SWN Rules Explained: How Character Creation Works in Stars Without Number

Rules Explained

Jul 9

This rules breakdown was released two weeks early for patrons. To skip the wait on every episode, Star Master Log, and rules breakdown, join us at https://www.patreon.com/DarkStarAdventurecast

Brian walks through Stars Without Number character creation from scratch, covering attributes, backgrounds, skills, classes, and foci. Inspired by the events of "You're a Good Person, Robert," he builds a Robert Ross clone as the worked example, rolling randomly for background and attributes, and ends up with a telepathic courtesan built for assassination.

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

Buy us a coffee: https://ko-fi.com/darkstaradventurecast

[00:00:03] Brian: Access approved.
[00:00:05] Brian: Hey there, AdventureCast fans, and welcome to another exciting episode of Stars Without Number Rules Explained, the bite-sized extra DSA segment where we flip open the rulebook, scan the pages, and learn how the RPG system that you choose to play can change the way your sessions turn out. Once again, I will be your host, Assistant Star Master and occasional backup Game Master, Brian, the player behind the voice of Captain Thorndraxxus of the Scapegoat Crew. While a normal DSA episode is primarily presented to our listeners fiction first, I like to use this segment as an opportunity to talk about Stars Without Number itself and how the rules of the game both constrain us and inspire us to make fun and interesting decisions. Collaborative storytelling can be its own reward, but for some TTRPG fans, the actual systems and rulings in play can be another source of interest for them in how a game or scene plays out.
[00:01:02] Brian: If you like to know how things work behind the scenes, then this is the place for you. Today on Stars Without Number Rules Explained, I'm going to walk you through the process of creating your very own character. I decided this would be a good time to dig into it based on the events of the latest Dark Star Adventurecast episode, You're a Good Person, Robert. The crew is on the hunt for whoever tried to blow them up, partially for information and partially for revenge. But what will they do when they find out an all too familiar face is behind the assassination attempt? If you haven't already listened to it, you should go check it out first, otherwise this next bit might be a bit of a spoiler. Making characters is one of the first things most players do when they sit down to play a tabletop RPG. Sometimes the game master or the system provides pre-made characters, but most of the time, new players are left to their own devices. For some, this is a great chance to be creative. But the process can also be quite daunting, especially in more complex systems or for players new to TTRPGs in general. That's why I'm going to sit down and walk you through the process of creating your very own Stars Without Number character. And what better way to do that than by creating a Robert Ross clone of our very own. Character creation is just about the first thing you'll stumble on when you crack open your copy of the Stars Without Number revised rulebook. The whole process starts on page three, and the book does a fantastic job of telling you everything that you need to know in an order that makes sense. It can take a while to read it all, so in this segment I'll give you the basics and enough to identify all of the necessary steps, but I highly recommend reading the chapter yourself if you're going to sit down and create a character of your own. Page 4 has a great simplified breakdown that can serve as an invaluable companion to have by your side while you do it. Essentially, a Stars Without Number character is made up of five major parts.
[00:02:58] Brian: Their attributes, their background, their skills, their class, and their foci. So let's walk through how to choose them one by one. Make sure you have some scratch paper or a blank document to write things down in. You can transfer them to a character sheet once we're done at the end. A character's attributes are split into six numbers, each ranging from 3 to 18, that measure how competent the character is. If you've played Dungeons & Dragons or any other tabletop games, you'll probably recognize these six values. Strength, which is a measure of how physically strong a character is. Dexterity measures their reflexes and coordination. Constitution represents their endurance and survivability. Intelligence tells you how conventionally smart they are. Wisdom measures their insight or attention to detail. And charisma represents their strength of personality. Each attribute is rolled randomly by rolling 3d6 for each of them in order. Your first roll represents the character's strength, the second is their dexterity, and so on. You're not meant to generate six numbers and then assign them to the attributes you care most about. Randomness is an integral part of creating a character in Stars Without Number. And while there are options to choose specifically what you want when you have a certain character design in mind, I encourage players to embrace this randomness, and find out where it takes them and their characters. Once you have all six of your numbers, you may optionally change one of them to a 14 to ensure your character is at least good at something.
[00:04:37] Brian: Once you're done with that, check page 6 of the rulebook to figure out the modifier for each of your character's attributes. Like many tabletop RPGs, Stars Without Number uses a value for each attribute called the score, and then a second value to determine how that attribute modifies the player's rolls at the table, called the modifier. If you have a 10 in your strength score, it does not mean you add 10 to your rolls. The table on page 6 will tell you what the attribute modifier is for any given score. You need only keep track of it on your character sheet. As your character grows, their attribute scores may change, which in turn would also potentially change the attribute modifier. If you're familiar with modern Dungeons & Dragons attribute modifiers, make sure you study that table on page 6 closely. The calculations do not work the same way.
[00:05:29] Brian: For my Robert Ross clone, I rolled 3d6 six times, and I got 8, 8, 8, 9, 13, and 11, in that order. Based on these rolls, my character's fairly weak physically, but they're fairly wise. Since my character was probably cloned for military purposes, I think I'm going to change their 8 Dexterity to be a 14. So my clone's final attributes are 8 Strength, which is a plus 0 modifier, 14 Dexterity, that's a plus 1 modifier, 8 Constitution, 9 Intelligence, also a 0 modifier, 13 Wisdom, 0 again, and 11 Charisma, which is, you guessed it, a 0.
[00:06:14] Brian: Now that we know the character's attributes, we need to pick a background. A background tells what sort of past experiences your character may have had, and because of those experiences, they'll be better at certain things. Just like how a person who spends every day of their life fishing would naturally get better at it. The full list of backgrounds is found on page 9 of the revised rules, but then the subsequent pages break each one down in more detail. There's 20 total in the book, so you could even roll a d20 and decide that randomly, although it's not required. For my clone, I decided to roll randomly, and I got the courtesan background. Because of that, I decided to pivot and change my free 14 in one attribute to charisma instead of dexterity. Remember that until you're done, everything about your character is still in flux. Don't write your attributes on your fancy character sheet in pen during step one. Take notes and don't be afraid to change your mind.
[00:07:10] Brian: Each background has several important components to it that you'll want to write down. First is the free skill. Anyone who has that background would need to be at least basically competent in that skill. For the courtesan, the free skill is perform. So I'll write that down that I have perform 0, which is another way of saying I have the perform skill at level 0. If a character does not have a skill at all, then their rank or level in that skill is considered to be negative 1. When they first learn the skill, it becomes zero. Each time you would learn that skill again, you can instead rank it up, but no skill can go above level one during the character creation process. If you would gain the same skill a third time, simply choose any other non-psychic skill to rank up instead. Once you have your free skill noted down, you might notice two tables under each background, a growth table and a learning table. If you want to choose your skills for yourself, you can pick any two off the learning table or just use the quick skills listed for that background. For example, the courtesan has perform, notice, and connect as its quick skills. Just a point of clarity, the perform skill is the free skill, and then notice and connect were chosen from the learning table.
[00:08:23] Brian: Taking the quick skills does not give you another rank of your free skill. However, if you want to embrace the randomness, and I insist that you should, instead of picking two skills from the learning table, you can roll three times on any combination of the learning and growth tables. The growth table contains improvements to your attributes, which can be a huge help if your attribute rolls were a bit underwhelming. You could roll all three times on growth to maximize your stats, or you could roll all three times on learning to get the most skills. Notice that by choosing randomness, the game actually rewards you with an additional skill or a bonus that a player who picks their skills doesn't get.
[00:09:05] Brian: This is an intentional design choice, and I would encourage you to abide by it. Our clone didn't do so hot on the attribute rolls, so I'm taking one growth roll and two learning rolls. I roll 1d6 and then 2d8 to find out what I get. I rolled plus 2 physical on the growth table, which is nice because my physical attributes aren't great. I think I'll end up putting that plus 2 into dexterity, since it's back to being a measly 8. It doesn't improve the modifier yet, but it does get me closer. If I had rolled any bonus to mental attributes, I would have used at least one point to increase this character's wisdom to 14, and then that would have improved their modifier. But alas, the dice did not see fit. If you get a plus two, you can choose to split it between any two attributes of that type, if you want, which can be great if you have any that are just one point away from getting the next modifier. Don't forget to check the attribute modifier table again on page six. And remember, nothing about your character is finalized until we're done. My learning table rolls got me talk and any combat skill. That's perfect for me. I think I'll go with stab. I think this clone may use their wiles to get their target to lower their guard before ultimately assassinating them. This certainly wasn't the character I thought I was going to make, but the system rules are giving me the tools to get creative by forcing me to choose certain things randomly.
[00:10:30] Brian: This sort of character creation isn't for everyone, but you might be surprised what you come up with when you have to work with what you're given. Next up, we're on to pick our class. If you've been listening to the other Rules Explained episodes, then you're probably already familiar with your options. The Warrior, the Expert, the Psychic, and the Adventurer. In case you missed it, I'll give you the short version. Warriors get improved survivability, extra combat skills and foci, and battle luck. Experts get extra non-combat skills and foci, plus a chance to re-roll non-combat skills. Psychics get access to a suite of special powers, and adventurers are a sort of mix between any two of the other three. Our courtesan probably isn't a warrior since they're going to be relying on wit and subterfuge to get in close to their targets. I don't think they would be a full-fledged trained psychic since we don't see many of those in the DSA universe, so our clone is going to be an adventurer, partial expert, partial psychic.
[00:11:29] Brian: This will give them an additional non-combat focus and a level 0 psychic skill. For the psychic skill, I'll choose telepathy. This gives my courtesan a way to sense and manipulate the feelings of the people they're working. They'll get the telepathy core technique, telepathic contact, just for gaining access to the psychic skill. But as an untrained psychic with zero modifiers in both constitution and wisdom, they'll only have a single point of effort for each day. I talk about effort in more detail in a previous segment focused on psychics, but it's essentially representing how often they can use their psychic abilities, similar to mana or spell slots. For my Expert focus, I'll keep it simple and I'll choose Specialist in the Perform skill. By taking a level in this focus, my clone will be able to roll 3d6 for their Perform skill checks, keeping the higher two numbers.
[00:12:24] Brian: I may not get access to the full Expert's reroll ability, but this will help make sure I have the best chance of being successful at my character's main schtick. The list of what each class gets starts on page 17 of the revised rulebook. I won't go into too much detail here since I've talked about each of them previously, but whichever one you choose, make sure you check what bonuses you get and jot them down in your notes. If you get skills, just remember that nothing can exceed level 1 yet. If you're making a full psychic and you choose the same psychic skill twice, you can increase it to level 1, which also gives you access to a level 1 technique from that psychic discipline, as described starting on page 29.
[00:13:07] Brian: If you get a focus, pick one from the list starting on page 20. Foci are powerful effects and abilities that can make a character shine in a specific area. They go a long way in making characters feel unique from each other. When you choose a focus for the first time, you gain the level 1 effect, but if you choose it a second time, you can get access to the level 2 effect. We've almost reached the end of this process. The final decisions you need to make are choosing a focus and a non-psychic skill. This is in addition to any foci or skills you might have gotten for your class. Don't forget that taking a psychic skill at level 0 gets you access to the core technique, and don't forget that nothing can exceed skill level 1 just yet. For the focus, you may want to double up on the one you got from your expert or warrior class feature, or you may want to take something completely different to broaden your skills or enhance the theme of your character. I think for our courtesan clone, I want to take the assassin focus. It will give sneak as a bonus skill and the ability to hide a small weapon or object, perfect for sneaking a knife or a vial of poison past a VIP's personal guards.
[00:14:21] Brian: As for the skill point, we'll keep it simple and increase our perform skill from 0 to 1. The very final step is just to figure out your character's hit points, attack bonus, armor class, saving throws, and equipment. Hit points and attack bonus are easy enough at character creation. Just roll 1d6 and add your constitution modifier to get your starting hit points. Don't forget that if you're a warrior or a partial warrior, you get an extra plus 2. Maybe you also got extra HP from taking the diehard focus. Whatever the case may be, that's why it's important to take notes as you go. Attack bonus for new characters is 0, but for warriors and partial warriors it's plus 1. Saving throws all start at 15 and then are reduced by your character's attribute modifiers. So for example, a plus 1 dexterity modifier gives you a minus 1 to your evasion saving throw. The full details for all these calculations are on page 24 of the revised rulebook. For calculating your armor class, you'll need to know what equipment you have. Check out the equipment packages on page 25, and then look the items up in the equipment chapter starting on page 61 to see what it does. You can also just roll 2d6 and take that number times 100 in credits and spend them for yourself.
[00:15:39] Brian: Check the prices in the equipment section. Once you have all of that written down, you're done. All that's left to do is to come up with a description and some details about what they're like. You can also transfer everything onto a character sheet or track your character's stats however is easiest for you. Our clone is VP329, aka Honeypot. He looks like Robert, but even more handsome and much more pleasant to be around. His body is bronzed and chiseled, and he uses his sharp wit and his undeniable beauty to seduce, blackmail, and assassinate any enemies of his commanders.
[00:16:22] Brian: And with that, we are at time. I hope this was helpful for you. By now, maybe you've even made an entire character for yourself. If so, I'd love to hear about them. Come drop us a line on Patreon at patreon.com slash darkstaradventurecast or leave us a comment on Reddit or wherever you listen to the podcast. Liking the show on podcast platforms and sharing it with friends is the best way to boost our signal. I'd love to hear what kind of wacky characters you came up with. If you like this sort of content, stay tuned because next up, Jeff will be releasing his latest Star Master log, where lately he's been doing interviews with the rest of the DSA cast. Thanks again to everyone who listens to us and supports us. And as always, remember, keep following that signal.