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It's sometimes said that the first N GOR novels aren't too bad, but become horrid after that point. (Where N is a small integer, with different speakers giving different values for N.)

The "bleeding out" or "death saving throw" rules: If a player-character is reduced to zero hit points or less (but not negative enough for instant death) then the player decides if and when the character dies. (And the GM does likewise in the case of NPCs). The character may die at once, linger...

I have a love-hate reaction to John Norman's GOR novels. Some bits I find really hot, while other bits stomp on my ick and squick buttons. (The GOR novels can be considered Extruded Fantasy Product "Now with spicy BDSM flavoring!" but I prefer to think of them as the written equivalent of...

The best lawyer joke I've heard was told to me by a lawyer: "The trouble with lawyer jokes is that lawyers don't think they're funny, and non-lawyers don't think they're jokes."

I was a "The Golden Age of Science Fiction is Fourteen" teenager, and a "Gemini & Apollo Space Program" kid before then. TeeVee shows and movies tended to bounce off without leaving much impression. Printed Text for the Win!

In my very old Etan campaign the three biggest towns/cities are Glygorf (5000), Robono (15,000), and Sal-Hy (25,000). These numbers don't include the outlying suburban manors/estates/villages which add quite a bit to the populations. There probably are a few larger cities in "off the map" areas...

Not fancy or exotic, just "ooh shiny!"

"Used to be" :(

Is there a place to share material here on Enworld in the old "potlatch" style you describe? Threads on house rules, e.g. "What house rules do you use for surprise in 3.5e?" seem to me to be to be under an unspoken "Not the done thing, old chap" prohibition.

My recent/current game is my "Brotherhood of Rangers" campaign, D&D 3.5e where all the PCs are gestalt-rangers and where I try to keep my tendency to write house rules on a short leash. I wouldn't be happy with 3.5e when running some other campaign without adding significantly more house rules...

That depends on the relative value of character build stuff vs plot stuff. Someone who faces starvation due to insufficient food funds will use clothing funds to pay for the food needed to survive and work, even if forced to exchange clothing funds at an unfavorable rate and even when there are...

If you want have separate currencies that truly stay separate, you have to get harsh about imposing currency controls. This is an option, but it does have drawbacks. If you want rare magic items, you can impose an "Only the Chosen have magic items" system. A milder version, one that lets you...

The problem is coming up with helpful ways to spend gold beyond the obvious improvements to the survival and success of the character. If the temples, patents of nobility, expensive parties, fancy houses etc. are meaningless bling, then that's Not Helpful. So the GM has to run a game where...

My first thought is that the McShiny Macguffins have only recently become available, or re-available, for some reason, and the PCs are early prospectors in the crystal-rush but not the very first. Maybe the God of Trickery spilled the Divine Bag of McShiny Crystals when taking captive the God of...

Not really like the Japanese koku, but rather a matter of allowing that ordinary people in D&D land really are better off than people in real-world medieval history, in extremely poor modern fourth-world countries, or in the various Dung Ages stereotypes that seems popular in certain quarters...

No, I meant that the typical "normal person" lives on 1 gp per day instead of 1 gp per 10 days. ("a week or more") That's the shifting of the decimal point I was referring to, not to changing prices in addition to the change in "normal person" income. Sorry for being unclear about that.

The D&D economy is all screwed up, but you can make it less so by dumping the Dung Ages idea of "1 gold is probably enough money for a normal person to survive for a week or more" and shifting the decimal point over by one place. What I find works better is assuming a median upkeep/income of 1...

Thoughts: My preference is for magic items to be available by commission, rather than in-stock at a magic mart. I also prefer a range of special items, from the 'merely' masterwork, to common minor items, to the rare and incredibly valuable, rather than a sharp division between "Mundane, meh"...

The four classic classes cover Strength (fighter), Dexterity (rogue/thief), Intelligence (wizard), and Wisdom (cleric). Constitution and Charisma are the odd ones out when it comes to ability scores. Bard as a fifth class based on Charisma would work for me, given the requirement to have six...