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My trick: each time I start a new campaign, I begin a new notebook/binder. The first page is for tracking XP progression. In the next session, each PC gets exactly one side of a page to note details. Makes it easy to find when prepping. More importantly, since I started doing this, I find...

Meaningless die rolls. Admittedly, this is more of a problem with certain earlier editions of the game. It wastes valuable (and limited) play time on s*** that doesn’t matter. Oh, there’s a locked box and no time pressure ? Yeah, we’re going to open it eventually. Just skip to that part. My...

You forgot the point where the slaad closes the door and holds it closed after pulling the lead character inside for the blu slaad to munch. Teamwork makes the dream work!

It can reflect something in the world. If the party walks from Fallcrest to Baldur’s Gate and never has a day in which more than a single combat encounter takes place, then walks from Baldur’s Gate to Neverwinter and the same is true, then, by observation, the characters know that they are...

Under that lens, the clocks were very effective. We rarely ventured further than 1 week away from our capital. Rarely interacted with any urban area, since the only city was 8 days away. Unfortunately, since this was a sandbox, the areas around our city were strictly low level, and we were...

It’s a fantasy world advanced enough to have gunslingers and robots. You could easily have the government operate remotely through magic.

There are a couple of ways to address it. You could shift the campaign to be about ruling and intrigue, and have “adventuring” be something that only comes up on occasion to counter a serious threat. The problem is when the campaign wants you to do something “continue adventuring like a normal...

Good point. The Bravura Warlord played very differently from an Inspiring warlord or a Tactical Warlord.

Absolutely! If you want us to explore a hexcrawl, stop making us trek back to our capital every 3 weeks! Also, it really stinks that your character’s stats and skills are irrelevant to actually running your kingdom.

Back in the day, people didn’t complain about modules. Of course, in those days you needed to write a letter to Dungeon magazine, or post your complaint to a BBS, but still, the numbers speak for themselves. It’s the kids these days, you see. They like stuff I don’t like so they are wrong...

Even this one doesn’t work really well in standard D&D. A standard combat encounter uses a lot more resources and involves a lot more decision points than the standard “you failed a Perception check so the lead character suffers 2d10 hp damage” trap.

This was my major issue with Abomination Vaults: the dungeon was a 15-minute stroll from the town you live in. Zero tension in the campaign. We’d go in, get in a couple of fights, then be home in time for supper to take a long rest.

Mostly, rule tweaks that make single day non-combat encounters viable as a resource drain: I use the 4e rules for curses and diseases: both are on progress tracks that get worse on multiple failures. The timing of the new check also varies with the disease/curse: once per day or once per two...

The trickier element is ensuring each node costs the party more resources than a typical encounter, since the party will likely recover half their HD snd all their hp and spell slots every 2-3 nodes.

True, it is an excellent point, worth emphasing. You can have a detailed, moderately crunchy exploration mechanic that doesn’t emphasise resource attrition. Meanwhile, you can have a relatively simple mechanic that does (like several OSRs). The most important thing is that the mechanic...

Why is your friend saying “this game or nothing”?

One of my experiences was the polar opposite of that. It was a Paizo AP with a player’s companion guide, so I made a character who was friends with and respected one of the NPCs described, and who was also supposed to be the primary questgiver. The NPC provided the first quest (resolved by...

I would say that the last two APs I played both had players who created characters based on the information provided by the DM: in both cases, the characters still felt divorced from the campaign to the extent that one fizzled out and the other required a pretty major course correction from the...

Generally, I agree. Before using an exploration encounter, the DM needs to ask themselves : what is its purpose? Does it serve its purpose as written? and is it something the party will enjoy. Though, it only takes 1 hour. You can use multiple HD at the end of a short rest.

I want to call this out because in far too many pre-published exploration encounters, the idea “taking damage keeps a feeling of tension and consequences high” is assumed even in cases where it doesn’t apply. Generally speaking, in exploration encounters in overland travel, there just simply...