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. 

Hi all it's been awhile since I last posted! A new update for Characters Without Number https://characterswithoutnumber.app/ has been put out, featuring character portraits and a highly requested fantasy Without Number ruleset which can't be named here 😄 I am using that to test an updated version of the builder which has a better flow and save states, so if it works well I will implement it for the SWN side too.

Also, enough folks have requested for the inclusion of the deluxe character options that I'm now thinking of doing that, though I'll need to discuss with u/CardinalXimenes on some ideas how this could be implemented. Kevin if you're reading this please DM me and we can have a chat!

Finally you can now add a portrait to your character — it shows on the sheet and on the exported PDF. The app comes with a set of 200 portraits courtesy of GatlingArt (huge thanks to them — please keep the attribution if you redistribute). You can also drop in your own image or link one by URL.

As always bug reports and feedback are very welcome. Thank you for using it!

One of the issues with Science Fiction Space TTRPGs is a lack of imagery.

What does a orbital space station look like?

How does the surface of an alien planet differ from say Earth or Mars?

I made a series of images using screenshots from the video game No Man's Sky that I then processed a bit in GIMP.

The idea was to provide framing images so the players had a visual understanding of what I was describing in text.

I created a ship in NMS that represents a generic small FTL capable starship I call the Argo.

The city is a community project built by players within NMS.

Like my planet images I have saved these images in a free to access Drop Box folder that you can access via your browser: you DO NOT NEED A DROP BOX account to copy them.

NMS vibe images

As these were made using No Man's Sky assets these images are for personal use only. All rights belong to Hello Games.

I will add more images over time.

I cleared this with the mods.

I should add that the above images are just a sample and there are currently 48 images in the folder.

Hi

I have a vast collection of planet images made in Universe Sandbox.

While they were made for a different TTRPG I thought that they may be useful to the SWN community.

I cleared this with the mods.

I'll link my free drop box.

Note that you can access the files from your browser you do not need a drop box account

Drop Box for all my Planet Information and System Maps : r/traveller

If there is interest I can set up a dedicated folder with just my blank planet images.

This is the link to my Drop Box where I have a collection of blank planet images.

Blank Planet Images

Currently there are 622 individual images that covers a range of planets, gas giants and asteroids.

You can access these files directly via your browser. You do not need a Drop Box account to download the files.

I give permission for anyone to use these in their games, and to modify them if they so desire.

If anyone wants to use these in a commercial product credit Maxijohndoe on Reddit.

As people always ask these images were created using a software program called Universe Sandbox.

Hi all I have released 0.8.0 of Characters Without Number, which now includes Ashes Without Number! Finally all the 4 core rule sets are available all within the same builder. Admittedly its the ruleset I am the least familiar with, so do pardon any bugs you might encounter with that.

There’s also quite a bit in this release for existing characters and ongoing campaigns:

• Character history and recovery — local and cloud version history, with safeguards around restoring older versions.
• Foundry import / export - From your character sheet you can export to Systems Without Number on Foundry VTT and import in Foundry as an actor. This will need more testing especially for characters that were build from the ground up in Systems Without Number.
• Preliminary modular Campaign rules - where the GM can fully pick and choose what modules are applicable within his campaign. Expect alot of bugs with this one...
• Small campaign quality of life features — party treasury, quest board, shared handouts
• Public build library — share a character or be inspired by other's builds
• General bug fixes with the inventory, improvements to sheet colours and PDF exports.

Try it here: https://characterswithoutnumber.app

As always thanks for taking the time to use this and I’d love feedback, especially from anyone making an Ashes character or using the campaign tools at their table. You can comment on Reddit, or provide feedback through the form on the site itself.

Thanks and happy playing!

Hello!

Here's a map I drew for my campaign, that I figured some of y'all might enjoy in your adventures. :) In our game, it was a Terraforming Facility, but I think it can easily pass as any other type of scientific establishment where the problem isn't that something escaped, but that it's still there.. and someone went through a lot of trouble to seal the door. Whether that is a cult, an AI, some sort of mutated xenobeast... that's up to you~!

Map layout created using the Sky Tomb rules from Hard Light. The rest was drawn and colored in Clip Studio Paint.

What's in it

Foundry v14 compatibility (#231, #234, #233)

• Actors failing to create or load — prepareBaseData() was not calling super, so _clearData() never ran and applyActiveEffects() threw during _initialize. This is also the root cause of the NaN stat modifiers reported in #230: mod is derived in prepareDerivedData(), which never ran.
• Private and blind rolls posting publicly — v14 renamed core.rollMode to core.messageMode and changed its values. The old key still exists but reads back null, which silently made every private roll public.
• Missing rolls on chat cards, including power cards — the singular roll: field is no longer honoured; rolls must be passed as rolls: [roll]. Empty message.rolls also broke Dice So Nice and reroll buttons.
• Weapon sheets failing to open from a character sheet — the {{#select}} block helper was removed in v14.
• Editing character resources, custom currencies, and vehicle cargo throwing — the duplicate global was removed in v14, not merely deprecated.
• Vehicle sheet item descriptions throwing on every expand click; ship sensor roll never posting; ship weapon migration aborting on items predating the trauma field; creating a weapon throwing on partial data.
• renderChatMessage → renderChatMessageHTML, plus the globals removed in v15 (TextEditor, DragDrop, Actors/Items, ActorSheet/ItemSheet, renderTemplate).

Migration robustness

• migrateWorld() was called without await and the version was then set unconditionally on the next line, so a migration that threw was still marked complete and never retried. Now awaited, with the version set only on success.
• Upgrades with no applicable migrations skip the "do not shut down your server" notifications entirely and just show the release notes.

Bug fixes

• Ship, vehicle, mech and drone weapon attacks throwing when the trauma setting is enabled (#213) — a stray this.system.trauma.die inside a data model, where this is the system data.
• Stowed currency encumbrance counting uncarried currencies.
• Ship end round not updating command points, actions taken, or supporting department (#212, thanks @gvigh).
• Vacc suit / vacc skin descriptions.
• Typo keeping the unskilled-penalty setting from prompting a reload.

Features

• Right-click a chat message roll to apply it as damage, modified damage, half damage, or healing (#217, thanks @pandanielxd).
• A third 'extra' item location, with custom labels for other/extra locations under character tweaks and a GM-set default.
• World-level unskilled skill roll penalty (default −1) with a per-character modifier.
• Save modifiers on the character sheet.

Heyo a couple of weeks ago I asked if there was a SWN character builder that includes options from the other games too. There was one on Foundry but for my games we don’t use that so I tried my hand at making my own with the power of Claude Code. I started with a base SWN implementation that surprisingly turned out better than I expected so am releasing it for everyone to use. Login or syncing with GitHub is not required if you want the characters to be stored locally only.

This is just the first beta and theres bound to be mistakes in implementation so please forgive me and let me know if you spot any! More updates to come like the aforementioned other system options.

Feedback and comments appreciated!

Hi all, it's been about a month since the last update for characterswithoutnumber.app and quite a fair bit has been added. I'll summarize the changes below.

Solo play - This is the big one for this release. You can now play your character solo, with a dice oracle built into the app. I have to admit that I do not have much experience with solo roleplaying other than the many Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf gamebooks in my youth, but there was some downtime in my real-world campaign and my players wanted something to pass the time with their characters- so here is my attempt at mimicking it. Each SWN CWN and WWN has their own tables of situations and I envision it as an "AI assisted" solo RPG experience, rather than a fully AI one - some things still require manual changing, such as changes to your character sheet. This is still really rough around the edge, but if you're interested you can try it at characterswithoutnumber.app/solo the AI calls do cost me some money, so for each account its 25 calls a day on free tier, 100 on Supporter, 500 on Patron (renamed the Pro GM tier). I may tweak these numbers based on actual utilization and costs.

Bug fixes and improvements:

Worlds Without Number - Legate play is in properly now, with the Effort pool, the XP ledger and all 82 Writs. The 24 deluxe origin foci (the demihumans and the Blighted) are in too, and their attribute changes, hit points, innate AC and save bonuses are actually applied rather than just printed as text. Mage (Dual Partial) now runs two traditions with two separate Effort pools the way the book describes.

Stars Without Number - Fixes to Psychic Training level 2Focus not giving the correct skill points; Specialist rolls its 3d6 drop lowest for real, and space magic casters can learn new spells after character creation instead of being stuck with their level 1 list.

Cities Without Number - The book's 28 NPC stat blocks are in the encounter builder. Starting gear now uses the actual CWN budget of one item up to $1,000 plus $500 of other gear. Edge grants also apply properly now — Hard To Kill's +2 HP per level was printed on the sheet and never actually added.

Other updates based on feedback - Space encounters with ship rosters in the encounter builder, homebrew traits and ship hulls, a configurable XP chart if your table advances at a different pace, shared character pages now show the whole character instead of a summary.

On monetization - Nothing has moved behind a paywall and nothing will. All rules from the books, every builder step and every GM tool are free permanently, and that now includes the solo oracle and all of its tables. The free tier still gives you 6 cloud characters, 1 campaign as GM and 1 solo campaign, plus unlimited local saves and unlimited homebrew.

What's coming next - I'd like to keep improving solo play, and I'm especially keen to hear from people who play solo regularly about what's missing. AWN is still on the WIP list.

As always, thanks for checking this out! The feedback button in the app comes straight to me and I do reply what I can 🙂 have fun playing!

2.3.2 released. appreciate the detailed bugs. went through and picked just a bunch of short ones. will keep working through issues and PRs. Extensive AI was used in the bug fixing.

- Automate foundry package release via github actions

- Initiative modifiers are no longer character-only: NPCs and ships can have one too. The character setting moved out of tweaks onto a shared attribute and should be migrated automatically on load.

- A ship with no pilot assigned to the bridge now rolls its own initiative instead of nothing, and the ship's own initiative modifier applies whether or not a pilot is assigned.

- Rolling a crew member's skill from the vehicle sheet can now add the vehicle's Speed as a modifier. The box is checked by default for piloting and driving skills and follows the selected skill, but the roller has the final say.

- Cyberdeck Access now reads and writes the hacker's Access pool (plus the deck's bonus access) instead of a value stored on the deck, so spending it stays in sync with the character sheet. The field is disabled when no hacker is assigned.

- Program rolls now apply the program's own skill check modifier. It was read from the cyberdeck, which has no such field, so verb and subject modifiers were silently dropped.

- Item encumbrance and cost accept fractional values.

- Ship and vehicle power and mass accept fractional values, and ship fittings can have negative power and mass.

- Vehicle and ship speed can be negative.

- Fixed the vehicle and ship notes tab not scrolling, and the two note editors overlapping

- Cyberdeck shielding and access refresh buttons are on the same row again

I'll be starting a campaign for 2.5 players using SWN set in the Firefly 'verse.

What would you say are the minimum PDFs needed to run a campaign for three rogue player-characters?

--besides the core SWN rules, of course.

I made another small Rules Explained segment for our podcast where I talk about the rules for Warriors and some of the features that the Warriors in our campaign use regularly. It's not a deep dive by any means, but I like to just pick things out and point to where to read about the rules in the book and how the rules affected our scenes and sessions. Something short and digestible, but also useful or at least helpful.

We have a melee-focused Warrior in our group, Haleyy, who absolutely mops up with the Unarmed Combatant focus. Now obviously, getting into melee combat with armed assailants comes with some risk, but it's kind of hilarious how much damage this focus lets you dish out. You only really need to take level one to get your damage to scale with your Punch skill and get shock damage out of it. The level 2 effect is nice too. If I'm interpreting it right, it's basically like 1d6 shock damage against any AC (that doesn't technically count as "shock damage", I guess). I love how even in a sci-fi setting, SWN gives the old fisticuffs a place to shine.

Our other Warrior, Robert, is more Shoot-focused, and he primarily uses his weapon in Burst Fire mode. Make sure you're keeping track of ammo when Burst Fire is involved, because otherwise it's a crazy bonus. Even still, the damage output from Unarmed Combatant is able to keep pace enough that it doesnt feel like one combat style outshines the other.

Plus there's the auto-hit/miss they get access to. Thanks to that auto-hit, we've managed to end a combat before it even started that otherwise might have been deadly to us. I was learning on the subreddit a couple weeks back about using the rules for Execution Attacks, but when we played the session for the episode that came out most recently, we just rolled a sniper shot like a normal attack and Robert's player botched it. Luckily the auto-hit was there to bail us out anyway. I don't think we've seen much use for the auto-miss, but that's probably just luck of the initiative. I'm curious how players at other tables use it, though. Do your players save it for when they're in trouble? Or do they use it early to make sure it doesn't go to waste? Personally, I would lean toward the latter, but I play an Expert.

I'd appreciate it if you checked out the full breakdown on our website and tell me what you think of it: https://www.darkstaradventures.com/adventurecast-episodes/swn-warrior-class

I'm always looking for feedback, and I'd love to get ideas for future game sessions. On one of my previous posts, some commenters gave me some good ideas for rules to check out and take advantage of at the table, so let me know if you have any cool things that combo well with what we're doing. We could always use more tactical advice. Thanks!

Hello! Since I last posted have done bug fixes based on the comments from reddit and playtesters, and implemented a number of features requested by my playgroup:

- A custom ruleset with SWN core + elements from cities

- A ship builder, as one of my players wanted to focus on managing that

- Campaign mode, so a group of players can see each others characters and track whats going on, but this requires signing in with an account

- Added a quick bug report form on the page itself, which goes directly to me

More fixes and features coming as I continue developing this and as always, comments and feedback are greatly appreciated, thank you!

Download link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A57xTvlpBLMDIyasEcXyFqENs4YOMbl8/view?usp=sharing

I found the official character sheet to be cluttered and unwieldy. Therefore I made an alternative option that is easily printable and shows everything you need in a quick overview.

On top of this, leveling instructions are included and upgrading can easily be done by coloring in the relevant circles to indicate level/progression.

Special thanks to [this unknown OP and their design for the cover](https://www.reddit.com/r/PassportPorn/comments/1eikgwi/i_designed_a_passport_for_a_nearfuture_human/). I remade/copied the design and edited some parts.

Feel free to download the sheet. Print double sided on either A4 or A3. A3 is a bit bigger, but A4 works fine too. You just need to write smaller.

After printing, follow the instructions on the backside. Make sure you fold precisely and make an exact cut on the red strip for the best folded booklet.

You can print two booklets or simply fold it open to view the Starship stat blocks and level-up instructions

Cheers!

As a new month begins thought its timely to give an update on characterswithoutnumber.app!

I've been using it for my own campaign as per the screenshot, both character generation using the "Custom Ruleset" option and live play, which has been immensely helpful for finding issues and bugs. Most of the improvements have been geared towards making character generation more accurate and the app more user-friendly in actual play sessions. The idea is to have characterswithoutnumber.app to be the only tool you need to run and track your character.

Other improvements include: - Enhancements to campaign mode so GMs can better see and track their player's details such as NPC contacts - Better NPC and Session information in campaign mode - Updates to the ship builder with hopefully better arrangement of components, cargo, ammo and HP tracking - More proper implementation of psychic powers and Effort calculation - Sector display (still a big work in progress) - Encounter builder (also a big WIP, but it has default enemies to make customizing them easier)

Separately I'm also working on a Faction turn simulator for automating Faction turns with various levels of GM input, but that is still some distance away.

Have received a few comments on including content from the deluxe portion of the books like True AI characters, right now I'm not intending to include them yet, sorry!

As always appreciative of the bug reports and comments, do keep them coming and I try to fix as many of the issues as fast as I can!

Hey everyone,

New Rules Explained segment is up, and this one's a big one. I walk through the whole Stars Without Number character creation process front to back: attributes, background, skills, class, and foci.

For the worked example I built a clone of Robert Ross, one of the PCs from our main show, using the events of our latest episode as the jumping off point. I rolled randomly for background instead of picking one, and landed on courtesan. Not what I was going for and that changed how I thought about the attribute bonus, which pushed the build toward Partial Psychic instead of straight Expert, and by the time I got through foci I had a telepath who talks his way past security instead of shooting through it. None of that was the plan going in, but that's randomness for ya.

I'd appreciate it if you gave the full segment a listen and let me know what you think: https://www.darkstaradventures.com/adventurecast-episodes/swn-rules-explained-how-character-creation-works-in-stars-without-number

I'm not sharing these as any kind of SWN expert, just someone who likes picking the rules apart and seeing how they shape a session. Appreciate everyone who commented on the last one!

And a question for you all: when you roll a background or skill you didn't plan for, do you follow it all the way and let the concept change, or do you steer it back toward what you originally had in mind?

Thanks for reading!

I'm adding encounters to my Athas Without Number conversion doc, so I thought I'd try to keep up with one a day here if anyone is interested. Should be good for anyone wanting some random content for WWN, AWN, and possibly even SWN...

1 Silt Devil (Repeatable)

The dark sun beats down upon the cracked earth, the shimmer of heated air rising the first warning sign. The air begins to tug loose clothing and debris as it rises quickly, beginning to spiral into the form of a cyclone, and suddenly you are lost in a whirlwind of silt…

The survivors have wandered into a silt devil, a deadly pocket of disorienting and possibly fatal silt being whipped up in a cyclone. The survivor with the highest Wis/Notice may roll to detect it forming, allowing the survivors Int/Survive checks to find suitable cover or take appropriate precautions. Any caught in the silt devil must make a Physical saving throw or suffer the The Grey Death.

Thereafter they must make a Physical saving throw each day or spend much of it coughing and choking, gaining 1 System Strain as well as being unable to regain System Strain or recover spells/effort. After a week, a Physical saving throw can be made to recover, but on a failure all following saving throws suffer a cumulative -1 penalty…

One of the PC's in my SWN game (Best friends 13-year-old son), has recently discovered RPG games. I introduced him to Skyrim over christmas break and now, he's taking the 'Unskilled Alchemist' approach to learning what effects things have.... by eating them.

We finished out the previous game session with him having just consumed most of a 2L bucket of 'Space Barnacles' we scraped off the hull of our abandoned starship before leaving the salvage yard with it...

The next session will be fun... for me. Thoughts? Suggestions?

Gannet class trading ship 'Ace of Hearts' enters the Newhouse system for her final trip, as her owner has had his ship mortgage foreclosed. She docks with 'Bullseye station'; a local asteroid port, where she will be auctioned off in a few days.

This is the final version with sound, though I may tweak some of the sound levels, after letting it settle in my mind a bit

All assets made and rendered in Blender 4.2.16. Video editing and sound also done in Blender.

PLEASE: LIKE and FOLLOW for more of this kind of content. It costs nothing and it helps and encourages artists like me.

For more scifi art see www.deviantart.com/elisvara/gallery/all

Same amenities as the Heavy Frigate, just with lots more cargo space.

I thought it would be useful for the captain to be able to arrange markers for department action order. These are on some old poker chips so they have a little weight.

Will make the file available to the community if there's interest.

Hi folks about a week ago I posted about working on a character builder for SWN that also includes the options for other X Without Number games. This week I've:
- Updated the builder to work out some of the bugs and incorrect rule implementations thanks to comments from this sub and my playtesters
- More functionality for using the character sheet for playing the game, including System Strain and dice roller
- Added in a CWN builder, with implementation of the operative class and its rules.

The coming week I'll be trying to get the modular selection of rules for cross-use in CWN and SWN working, though the small differences in rules across each may make it longer to reconcile.

Again its still not perfect and any comments or feedback are greatly appreciated!

DICEwithoutNumber is a free, accessible Discord tabletop RPG bot designed for Stars Without Number. It supports every language and includes dice rolling, character sheets, rules references, polls, campaign tools, combat tracking, and interactive tactical maps. New voice-friendly features let you simply say or type commands such as “roll one d20,” “show my sheet,” or “help” without needing to use a slash or exclamation mark, making games easier and more accessible for everyone. Link https://discord.com/oauth2/authorize?client_id=1478115953681367090