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<blockquote data-quote="I'm A Banana" data-source="post: 5984738" data-attributes="member: 2067"><p>I don't think this is an inaccurate conflation. Those three things are inextricably linked. All three feed into the risk/reward motivational loop in traditional D&D play.</p><p></p><p>It might help to think of it this way: a game experience is fundamentally similar to a narrative experience in that there is a starting point, a challenge, and a reward for undergoing the challenge. The reward serves to motivate a player to move from the starting point, through the challenge. All games -- from stickball through monopoly through solitaire through <em>Minecraft</em> feature this. In some games you can turn that off and "sandbox" it, but such an experience is more of a toy than a game: you can play WITH it, but you can't play IT.</p><p></p><p>In D&D specifically, XP serves first as a mechanical carrot. Treasure, too, but less so in 3e and 4e, so XP most prominently (and occasionally concurrently).</p><p></p><p>In order to serve as an appropriate reward, it must also serve as an appropriate measure of difficulty. Games may swing wildly with respect to their risk/reward ratio (ha! Say that three times fast!), but generally speaking, for satisfying motivational psychology, we expect a fairness: a big risk nets a big reward, and a small risk nets a small reward. If the risks and the rewards become too drastically disentangled, we experience a lack of motivation to proceed: it's not challenging enough to be interesting, or it's too challenging to be worth it. </p><p></p><p>Thus, the first and the third items on your list are linked. If you use separate mechanics to measure them (such as using CR to measure challenge), you must eventually link them on the back end (such as a CR-to-XP table). </p><p></p><p>Given the risk/reward link, it's easy to see why this has an influence on character advancement: if a character tackles greater risk, they should have a greater reward, and thus advance faster than they otherwise would. Harder challenges -> more XP -> faster level-gain -> more fobs and bigger rewards.</p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>I'm a little confused. If the party undertakes to accomplish Task A, it has a given risk and given reward (both here measured by XP). If the party undertakes to accomplish Task B instead, it has a different risk and a different reward. Thus, players determine the "attempted XP" by undertaking a given task (or, in D&D, perhaps a quest or adventure, or maybe just a part of a bigger quest or adventure; more heavily plotted games might still have various methods of getting to the next plot point).</p><p></p><p>What need is there for a different rule to govern that character choice?</p><p></p><p>What they don't get to do, of course, is determine they're only going to accomplish 10% of a given task, recover all their resources for free, and then accomplish the another 10% of the task, and repeat ad nauseum. If they only accomplish 10% of a given task before a recharge, they <em>fail that task</em>. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Obfuscating forge-isms aside ( <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite2" alt=";)" title="Wink ;)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=";)" /> ), I don't think there's any debate that DMs need to telegraph the level of risk involved in an activity. Clues about danger (either potential clues that require work to find and that the party may fail at finding or functional clues either found or just stated by the DM) are part of that risk/reward analysis, and it's important that the players be empowered to peg the general level of risk (and thus infer the general level of reward) of a given task. </p><p></p><p></p><p></p><p>Risk and reward are inextricably entwined, and in designing any game that hopes to encourage the attention of its audience, you must be able to relate the two coherently. XP is a single measure that does that well. I don't think there must be any other separate measure (though there could be!), and, indeed, I think it would be rather superfluous, as whatever "challenge rating" you choose must relate back to an XP award ultimately anyway.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="I'm A Banana, post: 5984738, member: 2067"] I don't think this is an inaccurate conflation. Those three things are inextricably linked. All three feed into the risk/reward motivational loop in traditional D&D play. It might help to think of it this way: a game experience is fundamentally similar to a narrative experience in that there is a starting point, a challenge, and a reward for undergoing the challenge. The reward serves to motivate a player to move from the starting point, through the challenge. All games -- from stickball through monopoly through solitaire through [I]Minecraft[/I] feature this. In some games you can turn that off and "sandbox" it, but such an experience is more of a toy than a game: you can play WITH it, but you can't play IT. In D&D specifically, XP serves first as a mechanical carrot. Treasure, too, but less so in 3e and 4e, so XP most prominently (and occasionally concurrently). In order to serve as an appropriate reward, it must also serve as an appropriate measure of difficulty. Games may swing wildly with respect to their risk/reward ratio (ha! Say that three times fast!), but generally speaking, for satisfying motivational psychology, we expect a fairness: a big risk nets a big reward, and a small risk nets a small reward. If the risks and the rewards become too drastically disentangled, we experience a lack of motivation to proceed: it's not challenging enough to be interesting, or it's too challenging to be worth it. Thus, the first and the third items on your list are linked. If you use separate mechanics to measure them (such as using CR to measure challenge), you must eventually link them on the back end (such as a CR-to-XP table). Given the risk/reward link, it's easy to see why this has an influence on character advancement: if a character tackles greater risk, they should have a greater reward, and thus advance faster than they otherwise would. Harder challenges -> more XP -> faster level-gain -> more fobs and bigger rewards. I'm a little confused. If the party undertakes to accomplish Task A, it has a given risk and given reward (both here measured by XP). If the party undertakes to accomplish Task B instead, it has a different risk and a different reward. Thus, players determine the "attempted XP" by undertaking a given task (or, in D&D, perhaps a quest or adventure, or maybe just a part of a bigger quest or adventure; more heavily plotted games might still have various methods of getting to the next plot point). What need is there for a different rule to govern that character choice? What they don't get to do, of course, is determine they're only going to accomplish 10% of a given task, recover all their resources for free, and then accomplish the another 10% of the task, and repeat ad nauseum. If they only accomplish 10% of a given task before a recharge, they [I]fail that task[/I]. Obfuscating forge-isms aside ( ;) ), I don't think there's any debate that DMs need to telegraph the level of risk involved in an activity. Clues about danger (either potential clues that require work to find and that the party may fail at finding or functional clues either found or just stated by the DM) are part of that risk/reward analysis, and it's important that the players be empowered to peg the general level of risk (and thus infer the general level of reward) of a given task. Risk and reward are inextricably entwined, and in designing any game that hopes to encourage the attention of its audience, you must be able to relate the two coherently. XP is a single measure that does that well. I don't think there must be any other separate measure (though there could be!), and, indeed, I think it would be rather superfluous, as whatever "challenge rating" you choose must relate back to an XP award ultimately anyway. [/QUOTE]
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