We learn more from failure...

[Charlaquin]

Quick interjection to rant about a pet peeve of mine:

“Milestone advancement” doesn’t mean “no XP.” Milestone XP is a system described in the 5e DMG for awarding XP for achievements other than overcoming encounters. I use it a ton, and I hate XP-less leveling. What a lot of people are referring to when they (mis-)use the term “Milestone advancement” is story-based leveling, which is described in a number of 5e adventure modules.

 

[Charlaquin]

Accidental double-post

 

[Charlaquin]

There are practical difficulties in implementing such a system in a game like D&D. How do you guard against players deliberately seeking out overly-difficult, but not potentially fatal, tasks in order to farm failures? How do you deal with the opposite issue, of a party that does everything right, and stalls in XP progression as a result?

This is why I say XP in D&D is a reward. Whatever you give XP for, expect players to seek out ways to do more of that. Giving out XP for failure is going to lead to players seeking to fail as often as possible, without failing so badly that it gets them killed. Personally, that’s not the kind of game I want to run. I want to run a game where players take on quests, complete challenges, and seek out hidden secrets, so that’s what I give XP for.

 

[Nevvur]

Well spoken on the last few posts, various of you. Sorry for being nonspecific again, I'm lazy.

Not too lazy to give a quick review of the official texts following consideration of said posts, though. Indeed, nowhere is it explicitly stated XP = learning, so it would appear I began from a false premise, or was projecting my own idea of what XP was into the theory.

 

[TaranTheWanderer]

Quick interjection to rant about a pet peeve of mine:

“Milestone advancement” doesn’t mean “no XP.” Milestone XP is a system described in the 5e DMG for awarding XP for achievements other than overcoming encounters.

I've used and played with DMs who use this.

It comes down to goals. What is your goal? what does success look like? what does failure look like?

Somewhere in the middle is partial success and you should be award partial xp.

Just because you didn't defeat the Necromancer (maybe you got tromped and fled with your tail between your legs), you may have stolen some valuable items that were important, or gathered some information or learned something about his weakness. This all deserves xp reward because your failure bared some fruit.

 

[Rya.Reisender]

I don't reward XP for failure, but I tend to bring my players into a similar situation they failed before and without having to give the PCs any benefits they resolve it better the second time around. So because my players learned from failure, they automatically get a better result.

Of course that doesn't work for simple skill checks (but a bit XP won't help with that either). But I mean learning from mistakes doesn't mean that if you fail at breaking a door open makes you better at breaking doors open. It means that if you tried to break it open but failed and hurt yourself, you learned that trying to break open a door (of this stability) might not be the best idea and you probably should check if the door is locked first.

 

[S'mon]

Someone who fails all the time seems unlikely to be high level.

 

[Baron Opal II]

I've come across a home rule where a person gains 10 xp for each point of damage dealt, and 20 xp for each point of damage taken. AoE gains xp just for one target. Plus xp for loot and goals. It's a bit too fine for me, but I have adopted 100 xp per HD defeated, and 200 xp per level of character for the character when they are dropped to 0.

 

[MarkB]

I've come across a home rule where a person gains 10 xp for each point of damage dealt, and 20 xp for each point of damage taken. AoE gains xp just for one target. Plus xp for loot and goals. It's a bit too fine for me, but I have adopted 100 xp per HD defeated, and 200 xp per level of character for the character when they are dropped to 0.

It seems like such a system has some nasty positive-feedback loops in it which will ensure ever-increasing level disparity. Any character who is below the average party level will be able to deal out less damage per combat, and sustain less damage before dropping to zero hitpoints - and vice versa for anyone above the average party level.

 

[LordEntrails]

Someone who fails all the time seems unlikely to be high level.

Sounds like that contradicts the Dilbert Principle! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dilbert_principle