SWN Rules Explained: How "Club Up a Weapon" Works

Star Master Log

Apr 16

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New series! Brian (Thorne's player and assistant [to the] star master) breaks down the rules behind the scenes of the Dark Star Adventurecast, a Stars Without Number actual-play podcast.

In this episode, Brian covers the "Club Up a Weapon" move action from the Stars Without Number revised rulebook (page 50), using the dreamscape combat from Episode 20 as a case study. What happens when a warrior gets stuck in melee with a rifle? The weapon-breaking rule on max damage created an unscripted chain reaction, and custom expert gadgets (a flashlight and an adhesive gun) gave the non-combat characters meaningful options in a fight.

New SWN Rules Explained episodes drop every other Thursday, breaking down the mechanics behind the adventure.

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[00:00:00] Brian: Hello, Dark Star Adventure Cast fans, and welcome to the inaugural episode of our new segment called Stars Without Number Rules Explained, where we take a look at how the fiction is influenced by the rules of the system. Long-time listeners have likely noticed that the Adventure Cast episodes tend to focus on the action and the story, but behind the scenes, there are always encounters to plan, rules to look up, and rulings to adjudicate. I will be your host, assistant star master, and occasional backup game master, Brian, in this special segment where I'll break down the rules and give reference points for listeners that want to know more about how the actual game systems work behind the scenes. If the star master logs are a place to learn about the thought processes that go into planning and running a campaign, then these segments can be seen as a place to see how the game system you choose can shape the game that you play. In this episode, we'll be talking about the latest Dark Star Adventure Cast episode, She Never Existed, Hayley's Story, an episode focused on Hayley's backstory that takes place almost entirely in her dreamscape. If you haven't already listened to it, definitely check that out first. When we started to plan to run this episode, we knew that we would need simplified, temporary character sheets for the 12-year-old versions of the scapegoat crew that Hayley had dreamt up in her mind.
[00:01:19] Brian: It was likely that we would run into some kind of trouble or combat, so we came up with the idea of using toy weapons. For Haley and Robert, there wasn't much difference from their normal characters, but for the experts in the group, Felix and Thorne, we thought about other ways they could interact with conflict. Where warriors don't need much help thanks to their improved attack bonus, more skill points to spend on improving combat skills, and their ability to force a hit or miss once per scene, experts tend to have a harder time in combat unless they can find things to interact with. So, for this one-off episode, we came up with Thorn's glue gun and Felix's flashlight, silly gadgets that would grant some mechanical effect without forcing the experts to target an enemy's armor class directly. Felix's flashlight was based heavily on the flash grenade from Stars Without Numbers' sister system, Cities Without Number, on page 56 of the free Cities Without Number rulebook.
[00:02:13] Brian: The idea was that rather than try to roll a combat skill, the experts could use items on their turn with their main action that would impose a saving throw from the target. In the case of Felix's light, it was a physical save to cover their eyes or resist the powerful light. Failure to do so would give them a minus two to attacks and AC for 1d6 rounds and take away their main action. This isn't going to win the combat outright. We don't want Felix to finish them off, since that's usually a job for the warriors. but it would make the enemies more manageable and less dangerous. Just the kind of thing you want to see an expert doing with their turn. Thorn's glue gun had a similar design philosophy, but it wasn't based on any specific item. The idea was to impose an invasion save to dodge the goo, or else they'll get rooted in place for 1d6 rounds, with the option to use their main action to make an exert skill check to break out. This never actually came up in the session, but again, the idea isn't to let the expert defeat the enemies directly, but to give them a way to interact with the combat scenes in interesting ways that help the warriors take things out. We actually never planned to use this adhesive goo for anything other than that, but it just so happened that Robert broke his plastic gun, and so Thorn was able to use his main action to make a fixed skill check to get Robert back in the fight.
[00:03:32] Brian: When I'm making custom weapons or items, I really try to see if there's something that already exists that has the same or a similar effect to what I'm looking for, so I can be sure that what I'm doing will be balanced against everything else that already exists. Was Felix's light too powerful, since grenades are meant to be thrown and then consumed? Did it really make sense that Thorn could fix Robert's busted gun in a single round? Maybe not, but this was a temporary Dreamscape episode, so I was able to take a few liberties without worrying about these things becoming long-term habits.
[00:04:02] Brian: Speaking of Robert's broken Nerf gun, this was actually a great moment that really highlights exactly how the rules can shape the fiction of your game. So Doja, Robert's player, really wanted to run in, guns blazing, get up close, and do some cool stuff. But his gun, which was based on the rifle that Robert normally uses, was too big to fire up close when the entities finally approached him. In the Common Actions in Combat section of the Stars Without Number revised rulebook on page 50, it explains that rifle-sized weapons cannot be fired at all when an enemy is within melee range. Robert didn't want to be subjected to the free attack that a character can make when an enemy combatant moves out of melee range without using the Fighting Withdrawal action, and if he used his main action to withdraw, then he wasn't going to be able to fire his gun that turn. So what does he do? Well, on that same page of the rulebook, there's a move action called Club Up a Weapon that lets a character use their rifle or pistol as a primitive melee weapon, in this case dealing 1d6 plus 1 damage. This let Robert get more value out of his turn while minimizing the risk. He could use his move action to club up the weapon, and then his main action to strike with it.
[00:05:12] Brian: But a lighter rules system might not have called for that line of decision making. And so now we can see how the rules are starting to shape our scene a little bit. In fact, when a character using the club up a weapon action attacks with it, there's another rule described there that says if you roll the maximum damage amount, you hit the target so hard that you actually break your weapon over them. And this actually happened to Robert in that scene. He hits for seven damage, but now his nerf gun is trashed.
[00:05:40] Brian: And since this is a special adventure, we didn't have much else on us in the way of inventory items or alternate weapons to switch to. Robert is one of our two main sources of damage, and him being completely out of the fight would have been a huge setback. Well, on the turn just before this, Thorn had fired his adhesive at the creatures and they dodged it. So when his turn came back around again, I decided to try to do something else with my action. Robert does way more damage than I do, so I suggested using the adhesive to repair his gun, and Jeff decided to allow it based on the circumstances. If it wasn't for the rule about breaking a clubbed weapon or clubbing up the weapon at all, this whole interaction would not have happened. Robert and Thorne would have just continued to try and shoot their guns turn after turn until the enemies were gone.
[00:06:26] Brian: Almost counterintuitively, these extra little restrictions gave us a lot more room for creativity. Well, that's all the time I have for this segment. Thank you so much for listening. I really hope you enjoyed this small dive into the more mechanical aspects of what happens in a Dark Star Adventure Cast episode.
[00:07:03] Brian: A huge thank you to Brad and Holly, our Scapegoat Syndicate members on Patreon. They are keeping the lights on and they're keeping the goat cruising. Thanks again, everyone, for listening. And as always, keep following that signal.