Why I dislike Milestone XP

[Satyrn]

I think there's plenty of good reasons to criticize XP, but c'mon man, doing so on the basis of not wanting to do simple math or just opening up the calculator app on one's phone to do a little elementary-level multiplication, addition, and division is just a little hard to swallow. Are other methods easier? Sure. Is D&D's method hard? No. I don't mean to pick on you specifically either. Similar comments have been made before.

Having to reference the XP by CR and Party Level table in 3e was irritating. Like, it was the one bit of 3e that had that 1st edition feel, but not even 1e made us look up a table to hand out XP!

 

[JonnyP71]

My experience with the standard XP system and a player pool (and character pool) is that character levels vary a bit and that players of higher-level characters help the lower-level characters out with resources and equipment to get them on their feet. I haven't seen any of this "lording" extra progress over others.

And that's precisely how it works in my experience - it promotes teamwork, not competition.

 

[MarkB]

I'm not a big video game player, but I bet many of you are. Do you know of any video games wherein you advance in the game by leaving the game cartridge or disc on the shelf and doing something else? Do video game producers get angry letters from their customers about how they are being punished for not advancing in the game when they're not actually playing it?

In many MMOs, including World of Warcraft, there's the concept of 'rest' XP. If you leave your character in a safe place - such as a city or inn - when you log off, you build up a buffer of time during which, when you next play the game, your characters' actions will all earn XP at an increased rate. It's there for precisely the purpose of providing a way of helping players with busy schedules to not fall too far behind their friends who are able to dedicate more time to playing the game.

There are also social options for helping players catch up - players who are members of a guild may ask higher-level allies to help them through game areas or quests that they're under-leveled for, to quickly boost them up to match their team-mates.

The 'punishment' for being underleveled in an MMO is participation - particular dungeons or PvP areas have prescribed level requirements, and if you lag far enough behind to not meet the requirements, you quite simply cannot join your friends in that activity.

This isn't a criticism of leveling everyone up at the same time even if they don't play. That certainly works if you think there's value in having all the PCs be the same level. It's just perhaps a way to look critically at the assertion that not getting levels when you don't show up is some kind of punishment. Why might it be seen this way in D&D, but perhaps not in a D&D-like video game?

There aren't a lot of really D&D-like video games - not in the sense of being games where groups of players get together with a particular set of characters and play purely co-operatively across a wide range of power levels. The only examples I can think of off-hand are very old titles such as Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, or the more recent Divinity Original Sin II with its DM Mode. Given that the latter game uses DM-granted XP rewards for advancement in DM Mode, the choice of group or individual leveling is up to the DM.

The older titles (and we're talking up to 20 years old for some of those) pretty much relied upon full 6-character groups, and if a player didn't turn up, their character would be taken over by the hosting player as I recall, so it wasn't an issue. But you could technically bring in a much lower-level character to one of those - and I can tell you, it'd feel like a pretty darn hefty punishment to have to play that character. The NPC AI does not discriminate between characters, and a significantly under-leveled character would have a life expectancy measured in seconds in most of those combat encounters.

It seems to me there are good reasons to want to level everyone up even if they don't play and this supports particular play experiences. But to say doing otherwise is some kind of punishment seems like a very weak argument to me. I think you can make the case for your particular approach without it.

The thing is, whether or not it feels like a punishment is going to vary from individual to individual. And if someone hasn't been in that position before, they themselves may not know the answer in advance. It'll only be when they're actually sitting there with a character a couple of levels behind the rest of the group that they'll really find out whether they perceive it as a challenge, or a punishment, or simply irrelevant.

 

[iserith]

It's punitive to withhold XP from the player whose wife is at home vomiting or who got sucked into mandatory overtime, this week. There's no fun in being forced to miss your recreational activity and to then be penalized by your friends for missing it, as well.

If you've got players that don't show up for your game because they've decided to go see the latest movie or because their WoW guild decided to do a raid (true story) or otherwise treat showing up to the game as something other than a commitment to the others at the table, then, by all means, feel free to withhold the XP. Better yet, give them the boot. As a general rule, I don't play with flakes.

Otherwise, you treat the others at the table with respect and accept that life sometimes happens.

Is giving XP for choosing not to play for one reason or another a sign of respect? Or is it a sign of disrespect to not give XP when they don't attend for a reason I don't like?

Or is it possible I can respect my friends and still have a standing rule everyone agrees to that says you don't get XP if you don't play?

Can getting XP for showing up be seen as an incentive to show up without being seen as a punishment for not showing up?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I am slightly baffled by this mentality (which seems to be rather commonly held). Our group feels that missing out on the fun of a gaming session is sufficient punishment that an XP penalty isn't required. Is this idea that players should be rewarded for being present a result of using XP as an incentive? Do some tables really need to incentivize showing up? Does the mentality have something to do with a table that enjoys inter-player competition? Some other option that I can't think of?

You're not losing anything by not showing up. You also don't get anything just for showing up. The XP mechanic represents the in-game reality of your character learning through the process of overcoming challenges; if you don't do anything, then you don't earn anything. That's the way that the world works. If it was possible to gain XP by not doing anything, then the first step of any campaign would be to take a break until everyone was level 20.

Remember also: Every challenge has an associated risk. If you fight a dragon, then there's a non-zero chance that your character (and all of their gear) will be devoured and not recoverable. If you fight a dragon, then success gives XP (and probably loot), while failure quite possibly means that the character's adventure has ended unceremoniously.

Why should I risk everything on the possibility of earning some XP and loot, if I could get that same benefit without taking any risks?

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

So I guess from most of the posts when a player is out their PC is out? So you know that there is a huge fight this week against Frank the Evil badguy and you are out so your PC stays home and your buddies fight alone. Yet you want a full share?

 

[iserith]

In many MMOs, including World of Warcraft, there's the concept of 'rest' XP. If you leave your character in a safe place - such as a city or inn - when you log off, you build up a buffer of time during which, when you next play the game, your characters' actions will all earn XP at an increased rate. It's there for precisely the purpose of providing a way of helping players with busy schedules to not fall too far behind their friends who are able to dedicate more time to playing the game.

There are also social options for helping players catch up - players who are members of a guild may ask higher-level allies to help them through game areas or quests that they're under-leveled for, to quickly boost them up to match their team-mates.

The 'punishment' for being underleveled in an MMO is participation - particular dungeons or PvP areas have prescribed level requirements, and if you lag far enough behind to not meet the requirements, you quite simply cannot join your friends in that activity.

There aren't a lot of really D&D-like video games - not in the sense of being games where groups of players get together with a particular set of characters and play purely co-operatively across a wide range of power levels. The only examples I can think of off-hand are very old titles such as Baldur's Gate or Neverwinter Nights, or the more recent Divinity Original Sin II with its DM Mode. Given that the latter game uses DM-granted XP rewards for advancement in DM Mode, the choice of group or individual leveling is up to the DM.

The older titles (and we're talking up to 20 years old for some of those) pretty much relied upon full 6-character groups, and if a player didn't turn up, their character would be taken over by the hosting player as I recall, so it wasn't an issue. But you could technically bring in a much lower-level character to one of those - and I can tell you, it'd feel like a pretty darn hefty punishment to have to play that character. The NPC AI does not discriminate between characters, and a significantly under-leveled character would have a life expectancy measured in seconds in most of those combat encounters.

Thanks for this. My knowledge of video games is severely lacking. (A lot of games make me dizzy, as much as I want to play them. Totally sucks.) As for WoW, I think D&D actually has this feature to some degree. If a character is a few levels behind and the party is going after higher-level challenges, that PC levels up very quickly. Bounded accuracy sees to it they can still participate while behind. As the DMG says, "...you might end up with a level gap between the characters of players who never miss a session and characters belonging to players who are more sporadic in their attendance. Nothing is wrong with that."

The thing is, whether or not it feels like a punishment is going to vary from individual to individual. And if someone hasn't been in that position before, they themselves may not know the answer in advance. It'll only be when they're actually sitting there with a character a couple of levels behind the rest of the group that they'll really find out whether they perceive it as a challenge, or a punishment, or simply irrelevant.

Sure. I think the better position to be in here is to say why your preferred method works for the particular kind of game you're running rather than say that other methods are punishments, disrespectful, or create competition where none existed before. It's easier to substantiate the former claim whereas the the latter claims can easily be knocked down.

 

[iserith]

So I guess from most of the posts when a player is out their PC is out? So you know that there is a huge fight this week against Frank the Evil badguy and you are out so your PC stays home and your buddies fight alone. Yet you want a full share?

Hell yeah, it's way safer that way.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

In many MMOs, including World of Warcraft, there's the concept of 'rest' XP. If you leave your character in a safe place - such as a city or inn - when you log off, you build up a buffer of time during which, when you next play the game, your characters' actions will all earn XP at an increased rate. It's there for precisely the purpose of providing a way of helping players with busy schedules to not fall too far behind their friends who are able to dedicate more time to playing the game.

Of note, during initial development, this mechanic was presented in the opposite manner. Instead of characters earning rest by not-playing, they accrued fatigue by playing; so instead of characters earning increased XP after not playing, they earned decreased XP after playing too long.

From what I recall, the math worked out the same either way, but players were happier with being rewarded for taking a break than they were with being penalized for playing too much.

 

[Caliban]

All I can say is that I've played with XP (still do in Adventure League) and without XP.

For me personally, when I'm the DM running my own campaign, I don't use XP. I've experienced exactly zero problems as a result, and for me gained a huge benefit - I don't spend any of my valuable time on an activity that I consider kind of pointless. This automatically defeats any arguments against "milestone advancement" as far as I'm concerned. Full stop, debate is over. Telling me it is "forced", or "lazy" or "contrived" or whatever doesn't change anything other than my opinion of you.

If you as a DM see value in calculating and distributing XP to your players, go for it. That's the only thing that matters.