What Is Stars Without Number?
Short answer
Stars Without Number is an old school science fiction tabletop RPG by Kevin Crawford. It is built for sandbox play: the group picks a direction, and the sector, its worlds, and its factions react rather than following a written plot.
Stars Without Number is a science fiction tabletop roleplaying game by Kevin Crawford, published by Sine Nomine. It is an old school style game built for sandbox play: the group gets a sector of space, picks a direction, and the setting reacts through faction turns rather than a written plot. A free edition is available, and the paid editions add more content on top of the same rules.
What makes it different from other sci-fi RPGs
The generation tools. Stars Without Number is as much a toolkit for building a campaign as it is a set of rules for playing one. It ships with tables for rolling up sectors, worlds, factions, adventure seeds, alien species, and ruins. A GM can start from nothing and have a populated sector with reasons for conflict in an evening.
Factions are the other half. Factions are not scenery, they are entities with assets, goals, and turns. Between sessions they act on their own, which is what makes a sandbox feel like it is moving when the party is not looking at it.
How it plays at the table
Characters have six familiar attributes, a class, a background, and foci that grant specific abilities. Skills are rated numerically and checks combine a roll with an attribute modifier and skill level against a target number. Combat is fast and characters are fragile at low levels, in the old school tradition.
What a campaign looks like
A sector is a grid of hexes, each holding at most one world. The party has a ship, a reason to travel, and a set of factions whose goals cut across each other. Play tends to alternate between adventures on the ground and the slower faction layer running in the background.
Running it online
The bookkeeping is the friction: a sector of worlds with real attributes, factions with assets and goals, ships with crew and cargo. Our Stars Without Number tabletop keeps those as structured records instead of notes, including the hacking minigame and starship combat. One game is free with unlimited players.
This product is an independent product compatible with Stars Without Number by Kevin Crawford / Sine Nomine Publishing. Stars Without Number is the property of Sine Nomine Publishing. This product is not affiliated with or endorsed by Sine Nomine Publishing.
Related questions
- Is Stars Without Number good?
- It is one of the best regarded science fiction tabletop RPGs, mainly for its generation tools and its faction system. It suits sandbox campaigns and GMs who want to build a setting rather than run a written adventure path.
- Is Stars Without Number free?
- There is a free edition of the rules alongside the paid editions. The free version is a complete playable game, and the paid ones add extra classes, content, and GM material.
- Who made Stars Without Number?
- Kevin Crawford, published through Sine Nomine Publishing. He also writes Worlds Without Number and other games sharing the same design lineage.
- Is Stars Without Number crunchy?
- Not at the table. Character sheets are light and combat is quick. The depth sits in the GM facing tools, which is where the sector generation and faction turns live.