D&D 5E Poll: Experience, Leveling, and Groups

[Man in the Funny Hat]

My default answer is why in the Nine Hells would you EVER think that you get xp whether you show up or not, contribute anything or not, disrupt the game or not? As time marched on I have become more amenable to the idea of simply giving the same xp award to everybody rather than nitpick and tally up individual points for who specifically did what - but if your PC is not there - even if it's just that YOU are not there to personally play your PC, but you have it run by someone else - of course the character doesn't get xp.

Do people occasionally miss the game? Sure. Players have lives. Some players have lives that interfere with their participation more than others. It is not, however, any sort of insult nor an even remotely unreasonable imposition to say that to earn xp for a character requires PLAYING the game. Players who would object to that eminently justified and practical policy are probably not players I will feel especially keen on accomodating anyway.

I'd RATHER see a variance in PC levels properly reflecting their actual presence and participation in the actual game events (even a LARGE variance) than give a PC even a single point to keep levels even when the PC hasn't actually participated in the game to earn that point. That would be infuriatingly unfair to those who are present, accounted for, and participatory. It has been that way in every D&D game I've ever played in or run and would personally be intolerant of seeing it otherwise.

 

[Obryn]

I'd RATHER see a variance in PC levels properly reflecting their actual presence and participation in the actual game events (even a LARGE variance) than give a PC even a single point to keep levels even when the PC hasn't actually participated in the game to earn that point. That would be infuriatingly unfair to those who are present, accounted for, and participatory. It has been that way in every D&D game I've ever played in or run and would personally be intolerant of seeing it otherwise.

I guess I don't look at XP as gold stars I hand out for attendance. I view levels as a tool we use in the game to help the story advance from "kill some gith" to "kill a sorcerer-king." I don't start new players out at level 1, either.

As I said, we're a very casual group. I steer away from anything that's too authoritarian. The reward for a good session of D&D should be the session itself, not the XP handed out.

-O

 

[Ahnehnois]

There's definitely some wiggle room here. My feelings are this:

The character is leveling up, not the player. So the question is, what experiences did the character have to merit advancement?

I don't track XP. For practical reasons I don't run sessions with missing players. So I just level all the characters when it seems right.

 

[Jester David]

My group has always kept the entire party at the same XP total, because it sucks to punish people for not attending (and because math is hard)..

With campaign tracking sites (like EpicWords) and programs like Excell the math issue seems less irritating.

But as a follow-up question, if the character can still contribute and feel useful in the game, is not getting xp still a punishment? And if everyone misses at the same frequency, doesn't it even out in the long run?

 

[GX.Sigma]

But as a follow-up question, if the character can still contribute and feel useful in the game, is not getting xp still a punishment?

Yes, because it feels good to gain a level, and it feels bad to gain a level a week later than everyone else. It's bad enough you didn't get to play that one time; now you have to have less fun when you come back?

And if everyone misses at the same frequency, doesn't it even out in the long run?

Not really (e.g., the guy who hosts the game is always there). But if it does even out, then why not give everyone the same XP in the first place?

 

[Obryn]

But as a follow-up question, if the character can still contribute and feel useful in the game, is not getting xp still a punishment? And if everyone misses at the same frequency, doesn't it even out in the long run?

Flip it around. Is getting XP a reward?

-O

 

[Libramarian]

I agree with MitFH above -- I think not only should you not get any XP if you don't show up, but that you should by no means be guaranteed XP just for showing up. It should be possible for the party to lose more XP than they gain some sessions.

I think if you're giving out XP at a constant treadmill pace, then at that point the concept has become vestigial and you might as well just hand out levels directly. I bet the 4e designers were really close to doing this (in the same way they ditched monster-specific treasure in favor of treasure parcels).

 

[Tony Vargas]

As time marched on I have become more amenable to the idea of simply giving the same xp award to everybody rather than nitpick and tally up individual points for who specifically did what ....

I was surprised at the lack of an "individual experience" option, which seemed to be the norm 'back in the day.'

 

[Li Shenron]

WithShould the game encourage mixed level groups, such as by only awarding experience to PCs who attend and not those who miss a session? Or starting new or replacement PCs at a lower level?

I don't think these should even be book rules, they are HOUSE rules in the "meta" sense, because every house/group makes the decision.

My favourite choice (and my policy as DM nowadays) is that PCs get experience if you come and play them. If you miss a session you don't get XP and treasure, but also I won't let your PC get killed or permanently penaltied unless everybody gets the same.

These are really games that fall outside the mechanics of the game, although in some systems they have mechanical consequences (e.g. lagging behind equals making the game not viable anymore).

BTW the poll is a little off from the question... but in general I am fine with both using XP or not using XP at all, in the latter case just levelling up by DM's fiat (but I much prefer that still being tied to quests rather than number of sessions).

I don't like advancing the PC just because of the time spent playing, I want them to EARN their advancement by playing well, solving problems, winning encounters, and completing quests. If they don't do that, they should not advance or they should advance more slowly, because it means they haven't learned well how to play at the current level.

 

[FireLance]

Isn't the fundamental question what you, as a DM, see XP to be?

If you see XP as a tool to reward and punish player behavior, then you will award XP for behavior that you want to encourage (attendance, participation, creativity, etc.) and deduct or withhold XP when you judge your players to be guilty of behavior that you do not want (non-attendance, disruptive actions, etc.).

I personally don't take such an approach, partly because there are very few occasions that I actually want or need to reward or punish my players, and when those actually do occur, I prefer to use other tools instead of XP (such as talking about it outside of the game). To me, XP really is just a pacing mechanism that allows a player has some time to get used to his characters' abilities before he gets any newer ones.