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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Celebrim" data-source="post: 5057171" data-attributes="member: 4937">Hmmm... I see a continuity across editions.  While the formal notion of 'wealth by level' is new to 3e, the general problem that the idea of 'wealth by level' was intended to address - how much treasure should the DM place in the dungeon is an old problem not at all specific to the edition or even for that matter to a particular game system.In general, I make the following distinction.  If the thread is about rules, then its specific to an edition.  If the thread is about interesting encounter design, or adventure design, or good DMing, then the question isn't specific to an edition and the problem can be addressed through the lens and language of D&D as a whole.  About the question of the silver baton torch stub in T1, I feel that answers of, "How should this room be run?", are not only not edition specific, but that edition specific answers that address the encounter in terms of that particular editions stock of tools are useful ways of looking at the problem regardless of which edition you play.  Thus, I consider it relevant what a 4e DM considers to be the 'best practice' regarding the room with the silver torch stub in T1, and what a OD&D DM considers to be the 'best practice'.  Both answers potentially would inform my approach to the problem.  Indeed, an answer that looks at the room through the lens of GURPS or some other system is also interesting.Moreover, if it really is an edition specific question, it probably shouldn't be in the General RPG Discussion forum.That's an interesting answer.  It touches on an approach to the game that I think was encouraged by 3e and strongly encouraged by 4e.  In your response, you set up a formula with two inputs: experience points and time.  This seems to imply that there is some value to experience point velocity - the amount of experience you earn per unit of game time.  In my opinion, this approach tends to lead to gaming as an experience of leveling up, or to use a succinct term with negative connotations 'leveling treadmill'.  The point of playing is to 'level up', and somehow you are in a race to get the end (or 'the good stuff' that happens at 'high level') and nothing sucks more than slipping behind in the race.I recognize that you don't take the above statement as an absolute or complete description of your gaming, but that it comes to mind first means it probably has some high priority for you (and for alot of other players).  In this case, finding the silver baton probably does not take more time than it would to kill 2 orcs, so it meets your XP/time standards well I think.  But I think that there are alot of other different ways to look at the problem depending on how the player prioritizes his play, such as:risk/rewardfun/timefun/riskAnd 'fun' is itself generic and fun/time might mean things like:choices/timechallenge/timelaughter/timevariaty/timestory/timedepending on the player.  I think it might be a little too easy to focus on XP as a marker because its quantifiable, but on the other hand, just because it is quantifiable doesn't mean it has actual value.  Divorced from game context, XP is meaningless and the earning of XP is meaningless.Personally, I like a balance.  But I remember at one time going 4 or 5 sessions with out drawing my weapon in a campaign, and one of the most enjoyable sessions I was ever a part of involved like 8 hours and no dice.  So, I'm open to 'fun' being a wide variaty of things, from classic dungeon crawling to low drama and pretty much everything in between.</blockquote>

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