STARS

WITHOUT NUMBER

PLAY ANYTIME, ANYWHERE

SOLO ADVENTURES
•1
Contents Credits
Introduction 2 Written By:
How This Book is Organised 2 Peter Rudin-Burgess

What is a Role Playing Game? 2 Cover Art:

Then there is solo play. 2
Peter Rudin-Burgess, Dina Dee
How Does Solo Play Work? 2 Interior Art:
Closed Questions 3 Dina Dee, Kieran Vinay and Gerhard Janson
The Oracle 3 Game Icons:
Open Ended Questions 4
Creative Commons 3.0 BY license https://game-icons.net, and
Record Keeping 4 Various artists, https://commons.wikimedia.org

License:
Clocks 4
NPC Conversations 6 This work is covered by the Creative Commons License:
Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
NPC List 7 You are free to:

Scene List 8 Share: copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format

Adapt: remix, transform, and build upon the material

Loose End List 9
for any purpose, even commercially.
Sample Scene 20
The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as you follow
the license terms.

Under the following terms:

Attribution: You must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the

license, and indicate if changes were made. You may do so in any
reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor
endorses you or your use.

No additional restrictions: You may not apply legal terms or

technological measures that legally restrict others from doing
anything the license permits.
2•
Stars Without Number Solo Rules game.

Some people just cannot get either of these alternatives to work and
Introduction they get their role play fix in computer games but that trades off
depth of play with the convenience.
Stars Without Number [SWN] is one of the most popular OSR
role playing games ever released. While it is every similar to a lot Then there is solo play.
of dungeons & dragons derived games it diverges when it comes to
the skill system. Outside of combat SWN is mostly driven by 2d6 Solo play has the convenience of the computer game, you can play
rather than the ever present d20 so common in other OSR games. when and where you like for as long or short as you like. It has the
fantastic levels of detail of the PBP games. What you don’t get is the
If you have never solo played an RPG before I will ease you into social interaction.
that as it is a different experience to any other form of role playing.
If you play role playing games to meet new people and crave that
How This Book is Organised social side then solo play is not for you.

All the rules in this book are at the front. You then get three useful If you play role playing games to have wild adventures and develop
record keeping pages which you may print multiple copies of for your player character then solo play could be exactly what you
your own use. Finally, there are ten pages of ‘game icons’. These need.
you may also print off if you prefer to have them on paper.
Even if you have all the role playing friends you ever need solo play
What is a Role Playing Game? may still serve you well as a method of learning the rules of SWN.
Characters you solo play up to a certain level may become the NPCs
• I recently read this definition: in a regular campaign. Solo play can also help you test drive an
adventure idea before you set if loose on your players.
• It’s a game you play with friends in a social setting. …

• It’s an exploration of intriguing or fanciful scenarios. … How Does Solo Play Work?
• It’s a chance to be someone you’re not. … Solo play works through emulating the role played by the GM.
When you need more information about the scene you ask the
• It’s a celebration of sticky situations. … GM. In Solo play you will ask the rules instead. There are two
mechanisms in these rules. The first is the closed question that
• It’s collaborative daydreaming. …
acts like a magic 8 ball and gives you a variation of yes or no. The
• It’s exercise for your personal sense of drama. … second is for open questions and it gives you two prompts as an
answer. It falls on you to take; the story so far, the answer you
• It’s a way to trick ourselves into creating interesting things. … just received and the sort of adventure you want to have and then
decide what does that answer mean to my character? Solo role play
• It’s something you’ve been doing all along.
will improve your improv. skills immeasurably!
What Is a Role-Playing Game? Ravachol, E., Dig a Thousand Holes
If a solo game was just made up of yes and no answers things would
Publishing, USA, 2013.
get boring rather quickly. To stop that happening there is an option
At first glance that seems to fit the bill quite nicely until you think that throws a complication into your characters story. These can
about our modern lives. Today scheduling a regular game session twist the story and take it into new directions. You will learn more
is harder than it seems with work and family commitments. If you about questions, answers and complications below.
have moved from one town to another it may be easy enough to
For the most part these rules work just like the built in skills system
find D&D group but once you start to look for less popular games
in SWN. You want to try something you get a target number and
the groups dry up and are often unwilling to try new things.
roll 2d6. Here you want to know something you have a kind of
If no one plays the game you want to play locally then a lot of target number and you roll 2d6. The point is to not interrupt your
people ‘play by post’ [PBP] where you submit a forum post with flow of play by bringing in completely different rules.
your actions and the DM or GM coordinates the game and replies.
PBP post games tend to be fantastically detailed as you can describe
your characters words, but also the intonation, mannerism, posture
and expressions in far greater detail than you ever could sat around
a table. You have lost the first point in the definition above, the
game is no longer with friends and in a social setting. It could be
with people you will never meet and sat at your computer.

More recently Discord and chat has been popular but it has the
same issues with scheduling, you need to be awake when the GM
wants to run the game and you need blocks of hours free to play the
•3
Clocks are not rules, clocks are a dynamic way of keeping track No and an announcement sounds demanding all marine back to
of events happening in your sandbox world. You will learn about quarters or all marines to action stations. There are quite definitely
clocks below and the clock theme will be repeated several times in no marines around here. With the grav-bike there is no grav-bike
these rules. and you spot a sign saying Grav-bikes are banned from this street.

Closed Questions • A Complication changes the scene. Complications typically

make the question you were about to ask irrelevant. Complications
A closed question has a yes or no answer. A door is locked or can be small things or massive things. It is more to do with what
unlocked, a room is occupied or deserted and a grav-bike is left fits best with your game. An example of a small complication could
unattended or it isn’t. The solo play jargon for the rules handling be as you approach the starship brig your personal communicator
closed questions is an Oracle. When you ask a closed question you starts to bleep. Who is trying to contact you and why? Do you
decide how likely it is to be yes or no. You then use that to set a really want to get a look at the marines with your communicator
modifier. The chances of their being marines outside a starship brig bleeping? A big complication could be you look to see if there is
is very likely, the chances of a grav-bike being left unattended and a grav-bike and you see a biker get off the machine, takes off the
powered up is highly unlikely. Both of these are closed questions. helmet and it is none other than your arch nemesis. How did they
The marines are or are not there, the bike is powered up or not. get there, are they looking for you what do you do next?

In regular group play the main loop in play is that the GM describes For each scene you should sketch a small circle and then depending
a scene, the players describe their actions the and the GM resolves on how long you anticipate the scene to be divide it into segments.
the actions before returning to the top and describing the new For most scenes four segments are fine. This is the chaos clock.
current scene. If you roll a No and… result fill in one segment of the clock.
Once it has counted down all the segments the next question will
In solo play you imagine the scene. If you want any clarification automatically produce a complication. The reason for the chaos
you ask your questions and the oracle gives the answers. Once you clock is that should you get a run of very poor dice rolls it can
know the scene and setting you play out the scene using the regular stop your story progressing. If you were trapped in a room and
SWN rules until you have an unknown question. Then the solo you ask if the door is unlocked and get a no and… it is likely to be
rules come into play again. The oracle does not replace the rules. locked and the lock is really high tech. You try the windows and
You can ask the oracle if there are marines but you would roll Notice get a no and… they are bullet proof glass, you look to see if there
to know if your character spots them. At the end of the scene you is a ventilation shaft, no and the room seems hermetically sealed.
start the next scene and ask any questions that the scene throws up. Finally, you ask if there is any kind of fire alarm trigger, no and…
That is the basic solo play loop.
You can see how a run of results that each make your situation
The oracle is going to return one of three base answers; Yes, No or worse prevents you from making progress. The automatic
A Complication. The Yes and No may be modified with an and…, a complication at least changes the situation, maybe a torturer with a
but…, or because…. case full of ugly implements is buzzed into the room. Now you have
• Yes and… is more than you expected. It could be better than an open door, tools to work with, an NPC to talk to and a possible
expected or worse. If you wanted to know if there were any hostage. All that in place of dead ends.
marines on guard a yes and… result may say yes and there is a
sergeant screaming at them for being slovenly and inattentive. The Oracle
Getting past them in the immediate future will be harder! If you 2 or lower No, and…
were hoping for a grav-bike to make your escape on the yes and
3-4 No
could mean not only there is a bike but it is powered up and the
keys are in it. 5-6 No, because…
7 A Complication
• Yes is the standard answer. What you asked is what you get. 8-9 Yes, but…
Yes there are marines and yes there is a grav-bike.
10-13 Yes
• Yes but… this is not quite as good or bad as it could be. Yes 14 or higher Yes, and…
there are marines but they are watching a sports game on the Highly unlikely -4 Unlikely -2
monitors. Yes there is a grav-bike but it is secured to a magnetic 50/50 +/- 0
shackle. Highly likely +4 Likely +2
• No because… gives a reason why the answer is a no and often
you should aim for an explanation that the character could act upon
to turn the no into a yes. No there aren’t any marines as an alarm
has just sounded and they are leaving. No there is no grav-bike as
the rider has just returned and straddled the machine.

• No is the default negative answer. There simply are no marines

and there is no grav-bike.

• No and… is the strongest negative. With the marines it is

4•
Open Ended Questions Record Keeping
Open ended questions cannot be answered with a yes or a no. With so much of the action taking place purely in your imagination
These are things like what people are talking about, the subjects of you are not going to be able to retain everything.
books, that is motivating people and so on.
Most solo players keep a journal. How detailed it is depends entirely
In these rules we use game icons. Game icons are deliberately vague on your personal style. Some players imagine the scene, roll a few
pictures which can be interpreted in many ways. When you start oracle questions to clarify a few things and then write out the entire
mixing the context of your game and the icons they should suggest scene as if it were a chapter of a book. You can even use these rules
a meaning. The same icon could present very different meanings in as a writing tool to write a book, one where you have no idea of the
different situations. cast of characters, the plot or the ending before you get there.
A typical result may look something like this: My journal is much more terse than that. I keep use little more than
bullet points of the key facts, the questions I asked and the answers.
It serves purely as a memory jogger for my own personal use and I
do not share them as Actual Plays [AP], which is quite popular in
solo gaming communities. How much or how little you write or
type up is completely personal, but some form of journal is highly
recommended.

In addition to your journal a few simple lists are recommended.

These are:

• Scene List: A note about the setting, the NPCs present and any
significant actions. It helps to know if you trashed the bar that
the next time you visit how the NPCs may react or the physical
The first image has associations with me to the musical Little Shop
state of the place. The entry and exit points tell you point of the
of Horrors in which an alien that looks like a plant feeds on blood
scene, what you wanted to achieve and how the scene ended.
and then eventually people. So that says to me Alien, Plant but also
• NPC List: I tend to even keep a note of nameless NPCs but only
Venus Fly Trap.
as a comment such as a few bystanders, For NPCs I give a name
The second says present, gift, package, bow, box. if any but also Class, Abilities and Skills. At the very least I leave
room to fill them in as my story evolves. I also include where I
Imagine you character is spying on some gang thugs, you try and met them. There is often a lot of cross over between the Scene
catch a snippet of their conversation and you get those two icons. and NPC list.
My reaction is one is telling the other that they need to “plant the • Loose Ends: A list of all the potential side missions or quests
package”, I can also imagine the first one handing over a small that you don’t follow up. This is the list that you will review
envelope. I instantly have a conspiracy with something being once a session to see if there is a deep scenario happening in
planted on an innocent person to frame them. It could be drugs it the world that you have only caught glimpses of. The individual
could be forged documents. entries need only be short but once you review and link them.
I suggest using highlighter pens to make the linked threads
In a different situation is could have been read as alien and gift
obvious and then writing out the new Scenario in this list.
and the then we have a back story about aliens gifting advanced
technology but what are their motivations? Clocks
The icons are arranged in a HUD or clock. You should use two These rules introduce clocks into your SWN game. A clock is
counters and when you ask a question you move the counter a simple circle divided into four, six or eight segments. What it
around the number of places equal to a d6 roll. You roll 1d6 for respresents is action or events happening off camera. What they
each counter and move one clockwise and one counter clockwise. are good for is keeping track of things happening in your game
world during the session and between sessions.
Use can use one clock per session or one clock per die. You can
also vary the clocks so the same icons do not repeat too often. It is Take for example the security forces at a starport. There is plenty
your choice as to which icon goes first. If the icons above had been of security cameras and patrols. It doesn’t take a lot to alet them as
the other way around then my gut instinct would be for Package + they are on the ball. Your character wants to sneak into ‘Autorised
Plant or “packaging plant” which sounds like some kind of factory Personel Only’ areas. You quickly sketch out a four segment clock.
unit and could have been the scene of a meeting or the cover for an For each stealth failure you block out a segment. That could be a
operation. skill check but it could also be having to take down a member of
staff. When you have counted down the clock security are alerted.

You can have as many clocks running down as you like. It could
a locked personal communicator and every fail attempt to hack it
moves it one step further towards it destroying itself. It could the
progress that the villain is making to effect their escape.
•5
You can choose to count down a clock by events or by time. You
can think of them as discrete events such as:
1. Loading the passengers
2. Securing the hatches
3. Requesting clearance for take off
4. Opening the shuttle bay doors
5. Starting engines
6. Exiting the space station

This six segment clock started when the bad guys got to their
shuttle and when it counted down they made their escape. That
could have taken place over two or more game sessions.

You may not know how they escaped, you don’t have a clear plan
but that doesn’t matter you can just have a clock and when it counts
down they are gone. You could assume you will catch up but block
out a segement every time you roll a complication that slows you
down or blocks your progress.

Some clocks may take months to count down if they are measuring
amassing an army or mounting an invasion.

If you have gone through your loose ends list and identified a
potential parallel plot. You can then draw a clock as part of the
plot outline. Next time oyou want to use that plot line for a
complication it could advance the clock

A two segment clock

Four segment clock

Six segments

Eight segments
6•
NPC Conversations
There are types of NPC conversations. The first is when they are
in full conversation and you can hear exactly what is being said.
The other is when someone is using comms or you cannot hear the
words but you could read the body language.

In some situations both may apply where you can clearly hear only
half the conversation.

To deal with the content you will use the open question rules, you
roll one die twice and move the counters around the icon clocks.
This gives you a prompt for the topic of conversation.

To define the characters attitudes in the conversation then this

table gives a position.

Roll Speaker 1 Speaker 2 Roll

1 Strongly Disagrees Strongly agrees with … 1
with…
2 Disagrees with… Agrees with… 2
3 Has news Is shocked by… 3
4 Needs to know… Doesn’t care 4
5 Agrees with… Disagrees with… 5
6 Strongly agrees with… Strongly disagrees with… 6
•7

NPC List Game:

Name Location Class, Abilities & Skills Notes
8•

Scene List Game:

Location Action NPCs Entrance/Exit
•9

Loose End List Game:

Who? What? Where? Connections?
10 •
• 11
12 •
• 13
14 •
• 15
16 •
• 17
18 •
• 19
20 •
Sample Scene to make the jump and lands on the far ledge scrabbling for a hand
grip. Jesse lands, rolls and comes up with pistol drawn.
Below is a very basic PC “Jesse” and the opening scene of a solo
game. I start with a bit of world building using the Oracle. With “Why did you sell me out?” Jesse asks flicking the pistol off safety.
just those few details and a basic character I start my story. The We know the mercenary’s personality but now we want to why, his
example covers just a single scene but uses the oracle, open motivation. The result is:
questions and clocks.
Jesse Skills
Str 11 +0 Know +2 Connect 0
Dex 12, +0 Admin 0 Fix +1
Con 14, +1 Connect 0 Shoot 0
Int 10, +0
Specialist Film and a book. Our mercenary explains that he had no choice they
Wiz 9, +0
Cha 7 -1 [security] already had Jesse on film.
Once per scene reroll a fail skill
check I can now imagine both sides of this conversation.
HP 6
Base Attack 0 +1/level on non combat/psychic The mercenary [Levi Ward] finally confesses that he has been
skills leading Jesse into a Security trap.
Physical 14
Mental 15 Focus Tinker Maintenance x2 Are the security forces moving in [likely] Roll 8 + 2 = 10 Yes! Jesse rolls
Evasion 15 ship/gear mods cost half Notice (6 – 1 for unskilled) Failed, Jesse doesn’t know they are coming. I
Background Academic decide that Security have sent a standard Soldier Bot to collect Jesse. I start
Laser Pistol (1d6 damage), 2 type
Class Expert a four sector Clock, when it runs down the bot arrives. I expect this to be a
A cells, Armored Undersuit (AC
fast clock.
13), Backpack (TL0), Monoblade
25 credits
knife (1d6 damage), Compad, Feeling that Jesse has learned everything that Levi knows he gets
Climbing harness Metatool, hauled up to the roof.
Low-light goggles
<tick>�
Is this a High Tech world? 50/50 (9) Yes, but... it is cut off from other
worlds. “Well, if this is a trap then you are in it with me. Let us get off this
roof and somewhere less exposed.”
Are Psychics common? 50/50 (9) Yes, but... they are state controlled and
used for law enforcement “Right, let’s get down amongst people, too much collateral damage
to take us out on the street.” Levi concurs.
Does everyone live in the cities? 50/50 (6) No, because the cities are
controlled by the psychic security forces.1 Is there a fire escape down to the street? Likely +2 5+2 = 7 A Complication
The bot arrives ahead of schedule and opens fire!�
Opening scene is a roof top chase, Jesse is chasing down an
informer. When trying to ‘borrow’ books from a city school, for a The Bot opens fire with a Rocket Launcher from several hundred
village school. meters out. It rolls a 4 to hit and the fire escape is destroyed into a
tangle of twisted metal and that corner of the building collapses in
What sort of person is the informer? as rubble is blasted down into the street.

The two characters open fire. The normal combat rules apply. The
Soldier bot is armed with its rocket launcher for ranged attack
batons for close quarters. The characters both have laser pistols
which start at extreme range (-2 to hit). The Bot has AC15 and HP
8. What follows is a barrage of laser fire in which no one can hit at
I can see a volcano and money. He is a hot-headed and volatile mercenary. the longer ranges until the bot is right on top of them when both
I add him to the NPC list and will fill in more details as they emerge.2 characters manage to hit and the bot crashes to the rooftop at their
feet�.
Jesse races across the roof in pursuit leaping from roof to roof.
(Mercenary Save 15 roll 15, makes the leap – Jesse Save 15 roll 19, Scanning the skyline for more bots Jesse says, “Let’s get off this
all is good.) roof.”

I roll 3d6 to see find the Dex of the mercenary and it comes up 10. “Good plan!”
Jesse is a 12 so I make Jesse a little faster in a dead sprint.
At this point Levi, with surprise tries to shove Jesse off the roof.
Gaining a little as they race across the second roof top another He had already confessed to selling Jesse out to the authorities and
parapet looms they have to leap this one as well. Merc Save 15, assisting in killing the soldier bot would not help his case. Rolling
rolled 14, failed, Jesse Save 15, Roll 20. The mercenary barely fails the opposed check Jesse is thrown from the roof. They are 1d6
storeys up (roll of 3 or 9m to fall). Luckily for Jesse the falling
• 21
damage is minimal (5HP damage and Jesse had 6HP leaving Jesse (Endnotes)
with 1HP). Jesse staggers up and behind cover.
1 These first few questions are all I needed to start to
Are more security forces come? Roll 9 + 2 for likely equals 11 and a Yes imagine the world. At the start of this game I had done no prep,
answer. Sirens wail as they approach. there was no universe.

Jesse looks around (Does Jesse know this street? Roll Connect, 2 Initially, it was just Levi’s personality type that was
Success, Yes.) Limping away Jesse knows someone who will offer meant to be mercenary but it actually fitted quite well. When
shelter. fleshing Levi’s details after the session I can roll using the random
NPC rules from SWN but just keep the details that are already
End of Scene. pinned down.
By the end of playing this scene I know a lot more about the world 3 Every time I think the characters are ‘wasting time’ I am
I am adventuring in. It has overtones of Fahrenheit 451. The cities going to count down the clock.
are controlled by a psychic elite and normal, or non-psychic people
are considered second class citizens. Like thousands of people Jesse 4 Although I had started a four segment clock it was my
has migrated out of the cities in a bid to live a free life. Jesse is a gut instinct that the security trap would be the most obvious
school teacher by day but at night Jesse enters the city looking for complication. As the attack misses then destroying the fire
books and objects with a cultural significance to steal away with. At escape fulfils the idea that a complication renders the intended
the start of the game Jesse has obviously overstepped the mark once question unnecessary. In this case there was a fire escape but
too often and the security forces are on Jesses case. it is no more. I will keep the four segment clock running as the
robot is still at a long range.
On my record sheets I have added one NPC and one scene. I have
also added a loose end as although Jesse needs to survive tonight’s 5 I used the standard SWN combat rules which involved a
raid in the city Jesse also wants to exact revenge on Levi. lot of failing to hit initially until the range shortened. Each round
I counted down the clock. They killed the bot in the round that it
There is still one clock running and that will signify when the would have arrived and entered melee. At the end of the combat
security forces hit the ground. That clock will continue into the I discard the Security bot’s clock.
next scene.
22 •
Solo Play Hints and Tips
• The golden rule is do not ask too many questions. Ask a
question and possibly a follow up if you are still not sure but then
just start to improvise.

• Do not ask game breaking questions. Don’t ask if you wake up

and find you are ruler of the galaxy or a plasma cannon at the end
of the bed. If you need these things just add them to your character
sheet. It is your game, no one will ever know!

• Playing as a solo hero in a game designed for parties of 6-8

heroes is hard. You may want to start at 2nd to 3rd level. This also
adds more scope for skipping back into your characters past to play
flashbacks.

• Don’t start your first solo play sat in a cantina. Take a leaf from
Hollywood and start right in the thick of the action, a roof top fight
against soldier bots, in a runaway shuttle careering towards a crowd
of people or surrounded by aliens at a crash site. You know the sort
of adventure you want to have. Start there and start in the thick of
it.

• The first time you solo play it will probably be slow and stilted
as you don’t know the rules or what to expect. Don’t worry, this
is normal and the more you play the faster and more fluid it all
becomes.

• It is useful to have a stock of pre-generated NPCs. When you

are learning a new game, it is useful to make a few characters to
try and get an idea for how the rules work. Keep those characters
and use them when you need an NPC. That saves breaking up your
game to create an NPC at a crucial moment.

• Narrative Description is your friend. Have you ever had a

character in a barroom brawl and asked the GM if there a bottle
or chair at the table you can throw? Or maybe you asked is the
chandelier secured by a rope, when you wanted to swing across the
hall. In solo play the answer to all these questions is yes. It is your
story, your adventure, you are star and director. The props will
always be in the right place.

• Fail Forward. If something goes wrong and the adventure

would end or there is no way out ask the oracle. In the movies
the hero faces seemingly impossible situations all the time and
somehow gets out of them. You are the hero, it is OK to save
yourself.

• The questions you ask should be the ones best for the game
and not what is best for your character.