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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 6030070" data-attributes="member: 27160">It's not particularly a methodology I'm wedded to, by any means, but as I understand it this is more-or-less part and parcel of &quot;sandbox&quot; play. The idea is that you design a selection of challenges/quests/places of mystery with differing levels of difficulty and let the players pick and choose which one(s) to tackle. Part of this &quot;design&quot; would include placing at least the main magic items; that way, the characters can pick up rumours concerning where they might find items that they specifically desire - information which will feed into their decision making process about what challenges to take on when.This technique generally requires, therefore, that the main &quot;treasures&quot; and the general &quot;toughness&quot; of the opposition be designated in advance - something that, with the rules presented in this packet, you cannot do.Possible modifications that might allow such play do come to mind, yes. In addition, the set of &quot;guidelines&quot; concerning the character levels for which various levels of item might be &quot;appropriate&quot; seems to chime discordantly with the actual system presented. Does the &quot;Magic Item Rarity&quot; table mean that, if you roll for a &quot;tough&quot; encounter that 3rd level characters are to face and get a result including one or more &quot;Rare&quot; items, you ought to ignore that result because &quot;Rare&quot; items are &quot;appropriate&quot; only for characters of level 5 or above?It seems to me that the whole &quot;random item&quot; system presented is confusing, contradictory and generally poorly thought through. Giving a range of xp levels instead of &quot;difficulty levels&quot; would have been much more in accord with the other &quot;guidelines&quot; and much more useful, for example. Even just an &quot;xp tariff&quot; for each level of item rarity would have been more useful and more adaptable (even though it would have lacked &quot;random table appeal&quot;).</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 6030070, member: 27160"] It's not particularly a methodology I'm wedded to, by any means, but as I understand it this is more-or-less part and parcel of "sandbox" play. The idea is that you design a selection of challenges/quests/places of mystery with differing levels of difficulty and let the players pick and choose which one(s) to tackle. Part of this "design" would include placing at least the main magic items; that way, the characters can pick up rumours concerning where they might find items that they specifically desire - information which will feed into their decision making process about what challenges to take on when. This technique generally requires, therefore, that the main "treasures" and the general "toughness" of the opposition be designated in advance - something that, with the rules presented in this packet, you cannot do. Possible modifications that might allow such play do come to mind, yes. In addition, the set of "guidelines" concerning the character levels for which various levels of item might be "appropriate" seems to chime discordantly with the actual system presented. Does the "Magic Item Rarity" table mean that, if you roll for a "tough" encounter that 3rd level characters are to face and get a result including one or more "Rare" items, you ought to ignore that result because "Rare" items are "appropriate" only for characters of level 5 or above? It seems to me that the whole "random item" system presented is confusing, contradictory and generally poorly thought through. Giving a range of xp levels instead of "difficulty levels" would have been much more in accord with the other "guidelines" and much more useful, for example. Even just an "xp tariff" for each level of item rarity would have been more useful and more adaptable (even though it would have lacked "random table appeal"). [/QUOTE]

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