Time Based XP Rewards

IronWolf · Jan 5, 2012

First, to echo Qik, let's keep name calling and condemning certain GMing habits out of the discussion. We are here to have fun and this thread is simply to talk over time based xp and gather people's opinions and thoughts on it and come up with a workable arrangement.

I am still forming my opinion on the topic of time based xp, so some of my post might be a bit of a rambling jaunt. I like empowering GMs, but at the same time it is only fair that a player expect some consistency across games. It is one of the hazards of "organized play" that a GM ends up doing some extra work to keep things on a fair and level playing field for the greater good of the Living world. I am the first to admit that I run a much looser game in my home games than I do here. So with that said...

GlassEye said:
That inconsistency is unfair to players. One GM allows characters to level as soon as encounter & time xp gives them enough xp to do so; another allows leveling but only under certain conditions; and still another doesn't allow it until the end of the adventure.

A lot of what we do in Living World play is to provide a consistent world for players to play in. So they can learn the rules of the world and know it can be applied across the board. To gain this consistency we do as GMs give up a bit of freedom to help the make the Living World as a whole better. So I agree with GlassEye that we should not undervalue this consistency.

perrinmiller said:
And guess what, those leveling up issues are posted in the DM's rules for the adventure ahead of time. You don't like what is published ahead of time, don't play it.

In Roaming Dead's case the adventure rules say that there may be a short intermission during the course of adventure to allow leveling up. So at least in this case there may be a mixed signal.

If we go towards the GM and judge determine when XP hits then I think it will become more important for the adventure rules to be stated up front when the pitch is made in the Inn, so players will know up front whether the structure of the game meets their expectations.

perrinmiller said:
What is "unfair" by not getting to level-up in the middle of a dungeon? Can you prove to me that you are losing XP by not getting level-up or having to wait until adventure end to receive your TBX?

Some of it is tracking when you level so you know when to apply the higher tbx award amount for being higher level. It seems to me this is a littler easier to track along the way than to go back through what could be a very long thread and track it. So simply from the "meta" standpoint, tracking as we go seems easier. I believe an argument could be made to reach a level for xp tracking and such, but not actually apply the level mid-adventure.

perrinmiller said:
DMing is a lot of work, you better recognize that before you start telling them they need to do more.

I agree that GMing is a lot of work. We are just re-evaluating an area to see if there is too much gray that is in actuality causing more work for the GM. There is a certain amount of overhead when running "organized" play games that comes along with it. We just need to be sure the extra work is for the greater good and not unnecessarily adding work that doesn't have a pay off.

perrinmiller said:
I have a counter point to GE's overall complaint about long adventures. Dagger's at Midnight is a short 4 encounter adventure that is dragged out by lack of decent participation and slow posting rates of the participants. For months the characters have done little to advance the game (some posting once every 2 weeks or longer), yet earn the same XP over time.

I have not watched this game, so take my comments with the grain of salt. But if there are two weeks between posts I have to question whether it isn't time to re-evaluate and create an exit point from the game. This sounds an extreme case and probably not one to base tbx and mid-adventure leveling on as it seems pretty outside the norm. Again, I have not followed that adventure, so my observations could be out of whack.

perrinmiller said:
DC's adventure is balanced for their characters to complete without leveling up. It was not advertized to allow leveling up nor mid-adventure shopping. Whining about not getting to level up mid-adventure is essentially saying you think your character should gain advantage for the final encounters instead of playing as it was designed. It is a short adventure that is in no danger of dragging out into heavy role-playing without rewards. I stand by my Judgement on this when I approved it.

As mentioned above, the adventure rules did state there was a possibility of leveling up during the course of the adventure. Though I don't think anyone is whining about it, just someone saw something that didn't match how they thought tbx worked and brought it up. Talking it out and sorting it out as an area we might need to better define could reduce work in the long run as jkason said.

As a player in this game, it feels like this is going to be a shorter adventure, so I really have no issue not leveling up mid-game. My opinion would likely differ if this was a longer adventure.

perrinmiller said:
Bottom line, Judges jobs are to keep things fair. There is nothing unfair about not getting to level-up mid-adventure or having to wait until the end before getting to apply your TBX/TBG.

Fair and consistent. Consistent could mean a blanket rule for all of LPF or it could mean, the GM posts their adventure rules up front in the first pitch for the adventure in the Inn and the player knows whether they want in on the game from the get go.

jkason said:
In "Expansion," I seem to recall the GM having to do a lot of "you would have been level x here," and having to re-calculate tbx several times because of it. In the case of tbx granted at the end of an adventure, do we retcon leveling for tbx purposes? It seemed like that was what was happening there, and from my perspective, it seemed like far more work than doling out the time xp around the time it would level the character, whether or not the GM allows the leveling to take effect (which I think is an entirely separate issue, and not what I thought we were discussing)

This is sort of my thought. It seems easier to keep up with these meta things along the way, updating the first post with links than to retroactively go back through and try to figure it all out. I know from some of my PFS games I kick myself for forgetting if a player finished their faction mission and having to go back through a very long thread to see.

jkason said:
I was under the impression that the discussion here was more about when and how tbx can be awarded, and less about mid-adventure leveling. I think the latter has been decided for a while: you GM dictates when you can or can't take any levelling your xp has earned you. And I'm more than fine with that.

Good point. There is a distinction between tbx awards and the actual leveling of a character during the adventure.

Qik · Jan 5, 2012

IronWolf said:
If we go towards the GM and judge determine when XP hits then I think it will become more important for the adventure rules to be stated up front when the pitch is made in the Inn, so players will know up front whether the structure of the game meets their expectations.

Personally, this would be my ideal: to still allow flexibility whilst requiring a GM's particular stance to be articulated during recruitment, before the adventure actually starts.

The notion of consistency is a valid one, and one that I hadn't much considered prior to this discussion. I can see where the establishment and maintenance of such consistency may take precedence, and would understand if it did so in this case.

That being said, I feel as though the need for consistency across the gamut of LPF games can at times be felt much more strongly than in this specific matter. Given the number of GMs who run games here, and the associative spectrum of styles/approaches/levels of free time, it's hard to avoid a certain level of divergence. The question then becomes, what level of divergence is unacceptable? And in what issues? To take a specific example, I've been in LPF games where maps aren't used in combat: that makes for a wholly different type of game, and this is a sort of shift that I find to be much more drastic/potentially problematic than the matter of when time based xp is applied. Posting frequency, of both players and GMs alike, is another aspect that has a much more profound impact on gameplay, and which I've also seen vary widely.

It's not my intention to derail this thread, of course; I'm only trying to illustrate that if the matter of consistency comes to bear on this specific subject, then maybe it's time to reassess the level of consistency desired/required from LPF GMs in all dimensions. I think it's a balance between wanting to maintain a positive, successful playing atmosphere (which consistency is, I believe, intended to encourage) and wanting to encourage as many people to contribute as possible (which may be counteracted by the presence of criteria of a certain level of stringency for GMing), which can be a tough balance to achieve.

Hopefully all this appears as relevant to everyone else as I'm intending it to be.

Satin Knights · Jan 6, 2012

As I see it:

A) Encounter XP is earned at the end of the encounter.
B) Encounter GP is earned at the end of the encounter and only spendable at a GM allowed store visit or after the adventure is over. Loot gets distributed within the party and used as is, or traded for gold or other items at a store visit later.
C) Time based XP is earned daily.
D) Time based GP is earned daily and only spendable at the point the hiring agent that started the adventure pays you, usually the last minute of the adventure. (On the wiki sheet: Character X is due nnn gp as pay at the adventure's completion.)

1) Those four numbers can be added and tracked on the character sheet daily if the player desires.
2) Pauses in story to level up is up to the GM. Even if the character has earned enough XP to level, it is up to the GM as to when and if it is convenient in the story. The GM should make a good effort at allowing the characters to level at the earliest convenience in the the story line.
3) Recruiting/first post should list leveling plans and how many times the characters are expected to level.
4) The game judge certifies the numbers at the end of the adventure.
5) The character reviewing judge verifies the numbers in the first and last post of an adventure that the game judge has certified while he is reviewing the character.

Using the Roaming Dead as the example because it triggered this discussion, we started with a 1, 1, 2, 2, 3 and 3 for character levels. That is 12/6 +1 (for six players) = 3 for an APL. If one of those characters levels, then it will be (13/6 +1) or 3.16 for an APL. That is not going to affect the CRs of the opponents or force any changes by the GM to accommodate a single character that has leveled. If half the characters have leveled, that moves the APL from 3.0 to 3.5 Again, not enough to force the GM change anything from the current script for the adventure. And the TXP was not going to get any of the characters close to leveling.

If all the players entering an adventure are going in with just a few hundred xp short of leveling to begin with, then the GM should recognize they will be eligible for leveling soon and be prepared for it. Roaming Dead didn't start that way because all the incoming characters were at the lower edge of their character levels.

All the worry about "we didn't plan for leveling" is rather irrelevant. One character leveling is not going to move the APL significantly enough to change the script. Even when everybody levels, it is not that hard to adjust the CR of an encounter. The only thing we are trying to balance is the XP vs Gold so characters don't get unbalanced in wealth compared to other characters. The XP and Gold numbers are looked up and calculated each time anyways. Both are based on the CR of the current fight.

In other words, sticking strictly to the script is only useful in PFS where you get XP based on the adventure as a whole. Everybody gets 512 gp and 1 XP for an APL 1 or APL 2 adventure there. Here, we have a finer granularity of measurement, but since the CR of the individual fight drives the table lookup for both values given, it stays balanced automatically.

Summary: XP is earned immediately. Leveling is done with GM permission. Spending is done with GM permission. Strict adherence to the script is not necessary because balance between GP and XP is still kept. It doesn't hurt to level immediately and a GM shouldn't postpone it any longer than to find a good plot line pause.

IronWolf · Jan 6, 2012

Thanks SK for posting this. Now I can cross off my list coming back to the thread to make a similar summary post for some form of approval!

Satin Knights said:
A) Encounter XP is earned at the end of the encounter.
B) Encounter GP is earned at the end of the encounter and only spendable at a GM allowed store visit or after the adventure is over. Loot gets distributed within the party and used as is, or traded for gold or other items at a store visit later.
C) Time based XP is earned daily.
D) Time based GP is earned daily and only spendable at the point the hiring agent that started the adventure pays you, usually the last minute of the adventure. (On the wiki sheet: Character X is due nnn gp as pay at the adventure's completion.)

I agree with this.

Satin Knights said:
1) Those four numbers can be added and tracked on the character sheet daily if the player desires.
2) Pauses in story to level up is up to the GM. Even if the character has earned enough XP to level, it is up to the GM as to when and if it is convenient in the story. The GM should make a good effort at allowing the characters to level at the earliest convenience in the the story line.
3) Recruiting/first post should list leveling plans and how many times the characters are expected to level.
4) The game judge certifies the numbers at the end of the adventure.
5) The character reviewing judge verifies the numbers in the first and last post of an adventure that the game judge has certified while he is reviewing the character.

I would make one slight change in item 3. I think some players might want to know the guidelines the GM in question runs under, so I would make sure leveling plans are listed in the recruiting post. That way a person knows up front before even joining an adventure, only to find out in the first post they would rather not be in that adventure due to a GM's rule.

Other than that I think this is a good compromise. We keep power in the GMs hands and provide a way for players to know what game they are getting into before committing.

Satin Knights said:
All the worry about "we didn't plan for leveling" is rather irrelevant. One character leveling is not going to move the APL significantly enough to change the script. Even when everybody levels, it is not that hard to adjust the CR of an encounter.

I also agree with this. A person or two leveling up partially through the adventure doesn't really warrant redoing all the encounters.

Systole · Jan 6, 2012

I'm in a non-LPF campaign where our characters once made a level and then didn't have a chance to rest for something like three sessions. This is also a game where my seventh level character is still in her first level leather armor. I bring this up because that game is a total, TOTAL drag, and if it wasn't a good friend who was the GM, I'd have said to hell with the game a long time ago. Really ... it's not enjoyable.

I don't consider myself a loot hound, but getting new abilities and new goodies for your characters is part of what makes RPGs fun. Extended periods of not getting your new goodies and new abilities after you feel like you earned them is frustrating.

That said, I also GM myself, and I understand there are times when it's not appropriate to level up or get new gear. I think this is a judgment call on the part of the GM and judge. That said, I've found that my players are much, much happier with regular shopping trips and regularly awarded experience.

DalkonCledwin · Jan 6, 2012

Can I just say that the adventure in which this issue was first brought up, is a relatively short and simple adventure that has plenty of healing opportunities built into the Adventure. Additionally it is not in my opinion as the GM going to be long enough for an issue to arise where in the characters absolutely need to upgrade their equipment by the end of the adventure as it is not intended to be long enough to require such an upgrade. Add to the fact that the Judge who approved my adventure only did so on the basis of it not allowing leveling up.

I will readily acknowledge that I am at fault for even including the time based rewards listing when I calculated Experience Points for the most recent encounter in said adventure, which I should not have done. But I personally don't think that in adventures that are intended to only be a small handful of encounters / skill challenges that allowing level ups is necessarily a good idea unless the encounters towards the end of the adventure are specifically crafted with a level up mid adventure in mind, which in this case they were not.

IronWolf · Jan 6, 2012

DalkonCledwin said:
Can I just say that the adventure in which this issue was first brought up, is a relatively short and simple adventure that has plenty of healing opportunities built into the Adventure.

Don't worry DC, this thread isn't focused on anything you did or trying to get you to change your intent for leveling during the course of your adventure. So don't take this thread as an issue with your adventure.

DalkonCledwin said:
I will readily acknowledge that I am at fault for even including the time based rewards listing when I calculated Experience Points for the most recent encounter in said adventure, which I should not have done. But I personally don't think that in adventures that are intended to only be a small handful of encounters / skill challenges that allowing level ups is necessarily a good idea unless the encounters towards the end of the adventure are specifically crafted with a level up mid adventure in mind, which in this case they were not.

Remember, tbx and whether to level-up mid-adventure are two different topics. You can award tbx during the course of the adventure, perhaps making it easier on the GM to calculate xp we go as opposed to having to dig back through a thread. And then simply not allow leveling up during the course of a short adventure because it just doesn't fit.

Satin Knights · Jan 7, 2012

Well, I am trying to affect the flow of the two issues in that adventure.

a) I think we should get our time XP now as you originally had posted. Our time GP gets listed as due when the guard pays us at the end.
b) I think "when the characters level" is a GM decision, not a judge/script decision, and should be weighed heavily in favor of "asap after they are eligible".

Even counting the time XP, I have another three fights and 35 days before I get to worry about "Am I eligible to level?". I am ahead of Ni. The first level characters have about 25 days to go, and the thirds have about 80 days before they get to do anything.

So, *if* we have 4 fights left, we just might have the first level characters eligible to level before the last fight. You as the GM can make a decision about that when we get close. Again, if only the two lowest characters level, we still don't move the APL yardstick enough to change the intended CRs for the fights.

The first post adventure rules says we may be able to level at a specific point. If that was a cut/paste error because it was not planned that way, it probably should be updated to reflect what you want to do. If the game goes quick, it won't matter.

And there is a cut and paste error in the first post of the adventure. Arianna's XP total is off.

I am pretty sure she is not ready for third level yet.

IronWolf · Jan 7, 2012

Satin Knights said:
Well, I am trying to affect the flow of the two issues in that adventure.

Satin Knights said:
a) I think we should get our time XP now as you originally had posted. Our time GP gets listed as due when the guard pays us at the end.
b) I think "when the characters level" is a GM decision, not a judge/script decision, and should be weighed heavily in favor of "asap after they are eligible".

I agree with these. I just didn't want Dalkon to think we were harping on him and only him. But more sorting out some LPF policy in general that sprung from that game.

sunshadow21 · Jan 7, 2012

The problems I had with Expansion were twofold. First, I had been calculating individual xp wrong, and that would have been an issue regardless of when I caught it. Expansion was the first time I had tried to do most of the xp math on my own ever in any game, so there was some inevitable growing pains. It can take an adventure or two for a new DM to get the entire process down, and especially on long adventures where party members are switched around, the other difficulty I had, math snafus are hard to completely avoid. I would have been better off simply splitting it up into two adventures, but that solution did not occur to me until much, much later.

Overall, I never had a problem with leveling midadventure, at least as far as the adventure itself is concerned. There are enough ways I can adjust the actual encounters without messing with the CR to make it more or less challenging as needed that that part has never been a problem for me. Simply manipulating the starting conditions and surrounding environment usually does enough to keep it at the level I want it to be. I tend to leave myself a little bit of wiggle room for a number of other reasons, so it's not that big of a deal.