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<blockquote data-quote="Hautamaki" data-source="post: 5841858" data-attributes="member: 42219"><p>Awarding experience for gold is the default but it's not the only option, as I said in every post. If players want to play characters motivated by something else and want to have different long term goals, certainly you can reward that with experience just as much as you reward gold, or you could even not award gold experience at all. The subtle but important point is not that you get experience = to gold; it's that you get experience for accomplishing a meaningful, tangible long term goal. The ultimate goal here is to reward players for accomplishing something that furthers their long term goals, not just for indiscriminately seeking out dangerous creatures and traps merely for the purpose of destroying or surviving them.</p><p></p><p>This also ties into the 15MAD (players who easily kill a few monsters by going nova but then head home to recharge powers without finding their loot/accomplishing the mission get nothing), and it ties into giving players other options beyond fighting everything they see, and then just looking around for more stuff to fight. If they want to do that, great. But if they want to try talking the monsters out of their treasure, playing different monster factions off against each other (as in Keep in the Borderlands), sneaking past the monsters and stealing their treasure without ever actually confronting them, then all those options will result in equal experience points and many may turn out to be a lot easier, depending on your party composition, than just charging in to murder them. If players want to commit murder, great, but they have other choices that will be equally well rewarded.</p><p></p><p>It's also an exaggeration to think that this exp system only rewards mercenary type characters. It depends greatly on the overall party make-up. This system is designed to give players MORE options and reward a greater variety of play styles, as opposed to the 3e/4e style of game which most strongly rewarded min-maxing and tactical combat skills. In this system, if you want to focus on combat, then yes, you had better design a powerful combat character/party. But if you want to focus on deception, charisma, stealth, all those options are also on the table. Just make sure that you design a good stealth-based character if that's the style you want to play. Obviously a lot depends on the party cooperating to create the kind of party that can support the play style they most enjoy, but that's not a flaw of the system. The fact that there are better and worse ways to design a specific type of character is a feature, not a bug. And it doesn't mean that there are better or worse character concepts period; it just means that there are better and worse ways to realize a given concept and maximise its potential both in terms of design and in terms of actually playing the character.</p><p></p><p>Regarding your example of the noble paladin who doesn't want treasure compared to the greedy mercenary; he will still share the experience equally with the party even if he gives up his share of the physical loot to his church or other players. The way I award the experience is a simple calculation of how much loot the party brings into the dungeon vs how much they take out. The difference is their experience reward. If they bring the gear of a dead PC out of the dungeon it doesn't count because the party as a whole brought that gear into the dungeon. The loot the PCs bring out of the dungeon they are free to dispose of however they like, but the experience points are divided equally between all surviving party members. If there are only 1 or 2 survivors this can be a lot of experience indeed; that's their reward for making it.</p><p></p><p>The way I handle new character generation is that there is a baseline character level for each adventure. It was level 1 for Keep on the Borderlands. For my modified Keep on the Shadowfell it is now level 3. By the time the players get through this, characters that don't die will be level 4 or 5; but characters that die will start back again at level 3. That is the penalty for death. But new characters will get a level 3 complement of gear; which they can add onto their previous gear if their fellow party members recovered it. This should help them do better next time. Punishing failure is one thing, making it impossible to progress at all by putting the PCs into a vicious circle of death is another. </p><p></p><p>Regarding your point that choosing an easier adventure if the player's are lower level makes their decisions less meaningful: I disagree. Because they are not as powerful as they otherwise might be, they have to take an entirely different adventure path. Their fate is completely changed. That makes their decisions absolutely meaningful. My PCs might have made it out of the Keep of the Borderlands at level 5 and been powerful enough to be known as great heroes, earning an audience with the King and possibly be put in charge of a force to spearhead a counter attack into the very heart of evil. Instead, they are relegated to investigating possible cult activity in another minor, backwoods area of the kingdom. They are aware of these options; they had the choice to attempt the attack on the evil empire, but realistically they knew they were not ready to make that attempt and elected to investigate the cultists instead. The lord of the Keep on the Borderlands said as much to them and they agreed with him.</p><p></p><p>A final note, not to be all defensive, but your last paragraph seems sort of judgmental and I hope you can see how one can easily take offense when you may be implying that at least some of my players might be having a lot more fun with another DM or that they might quit playing RPGs if they can't find a better DM. I don't really think that's necessary; we're just discussing the pros and cons of a proven system for awarding experience points that's objective, easy to use, and creates a varied, fun, and demanding game. And for the record, all of my players are in their 30s and had never gotten into D&D or any other role playing game in all their 30+ years, so the fact that I have taken people with 0 prior interest in the hobby and put together a loyal group who never miss a weekly or even twice weekly gaming session over the course of the last 18 months is pretty good imo. Also, at first we played 4th edition and ran a campaign up to 6th level; my players actually prefer this more old-school style of game. Maybe you should give it a try too! I'd also suggest you check out Jason Alexander's articles on running an OD&D, open-table style campaign and his excellent writings on 'Jacquaying' dungeons.</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="Hautamaki, post: 5841858, member: 42219"] Awarding experience for gold is the default but it's not the only option, as I said in every post. If players want to play characters motivated by something else and want to have different long term goals, certainly you can reward that with experience just as much as you reward gold, or you could even not award gold experience at all. The subtle but important point is not that you get experience = to gold; it's that you get experience for accomplishing a meaningful, tangible long term goal. The ultimate goal here is to reward players for accomplishing something that furthers their long term goals, not just for indiscriminately seeking out dangerous creatures and traps merely for the purpose of destroying or surviving them. This also ties into the 15MAD (players who easily kill a few monsters by going nova but then head home to recharge powers without finding their loot/accomplishing the mission get nothing), and it ties into giving players other options beyond fighting everything they see, and then just looking around for more stuff to fight. If they want to do that, great. But if they want to try talking the monsters out of their treasure, playing different monster factions off against each other (as in Keep in the Borderlands), sneaking past the monsters and stealing their treasure without ever actually confronting them, then all those options will result in equal experience points and many may turn out to be a lot easier, depending on your party composition, than just charging in to murder them. If players want to commit murder, great, but they have other choices that will be equally well rewarded. It's also an exaggeration to think that this exp system only rewards mercenary type characters. It depends greatly on the overall party make-up. This system is designed to give players MORE options and reward a greater variety of play styles, as opposed to the 3e/4e style of game which most strongly rewarded min-maxing and tactical combat skills. In this system, if you want to focus on combat, then yes, you had better design a powerful combat character/party. But if you want to focus on deception, charisma, stealth, all those options are also on the table. Just make sure that you design a good stealth-based character if that's the style you want to play. Obviously a lot depends on the party cooperating to create the kind of party that can support the play style they most enjoy, but that's not a flaw of the system. The fact that there are better and worse ways to design a specific type of character is a feature, not a bug. And it doesn't mean that there are better or worse character concepts period; it just means that there are better and worse ways to realize a given concept and maximise its potential both in terms of design and in terms of actually playing the character. Regarding your example of the noble paladin who doesn't want treasure compared to the greedy mercenary; he will still share the experience equally with the party even if he gives up his share of the physical loot to his church or other players. The way I award the experience is a simple calculation of how much loot the party brings into the dungeon vs how much they take out. The difference is their experience reward. If they bring the gear of a dead PC out of the dungeon it doesn't count because the party as a whole brought that gear into the dungeon. The loot the PCs bring out of the dungeon they are free to dispose of however they like, but the experience points are divided equally between all surviving party members. If there are only 1 or 2 survivors this can be a lot of experience indeed; that's their reward for making it. The way I handle new character generation is that there is a baseline character level for each adventure. It was level 1 for Keep on the Borderlands. For my modified Keep on the Shadowfell it is now level 3. By the time the players get through this, characters that don't die will be level 4 or 5; but characters that die will start back again at level 3. That is the penalty for death. But new characters will get a level 3 complement of gear; which they can add onto their previous gear if their fellow party members recovered it. This should help them do better next time. Punishing failure is one thing, making it impossible to progress at all by putting the PCs into a vicious circle of death is another. Regarding your point that choosing an easier adventure if the player's are lower level makes their decisions less meaningful: I disagree. Because they are not as powerful as they otherwise might be, they have to take an entirely different adventure path. Their fate is completely changed. That makes their decisions absolutely meaningful. My PCs might have made it out of the Keep of the Borderlands at level 5 and been powerful enough to be known as great heroes, earning an audience with the King and possibly be put in charge of a force to spearhead a counter attack into the very heart of evil. Instead, they are relegated to investigating possible cult activity in another minor, backwoods area of the kingdom. They are aware of these options; they had the choice to attempt the attack on the evil empire, but realistically they knew they were not ready to make that attempt and elected to investigate the cultists instead. The lord of the Keep on the Borderlands said as much to them and they agreed with him. A final note, not to be all defensive, but your last paragraph seems sort of judgmental and I hope you can see how one can easily take offense when you may be implying that at least some of my players might be having a lot more fun with another DM or that they might quit playing RPGs if they can't find a better DM. I don't really think that's necessary; we're just discussing the pros and cons of a proven system for awarding experience points that's objective, easy to use, and creates a varied, fun, and demanding game. And for the record, all of my players are in their 30s and had never gotten into D&D or any other role playing game in all their 30+ years, so the fact that I have taken people with 0 prior interest in the hobby and put together a loyal group who never miss a weekly or even twice weekly gaming session over the course of the last 18 months is pretty good imo. Also, at first we played 4th edition and ran a campaign up to 6th level; my players actually prefer this more old-school style of game. Maybe you should give it a try too! I'd also suggest you check out Jason Alexander's articles on running an OD&D, open-table style campaign and his excellent writings on 'Jacquaying' dungeons. [/QUOTE]
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