/r/SWN

Photograph via snooOG

A subreddit dedicated to all things Stars Without Number, a sci-fi tabletop role-playing game designed by Kevin Crawford.

Welcome to /r/SWN, a subreddit dedicated to all things Stars Without Number!

 

Got a question about rules or lore in your campaign? Feel free to ask it here! ;)

 

 

Stars Without Number publications:

Core Rulebooks:

Campaign Supplements:

Worldbooks:

Setting Supplements:

Adventures:

Mandate Achives:

(Only available as part of the

Mandate Archive Collection 2011)

  • MA09 Transhuman Tech

  • MA10 The Imago Dei

  • MA11 Scavenger Fleets

  • MA12 Stellar Heroes

  •  

     

    Other Dust

    The following additions are set within the same SWN universe and follow the same lore, but the included books are intended for Other Dust campaigns which are set on earth about 350 years before the events of SWN (but around 185 years after the scream hit).

    Core Rulebook

    Adventures:

    Codex of the New Earth:

     

     

    Sine Nomine Publishing Journals

    Every once in a while, a free journal is published with additional content supplements such as roll tables, items, or new classes. However, these releases aren't SWN specific, and contain supplements to various Sine Nomine publications.

     

    /r/SWN

    14,896 Subscribers

    13

    Stress question

    Been reading through the stress rules for AWN and I don’t know if I missed it, but how long does a breakdown last? Is it for a scene, day, or until stress is reduced below max?

    7 Comments
    2024/11/03
    00:54 UTC

    21

    Standard Time Units in SWN

    Hey y'all, I'm in the (very early) preparation stages for my first SWN campaign and something has been on my mind as I've been making my way through the Revised Edition: how is time standardized across the sector/s?

    I can believe that, in-canon, there was a standardized time system enforced by the Terran Mandate that may persist in a post-Silence system, but the book often simply uses the phrases day/month/year to indicate time for gameplay systems dependent on it.

    I wanted to open up the discussion and see how other GMs and players have implemented standardized (and non-standardized!) time within their campaigns, especially when most sectors encompass multiple star systems that would theoretically operate on different stellar calendars. Looking for some inspiration!

    18 Comments
    2024/11/01
    23:15 UTC

    52

    [OC]The Raid - Post-Apocalyptic Apartment Complex Ground Floor

    1 Comment
    2024/10/30
    23:52 UTC

    33

    New and I’m;roved roll20 setup for SWN

    Again, they view all you’ll see on a big screen at the table. Think “StarTrek ‘on screen’”.
    Watch the very incomplete demo at the link below. It’s only small bits of the total package, but you’ll get the gist of what I’ve done here. Yes, I’ll share it all once it’s ready for others to use.

    Here it is: https://youtu.be/Z1FO1kx5qhg?si=j5k9Nl5OjS6J3DEw

    Yes, that cover photo is a digital painting of mine.

    5 Comments
    2024/10/30
    16:39 UTC

    28

    AWN + CWN = perfect superhero game?

    Obviously with the caveat that we don't know the full contents of AWN yet.

    Mutations as superpowers? Cybergear for you're tech heros? Heist and mission planning from cwn to create crimes to fight? Region building and city building tools to create your own Gotham/Metropolis/Westchester County?

    Idk if the idea has legs yet, but do you all think there could be something there?

    11 Comments
    2024/10/30
    07:55 UTC

    16

    Does SWN fit a overarching story such as a BBEG ?

    Hey,

    Creating my first SWN since I love the sci fi theme and the feel of the history and the worlds you can build. Since this system is very sandboxy though Im finding it hard to intergrate like a overarching BBEG in my mind unless I use a large faction as the BBEG or a mega corp. Or due to the nature of SWN is it better just to allow my PC's to roll from planet to planet solving issues but again that feels like they have no grand effect on the overall feel of the universe and are simply just travelling consultants with guns. Anyone had any of these issues or have any ideas ?

    17 Comments
    2024/10/29
    16:52 UTC

    9

    List of 3rd Party Adventures?

    Is there a list anywhere of 3rd party adventures/source material?

    I see the official things in the sidebar, but am wondering if anyone has found a list of fan-written adventures for SWN?

    Thanks!

    5 Comments
    2024/10/28
    20:25 UTC

    30

    Inspiration for Pirate themed Games

    I'm starting up a new campaign and despite being a sandbox I threw out some ideas to my players to get some idea what content to prepare and they wanted to be space pirates.

    So my idea is to go full golden age of piracy, but space. Throw in privateer contracts. Titles, etc. Maybe throw in some themes of morality and freedom as they become outlaws from oppressive or fumbling governments.

    That said I'd love to cast my rod out in to seas of reddit and see if I can plunder some inspiration from you all. Maybe some quests, set pieces, factions. Just to get some ideas flowing.

    17 Comments
    2024/10/28
    07:22 UTC

    14

    Themed Dungeon Kits?

    I liked the dungeon creation rules set up in the SWN adventure "Hard Light". These include a set of room shapes (geomorphs) and possible room descriptions. What's interesting here is that there's a background culture for these sky-tombs, built by a particular group that went through several eras. That creates an implied plot of visiting several of these and unraveling what was going on with these people.

    In contrast, I used an online dungeon generator with a theme of "arcane" and got a layout that struck me as lame: no rhyme or reason, nothing to uncover.

    Is there a similar kit to what's in "Hard Light" for making a similar array of random tombs/mines/factories/ruins? I'm thinking about this in terms of "here's how you can generate a bunch of Mandate era ruins from this subculture that had X terrible secret", or in fantasy, translating between "dwarves" and "heavy-world humanoids with a cave colony". I could see using "Wolves of God" and reading the Roman ruined-city material as Mandate or a particular planet's ruins. One other point I'd consider is having a few themed zones influencing what appears where, eg. putting the high-security parts of the nefarious lab away from the front door.

    8 Comments
    2024/10/24
    05:17 UTC

    42

    Alternative FTL

    For those of you who DO NOT use Spike Drive FTL, what do you use instead? And how does it work in game mechanics and how does it work in universe etc.

    18 Comments
    2024/10/22
    07:41 UTC

    11

    SWN Revised for FoundryVTT - Any news on an update?

    So I'm new to VTT, and began to work on putting together a campaign. It was only after I put a decent amount of work into the world that I found that certain functions like Ship Sheets were not working, I think due to compatibility issues? I'm pretty sure I'll have to start over on an older version of the software, which really stomps up and down on my nutsack, if you see what I mean.

    tl;dr: Any word on when or if this will be getting an update? https://foundryvtt.com/packages/swnr

    wintersleep if you're reading this please for the love of god update it I'm begging you

    4 Comments
    2024/10/21
    22:08 UTC

    50

    Crawfordian Canon Timeline?

    I'm curious about the connections between each of the *WN books, especially since it seems like CWN is the earliest version of earth, AWN seems like it will be freshly post apocalyptic earth, SWN is space grand adventure where earth is forgotten about, and WWN is earth so ludicrously far in the future very little of even physics resembles present day.

    I'm absolutely fascinated by what seems to be an overarching lore. And would love to know any other connections that people have noticed besides the most obvious ones.

    12 Comments
    2024/10/21
    12:06 UTC

    37

    Planet Generation in the Alkemion campaign manager

    Hi all! Prefacing by saying this is not sponsored, nor am I affiliated with the company. There is a new site that seems fantastic for managing campaigns and offering a lot of great tools for generating ideas called Alkemion Studio. Anyway, I created a planet generator using SWN's Sector Generation rules. It's lacking the Other Worlds and Points of Interest tables but I'm working on it. Hope it's useful to people! :)

    2 Comments
    2024/10/16
    07:46 UTC

    105

    This would be a cool planet to play on. "Found by Webb telescope, scientists say one side is all ice, while the other side that is tidally locked to its star has a region of liquid ocean and cloud, appearing like an eye."

    4 Comments
    2024/10/14
    19:40 UTC

    24

    SWN Compatible - Equipment Database new design (for future physical copy)

    13 Comments
    2024/10/14
    16:51 UTC

    23

    Finding new routes

    How do you find routes to new planets that have never been discovered before or aren’t well known? I’ve seen the answer “have the players find a computer with the travel data on it” provided before but that doesn’t answer how those people found it. It says in the book to do a blind jump is basically suicide, but then how did the old Terran mandate find new planets using spike drives?

    25 Comments
    2024/10/13
    21:57 UTC

    13

    Zombie Shooting

    Mindless Swarm: a new trait to give enemies whith no self preservation instinct such as zombies. When this enemy is killed by a direct attack, the action cost used for the attack is given back to the attacker. This means as long as a shooter has ammo inside their gun and every shot is a deadly one, they can keep shooting, potentially taking out many zombies in one turn.

    This is intended to be used for zombie or terminide swarm scenarios, with epic actions and great numbers. I expect this to slow things down and diminish the importance of AOE weapons and melee combat in those scenarios, although they would still have a role to play. This would also mean munitions are more precious (since you shoot more targets) and a few unlucky dices could get you easily swarmed.

    Stolen from XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, where this trait is given to the Lost.

    3 Comments
    2024/10/13
    16:31 UTC

    1

    Foundry VTT Module Sheet

    Hi all. I'm using Wintersleep-AI's SWN module for Foundry (https://github.com/wintersleepAI/foundry-swnr). I'm having some trouble wrapping my head around the character creation. There doesn't seem to be any place to put in your class. Is the issue that the classes are copyrighted? I heard that you may need to make the classes as Items and drag and drop them onto the sheets, but when I created a test class it didn't seem to drag and drop correctly. What do people think?

    7 Comments
    2024/10/12
    16:33 UTC

    50

    Preview of my sandbox murder mystery book for Mothership (or SWN with some tweaks)- Interloper

    4 Comments
    2024/10/11
    17:29 UTC

    27

    5 Free Distress Calls for Space RPGs

    Hi Everyone,

    I wanted to share with you 5 free Distress Calls for Space RGPs.

    If you've ever wanted a few uniquely designed distress call scenarios, instead of building through random tables, then these are for you! I hope you enjoy!

    If you like these 5 free distress calls and think you can use them in your games, please consider checking out my full resource linked below. Distress Calls for Space RPGs offers 30 creative, engaging and fun distress calls designed for your skill-based tabletop sci fi RPG. It's 30% off right now.

    Distress Calls for Space RPGs on itch.io

    Distress Calls for Space RPGs on Drivethru

    Thank you for being fans of games!

    2 Comments
    2024/10/10
    17:31 UTC

    16

    CWN cyberware comprehensive?

    Hey Chooms!

    I'm new to cyberpunk RPGs and in prepping a CWN campaign I have this sense that the CWN cyberware selection in thin compared to other systems. Have people found that to be true or is CWN genrally on par with what you can find in the core books for Shadowrun and CP Red? I realize that the lean style of CWN (which I prefer) may make it seem thinner than games that have more text or images in their gearnsections. I also don't want to overwhelm myself or my players with too many choices that they frustrated. Thanks!

    11 Comments
    2024/10/10
    12:33 UTC

    8

    Ship Combat Range

    Greetings hive mind ! I’m working on light homebrew rules for space combat, and I would appreciate external feedbacks. I’m using the « no command point » optional rule, and I thought about reusing some of the Traveller ship combat range rules. The idea is to create more varied situations and more things to do for the Bridge officer. Here is what I have so far:

    Every ship weapon has a range between Far, Medium, and Close. A weapon suffers a -2 penalty for every out-of-range threshold (so a close range weapon shooting at far range suffers a -4 to hit penalty). The Bridge actions Escape Combat and Pursue Target allows to move one range further/closer to the enemy ship. Weapon tags such as Clumsy and Flak function as normal. Escape Combat while at far range allows to flee the fight. Pursue Target while at close range allows to board the enemy ship (no idea how that would work for now) Starting distance depends on the situation, but as a rule of thumb : far range for deep space encounter, medium range for orbital encounter, close range for dense area (like an asteroid field).

    Short range : Reaper Battery Fractal Impact Charge Sandthrower Flak Emitter Battery Mag Spike Array Lightning Charge Mantle

    Medium range : Multifocal Laser Polyspectral MES Beam Plasma Beam Smart Cloud Gravcannon Spike Inversion Projector

    Far range : Torpedo Launcher Charged Particle Caster Spinal Beam Cannon Vortex Tunnel Inductor Mass Cannon Singularity Gun

    I chose ranges based on weapon descriptions and abilities.

    Thank you for your feedbacks !

    7 Comments
    2024/10/09
    11:35 UTC

    20

    How can I export "Condensed" by planets and not entities

    Hi! Just discovered https://sectorswithoutnumber.com/ and I love it :)
    When trying to export my sector I can not find any option to get a per planet breakdown though. The breakdown per entity is far too detailed and got too many pages. Is there any option I am missing?

    5 Comments
    2024/10/06
    06:26 UTC

    14

    Has Anyone Ever Replaced QECM With Not-Minovsky Particles?

    Obviously QECM and Minovsky Particles are pretty close, but Minovsky Particles take things a step further and can completely jam ranged comms even within ships in large engagements.

    12 Comments
    2024/10/04
    19:24 UTC

    12

    Tool for converting to alternate settings?

    I haven't finished the book, but I did skim through the second half and the index. I haven't seen this, but might have missed it.

    If one wanted to use SWN rules and tools to run a campaign in a home brew setting or an established canon/setting that isn't the SWN setting, is there a work sheet with the kinds of questions the GM would have to resolve?

    There's obvious questions

    • determining the tech level, and getting really gritty with that. The Expanse has no Faster Than Light travel, and Baylon5 (humanity) is barely any more tech advanced than The Expanse other than the Jump Gates.
    • Renaming the weapons - this would be easiest even if beam weapon is replaced with a projectile, or vice versa.
    • Sorting out psionics and magic.
    • Sorting out space engines. Spike drives probably can be renamed and not changed mechanically, but a lot of settings have different engines for FTL and normal space. This adds a slight layer of complexity to play, but is mostly cosmetic.

    But there's a whole bunch of less obvious questions. If someone had a more formalized list of things that need to be addressed ahead of time, possibly with balance questions, that would be a nice resource.

    I think one would be hard pressed to use SWN for a setting as broad as star wars or star trek. But most commercial and home brew settings are not as broad as those.

    9 Comments
    2024/10/04
    17:14 UTC

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