Proposal: Adjustments to Time Experience

stonegod said:

Fundamentally, if you make time-XP the major source of XP, then there is no incentive for a player (or a DM) to mix up encounters—all they need is time. In addition, very large time XP incentives longer games for all involved which may lead to "dragging it out" in some cases (though, to admit, I have not seen much evidence of this as of yet). There is also the question of how quickly we want folks to level: 1 every 3 months may or may not be too quick (esp as there will be normal, doubled XP in there as well).

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I understand SG's concern here, but I also agree with Tenchuu. Being one of these slow DMs myself (I like a lot of RP. Much to the chagrin (sometimes?) of my players) I'm seeing my players falling behind in levels.

I don't think, however, that the disparity between fast paced DMs and slow paced DMs is really at issue here. What's really at issue here is growing in level. You can always retire a character that is too high and start again at 1st level if you get too bored, but never getting to paragon is a pain that must be fixed (my highest level character is Mikara, and she's been stalled at level 4 for nearly 2 months now in a practically dead adventure.). I say we up the time xp by 2x, but also up encounter xp by 2x. I think this would be a good compromise between Tenchuu's and SG's issues. No?

LadyLaw said:

I know that it's up to the DM, I was just wondering how the majority of DMs choose to run it since he was proposing breaking it down into a day-by-day amount. If the majority choose to award only at the end of the adventure, then it seems like that sort of effort (and math, which I know many people aren't fond of) would be superfluous.

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Most DMs I know (including myself) award encounter xp after every encounter (along with whatever treasure the characters find), and time xp at the end of every extended rest.

Two things I do, that I'm not sure other DMs do the same way, are that I give my characters the chance to level at the end of every extended rest in which they achieve enough xp to level, and I round time xp to the nearest month and keep track of my rounding:
I too would prefer the official position to be at least to the week.

*PS* IMO the "Whole Month* thing is lazy and draconian (don't mean to be bitter here, just pointing out that you can really screw a character if your adventure end toward the end of what would be one of these "whole months").

LadyLaw said:

I know that it's up to the DM, I was just wondering how the majority of DMs choose to run it since he was proposing breaking it down into a day-by-day amount. If the majority choose to award only at the end of the adventure, then it seems like that sort of effort (and math, which I know many people aren't fond of) would be superfluous.

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I grant time experience at the end, but only because of the charting saying it must be granted in whole calendar months, and that partial month credit can only be given at the end. However, it makes for a confusing and sometimes inaccurate process, because my players tend to level at least once during the course of an adventure (and I have a few replacements in my group, so they level at different rates). As a result, I have to spend time digging through the game thread to figure out which months were at which level. It would be much easier and accurate to award time experience at the same time as encounter experience.

Disregarding my wish to have a by day breakdown, if we just remove the no partial credit until the end rule, I can calculate the daily value myself.

As for the increase, if 4x is too much, perhaps 3x?

[sblock=Proposal Bonus]To address the concerns of those who hate math, if this proposal is passed, I will create a spreadsheet that would calculate the time experience for you and upload it to the Wiki.

I have a spreadsheet I use now to plan out encounter experience. I could clean it up, and add a tab for actuals, where you would just enter the start and end dates, and it would calculate time gold and time experience.
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H.M.Gimlord said:

I understand SG's concern here, but I also agree with Tenchuu. Being one of these slow DMs myself (I like a lot of RP. Much to the chagrin (sometimes?) of my players) I'm seeing my players falling behind in levels.

I don't think, however, that the disparity between fast paced DMs and slow paced DMs is really at issue here. What's really at issue here is growing in level. You can always retire a character that is too high and start again at 1st level if you get too bored, but never getting to paragon is a pain that must be fixed (my highest level character is Mikara, and she's been stalled at level 4 for nearly 2 months now in a practically dead adventure.). I say we up the time xp by 2x, but also up encounter xp by 2x. I think this would be a good compromise between Tenchuu's and SG's issues. No?

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I don't think increasing the encounter experience as part of this change would help. There is definitely disparity, though I wouldn't call it fast pace and slow paced DMs. I think it's the group as a whole being fast or slow, and again, it's just luck. I've been DMing PBP games for a decade now, and no matter how in to it players are at the beginning, sometimes people loose interest, and sometimes people's personal lives demand their attention. But in almost all of those cases, it takes them a while to admit it to themselves and everyone else. And during that time, the game pace suffers. In a campaign, it almost always happens; it's just a matter of when.

By increasing encounter experience, I think it would make the problem worse. Say, for example, you had two games that started at the same time. One fast paced and one slow paced. The group level in the face paced game might be 6, while in the slow paced game it might be 4. In that span, the characters would have gotten the same time experience, so the difference in group level would be entirely encounter experience. If we doubled encounter experience, that gap would be roughly doubled as well.

I see increasing time experience as the fairest way to address slow leveling.

H.M.Gimlord said:

I say we up the time xp by 2x, but also up encounter xp by 2x.

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Um, you are aware that we already doubled encounter xp, right? I don't think quadrupling encounter xp is the way to go.

THB: Mikara is stuck in Love Bites that hasn't seen a post in a month, and she's been stuck at level 4 since Christmas. I created Mikara in 2008, and she's my highest level character. I do think something needs to be done about the rate of advancement. Perhaps raising encounter xp further is not the way to go, but I'm just exploring that possibility right now.

Tenchuu: I see you point. No doubt that there is a disparity, but if everyone advances more quickly (regardless of the comparison or rate of rise), then there will be enough progress made by all. I, for one, am not competing with the next character to see who gets to paragon first. I'm just wanting to get there, and enjoy the trip along the way.

Stonegod has a good point. The fear is that simply increasing time xp will actually exacerbate the problem. DMs and players won't feel the urgency to complete an encounter quickly because they know that time xp will make up for it. DMs won't feel the urgency to move things along in the absence of a delinquent player (for good or ill reasons). In either case, the pace of the game will slow to make up for the time xp difference (perhaps not totally, but definitely in proportion). If both are boosted, you are right. It does not remedy the disparity issue, but it does address the issue of slow progression by increasing the reward for play.

I guess I'm just apprehensive that if we insist on creating an even advancement rate for everyone regardless of DM or Player participation, I'm afraid the games will get boring and un-fun really quick.

As for players not being able to communicate or recognize their own priorities correctly, I'm afraid this simply needs to be accepted as a part of PbP. I'm pretty sure that I will likely, one day, fall victim to the same problem.

Tenchuu/THB: I respect your opinions, and in truth, I'm mostly playing devil's advocate to make sure that the arguments for and against are clear. I'm in no way intending this to be a personal argument.

H.M.Gimlord said:

I guess I'm just apprehensive that if we insist on creating an even advancement rate for everyone regardless of DM or Player participation, I'm afraid the games will get boring and un-fun really quick.

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This. I don't think time xp should be the primary driver of level-ups, but rather a nice way to bump up levels to help address some of the issues of PbP (which is slow advancement, amongst other things). One thing I'd recommend for those who use a lot of RP is either lots of quests or RP encounter xp. I know it's not laid out in the DMG but that is one of PbP's strengths is the opportunity for deeper RP'ing as you have time to think a bit more than in RL game and can come up with a potentially better response.

I think if we bump time xp we should look at maybe adjusting DM credits? I don't know if I like only 6 DM credits = 1 level.

[MENTION=5656]Someone[/MENTION]: There are a bunch of PC's who started around the beginning who are at higher heroic, Callen & Earth are level 8 right now so I don't think it's out of line to expect a paragon group in early next year (assuming they can get on adventure ) I know I've got a paragon adventure ready to submit and am itching to run it.

[MENTION=87417]LadyLaw[/MENTION] & [MENTION=79440]H.M.Gimlord[/MENTION]: I award xp at extended rests as I don't like awarding after each encounter because its a bit more work to do for me and I don't allow leveling until the rest anyway. Typically I'll award them in .5 month increments if it makes sense (see Simple Errand for an example), but I know Mal uses days. Either way should be pretty close. Personally I'm fine with rounding up if it's within a week to the next month, or using .5 increment if in the middle 2 weeks.

Ok, so to wrap up my thoughts: I like increasing time xp, but not more than double. If we double it, in many games it would account for about about 1/3 of xp which I think is a fair amount. I really don't think those players and DM's who keep up a fast pace should be penalized for it. If a PC is stuck in a slow moving game they can always request to drop out to return to the tavern. There's lots of ways to do it IC, random teleporting accidents, missive from a sick family member, dream/vision from your god/another higher power, etc.

renau1g said:

[MENTION=5656]Someone[/MENTION]: There are a bunch of PC's who started around the beginning who are at higher heroic, Callen & Earth are level 8 right now so I don't think it's out of line to expect a paragon group in early next year (assuming they can get on adventure ) I know I've got a paragon adventure ready to submit and am itching to run it.

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That's good to hear. Last mention I skimmed through the characters in the wiki I saw very, very few characters approaching or over level 5, so I perhaps was wrong. My comment was however based on my past experience with pbps, where plot speed gets reduced compared to tabletop by a factor of 5 at the very least: a campaign that could take a couple years face to face at a leasure pace of a a couple games per month would take around decade to play by email o by post. This is inevitable; it comes with the medium, but notice that I'm not advocating multiplying experience gained by 5 or by any other number, however. If anything, I was warning that it isn't entirely realistic to expect people, or at least many people, reaching mid or high levels before 5e arrives, the internet is shut down, everyone gets bored, or we are enslaved by the machines.

Someone/R1 - Kane and Kruk will be level 9 after LB3 is complete; although, we just started, so we're talking a couple of months (this also assumes you all avoid TPK ). November would mark 1 year for this group, and I expect player level to be around 8 by that time.

HMG - Not taking it personal at all, so no worries there.

I'm not sure I accept the argument that increased time experience would encourage players to slow down their play. Maybe it's just me, but I post as soon as I can because it's fun. When I try to sneak in a post when I don't have much time, it's so I don't let the other players down. I would think anyone who was slow-playing would be called out by the other players/DM. Also, Any amount of encounter experience should counter this risk.

Sounds like 4x is definitely shot down. I'll update the proposal to 2x.

[sblock=Updated Proposal]
Proposal: Adjust Time Experience in two ways:
Part 1: Increase the amount of time experience given per month by a factor of 2. So, instead of a character gaining a level's worth of time experience after 1 year, they would gain it after 6 months.
Part 2: Remove the policy that time experience is only given in whole month increments. Ideally, the charter would list experience-per-day amounts.

The Short Rationale: make gaining experience more fair for all players and easier to track for DMs.

The Long Rationale: Since games run at different paces, players are not gaining EXP evenly/balanced. If you're lucky and you get a fast-paced DM and player group, you will level much faster than someone who is in a group with slow posters. Since it's a living setting, that's kind of unfair. Time experience tries to fix this, but it is inadequate (see examples from R1 here).

For part 2, it would make a DMs job of tracking Time experience easier. By removing the whole month policy, a DM could always grant time experience at the end of each encounter. For example, if the first encounter of a multi-encounter adventure only takes 22 days, it doesn't make sense to wait 8 days to award the time experience (or more likely, wait until the next encounter, or the end of the adventure). It also it more easy for the players to have all rewards given at one time, so updating their sheets is easier.
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Tenchuu: I tried with the 2x encounter xp added, but I can't support 4x time xp, and it looks like even an additional 2x encounter xp is dicy.

My issue with doubling the encounter xp again is that it could be two fights then level. That's not necessarily a problem at lower levels but once you get past 5th and two dailies, suddenly everyone can drop a daily each fight. Then the fight becomes too easy so if you increase the xp budget to challenge the group, it only exacerbates the problem.

ex. Level 1 encounters:
n = 500 xp/5 = 100 each
n+1 = 700 xp/5 = 140 each
n+2 = 800 xp /5 = 160 each
n+3 = 1000 xp/5 = 200 each
n+4 = 1250 xp/5 = 250 each

Currently they're really worth:


n = 1000 xp/5 = 200 each
n+1 = 1400 xp/5 = 280 each
n+2 = 1600 xp /5 = 320 each
n+3 = 2000 xp/5 = 400 each
n+4 = 2500 xp/5 = 500 each

If you doubled this yet again its:

n = 2000 xp/5 = 400 each
n+1 = 2800 xp/5 = 560 each
n+2 = 3200 xp /5 = 640 each
n+3 = 4000 xp/5 = 800 each
n+4 = 5000 xp/5 = 1000 each

Therefore if you had two semi-challenging encounters (n+1) the party would level, excluding time xp, if you factored that in (especially if it gets doubled) suddenly it would be pretty likely that with an n+3 or 4 fight you'd level, and even possible with an n+2 fight.

I'm all for getting to higher levels sooner, but I think that's a bit too quick for me.