Provides useful additional generation to SWN world generation. At this price you really shouldn't think about it twice - get it!

the product is of very good quality, and I greatly appreciate being able to make more "realistic" worlds with temperatures, atmospheres, and biospheres that are more cohesive with one anothee. The additional tech level and population tables are honestly far more helpful than they may seem at first glance. I do have a few issues with the guide, though.

1) no temps for "Inert gas" atmosphere. While it certainly isn't a deal-breaker, it does leave me guessing on how to make a realistic world of that type. 2) The Temperature table is missing the 12 row. For the die rolls on the temperature table, it lists 2 through 11 without a 12 row. Again, not a deal-breaker but does make me wonder if it was a mistake or intentional 3) World Tags. The new tags aren't bad, but they can be a bit vague. "Strange Custom" and "Taboo" are prime examples. These tags are good, but the world tags are usually meant to take guesswork on how to put two and two together out and let the GM focus on building the rest of the world.

This is a great product which expands upon the world generation rules in the Stars without Number (SWN).

A good bit of the material in it was previously published in an article in the Infinite Stars fanzine #2. The Infinite Stars #2 article has some minor changes to some of the text and doesn’t have the sample world creation section, with the sample worlds.

The PDF gives charts new charts and rules for world generation and also modifies some of the world generation charts from the core SWN game.

This supplement is not a full star system generator, so do be aware that no rules to determine gas giants, star type, number of other planets, moons, etc. are in it.

New charts for generating the Atmosphere, Biosphere and Population of worlds are given. The new Atmosphere chart has two new atmosphere types on it.

Two new Atmosphere types are given Airless and Thin. These are slightly different from the way they are in the basic SWN rule book, which groups the two into one description.

Also, these 2 Atmospheres both show up in Stellagama’s Lurian Trailing Cluster Book 1 for some worlds so you may want to be aware of that as those atmosphere descriptions aren’t reprinted in that other product.

New Biosphere and Temperature charts are given. These new charts use a world’s Atmosphere as a factor in what sort of Biospheres and Temperatures can be generated for it.

The Population Tables are greatly expanded. You can get a more specific numbers now on what sort of population a World has.

The Failed Colony is given a population range rules and the rules for determining the exact population of the others are expanded to give a more detailed range of what the population of a world is.

it doesn't mention that the Suns of Goldsupplement as specific rules to cover the generation of Colonies and failed colonies and taht a GM ought to consolut that supplement if more details are needed.

The Tech Level chart is expanded to take into account a world’s population with that being a factor in what TL a world will have.

A new Tech Level (TL) can be generated now for tech level for TL3 worlds that have some TL4 capability. The chart has a TL 4+ on it but it is indicated what this represents. I’m thinking it is Tech level 4 with specialties that is in the Core SWN rule book.

Tech Level 4- that is in Stellagama’s Lurian Trailing Cluster Book 1 isn’t on the charts, nor is the rules for it in this PDF. So, you can’t generate a World with that TL using the charts given.

The Tags charts are expanded to include several new Tags the book covers. These will be famialr to 2d6 OGL players.

The product ends with a sample world creation section which shows a full walkthrough of the creation of the two worlds. This was very well written and it shows how to take your simple rolls to generate the world and flesh the m out. I t was my favorite part of the book.

I do hope that at some point those 2 sample worlds will show up in a fully developed sector map that Stellagama Publishing releases in the future.

I also would have liked to have each of the sample worlds when finished given each their own page with a picture of the world or some sort of image.

One thing that the product could use is a little interior art.

A full set of star system generation rules is something I do hope Stellagama does tackle at some point for the SWN at some point in the future as that would compliment this product greatly.

Overall, this is a must have for any SWN GM, especially if your game focuses on exploring new worlds. I definetly recommend it..

The world generation system presented in Stars Without Number is excellent, but some GMs might find need of a little more structure in their world generation rules in order to get usable results. Stellagama’s Expanded World Generation Rules are a useful addition to the SWN rules.

The Good: Things like a given world’s temperature, population and tech level are now influenced by the results for the environment and atmosphere. This isn’t to say that you can’t get weird, but implicit in the tables are rationales for why an airless world would not typically have billions of people living on it. That isn’t a critique of the SWN rules as presented, but the Expanded World Generation Rules are intended, I think, to give the GM some measure of structure and realism to world generation.

Also provided are rules for incorporating newly generated worlds into the rules for building and maintaining fleets provided in Skyward Steel. This is a really nice touch. Two sample worlds are generated as well, giving an example of how dynamic and fun world generation using these rules can be.

The Not So Good: The only issue I have with these rules are the new World Tags that come from the 2d6 OGL rules. The Stars Without Number world tags are evocative and do half the work before a harried GM has to put pen to paper. Some of the new world tags in the Expanded World Generation Rules are too general. Compare, for example, the SWN tag “Xenophobes” with the new tag “Taboo”. “Xenophobes” is a specific example of a taboo, and provides specific hooks upon which to hang an adventure. “Taboo” is just too vague, and requires the GM to do additional work. Some of the new tags, like “Fusion”, are interesting, while others like “Unusual Custom” are far too general.

Overall, Stellagama’s Expanded World Generation Rules comprise a solid and effective toolbox for world generation. The new world tags require a little more work to be as inspirational as they should be, but otherwise, these rules are handy and well-presented.