I’d start with the game whose weekly choices your group wants to make - not the one with the most character options. Pick Stars for space travel, Worlds for fantasy expeditions, Cities for cyberpunk jobs, or Ashes for post-apocalypse survival.
All four share much of their rules base, including 2d6 skill checks and d20 combat, but their extra systems change what you’ll need to learn and prepare.
Quick Comparison
| Game | Main focus | Character options and rules to learn | Starting GM prep |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stars Without Number | Starships, planets, and faction rivalries | Classes, psionics, cyberware, and ship rules | Nearby worlds, patrons, and a travel problem |
| Worlds Without Number | Ruins, wilderness, and local politics | Classes, magic, and expedition rules | A home base, nearby sites, and local powers |
| Cities Without Number | Crew jobs and corporate conflict | Classless builds, hacking, and cyberware | One district, contacts, and a target |
| Ashes Without Number | Salvage, scarcity, and rebuilding | Survivor options, equipment, and setting-based powers | One settlement, supply sites, and an urgent shortage |
For a first campaign, I’d prepare one starting area, two or three factions, and one immediate problem. Keep the scope small, learn only the extra rules you need, and let player choices guide what you prepare next.
Which Without Number Game Should You Start With?
Why You Should Play Worlds Without Number (Worlds Without Number Review/Analysis)
Stars and Worlds: Space Travel or Fantasy Expeditions
Both books support exploration. The difference is what drives play: travel between worlds in one, expeditions within a region in the other.
| Factor | Stars Without Number | Worlds Without Number |
|---|---|---|
| What the campaign revolves around | Ship logistics and travel | Regional expeditions and local power |
| Character choices | Warriors, Experts, Psychics, and mixed-class Adventurers, plus skills and Foci | Warriors, Experts, Mages, and mixed-class Adventurers, plus skills, Foci, and magical traditions |
| Recurring decisions | Routes, resources, and faction ties | Rumors, supplies, ruins, and local allies |
| GM preparation | World tags, hooks, and active factions | Regional conflicts, wilderness sites, dungeons, and local powers |
| Main limitation | Space can feel abstract if worlds and factions lack separate identities | Fantasy can feel familiar unless local powers, cultures, and ruins stand apart |
Choose Stars Without Number for a campaign that moves through space. Choose Worlds Without Number for one rooted in a single region.
Stars Without Number: Starships, Planets, and Factions
Stars Without Number puts starship ownership, crew roles, and travel logistics at the heart of play. Players choose destinations, manage resources, and decide which patrons or factions to trust. Starship combat gives crew members separate roles, while technology and equipment shape what they can do. Start with standard character choices before adding optional alien, AI, or transhuman options.
Sector generation gives you a framework for travel - not a map you need to finish before play. World tags turn planets into adventure hooks, while faction rules keep powers moving off-screen. Prepare one starting location, a ship or transportation problem, nearby destinations, and two or three factions. Develop the next world when players decide to visit it. Start here if you want starships, space exploration, and travel between worlds to drive the campaign.
Worlds Without Number: Ruins, Wilderness, and Local Powers
Worlds Without Number swaps Psychics for Mages and makes magical traditions a major character-building choice. Players follow rumors, venture into dangerous sites, and choose allies among local powers. Magical traditions determine a caster’s available solutions; treat optional traditions as add-ons, not defaults. Combat is dangerous, so supplies, spells, and knowing when to retreat matter. Scouting, negotiation, terrain, and allies are core ways to solve problems - not backup plans.
Gyre is optional. You can build around a region where ruins, wilderness hazards, and competing powers give expeditions lasting consequences. Prepare clear leads toward a ruin, a wilderness problem, and a conflict involving a local power. Each lead should reveal more information rather than force players through a preset sequence. Start here if you want open-ended fantasy exploration, dangerous ruins, and flexible character concepts.
Cities and Ashes: Cyberpunk Jobs or Survival After the Apocalypse
For groups that prefer focused missions over exploration, the choice here is urban jobs or post-collapse salvage.
Cities Without Number focuses on jobs and urban pressure: gain access, complete the mission, and deal with the fallout. Ashes Without Number focuses on routes, salvage, and scarcity: reach useful supplies, bring them home, and decide how to use them. Both support custom settings.
| Factor | Cities Without Number | Ashes Without Number |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign scale | Districts, facilities, and connected urban networks | A settlement, nearby ruins, and regional travel routes |
| Resource pressures | Money, equipment, information, favors, and heat | Food, medicine, ammunition, fuel, and spare parts |
| Character options | Classless characters built with Edges, skills, Foci, cyberware, and gear | Survivor roles using skills, Foci, equipment, and setting-dependent options such as mutations |
| Faction relationships | Employers, corporations, gangs, and contacts respond to completed jobs | Enclaves and rival groups compete over supplies, territory, and safe routes |
| Starting preparation | One district, contacts, a target facility, and consequences | One settlement, resource sites, dangerous routes, and an immediate shortage |
Start with Cities if you want a campaign built around planning, execution, and fallout.
Cities Without Number: Crews, Hacking, and Corporate Conflict
Cities uses a classless framework. Edges, skills, and Foci define a specialist’s strengths, while cyberware and equipment give them more tactical options. The core rules cover hacking, infiltration, vehicles, and heat. Optional rules add depth, but you don’t need them to play.
Hacking serves the crew’s mission rather than becoming a separate game. Establish which security systems the hacker can affect and what they need to gain access.
The 50 mission tags, city tools, and corporation and gang generators help turn a job into investigation and action at the table. To start, prepare one district, three to five locations, two or three contacts, and one target with several possible approaches. Let the players find their own solution.
Between sessions, track who learned about the crew, who lost resources, and who wants repayment or revenge. Those recurring relationships are the bookkeeping that matters. Schemes support competing urban power brokers. Choose this first for a cyberpunk crew that takes jobs and exploits urban power struggles.
Ashes keeps the mission structure but shifts the pressure from money and heat to food, fuel, and survival.
Ashes Without Number: Salvage, Settlements, and Rebuilding
Ashes is a post-apocalypse toolkit, not a single required disaster. Agree on tone and character options before building scavengers, medics, drivers, or fighters. Mutations depend on the setting.
Expeditions center on finding useful salvage and getting it home. Equipment, improvised technology, and vehicles shape what survivors can recover. Track resources that affect decisions - fuel, medicine, ammunition, or spare parts - instead of tracking every possession.
Use the ruin, enclave, threat, and salvage tools to prepare one settlement, a few resource sites, two dangerous routes, and one urgent shortage. Tie faction goals to those resources so each expedition changes local relationships. Rebuilding can be a campaign goal without becoming a required subsystem. Choose this first for survival expeditions, discovery, and decisions about what to salvage or rebuild.
Shared Rules, Character Options, and GM Workload
If two books still suit your group, use rules load and prep style to break the tie.
Which Rules Carry Over - and Which Change
All four books share six attributes, skills, and Foci. Where they differ is how they handle checks and combat. Skill checks generally use 2d6 + skill + attribute modifier, while attacks and saving throws use d20-style procedures. What matters most isn't that shared base, but which subsystems your campaign will use.
| System | Stars Without Number: Revised Edition | Worlds | Cities | Ashes |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Combat | Firearms and psionics | Weapons and magic | Firearms and cyberware | Wasteland threats and salvaged equipment |
| Travel | Spike-drive routes and interstellar logistics | Wilderness routes and exploration turns | Movement through urban territory | Routes between settlements and resource sites |
| Resource pressures | Credits, fuel, and maintenance | Treasure, provisions, and carrying capacity | Money, information, and heat | Food, water, ammunition, and salvage |
| Starships | Hulls, fittings, weapons, and defenses; power and mass limits | Imported from another book | Imported from another book | Imported from another book |
| Magic and psychic powers | Psychic class and psionics | Mage traditions and mixed classes | Optional additions | Setting-dependent options |
| Hacking and cyberware | Technology-based intrusion and augmentation | Requires adjustment | Central to crew roles and mission planning | Setting-dependent technology |
| Faction handling | Sector powers and faction turns | Local powers and fantasy factions | Corporations, gangs, and schemes | Enclaves and competing survivor groups |
Shared rules don't mean shared assumptions. Before importing material, check equipment, advancement pacing, enemy attacks and defenses, healing, and resource assumptions. Magic, hacking, cyberware, and survival each need deliberate adjustment.
Prepare 1 Starting Area, Not a Whole World
Whichever book you choose, the safest way to start is with a small area that's ready for play.
Campaign launch: Prepare one starting area, two or three active factions, and two or three clear leads. Read only the special rules you'll need for the first sessions.
Between sessions: Record what changed, who acted, which resources declined, and what opportunity or threat comes next. Use generators to fill gaps: link a location tag to an active faction, give the groups competing goals, add resource or time pressure, and offer two actionable leads.
This lets prep follow player decisions. You don't need a finished sector, landmass, city, or wasteland before play begins.
Conclusion: Which Without Number Game Should You Choose First?
Start with the decisions your group wants to make again and again. Match each book to the kind of pressure your table enjoys most.
| If your group wants… | Start with… | Recurring pressure |
|---|---|---|
| Starships, strange worlds, and interstellar faction conflicts | Stars Without Number | Choose routes, manage ship resources, and navigate faction rivalries |
| Ruins, wilderness travel, and local political powers | Worlds Without Number | Plan expeditions, manage supplies, and choose local allies |
| Cyberpunk jobs, corporate pressure, and complicated city relationships | Cities Without Number | Complete jobs, manage heat, and protect contacts |
| Scarcity, salvage, settlement defense, and rebuilding | Ashes Without Number | Recover supplies, secure routes, and meet settlement needs |
Once you've picked a genre, consider how much rules complexity and prep your group can handle.
Starting Advice for New Players, New GMs, and Sandbox Veterans
New players: Start with the simplest play loop your group already understands. Learn the basics before adding psionics, hacking, advanced technology, unusual powers, or setting-specific systems.
New GMs: Prepare one location, a few important NPCs, two or three factions, and one immediate crisis.
Sandbox veterans: Choose what you want to drive play: travel and discovery in Stars, wilderness and ruins in Worlds, urban leverage in Cities, or scarcity and rebuilding in Ashes.
Plan for a Short Campaign or a Long-Term Sandbox
Campaign length determines how much of the setting you need to prepare.
For a 4- to 6-session campaign, use one location, one objective, and two solutions. For a long-term sandbox, expand the setting only when player choices call for it.
FAQs
Which game is easiest for a first-time GM?
Stars Without Number is a top pick for first-time game masters. The rules are straightforward, the core mechanics feel familiar if you’ve played d20 games, and there’s a free edition.
Its World Tags and Faction Turn give you concrete ways to build your world, ease prep pressure, and keep the setting changing between sessions. It’s not a zero-prep system, but these tools mean you don’t have to start with a blank page.
Can I combine these games in one campaign?
Yes. These games use the same core d20-based rules family and are built to work together. GMs can move rules, material, and concepts between them to build custom, multi-genre campaigns.
For example, you can bring Other Dust’s mutation or survival rules into a Stars Without Number campaign, or mix in fantasy elements from Worlds Without Number.
Can I run these games with just two players?
You can try, but Without Number games are designed for three to five players plus a Game Master. That includes Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number. They aren’t classified as solo-friendly, and play depends on teamwork between characters with specialized roles.
With just two players, expect a less-than-ideal fit. The mechanics and sandbox tools work best with larger parties tackling faction systems, exploration, and combat.
