Reference — Converting Published Adventures

Wanderstar's 2D6-against-8 spine makes published adventures from across the genre easy to run with a few rules of thumb. This appendix has two deep guides and a closing map: the first guide for Traveller and other 2D6 science-fiction games, the second for Stars Without Number and other OSR/NSR (d20-lineage) games, and a final survey — The Wider Field — of the rest of the genre's neighbors and how much of each ports across.

Converting Traveller & Other 2D6 Adventures§

Running a published adventure built for another 2D6 game on the Wanderstar chassis.

There are decades of excellent adventures written for the 2D6 science-fiction tradition — Classic and Mongoose Traveller, the Cepheus Engine, and their many cousins. They share Wanderstar's spine: roll 2D6, add a skill, aim for 8. That shared spine makes them easy to run here. What differs is the dressing — Traveller's numeric DMs, characteristic-damage wounds, and roll-to-hit NPCs — and this chapter is the dressing-room.

You do not convert a Traveller module the way you'd port a spreadsheet. You read it, mine it for situation and place, and re-express its few hard numbers in Wanderstar's grammar: target always 8, characteristics as Advantage/Disadvantage not modifiers, trauma not hit points, players roll, the world doesn't. Most of an adventure — the map, the patron, the catch, the NPCs' wants — needs no conversion at all. Only the dice-facing bits do, and they convert with a handful of rules of thumb.

Traveller is a trademark of Far Future Enterprises; Cepheus Engine is its own open line. Nothing here reproduces their text — this maps their math onto ours so you can run what you already own.

The one-minute version§

Everything below is the same advice, expanded.

Tasks & difficulty§

Traveller-family games move the target number to set difficulty — Easy is 6+, Average 8+, Difficult 10+, Formidable 12+, and so on. Wanderstar never moves the 8. When a module hands you a non-average throw, convert the difficulty into one of Wanderstar's five levers (Ch 5):

• Easier than average (the module's Easy/Routine, or a fat positive DM) → roll at Advantage, or simply rule it succeeds without a roll if nothing interesting rides on failure.
• Harder than average (Difficult/Formidable, or a stiff negative DM) → roll at Disadvantage; or gate it (only the trained may attempt it, only with the right tool); or require two or more successes for the really stubborn problems; or raise the stakes so a failure costs blood, time, or position, not just a "no."
• Timed / repeated throws (Traveller's "1D6 × 10 minutes," extended tasks) → run as a clock or a count of successes; each roll is still 2D6 ≥ 8.

A good instinct: if the module's target is 8, change nothing. If it's lower, the PCs were meant to feel competent — give Advantage. If it's higher, the designer wanted tension — give Disadvantage or add a cost. You are translating the designer's intent, not their arithmetic.

Characteristics & DMs§

Traveller characteristics run 2–12 and feed DMs from −2 to +3. Wanderstar's six characteristics (Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intellect, Education, Social Standing) grant no numbers — only Advantage or Disadvantage, set in equal pairs at creation (Ch 6). So you can't port a DM point-for-point, and you shouldn't try.

For player characters, ignore the module's DM entirely and use the Wanderer's own sheet: if the task leans on a characteristic the PC has marked as an Advantage, they may spend Momentum to use it; if they marked it a Disadvantage, it bites. The module's "+2 for high SOC" simply becomes "this is a Social-Standing test" — whether it's an edge depends on the character, not the page.

For NPCs and the world, read the module's high/low characteristics as flavour and as edges they impose: a brilliant rival (high INT) might force the PCs' opposed rolls to Disadvantage; a hulking brute (high STR) hits with a bigger die. Don't build the NPC a characteristic line — decide what edge their standout trait gives the players' roll.

Skills§

The skill ladders line up cleanly — this is the easiest conversion in the book:

Note the happy coincidence: an unskilled Traveller character takes a −3 DM, exactly Wanderstar's Untrained penalty, and Traveller's level-0 "you're trained, no penalty" is precisely Wanderstar's Trained threshold. Cap anything skill-3 or higher at Expert (+3); Wanderstar doesn't go above it.

Skill names differ — Traveller has a longer, more granular list than Wanderstar's 30 skills in 5 categories (Ch 23). Don't agonize; map to the nearest Wanderstar skill by what the task is:

• Gun Combat / Slug / Energy → Ranged Weapons; Melee / Blade → Close Quarters.
• Pilot / Flyer / Drive → Pilot or Vehicles; Astrogation → Physics (jump plotting, Ch 27).
• Mechanic / Engineer → Engineering; Electronics / Comms / Sensors → Systems or Recon.
• Recon / Stealth → Recon / Sneaking; Streetwise → Streetwise; Persuade / Diplomat / Carouse → Persuasion, Diplomacy, or Carousing.
• Medic → Medicine; Investigate → Investigation; Survival / Vacc Suit → Survival.

When a module's skill has no clean match, pick the closest category and move on — the players will recognize the intent. (Always defer to your own Ch 23 list for the canonical names.)

NPCs, adversaries & combat§

This is the biggest shift, and it makes published fights faster, not slower. Traveller statts its NPCs in full and has them roll to hit. Wanderstar throws the stat block away: NPCs don't roll — players do (Ch 40). Convert any adversary down to two dials at most:

• How hard it hits — the damage die. Translate the module's weapon, not its math: a fist or club is 1D–2D, a typical armed foe (sidearm, blade, rifle) is 3D, a heavy weapon or dangerous beast 4D–5D, anything bigger-than-a-person uses Scale (Ch 12). If you want precision, just adopt the matching Wanderstar weapon profile from Ch 24.
• How tough it is. Narrate it (mook drops in one, hardened foe needs a few, boss is a scene); add two or three "down" boxes only if a long fight wants bookkeeping.

Then run the encounter the Wanderstar way: when the foe acts, the targeted player rolls the fitting skill against 8 to avoid it; on a failure the GM rolls that damage die against the player's armor for trauma. The adversary's deadliness rides on Advantage/Disadvantage to that avoid roll — a master killer means the player rolls at Disadvantage — never on a moved number. A module's "roll 8+ to hit, 3D6 damage, AC 12" becomes: player rolls to avoid vs 8; on a miss, 3D vs their armor.

Initiative still orders the scene (2D6 + Dexterity, Ch 11). Reaction rolls (Traveller's 2D6 NPC-attitude table) become a GM call or, if you want it on the dice, the Contact disposition spectrum (Ally/Contact/Rival/Enemy, Ch 35).

Wounds, weapons & armor§

Traveller spends damage against characteristics (END, then STR/DEX) and knocks a character out at zero. Wanderstar has no hit points and no characteristic damage — it has trauma (Ch 10). Convert every "wound" outcome to the trauma model:

• A blow that would knock a Traveller character down → trauma on the Physical track (Wounded → Maimed); psychic horror, interrogation, or terror → the Mental track (Shaken → Broken).
• Resolve every hit through armor: base armor 3 + gear; damage ≥ armor is 1 trauma, ≥ 2× armor is 2. Don't import Traveller's armor numbers (its scale is different) — pick the nearest Wanderstar gear: ordinary clothes are bare (armor 3), a flak/ballistic layer is roughly +3, heavy combat armor +4 to +6, a powered/war frame jumps to Scale (Ch 12).
• A "lethal" or "killing" result lands as the final node rule: every track full → the next trauma kills (Ch 10).
• Ignore Traveller's separate Endurance-for-fatigue track; fold exhaustion into Hazards and Survival tests (Ch 13).

For weapons, match the module's gun or blade to the closest Ch 24 entry and carry over the traits that matter (AP, Blast, Smart, Scope, scale) rather than the damage dice; the damage die you already set above governs the wound.

Worlds, starports & travel§

Traveller worlds arrive as a UWP — a string like A867949-C coding starport, size, atmosphere, hydrographics, population, government, law level, and tech level. Don't keep it as mechanics; mine it for texture and pull out one number that matters: the TL.

• Tech Level maps almost directly onto Wanderstar's TL 0–15 scale (Ch 37) — read it as the world's rung on the energy ladder and let it set what's possible, not any roll modifier.
• Starport class (A–E, X) → a line of description and the kind of welcome the crew gets; weave it into the system/world detail of Ch 37 rather than tracking it.
• Law level → fiction and gating: a high-law world means weapons draw Disadvantage to carry openly, or simply can't be brought in.
• Government / population / atmosphere / hydro → colour for Sectors & Worlds (Ch 37) and seeds for factions (Ch 34). Roll on Wanderstar's own world tables if you'd rather generate than transcribe.

Travel converts for free. Jump-N and one week per jump are exactly Wanderstar's model (Ch 27): one hex per parsec, jump-1 standard, a week in jump cut off from the universe, no FTL comms. Keep the module's jump map as-is. Wanderstar simplifies fuel and refueling into fiction, so skip the Traveller fuel bookkeeping unless you enjoy it.

Ships & High Guard blocks§

A Traveller ship arrives as a dense block — tonnage, drives, power, armour factor, hull points, turrets and bays, computer, sensors, fuel, staterooms, crew. Keep about five lines and bin the rest. Wanderstar ships carry no tonnage or power ledger (Ch 26), so most of the block is exactly what you delete. It's faster than converting an NPC:

• Size — by role, not displacement. Anything with a jump drive is S3; non-jump fighters and small craft are S1–S2.
• Jump — copy the rating 1:1. J-1 → Jump-1; J-2 / J-3 → the Jump Drive 2 / 3 quality (Ch 26).
• Armour — read the hull's job, not the factor: civilian 12–18, standard 24, armoured 30, warship 36, capital 42 (Ch 26).
• Weapons — collapse turrets, barbettes, and bays into mounts: a turret ≈ one 8D mount (light 6D, bay/heavy 10D, spinal 12D+). Count batteries, not individual lasers. Hang the obvious trait — missiles → Smart/Blast, beam or particle → AP/Scope — and fold a sandcaster into the Point-Defense quality.
• Qualities — translate the ship's character into 2–4, capped by TL (Ch 26): big hold → Cargo Hold, streamlined → Atmospheric, sharp sensors → Advanced Sensors, stealth hull → Stealthed, fighter bays → Hangar, liner → Stateroom, military → Reinforced Hull / Redundant Systems.
• TL — copy it across; the ladders line up, and it sets the quality cap.
• Cost — because Wanderstar's hull prices are tuned to Traveller's scale (Ch 26), you can keep the MCr sticker as-is. (For the monthly pressure use Wanderstar's flat note, Ch 28 — not the Traveller mortgage formula.)
• Discard tonnage, power, fuel, hull points, computer rating, and crew counts (use Wanderstar's crew-by-size, Ch 26).

Worked one-liner. A Type A Free Trader — 200t, J-1, armour 0, one turret, streamlined, ~80t hold — becomes S3, Armor 24, Jump-1, one 8D turret, qualities Cargo Hold + Atmospheric. That's the Ch 26 worked-example trader exactly; the two systems' baseline hull is the same ship. A Scout/Courier lands as S3, Armor 24, Jump Drive 2, one 8D turret, Advanced Sensors + Atmospheric. Under a minute each.

Credits & rewards§

Treat the Imperial Credit as the Shore credit, roughly 1:1 — it keeps a module's economy intact at a glance. Two cautions:

• Sanity-check gear prices against Ch 24 so a converted shopping trip doesn't break your campaign's baseline (a starting Wanderer outfits on about Cr2,000 plus package, Ch 18).
• Scale grand payouts to your table. Traveller adventures sometimes dangle six- and seven-figure rewards tuned to ship mortgages Wanderstar doesn't track. If your campaign treats Cr50,000 as a fortune, deflate a "Cr1,000,000 job" to what your crew would consider life-changing, and let the rest be reputation, a Contact, or a Boon's worth of standing.

A worked conversion§

A classic patron job reads, in the module:

The broker offers Cr8,000 to recover a data wafer from a downed survey lander two days out. Guarding it: 3 scavengers (each STR 8 DEX 7 END 9, Gun Combat 1, snub pistol 3D6, jack armor 3). The wafer is locked — Electronics (Comp) 8+, Difficult (−2) if rushed. The lander's reactor is leaking: Routine (+1) Engineer or take 2D damage.

Run in Wanderstar:

• The job stands as written — drop it straight onto the Jobs & Salvage frame (Ch 38). Cr8,000 is fine as-is.
• The scavengers lose their stat lines. They're an armed band: 3D damage die, mooks (one hit each), nothing to build. When they open up, the targeted Wanderer rolls Ranged Weapons or Athletics vs 8 to avoid; a miss is 3D against their armor. As a crowd, you might instead make them one threat at Disadvantage to the players (Ch 40).
• The locked wafer — Electronics 8+, Difficult if rushed — becomes a Systems test vs 8, at Disadvantage if they force it under fire.
• The leaking reactor — Routine Engineer or 2D — becomes an Engineering test vs 8 (grant Advantage, since it was Routine/easy); failure deals its damage as trauma through armor (Ch 10), or rule a flat 1 trauma if you'd rather not roll.
• Jack armor 3 and snub pistol 3D6 never reach your sheet — the damage die already carried the threat, and the scavengers' own armor only matters if a player asks to roll damage at them (Ch 40).

The two-day flight, the downed lander, the broker's double-cross if there is one — all of that runs untouched. You converted four dice-facing lines and left the adventure intact.

A prep checklist§

Before the session, read the module once and pass over it with a pen:

1. Circle every task throw. Leave the 8s alone; mark non-8 targets as Advantage (easier) or Disadvantage / gate / multiple-success / higher-stakes (harder).
2. Cross out NPC stat blocks. Beside each, jot a damage die and one word for toughness (mook / hardened / boss).
3. Convert wounds to trauma wherever the text spends characteristics or hit points.
4. Pull the TL from each UWP; note anything the law level or starport gates. Ignore the rest of the code.
5. Keep the jump map and the credits; deflate any payout that dwarfs your campaign's economy.
6. Reduce any ship to size, armour, jump, mounts, and 2–4 qualities (Ch 26); bin the tonnage-and-power block.
7. Swap in Wanderstar tables (Parts IX, Ch 34) for any random rolls whose flavour you'd rather match to the Shore.

Do that, and a Traveller adventure runs at your table as if it were written for Wanderstar — because, on the 2D6 it shares with us, it almost was.

Converting Stars Without Number & Other OSR/NSR Adventures§

Running a published adventure built for a d20-lineage or roll-under game on the Wanderstar chassis.

The OSR (Old School Revival — the D&D-derived lineage) and NSR (New School Revolution — the stripped-down descendants like Into the Odd, Cairn, Mausritter, Knave, and Mörk Borg) have produced some of the best sandbox and site-crawl material in the hobby, and Stars Without Number sits at the sci-fi end of that family with sector generation and adventure seeds tailor-made for a ship's crew. None of them runs on 2D6 by default — most resolve on a d20 — so they take a touch more translating than a Traveller module (A7). But they convert cleanly, because what you're keeping from an OSR/NSR adventure is rarely the math: it's the place, the situation, and the danger, and those need almost no conversion at all.

The trick is the same as A7: read it, mine it, re-express the dice-facing lines. Target is always 8; characteristics give Advantage/Disadvantage, not numbers; there are no hit points — only trauma; and players roll, the world doesn't. A dungeon map, a faction's scheme, a derelict's secret, a reaction roll — all of that runs untouched. Only the d20s, the HP, the AC, and the saving throws need a hand.

Stars Without Number is published by Sine Nomine; the d20 OSR lineage descends from the System Reference Document; NSR games each carry their own licenses. Nothing here reproduces their text — it maps their math onto ours so you can run what you already own.

The one-minute version§

Everything below is the same advice, expanded.

Tasks & difficulty§

Most OSR/NSR resolution is a d20 — either roll-over (d20 + bonus ≥ a DC or target) or roll-under (d20 ≤ an attribute score). Wanderstar replaces all of it with 2D6 + skill ≥ 8 and never moves the 8 (Ch 5). Convert by reading what the d20 was for:

• Roll-over against a DC. Treat the standard/"average" DC as the plain 8. Where the module dialed the DC up or down, dial Wanderstar's levers instead: easier → Advantage or no roll; harder → Disadvantage, gate it on training or gear, demand multiple successes, or raise the stakes (Ch 5).
• Roll-under an attribute. This is a characteristic test. Make it a 2D6 ≥ 8 test of the matching characteristic; if the character's score was notably high, that's their Advantage, if notably low, a Disadvantage. (NSR games lean on this constantly — a Cairn "DEX save" is just a Dexterity test here.)
• x-in-6 chances and percentile skills (OSR thief skills, "search: 2-in-6") → a 2D6 ≥ 8 test, with Advantage for a generous chance and Disadvantage for a long shot.

Stars Without Number is the gentle case. Its skill system already rolls 2d6 + attribute modifier + skill against a difficulty that defaults to 8 — so an SWN skill check converts almost verbatim: keep the 8, drop the attribute modifier into Advantage/Disadvantage, and read the skill level off the ladder below. SWN's combat and saves, which use the d20, still need the treatment in the sections that follow.

Attributes & modifiers§

The d20 lineage uses six attributes scored 3–18 with modifiers from about −3 to +3 (SWN tightens this to −2..+2). Wanderstar's six characteristics give no numbers — only Advantage/Disadvantage set in pairs at creation (Ch 6) — so, as in A7, you translate the role, not the score:

Wanderstar has no Wisdom; send perception and resolve to Intellect (or the fitting skill) and let force-of-personality go to Social Standing. For player characters, ignore the module's modifier and use the Wanderer's own sheet — the adventure's "+2 STR" just tells you it's a Strength task. For monsters and NPCs, read a standout attribute as the edge it imposes: a quick horror forces the players' avoid rolls to Disadvantage; a hulking one hits with a bigger die.

Skills§

Where the source game has a skill rating, the ladders line up just as they do for Traveller:

Cap SWN level-3/4 (and any OSR equivalent) at Expert (+3). Map skill names to the nearest of Wanderstar's 30 (Ch 23) by what the task is — Shoot → Ranged Weapons, Punch/Stab → Close Quarters, Fix/Program → Engineering/Systems, Sneak → Sneaking, Notice → Recon, Heal → Medicine, Talk/Lead → Persuasion/Diplomacy, Pilot → Pilot, Navigation → Physics. Classless OSR characters simply have no skill ratings: run their attempts as characteristic tests vs 8, trained-or-not per the fiction.

Saving throws§

Saves are the most OSR-flavoured subsystem and the one with no Wanderstar equivalent — there is no separate save mechanic here, only the core test. Convert any save to a 2D6 + the fitting characteristic-or-skill ≥ 8, with the danger riding on Advantage/Disadvantage:

• SWN's three saves map directly: Physical → Endurance; Evasion → Dexterity (often an Athletics test to dodge); Mental → Intellect or Social Standing.
• Classic OSR save categories (poison/death, breath, paralysis, magic, etc.) → the obvious characteristic: poison/death → Endurance (or a Survival/Medicine test); breath/area → Dexterity/Athletics to dive clear; fear/charm → Intellect or Social Standing.
• NSR roll-under saves (Into the Odd, Cairn: "STR save," "WIL save") → a characteristic test vs 8 of the named attribute, full stop.

A "save or die" becomes a high-stakes test: succeed and you're clear, fail and it lands as trauma through armor — possibly the killing node if the fiction is that lethal (Ch 10). Don't preserve the save's DC; preserve its threat.

Monsters, NPCs & combat§

This is where OSR/NSR diverges most from Wanderstar, and where conversion makes play faster. The d20 lineage gives every monster an AC, Hit Dice, attack bonus, and damage, and has the monster roll to hit. Wanderstar throws the block away: NPCs don't roll — players do (Ch 40). Reduce any creature to at most two dials:

• How hard it hits — the damage die. Read it off the monster's attack: claws or a club → 1D–2D; a typical armed foe or a biting beast → 3D; a heavy weapon, a big predator, an ambush in force → 4D–5D; anything bigger-than-a-person → Scale (Ch 12). The source weapon die (1d8, 2d6…) is just a hint — pick the Wanderstar die that feels right against armor 3.
• How tough it is. The monster's Hit Dice become narration, not numbers: a 1 HD creature is a mook (one good hit), a mid-HD threat is hardened (needs a few), a boss is a scene with a shape. If a big fight wants bookkeeping, give it two or three "down" boxes — never a hit-point total.

Then run it the Wanderstar way: when the creature acts, the targeted player rolls the fitting skill against 8 to avoid; a miss means the GM rolls that damage die against the player's armor for trauma. A monster's lethality lives in Advantage/Disadvantage on that avoid roll, not in a to-hit bonus. So a line like "AC 15, +5 to hit, 2d6 claws" becomes: player rolls to avoid vs 8 (at Disadvantage if it's fast and deadly); on a miss, ~3D against armor.

Monster AC never reaches your table — players don't roll against it. They roll their own weapon skill vs 8, and success is effect (Ch 40); only borrow an armor value (Ch 24) or reach for Scale if you need to know whether a weapon even troubles something armored or huge. Morale rolls (the OSR 2d6-under-morale check) are a GM-side tool — keep them as written, or fold a foe's nerve into the scene and the Contact disposition spectrum (Ch 35). Initiative still orders things (2D6 + Dexterity, Ch 11).

Hit points, damage & armor → trauma§

Hit points are the beating heart of the d20 lineage and Wanderstar has none. Convert every HP-and-damage exchange to the trauma model (Ch 10):

• PC hit points → trauma tracks. A Wanderer doesn't have HP to spend down; a blow that would wound becomes trauma on the Physical track (Wounded → Maimed), terror or mind-violation goes to the Mental track (Shaken → Broken).
• Resolve through armor. Base armor 3 + gear; damage ≥ armor is 1 trauma, ≥ 2× armor is 2. Don't import AC or armor numbers (the scales don't match) — pick the nearest Wanderstar gear: ordinary clothing is bare (armor 3), a light vest ~+3, heavy combat armor +4–6, a powered/war frame jumps to Scale (Ch 12).
• Death. "Reduced to 0 HP" → the trauma node rule: each track full, the next trauma kills (Ch 10). This lines up especially well with NSR design — Into the Odd's Hit Protection then Critical Damage, Cairn's HP then STR-loss then death save, all map onto Wounded → Maimed → killing node without strain.
• Shock / automatic damage (SWN Shock, NSR auto-hit) → trauma, or the flat-trauma shortcut: a failed avoid is 1 trauma, 2 when the threat plainly overmatches the target's armor (Ch 40).

For weapons, match the source item to the nearest Ch 24 entry and carry the traits that matter (AP, Blast, Smart, Scope, scale); the damage die above governs the wound.

Worlds, sectors & tech level§

Stars Without Number's sandbox tools convert for free into Wanderstar's. An SWN sector of hex-mapped worlds, each with world tags, drops straight onto Sectors & Worlds (Ch 37): keep the map, read each world tag as a hook and a seed for factions (Ch 34), and roll Wanderstar's own tables for anything you'd rather generate fresh. The same goes for generic OSR hex-crawls and dungeon maps — the place is the place; run it with Wanderstar tables and encounters (Part IX).

The one number worth carrying over is Tech Level, but SWN's compressed 0–5 scale isn't Wanderstar's 0–15, so re-map it:

The useful alignment: SWN's common starfaring TL5 sits right at Wanderstar's common TL 12, and SWN's lost-golden-age pretech maps onto the Seeders' high-TL relics — so a "pretech artifact" recovered in a module already has a home in the Shore's salvage economy (Ch 38).

Spells, psionics & the weird§

OSR magic and SWN psionics have no default place in the Shore — Wanderstar is technological science fiction. You have three clean options, pick per item:

• Reskin as exotic, high-TL gear. A "spell effect" becomes a piece of pretech or Seeder-grade equipment (Ch 24, Ch 37) — a stunner, a med-injector, a cloaking field, a drone swarm. This is usually the best fit and keeps the setting intact.
• Reskin as a Boon. A signature ability a single NPC or relic grants becomes a freeform Boon (Ch 9) — Advantage on the relevant roll — rather than a spell list.
• Cut it. If a thing only makes sense in a fantasy or psionic cosmology your table isn't using, drop it and replace the beat with a mundane-but-strange Shore equivalent.

Whichever you choose, run its effect on the dice the normal way — a test vs 8, an avoid roll, trauma through armor — never a separate magic subsystem.

Currency, treasure & advancement§

• Credits (SWN) → Shore credits roughly 1:1; gold pieces (fantasy OSR) → reprice to credits by feel. Either way, sanity-check a converted haul against Ch 24 so it doesn't dwarf your campaign's baseline (a starting Wanderer outfits on about Cr2,000 plus package, Ch 18), and deflate a wildly oversized treasure to what your crew would call a fortune.
• XP-for-treasure, XP-for-monsters, and class levels — ignore all of it. Don't convert the module's advancement math; run Wanderstar advancement (Ch 20): mark skills on failure, roll per mark at session end, +1 XP a session, 10 XP a rank. The adventure supplies the situation; your campaign supplies the growth.

A worked conversion§

A typical SWN-flavoured site reads, in the module:

The maintenance bay is held by 4 feral maintenance drones (AC 14, 2 HD, attack +3 for 1d8 cutting laser, Morale 8). The sealed vault needs a successful Program/Fix skill check, Difficulty 9. A ruptured coolant line forces a Physical Save or take 1d6 damage. Inside: a pretech (TL5) power cell worth 2,000 credits.

Run in Wanderstar:

• The drones lose their block. They're a hostile swarm: 3D damage die, mooks (one hit each) — or, as a group, one threat at Disadvantage to the players (Ch 40). When they cut loose, the targeted Wanderer rolls Ranged Weapons or Athletics vs 8 to avoid; a miss is 3D against armor. Morale 8 stays a GM-side read of when they break, or becomes the band losing its nerve in the fiction.
• The vault — Program/Fix, Difficulty 9 — becomes a Systems (or Engineering) test vs 8; the above-average difficulty becomes Disadvantage, or a gate (only a trained tech may try).
• The coolant line — Physical Save or 1d6 — becomes an Endurance (or Athletics-to-dodge) test vs 8; failure deals trauma through armor (Ch 10), or a flat 1 trauma if you'd rather not roll.
• The pretech power cell — TL5, 2,000 cr — is Seeder-grade salvage at Wanderstar TL 11–12 (table above); Cr2,000 is fine, and it slots into the salvage economy (Ch 38).
• AC 14, +3 to hit, the 1d8 die never touch your sheet — the damage die and the avoid roll already carried the whole exchange.

The bay's layout, the sealed vault, the reason the drones turned feral — all of it runs untouched. You converted four dice-facing lines.

A prep checklist§

Before the session, read the module once with a pen:

1. Mark every d20 check. Roll-over → a 2D6 ≥ 8 test (difficulty via Advantage/Disadvantage/gate/stakes). Roll-under → a characteristic test of that attribute. SWN 2d6 skill checks → keep the 8, drop the modifier into Advantage/Disadvantage.
2. Cross out monster stat blocks. Beside each, write a damage die and one word for toughness (mook / hardened / boss); turn Hit Dice into that word, not a number.
3. Convert saves to the fitting characteristic-or-skill test vs 8.
4. Turn HP and damage into trauma wherever the text spends or deals hit points.
5. Re-map Tech Levels with the table above; keep the sector/dungeon map as-is.
6. Reskin or cut spells and psionics as gear, Boons, or nothing.
7. Keep credits (deflate gold and oversized hauls); ignore XP-for-treasure and levels — run Wanderstar advancement (Ch 20).
8. Swap in Wanderstar tables (Part IX, Ch 34) for any random rolls you'd rather match to the Shore.

Do that, and a Stars Without Number sector or an OSR site-crawl runs at your table as a Wanderstar adventure — the danger and the place intact, the d20s and the hit points left behind on the page.

The Wider Field — Other Games Worth Knowing§

The two guides above cover the families closest to Wanderstar's dice. But science-fiction roleplaying is bigger than 2D6 and the d20, and the method that runs a Traveller module runs any of it: read it, mine it, re-express only the dice-facing lines. This last section maps the neighbors worth raiding for material — and tells you, honestly, how much of each you actually carry over.

One principle organizes all of it: the further a game sits from 2D6-against-8, the less of its math you port — and the more you simply harvest its fiction. That sounds like more work and is almost always less, because the fiction is the part that needs no conversion at all. A debt, a derelict, a faction with a plan, a frightened informant — none of that has an engine. You are never really converting an adventure; you are keeping everything good about it and dropping the few numbers underneath.

The near family — other 2D6 games§

The easiest neighbors share Wanderstar's spine outright. The Cepheus Engine ecosystem alone is deep: Hostile (Zozer Games' grim Alien-flavored hard SF), Orbital 2100, These Stars Are Ours, and a shelf of others, plus 2300AD at the harder, near-future end of the Traveller tree. Treat every one of these exactly as the Traveller guide above — same 2D6, same skill-against-8, same handful of rules of thumb. Convert in minutes; most of the page is already in your grammar.

The OSR/horror edge — Mothership and the rules-light grimy SF§

Mothership (Tuesday Knight Games) is the dominant indie sci-fi-horror game and, for your purposes, the single richest pool of ready-to-run material in the genre — a vast first- and third-party line of lethal, atmospheric adventures. It resolves on a d% rather than a d20, but the spirit of the OSR guide above carries it: discard the percentile checks for 2D6 ≥ 8, and — the one clean mapping worth naming — fold Mothership's Stress and Panic straight onto Wanderstar's Mental track (Shaken → Broken, Ch 10), which does the same job in fewer moving parts. Its survival-horror tone sits naturally beside Wanderstar's "danger is real and trauma sticks" ethos. Death in Space and other rules-light grimy-SF games harvest the same way: mine the situation, keep almost nothing else.

The narrative engines — keep the fiction, drop the dice§

These games resolve nothing like Wanderstar, so you port none of their math — and it doesn't matter, because what they do best is exactly what converts for free.

• Scum and Villainy (Forged in the Dark) is the closest game to Wanderstar in campaign shape: a crew flying a ship they're in debt on, taking jobs, navigating factions across a sector. Its jobs drop onto Jobs & Salvage (Ch 38), its factions and clocks map almost one-for-one onto Faction Play (Ch 34), and its sector lifts onto Sectors & Worlds (Ch 37). Ignore the dice pools and position/effect entirely; steal the situations, which are superb.
• Coriolis: The Third Horizon (Free League, Year Zero Engine) is a strong authored-setting sandbox. Mine its locations, intrigues, and NPCs for fiction; set each world's TL (Ch 37) and run everything on 2D6. The dice-pool-and-prayer math stays on the page.
• Powered by the Apocalypse SF — Uncharted Worlds (career-and-origin playbooks) and Impulse Drive (a Firefly in everything but name) — hands you character setups and "moves" that read as ready-made situations. Harvest the premise and the dramatic questions; resolve them with the core test.
• The Expanse (Green Ronin, AGE system) is a tonal cousin — working crews in a lived-in system — and a fine plot-and-NPC quarry even though its 3d6 stunt math has no place here.

The solo neighbors§

You already have solo and co-op play in Part X (the oracle, Ch 43; the session loop, Ch 44; solo and co-op, Ch 45). But the solo-first games are a treasury of content you can pour into it. Ironsworn and its SF successor Starforged carry excellent oracle prompts, mission and sector tables, and encounter generators; Five Parsecs From Home is a whole solo-campaign engine of missions, enemies, and events. Lift their tables and prompts as grist — then answer every question with Wanderstar's own oracle (Ch 43) and resolve every danger as a test against 8 with trauma through armor. You are borrowing their inspiration, not their engine.

What you never convert§

Across all of it, the rule holds: the only thing you ever truly translate is the dice-facing lines — the targets, the to-hits, the hit points, the saves. Place, people, and pressure are engine-neutral and ride across untouched. Which is the quiet argument of this whole appendix: on the things that make an adventure worth running, Wanderstar was never far from any of its neighbors to begin with.