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I have a TableSmith table that produces gem results that look like the following: A large yellow faceted stone (citrine) of superior quality worth 250 gp A medium yellow cat’s-eye, of superior quality worth 150 gp A packet of 10 diminutive gems, each a clear faceted stone (rock crystal) of...

Rich by the standard of most people in the settings you prefer. Those settings are not the only possible ones. People living at the poverty line in the US are rich as hell by the standards of third- and fourth-world nations, or by 19th century standards. That doesn't make them rich in an...

No, it's a house-rule thing. 3e RAW implicitly assumes much lower incomes for NPCs.

Sure, a PC can always choose to spend only enough to live a modest or even an ascetic life. What they can't do is live that modest life while simultaneously claiming "I am living the life of a well-off member of the gentry; I am living the life of someone who is rich." At best, they can live a...

But I don't accept that as given: See below. The assumptions I'm making are: 1. The median income for characters of Nth level is N-squared gp per day. That applies to NPCs and NPC-class NPCs as well as to PCs and retired PCs. I drop the conceit that "1 gp is big money! Enough for an average 1st...

It depends on what standards one considers 'reasonable.' There's a tricky non-intuitive difference between "wealth" and "income" and I figure "rich" for a fifth level character to be accumulated wealth of close to half a million gold pieces, or close to two million for a tenth level character...

An assumption here is that the PC failed to bribe the guard because the guard wasn't corrupt. But that's not the only way to interpret a poor result on a bribery skill check. Maybe the PC misjudged how corruptible the guard was and offered a bribe that was turned down Maybe the PC misjudged...

Another fine line is between magic that's expensive enough to rule out common mundane use and magic that's cheap enough to completely displace the mundane. An illustrative ;) example would be light sources. At what point does it become "pound wise and penny-foolish" to keep buying torches or...

That's a point of difference between us. For me, a major reason to have fantastic elements is to cater to the escapist fantasy of a more glamorous world, one with less of the grit and "dung age realism" that I find depressing. Also, as an aesthetic preference, I want to avoid the feel of a...

I believe this is a false dichotomy. A fantasy world can be weirdly different from the real world and yet still feel like a real place. That said, I prefer to build settings and worlds where magic and the supernatural is something baked in, rather than bolted on. And despite - or because - of...

I play out every combat. The only reason I wouldn't would be if the players say or otherwise make it clear that they want to just handwave the foregone conclusion. That's been very very very rare - I only have a vague memory of it ever happening even once. On the flip side, if I decided not to...

I didn't like the 3.0 version of Haste, but I don't like the 3.5 version either. As noted, the ability to cast two spells in a round is a huge deal, and something I'll discourage, put stoppers on various tricks to allow it, and even blanket-ban (with the possible exception of Time Stop, but even...

Now there's a twisted thought: What strange ways are used by the cultures in your game world to execute criminals? Now I have a world that features the bad guys performing human sacrifices - and executions resemble those sacrifices too closely for either psychological or magical comfort. (You...

I tend to do more and more-exotic world-building for the settings of my read-only fiction than for the settings I run games in. In my game worlds, for example, there will usually be a single moon that's Luna-like in apparent size, brightness, and periodicity, and calendars will be either the...

Underrated: Text. I see lots of geeking out over movies, TV, comic books, and even audiobooks, but give me printed words to read.

For most things I find a binary success mechanic to be perfectly adequate. Either you pick the lock open, or you don't. You find the hidden compartment when searching the desk or you don't. Your assessment as to whether the border guard is open to a bribe is either correct or it isn't. Your jump...

It's a fair cop, guv. Yeah, it's attar of roses or rose otto, but not otto of roses.

And if creating undead requires black onyx gems, why aren't black onyx gems contraband - and why aren't there search & destroy campaigns against them? In my games I normally rule that substitutes and synthetics are available for that sort of magical use. In any case I prefer to move away from...

The poor readability was the chief thing I ranted about.

The aesthetics can be distinguished from the rules. 3.5e is my personal edition preference and while I like the mechanics, I hate the aesthetics of the rulebooks. I've even ranted about those aesthetics back in the day.