Best laid plans...

With Oasis of the White Palm now complete, and the party restored and intact, we now enter a short break due to outside committments.  This is time for me, as DM to think, and reflect.  I've been sticking very closely to the 1E rules on experience, awarding according to loot found with in the modules, and requiring the traditional payment for training, but this has brought about a problem.  And that problem - Tracy Hickman.  Hickman wrote some excellent adventures - at least he did before he inflicted the Dragonlance series on the gaming fraternity.  These adventures had finely crafted settings, intricate plots, and compelling NPCs - they were hard work for the DM on occasion, but worth the effort as the end result was usually excellent. But now, deep into the epic Desert of Desolation series, we have hit a problem for the second time.  Hickman didn't give a shit about sticking to accepted levels of experience and loot.  Pharaoh was fairly light on monetary treasure, and Oasis of the White Palm has been lighter still.  The final episode of the series has barely any.  If my players' characters are to achieve the levels needed to continue the sequence of modules I have planned for them they need to be considerably richer. Of course I could ignore it, and simply require them to sell some magic items (again!) in order to gain more experience and train, but they've already had to do that once, and is that really fun?

So what is the solution?

The summer holidays are here, I have some time on my hands.... so there will be an interlude, let's label it I4.5, and the title - On the Trail of Thurnas.