Stars Without Number (Mar 2019)

In July 2024 we revived (for a second time!) the March 2019 Stars Without Number Bundle featuring the 2017 Revised edition of Stars Without Number from Sine Nomine Publishing. SWN sets the standard for “sandbox” roleplaying. Forget pre-packaged, pre-digested plotlines that put the players on railroad tracks. In a sandbox game the setting is wide open for adventure in all directions. The Gamemaster presents situations, not storylines – problems, not plots. The player characters go where they will, do as they wish, forging their own career. And one of the best games for sandbox-style spacefaring is Stars Without Number.

Stars Without Number is partly inspired by Moldvay-Mentzer B/X D&D, but its support line has evolved to become compatible with, well, everything. Stars champions the Old School Revival tradition of emergent storytelling. In an SWN game there is no campaign arc or storyline. You start with a reasonably detailed world, a group of player characters, and their motivations and ambitions. The campaign consists of what those PCs undertake and how they succeed or fail.

At the end of each session the Gamemaster asks the players what they’re planning next time, then turns to SWN‘s adventure creation templates and cooks up a scenario. Many random tables, world generators, and “tags” make that process so smooth, the PCs can just go, without plot rails. The players bring the goals, and Stars Without Number gives the GM system-free tools to build paths to those goals: worldbuilding resources for planets and star sectors – guns, cyberware, starships, and psionics – adventure seeds and guidelines for integrating them with the worlds – and domain rules for experienced characters who want to set up their own colony, trading business, psychic academy, mercenary band, or (if things have gone well) their own private planet.

Once again there were three titles in this revived offer’s Starter Collection (retail value $32) as DRM-free .PDF ebooks, including the complete Stars Without Number Revised rulebook; Sixteen Stars (popular sf scene backdrops); and the SWN Revised GM Screen.

Those who paid more than the threshold (average) price also got this revival’s entire Bonus Collection with five more SWN supplements worth an additional $48, including Dead Names: Lost Races and Forgotten Ruins and four system-neutral campaign sourcebooks: Starvation Cheap (ground warfare and mercenary campaigns); Skyward Steel (the Stellar Navy); Suns of Gold (merchants and traders); and Polychrome (cyberpunk).

Ten percent of each payment (after gateway fees) for this Stars Without Number revival went to the charity designated by Kevin Crawford, Benzie Food Partners, a food bank serving Kevin’s home county in Honor, Michigan.