D&D 5E Do you use XPs or Milestones?

[Swarmkeeper]

We use XP at our tables. As a DM, I award XP broadly for combat, social interaction, and exploration success, each to varying degrees.

For our game cafe group, I announce the XP the day after our session on our private MeWe group. That announcement includes a short summary of the session in the form of entertaining bullet points and the revelation of who won the Players' Choice Inspiration Award for the night (I have the players fill out a secret ballot with their top two choices along with the reasons for each - makes me chuckle every time when I get home and read them).

For our D&D&D&D group (that's Dungeons & Dragons & Daddies & Daughters), I give out the XP at the end of the session and watch as our 7, 9, and 10 year olds do some big number addition. Yes, we like to serve up a good helping of vocabulary and maths with our role playing.

Players in both groups like to see the progression towards the next level that XP represents. Also, the player needs to be present for their PC to earn the XP. Level disparity has not been a problem at our tables.


As a player, I've had a DM who simply told us when our characters leveled up at a time when he felt it was appropriate. And everyone leveled up at the same time regardless of how many sessions they attended. It may work for some, but I'm really not a fan of this method.


I also recently began playing in an Adventurer's League game at a FLGS. Apparently (as many of you probably already know) you get an advancement point for each hour of play, which was a new method to me. After two 2-hour sessions, my PC will have 4 advancement points and go from level 1 to level 2. Seems fine as long as the party continues to seek out adventure and doesn't sandbag it by hanging out at the local tavern all night. I have a feeling to the two pre-teens in the group will keep things from getting stale like that, though.

 

[HarbingerX]

My favourite system that I've never actually used goes all the way back to Dave Arneson. He'd award XP for class-specific in game spending. So a cleric was building a temple, a fighter carousing, etc. It would be nice to have something like this where it's still XP-for-gold, but awarded when the PCs contribute to the world building.

 

[Lanefan]

Divorcing progress from XPs is precisly the point. As stated by Oofta, accomplishements should be rewarded with gold, influence, alliances, land, property and magic items, which are in game rewards. They are more believable and useful to the characters. XPs are a meta currency outside the unfolding narrative and as such I consider them disruptive. That is why I use session based progress.

Xp are very much an in-game reward, though the character doesn't "see" the actual xp in the fiction the character does eventually come to realize she's earned through her experiences the potential to be better at what she does than she was a few days ago; all she needs to do is go and train up a bit. (or, one could just as well say she's been training all along but only now does said training bear any fruit)

 

[The Green Hermit]

I used to use XP when I first started but it eventually felt like a chore to track and made for uneven pacing. Now, i hand out levels when it makes sense for the story. Whether they go with the main plot or get sidetracked, they level up when it seems like they've been through enough.

In my game, uneven levels makes for part of the fun. If somebody becomes severely outclassed, I roll more frequently for random encounters. And if we get into serious trouble, my husband's PC comes in, who is somehow always at the perfect level. (He's a reluctant player, but is willing to bail us out periodically -- or just joins because he is bored that day.)

The problem with this style game play is it can be unfulfilling to some. I personally want to know my decisions matter for my character and the possibility of positive and negative consequences to have meaning. 5E is very forgiving as far as balance so if the encounter was planned for lv 7 but they are still lv 5 its not suddenly impossible.

i take it even further and don't always award XP evenly across the party so level differences are normal for my tables.

This. In a battle, XP is awarded evenly to everybody who is conscious at the end. For non-combat goals, however, I frequently make a checklist and mark off who does what. Then, at the end of that portion of play, I divvy out the XP accordingly.

Only if the DM awards XP for easy combats.

I’m all for milestone XP (giving XP for those dramatic points). I just don’t see any benefit to players for cutting XP out of the equation and leveling them up at said points. The only benefit I see to story-based advancement over milestone XP is that it’s easier for the DM. And for plenty of groups that’s reason enough to go for it, but personally I prefer to do the extra work of awarding XP to give my players the benefit of a progress bar they can see filling up as they complete those dramatic high points.

XP for easy kills is still XP. It just doesn't matter as much later on.

This is one place I've always disagreed with Gygax and other designers: to me, a Goblin that's worth 15 xp at 1st level is still worth 15 xp at 10th level - the difference being that at 10th level you need a helluva lot more multiples of 15 xp in order to bump, to the point where getting to 11th take wiping out most of the Goblins on the continent and even that might not be enough.

Exactly.

Oh, sorry, I thought we were talking about story-based advancement. Yeah, session-based advancement does have the progress bar effect. The disadvantage it has from a player perspective is divorcing progress from the players’ accomplishments. XP has the player-side advantages of both (the progress bar effect and the tangible connection between accomplishments and progress), but lacks the advantage of being easier for the DM. Personally, I as DM am more than happy to bite that bullet.

Same. Plus, my players have to add up their own XP. I am not their data keeper. If they forget, it is on them.

Yeah, I prefer to keep it encounter based, or possibly goal based, but not session based. I want to reward the players for action and decision making. It's not super important, perhaps oddly, if they succeed, or the extent to which they succeed, but I want them to act, not dither and argue. Using milestones isn't lame in game that has significant goals that aren't combat based either. Major encounters are major encounters, regardless of how many orcs you do or don't kill. That said, I don't want to quicken advancement, but I do want to reward progress and action, and not all of that is combat related.

Agreed.

For our D&D&D&D group (that's Dungeons & Dragons & Daddies & Daughters), I give out the XP at the end of the session and watch as our 7, 9, and 10 year olds do some big number addition. Yes, we like to serve up a good helping of vocabulary and maths with our role playing.

I do the same with my kids.

 

[Zardnaar]

Do you think retrieving Dragonlances is a milestone event or killing the dragon?

 

[Charlaquin]

Same. Plus, my players have to add up their own XP. I am not their data keeper. If they forget, it is on them.

I encourage my players to track “XP to Next Level.” Instead of counting up XP and comparing to the level advancement chart, they start from the number needed to get to the next level and count down. When you hit 0, you level up and check how much it will take to get to the next level. Saves steps.

 

[Sacrosanct]

I remember giving xp out every session on a tiny scrap of paper to each player like it was a secret. I suppose back in the day each player got different xp based on what they did and secret XP meant no jealousy or hard feelings.
It’s how I remember it anyway. Haven’t done that in decades

 

[Zardnaar]

I remember giving xp out every session on a tiny scrap of paper to each player like it was a secret. I suppose back in the day each player got different xp based on what they did and secret XP meant no jealousy or hard feelings.
It’s how I remember it anyway. Haven’t done that in decades

Xp could vary by player as well.

Yeah for pre 3E I use xp.

 

[S'mon]

For D&D I currently use a heavily simplified XP system, typically 20 XP to level up. I don't like a purely arbitrary tell-them-when-they-level approach, I like some kind of a metric based on PC achievement.

 

[prabe]

Do you think retrieving Dragonlances is a milestone event or killing the dragon?

Yes.