‘Worlds Without Number’ Takes the Stress Out of High Fantasy Gaming
Worlds Without Number wants you to live your fantasy adventure dreams and doesn’t think that it has to be difficult to do so.
Worlds Without Number is a high fantasy tabletop RPG that will bring you to new worlds… Which seems to be Sine Nomine Publishing’s M.O. Worlds Without Number is based pretty heavily on their popular previous science fiction RPG, Stars Without Number. And with a good reputation for a good game, fans came through on Kickstarter and Worlds Without Number was born.
Worlds Without Number
We all imagine a few key things—probably the same few key things—when we think about fantasy tabletop RPGs. And honestly, it’s nice to have options besides those same few things. I can’t say that Worlds Without Number is terribly original or innovative, but it doesn’t have to be. In fact, I think trying to reinvent the wheel would have been to its detriment. Instead, it’s a fantasy game as you would imagine it, and it does that really well.
Much of the game’s book is an open-world sandbox for your GM to dig through. The pre-built world of Latter Earth is described for your gaming pleasure. But if that’s not the fantasy world you want to play in, it’s also only about twenty pages surrounded by all of the advice and tools you’ll need to build your own campaign setting.
And honestly? This is a system that just feels like it was made with care and to be cared about. It’s solid and thoughtful, and even the artwork is downright gorgeous.
Character Creation and Gameplay
If you played Stars Without Number, you more or less know exactly how this is going to sound. Worlds Without Number makes a few changes, but not enough to make the game unrecognizable or a vastly different experience. Sometimes a different setting and style just need a little different flavor.
Core mechanics focus on D20s and D6s plus modifiers. Overall, rules are easy and focused on enjoying gameplay and pushing the plot forward over making sure characters follow the laws of fantasy physics.
Even character creation is relatively simplified, but not as fast as some other systems. Greener tabletop gamers may need a session zero, while more experienced players will likely have a character in half an hour. There are only four main class options (Expert, Warrior, Mage, and Adventurer), but ways to combine and balance them if you’d like. Characters will need a focus, background, attributes, hobbies, skills and hit points. And of course mages are always a little more work because they have traditions and spells to pick from. This isn’t a system where you check a few boxes and have a finished character, but it’s also not one where you’ll be pouring over multiple charts and buying skill points.
If you’d like to learn more about Worlds Without Number or play for yourself, check out the Sine Nomine Publishing site here.
Have you played Worlds Without Number? Will you be checking it out? Do you prefer fantasy gaming, or sci-fi? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
