Megadungeon to rule them all

I don't think that I really like megadungeons. Not as written, that is. I think most are designed too cleanly, in one way or another, and a megadungeon should be messy and wild.

Stonehell is a wonderful concept, but many of the areas feel too lived in for what is supposed to be living in its halls. Plus each map is too uniformly square, which doesn't really make sense with the history the place has.

The Ruins of Greyhawk are just, well, dumb. Too many things that are designed to hobble a specific playing style, and too many areas that seem disconnected from one another.

I'm GMing Dwimmermmount again, and I have found that the limitation of this dungeon is in thinking of it as a center of civilization. There are no wide corridors for troops to march down, there are no plazas for marketplaces, and there are certainly not enough bathrooms for the supposedly hundreds or thousands of people who once lived here.

I've repurposed Dwimmermount as an old wizard's school and laboratory. Instead of the remains and evidence of soldiers, we have former wizards. The Empire didn't stop the ascension of Termax, a schism of his own students did. This opens up so many more possibilities. The secret society that wants to re-enter Dwimmermount to resurrect Termax is competing with a rival secret society that wants to re-enter Dwimmermount to ensure Termax is dead.

Population
I've included the mountain's ecosystem as something to draw upon for random encounters. There is a magical explanation for why nobody moved in and out of the mountain for two centuries, but I rather like the idea that there are cracks through this magic and the lizards and bugs of the mountain found their way in to become natural prey for the predators surviving in dark hallways for two centuries.

The population is finite, however. There is no restocking of the dungeon happening here. There are 61 kobolds. Once they're dead, they're gone for good. Any result on the encounter table for kobolds should just be replaced with the next option down. In this way, I've also rewritten the random encounter tables, the most dangerous foes are the highest rolls. Kill, defeat, and displace everything that is weak on one level and the only thing that remains are the predatory threats who have run out of prey and food.

The rooms are not static
It's easy enough to just use the descriptions of the rooms and apply some common sense as to what might be in one. There are orcs on this level, so why is this room empty? Let's put some orcs here and have them cooking a snail and moss stew on a small firepit. Where does the smoke go? Nobody has asked, but there a small holes in the surface of the ceilings designed for ventilation. Too small to crawl into, unless you're an insect. Where do the vents go? All over the mountain, it's a three-dimensional maze that is virtually impossible to map!

That's a key trait that I just don't seem to have. If nobody asks, why bother coming up with an explanation for it? Because if I think of it, I need to explain it to myself and then I have an explanation ready.

Who wants in?
I've created a few factions that are looking for passage into Dwimmermount. They're all hanging out in the local town for now, but as soon as the PCs return with orc heads and stories of dungeon delving they'll be making their way up to the gates, and become instant rivals for the loot to be found inside.

The Order of Cytophim. A secret society of magic-users who wish to ensure that Termax is dead and never coming back. They vow to use magic to preserve the Law, and punish those who wield spells carelessly.

Termaxian Cultists. People who believe Termax is still alive, that his godhood is imminent.

Dwarven outfitters. They believe the mountain should belong to them. It was a dwarven home before Termax moved in and displaced them!

Sken's Rogues. These guys are awful!

Queen Ilona. A Thulian descendant who wants to reclaim Dwimmermount as her ancestral home, and rule a new kingdom from it. Inspired by the PCs from the last game I ran in Dwimmermount.

Wait! You're GMing a new Dwimmermount campaign?
Oh! Yeah. Didn't I mention that? I started a new campaign two weeks ago and kicked it off by giving everyone Dwimmermount as an adventure I'd like to run again. We're playing using the Freebooters on the Frontier rules, which is a sort of OSR-ified version of Dungeon World (itself a D&D-ified knockoff of Apocalypse World).

I really like the system for two reasons:
1) it randomizes everything very neatly and in a not complex way that is easy to GM on the fly
2) it is very deadly and careless PCs will get FUCKING MURDERED if they don't take care of themselves

So, I really like Freebooters and I incorporated some elements from the Black Hack into it, and that's what we're playing with. We had one session and everybody really successfully killed some orcs but they made enough noise to draw the attention of some giant spiders and now we'll get to see if they survive the second session.

This is the picture I used for Muntburg, I forget where I grabbed it from:

To summarize, my rules for GMing a megadungeon, or Dwimmermount, anyway:
Nothing is organized, the rooms and the creatures are wild and messy!
The population is finite, and can be killed off, displaced, or recruited/enslaved.
More people want to get inside!

Tyranny of Dragons

tyr·an·ny (tĭr′ə-nē) n.
1. A government in which a single ruler is vested with absolute power.
2. The office, authority, or jurisdiction of an absolute ruler.
3. Absolute power, especially when exercised unjustly or cruelly
4.
a. Use of absolute power.
b. A tyrannical act.
5. Extreme harshness or severity; rigor.

drag·on (drăg′ən) n.
1. A mythical monster traditionally represented as a gigantic reptile having a lion's claws, the tail of a serpent, wings, and a scaly skin.
2.
a. A fiercely vigilant or intractable person.
b. Something very formidable or dangerous.
3. Any of various lizards, such as the Komodo dragon or the flying lizard.
4. Archaic A large snake or serpent.

Clearly, the next D&D campaign will be focused on how an absolute and oppressively severe power enslaves any and all large reptiles.

Hidden Fortress

There are plenty of places online to find out how to draw or places that will teach you techniques for drawing, especially for RPG maps. Dyson's Logos immediately comes to mind! But there are scant few places where anybody teaches you how to design a map, how to make it interesting, or how to put a good adventure around it. I had this idea for a castle built into the side of a mountain, and as I worked on it, that's how I came to start calling it the Hidden Fortress.

I wanted to create a defensible castle, but I had no idea what it would be defending. I just had this image in my head of a wall jutting out from the mountainside, so I started drawing a rough outline with some notes about what the different rooms were. I focused a lot more on the names of who would be living there than I did on what to call the place, or the reasons for its existence.

I sat down with some graph paper and started drawing rooms, making sure to connect the first and second floor towers. By the time I got done drawing and I was ready to ink it, I realized I forgot to put stairs along the walls or in some of the towers, many of the towers have a simple ladder marker.

First Floor


Second Floor, 30 yards up

In my mind's eye this place is run by Cassandra, a cruel slaver and bandit. The prison cells have no walls or bars on the cells overlooking the courtyard below, leaving the prisoners to risk jumping down into the middle of a training ground. Some of the walls still have rough edges which were left deliberately by the builders to fool any invading force into thinking the fortress didn't extend deeper into the mountain.

Beyond that, I haven't really detailed it. I'm thinking of redrawing it and putting a town around the outside wall.

three magic items

I entered the OSR Superstar Competition. None of my stuff got picked, but that's okay. When I use magic items I prefer to design them to fit my own game and within the context of whatever the story is. This was an interesting exercise as I tried to write concise entries that could easily be dropped into any GM's world. Here they are:

the Loyal Blade of Death
This is a simple dagger made of iron. It appears to be slightly dull and the handle is made of wrapped leather that appears torn at the ends, as if it may unravel if used too much. The dagger itself is impervious to harm, though the leather wrapping is just the most recently fashioned handle.
If wielded against an opponent it will inflict 1d4 damage. If a sapient (Int 2+) creature is killed with the dagger, the wielder will feel a surge of energy from the blade and the damage will increase to 1d6. Killing a sapient creature continues to increase the die type of damage every time one is slain with the blade itself. Thus 1d6 becomes 1d8, 1d8 becomes 1d10 etc. until it maxes out at 1d100 (if the GM has access to other die types such as d16s and d24s she is encouraged to include those as well). If the dagger is lent to another person, or even touched by a sapient creature other than the current wielder, the damage die type resets back to 1d4.
The dagger will radiate as powerfully magical and resists all forms of divination to reveal its powers, but a Commune or Legend Lore spell might reveal that the blade was not crafted on the mortal plane of reality. Sleeping while having the dagger on one's person, or under their pillow, will cause the owner to dream the deaths of all of the people and creatures the blade has killed, from the dead's perspective. In truth, the blade has recorded all of these experiences, and being so close to the blade causes a mortal mind to share those recorded sensations. Some demon will some day come looking for the blade to drain all of the experiences from the dagger. They may already be looking for it...

Ring of Returning Home
This simple unmarked band of gold was once around the ring finger of a prominent magic-user who was married to another magic-user of some talent. The ring was created so that their spouse would never get lost in their work and always come back to their mutually shared home to rest. The names of these magic-users have been lost to time, but the legend of the ring remains and for many wielders of magic who construct their own towers it would be a valuable prize.
The ring only works for magic-users, and nobody else is capable of getting it to work. It allows the wearer to visualize a place they have been to before and instantly teleport there, but it must be a very familiar place to the wearer. The ring can be used as many times in a day as the wearer wishes, however the second time the ring is used it will always teleport the wearer back to the exact location they teleported from before. In fact, if they haven't returned by midnight of the same day (from where they teleported from) then they are instantly and against their will teleported back.
The ring will not function according to command, or for anybody else who attempts to use it, until the "return trip" has been made by the original wearer. Removing the ring will not prevent the "return" teleport, as both the wearer who used the ring and the ring itself will teleport back to their original location at midnight of that day. If the ring is used and the wearer dies, then at midnight their body and the ring teleport back to where the ring was first used.

Gravity Boots
Across the sea there is a city of towers and buildings that stretch unbelievably high, and to reach these places there are alleys and streets that stretch above and below ground and traverse every corner of the city's impossible heights and fathomed depths. In this city is a thief who can walk on walls and ceilings and jump from any building and land on her feet, and the gravity boots are how she does it.
The boots don't actually break gravity, but they create a localized gravity field around anybody who wears them. Down is always relative to the boots being worn and outside of this localized gravity field momentum and weight mean nothing. The wearer can walk up walls and onto ceilings as if they were solid ground. If the wearer is fighting while using the boots then both they and their attackers suffer -2 penalties to hit each other, due to the weirdness of interacting with localized gravity. This also applies to missile fire directed at the wearer when the boots are allowing them to walk up walls or jump off rooftops, but doesn't apply to missile fire from the wearer.
The boots do not enhance the wearer's ability to jump and if they make a concerted effort to separate from a ceiling or wall they will jump off of it but as long as the wearer can land on their feet they won't take damage from falling any distance of height (resolve a jump as a saving throw with a +4 bonus, a particularly difficult jump would have no bonus). Reverse Gravity spells have no effect on the boots while they are being worn, the localized gravity field trumps external effects.

my version of Scenic Dunnsmouth

Scenic Dunnsmouth is a sandbox-style horror adventure module, and it requires a bit of legwork and design before being able to run it properly. The author, Zzarchov Kowolski, is having a little map making contest in support of the module. I had already constructed three versions of Dunnsmouth before he announced the contest, but I felt like making an all-new version for the contest.

I consider this my wife's map since she insisted on rolling the dice. To be honest she rolled really well and I think this is the best map I've produced out of the four. The adventure reminds me a lot of the Village of Hommlet so I tried to replicate some of the style of that module's map. All of the rules for building Dunnsmouth from the book were followed with a few exceptions:
1) I put the Time Cube inside a residence by drawing a card for the d4 (automatically infected)
2) I placed Magda in the farthest kicker die from Ivan
To make reference with the pdf easier I just used the card suits for the locations unless a basic description would suffice. Also, the shoreline is left ambiguously straightish because I plan on using this map as a river location within my current game.

Click on the image to make it bigger

I put the map above as well as a text-free version into this pdf for easy printing: MARIE'S VERSION OF SCENIC DUNNSMOUTH

Apocalypse World of Darkness (brainstorming)

Apocalypse World, from now on AW. World of Darkness, from now on WoD
AW has playbooks, WoD has splats; I'm ambivalent about both but recognize the value for players to have easy choices
AW has 5 stats and a plethora of moves, WoD has 9 attributes and 21 skills; I like a simple system, so let's keep WoD's attributes but get rid of the skills
AW has countdown clocks, WoD has dots and points; I like dots and points
AW rolls 2d6, WoD rolls pools of d10s; I like pools of dice, but let's use d6s because this isn't WoD, this is AWoD
AW has complications and partial successes, WoD has exceptional successes and dramatic failures; I like complications and varying levels of success

Trying to fuse the Apocalypse World moves dynamic with the standard World of Darkness stat blocks: Everything is kept the same, roll dice pools and only count the highest number on any rolled dice.
Any result of '5' or higher can be used as a success for the roll.
All dice rolling at 4 or less means the GM can make a hard move, or mark a hard move for use later.
A dice that comes up a '6' allows you to roll another dice.

I'm not sure how the math would work out. Combat and damage would have to be tweaked slightly anyway. For now, let's see how it works.

From the WoD core rulebook: Perception
Dice Pool: Wits + Composure
Roll Results
Dramatic Failure: Your character notices something strange or out of place, but it’s not what has actually occurred, or he makes a dangerous assumption about the event. A picture hanging at an odd angle indicates that someone has moved it, but your character assumes that a door has been slammed, shifting the piece of art.
Failure: Your character notices nothing amiss or out of place.
Success: Your character recognizes that something has happened.
Exceptional Success: Your character not only recognizes when something unusual or quick happens nearby, he sees it all happen and gets a good look. Or he notices a variety of things that are amiss in his surroundings, just by entering the room.

My interpretation: Perception when you roll Wits+Composure, spend successes to ask questions.
• what does this mean?
• what happened here recently?
• what is about to happen?
• what here is not what it appears to be?
• what here is useful or valuable to me?
• what is this?
• where’s my best escape route / way in / way past?
• which enemy is most vulnerable to me?
• which enemy is the biggest threat?
• who’s in control here?
• is __ telling the truth?
• what does __ intend to do?
• what does __ wish I’d do?
• what’s __ really feeling?

I think that works but I'm not sure how partial successes would work out, because that's my favorite thing about AW. I'd be curious to figure out how combat would work, but that would require more work and I have to shelve this idea for now. I want to get back to working on... a few other things. I've got two D&D scenarios I'm writing, two maps I'm drawing, a new playbook for AW, rules for Fantasy Heartfucker or whatever I'm going to call it. I've got too many projects that I keep working on a little bit at a time, I need to focus on one and finish it sometime soon.

How to cast a spell

When I was GMing 2nd and 3rd edition D&D I had this houserule that wizards didn't have to memorize spells every day but they did have to roll a skill to cast a spell. In 2nd edition it was a proficiency and in 3rd edition it was a skill, but both were called Spellcraft.

At first it was just a simple roll to see if the spell went off, a wizard PC would roll a d20 and add their Intelligence modifier. I rated the level of the spell as the difficulty, added to 10, so a 1st level spell needed an 11 or higher to cast and a 19th level spell needed a 19 or higher. Fail the roll and the spell fails, but you didn't spend the spell slot either.

During 3rd edition, I changed it to be more similar to combat. Casting a spell had a DC of 20 and the PC could add both their Spellcraft skill and their Intelligence modifier to their roll. Failing a roll still meant the spell didn't go off and you just had to try again.

I only ever had one player walk out of a game because of this houserule because anybody who played for more than one session learned about my other two houserules for wizards.

#2: Spell slots were directly translated to spell levels and could be spent like points to cast spells, so a 5th level wizard would have 10 spell levels to cast spells with while a rules-as-written 5th level wizard would have three 1st, two 2nd, and one 3rd level spell slots.

#3: Wizards could cast any level of spell as long as they had learned it and had enough spell levels to cast it, during 3rd edition days the DC for learning was based on spell level but during 2nd edition days it was a percentage roll based off Intelligence.

I forget how I adjusted 0-level spells, but players rarely used them anyway.

All of these together made wizards a lot more powerful earlier on, and it also freed the typical wizard player from focusing all of their time on strategizing their spell lists. Something else happened, during later sessions other PCs started thinking about picking up a level or two in wizard. Which made me start thinking "why do I even need a wizard class? couldn't I just let anybody with Spellcraft attempt to cast a spell?" But then I stopped GMing and sat on the player's side of the screen for the next decade or so.

Enter: World of Darkness

When I returned to GMing a longer campaign I attempted to splice my favorite setting of Birthright into the rules of World of Darkness. Instead of using the Mage rules straight from the book, I picked apart spells and applied them to the D&D tropes of spells. I had a short list of available spells that were detailed from top to bottom. And all of that was a mistake. Often my players cast spells expecting them to work just like their D&D counterparts, even though I wasn't trying to emulate them exactly but marry them to the low magic and gritty feel I was going for, or they simply forgot they had the spells.
World of Darkness combat is also a slog so many optional and house rules were introduced, but this is a different subject for another time.

Enter: Dungeon Crawl Classics

I really enjoy this system. It feeds the nostalgia of my days playing and learning the rules of 1st edition AD&D, but it's rules-light emphasis with 3rd edition mechanics means it is also very easy to learn and utilize and build upon. It's also a system that requires a wizard to roll a d20 to cast their spell. The only thing I didn't like about it was that the spells were sometimes written across 3 or 4 pages. Half of the rulebook is literally the spells many varied results, and I couldn't help but feel there is a way to simplify them, or there should be.

Enter: Apocalypse World

We played a short campaign of this and it changed the way I view role-playing games. The mechanics of the partial success are simple and evocative and can apply to anything. But the rulebook offers ideas for applying them to your favorite game. From page 279
Magic User: Cast a spell (intelligence)
Arcane magic comes from the use of formulae, ritual, and the magic user’s own life force.
Roll 7–9: Player chooses 1
Roll 10+: Player chooses 2
• the spell is not forgotten
• the spell has a powerful effect (maximize dice)
• the spell has a large effect (double range, duration, or number
affected)
• the spell does not misfire
The implication being that if you roll a 10+ and choose for the spell to have a powerful effect and it doesn't misfire, that the spell also doesn't have a large effect and you forget the spell.

Enter: OSR influences

In a low magic, dark fantasy setting, where I want ability to take precedence in defining characters, how do I apply these lessons to make spellcasting costly but powerful and evocative of old school randomness but simple to use without charts or levels?

Blood magic. Power the spell with your blood or somebody else's, roll 2d6 and add Magic.
Roll 12+: success
Roll 8-11: success, but choose 1
Miss: all 3 are true
• the spell is lost until you rest
• suffer a cumulative -1 to Magic until you rest
• the spell fails or is cast and misfires, Oracle's call

Identify
Allows the caster to know all of the magical properties of a touched magical item.
Cost: 1 hit point, +1 hit point for +1 to Magic roll

Invisibility
Turns the caster invisible to sight until they interact physically with another object or person.
Cost: 2 hit points, +1 hit point for +1 to Magic roll, +2 hit points for the invisibility to last until dismissed (or loss of consciousness)

Fireball
A magical energy bolt flies from the caster's hand and hits another living target, causing 1d6 magical damage.
Cost: 3 hit points, +1 hit point for +1 to Magic roll, +1 hit point for +1 damage, +3 hit points for +1d6 damage

Teleport
Instantly transports caster to a location they have been to before.
Cost: 4 hit points, +1 hit point for +1 to Magic roll, +4 hit points to bring another living creature and what it's carrying

Rune magic. Take the time to draw the rune with the appropriate ink, roll 2d6 and add Magic.
Roll 12+: success, choose none
Roll 8-11: success, but choose 1
Miss: all 3 are true
• working carefully, it takes twice as long to draw the rune
• your work is sloppy, use twice as much ink to draw the rune
• the rune is drawn wrong, it either works strangely or it works in a very bad way

A typical vial of ink holds 4 uses. A typical bottle of ink holds 12 uses. An entire jug would hold 36 uses.

Trigger
When another living creature steps over, or passes by, this rune the caster instantly knows.
Cost: 5 minutes and 1 use of ink

Alarm
When this rune is activated by a Trigger rune it makes a loud noise, determined by the writing of the rune.
Cost: 5 minutes and 1 use of ink, +10 minutes and +1 use of ink for the sound to come from somewhere other than the rune, +5 minutes and 1 use of ink to designate a person to hear the sound regardless of distance from the rune

Wall of Fire
This rune creates a wall of flames that does 1d12 damage per round. These flames must be set by a Trigger and last indefinitely or until the rune is broken, unless another Trigger is applied to cease the flames.
Cost: 4 hours and 6 uses of ink, +4 hours and 6 uses of ink for +1d12 damage per round

Protection from Heat
This rune protects the object it is written on from fire, flame, and heat. Completely.
Cost: 10 hours and 20 uses of ink

Tattooing a rune onto somebody's body always adds +4 hours and +8 uses of ink to the Cost.

These are just ideas at the moment. I'm going to flesh out Blood Magic a bit more and make it less D&D-y, but I wanted to work out how some spells I know would work in such a system before I start making really unique pain-worshiping blood throwers.

Of horse and province

Coming up with my own rules for a hexcrawl campaign and trying to simplify movement across hexes.

Detailed map: 1 hex is roughly 10 kilometers, or 6 miles - roughly!

Horses
Walk: 1 hex per hour
Canter: 2 hexes per hour
Gallop: 5 hexes per hour

Humans
Walk: 1 hex per 2 hours
Run: 1 hex per hour

A human who walks, or a horse that canters, must make a check at the end of every day or else suffers from exhaustion.
A human who runs, or a horse that gallops, must make a check at the end of every hour or else suffers from exhaustion.

Travel time multiplier for
Roads x1
Desert x2
Forest x2
Hills x1.5
Plains x1.5
Jungle x4
Mountain x3 (x2 with proper climbing gear, for everyone)
Swamp x3
Tundra x2.5

Examples: A human walking on a map through
Roads = 1 hex per 2 hours
Hills, Plains = 1 hex per 3 hours
Desert, Forest, Mountain (equipped) = 1 hex per 4 hours
Tundra = 1 hex per 5 hours
Mountain (unequipped), Swamp = 1 hex per 6 hours
Jungle = 1 hex per 8 hours

Speed isn't affected by encumbrance, but exhaustion checks suffer a penalty for being encumbered.
I'm thinking encumbrance will be a static amount modified by strength, carrying more than that is "being encumbered" and carrying twice the limit its impossible to move.
Very simple, very easy. I like simple and easy.

playtest pdf

I inadvertently challenged myself last week when I said I could probably put this together in a week, and it actually required less time. I only spent about two nights moving data around, proofreading, then writing up a quick and dirty character sheet. It's really rough around the edges but it's a playtest document, and my house was flooded last weekend, so whatever. Deal with it!

This represents all of my notes for Tales of Imperial Space

That's just the tentative title, something I thought of quickly when I started writing ideas down two months ago. It started as an Apocalypse World hack, and I originally wanted it to be compatible with that system so that characters could, in theory, travel back and forth between settings. It has, however, diverted quite a bit and become it's own thing. More changes are on the way. Maybe after I move back into my house.

FTL: Faster Than Light

When designing a science fiction game with spaceships that travel between star systems, you have to decide how they are going to work.
Will they be realistic or fantastical?
If realistic, nothing goes faster than light, so will you have near-light speed ships? Will they be sleeper ships or generation ships?
If fantastical, will they use a warp drive, a hyperspace drive, or gate technology? Will they take time or is it nearly instantaneous?

Star Wars uses hyperspace and it takes time
Star Trek uses warp drive and it takes time
Stargate uses gate technology and it's nearly instantaneous
Battlestar Galactica uses warp drive and it's nearly instantaneous
Farscape uses hypespace and it's nearly instantaneous

One thing I've definitely decided for the system I'm writing: It's not going to have the word "star" in the title.

the space travel mini-game

It occurs to me that every science fiction game has a mini-game where the characters navigate the stars and travel to a new destination. This mini-game has only two consequences: getting lost or not surviving. Depending on the system the consequences can be more elaborate than that, but it always comes down to those two outcomes.

Classic Traveller
This is the only RPG which doesn't allow the player to bypass the mini-game by becoming a passenger, because even as a passenger the PCs' lives are at risk. However, this game also has the most simplified use of the PCs' relevant skills since skill level doesn't adjust the difficulty of the rolls involved.
The Navigation and Piloting skills are written in such a way to suggest that if a character has the skill they simply perform their task without a roll being necessary. Navigation is only difficult and requires a roll when the character doesn't have equipment or computers on hand to assist. Divided up by vehicle type, the character is able to pilot less complex craft based on how high the character's most advanced Piloting skill is.
Traveling from one planet to another in the same system is given a Travel Time table, but there appears to be no need to roll dice for this kind of travel. Interstellar travel also doesn't require a Piloting roll, which is noteworthy. However, two rolls must still be made when a starship jumps from one system to another.
The first roll is to determine if the starship malfunctions. If the ship requires engineers then each one that is missing applies a -1 to the roll, other negative modifiers include using unrefined fuel and overdue maintenance. Under optimal conditions, there is no possibility for failure. If a failure does happen then multiple systems can require repairs (each one is rolled for separately), and if life support happens to be one that goes down and doesn't get repaired, everybody's dead. Joy.
The second roll is to get the starship where you want it to go. While you need somebody with the appropriate Piloting skill to make the jump, their level of skill is not used. The roll has two negative modifiers, one for using unrefined fuel (again) and another for trying to cut the jump close to a planetary body. See, in Classic Traveller your jump drive had to be 100 diameters away from the planet in order to jump safely (to get to this distance is also shown on the Travel Time table provided you know the diameter of the planet you're moving away from or jumping to, but the GM surely would know this even if you don't). This is another roll that under ideal conditions has no possibility for failure.
Being a passenger on a ship is relatively easy, unless you want to save money by traveling in the Low Passage bunks, which is essentially suspended animation. This would require a roll to revive the character where they could potentially die if the roll was failed. The roll could be modified by the character's low Endurance score or the presence of a trained medic.

Stars Without Number
Only the Navigation skill is required to set courses within star systems, and no roll is necessary unless some hazard might hamper movement or the pilot is looking for to shortcut the travel time. To jump from system to system a character needs Navigation at a level above basic proficiency and it requires a roll, modified by distance traveled and how old the navigational star charts are. If the pilot wants to shortcut the time this can also increase the difficulty. Failing the roll leads to a random mishap.

GURPS
This is a difficult rules system to quantify since a GM can houserule so much of it. There are simply too many variables in the GURPS rules to list the requirements for navigating and piloting a starship between systems.
The only science fiction game of GURPS I ever played in was a Star Trek campaign that used a skill-heavy emphasis. The GM of that game required a roll for navigation and a roll for helm, usually the same PC made both rolls. A failure on one roll could result in the ship going someplace we didn't want it to go, and a failure on the other roll could result in a shipboard malfunction. I believe these were custom mishap tables the GM had written.

Star Wars Sage RPG
No skill or roll required to travel from planet to planet, rolls are only required for combat and evasive maneuvers.
Traveling through hyperspace is different, takes a random amount of time modified by the power of the starship's hyperdrive, and requires the Use Computer skill. The difficulty of the check is dependent upon the existence of a navigational computer, access to the HoloNet, and how much time the navigator takes to plot the course. Failure results in a re-roll, if another failure occurs the ship gets randomly damaged and takes twice as long to arrive at the intended destination.

Trinity
There are rolls required for using a starship in combat, or being involved in a chase, but otherwise starship travel is handwaved. There are no skills and no rolls required to travel from place to place, though there are time restrictions based on how powerful the starship is. There are rules for jumping from system to system, or psionically teleporting, but these don't require rolls, they simply give PCs' penalties upon first arriving at their destination until they orient themselves.


I'm partial to the Classic Traveller method. It's the most difficult to explain, but it's the easiest to use since failure only occurs if you're not operating with a full crew or using poor fuel.

Writing Playbooks

I've written a few playbooks now, and I've looked through a lot of really promising builds for playbooks and some that are just atrocious. Having scoured the Barf Forth Apocalyptica forums and committed to memory many of the random details from Vincent about how he wrote the original 11 playbooks, I feel pretty confident in writing this step by step process for writing a playbook.

Step 1: Have an open-ended concept
This is key. Your concept is everything, it helps define what you're going to write about the playbook. But you can't cling to it like a bible. Your vision of the archetype can't be constrained and must be open to interpretation. The best playbooks have a concept which is clearly understood and open to enough interpretation that it doesn't force the character to behave a certain way. The archetype molds to the character, not the other way around.
Look at the core playbooks and you can see the archetypes clearly: the Brainer is a weird psychic, the Angel is a competent medic, the Driver is a car obsessive, etc.

Step 2: Balance isn't everything
Every playbook has a stat block that usually includes a "best" stat. In almost every instance, the stat blocks add up to a total of +3 (+2 +1 -1 +1 +0 = +3). In some instances a character starts with two stats at +2 and those break the mold, but those stat lines also have a consistent math of adding up to +2 (+2 +2 +0 -1 -1 = +2), the price you pay for starting with two +2s is one less beneficial point.
Also, every playbook should start with three moves, or things, that make it distinct. These don't need to be balanced in power with other playbooks, as long as the character simply has 3 things. Look at the core playbooks and they all have three things to start: the Gunlugger starts with a choice of 3 moves, the Driver has their car (1) the no shit driver move (2) and then a choice of a second move (3), and the Savvyhead has their workspace (1) and a choice of 2 more moves (2 and 3).
Again, there are some playbooks that break the mold, but these tend to be balanced within themselves:
the Battlebabe only chooses 2 moves to start, but they have a Cool +3 and that's their third thing
the Hardholder only has their hold and a gang, with moves that accompany each, however these are bigger than the holds and gangs other playbooks can get as improvements, plus the Hardholder explicitly never needs to spend money for food and lodging
the Operator gets gigs and moonlighting, plus one more move, but the Operator's gigs outnumber what other characters can get as improvements

Step 3: Scarcity is the name of the game
One of the key things when writing moves and improvements for your playbook is to remember the theme of scarcity. In other words, you can't get all of the options! Nothing is perfect in Apocalypse World and you're always left wanting a little more, this should apply to character improvement as well. If your playbook has 5 moves to choose from and you can choose 3 during character creation, then you should think about adding a 6th move, maybe even a 7th move, or limiting the "get a new playbook move" improvement so that there's one move you can't get.
Again, look at the examples with the core game:
the Skinner starts with 2 moves and can get 2 more through improvements, but there are 5 Skinner moves total
the Gunlugger starts with 3 moves and can get 2 more through improvements, but there are 7 Gunlugger moves total

Step 4: Peer review
Share your ideas with your gaming friends and ask them for criticism. Share your ideas in the forums and ask for criticism. There is no better resource for criticism than a gaming community, just remember to not let all criticism affect your work. When I first shared the Wolf some people noted the villainous nature of the archetype and said they didn't think it fit with the game, I ignored that criticism because FUCK YOU! Don't tell me how to play the game! Just because it wouldn't be fun for you or your group doesn't mean it won't be fun for me and mine. Those kinds of criticisms about the theme and tone of your work are useless. In a way, they are just an outsider reaction similar to that lack of trust one displays at the gaming table when somebody else is narrating the action.
But when somebody says "Hey, it looks like your math is wrong." or "Isn't this move just a weaker version of going aggro?" Those are valid. Listen to them.
Scratch that! Listen to everybody. Just keep your bullshit detector on a high frequency.
And don't wait until your playbook is finished to share it either. As soon as you have something to work with you should be talking about it and sharing it to see where the cracks are. Poke and prod at your work until you think it's solid.

Step 5: Play it!
Once you think your work is solid, you have got to play it. Get other people to play it if you can. Play it, play it, and play it some more. Because you will never have played it enough and somebody might still find something wrong with it.

That's all I've got. Good luck!