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And then there's the idea of not multiplying entities beyond necessity.

The problem remains that "campaign book" is at least as well-established a term in game publishing as "adventure path", and it applies to the middle slot of this categorization, not the last one. Trying to establish "campaign" as a term of art that specifically doesn't include what most people...

Who needs a metallurgist? You could just know, from general education; I've known what electrum is since 1e days, when I had to look it up in the encyclopedia. Or, in modern times, you could undertake the immense effort of, say, consulting Wikipedia for thirty seconds.

It seems to me that WotC has the perfect opportunity to address this issue within their publishing line. They would love to sell core-like rulebooks on a regular basis, but can't update their core products on the same kind of schedule as, say, car manufacturers or couture fashion mavens. So...

And here's where we get into the interaction of game mechanics and voluntary roleplaying. Some players will never make a sub-optimal or dangerous choice. These are often the ones who view the game as a purely tactical exercise, with skirmishes connected by railroad tracks of narrative. But...

FIrst of all, I want to be clear that there is no such thing as "Wrong Fun." If your group is enjoying a game or a campaign then you are, by definition, doing it right. But I'll also point out that, if you remove some of the assumed major "sinks" of treasure in the campaign (resurrection...

That's a fair point, but to me handwaving can come in both the "appropriate" and "lazy" varieties. Giants are a part of myth and literature. Ignoring even basic physics like square-cube relationships makes sense for the sake of the story... although it's generally even more fun if you...

To me, part of this discussion speaks to the weakness (note that I did not say "inadequacy"!) of D&D as a role-playing system. In a game with a more nuanced character-creation system (like, say, GURPS, Hero, Savage Worlds, FATE, etc.), a player can take "disadvantages" or "flaws" or "troubles"...

"I’d add that, if you are 'finishing campaigns,' you may actually be running what I consider to be a sequence." And that's what makes your terminology needlessly confusing and impractical, since what are universally marketed as "campaign books" by modern publishers are what you'd call...

And we all know that "a wizard did it" is often merely an excuse for authorial laziness. That said, I do find a later piece of the adventure sample that acknowledges that electrum is an alloy. So perhaps the mysterious figure behind the adventure requires a specific ratio of gold to silver in...

But you've (again) failed to answer the obvious question at the heart of the issue: How do you define "pure" electrum, as called for in the adventure's plot? There is no such thing.

What about cash for consumables? Sure, ammunition and provisions are relatively cheap at that level of rewards, but then you get stuff like Potions of Healing, temple donations for removing conditions and curses, higher expenses for luxury living in town between adventures, saving up for a...

The preview specifically calls out, "But her foremost mission is to see that the fire giants render pure electrum ingots for transfer to the cloud giants." How, pray tell, does one produce "pure electrum ingots"? Is there some "pure" proportion of gold to silver? No. That sentence...

I've read over the first part of the sample content they provide, and find myself puzzled by one element of background. One of the motivations for a group of giants is their need to refine shipments of ore into ingots. But the specific material they're refining is "electrum ore", which isn't...

The question of how "easy" to make things, of course, leads straight back to the discussion of player types and campaign goals. If you're running a campaign that tends more towards the beer-and-pretzels style then, yes, you're probably not tracking encumbrance very tightly either, so...

I can see multiple different purposes. One simple but obvious purpose is to "keep score": if you keep getting wealthier, you must be "winning". Another purpose is to enable appropriate (but hopefully not excessive) purchases of consumables, whether those are arrows, holy water, potions of...

Until you have to make change for a smaller purchase.

Stock D&D cycles pretty quickly through the point where mundane equipment (masterwork arms and armor, etc.) can be viewed as worthwhile rewards. While it lasts, though, it's fun to have that lust for a suit of plate armor. I always enjoy discussions of non-tangible rewards: favors, alliances...

I bet Penn & Teller could pull it off. They're just that good.

It's not a thirty-pound puppet: it's a puppet with multiple thirty-pound pieces. Thirty pounds would be ridiculously light for a life-size beholder puppet.