Why I dislike Milestone XP

[iserith]

Why does it matter? As I've stated before, I do leveling based on "chapters" or roughly on number of successful encounters. Depends on the group preference and the campaign. But I've been doing it for a few years now, I'm not concerned about the category.

My only goal/logic/method is to level up in a way that makes sense for the story we're telling. For me, that means ignoring XP.

Why does it matter? Because this is a discussion and I'm trying to understand your method better and to see if and how it aligns with established approaches. I'm interested in the topic of advancement systems. It's why I'm in this thread.

Story-based advancement in the DMG doesn't use XP and is based on awarding levels for accomplishing "significant goals." That sounds like what you're doing. I'm interested in how you define "encounters" as well.

 

[Oofta]

Why does it matter? Because this is a discussion and I'm trying to understand your method better and to see if and how it aligns with established approaches. I'm interested in the topic of advancement systems. It's why I'm in this thread.

Story-based advancement in the DMG doesn't use XP and is based on awarding levels for accomplishing "significant goals." That sounds like what you're doing. I'm interested in how you define "encounters" as well.

Depending on the game, I more-or-less figure out how many combat encounters it would take to level and then consider social and exploration activities as encounters. I use the same rough logic, a simple social encounter may be a few bluff checks and some RP, a hard social encounter all the PCs at different points, perhaps a few spells and other resources.

It depends to a certain degree if the group wants an overarching story and goals or just wants to be more carefree and just seeking adventure wherever it may be. So the former was my "the world is going to end Ragnarok" scenario, the latter was just a "we're in a city, much of which was destroyed during the Ragnarok campaign, lets just have a fun non-linear campaign".

 

[Shasarak]

In my Starfinder campaign last night the Party got:

+400xp for investigating who hired the Downside Kings to kill their Starfinder Society contact,

+400xp for managing to finesse their way past a couple of guards to get into the Downside Kings nightclub and

+600xp for defeating three gang thugs.

They got 3 Laser pistols, 3 Clubs and 450 Credits.

They were penalised with -2 Laser pistols, -2 Clubs and -300 Credits.

 

[Lanefan]

I guess it all comes down to what sort of atmosphere you're aiming for in your campaign. Are the players a team, or are they individuals?

The PCs, you mean?

They're both. They're individuals who are, for the time being, part of a team. Just like players on a football team.

 

[Lanefan]

First off, there seem to be a lot of people here that see xp as a player reward (e.g. no xp for a PC whose player doesn't show up for the game) rather than a reward for what the PC does in the game. I see xp as purely a PC "reward" for what it does in the game...which means that if a PC does nothing in a given encounter it gets no xp for it.

I almost never stop a session mid-flight to calculate xp unless I know someone's right on the verge of bumping. Usually I work them out between sessions, or while waiting for the players to arrive on game night; it doesn't usually take very long at all. And the PCs don't get xp until the in-game morning after they earned them.

PCs without a player for the session are still in the party, and still contributing. Like [MENTION=6689161]Warpiglet[/MENTION] does, we run such characters as party NPCs (we call them QPCs: Quasi-Player Characters) for that session.

Varying PC levels within a party isn't a problem if you are not playing 3e or 4e (or any derivative thereof).

Lanefan

 

[Imaculata]

The PCs, you mean?

No, I really meant the players. Are they playing together towards a common goal, or is it every man for himself?

And so for me the context is different. Rather than XP being a reward for things the character did, its a reward for things the team did.

Since I play 3rd edition (3.5 to be precise), keeping all players on the same level is more important for the sake of balance. However, I also don't want any of my players to feel like they are missing out on XP, just because they aren't that good at roleplaying, or they didn't have a good roleplaying moment that the DM wanted to reward with XP. There should be no pressure to be a good roleplayer, just have fun, and if you have a cool moment, the whole group is rewarded. This makes it less of a competition in my opinion. It also creates a nice atmosphere where both the players and the DM reach a mutual agreement regarding what were the roleplaying highlights of the evening.

 

[iserith]

First off, there seem to be a lot of people here that see xp as a player reward (e.g. no xp for a PC whose player doesn't show up for the game) rather than a reward for what the PC does in the game. I see xp as purely a PC "reward" for what it does in the game...which means that if a PC does nothing in a given encounter it gets no xp for it.

The rules on experience points refer to it as both a reward for the player and character.

In my current campaign, if someone is absent, the character is either not present or fades to the background and gets no XP.

 

[iserith]

Depending on the game, I more-or-less figure out how many combat encounters it would take to level and then consider social and exploration activities as encounters. I use the same rough logic, a simple social encounter may be a few bluff checks and some RP, a hard social encounter all the PCs at different points, perhaps a few spells and other resources.

It depends to a certain degree if the group wants an overarching story and goals or just wants to be more carefree and just seeking adventure wherever it may be. So the former was my "the world is going to end Ragnarok" scenario, the latter was just a "we're in a city, much of which was destroyed during the Ragnarok campaign, lets just have a fun non-linear campaign".

Are the players aware ahead of time of approximately how many "encounters" they must overcome before gaining a level?

 

[Oofta]

Are the players aware ahead of time of approximately how many "encounters" they must overcome before gaining a level?

We always talk about leveling and XP during a session 0 when discussing the type of campaign we want to run. I don't show them a chart of encounters per level or anything, just let them know that they get gain levels for significant encounters whether they are combat, exploration or social if we decide to use that option. We also discuss (and revisit) basic concepts such as how quickly they want to advance.

Some people prefer lower level campaigns, others want to have all the fun toys that come with higher levels so I don't have a hard-and-fast rule.

 

[iserith]

We always talk about leveling and XP during a session 0 when discussing the type of campaign we want to run. I don't show them a chart of encounters per level or anything, just let them know that they get gain levels for significant encounters whether they are combat, exploration or social if we decide to use that option. We also discuss (and revisit) basic concepts such as how quickly they want to advance.

Some people prefer lower level campaigns, others want to have all the fun toys that come with higher levels so I don't have a hard-and-fast rule.

So in theory by knowing that leveling is tied to number of encounters overcome (if not a specific number), I could modify my play to engage with more encounters per session in order to speed up character advancement.