Like Jim said its all about fun. I want to do things that make it so everyone has fun and yet has a feel of being "realistic" to the game rules. If you can make some suggestions as how I change dm style I am all ears.

I am sticking to the normal xp atm which = average of 13 encounters of same level as group for a group of 4. With more people taking a slice of xp, higher EL's are needed to get you to that next level in 13 encounters.

All sorts of things count as xp- getting information out of the goblin, overcomming rivers, bluffing a dragon, successful completion of a mercenaries task, gathering information needed for XXX. etc..

Just let me know tonight what you would like done, and if you guys agree I am happy to change.

Meta-gaming: its my personal pet peeve as well as cheating. It ruins the experience for everyone. If I seem to ready to call shinanigans please forgive me as I have been getting frustrated with a couple of things happening in game. I don't want to have you feel bad for meta-gaming and being caught, but at the same time I don't want people abusing the game by tanglefooting a prone and "sleeping" target. So I am left with a hard position of being the police ( I hate police ) Atm I am sticking with- If I think someone metagamed, enough warning has been given and I will penalize them. I asked the group and you all agreed.

The wearing everything I own even if it weighs 50 lbs and is as bulky as half a refrigerator is what I have a problem with.. if you are carrying a simple backpack with item bulkiness and normal weight (according to containers capabilities) then I have no problem. I do have a problem if you start skirting game rules by wearing it at all times even if a normal character would want to relieve themselves of the encumberance and pain as soon as possible. i.e. wearing a backpack with ALL your things while on watch.

Ok. My backpack was 22.7 lbs with food and bedroll. That it was on the ground during the snow I can accept. That I did not get to put on my clothes, or Cooper getting his armor on, in an hour of downtime, when I had specifically retrieved the maps from my backpack during that time, I do not accept. That I would sleep in my armor, which is light. but not my armor and clothes, when it is cold, also is implausible.

Ok with the poison thing, that was done after a roll I thought. Thats what I had a problem with. If you asked for it before then I am totally ok. But having someone tell you "you are fine" and then ask for a 2nd opinion.. thats the only thing.

No, it was along the lines of "Hey, I might have been poisoned. Since we have had poor results identifying poison, both of you check me out." You roll. You say Jim says your fine. Chris says "well, you still check" to me. Argument ensues. Chris specifically asked for both healers to check him before the die was rolled, and you missed that because of other noise at the table.

Combat- not all creatures will have range attacks. These goblins just raided a town and have access to a large amount of simple weapons. It makes sense imo to have these goblins see their friends killed and not want to be anywhere near you, but not want to die because they didn't follow directions in killing you. They are cowardly in small numbers but encourged by leaders / large numbers. As far as your options to take care of that? Seems you did just fine once you decided to all out attack instead of duck and cover.

That was what I expected out of them. No goblin is going to charge us unless he is being whipped by a leader.

Illusion- My interpretation is seeing something pop out of thin air is interaction if its something that would never do that. Like a wall. If you have a band of silent orcs walk out of a treeline that would not be interaction.

A robed figure steps into view, waves his hands, and a wall of stone grows up out of the ground. The first thought for most is that a powerful wizard is starting his attacks. Wholly believable when the group of goblins is being approached by a group consisting of two in leather armor carrying weapons, two others without armor, but with nasty weapons drawn, and two in robes. An illusion, that directly mimics the visual of a real spell, cast by a hostile group that is approaching should be believable until touched.

Xp

I vote you just calculate it and give it to the players. Your hiding it behind the scenes has lead to multiple confusing arguments. There is no meta-game advantage to knowing what it is, and we have wasted several hours dealing with the issue. As an example: I had Anthony print sheets for me at 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level, because I don't know which I am playing today.

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Combat- not all creatures will have range attacks. These goblins just raided a town and have access to a large amount of simple weapons. It makes sense imo to have these goblins see their friends killed and not want to be anywhere near you, but not want to die because they didn't follow directions in killing you. They are cowardly in small numbers but encourged by leaders / large numbers. As far as your options to take care of that? Seems you did just fine once you decided to all out attack instead of duck and cover.

That was what I expected out of them. No goblin is going to charge us unless he is being whipped by a leader.

Agree, they are gobos and not going to stand around and killed when a group of burly fighters charge down on them

Xp

I vote you just calculate it and give it to the players. Your hiding it behind the scenes has lead to multiple confusing arguments. There is no meta-game advantage to knowing what it is, and we have wasted several hours dealing with the issue. As an example: I had Anthony print sheets for me at 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level, because I don't know which I am playing today.

As for the xp situation personally does it really matter that we don't get it? Most of us know what we are going to do for the next level so the paper work won't take that long. If you really want to know how you are RPing etc.. Would Eric mind handing out gold stars or something so we know that we will get personal action xp?

I agree with Eric on keeping the char sheets secret. I have always played this way (even had a DM collect sheets and add the xp etc.. in secret). This is a Role Play game and not a strategy game and needs some amount of RP to convay the numbers on the sheets to how a real person would act.

Hopefully these hic-ups well be smoothed out soon and we can just get back to the fun of the game :)

A few thoughts on the discussion during my hiatus.

I don't have a problem with character sheets being hiden from other players or xp being kept secret by Eric. Back in the day I ran groups like this.

Metagaming. I think too much is being made of metagaming. I am opposed to serious meta-gaming but I don't recall any cases that are that bad. In the tanglefoot bag example IMO it would be reasonable for the character to do that considering that we did have a couple goblins play possum in our first fight with them. Maybe Dave wouldn't have made that choice if he hadn't been privy to the out-of-game conversation going on between the DM and the other players, but considering the possum experience with the other goblins maybe he would have. It would be impossible for him to make a totally non-metagaming decision at that point.

A similar situation occured shortly before the tanglefoot bag situation. My character chased that same goblin through the house and out the back door. Since Taldor didn't actually see the goblin exit through the back door a case could be made that I metagamed by having Taldor go straight to the back door instead of checking the upstairs first. I would argue that the back door was the most likely route of the fleeing goblin that appeared to be running away, but I would also concede that the back door route wasn't 100%.

These two situations may have been metagamed a little in the sense that Dave and I knew more than the characters at that point, but I think both were reasonable actions for the characters to take. So this type of metagaming doesn't really bother me.

Sometimes metagaming can happen by accident. Maybe a player uses info he has and he doesn't remember that his character didn't have that info. In this case (unless the DM is pretty sure that the player is doing it on purpose) then I would hate to see that player get penalized. A simple "your character doesn't know that" from the DM would be sufficient I think.

I vote YES for the gold stars!

...and no Eric, you can't lick them and stick them on our foreheads.

Jim

Does anyone know what book the guardian spirit thing is from?

Eric - I informed Chris about the level thing so you die in a fire.

I like gold stars. I would have OVER 9000!

Chris - Maybe the Guardian Spirit thing is from UA, I just don't recall it being in there.

Nope, not UA, I cant find it anywhere.

On a new topic I really would like to give 4th edition a try. I have played it a few times and really like many elements of it. However, I don't have time for second group right now. So what do you guys think about giving 4th edition a try? I am not suggesting ending our current campaign but either doing some one-shot 4E sessions or doing a second campaign that rotates with the current one (i.e. the 3.5 campaign one week and the 4E campaign the next).

I would be willing to DM any 4E sessions. I don't think anyone in the group has had that much (if any) experience with 4E. I am no expert myself but I think I know the 4E rules well enough to run a camapign.

Just throwing out an idea and you won't hurt my feelings if you don't like the idea. :)

Let me know what you think.