Thoughts on two "house rules" an their inclusion in the campaign:
Do I use prebuilt maps and line of site/darkness via MapTool like earlier games? Or do we stick with the old school (and official ruling) of describing the areas and having the player's map them?
I've seen this house rule of "treasure = experience"out an about and kind of like the idea. As James from Grognardia puts it:
"I'll also note that the "Dave Arneson rule" for converting gold into XP is working beautifully. I only give XP on treasure that is spent. This means that every time they find gold or gems or whatever in the dungeon, they have to use it to buy things for themselves, whether they be scrolls, new gear, hirelings, or just a night out on the town if they want to gain experience points from them. This has served two purposes: 1) They must return to Adamas if they want to spend big sums of money and 2) They are perpetually poor. I am very satisfied with this, as I am with the campaign in general -- an excellent session overall."
Gonna be honest, pre-made maps are pretty awesome. It makes the game flow much smoother since one or two people aren't busy trying to figure out what the map looks like before we drop stuff down. Though I am kind of a fan of the black and white scribbled on a whiteboard look, personally. I guess if you're not using premade stuff, you can scribble out the map in MapTool ahead of time, add in vision blockers, and away we go. Keep it to the bare minimum, let us throw in extra details if we want. It's a collaborative thing.
ReplyDeleteAnd it does make more sense for us to get XP based on gold spent, not simply picked up. You'd need to account for any extra gold you start with not counting, though. After that, every piece you blow nets you 1 XP! Save your receipts.