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If you're running this kind of non-railroaded, "let the dice fall where they may" kind of campaign (and I heartily endorse that), then you can't try to pre-plan who the recurring bad guys are going to be. You just have to let the dice fall where they will and see who the recurring bad guys turn...

Because traditional dungeons -- like hexcrawls and mysteries -- provide a clear structure that pretty much all GMs are comfortable designing and running. Without that structure, the GM is running blind. Without a clearly understood structure, it's difficult to prep material and it's difficult...

What you said: "Diplomacy, for example, only changes how someone views you - it changes the target's attitude, nothing more." What you just quoted from the 3.5 SRD: "You can change the attitudes of others (nonplayer characters) with a successful Diplomacy check; see the Influencing NPC...

Hmm. Okay, I don't know the Jade Regent adventure path, so I may be completely off-base. But the Marco Polo reference makes me think that the key elements are: (1) Keeping the caravan safe (2) Trailblazing In other words: Marco Polo had a rough idea of where he was going, but he didn't have a...

As you typically do, Hussar, you are moving the goalposts. You now appear to be arguing that any technique which should be resolved using the Diplomacy skill can be resolved with the Diplomacy skill. To which the answer is: No :):):):), Sherlock. Your circular reasoning is very, very circular...

What's the goal of this exploration? It's clearly not exploration-for-the-sake-of-exploration (since you essentially listed that as a problem). Without knowing what the actual goal is, though, it's difficult to offer alternatives. For example, if you came in and said: "Any way to handle...

This, AFAICT, is the point where you're running into problems: You've got PCs having legitimate, in-character disputes about the right course of action and the right set of ethics... And then, suddenly, it's about whether or not you were acting in character or not. Skip that step. Keep the...

And even then, it only works because there's an accepted default method of "climbing bare-handed" and an assumed goal of "get to the top". If you want to do something other than that default (use a rope or pitons, for example), then you're going to have to go into more detail with the Climb...

You can, of course, do that in 3rd Edition too. (And I recommend it.) But I think AbdulAlhazred's point is exactly that: High-level encounters are not made up of "level appropriate" critters and that substantially reduces the XP you get from them. As I mentioned earlier in the thread: Once you...

I don't really see the connection you do between "I want to make choices on who may character is" and "not a roleplayer". More generally, trying to lump together every aspect of randomness in RPGs into a single pot doesn't really do much for me. Even the difference between using a random...

If there are people selling magic items, then there must be people buying magic items. And if there are people buying magic items, there's no reason why those people couldn't be the PCs. The only way for a "PCs can only sell, never buy" market to make sense is if the PCs are the only...

Wowza. I haven't looked at 4E in years and had apparently forgotten that entirely. I remembered the 20% thing and that's explicable if you just assume the costs are high (in security, identification, etc.) and the movement in inventory slow. Although.... Hmmm. Okay: The current gold rush on...

The most robust system for handling player-initiated trade in an RPG is probably Traveller. I'd agree with those saying you should look long and hard at that and see if I can figure out how to adapt it to merchant caravans in a fantasy setting. The other option would be running some kind of...

Well, as an example, it takes 1.25 million XP to get from 10th level to 15th level as a fighter. If they're not playing with XP for GP (a very common house rule). Assume, I dunno, 250 sessions for that. That would be an average award of 5,000 XP per session. The XP guidelines for 1st Edition...

Largely because what you're doing is the exact opposite. If you compare 3E with previous editions, you'll discover that the bulk of the difference lies in the core mechanics: The math is swapped around, etc. Most of the ancillary stuff is actually 99% the same. (For example, most of the spells...

Which is an interesting position to take. On the high seas, wind offers the same tactical advantage as, say, flanking does in a melee. The real key question is this: Are you designing a set of rules for meaningful roleplaying, combat, and decision-making on the high seas? Or are you looking to...

Okay. You've clearly never actually seen these rulebooks. I get that. Not much else that can really be said at this point: You've got your facts wrong. Again. Wow. I was unaware that all the non-Essential 4E books were taken out of print back in 2009. Someone should probably let WotC know...

Editions of the game that survived three years or less include: OD&D (1974-1977) Holmes (1977-1981) Moldvay (1981-1983) You could arguably toss 3.0 onto that pot, too, since it was completely replaced by 3.5 and its supplements taken out of print due to a lack of compatibility. So, no, not...

Common misconception. It comes as a result of trying to prep non-railroaded scenarios as if they were railroads. In reality, it's a lot easier to prep a situation than it is to prep a plot. Something else to think about: In the course of this thread, there's a conflation going on between...

This, BTW, is another of the weaknesses in My Precious Encounter adventure design: It greatly increases the GM's responsibility and the burden of their prep. If you use an adventure design methodology which has a wider range of tolerance, greater flexibility, and/or responsiveness to variances...