The good folks at Sine Nomine are ingenius. So much content was provided with the Free edition... that you might ask... "Why would I pay for the full version? Why would I buy the print version?"

That's the brilliance... the free edition gives you so much meat... but it isn't the full feast provided by the full version.

The system is relatively simple... a flash back to the bygone eras of the boxed editions... but with a twist... same stats... the usual 6... generated by rolling 3d6. But now... throw in skills, backgrounds...

Character classes are Expert (aka Rogue), Warrior (Fighter), Psychic (or Mage) and Adventurer (think "Jack of all trades" you can be a Warrior/Expert or Warrior/Mage... you get the idea...)

Skills... lots of skills.

Foci (think "feats")

Best of all... the GM Section... build worlds... build empires... build factions...The GM section alone is a gold mine of ideas, hints, tricks, etc to really make the game your own.

After getting the Free edition PDF... I knew I needed the print version... and it is worth it. The art... the additional components... space magic... yes... space magic. Battle mechs... starships... build alien races and societies...

And it is all compatible with Worlds without Number.

And with very little effort... you can bring modules from pre-3rd edition D&D...

The GM resources section is very system agnostic as well...

Like Chaosium's BRP? The resources transfer... with little effort.

Want to fight the cult of the Space Reptile God? This is the tool kit to make it happen...

Want "Space Elves?" You got it.

Want to build space monsters and creepy crawlies? You got it.

But do not ignore the elegent simplicity of the Sine Nomine system. It is deceptively simple.

All this being said... the quality of the PRINTED product is second to none.

WOW!!! And they are GIVING THIS AWAY?!?!?

You can tell the confidence of the creative team where they throw a product like this out as a FREE edition...

Unbelievable. A lot of care, creativity and thought went into this. And beyond that, though a system is provided, the deeper rules and tables are so system agnostic, you could take the second half of the book... and build on your own campaign and game... using ANY system...

Definitely going to be on the lookout for the handcover edition to add to my collection.

Distant Lights is a fantastic supplement for building places for your players to go. I'm using it to build parts of two campaigns, one in Stars without Number and one in Starfinder. It is stated that the book is system neutral and they mean it. But it isn't bland either. It has very creative seed ideas for outposts (An asteroid base hiding in the glare of close orbit to the system star? Yes please).

This book took me twice as long to read because I kept finding myself daydreaming locations as I was reading!

I purchased it as a physical copy, it's very handy for keeping a thumb in one page while you reference a table elsewhere. The art shows very nice and the pages feels nice and flip easily.

Exactly what I was looking for and exactly as advertised.

Stars Without Number (SWN) lives up to the hype (mostly). Positives include the price (free if you just want the core rules) and some of the best culture and adventure-generating rules I've ever read. Negatives include a different game mechanic for combat from every other skill, over-emphasis on psionics (i.e. Space Magic), and an OSR flavor that treats "gritty" gameplay as the "proper" way to game.

Wait what? This is "Starter"? This rulebook have more info than a lot of other, fully paid rulebooks! If you wonders if this enough to play few sessions: YES! I think it's even enough even to play whole campain. System is really flexible, I can't say nothing about Lore, because I used SWN to play short campain in Mass Effect world. And mechanics fits it like a glove! During playing we found some "weird" solutions but it's maybe because we played too much D&D and we used to some things.

Great, great book. Not only the ruleset is pretty cool, the setting is super evocative and varied. ...All of that is quite nice and worth the money, and it's not even half the book. THEN you get to the world-building tables and other campaigns and DM-tools. These are beyond superb, and useful far beyond the system and the setting in the book. For 20 USD, this is a steal. Cannot recommend this enough. Thanks a lot to the author for this product, very much looking forward to whatever else he is producing.

A superb set of tools for GMs running any sand box campaign (works particularly well for SciFi, but many of them would work well for Fantasy or whatever) - the ideas boil off the page.

Plus there are a full set of RPG rules - and what looks like a very good system to make spaceship battles fun at the table (though I have not tried them).

A brilliant resource for any GM - has a set of the most excellent tools for sandbox world building. Plus full set of OSR rules, an intersting setting and more..

This is the best Sci-Fi RPG system available! It's worth to check out the extra content from the publisher.

I've been running games every week for 14 years and this is my favorite System/Setting by far. The tools that Kevin Crawford gives to the GM are powerful and freeing. This product is worth the purchase for the Faction system alone. If you want a game that enables you to be creative, and then gets out of the way, this is the one for you. It can also be modded for a fantasy setting without much difficulty and I currently perfer it to D&D.

I had a chance to sit down with a couple of lads that had no idea what a TTRPG was and had started to express some interest in playing one. I had two ideas on what i could start them off with, one was WoD because all they would have to do is fill in dots on a sheet and roll d10s and the other was this. After a bit of deliberation we decided to stick with WWN and that game while rather short, was an absolute blast. Thanks to all the GM tools that are included in this book i was able to slap a few hexes together in a rather short period of time, (hexes that the players proceeded to burn down as soon as their faction made a move on their neibours). I cooked up the governance, demographics, millitary strength, religion and local monster populations of said hexes in a couple of hours an was ready to rock. Combat was rather interesting when we figured out what instant actions are and how they work, makes a bunch of level 1 peasants with pikes something you should really not be getting close to. Overall great stuff, would recommend.

The Tables in this book is absolutely amazing, I recommend it for any Sci-fi games - mission generation is the biggest I've seen yet in any book and I always have this book open when I plan before a session.

TLDR : Kevin Cwarford is a game design genius and he did it again

Worlds Without Number is a very well designed game. It uses the system Kevin Crawford created in Stars Without Number and revised in the Revised edition of Stars Without Number. The system is a mix of B/X Dungeons and Dragons and Traveller with the best elemets of later edditions thrown in for good messure (Feats and Acsending Armour class being the primary example).

The Highlight of the Game is it's increadible set of random tables that act as great inspiration for game masters. Random tables are and most likely will always be Kevin Crawford's greatest strength.

In terms of the game's weaknesses... I don't really see any. It's lethal, but that can be changed, it can be easily modified and that is awesome.

Nice idea but it felt incomplete. Given its free take a look feels like the OSR that it is but it carries the warts of that with it, if you love OSR then might be just what you need my advice is run it and see how it goes as it reads well.