I am not a big fan of letting skill checks resolve the challenges that are supposed to make situations more interesting – you may as well simply require the characters to make a die roll to decide the outcome of the adventure, it takes all the fun out of it. Puzzles and challenges should always be designed for the players as analogues or metaphors for the problems facing their characters. I would rather hand the players a simple crossword puzzle with the solution to the puzzle being the solution to the riddle than let them solve it with a skill check.

Running campaigns in a pre-Viking-Age Scandinavian setting, the use of language is just as important to maintaining the atmosphere as the setting. I’m definitely going to put some of the ideas to use when my players are dealing with the Finns and Rus, not to mention the more uncanny cultures like the Alfar.

The way I got my players away from saying gold pieces, is by taking them out of the game. The two predominant currencies in the campaign are homespun cloth and hack-silver. Both require measurement and thought to use (and in the case of the cloth, it is bulky and requires protection from the elements).