The Lost March vs Worlds Without Number

Compare The Lost March and Worlds Without Number side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	The Lost March	Worlds Without Number
Genre	Fantasy	Fantasy
Tags	Classic Fantasy, Sandbox, Exploration, Hexcrawl, Dungeon Crawl, Faction Play, Domain Management, Random Character Creation, Vancian Casting, Inventory Management	Sandbox, Exploration, Faction Play, Strong GM Support, Gritty, Classic Fantasy, Random Tables, Hexcrawl, Low-Prep, Domain Management
Core Mechanic	A skill check rolls a pool of d6s equal to the skill level: one to five dice, plus a die for some class bonuses. Normally a 6 is a success and a 5 is a partial success. An Ability adjustment either widens the success range or adds a critical-failure range on the lowest faces. Settlement, wilderness and combat checks are opposed by the referee's dice, where equal results cancel and a partial success downgrades a full one. In combat, successes and partial successes are assigned to attack or defend. A hit deals the weapon's maximum damage on a success or its minimum on a partial success.	Skill checks roll 2d6 plus the relevant skill level and attribute modifier against a difficulty. Attacks roll d20 plus base attack bonus, combat skill, and attribute modifier against the target's Armor Class. A missed melee attack can still inflict Shock damage when the target's AC is low enough.
Dice	d6 dice pool	2d6 / d20
Complexity	Low	Medium
Availability	Free core rules	Free core rules
Runnability	4 of 5 book tools	5 of 5 book tools
License	Proprietary	CC0 1.0 Universal (SRD 1.0); proprietary core books
Third-Party Publishing	No verified route found	Commercial publishing allowed — Worlds Without Number System Reference Document (SRD 1.0) under CC0 1.0 Universal
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Fausto Botta	Sine Nomine Publishing
Year	2025	2021
Languages	English	English
Best For	Groups who want a long old-school sandbox campaign that turns treasure into faction rank, training and eventually conquered land.	Groups who want an open fantasy sandbox where their own goals drive play. Faction turns and campaign-building tools keep the world moving between sessions.
Highlights	There are no hit points: wounds lower Ability scores directly, so an injured character can carry less treasure home. The lawful factions sell ranks and months of training for gold, so treasure replaces experience as the advancement currency. Each exploration turn, the referee secretly rolls hazard dice sized by difficulty (1d6 on plains, 3d6 in swamps), and each 5 or 6 adds a complication or an encounter.	The campaign chapter turns worldbuilding into procedures, with tags and tables that keep sandbox preparation to one session ahead. Faction turns let rival powers act between sessions, so the setting changes even when the players are elsewhere. Shock damage keeps melee misses meaningful and makes armor and shields matter in close combat.
Considerations	Dice resolve only a set of defined checks, so players usually get past traps and puzzles by describing what their characters do rather than by rolling a skill. Wounds normally heal at one Ability point per day of rest, and ten or more days of healing cost a month of training. Characters begin as agents of a supremacist colonial reconquest, a premise the book states openly and asks the referee to expose through play.	Combat resolution is deliberately simple, with positioning and Shock carrying most of the tactical weight. The rules assume a sandbox campaign and offer little structure for pre-planned story arcs. Social conflict is handled by skill checks and GM judgment rather than a dedicated subsystem.