Edit 2024-04-09: I’ve refined a bit my thoughts after more sessions of play.

Edit 2024-06-25: idem

Worlds Without Number (WWN) is a 396 pages book by Kevin Crawford. It’s origins lies in the Stars Without Number sci-fi rpg system by the same author. This time the default setting « Latter Earth » is a science fantasy world in the vein of Jack Vance’s Dying Earth, Gene Wolfe’s Book of the New Sun or M. John Harrison’s Viriconium (those are my own references, sadly the author doesn’t cites his inspiration sources).

What the book claims to offer is nothing less than everything you need to run a sandbox campaign, or about 2/3 of the book on worldbuilding, mostly in the shape of random tables. The worldbuilding part seems well done to me but I’ve only skimmed through that part, I might use some of this content some day but as of yet I didn’t. The reason why I’ve bought WWN is for the rpg system it offers – so my comments for today will focus on this (much slimmer) part.

What the WWN system is all about?

• It’s a hybrid system. An old-school D&D chassis (i.e roll 3d6 in order for your six attributes) combined with a modularity (i.e foci (feats) that let you be an expert at something, combat or otherwise that also have hydrid classes) that you don’t find in most standard old-school systems.
• It has only 4 main classes: Expert, Warrior, Mage, and the Adventurer (that lets you combine with one of numerous « part-classes » with something like 80 combinations). There’s sub-classes for the Mage: the classical High Mage, the Necromancer, Elementalist and many more. To be frank, I’m on the fence with this whole part-class thing, it offers a lot of options for customizing a character but it also feels a bit wonky. It’s like two systems of character creation instead of one, maybe not a bad thing per se but not the most elegant piece of design either IMO.
• Human-centric world. You can play an elf or dwarf or WWN’s own brand of fantasy races, but only with a bit of fiddling.
• The spells have Vancian names like: « The Coruscating Coffin » or « The Jade Palanquin of the Faceless God ». The magic-users have very few spells per day (only one at 1st and 2nd level!) but again, they’re a lot more impactful than your regular magic missile, i.e. Invisibility at level 1. Magic isn’t risky (like in DCC for example) but you have to choose your moment carefully for maximum impact. Aside from the spells, mages have Arts, lesser magical abilities, most of them utilitarian in nature (read magic + darkvision combined as one example). Each magic specialities have a good list to choose from.
• Combat is d20 based but skill checks use 2d6 + attribute mod + skill level (1 to 4) to beat 6, 8 or 10 or more depending on difficulty. With this less random formula, the characters skill’s competency feels a LOT more relevant.
• On the character’s sheet there’s a list for « readied items » based on the encumbrance capacity (strength-based) of the character. It’s great and efficient.
• Combat is fast and deadly and in my impression it feels more chaotic than tactical (not necessarily a bad thing) unless you pay very close attention to the list of combat options provided i.e. screen ally, snap attack, etc.

Some things unique to WWN:

• There’s a « Shock » mechanics in combat – martial melee weapons will often (except against an opponent with high AC or with a shield) do damage, even with a miss. It’s a bit conterintuitive but characters that are built for combat (warriors in particular) can do potent damage without ever succeeding with their d20 fight checks…
• There’s a System Strain mechanics that put a limit (your constitution score) on the number of time you can be healed before having to recuperate in a safe place (i.e in town).
• Levels are capped at 10 at which point you may (depending on the type of campaign) become a « Legate » and have access to new powerful abilities.
• A lot of character features to mitigate randomness, including automatic hits, sucesses on skill checks, balancing of hit points the more you level up, etc.

So here’s a few from the hip comments after we had several sessions of play, this might change with further experience:

• Overall WWN characters are as fragile (edit: not quite true, they have several options to mitigate damage) as your standard old-school one but feel a lot more capable.
• The list of part-classes and foci available ensure a great customisation but that comes at a cost: if a player wishes to examine all the options then creating a character in minutes like in simpler systems would be impossible.
• My players are a bit confused with the Shock thing. A low hit points character can easily die from just the shock damage and that seems a bit excessive. But overall I think it makes more sense than wooshing weapon swings half the time.
• My brother Jason played an Adventurer (part-Expert, Part-Healer) and can do magical healing all the time, like every frikin round. He even calls his character a « healing tower » like in these tower defense video games… It’s an odd design choice, in stark contrast with the full Mages who have one big moment per session and I’m still on the fence on what to do with this character. (edit; removed the character)
• The system strain is, as far as I can tell, designed to be implemented within an expedition of several sessions’ worth of play. With how we’re playing now with the PCs always back in town after their session of dungeon-crawling (and with downtime), it doesn’t come close to being relevant. I think I’ll have to adjust that.
• My sister’s Necromancer has wiped out 20 out of 24 (1 HD) skeletons with her Smite the Dead spell in last session. Her unique spell of the day but certainly well-spent. The magic system is still fairly close to D&D but its tweaking of limited-use but POTENT spells is interesting. But don’t expect your main villain to fare well in this environment!
• If most of the WWN system is perfectly okay for generic fantasy, the crafting system notably is pretty much designed with science fantasy in mind.
• The Intelligence attribute isn’t linked to magic-using this time around so I guess you could have a dumb as a rock Mage? It feels wrong to me. Intelligence is linked with « efforts » which are used to fuel the « Arts », the lesser magical abilities.
• The book lacks a proper bestiary, (edit: it has some creature base stats as well as options/powers to add but that’s it, creatures have to be « built », they are not ready to use). Edit: That’s still my biggest complaint to date.

All in all, WWN has some weaknesses and I might tweak a few things but I like it. It offers a solid core, with its main strengths being the handling of skills, character customization and idiosyncratic magic system. The main character classes are well thought out and you can easily create whatever you have in mind if you invest a bit more time. A D&D-adjacent game that has a pretty unique feel.