What Is an Experience Point Worth?

It seems like a simple question, but the way you answer it may, in effect, determine the metaphysics of your game. Many RPGs use some sort of "experience point" system to model growth and learning. The progenitor of this idea is, of course, Dungeons & Dragons; the Experience Point (XP) system has been a core feature of the game from the beginning.

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Yet what exactly an experience point is remains unclear.

Think about it: can anyone earn an XP under the right circumstances? Or must one possess a class? If so, what qualifies an individual for a class? The 1st-edition Dungeon Master’s Guide specifies that henchmen earn 50 percent of the group’s XP award. In other words, they get a full share awarded, but then only "collect" half the share. Where does the other half go? Did it ever exist in the first place?

These esoteric questions were highlighted for me recently when I recreated a 20-year-old D&D character from memory for a new campaign I’m playing in. All I could remember of this character from my high school days was her race and class (half-elf Bladesinger, because I liked the cheese, apparently) and that the campaign fizzled out after only a handful of sessions. If I made it to level 2 back then, I couldn’t rightly say.

I asked my Dungeon Master (DM)—the same fellow who had run the original game for me back in the days of the Clinton administration—whether I could start a level ahead, or at least with a randomly-determined amount of XP (say, 200+2D100). Being the stern taskmaster that he is, he shot down both suggestions, saying instead that I’d be starting at 0 XP and at level 1, just like the rest of the party. As justification, he said that my character had amassed 0 XP for this campaign.

As the character probably only had a few hundred XP to her name to begin with, I let the matter slide. But it did get me thinking: do Experience Points only exist within the context of individual campaigns? Was my DM onto something?

This sort of thinking can in turn lead down quite a rabbit hole. Are classes themselves an arbitrary construct? Do they exist solely for players, or are non-player characters (NPCs) also capable of possessing classes and levels? Different editions of D&D have presented different interpretations of this question, from essentially statting up all NPCs as monsters, with their own boutique abilities (as in the earliest iterations of the game), to granting NPCs levels in "non-adventuring classes" (the famous 20th-level Commoner of 3rd-edition days).

The current edition of D&D has come back around to limiting classes and XP awards to player-characters only—which brings us back to our original question: are Experience Points, like character classes, meant to function solely as an abstract game mechanic, or are they an objective force within the game world? How do you, the reader at home, treat XP in your campaigns?

contributed by David Larkins

 

[pemerton]

Do you roll for this beforehand (pre the adventure) so that you may have time to think on how to tie these random encounters to the main storyline or on the spot?

I do it on the spot, because I don't know in advance what encounters might be called for. In the case of the starship encounter, I had one of the players make the roll as the PCs' ship left orbit.

The AP provides Backgrounds available for the PCs to tie up the characters to the story.

That's not railroading, agreed.

The APs allows the DM to generate a timeline which reflects on the ever changing nature of the Sword Coast due to the Cult of the Dragon's progress.

Should the PCs decide to skip a section or two within the book and pursue their own agenda of stopping the Cult or even something else - the DM is able to inflict on their meanderings various characters, framed scenes and resultant fall outs of the Cult's activities. This is not railroading but content generation for the PCs to get the feel of the setting as in your Classic Traveller.

But this bit I don't agree with so much. The difference I see is that, in the Traveller game, I'm generating content in the moment and integrating it into the current ingame situation.

Whereas the AP content is pre-authored independently of the current ingame situation.

(If the AP content is being used as inspiration or a "lucky dip", that is closer to what I'm doing. As I posted upthread, I do prep - in the sense of generating NPCs, creatures, maps (for my 4e game), worlds and ships (for my Traveller game), etc. This is also how I use modules - as sources of NPCs, locations, little vignettes, etc. But I think the canonical way of using an AP is different from this - it's a sequence of events that the players work through systematically under the guidance of the GM.)

 

[darkbard]

Do you ever frame scenes/adventure scenarios which are not signalled by the character builds or stated goals?

For instance, the PCs are travelling via ship - do you introduce a complication where no die have been rolled or called for, such as an attack by a group of sea trolls serving a covey of sea witches which may or may not play a role further along the campaign.

pemerton already did an excellent job of addressing this, but I will add my own answer.

For context, I play 4E D&D (though I've read through Blades in the Dark in its entirety and excerpts (sometimes large) of Dungeon World, Burning Wheel, and some of the other "indie style" games that come up in threads like this).

If my players have signaled to me that the ship journey itself is "going to the action," i.e. a narrative element with which they wish to engage, then I will frame a scene wherein complications like the one you present (sea trolls and hags, etc.) are introduced as the result of failed actions on the parts of the PCs (generally speaking, a failed roll in a Skill Challenge or something similar). If the players have not signaled that the ship journey is anything other than a means to an end, i.e. "getting to where the action is," then I may narrate elements that seem flavorful as descriptive text ("during the journey you learn that the Hag Thrall Narrows are worthy of their name, for not only does the ship contend with the region's notorious choppy waters and hillock swells, but your group aids the crew in fending off an attack by amphibious Sea Trolls who serve the mythic Hags who govern a subaqueous realm deep in the Narrows"), but this will serve only as description, not as a complication, for they haven't failed any action declarations.

 

[pemerton]

I simply can't imagine trying to run a dungeon crawl without a map

Here's an actual play post that describes part of the underdark sequence in our main 4e game.

There were encounter area maps for most of the combat encounters, but there was no overall dungeon map - I think at a certain point, as things went along, I drew up a simple line diagram just to lock in the basic geography that we'd established (but no distances, angles, compass rose, etc).

I don't recall if the players made any sort of map. Mapping is not an important part of how we play RPGs.

All editions of D&D have a "sweet spot*"

<snip>

instead of expecting the party to on average level up once or twice per adventure, try running three adventures per level and (by whatever means) stringing those adventures together into a story. Now you've got something that'll take 30 adventures to get through 10th level instead of just 6 or 7.

The "sweet spot" for 4e is approximately 1st level to 30th: the maths doesn't break down (provided the players don't go for obviously broken/degenerate builds) and the mechanics and fiction correlate properly.

The issue in 4e is PC complexity - ie player "search and handling time", rather than the maths per se. That's why the Neverwinter campaign setting re-corelates fiction and mechanics, to give a heroic through paragon story experience without mechanically advancing beyond heroic tier.

My personal preference (for my Dark Sun game) is to step up the rate of levelling rather than slow it down; I don't think there's enough content in Dark Sun to support a full 30 levels worth of play.

I know about 4e's tiers. They kind of bake in what might be an erroneus assumption, however; that a campaign is going to go from "figures of local significance" to "cosmological figures in their own right".

That's a lot like saying that D&D bakes in an erroneous assumption, that the game will be about swords and spells rather than lasers and forged cargo manifests.

It's not an assumption, it's a design premise to try and make D&D work in its correlation of fiction and mechanics.

A "true railroad" is - in my view - a game in which the GM determines the significant possible outcomes.

Then every game is a railroad, even yours; because going in to any situation - big picture or small pitcure - there's going to be three possible outcomes that are dictated by the logic of the game: success, failure, or something unexpected.

The phrase "logic of the game" is yours. I referred to outcomes being determined by the GM. In my game, the GM does not determine all the significant possible outcomes. Action declaration can either result in an outcome determined by the player (if the check succeeds, or if I as GM say "yes") or an outcome determined by the GM (if the check fails). This is the significance of not adjudicating by reference to secret backstory, and thus not having GM vetoes that block possible ouotcomes before the dice are rolled.

What a DM can pre-determine isn't the possible outcomes (those are already locked in by that logic), but what happens next because of each of those possible outcomes - and that's her job. She needs to be looking ahead to both "what happens if they succeed?" and "what happens if they fail?" while always being ready for the unexpected; and if her notes are any good she already knows what happens on success or failure

How can the GM know from his/her notes what happens on success or failure? That would require the GM knowing what the action declarations will be. Which would require the GM knowing, in advance, what the sequence of significant events is going to be. Which takes us back to railroading.

Here's a prosaic example: in my last session, the PCs landed on the world of Enlil to visit a local market to look for trinkets that might reveal something about the alien heritage of the people of Enlil. How can I know in advance, from my notes, what will happen on success or failure in that attempt? It never occurred to me that such a thing would happen until the players declared it as their PCs' actions.

 

[Sadras]

I think the canonical way of using an AP is different from this - it's a sequence of events that the players work through systematically under the guidance of the GM.)

True the canonical way is sequential.

But this bit I don't agree with so much. The difference I see is that, in the Traveller game, I'm generating content in the moment and integrating it into the current ingame situation.

Whereas the AP content is pre-authored independently of the current ingame situation.

(If the AP content is being used as inspiration or a "lucky dip", that is closer to what I'm doing. As I posted upthread, I do prep - in the sense of generating NPCs, creatures, maps (for my 4e game), worlds and ships (for my Traveller game), etc. This is also how I use modules - as sources of NPCs, locations, little vignettes, etc.

If the PCs had no tie in to the AP and did not follow the storyline, when I meant use the AP for setting content - so say for instance the characters were visiting Waterdeep, their visit to the City of Splendours might coincide with the Council Meetings organised to deal with the Cult, so they could perhaps meet characters from the AP, or hear rumours of the cults progress, perhaps even approached by Faction representatives having heard of their exploits wishing to recruit them....etc

I feel I lie somewhere in between your's and @darkbard's style of roleplaying and @Lanefan's but leaning towards Lanefan's in terms of play style, but with the characters' background/motives playing a more central theme as opposed to his.
Also I think a large factor at our table's gamestyle are the players and their preferences (which is limited to their experiences).

 

[Lanefan]

Here's an actual play post that describes part of the underdark sequence in our main 4e game.

There were encounter area maps for most of the combat encounters, but there was no overall dungeon map - I think at a certain point, as things went along, I drew up a simple line diagram just to lock in the basic geography that we'd established (but no distances, angles, compass rose, etc).

Two things here.

First, in that log you mention several times you're using a map, and it seems for more than just individual encounters.

Second, it's far easier to go mapless in a situation like underdark tunnels that maybe don't meet up very often than it is when trying to pull a castle out of one's head where all the rooms etc. have to a) fit together, b) fit in the building's footprint, and c) connect in a reasonably logical fashion both vertically (stairs etc.) and horizontally (doors, passages, etc.).

The "sweet spot" for 4e is approximately 1st level to 30th: the maths doesn't break down (provided the players don't go for obviously broken/degenerate builds) and the mechanics and fiction correlate properly.

Given the number of complaints I've seen about high-level 4e I'll take this with a grain of salt, if you don't mind.

The issue in 4e is PC complexity - ie player "search and handling time", rather than the maths per se.

Another reason I as player don't like fast advancement - I don't have time to get used to one level's worth of abilities and what I can do before another gets piled on.

That's why the Neverwinter campaign setting re-corelates fiction and mechanics, to give a heroic through paragon story experience without mechanically advancing beyond heroic tier.

Ditto for the E6 idea for 3e, I suppose.

My personal preference (for my Dark Sun game) is to step up the rate of levelling rather than slow it down; I don't think there's enough content in Dark Sun to support a full 30 levels worth of play.

How can that be possible, when you as DM can make up as much content as you need. And, if it doesn't go to 30, slow it down so you get the same campaign depth out of 1-20 or 1-15.

That's a lot like saying that D&D bakes in an erroneous assumption, that the game will be about swords and spells rather than lasers and forged cargo manifests.

It's not an assumption, it's a design premise to try and make D&D work in its correlation of fiction and mechanics.

With 4e in particular you can't go from simple farmhand to local hero unless the DM does some serious kitbashing to mechanically fill in the "gap" between a basic commoner and a 1st-level adventurer. Instead, 4e bakes in the assumption that at 1st level - the theoretical start of your career - you're already significant within your community, thus implying your career is already well underway. Other editions also exhibit this gap but it's nowhere near as pronounced and is much more easily overcome.

The phrase "logic of the game" is yours. I referred to outcomes being determined by the GM. In my game, the GM does not determine all the significant possible outcomes. Action declaration can either result in an outcome determined by the player (if the check succeeds, or if I as GM say "yes") or an outcome determined by the GM (if the check fails). This is the significance of not adjudicating by reference to secret backstory, and thus not having GM vetoes that block possible ouotcomes before the dice are rolled.

How can the GM know from his/her notes what happens on success or failure? That would require the GM knowing what the action declarations will be. Which would require the GM knowing, in advance, what the sequence of significant events is going to be.

And in most cases a DM who knows her game can look ahead and reasonably guesstimate what's coming next, both in the small picture and the large, and be ready for it.

Which takes us back to railroading.

Here's a prosaic example: in my last session, the PCs landed on the world of Enlil to visit a local market to look for trinkets that might reveal something about the alien heritage of the people of Enlil. How can I know in advance, from my notes, what will happen on success or failure in that attempt? It never occurred to me that such a thing would happen until the players declared it as their PCs' actions.

In theory you'll have some idea why they're going to Enlil at all, from previous play; and if Enlil is a new place to the PCs it only makes sense they're probably going to start by doing some investigation and info gathering - which means you can anticipate this and determine ahead of time what relevant info might be there to be gathered, assuming any reasonable success. Further, you can reasonably guess that if their info gathering fails they're either going to blunder around blind (you can have some seemingly-random encounters ready for this) or leave and go to a different planet (putting you in react mode unless you know from the run of play where they're likely to go next). You can also reasonably guess what'll happen should their info gathering succeed, and can prepare for that as in theory this will lead to the next phase of whatever adventure they're doing. And if your guesses are wrong then you're in react mode until you can again predict what might be coming next.

This isn't railroading. It's called being prepared, whether by copious notes or simply in your head.

Looked at in a bigger picture, you can reasonably predict at the start of most adventures what'll happen in the game world if they succeed and what'll happen if they fail, and have contingencies and-or consequences in place to suit either outcome. You might even have a logical next adventure in mind, one for each likely outcome. And hey - you're on your way to a storyboard, which in your example above (which I'll take liberties with as I don't know why they're actually on Enlil) might - other than the lousy formatting - look lie this:

Enlil - find and bust up smugglers' base

Succeed: move to Fraka and bust up known base there (the PCs' current plan) unless they find info about HQ on Gurda
Fail: smugglers alerted to party's existence (bad!). Open season on the PCs unless they go into deep hiding or leave the quadrant

Fraka - find and bust up smugglers' base, again might find info about Gurda if they look/listen. Ships etc. that flee Enlil might end up here, pointing to a connection.

Succeed: by now they should know there's something bigger behind this, info gather should point to Gurda
Fail: smugglers alerted to party's existence but now there's less of 'em, not quite as bad. PCs still in danger, need to dig deeper or hide.

Gurda - bust up smugglers' headquarters, discover trade-federation connections (troops, supplies etc.) in the process

Succeed: start acting against the trade federation? Could lead to a long story arc...
Fail: smugglers much weakened but now PCs are on radar of the trade federation - could lead to a long story arc and lots of cloak-and-dagger stuff...

On paper this would look more like a flowchart with connection lines etc.

What this tells me is that I need to design the Enlil and Fraka bases, the Gurda HQ, and a bunch of encounters that would follow a failure at any point.

It's not a railroad if a story arc simply and naturally progresses from one thing to the next, and the DM sees this coming and prepares for it.

Lanefan

 

[Manbearcat]

For what it's worth, I feel the exact same way about modern-hippie-indie game culture. It has a stranglehold over these forums, with people openly declaring that meta-gaming isn't bad, and expecting to be taken seriously for it. It makes nuanced discussion about interesting topics that I care about impossible to engage with, since someone always barges in with some completely ludicrous idea about how nothing really exists and there's no point in pretending otherwise. And it has chased away a significant number of the posters that I previously enjoyed engaging with.

That is persuasive to precisely no one (including yourself).

You are not so compromised (from a perspective bias angle) to actually believe what you just wrote. You aren't. I give you more credit than that. This is just trolling. I feel like you're trying to draw out a moment of Godwin's Law or something with comments like this and your extremism.

You can respond and rearrange my words for rhetorical effect or anything else. It won't work. I believe in you Saelorn. Even if you don't believe in yourself!

 

[Manbearcat]

The default style of the current D&D edition seems at its best when hewing to your description so I'm not surprised. We've had some discussion about drifting it in a more "Nar"/PC-oriented mythic style that seemed unsatisfying; as a game engine I think it is ill-equipped to go there.

You know I certainly agree with you on this!

I'm not sure if we agree on my position that this was the aim at the outset of the playtest though. My sense is that the 5e playtest (predisposition, survey bias, consultant bias, and procedures) was constructed to bring exactly about this sort of game to satisfy the revolutionaries who mobilized a grass-roots effort to create just such an overhwelmingly toxic environment that this pendulum swing was nearly assured. There were many opportunities (from predisposition to survey objectivity, to consultant diversity, to iteration) to create an actually deft chasis that could do all the things they initially said they were trying to do. But that didn't happen and here we are.

And honestly, great! D&D is doing well because they made a very satisfactory product for the swell of those folks, all the hippie indie gamers have been driven from the D&D fold and they aren't jilted lover compromised such that they are willing to endlessly deluge/harrass/agitate to bring about the sort of toxicity that permeated our gaming culture from 2008 to 2014. And, luckily, it happened during a period where so many incredible games, authored by so many truly talented and insightful designers, that dangerous indie gamers like myself who have played D&D for 30+ years wouldn't have a reason to care even if we were as immature as those who incited (perpetually...non-stop) the edition war!

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You are not so compromised (from a perspective bias angle) to actually believe what you just wrote.

From my perspective, whenever a thread like this pops up, one of those darned meta-gamers always posts some horrible meta-game response that compels refutation lest anyone take them seriously. And then the entire thread gets derailed. Has that not been your observation?

Whatever bias may be due to my perspective, I'm sure that the actual problem is even worse, since I have the worst of the meta-gamers set to Ignore.

 

[Manbearcat]

And these, when looked at from the more open-ended viewpoint of a D&D player, are all very limiting in what they let you do. If you're only looking to play this campaign or game for a few months or half a year then it doesn't matter, you accept the premise knowing it won't last long; but if you're looking for something that'll last for 5 or 8 or 10+ years of regular play.... This is what I mean by sustainable.

And how long did any of those games/campaigns last?

Lanefan

I was addressing the usage of the term "practical". You mean "practical as a vessel for sustaining a 5+ year campaign" That is quite a different thing. And honestly, not very compelling due to the minority of games that reach that stage (hell, my guess is way less than 1 % of D&D games even sustain 2 years worth of play). Consequently, I don't see much value in that metric.

But let me do some accounting of my GMing and length of games since 1984.

Classic Traveller: Multiple games that just got off the ground but didn't last.

AD&D game: Ongoing 22 years (we very rarely play this one, but we get together about once a year now). Its not rewarding at all at this point. Its just social grease and a laugh. One game 7 years. Tons of one shot dungeon crawls.

BECMI game: 8 years. Tons of dungeon crawls that lasted a few months so Basic to Expert. The latter has all been very rewarding.

3.x game: 4 year game and 1 year game.

4e game: 2 * 3.5 - 4 years @ 1 - 30 levels. Both very rewarding. A few short games.

5e game: Several (very unrewarding but I'm a charitable sort) stand-ins for a negligent GM. They've been playing since release and I know he has GM Forced his way out of several TPKs to keep his hexcrawl game and his metaplot alive.

Call of Cthulu: Meh. I can GM Force my way through preconceived metaplot very deftly but it doesn't do much for me. I've GMed 1-2 session games 4 times I think?

Sorceror: A few games of 4-5 sessions.

My Life With Master: 6 games of 1-3 sessions. All concluded. All very satisfying.

Dogs in the Vineyard: Ongoing 12 year game that is played very sparingly but is extremely rewarding every time its played. Several games of length 1 - 20 sessions. All concluded in very satisfying manner.

Mouse Guard: Several short games of a few months. All very satisfying.

The One Ring (forgot about this one): 3 games of length 4-12 sessions. All very satisfying.

Dread: Multiple 1 or 2 shots. Extremely satisfying.

Cortex+ (MHRP/Heroic Fantasy Hack/Leverage/Smallville): Ummm...12ish games from one shots to 12ish sessions. Two are ongoing and could last a long time if need be.

10 Candles: 3 short games.

Apocalypse World: 1 game ongoing 4 years, played sparingly but very satisfying. Several games of 1 - 4 sessions.

Dungeon World: 1 game @ 2.5 years. Several one shots or 1 - 12 sessions (and a Darkest Dungeon Hack game)

Fate (including Core): 5ish games in the vicinity of 1 shots.

Blades in the Dark/Masks/Monsterhearts: About 10 games from 1 session to 12 including a current Blades game around 20 sessions in that could easily go for a looooooooooooong...loooooooooooong time.

---

That is a lot of games...but a vanishingly short list of "practical" games!

 

[Nagol]

You know I certainly agree with you on this!

I'm not sure if we agree on my position that this was the aim at the outset of the playtest though. My sense is that the 5e playtest (predisposition, survey bias, consultant bias, and procedures) was constructed to bring exactly about this sort of game to satisfy the revolutionaries who mobilized a grass-roots effort to create just such an overhwelmingly toxic environment that this pendulum swing was nearly assured. There were many opportunities (from predisposition to survey objectivity, to consultant diversity, to iteration) to create an actually deft chasis that could do all the things they initially said they were trying to do. But that didn't happen and here we are.

I can't know another's motivations, of course. Developers' public comments did seem to reflect be some predisposition about aspects they didn't want to perpetuate (shouting limbs back on for example). Considering their base need to retrench and reconnect with the wider base after a seeming poor acceptance the 4e's Essentials line, it would be expected for the brand to try to emulate older editions.

The original aspirational statements around one big tent and a highly modular game with many dials that could emulate any edition appeared way too ambitious at the time and proved out that way as the books were released. In the end, we got a game that embraced DM force even more than 1e does and has a strong rules focus on a single aspect of play (combat pillar).

And honestly, great! D&D is doing well because they made a very satisfactory product for the swell of those folks, all the hippie indie gamers have been driven from the D&D fold and they aren't jilted lover compromised such that they are willing to endlessly deluge/harrass/agitate to bring about the sort of toxicity that permeated our gaming culture from 2008 to 2014. And, luckily, it happened during a period where so many incredible games, authored by so many truly talented and insightful designers, that dangerous indie gamers like myself who have played D&D for 30+ years wouldn't have a reason to care even if we were as immature as those who incited (perpetually...non-stop) the edition war!

New and old. One of the great things about this hobby is stuff published decades ago is as good now as it was then (with the major exception of modern and near-future games that need a setting update to conform with the massive social changes that have happened in the last 30 years) and some of it is quite good. There are a lot of cool games being made. There are a lot of cool games sitting in boxes for me to dig out again. There is limited time for any single one, unfortunately.

In many ways the "hippie indie gamers" are facing their equivalent of the OSR movement. And like the OSR environment there are a whole bunch of small publisher games to choose from, many of which are excellent.