it. Want a transhuman science officer facing off against a dark space knight? You got it. The OSR has you covered as a compatibility layer between the genres.

This is one of the great things about hacking the game to simulate the genres, in general no two licensed games will every be cross-compatible with each other (unless they are the same publisher). Here, because we modded the base game and renamed a few things to say "X is really Y" we can have a system that handles either or both in the same setting and with the same rules. You cold play OSR Star Federation one night, and OSR Space Empires the next with the same rules. You could do the "versus" campaign. You could further refine and modify the weapons and equipment to better fit an era with in the genre, or just use it all as-is.

As the book says, there is no "one" correct way to play the game.

Sci-Fi: What I am Playing

I am currently playing Starfinder, and while it is that good-ole d20 fun, I find the need to use the Starbuilder computer program to manage my characters taxing. I know, the program makes it easy, and I do highly recommend this one if you are bought into Starfinder (with a subscription) like I am.

I miss the days of DIY, sheet-of-paper no computers needed character sheets, so I am giving Stars Without Number another look. The OSR seems universally against character building apps, and the games are so simple they rarely need them.

There are times I feel the model Paizo, Wizards, and a lot of other companies are using by using system complexity as lock in makes me tired. I love the complexity, and who am I to complain having a complete collection of Pathfinder 1e and 2e books, but there are times when I feel all that complexity gets in the way and is 99% of the time fluff, unneeded minutia, and gets in the way of stories and playing.

Ultimately the fun in some of these big-box complex systems "is" navigating the rules and figuring out the puzzle. Pathfinder 2E has this appeal of building a valid character and seeing how they work as a part of a team. I am feeling the same thing in Starfinder, it is fun building your character and working through the adventures the team wrote for you to have fun with. It is a sort of "turn on the steaming movie and watch" sort of fun for me, where you build your team, make theories and plans on your group, and play through and see what happens.

What worked? What didn't? What could we do better next time? What is our next step? What gear do we need? What do we do when we level up?

On a lower mechanical level it is fun, and the tinkerer and builder part of my brain loves this stuff.

But I do like systems that step out of the way and focus on story. Stars Without Number can even be used "with" Starfinder as the "space generation game" part of an exploration game. However, when I started reading deeper into the rules, which are only about the first 25% of the book and under 100 pages, the system started to grab me. The starship combat system especially, being a d20-style space combat system that I am feeling I prefer to Starfinder's system.

To be fair, I also have the excellent Traveller system, and also the fan favorite classic, Star Frontiers. While I love Star Frontiers I feel the system needs a revision, especially in the area of unarmed combat. I played the first Volturnus module and having a group of unarmed, unskilled in melee adventurers pound on space pirates with their fists and do 2 points of damage a turn to 45 STA with a 23% chance to-hit (knockouts on 01-02, and every tens rolls, 10 and 20 in this case) was pretty painful.

I know, grab a club, but having a group with the martial artist getting the space pirate in a hold while three other characters beat on the poor idiot turn after turn felt sloppy and not the fun, pulp-adventure sci-fi that I crave. At that point I may just swap out the older rules and use Savage Worlds instead. I love the universe and the aliens of Star Frontiers, but the rules I am not so tied to. I am currently playing in this universe with the Starfinder system and it is different, but fun.

Traveller I have a good set of books with, but I have not played as much lately. The system feels deeply tied to the 3rd Imperium, and while I am fond of the setting, I have not found it compelling enough to start a game in yet and explore. The layout and organization could be better, and I find myself struggling to find things and wishing someone would do an Old School Essentials style reorganization of the rules and split the system from the setting.

I know, heresy, but I like the split between rules and setting since it makes everything ten times easier to find during play, and the setting book becomes very useful and rich by not having to sacrifice page-count for basic rules concepts.

Stars Without Number seems like it holds a lot of promise, and with a little work I could reskin this to cover either Star Trek or Star Wars - or both. Or not, and just play it as-is. There is something to be said for generic sci-fi adventures with a simple-to-play system, and this game seems like a great fit. I know there is a licensed Star Trek game out there and it has good reviews, but I remember the days where people hacked Basic D&D to play Star Trek style games and it worked just as well, without the need to use computer programs or an hour's worth of work to generate a character.

Or buy a new book, though I like doing that too.

Again, the DIY sort of "play a Space Federation" style Star Trek game with an OSR rules set appeals to me, and I just may do that with this game for fun. And also, an OSR Star Trek style game would take the focus of the game off of "getting cash" - which the other three games discussed here all focus on, to a more adventure and mission based game that is not so focused on profits and space cash.

If there is one flaw in a lot of sci-fi games, and Starfinder has a really strange way of dealing with this (keep pocket cash poor and give ship upgrades for free), it is the constant focus on wealth equals power. Admittedly Star Frontiers in a Star Law style campaign can also sidestep this (and you could do this in other games), but still, having the cash to load up on the best weapons and defenses is still the path to victory. Traveller is very "space capital" focused and you often start the game in debt and struggling to make mortgage payments on your ship.

Is that fun? For some, but I don't feel it is a reason to get out and explore the stars since it is just a numbers game.

Yes, fantasy games have this "cash equals power" problem too. It is part of the genre, honestly, and there is that Diablo-style fun to equipping your character and powering up.

I like the stories, and I like the OSR style space games that I can mod into anything I like. For this reason I am giving Stars Without Number another look since it checks a lot of boxes and can sim most anything I want to play in a fast and easy way, a lot like Savage Worlds but this game has a structured d20 style ship combat system that I find interesting.

More soon as I hack, mod, and play.

Game Shopping: Forbidden Lands

Sweden and Free League seems to be hitting it out of the park lately with games like Alien, Mutant Year Zero, and a bunch of others. And I am picking up their fantasy entry, Forbidden Lands, because it looks fun and I saw this solo play video:

Well...you sold me. The simple modern mechanics, old-school presentation, plus the combination of resource management and random tables, in a game designed to have no-prep and with "legacy" elements where the map and world changes based on your play? Stickers to put on the map to make it your world? It can be played solo? Ok, sold. Sold!

The legacy elements are compelling. This actually makes me want to play. With other games, I get a world book, I get a game, and if I do nothing, nothing changes. If I try to change the world, the world book is still out there contradicting me. I know it is a strange position to take, but I do have too many world books that feel like they are forever set in stone.

Worlds Set in Stone

Traditional world books are not designed to change and morph as you play. My Pathfinder and Forgotten Realms world guides feel like worlds carved into tablets of stone, until the next edition comes out and things are changed - and set in stone again.

Some players like exploring established worlds, like sightseeing through Star Wars locations or something. There is a magic to "being there" and I get that. But for solo play, again, like character advancement that I cannot predict, having a world and campaign setting I cannot predict feels like finding a huge missing puzzle piece in my solo gaming life.

This? Want to start a new "game?" Buy the map pack again and change things up, or just print one out and pencil away. The game's world is built to change, which makes everyone's play experience different, but you are also writing lore and establishing the world every time you play.

The only world book I felt invited me to expand upon and build the world was the original Forgotten Realms gray box set (still epic) for AD&D before the NPCs of the world turned into GMNPCs through the books and everything got annoying and overused. That boxed set was such a disorganized mess of notes and articles it felt like an open-ended package of referee's notes you were free to use however you wish.

Stars Without Number, but Fantasy

Stars Without Number does something similar, and also has a similar setup. A galaxy that was cut off and forgotten, and the stars open up and you are some of the first heading out and finding things. Your star-map in that game will become the campaign and lore in your game, based on the random charts and planetary design systems.

Here? Same setup but fantasy genre. Simple rules, a create your world as you play legacy setup, and you can continue to create characters, have players drop in and out, and your world grows the more you play. The game invited you to play it, because every time you drop in and have fun, you are world-building. Even if you lose a character or entire party, that loss is a part of the world's story and you keep going. Create a new group and send them to find out "what happened?"

New Stories and Perspectives

Maybe what happened isn't what you think happened. It is your story, your world. Want to paint the fallen group as invaders who were up to no good? This is your story. If the previous group burned down a forest to kill marauding ent tree-creatures, you could flip the story on its head by creating druids and elves, friends of the forest, and paint that previous group as the bad guys and keep the tale going from a new perspective.

Every party you build, every session you play, builds the world from a new point of view.

Play as a bad guy and start an evil cult and mage tower, along with a marauding army. Conquer an area of the map and build a dark empire. Then turn around to create a force to fight them as heroes to free the lands. Whatever you want to do is cool, every story builds, and things keep changing. Very few games invite you to play as a bad guy, and then turn around and use them as the campaign's bad guys. And maybe, what you played and how you thought it went wasn't the real truth. Have fun with it!

There are rules for building strongholds, so if a group lasts long enough to build one, you could retire them, put the settlement on the map, and transition those characters to NPCs and you just filled out another piece of the puzzle. Your world expands. Use that new settlement as good guys, bad guys, destroy it and make it a mystery, let it prosper or fall into ruin or hard times, put new people in charge because of a plot, or use it however you want.

Have the old heroes drop in as NPCs to help out, hinder, or be the bad guys.

This is quickly becoming one of my most anticipated games of 2021 by far, and I can't wait until it gets here to see if it lives up to the hype.

NOTE: IF you are having trouble printing out the character sheets using Adobe's PDF viewer, try Foxit PDF viewer. I got that to print them without errors nicely.

Mail Room: Stars Without Number

Here comes a fun one, and also one I forgot was coming in the mail. The excellent old-school sci-fi game Stars Without Number (revised edition). This game was always a hard sell for my group, as we were years down the road with Star Frontiers, Space Opera, and even Star Wars and we did not have room for another sci-fi game in the mix. Now that I am alone, I am looking at  this game with more time and a fresh set of eyes.

325 pages of sci-fi amazing content. Random charts everywhere. A simple base system. No wonder I always see this game on the top of the best-seller lists at Drive-Thru RPG, this is the sci-fi OSR game to get these days and the revised edition sings a song of pure bliss among the stars. I dare say the game has more appeal to me than the incredibly hard sci-fi GURPS Space, just because I can grasp characters easy and the stuff I have to learn I can focus on.

So many sci-fi games have dies for my group at character creation, you want me to learn what now?

I have the full-color hardcover, so the book smells like ink and is just impressive on every page. I would have loved a glossy paper of a slightly heavier weight and a bookmark, but this is still great.

The game's default setting (one that is easy to replace with your own) has always interested me, and more so than Starfinder and other similar "galactic space reset" games. Here, there was some sort of hyperspace storm that cut off all planets in the galaxy from each other, and now things are opening back up slowly. This setting just seems so fun, and I could see playing a first contact game like a hex-crawl in space visiting worlds, establishing outposts, meeting world leaders, and watching how factions and alliances develop over the course of the game.

You could play a post-first contact game in an already settled area and have all the galactic side developed and fighting for control. You could play a mix, fighting the evil space empire, doing trading on the side, and then going out to the unexplored sector and do some hex-crawling if you want. You can make the galactic storm come and go at random, stranding travelers on planets for weeks or months before it lifts and life tries to return to normal again.

Mechs? Got em. Starship combat kind of like the FTL videogame? Got it. Psionics? Got them. AI characters? Check. Random systems and planets and random everything else? All here. You got a galaxy of random charts, rules, and content in this book and it is clearly one of the high-value grabs for sci-fi gaming, no matter what system you roll with.

And the game's flavor is really anything you want it to be. More like [your favorite sci-fi movie or TV show] - yes, it can do that, but it keeps with the generic "kitchen sink sci-fi" premise that D&D does well and really few games have done for sci-fi since the original Space Opera game, but on a lower level than Space Opera that is more focused on adventure and characters. A huge plus.

I had an loved the 2010 version, and this looks like more to love. I am seriously impressed, and this is going to be a fun one to explore. More soon.