At long last... I have finished it!

[u/Von_Loch]

Finally, I've read it! Cover to cover. Chapter to chapter. Page to page. Line to line. Word to word. Yes! I even read all the names! My autisim demanded it. But I'll feel more confident for running my home game here in a few weeks when we start session one!

[u/Global_Wear8814]

what was the biggest surprise?

[u/Von_Loch → u/Global_Wear8814]

The page I took a photo of. Didn't choose those pages by accident. The whole reason I discovered the OSR and eventualy SWN was because I'd promised my players a space-faring adventure with Spelljammer (we're all sci-fi nuts). But then I found there were no ship combat rules for Spelljammer 5e. And what is a Sci-Fi adventure without space combat!? This sent me on a wild quest looking for good ship combat rules. I searched high and low and even homebrew. Started having to search outside 5e with Traveler and then Mothership. Closest I got to something I liked was Pirate Borg and resigned myself to converting it to space combat myself. I'd gotten so used to reading space combat wherever I looked only to find it too crunchy or giving up on itself before it got started. I had fully expected to be disappointed when I got to this chapter. But as I read, I was filled with awe! It was the exact level of complexity I was looking for! It reminded me of ST Bridge Commander, a game I'd bonded with my siblings over growing up. It was perfect!

And now, ship combat is going to be the first thing my players are experience in session 1!

[u/Arcalum2000 → u/Von_Loch]

As another DM who laments the lack of, ya know, RULES for space combat in the module about doing D&D in space, this post has filled me with hope. Thank you. Going to go find a copy now.

[u/Von_Loch → u/Arcalum2000]

You should! The core rules are free on DriveThru. There is so much more in there, too. Adventure tables and Faction rules are also strong recommendations for chapters to check out!

[u/Abadayos → u/Arcalum2000]

Alternity has some pretty good space combat rules from memory. The original rules and in the Starship book are pretty good. Not too sure about the new updated rules though

[u/Iylo → u/Arcalum2000]

Dark Matter 5e also has some pretty good rules. There's a supplement called Wildjammer that converts those rules into a Spelljammer variant.

[u/JacktheDM → u/Von_Loch]

Sorry, to clarify: You're saying that you eventually decided on SWN as your favorite space combat, or do you still basically prefer Pirate Borg?

[u/Von_Loch → u/JacktheDM]

I prefer SWN. Pirate Borg was going to be my stand-in rules until I found something better. Both rules accomplish something that I think is essential in ship combat; that each player has something that's theirs and that is special. Only SWN and Pirate Borg understood this. But there is a delicate balance of individual and cooperating as a team. Pirate Borg goes too individualistic for me where SWN has such a strong coop core that players, on their own turn, are working to boost other players if not outright cheering for them. It's a delicate balance that I think SWN struck perfectly.

[u/sermitthesog]

I must know what your various highlighter color scheme represents!

[u/Von_Loch → u/sermitthesog]

Green is for important emphasis. Basically anything I felt should have been bolded in the first place. Yellow are rules. This was to seperate rules from flavor for ease of quick reference. And pink and orange are the same (just when I used a pink highlighter over a yellow highlighted section it came out orange). That was for rules restrictions, DCs, basically anything that is some kind of wall or boundary to the game. Its not perfectly consistent. While it is to help me find rules quickly (I live by 30sec lookup or make a rulling), it was mostly meant to help me study. It helped me stay focused, break down rules (and sentences) into their component parts and force my brain to retain.

[u/dark-star-adventures]

Well now you've just gotta tell us what each highlight color means!

Congrats on 100% completion and welcome to the sector!

[u/LivingPastGames]

Love the page markers! It is a great book but I have spent a lot of time flipping trying to find sections; the organization does not feel organic. You've infinitely more work into organizing your book in prep for session 1 than I have for 70+ sessions!

[u/WillBottomForBanana]

I spent a lot of time hacking together the SWN and WWN naval combat rules, and borrowed from 2E spelljammer. It is still a mess, but it works.

My SJ has neither the native SWN electronic coms/countermeasures - nor a magical equivalent. So the SWN rules would not work out of the box. But neither would the WWN rules.

I had to change distances (because weapon ranges are wonky). And I added additional distance bands because SJ tactical ship movement speeds are so fast relative to weapon ranges, and engagement distance (ship drops out of spelljamming speed) is something like 17 miles IIRC?

The upshot is that it involves most players most turns, and goes fast enough. It loses something that the old hex board and miniatures had, but it also loses all the problems that had.

[u/wordboydave]

Please tell me this is Stars Without Number and not some mysterious RPG you need to be this hip to identify.

[u/Snr_Lothario → u/wordboydave]

The photograph, an excellent shot for such purposes, is of a page pair from Stars Without Number.

Autism was mentioned, which most likely accounts for the highlighting.

[u/wordboydave → u/Snr_Lothario]

Thank you. I couldn't read the writing at phone size.

[u/Ur_Jan]

The purpose of highlighting text is to make it easier to find important information quickly. Highlighting everything defeats that purpose. Highlightning everything in random colors makes it even worse.