D&D 5E "My Character Is Always..." and related topics.

[5ekyu]

FWIW, i am not sure why some people are so interested in my specific XP system being used currently, but hey to be clear for those who just seem to be hung up on it even though it does not use XP gains based on roleplaying as an incentive system.

Each character being played in a session gets a point - session point, story point Xp whatever you want to call it. There are 10Xp required per level so it turns into a "level" being expressed as L.S figure where L is the level and S is the story point tracker.
Additionally, there is one charity point Xp given each session. That goes to the player with the lowest L.S (or randomly to those at that level if more than one are there.) That can serve to catch-up those who missed sessions (all of my players have outside demands that impose now and again) or just serve as a floating bonus.

So for four characters that amounts to roughly 8 sessions at full participation (~ 2 months real time) or 9 sessions with up to 5 player-sessions missed to get a to the next level. With three characters (current status since we had one player death 8 days ago), its still goint to be 8 sessions to reach next level even with two missed player-sessions thrown in.

Since i started the current 5e based campaign at level 3, there was no need for the somewhat accelerated advancement for the earliest levels that 5e seems to prefer for tier-1.

But, for the same group, i have used more explicit calendar-based systems, advance when Gm calls for it, in-game event based systems (variation on Gm calls for it), story based XP systems (where accomplishing X got you leveled) and even (practically) non-leveling systems (that was more for super-hero genre game.)

Obviously by leveling i mean advancement, whether it is by point-buy or by levels or other sorts of chargen mechanics. We certainly have more time in systems where "levels" were not as distinct and concrete a "packaged" thing as they are in 5e.

 

[Ovinomancer]

Wait? What? thats hilarious. man thats funny.

So, answering as if its serious...

As a plan for advancement, jumping 14 trolls and hoping you get enough dice luck to carry you thru may be seen by you as an example of DND 5e "advancement strategy" at work, but to me its a good example of why its so good we are not playing old school "kill monsters for experience" and "Xp by gp"

i would approach your example differently and expect similar reasoning from my and most players...

"If we can get the loot thats great. So, can we get the trolls distracted and out of the way so that we can grab the loot and only deal with one or two and maybe none of them while getting the loot?"

So, for example, maybe they find out that trolls have a taste for horse flesh, so they get a couple cheap horses and blood etc to try and set a distract and lure to draw the trolls away far enough they can take on a few stragglers or none at all and still get much of the loot.

Now, for some time now, in many games, pulling that off would still count as "beating" the encounter/challenge for purposes of Xp.

Of course, if the goal was to eliminate the trolls (to stop them raiding or pay them back for raids, etc) that would be a different objective and reward.

but yeah, jumping 14 trolls and likely getting killed as a sign of an advancement strategy - that was wonderful.

thanks for that.

great way to end a day of posting.

kudos.

Sigh. You try your best to provide a clear and extreme example of the different interests that players use to make play decisions and all you get is someone failing to understand that there are, indeed, clear difference because they'd obviously choose one of the alternatives over the other. That was the point: it was an extreme example to highlight a case where the player makes a decision for increased character success over advancement. I'm glad you agree with the underlying principle.

 

[Ovinomancer]

FWIW, i am not sure why some people are so interested in my specific XP system being used currently, but hey to be clear for those who just seem to be hung up on it even though it does not use XP gains based on roleplaying as an incentive system.

Each character being played in a session gets a point - session point, story point Xp whatever you want to call it. There are 10Xp required per level so it turns into a "level" being expressed as L.S figure where L is the level and S is the story point tracker.
Additionally, there is one charity point Xp given each session. That goes to the player with the lowest L.S (or randomly to those at that level if more than one are there.) That can serve to catch-up those who missed sessions (all of my players have outside demands that impose now and again) or just serve as a floating bonus.

So for four characters that amounts to roughly 8 sessions at full participation (~ 2 months real time) or 9 sessions with up to 5 player-sessions missed to get a to the next level. With three characters (current status since we had one player death 8 days ago), its still goint to be 8 sessions to reach next level even with two missed player-sessions thrown in.

I'm terribly sorry to hear of your loss.

 

[Lanefan]

FWIW, i am not sure why some people are so interested in my specific XP system being used currently, but hey to be clear for those who just seem to be hung up on it even though it does not use XP gains based on roleplaying as an incentive system.

Each character being played in a session gets a point - session point, story point Xp whatever you want to call it. There are 10Xp required per level so it turns into a "level" being expressed as L.S figure where L is the level and S is the story point tracker.
Additionally, there is one charity point Xp given each session. That goes to the player with the lowest L.S (or randomly to those at that level if more than one are there.) That can serve to catch-up those who missed sessions (all of my players have outside demands that impose now and again) or just serve as a floating bonus.

So when distilled to its basics, this system in effect gives xp for showing up to the game and that's about it; with the charity points acting as a bit of a backfill if needed.

Interesting.

My main issue with such a system would be this: take two PCs. One gets involved in everything, takes risks, makes good plans, contributes greatly in every combat, and generally keeps the party moving forward. The other doesn't get so involved, sits back, doesn't take any risks, doesn't help with planning, and is often nowhere to be seen when combat arises.

Under your system, both would get the same xp provided their players showed up for the session. This doesn't seem right to me somehow, in that the character who does very little is kinda getting a free ride. Now maybe you don't have any such players/characters in your game at the moment (in which case count yourself lucky!) but it's still something to consider.

I've always seen xp as something to reward what a character does in the game, rather than what a player does.

Lanefan

 

[mikal768]

As I made pretty clear in the other thread, I'm very much in the opposite camp. I much prefer to reward an alert and attentive player who concentrates and actively engages with my descriptions, rather than simply reward a mechanically well designed character. I rarely bring any passive checks into play, unless something is specifically trying to hide from the PCs there and then. If the players come up with interesting ideas I might award advantage or even auto-success depending on how I perceive the action playing out. Good plans could also bring about lowering of DCs or give disadvantage to enemies - but these plans must come from the player, and not the character.

In addition though, I am also pretty harsh on dump stats - if you dump intelligence, then sorry, I will expect you to intentionally come up with poor plans and attempt to convince other members of the party that they are worthwhile (or leave planning to others, depending on character personality). If you dump charisma then I will expect you to portray a character who is not likeable, annoy NPCs... and so on.

None of my attitudes towards gaming will come as a shock to my players though... it is key to make all this clear during session 0 to allow the players to take it into consideration when creating their characters.

So... if your players make characters with good stats, you don't give them bonuses, but you expect them to play the handicaps of bad stats? That's pretty uneven.

 

[iserith]

If the trait-ideal-bond-flaw combo chosen or determined by the player at least vaguely lines up with the stats, all is good.

A player might choose to do that or might not. Some traits, ideals, bonds, flaws - perhaps even most - don't suggest a character has a particular ability score.

I have them, obtained the day after their release. I also have the three core 5e hardcovers (DMG,PH,MM), along with various other 5e products and adventures.

Just because I don't run an edition doesn't mean I know nothing about it.

Great, then you should know that players in D&D 5e are not required to portray a character's ability score in any particular way.

Can't really speak to 4e on this but in 3e such a disparity would likely be something of a disaster...at least it was IME when I played it.

In D&D 4e, a big enough level disparity could mean that you couldn't hit monsters appropriate for the level of the higher-level PCs and that the same monsters could almost always hit you. Damage would scale with level too though I think D&D 4e characters in general had enough hit points where this wasn't such a big deal. But in some cases, I imagine it could be. DCs also went up by level, so DCs appropriate to the sorts of tasks higher-level PCs were performing could be completely out of reach for lower-level characters.

 

[5ekyu]

So when distilled to its basics, this system in effect gives xp for showing up to the game and that's about it; with the charity points acting as a bit of a backfill if needed.

Interesting.

My main issue with such a system would be this: take two PCs. One gets involved in everything, takes risks, makes good plans, contributes greatly in every combat, and generally keeps the party moving forward. The other doesn't get so involved, sits back, doesn't take any risks, doesn't help with planning, and is often nowhere to be seen when combat arises.

Under your system, both would get the same xp provided their players showed up for the session. This doesn't seem right to me somehow, in that the character who does very little is kinda getting a free ride. Now maybe you don't have any such players/characters in your game at the moment (in which case count yourself lucky!) but it's still something to consider.

I've always seen xp as something to reward what a character does in the game, rather than what a player does.

Lanefan

IMO if both are showing up and doing what they enjoy and everyone is happy i do not have to apply party wide adjustments. Some players enjoy driving while others enjoy riding... No need for me to make advancement part of that process.

Additionalky, that character driving events tends to get more in game rewards in many ways and those serves as incentives all their own.



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[redrick]

As a bit of explanation in the case that started me to make this thread, the setup provided numerous opportunities for gaining info and even specific "if they learned this then..." direct changes in terms of how far away things are noticed and so forth - three or four different encounter starts" depending on whether or not they gathered specific info on the ambush de jour.

The it added on top of that the generic "if they say blah blah they gain advantage on blah blah rolls" i mentioned.

So, no, it was not a "are they using info and prior knowledge" that was accounted for elsewhere already. it was a literal case of what i tend to call "magic words" on the player's part triggering advantage spearate from the whole gaining knowledge and interacting with environment.

But as for the bolded part of your comment, that would be where we part ways.

if as you say *the characters* gained knowledge of likely or potential ambush on the way... i would not require the players to make certain statements in order to not treat this as if the characters all developed amnesia in a sort by not taking routine precautions as their skills, backgrounds and natures would make reasonable. Especially if it were as seemingly contemporaneous as your comment seems to imply.

As adventure design, allowing the characters to take specific actions to improve their chances in the face of a potential ambush (which includes allow the players to state that they are going to be traveling more cautiously) is fine. As advice to the DM, it sounds like it might have been poorly stated, simply because it could encourage the frazzled and inexperienced DM to think in terms of specific conditions that need to be met (your "magic words") instead of a broad question of, "Have the players done anything ahead of time to prepare for the ambush? Consider their preparations when introducing the ambush."

"Magic words" are bad when the DM is looking for something that is more specific than the operating scope of play. I'd say, for most games, saying, "We know there are plans for an ambush, so we are going to be on the lookout" is acceptable, so long as you understand that the players will, of course, say things in their own way. There's nothing wrong with expecting players to be specific, but there is something wrong with allowing things, in general, to be vague, and then adjudicating based on the absence of something specific known only to the DM.

Also, we are talking about a circumstance that would allow the players to gain an advantage, not a circumstance that would doom the players to a disadvantage. That's a big difference. If, as a player, I get ambushed but have a fair shake on my perception vs the stealth of the opponents, I'm not going to complain. I got my normal passive perception for my normal behavior. On the otherhand, if the DM decides that we all get disadvantage because the ambush happened late in the evening and we didn't say we were stopping before nightfall, I'd call foul. "Well, you didn't ask us if we were stopping at nightfall, so why am I getting disadvantage for something that I never consciously did?"

I would be irritated if the DM designed the encounter to punish characters who did not have advantage, unless we were playing in a campaign that was understood to place a lot of emphasis on scouting and preparation.

As far as allowing characters to fail to act on knowledge they (and the players) have, because the players declined to use that knowledge, I think this also comes down to "difficulty" and expectations. If I am playing a low-key beer and bongs campaign, I might not really worry about what the players remember to do because, generally speaking, we are playing on easy level, and PCs are meant to stumble in, kick ass, and stumble on.

That being said, I prefer to expect the players to pay attention. I don't feel that it's my job as a DM to keep track of what the players have learned through their characters. If the players forget to act on information they got at the table, that's on them. This is something that a number of us, as DM's, have communicated at the table at the start of a campaign. One DM liked to include little side-quests, but made it very clear, "If you do not remember who gave you the side quest, you will not be able to collect any reward for it." I like this. I bring a notepad with me to most games and write stuff down. I review that notepad on the train to the next session. It greatly improves my enjoyment of the game. (I actually tape my character sheet into a composition book, so grabbing my character is the same as grabbing my session notes.)

As far as an in-world justification for why a character would fail to act on knowledge that they have. This is in no way "temporary amnesia." As a skilled professional, I am more than capable of learning important information and yet failing to act on that information, and only realizing afterwards that, "oops, oh yeah, I knew that this was happening today, but I forgot to properly prepare for it." Player characters are the same way. They can forget stuff, even if they have a high intelligence.

Of course, again, expected difficulty and the given circumstance will modulate this. If last week, the players learned that the wine at the feast would be deadly poisoned, and this week, an hour later, in-world, they casually mention that they are going to get drunk on wine at the feast, I might help them recall this information. (Probably by just saying, "Really? An hour ago, they just told you that the wine at the feast was poisoned." But, if we're on cruel mode, I might ask them to make an Intelligence save before adjudicating the action, allowing a chance to remember that the wine was poisoned before putting the glass to their lips. And this would be appropriate, because players would know that is the table they are playing at, and I hope we'd only be playing that kind of game with strong player buy-in.)

 

[transtemporal]

Personally, I use the characters class, background, the players roleplaying and a lesser extent character race, to determine what they're "always doing". People are creatures of habit and habits are formed by what you've learned and grown up with. For example, a Druid with the Scholar background is always classifying the natural world around them and they notice when something doesn't belong. They aren't routinely assessing the terrain around them for ambush positions but they know what signs to look for that distinguish natural animal activity and sentient being activity.

 

[Lanefan]

A player might choose to do that or might not. Some traits, ideals, bonds, flaws - perhaps even most - don't suggest a character has a particular ability score.

Great, then you should know that players in D&D 5e are not required to portray a character's ability score in any particular way.

So again I ask: if non-physical ability scores mean so little to the run of play, why keep them at all?

In D&D 4e, a big enough level disparity could mean that you couldn't hit monsters appropriate for the level of the higher-level PCs and that the same monsters could almost always hit you. Damage would scale with level too though I think D&D 4e characters in general had enough hit points where this wasn't such a big deal. But in some cases, I imagine it could be. DCs also went up by level, so DCs appropriate to the sorts of tasks higher-level PCs were performing could be completely out of reach for lower-level characters.

This about agrees with pretty much everything else I've heard/read/seen - 4e didn't do in-party level disparity all that well.