Why I dislike Milestone XP

Another way to look at it is there can be competing reward systems - playing in order to gain the reward of XP, or playing in order to gain the reward of a fun time playing your character.

Ideally, they are in synch and you feel equally rewarded for pursuing both, and can pursue both at the same time - playing your character in a fun way also gains you XP.

But sometimes they are not. Activities that generate the most XP are not as enjoyable as the activities you most want to pursue with your character - so now you have to decide. Short term benefit - play your character for fun, but get less XP and fall behind on whatever advancement schedule you consider desirable. Or do things that reward you with the most XP, but now playing your character feels more like a job and less like a fun activity.

One way to address this is to make sure to award XP for non combat activities that the players enjoy, so that there no competition between the reward systems.

Another way is to simply eliminate XP altogether and the reward is solely from playing your character and achieving whatever goals you decide are desirable - and you still get to level up as if you'd been gaining XP. This can become a problem if the players feel that the level advancement isn't frequent enough, or even if it is too frequent. Or if they just feel the need for XP's like a strung out junky needs their next fix.

5ekyu said:

And so a character say like a whimsical cleric of the jester god of trickery... needs a to set a goal (or goals) to advance in your games?

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The character doesn't have to be moving toward a goal, but the party as a whole does. Milestones are party-level, not character-level. If the party spends several sessions chasing down the wizard's personal nemesis, they all level up, not just the wizard.

Also, nobody is required to set a goal. I will supply plot hooks for anybody who wants them. You can pursue my prefab goals, or invent your own, and I'm fine either way. What I don't want is a party that spends the entire session faffing around in town doing nothing in particular. I find that excruciatingly boring. Players who want to do that should find themselves another DM.

(And I might add that such a party will be punished just as hard by any other advancement scheme. XP-for-kills and XP-for-gold are not generous to whoso faffeth around in town.)

Oofta said:

I prefer milestone advancement when I play because I never have to pause and think "Am I going to lose out on XP because I'm doing what my character would do?"

The other thing that bugs me is the really fun RP session that means you get effectively penalized for doing something other than being a murder hobo which is something I hit recently in an AL game.

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Honestly, that just sounds like the risk/reward model of the game is poorly calibrated. If fighting something gives you free XP at no real cost, but avoiding a fight gives you nothing, then gameplay would logically degenerate into a series of combats.

While milestone advancement could help you bypass the worst of that, that's really just an obvious patch that doesn't fix the underlying problem. A proper solution would involve increasing the risk of combat (or reducing the reward) to such a point that you don't feel like you're missing out, regardless of whether or not you fight.

Shasarak said:

I dont really get it. You say you had a really fun RP session but you feel penalized? Is the fun not the whole point of Roleplaying?

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So now I have to qualify everything? OK ... yes the game was fun. However, I am to a certain degree also motivated by characters advancement in AL games. I'm going to be going to an epic soon and had hoped to level up before then (I'm now 75 points short of 5th). I dislike the fact that if we had just gone in blades-a-swinging that I would have leveled. I feel penalized for not being a murder hobo.

This has never been an issue in a home campaign, but in AL, part of my motivation is gaining levels. If that makes be not 100% consistent, so be it. I enjoy AL and home games for different reasons and I get different things out of both.

IMHO anyone that is even partially motivated by gaining levels is "penalized" for doing anything other than hunting down the next enemy to kill if all you are given XP for is killing your enemy.

Saelorn said:

Honestly, that just sounds like the risk/reward model of the game is poorly calibrated. If fighting something gives you free XP at no real cost, but avoiding a fight gives you nothing, then gameplay would logically degenerate into a series of combats.

While milestone advancement could help you bypass the worst of that, that's really just an obvious patch that doesn't fix the underlying problem. A proper solution would involve increasing the risk of combat (or reducing the reward) to such a point that you don't feel like you're missing out, regardless of whether or not you fight.

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I'm not following. In XP based system, you normally only get XP for defeating creatures. In the vast majority of cases that means killing them. Spend an hour on social intrigue or making alliances? No XP for you!

For anyone motivated (even partially) by leveling handing out XP rewards combat and only combat.

It has nothing to do with the risk of combat or lack of risk therein.

Oofta said:

So now I have to qualify everything? OK ... yes the game was fun. However, I am to a certain degree also motivated by characters advancement in AL games. I'm going to be going to an epic soon and had hoped to level up before then (I'm now 75 points short of 5th). I dislike the fact that if we had just gone in blades-a-swinging that I would have leveled. I feel penalized for not being a murder hobo.

This has never been an issue in a home campaign, but in AL, part of my motivation is gaining levels. If that makes be not 100% consistent, so be it. I enjoy AL and home games for different reasons and I get different things out of both.

IMHO anyone that is even partially motivated by gaining levels is "penalized" for doing anything other than hunting down the next enemy to kill if all you are given XP for is killing your enemy.

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I can not really speak to AL games, the only ones that I am familiar with are Starfinder and from what I have seen they give you XP equivalents for completing missions and you level after completing a certain number of missions.

But in any case I really dont see being 75 XP short of leveling as a bug, that is an incentive to go back the next time to get your 75 XP. If the DM just levels up your character whenever you want to level up then there is no incentive. If you want to level up before your epic then you will be looking for another game to play. I just dont see the penalty here.

5ekyu said:

"gaol" driven Xp

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Characters who don't earn enough XP are imprisoned? Sounds hardcore!

Oofta said:

The main issue I have with this thread is the general tone of some XP advocates saying that people are "lazy" or "what's the point" simply because different people have different goals and expectations while valuing different aspects of the game.

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Yeah, comments like that from "XP advocates" are just as poisonous as comments from others like:

Caliban said:

Or if they just feel the need for XP's like a strung out junky needs their next fix.

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Those folks aren't bringing anything to the discussion. Ignore them, I say. Block them if you must.

There are many ways to do character advancement and that is because different games want to emphasize different things. I don't use the same advancement system from game to game. It changes based on what I'm trying to incentivize as DM. None is better than another except as it pertains to that. So I can argue for or against any given system, but I have to do that in the context of a particular game.

Oofta said:

I'm not following. In XP based system, you normally only get XP for defeating creatures. In the vast majority of cases that means killing them. Spend an hour on social intrigue or making alliances? No XP for you!

For anyone motivated (even partially) by leveling handing out XP rewards combat and only combat.

It has nothing to do with the risk of combat or lack of risk therein.

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I'm saying that the real mechanical benefit of making an alliance (or engaging in subterfuge, whatever) should be equivalent to the real mechanical benefit of fighting. If fighting gives you 500xp, then the benefit of not-fighting should also be worth ~500xp. But in a system where levels measure how good you are at fighting, and XP is awarded for fighting, the mechanical benefit of not-fighting would not be XP. Instead, the benefit would be that you don't waste resources (such as HP and spell slots).

Imagine two possible paths for Jim the Ranger:

Going down Path 1, Jim kills everything in his path. Two hours later, he has earned 500xp, found 400sp, and has a +1 longsword. But, he's also down to 12hp, and only has one spell slot left.
Going down Path A, Jim avoids confrontation, through a mixture of stealth and diplomacy. Two hours later, he has earned zero xp, found 100sp, and doesn't have a +1 longsword. But he still has 100hp and 7 spell slots left.

At this point, Jim comes across the Big Bad who had orchestrated this whole scheme, and they aren't willing to negotiate. They are going to battle with Jim, to the death.

If Jim 1 wins, then he goes home with the grand prize: everything he looted earlier, plus XP and loot from the boss, and he's saved the day.
If Jim A wins, then he goes home with a lesser prize: some XP and loot from the boss, plus 100sp, and he's saved the day.
If either Jim loses, then he gets the consolation prize: death, and none of the loot or XP from before.

iserith said:

Y
Those folks aren't bringing anything to the discussion. Ignore them, I say. Block them if you must.

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Nicely passive aggressive. That specific sentence was a joke. Sadly, you chose to ignore all the constructive things I actually did say that preceded it.

Oh well, cherry picking things to be mad about seems to be par for the course around here.