My best friend once told me that I would be happy staying at the top of a mountain with all the animals, hence "hermit." And forests are green, so when somebody had already claimed "Hermit," I added the green part as well.
Modern day times: I grew up in a one-room cabin that was 15' x 30', no running water or electricity. Two dogs, multiple cats, and 4 people altogether. (We did have an artesian well, just no plumbing, and we did have a 2,000 watt generator for Seahawk games.)
We had a rat in our pantry once. My daughter quickly threw our oldest cat in there. She just sat there and said, "You don't have feathers, so we can coexist." Lol!
1) Set of metallic dice to keep track of spell slots.
2) Metallic d20s that I hand out for inspiration.
3) A bunch of different colored d20s to roll initiative for several monsters at once.
4) About 4 sets of red dice, because that's my color and they don't get grabbed by other players.
5) Other...
I voted for rarely, but it is somewhere between that and regularly. My son probably has ADD (bad year to get a diagnosis) and so we frequently don't end in the best ending spots. When his brain is done, it is DONE.
Nope. The TPK happens and we reset. However, if only one character lives, everybody else has to roll new characters.
We run published adventures and not homebrew, so the table wants to see the whole story play out.
Yes. Otherwise the game gets boring. However, TPK's are off the table, unless everybody is ready for a campaign to be over. That keeps the main story going, even if the PC's get changed up now and then.
My town on the Washington Coast is pretty small, too. I've been wanting to find some non-family people to game with, so I don't always have to dm, but it's pretty much a lost cause.
There are times I will ask my players what magical items they would like. This is usually when a benefactor is going to give them something, though, and I want them to have time to think about it, even though I don't tell them when or why it is going to happen.
We have a bank that I got from DM's guild, where they can store just gold and gems or pay more for storing larger objects. The original had it where you could access the bank at any point through a magical bag, but I changed it so that there are local branches in most of the major towns. (I want...
I use Xanathar's guidelines as to how much magical goods to dole out. Of course, half of the stuff I prepare for, they don't actually end up finding/buying. Lol!