Stars Without Number Revised Deluxe Edition.pdf

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ISBN 978-1-936673-95-7
©2017 Sine Nomine Publishing, Inc.
Written by Kevin Crawford
Cover background provided by NASA, ESA, and The Hubble Heritage Team (STScI), and edited by Jeff Brown.
Interior art by Jeff Brown, Christof Grobelski, Norah Khor, Aaron Lee, Joyce Maureira, Nick Ong, Grzegorz Pedrycz,
and Tan Ho Sim. Some art © grandfailure / Adobe Stock.
Character sheet by Brian McGillivray
INTO THE WAITING NIGHT
Welcome, reader, to
Stars Without Number,
a science
fiction role-playing game. Within the pages of this
book you will find all that you require to forge mighty
tales both of victory and bitter defeat amid the silent
stars above. You will fashion heroes fit for this new
age of exploration and rediscovery, men and women
capable of unearthing the lost wonders of humanity’s
fallen empire. The scattered sectors of the old Terran
Mandate have been out of communication for centu-
ries, and no one living can know all the strange won-
ders that have been born in the Silence. Every fresh
world is a new marvel to discover, and the brave souls
willing to repair the broken web of contact can expect
rich rewards for their efforts.
Stars Without Number
is not only a game of discov-
ery, however. There are adventures to be had in more
familiar places as well. New polities and young empires
have sprung up in the centuries since the collapse of the
Terran Mandate, and they struggle with each other as
hotly as their technology and resources allow. The right
hero at the right time can shift the fate of worlds, and
heroes willing to fight for their beliefs can be the great-
est resources a struggling star nation possesses. There
are adventures to be had in dealing with the powers
of a stellar sector, where men and women are needed
to foil the sinister plans of enemies and bring victory.
Not every hero has a mind for high goals, howev-
er. Many desire nothing more than freedom and the
credits to enjoy it. Whether hauling cargo to backwater
worlds or selling their lasers to the highest bidder, these
mercenary adventurers go where the pay is good and
the danger is acceptable. Some have greater ideals than
their next patron’s pay, while others have no devotion
to anything but their own interest.
Stars Without Num-
ber
has room for both kinds of heroes, and tools to help
a game master provide the adventures they require.
Stars Without Number
is above all a set of tools
for players and game masters bent on sci-fi adventure.
While the setting is built to provide a wide scope for
daring deeds, the game is fundamentally meant to be
reshaped and refocused to suit your particular interests
and desires. Whether a gritty game of desperate mer-
cenary gunmen in an interstellar war zone or a dashing
campaign of star-faring adventurers in a space-operatic
sector, the game is meant to fit the needs and tone of
your desired play.
Stars Without Number
belongs to the “old-school
renaissance” trend in gaming, and draws much of its
mechanical inspiration from the classic games of the
seventies and the work of such authors as Gary Gygax,
Tom Moldvay, Zeb Cook, Marc Miller, and other lu-
minaries of those days. While many people now prefer
different mechanical frameworks for their play, these
“old-school” rules are understood by a tremendous
number of gamers and form a convenient
lingua franca
between many different OSR games. These games are
usually broadly compatible with each other, and allow
players to loot material from many different authors
and time periods with limited effort at conversion.
This game is also designed to be a “sandbox game”,
one built to ease the creation of active, living campaign
worlds where the PCs aren’t the only important figures,
and where a hero doesn’t necessarily have any narrative
armor against failure and death. While it can certainly
be played in a more conventional adventure path or
story-arc manner,
Stars Without Number
is stocked
with a wide range of tools, techniques, and guidelines
for easing sandbox play. The surprise and freshness
inherent in a good sandbox game can be a refreshing
change of pace for many groups, and in this book you’ll
find what you need to play in that style.
The book you hold in hand right now is the re-
vised edition of the original 2010 version of the game.
In compiling the revision, I have been careful to keep it
compatible with the existing material for the game, so
you should be able to use original edition supplements
with minimal fuss. Rather than changing the bones of
the system, I have instead added additional material to
help GMs and entertain players, expanding the scope
of the game. If you are reading the free PDF version of
this game, you will find everything you need for a full
campaign in these pages. If you have the deluxe version
in hand, you will find almost a hundred pages of bonus
content to supply you with tools for transhuman sci-
fi campaigns, space-operatic heroes, stellar wizardry,
mechs, artificial intelligences, and tools for building
sci-fi societies.
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.
A Word to Newbies
If
Stars Without Number
is your first tabletop
role-playing game, you’re a rare soul. Most of
the readers of this book will already be familiar
with the hobby, but fear not; tabletop RPGs aren’t
hard to understand. Just think of them as a pen-
cil-and-paper equivalent of a computer RPG, with
a “game master” or “GM” in place of the computer,
and 2-5 players playing “player character” avatars.
You’ll need paper, pencils, and a set of poly-
hedral dice or a dice app to play the game. You
can get gaming dice online easily. When the book
tells you to roll “2d10+1”, for example, it means
to roll two ten-sided dice and add them together,
then add one to the result. “d100” means to roll
two 10-sided dice and read them as ones and tens.

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