Cities Without Number

Cities Without Number is the cyberpunk sandbox game to look at when your table wants more than a neon mission board. It is best for groups that want jobs, heat, districts, corps, gangs, contacts, cyberware, drones, hacking, and faction pressure to form a campaign that keeps moving after the first score.

It is less ideal if you want a very guided story game, a branded setting with a large metaplot, or a low-prep one-shot where the GM can mostly improvise from scene prompts. The value here is the toolkit: it rewards a GM who wants to build a city, seed tensions, and let player choices decide which parts of the machine catch fire.

What the game is

Sine Nomine Publishing positions Cities Without Number as cyberpunk adventure and worldbuilding tools for the Without Number system. It is a standalone cyberpunk TTRPG by Kevin Crawford, built for sandbox adventures in a near-future dystopia rather than for a single licensed setting.

The default characters are operators: criminals, mercenaries, outcasts, hired specialists, and other desperate people taking work in a city shaped by wealth, surveillance, violence, and chrome. The book gives the table enough premise to start quickly, but its strongest identity is still open-city play: neighborhoods, employers, enemies, and opportunities become the real campaign map.

Publication history and editions

The game was funded through the Cities Without Number Kickstarter and released into the same broader design family as Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number. The current public product line centers on a free edition, a deluxe PDF, and print options.

The deluxe PDF is the expanded digital version. Sine Nomine's offset print edition is listed as a limited offset-print copy with the deluxe PDF included as a bonus download. DriveThruRPG also lists both the deluxe listing and the free version.

What you need to play

The free version is the practical starting point. It gives enough of the game to evaluate the core cyberpunk sandbox procedures before buying the deluxe PDF or a print copy. The deluxe edition adds extra options such as cyberware quirks, gengineered human variants, cyber alienation strain, cheap street cyber, and optional magic-facing material for groups that want to bend the setting further.

If your table already knows another Without Number game, the learning curve is gentler. The old-school chassis, skill checks, faction-facing GM tools, and sandbox assumptions will feel familiar, but the campaign pressures are different: heat, employers, cyberware, hacking access, surveillance, and the cost of surviving the city matter more than wilderness travel or starship logistics.

Product line and support

The core line is compact: free PDF, deluxe PDF, and print. That is a strength if you want a complete game without chasing a long supplement chain, and a limitation if you want a large official adventure path or a steady stream of setting books.

Community support is smaller than the headline cyberpunk brands, but there are useful fan aids. For example, Tim Gangwisch's unofficial Cities Without Number GM Screen compiles commonly referenced rules such as skills, heat, wounds, drone piloting, chases, vehicle combat, hacking, and optional magic material. Treat that as a convenience aid, not as an official product line.

Core rules and play structure

At its center, Cities Without Number uses an old-school, skill-driven framework tuned for dangerous jobs. Characters take risks because they need money, leverage, safety, revenge, or a way out. The GM builds situations rather than scenes: a facility to infiltrate, a corp to cross, a gang to negotiate with, a district under pressure, a job with strings attached.

Hacking is designed to stay present at the table instead of peeling the hacker into a separate game. Drones and vehicles have rules support, cyberware shapes capability and cost, and high-tech gear matters because preparation and leverage are often more important than raw combat stats. Heat, loot, facility infiltration, and mission tags help turn a job into a procedure the GM can run repeatedly.

Characters and advancement

Characters are not locked into a traditional fantasy class package. They are built around skills, edges, cyberware, equipment, and the kind of operator role they can actually perform under pressure. That makes the game especially useful for players who want a hacker, infiltrator, face, street samurai, drone handler, investigator, or hybrid specialist without buying into a huge tactical build engine.

Advancement supports campaign continuity, but the game still keeps an old-school edge. Characters can improve and specialize, yet the city is dangerous enough that plans, contacts, gear, escape routes, and information remain central. The point is not to build an invincible superhero; it is to make someone capable enough to take ugly work and survive long enough to make it matter.

Signature mechanics

• Cyberpunk sandbox tools: district, gang, corp, and mission creation procedures help the GM build a custom city instead of relying on a fixed canon.
• Mission Tags: the book includes a large tag-based adventure generator for producing job complications, targets, twists, and pressures.
• Playability-first hacking: hacking-focused characters get meaningful actions without forcing the rest of the table to wait through a separate subsystem.
• Heat and consequences: jobs create attention, retaliation, and pressure, making the city respond to the crew's behavior.
• Without Number compatibility: the rules family makes it easier to borrow instincts from Stars Without Number and Worlds Without Number.

What play feels like

A strong session often starts with a problem, patron, target, or opportunity rather than a plotted chapter. The crew gathers information, chooses an angle, buys or steals tools, negotiates with people who may betray them, and then enters a situation that can go loud, quiet, social, technical, or messy. The GM's job is to know what the city wants and what changes when the crew acts.

The best campaigns will feel cumulative. A job does not end when the payout clears; it changes heat, relationships, enemy lists, district stability, and future options. That makes Cities Without Number a strong pick when your table enjoys planning and consequences, but a weaker pick if everyone wants a clean episodic adventure with minimal carryover.

Running the game

The GM load is medium, not because the rules are especially heavy, but because the game wants the GM to use its tools. You will get the most out of it by building districts, factions, local tensions, job sources, and consequences before play. The book helps with that work, but it does not remove the need to make choices about what your city is like.

The common pitfall is treating it like a generic cyberpunk mission generator. The game works better when the city has memory: corps retaliate, gangs exploit openings, contacts ask for favors, heat changes behavior, and a successful job creates new enemies as often as it creates new money.

Campaign fit

Cities Without Number is strongest as a campaign game. A one-shot is possible, especially with a focused job and prebuilt characters, but the system's real payoff is watching districts, factions, debts, and operator choices accumulate over time.

Short arcs can work well if the GM frames one neighborhood, corp conflict, gang war, or facility chain as the main pressure point. Long campaigns can broaden into city politics, cyberware costs, shifting patron relationships, and crews trying to buy freedom from the systems that employ them.

Reception and awards

I did not find a reliable major-award claim worth building the page around. Reception is better summarized as a pattern: reviewers and community discussions tend to praise Kevin Crawford's practical GM tooling, the usefulness of the free version, the compatibility with the broader Without Number family, and the way hacking, drones, gangs, districts, and mission tags support actual table use. The recurring caveat is that it is still a sandbox toolkit; it expects the GM to enjoy shaping situations and consequences.

Where it is strongest

• Cyberpunk campaigns where the table wants its own city rather than a fixed canon setting.
• GMs who like generators, factions, tags, and practical prep procedures.
• Groups that want hacking, cyberware, drones, heat, and jobs to all matter at the table.
• Players who want flexible specialist characters without a very heavy character-build game.
• Tables already comfortable with Stars Without Number, Worlds Without Number, or OSR-adjacent procedures.

Where it can frustrate groups

• It is not the fastest cyberpunk option for a zero-prep one-shot.
• It does not provide the same brand setting footprint as Cyberpunk RED, Cyberpunk 2020, or Shadowrun.
• It asks the GM to care about city construction, faction pressure, and consequences.
• The dystopian premise can involve violence, exploitation, body modification, poverty, coercion, and other hard-edged cyberpunk material.

Content and safety notes

The game lives in dystopian cyberpunk territory: corporate abuse, surveillance, desperate work, criminal violence, cyberware, bodily risk, poverty, exploitation, and systemic cruelty are all natural parts of the premise. Groups should calibrate lines, veils, and tone before play, especially if the campaign will focus on body horror, debt, addiction, coercive labor, or harm to vulnerable communities.

Best starting path

Start with the free version if you want to judge the core engine and GM tools. Move to the deluxe PDF if you want the extra character, cyberware, and optional-setting material. Choose the Sine Nomine print edition only if you specifically want the physical book and current stock works for your budget.

Research notes

Last checked: July 1, 2026. Sources used: Sine Nomine product-line page; Sine Nomine deluxe PDF listing; Sine Nomine offset print listing; DriveThruRPG deluxe listing; DriveThruRPG free-version listing; Kickstarter campaign page; Geek Native coverage; and the unofficial Cities Without Number GM Screen.