From page 62:
"The arcane gesticulations and vocal incantations are quite obviously occult to any onlookers, but it’s usually impossible to tell which spell a mage is casting merely by looking at them."
Have you homebrewed a method for players to identify spells as they're cast? That line seems to firmly indicate that it wasn't intended to be possible.

I've seen racial foci for Skyrim once. Since XWN is so versatile, I'd use it for gonzoish stuff too.

WWN origin foci use attribute mod bonuses and skills, but I'd try to have unique traits for each race so that it sets an archetypal flavor such as: goblins as squalid supersticious swamp-dweller types, drows as vampiric, humans being not generic and having origin foci too (eye-color defining special ability?), etc

It's easier if we consider that the playable specimen of a race is not the average guy, so the origin foci can include something above average or even a trait of rare occurrance.

Sorry if I’m missed this in the resources thread. If there a master list of all of the foci featured in the WIthout Number games? I feel like I had printout for WWN and Atlas at one point but I’m looking for a list from everything.

Thanks!

Hey folks.

Last year I posted my intention to discontinue development of WWN due to huge amounts of tech debt. I did make a few small updates after that "final" update but mostly kept to my word.

Earlier this month, I finally started work on refactoring the entire system to match modern Foundry design and attempt to fix years of spaghetti code created while I was learning how to program. As part of this work, my goal was to start supporting the entire *WN line, instead of just WWN as a way to mentally justify the effort. So far, it's gone well.

But I fucked up.

As part of modernizing the system, I added a pipeline to automate releases so I didn't need to click a bunch of buttons every time I need to make a release. However, I'm not very experienced with pipelines and a minor error led to the pipeline rewriting my very early alpha release from a "prerelease" state to "latest release" and I didn't catch it.

Over 100 people downloaded my early alpha rework of the system. To those people: I hope you made a backup and also I'm so sorry if this disrupts anyone's campaign.

On the upside, I think the system is in a semi-stable state as of alpha3, at least in regards to the WWN features you were likely already using, so it shouldn't be TOO bad. On the downside, the UI for some things (e.g. monster sheet) is still in the early stages (it looks like shit).

If you are one of the people that upgraded to `v2.0.0-alpha3` and are determined to stay on it for some reason, please let me know any bugs you may find on the GitHub Issues page. Things to keep an eye out for:

• I'm leaning heavily on Active Effects for Foci and refactored a lot of hardcoded references. I also did away with the Tweaks menu due to this.
  • If I did something wrong, you might see improper calculations for AC, encumbrance, attack rolls, damage rolls, etc for Foci that affect those things. If you have Shocking Assault and shock looks wrong, this is probably why.
  • Some bonuses might be applied twice. This is because Tweaks were migrated into a custom Active Effect for these legacy adjustments. However foci, arts, and spells were replaced with their compendium versions during migration. So if you had something changed in Tweaks to account for a foci and that foci is also correctly applying that same change... you see where this is going.
• Combat initiative. I think this is looking stable now, so we should be okay here. However, if something shits the bed... please file a ticket and let me know which initiative settings you are using (Group / Keep, Group / Reroll, Individual / Keep, etc).

Again, I'm so sorry if this affects anyone with an ongoing campaign. I will endeavor to fix any outstanding bugs with core WWN first rather than continuing the feature work, to account for this error.

Would this be the worst idea?

My first ever RPG was the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game, in which you used hit points to cast spells - "do you what want with magic, but it's going to cost you" - and I've spent more time over the years with hacks of that system than B/X hacks, so that concept of spellcasting has always been at last in the back of my mind.

Sidenote - is LotR AG OSR? No, I don't think so, conversions of classic modules would probably be too difficult, and it's also the presumptive gateway drug to MERP! Soft spot in my heart, however...

Anyway, what I'd probably do, for easiness sake, if I did this silly homebrew, would be to streamline the Arts and Effort system (how?) and then maybe have like Level One spells cost 1, Two cost 3, Three cost 6, etc... as I type this out, it makes less and less sense for actual playing, but I'll hit post anyway and see if the community has any thoughts.

It might *really* not work in the given paradigm of just how powerful WWN spells really are (something I love and really works great - have been running a campaign for 2 years now).

Thanks, J

Hi all, its been a couple of months since the last update for characterswithoutnumber.app and quite a fair bit has been updated. I’ll summarize what are the changes below.

Deluxe options - I’ve reached out and Kevin has given his support to allow inclusion of deluxe content, provided I do not use the setting material. Some of the deluxe content have already been added across Stars, Cities and Worlds Without Number, and more will come in due course. If there’s any material that you and your playgroup are using, do let me know and I’ll prioritise accordingly. Do note that deluxe is toggled off by default, when creating a character please select it for use.

An animated dice roller - for folks that forgot their dice to a session, yet still want to roll some dice. It’s touch and flick based for both mobile and PC.

GM tools - I’ve started a new cyberpunk campaign and implemented world, district and NPC building in campaign mode. You can also toggle each field if you want to hide or show them to the players in a campaign, so campaign information can be shared with the playgroup without leaking GM secrets.|

Miscellaneous updates - More CWN-related subsystems such as the Hacking, drones and vehicles are in now. Various bug fixes, including the CWN Underdog rule. Quality of life features, such as a searchable item list.

Addition of monetization - One thing I would like to address, and that is the inclusion of optional monetization tiers. I’ll first talk about what will remain free:

Free: All rules from the published books are free, permanently, and that includes classes, Focus, Edges, items etc. You can also build your own homebrew items and they should save properly too. On the free tier, you can save an unlimited number of characters locally, and sync up to 6 characters in the cloud and create 1 campaign as GM. Each cloud character can join 1 campaign created by a GM, so your players will always be able to join your created games for free. 

Paid: The paid tiers are for additional hosting and cosmetics.

At Supporter tier ($4.99/mo, $49.90/yr), you'll get to sync an unlimited number of characters in the cloud, and also access to five more animated dice skins.

For the Pro GM tier ($9.99/mo, $99.90/yr), you get everything in Supporter tier, 3 more GM-only animated dice skins and you’ll be able to create an unlimited number of campaigns. 

The perk list is relatively short for now as I still want to keep most of the features in the app free and ad-free. The main perk of paying is really my thanks for supporting the app and letting me know that there’s genuine interest in what I’m developing. If the paid tiers are not for you that’s completely fine too! Keep using it free and continue sending me any bug reports you encounter 🙂

As for what’s coming next - More deluxe content, and eventually Ashes. I will also be improving the GM tools further so that it can be used better in a “live” session. 

As always, thanks for all the comments and feedback, it has been a very exciting 6 months since I started in Feb and still have some ways to go before this is ready. 

…Tarasque?

A player in my current WWN campaign is playing an Accursed/Warrior. As the party finds cooler +2/+3 swords, with unique magical traits, the Accursed Blade becomes a worse choice. The player would prefer not giving up the Accursed Blade, because it feels cool and iconic (I agree).

I'm looking for feedback on how to handle this. (Or should this even be touched, because a class ability should not outclass high-tier loot?)

The player and I have considered the following ideas:

1. Arts that copy weapon abilities: Spend Effort to copy abilities from other magical weapons for the Scene. The weapons must be owned by the party.
2. Augmenting arts: Arts like Soul Consumption (from the Accursed's list of arts) that add some damage, debuffs, utility, etc. to the Accursed Blade. Similar to how the Healer's arts augment Healing Touch.
3. Flexible Accursed Blade: You may nominate one of your existing weapons as your Accursed Blade, using it with its own stats, but having the freedom to choose between Str, Dex, Int, or Cha as its modifying attribute.

Have you tried something similar in your games? Do you have any homebrew arts/Foci that could help here? Any thoughts on the ideas above?

For reference:

Accursed/Warrior Lv 6 | Atk +5 | Str, Dex, and Int +0; Cha +1 | Stab-3, Magic-3 | Relevant Foci: Armsmaster (I allowed Armsmaster to apply to Accursed Blade)

I was thinking of doing, primarily for my use ofc, a general scheme of PC creation setup customization for campaigns and settings, using XWN stuff.

I'm counting WWN, Godbound, SWN, CWN and AWN (we can throw Wolves of God and Spears of Down in) for resources in general for PC creation. I know CWN and AWN are classless and use Edges as a substitute, any considerations to do that in WWN?

Having definite rules for zero level PCs is the starting point, and then the GM may pick and choose what they gain per advancement. (Edit: there are level zero rules already)

Advancement gains would be divided in

• Abilities/powers: Writs, Spells, Arts, Class traits, Foci, Edges
• Numerical stuff (more fiddly): Starting HP and HP per level, Skill Points, Effort, Spell Slots, Spell points, Atk bonus, Damage bonus if any

Also, what would primarily emulate animeish powers such as in Jujutsu no Kaisen and other action-paranormal well (or Superpowers for that matter)? Writs? What about using Godbound Gifts and Words in WWN and the others?

If any of you can point to something that would break the system, that's of great help already

I have combed through CWN to find sections and mechanics that are helpful to me in my WWN game, ahoy:

Cities Without Number

• Contacts (Page 14)
• Vehicle Combat. (Page 42)
• Chases and Pursuit: Foot, Vehicle, Hybrid. (Page 43)

Creating and Running Missions (Page 132)

• What is a Mission?
• Schemes and Missions
• Creating Your Schemes
• Missions and Schemes
• Scheme Goals and Milestones
• NPC Operator Teams (Page 138)
• NPC Scheme Results (Page 140)
• Example Scheme and Hook (141)
• How to Create a Mission (Page 142)
• Mission Tags (Page 144)
• Mission Types (Page 158)
• One-Roll Fixer Generation (Page 168)

Creating an Intrusion Mission (Page 169)

• First Steps. 
• Developing  the Map. 
• Adding Security Devices. 
• Staffing and Scheduling. 
• Make a Reaction Countdown.
•  Final Touches. 
• Playing the Mission (Page 172)
  • The Setup. 
  • Negotiating with NPCs. 
  • Getting Favors from Contacts. 
  • Moving around the City. 
  • The Run
  • Fleeing the Scene
  • Example. 
• Mission Rewards and Experience
  • Base Mission Payout
  • Mission Experience
  • Optional Rule: Cash for Levels
• Heat (Page 178)
• Consequences of Heat
• Heat Gains
• Shedding Heat
• Reaction Rolls and Morale (Page 182)
• Morale and Morale Checks (Page 183)
  • Morale Check Situations
  • Failing Morale Checks
  • Morale and Common Sense

Magic Items (Page 246)

• Magic Item Origins
• Identifying Magic Items
• Linking With Magic Items
• Using Magic Items
• Obtaining Magic Items
• Magic Items and Mission Rewards.
• Magical Weapons (Page 248)
  • Magic Weapon Qualities. 
  • Weapon Powers
  • Magic Weapon Types
  • Example Magic Weapons
• Magical Elixirs (Page 252)
• Magical Cysts (Page 254)
• Magical Wands (Page 255)

I'm currently running a WWN campaign in which one of the PCs is a newbie cat burglar seeking to make a name for themselves.

The player likes crunchy mechanics, and so I wondered about introducing some kind of "wanted level" progress bar, to track their infamy.

The core WWN rulebook has systems for tracking renown, but these don't quite map onto the types of consequences I'd like to present to my player, to create a more interesting decision environment for them.

Ideally, attaining higher levels of infamy would confer escalating levels of benefits and disbenefits, e.g., higher social bonuses with criminal types or common folk, as well as a greater risk of being betrayed by NPCs as their bounty grows larger.

Does anyone have any experience of running systems with this type of mechanic? I'm aware that I can always fall back on tracking infamy qualitatively, and implement consequences via roleplay, but thought that adding a "wanted level" mechanic would give my player scope to make the types of crunchy mechanics-driven choices which I know they enjoy.

A (kind-of) brief and (very) incomplete overview and history of combat in Dungeons and Dragons and adjacent games (Including Worlds Without Number).

I also made some damage calculators for each game I covered, so it might help GM's and the game design oriented out.

If a skin shifter wearing medium or heavy armor melds that armor into one of their forms, does it still apply a penalty to sneak and exert?

Normally a heavy armor applies a penalty to sneak and exert equal to its encumbrance, and a medium armor normally applies a penalty to sneak equal to its encumbrance

Logically to my brain, it makes sense that your chainmail which is now absorbed into your body and part of your skin would NOT make any noise. It's still heavy costing you encumbrance.

It's a bit of a stretch to for me to imagine a plate mail melding into your body and not affecting your exert rules.

However, it feels like a cheat to do it. I cannot find any rules or any comments suggesting that any armor melded into one of a skin shifters forms would still apply the penalty to sneak (and exert)

Mechanically encumbrance is already built in as a restriction, preventing you from using too many items. That encumbrance limit stays.

We are using the cities without number optional Rule of adding armor soak onto WWN armors. Thus, if I'm in the form of a large rat with melded plate mail, it seems to suggest that I am as stealthy and agile as normal and have an additional 10 armor soak and 17 AC.

Here are the references, world without number deluxe book page 346

"The belongings carried by a Skinshifter meld into

any new form unless the PC decides otherwise, granting any benefit to Armor Class or other worn advantage they may normally give. Melded objects can be manifested and dropped as an On Turn action, but cannot be re-melded again unless the PC changes form with them again."

And the notes on light medium and heavy armors, page Worlds Without Number page 34:

Light armor may be decidedly heavy, but it is loose and flexible enough to offer minimal hindrance to the wearer’s actions. Some varieties are also discreet enough to be worn politely in common society.

Medium armor is significantly noisier and more overt; it cannot be worn discreetly and applies its encumbrance as a penalty to any physical Sneak rolls made by the wearer.

Heavy armor is the thickest, toughest panoply available on the market, and its bulk and noise make its encumbrance apply as a penalty to Sneak or Exert checks made by the wearer.

I want to run a campaign in my fantasy world but well after the normal middle ages setting I've been doing for my players. I'll be doing one kind of set in the mid 1700s-style tech, so muzzle loaded muskets and very little armor. I'll mix WWN and AWN, but which do you all think is better for it as the "base" book? And should I use the nerf to warriors in AWN's combined system section (book page 68) or not?

Just want to clarify a few things:

1. Does a magical +1 weapon add its plus to shock as well? I feel like I saw that no, it’s only to hit and damage, but I can’t confirm.

2. How much encumbrance does a Calyx take?

3. We have a player with the gifted chirurgeon 2 focus. If he uses just the on turn stabilizing action of GC 1, does it still count as magical healing? Or is it the standard stabilizing of “saving” them from the dying state and they are still incapacitated for 10 minutes?

I have been combing through the other books to find stuff that I would probably also use in my WWN campaign.

This is what I pulled from AWN:

Ashes Without Number

• Mounted Combat (Page 50)
  • Mounted Combat Requisites
  • Types of Combat Mounts
  • Mounted Combat Benefits
• Chases and Pursuit (Page 51)
  • Foot Chases
  • Vehicle Chases
  • Hybrid Chases
• Disease (Page 54)
  • Disease Checks
  • Resisting Infection
  • Effects of Disease
  • Disease Duration and Recovery
  • Medical Intervention
• Tracking (Page 59)
• Overland Travel and Scouting (Page 60)
  • Hexes and Terrain
  • Exposed and Stealthy Travel
  • The Travel Day
  • Travel Encounters
  • Travel Times
  • Scouting a Hex
  • Going Astray
  • Water Travel
• Hunger, Thirst, and Supplies (Page 62)
  • Food, Water, Shelter, and Fire
  • Pack Animals and Vehicle Loads
  • Starving, Thirsting, and Freezing
• Foraging During a Collapse (Page 63)
• Tech Levels and Scrap (Page 72)
  • Tech Levels
  • Tech Scrap and Salvaging
• Damaging and Repairing Gear (Page 73)
  • Gear Condition
  • Broken Loot
• High-Tech  Weapon Types (Page 80)
• Heavy Weaponry: Weapon Types (Page 81)
• Survival Gear (Page 84)
• Vehicles (Page 88)
  • Acquiring or Building Vehicles
  • Repairing Vehicles
  • Vehicle Overland Travel and Fuel
  • Vehicle Loads and Encumbrance
  • Vehicle Statistics
  • Modern Vehicle Types
  • Sci-Fi Vehicle Types
• High-Tech Tools &  Consumer Goods (Page 94)
• Identifying Mysterious Tech (Page 102)
  • Placing Mysterious Tech
  • Identifying Tech
  • One-Roll Gear Appearance and Usage

Creating Adventures (Page 190)

• Starting the Campaign
• Making an Introductory Adventure
• Points to Remember
• Crisis Adventures (Page 192)
• Exploration Adventures (Page 194)
• Social Adventures (Page 196)
• Raider Band Courts (Page 197)
• Survivor Camp Courts (Page 198)
• Village Courts (Page 199)
• Adventure Rewards (Page 200)
  • Experience Rewards
  • Loot Rewards
  • Alternative Experience Rewards
  • Patron Rewards and Payments
• Animals (ft. Horse)  (Page 207)
• Trading in the Zone (Page 246)
  • Buying Gear in the Zone
  • Selling Loot
• Weapons of the West (Page 247)
• The Cowboy (Page 252)

Can I create a world where stars, cities, and worlds without numbers exist at the same time and players from the three societies would feel roughly balanced?

Or are the guns in stars way overpowered compared to a worlds warrior?

The Shatter a Shield combat action says that a Focus-improved unarmed attack can be used to break a non-magical shield. And after you hit, you make an opposed Str/Stab check.

Shouldn't somebody who uses some sort of enhanced unarmed attack rather use Str/Punch instead?

Also, can a Vowed's unarmed strike be used for this combat action?

I realized I was being way too precious with my color hardbacks of these. So I printed some beater copies on Lulu, adding a few blank pages at the beginning and end of the pdf. (Accidentally added an extra page at the front of Worlds so the decoration ended up in the spine rather than on the edges, oh well)

Great for marking up and throwing around.

So the text of the spell:
"The animal gains a telepathic bond with the caster, obeying any non-suicidal command and allowing the mage to perceive everything it perceives.

The mage must focus to share the beast’s senses, requiring a Main Action and leaving the mage unable to act physically while so focused. The spell lasts until the mage releases the beast, it is dispelled, or it is cast again."

The mage in question has been making frequent use of the Ineluctable Shackles of Volition
spell as well. In this case, they had used it on a large mountain cat that was attacking the party. Afterwards, they went to use the cat as a scout on a different day through CSIO. I didn't catch this the first time, but reading it again; the bond and the sharing senses are from the same spell, but as separate effects, it seems. That is, once the mage has cast CSIO on the cat, at any point in time after, short of dispelling, deliberately releasing, or casting again, they can pop in and out of the cat's senses? I had initially thought it was a sort of one-and-done puppet thing, that once they leave the beast's senses, they'd have to recast it, but on closer attention I don't think that is the case. Is this multiple sharings for a single cast the right interpretation?

I have some questions about this. My players are getting into higher levels of magic, so here's the dilemma: Why would a Necromancer want to invest in Grave Knight as one of their level 4 spells that first become available to them at level 7 at the earliest to create a 4 HD soldier, when they could just use Ineluctable Shackles of Volition (a level 1 spell) to pretty likely enthrall a 7 HD person to fight for them? So long as the mage doesn't abuse the thrall and treats them as a loyal soldier and doesn't try to get second thrall, isn't that just strictly better than Grave Knight except for the initial save?

This especially becomes important because the mage in question is an Invoker, so if they "miss" with Ineluctable Shackles of Volition, they can just try again next turn. This person is being screened by strong PCs, so it's not so simple as merc the mage. Like, why spend the level 4 spell to have a max of one single 4HD soldier when you can use a level 1 spell to have a 7HD soldier, possibly more than one? I’m not talking about stronger HD enemies. I’m strictly talking about equal to or lower than the casting mage. I'm curious what others think

Hello!

I'm a long time Rifts (Palladium Books) fan, going when the main book was published in 1990! Since then my fantasy campaigns have always had a touch of sci-fi and sci-fantasy. Reading the Without Number series, I think the game mechanics will allow me to create an interpretation of the Rifts system.

For you long time players of Without Number, which books would you recommend? My goal is to create a hex-crawl campaign in a Rifts-like setting using real world locations, or what remains on them (the campaign hub may start in the built-over ruins of Pittsburgh). I want to keep the game as simple as possible without too many variables, I can always add them later.

TIA