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Message: <blockquote data-quote="S'mon" data-source="post: 5768995" data-attributes="member: 463">Coming out of the "Guards at the Gate Quote" thread, there was a bit of a tangent on Gygax's 1e PHB & DMG playstyle advice.I'm currently running an online AD&D sandbox in EGG's Yggsburgh setting, and I'm planning to also use the setting for a Pathfinder Beginner Box game starting next month.  Like Gygax's Greyhawk games, I'm DMing for a large number of relative strangers with a variety of play preferences, attention spans, et al.  I thought I'd start a thread to discuss useful and less useful advice as pertains to this style of play.Making the players work hard, as per 1e PHB - should players be expected to map?  Take notes?  Know what's in their spellbooks?  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Creating the world, running the game - what bits of advice from the 1e DMG do you find particularly good?  What doesn't work?Player discipline - perhaps the most controversial part of the Gygaxian style from our commie pinko liberal postmodernist (edit) 2012 perspective.  Blue bolts from the heavens?  Ethereal mummies?  Is there ever value in the Gygaxian approach to punishing 'bad' player behaviour?Rewards - it's very noticeable running Yggsburgh that, like Keep on the Borderlands, there is a lot of treasure - +5 this, +5 that all over the place (it's written for 4th-9th C&C PCs).  I've been typically halving the '+' mods and reducing treasure as I also halve NPC levels. Gygax's advice on 'limited' treasure should be read with this in mind - his default is still a very high reward (& high risk) game by modern standards.  How do you feel about treasure placement in a sandbox?  Is 2,000gp in the ogre cave stingy or excessive? <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />Personally I think I tend to over-stingy and struggle with placing decent treasure, which I think is not good for a sandbox game where you want pro-active PCs.  Having a pre-done sandbox with generous treasure helps me, I think.</blockquote>

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