Worlds Without Number: Middle Earth

 

Worlds Without Number is the latest release from Kevin Crawford and presents an old-new school, or a new-old school sandbox for fantasy gaming.

The basic system has its base in Basic D&D, but with quite a few changes:

- Skills are verbs, such as Know, Stab, Connect,Convince and Craft. These skills are either untrained, or 0 to 5. Skill rolls are NOT d20, but 2d6 + Attribute + Skill. (Unless you are in combat, then it is d20, but if you are target shooting, or dealing an 'execution attack'... 2d6)

- Shock damage exists, wherein if you are attacked with a certain weapon type and your AC is insufficient, you will still take damage. Shields may stop one source of Shock per round, making shields actually useful.

- A mechanic called System Strain governs healing as well as a few other items. Whenever someone attempts to heal you, it increments, if you go without sleep, it increments. System Strain goes down one per night of sleep, and you naturally heal a number of hitpoints each night equal to your level.

- A 'feat' mechanic exists in the form of Foci. Foci are also used to give special origins such as elves, dwarves etc.

- A Renown mechanic exists to provide an additional reward outside of experience. Renown is built in game and can be spent on Projects to change the world. It is a broad based downtime system that allows for anything from building an Inn, to creating an order of Knights devoted to hunting vampires.

- A Faction turn exists, wherein the GM can define factions and their actions to give some life to the world. Faction desires intersect unpredictably with PC actions making game possibilities.

- Generous information is provided for overland travel as well as abstract 'turn based' exploration of ruins and of course pages of encounter tables.

- Social actions are supported and encouraged, given how deadly the combat can be.

- Classes are broad, and defined by skill choices and Foci. A Warrior Medic is perfectly doable.

Ok, so what does this have to do with Middle Earth?

-The One Ring is an amazing game, but for me it at time felt siloed: you were explicitly in a fight, and audience or a journey. There are cracks in between that are hard to transition over.

- Worlds Without Number is EASY to run, while still providing mechanics to cover the traditional mechanics needed, as well as mechanics to directly influence the world in a broader fashion than relying on specific Fellowship phase tasks. I cannot think of anything that cannot be replicated via Renown .

- Pruning the equipment tree a bit and creating some Origin Foci for Hobbits, Dwarves, Sindar Elves and Nandor Elves are all that is required to start. 

- The various Backgrounds can be used to reflect the cultures of Man.

- The Faction system can help track the actions of the Enemy at the world scale.

Up next, I throw together the Origin Foci mentioned above.