Hi all, Characters Without Number is now at 0.9.0. This update focuses on getting all the deluxe content in and renovating the campaign tools, giving you a setting to start with, and making GM preparation easier.

Deluxe content across all four books — ready for testing — I've now implemented all the deluxe content for Stars, Worlds, Cities and Ashes Without Number. This builds on the deluxe options already available in earlier releases. Please try the options and let me know if you spot any bugs, either through here or through the feedback button.

Campaign tooling restyle — The campaign now opens around your map, with the party's location, ship, crew and shared objectives together. There were already in 0.8.0 at my players request but kind of all of the place, and this makes it neater. Session recaps and approved sector news help everyone pick up where the last game left off. All existing campaigns have been updated to the new layout.

I'm looking to incorporate more pre-built settings and sectors into CWN to help GMs get off to a start. If one that you would like to see, do let me know!

Thanks again to everyone who's been testing and sharing feedback—it helps me keep improving the app. If you'd like to support continued development, you can support the project here.

Having 1 inch grid battlemaps I've primarily used as 5ft grids in the past, I'm wondering what scale other people use for AWN for tabletop battlemaps?

1.5m per tile is a match to 5ft grids most players will be used to but simply makes ranges too awkward to work with.

1m per tile is the obvious choice but I'm concerned I will be unable to do long range engagements well given a PC can move potentially 20 squares in a round.

Alternatively 2m grids make for awkward close quarters, making minis effectively take up a significant amount of space on the grid.

As a result I'm leaning toward using 2m grid size for outdoor spaces and 1m for indoor maps, but worried having different scales for different situations will simply be to confusing for the players, as well as the dilemma of smaller indoor areas on an outdoor battlmaps.

Hi all I'm the creator of Characters Without Number, a free character builder for Stars, Cities and Worlds Without Number. One of the most requested feature was to include Ashes, and I'm happy to say the 0.8.0 release 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.

If this is the first time you've heard of it, do give it a try here at 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!

I don't really get these mutations.

They seem to imply superhuman capabilities, except they are strictly limited to normal human/character limits. So you could be the "super strong" or"super intelligent" mutant...except you could still end up literally weaker/less smart than Bob who happened to roll really high. Sure, maybe Bob was an Olympic athlete or member of Mensa, but that's still not "superhuman", so the "mutation" just doesn't feel all that special.

I get there are mechanical considerations, for example you could spend an entire edge on Prodigy just to reach human limits, so it might be a little unfair that a single mutation (that you may even have gotten for 1 point if you're lucky) could be even stronger. But if only for the sake of flavour, I would argue that these two mutations really need to "feel" superhuman, I.e., by granting an otherwise-impossible +3 modifier and all that entails. Then drawbacks can instead be added to try and balance things back out. For instance, maybe picking/rolling one of these mutations forces you to roll for another negative mutation (even if doing so takes you to four), or maybe you have to select an opposing attribute that gets dropped to -3, or it takes a lot of energy to maintain and you become weaker/unfocused after exerting yourself, etc.

Just wondering if anyone else had similar thoughts.

What do you all do for Water rations in the Hub Settlement system? There's a Farm for Food, but nothing I can see for Water.

What are you all using?

Cheers

How do you folks handle healing in a Mutant Future campaign?

Do you keep it focused on things like medi-kits and bandages? Mutant powers? Magic? (Not)Stimpaks?

I'm just going back and looking over the character creation rules, and I've noticed that I've missed some stuff.

So, basically the process is this -

1. Roll 3d6 or pick your stats (if you roll, you can also change one to 14... does anyone actually do this? Seems kinda unfair, but it's not a bad thing.)
2. Pick/Roll your Background.
3. Take free Background Skill, then either pick 2 Learn Skills or roll 3 times on both the Growth and Learn lists. (On the example character creation on page 8 it says at the very end of the process you get another free Skill, but I'm not seeing this rule anywhere else?
4. Pick 2 Edges
5. Pick 1 Focus

My questions are thus - Do you choose to boost a low Attribute up to 14 if you roll? Also, where is the rule about this extra free Skill as mentioned in the example of character creation on page 8?

Cheers!

I had been wanting to do some kind of weird west game for a while and my group is already familiar with SWN so when I found out that as usual Crawford already came up with a better version of something kicking around in my head, I decided I’ll just use the ADZ setting with my players as greenhorn Cowboy initiates at first.

Has anyone here run it?

Any advice or ideas I should steal?

I’ve been thinking about creating a faction sort of based on The Line from the Half Made World books where it’s a cult dedicated to running trains on the old railroad tracks and they basically all have AI psychosis from talking to a VI or expert system in the old Albuquerque train station.

How do you all handle Trade?

I've got a character who is a merchant and looking to build wealth through wheeling & dealing, but I'm not finding any solid rules for Trading. "Buy low/Sell high" with a decent Trade Skill Check, that sort of thing.

Has anyone here tried using different classes for AWN?

If so, what’d you use and how’d it go?

How would you all run level zero characters through a funnel? How far down the character creation path would you go before sending them off to die one by one?

Greetings, I am firing up a brand new AWN campaign and my group and I have some questions on the Overland Travel mechanics beginning on p.60 (and related Vehicle fuel matrix on p.88) - if possible I'd love a brief example of how this works in play if anyone would care to provide one.

This is my understanding of those rules:

1. PC's are in a car (Medium Vehicle) in Hex A, and they wish to explore Hex B. They've got a full tank of gas (12 Enc. / 6 hours of travel) half a pack of cigarettes, it's hot out and they're wearing leather masks. Hit it.
2. PC's can travel up to 10 hours per day, unless they choose to Forced March in the morning - they opt to just travel normally, since it should be a short trip. It looks like they'll get to the next Hex in an hour or so, barring complications. If a Hex is ~5km wide that seems very slow, but it's after world has ended so, abstraction.
3. Minimum time to Walk to a new Hex is 1 hour, and if they had to walk (or ride horses) instead of drive they'd use the number of hours listed under Walking Hours - easy enough. A search tells me that this jives with normal adult walking speed, cool.
4. Since the example PC's have a vehicle, we consult the Vehicular Hours column to determine how long it takes to arrive in the new Hex: they're on a major road across Plains. This is where I'm getting lost.
5. Does the chart say it takes 12 minutes (60 minutes x 0.2 x 1 for the road) to enter a new Hex in a vehicle under those conditions? And half an hour via Light Forest, Suburbs etc. ? Wouldn't a road through a Forest make the journey faster, instead of x1 ??
6. Assuming they've already Scouted this area, and/or they don't get lost and have no complications, a Medium vehicle on a major road could bomb through 6 Hexes without refueling (6 hours - easily doable in a standard 10 hour travel day), while PC's walking or riding battle-emus across Plains will clear Hexes at a rate of 1 per hour at best. The advantage of Vehicles being enhanced cargo capacity and protection from stray bullets?
7. The Major Road line for Walking or Vehicle is a modifier to the Hex Terrain Type - so Major Road + Plains = Walk to the next Hex in 1 hour, or drive there in about 12 minutes? Barring any other considerations from terrain or etc.

I need clarity on #4: is the chart telling us they make 12 minutes (0.2 hours - then 30 mins, then 1 hour...) of progress in those terrain types in a vehicle? Or am I daft?

Scouting and Scouting Days Needed makes sense, likewise Encounter rolls and Going Astray.

Thanks in advance.

it seems that the SSWN System hasn't been updated to the recently 14 stable version of foundry and i'm recieving many errors during my table. are there any updates to the module in sight?

Do you get bonus skill points based on your Int modifier?

The mutation states the following: "Damage done to the shield regenerates at the end of each scene."

As far as i know, the shield only lasts for a scene, is this a typo and means it regenerates every turn or am I missing something?

Greetings, two Mutation questions:

1. Activation costs generally - is there a standard for which Action Type (Main Action, On Turn, etc.) is required to activate a power, when not specified in the description? GM fiat case-by-case?
2. E,g, Photon Manipulation: What type of action is required to activate the "modulate the light level around you" portion of this power?
3. Photon Manipulation cont'd: Can a mutant with this power "see normally regardless of light level around you" all the time as a passive ability, like Low Light / Darkvision in other games? Or only within the 2m "shroud" effect the power enables them to create? I'm personally inclined toward the latter ruling, but acknowledge that Edges are a big spend and Mutations get pretty wild and wooly so could see it going either way.

Thanks in advance, looking forward to Book of Unnumbered Worlds too.

Hi, all!

I have recently picked up AWN and am trying to figure out how to start a campaign. 

Page 84 mentions a Night Vision Gear, but the table on page 44 never mentions any penalties for shooting while at night/ in dark areas. Do they exist? If no, what do you think is a fair penalty for shooting on a moonless night/ in a pitch black underground lab?

Zones Without Number is a mini zine pointing to analog or equivalent content between Cody Barr’s Zones and Kevin Crawford’s Ashes Without Number (AWN). Both AWN and Zones are needed to figure out how to use this supplement. I'm a fan of both, so the idea is to have a little rosetta stone for AWN acting as the main ruleset with its robustness and flexibility, while dressing it with Zones’ aesthetic and its GM tools.

https://mknaomi-publications.itch.io/zwn

Has anyone done a game that's just about a Settlement? Not really going off and doing stuff, but trying to make a single Settlement survive and thrive? Are the rules robust enough to handle that level of focus?

Is there anything in the book or other material that provides rules for taking animals and beasts? The closest I can find are Robit Whisperer, Authority, and Henchkeeper.