What Is an Experience Point Worth?

pemerton said:

I don't really understand the point of XP in 2nd ed AD&D, 3E D&D or 5e D&D - it's not pacing like in 4e (as it does not accrue simply via play), but nor does it seem like a measure of demonstrated skill in play as per classc D&D, given it is earned mostly by defeating monsters in encounters that the GM frames the PCs into. I'd have to leave it others to try and say what coherent role it might be playing.

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Experience is experience. As with every game mechanic, it reflects how the game world works. In this case, it is a measure of how much the character has learned, which contributes to determining how capable they are at doing what they do. An experience point is the smallest unit along the mechanical interface which corresponds to the ability within the game world for some characters to survive being shot or stabbed while others die (among other things).

Note, specifically, that the DM cannot frame the PCs into encounters. That is not an ability which the DM has at their disposal. Instead, the DM simply creates the world, and the PCs approach it however they wish. The DM is encouraged to create a world where interesting situations are likely to occur. The PCs are encouraged to be as cautious as possible while still achieving their goals, not because it will impact their "score" in the classic sense, but because it makes sense for anyone to be careful in dangerous circumstances; and if the players don't want to play as sensible characters, then it makes sense for those characters to die.

Saelorn said:

Experience is experience. As with every game mechanic, it reflects how the game world works. In this case, it is a measure of how much the character has learned

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Except that, by default at least, it is accrued only by fighting.

RQ's character advancement system does a passable job of modelling experience in the literal sense; XP not so much. As is so often the case in 2nd ed AD&D and 3E, a Gygaxian mechanic is retained while severed from the logic that underpinned it in classic D&D; and then, after the event, an implausible simulationist rationale is layered over the top of it.

Saelorn said:

the DM cannot frame the PCs into encounters. That is not an ability which the DM has at their disposal.

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Just off the top of my head: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is a 3E adventure module that begins with a few-page description of an encounter which the GM is told to run in more-or-less the following fashion: "[GM to players in their capacity as the PCs] 'As you walk along the road, a group of drow materialise and attack you!'"

If that's not framing the PCs into an encounter, I don't know what it is.

I'm not bothering to dig out my copy of the 3E DMG, but I found the following on pp 4-6 of the 3.5 DMG (ie in the introduction, and on the first two pages of ch 1 under the heading "What is a DM?"):


I think the author of that text thought that the GM has the ability to frame the PCs (and, thereby, their players) into encounters.

pemerton said:

Except that, by default at least, it is accrued only by fighting.

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AD&D still had an option for individual awards by class (so magic users gained XP by casting spells, fighters gained by fighting, thieves gained by finding treasure). It also retained the option for all classes to gain XP from treasure, in which case thieves gained double for that; in this case, treasure is used as a rough metric for success, since other goals are difficult to quantify and it's reasonable(ish) to assume that a party which was very successful at one goal also succeeded equally well at its other goals.

Third edition primarily awarded experience for combat, because levels primarily govern how good you are at combat. You don't gain experience for crafting a sword, because crafting a sword doesn't make you better at fighting. (The fact that your level also determines how good you are at crafting is just poor system design. There are several places in 3.x where they saw how things could be integrated into their standardized system mechanics, but failed to ask whether they should be.) Still, advancement by combat isn't any better or worse than advancement by wealth; both ways are easier to quantify than the alternatives, so it's just a question of what's easier and what seems least ridiculous. (I would argue that getting better at picking locks by slaying a lot of dragons is relatively less silly than being to slay dragons because you won the lottery, but both are contrived corner-case scenarios.)

pemerton said:

Just off the top of my head: Expedition to the Demonweb Pits is a 3E adventure module that begins with a few-page description of an encounter which the GM is told to run in more-or-less the following fashion: "[GM to players in their capacity as the PCs] 'As you walk along the road, a group of drow materialise and attack you!'"

If that's not framing the PCs into an encounter, I don't know what it is.

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That is a very good example of how framing is something that bad DMs do. I can't imagine a group of players who wouldn't roll their eyes at that, while tallying a mark in the "do not play with this DM" column. Maybe 4E players, I guess.

pemerton said:

I think the author of that text thought that the GM has the ability to frame the PCs (and, thereby, their players) into encounters.

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Honestly, that whole quote just amounts to a lot of words for world-building. The DM builds the dungeon, and populates it, and places it within the world; the players are the only ones who can decide whether their characters enter, or how to approach each room, or whether to just bury the whole thing and move on to the next town.

Saelorn said:

advancement by combat isn't any better or worse than advancement by wealth; both ways are easier to quantify than the alternatives

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This is a mixture of confusing and error.

Gygaxian "advancement by wealth" isn't a simulation of anything, and the rulebook (DMG, somewhere around p 81) tells us so. It's a system for rewarding skill in playing the game.

If you replace it with "advancement by fighting" then you get a game that rewards skill at combat design and play rather than skill at dungeon-delving - but no version of AD&D has sufficiently rich combat rules for the requisite differences in skill to be demonstrated, and hence for this to be really tenable.

You could equally have a system that rewards XP for every monster/NPC befriended, and that would be just as quanitifiable. (Charm spells make people friendly - it's in the description. So do successful reaction rolls, per the relevant charts.)

The number of gp in a sack, and the nunmber of hit points whittled away, aren't uniquely quanitiable. They just happen to be what Gygax quantified in his original design, for his purposes. The bizarre reification of them by players of subsequent editions which retain them simply out of habit or emulation is something I continue to be mystified by.

But if you want a simulation then RuneQuest is obviously superior, and extremeley workable. Even Burning Wheel is superior, although not designed to serve a primarily simulationist purpose.

Saelorn said:

That is a very good example of how framing is something that bad DMs do.

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I've just been looking at the Book of Lairs II (published by TSR in 1987). Every "lair" begins with a list of "hooks", which say things like "If there is an elven PC, a hybsil from the forest comes to him/her and tells him/her of the Hybsils' troubles with the gnolls". That is framing the PCs into an encounter. It's a pretty basic bit of GMing technology.

Saelorn said:

The DM builds the dungeon, and populates it, and places it within the world; the players are the only ones who can decide whether their characters enter, or how to approach each room

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This is also bizarre, but for different reasons.

(1) It posits an aim of play ("entering the dungeon") which makes virtually no sense in simulationist terms.

(2) It avoids all questions of "framing" by simply eliding them - somehow the PCs know a dungeon is there (but no one ever walked up to them and told them, or asked them to do something about it), and somehow the PCs have existence and motivations (but the world beyond them never actually acted upon them in some proactive fashion), but the dungeon itsel is inert until the players have their PCs interact with it.

It is possible to play a game that exemplifies (2) - Moldvay Basic is the best published example, but the whole of classic D&D is all about this style of play - but it only avoid GM "framing" by compleltely abandoning any pretensions of world simulation.

.

pemerton said:

This is a mixture of confusing and error.

Gygaxian "advancement by wealth" isn't a simulation of anything, and the rulebook (DMG, somewhere around p 81) tells us so. It's a system for rewarding skill in playing the game.

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I am aware of Gygax's intent, as silly and out-dated as it may be. It is simply the case that measuring success in terms of wealth acquired is as-reasonable of a metric as measuring in terms of monsters slain; both numbers correspond in a significant way to how well the PCs have accomplished their task, for a certain sub-set of tasks that we care about modeling. Gygax may not have cared about the model, but that doesn't make it invalid.

pemerton said:

You could equally have a system that rewards XP for every monster/NPC befriended, and that would be just as quanitifiable. (Charm spells make people friendly - it's in the description. So do successful reaction rolls, per the relevant charts.)

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You could, and some editions will award the same amount of experience for befriending a monster as you would get from killing it. The idea, here, is that you learn through the process of overcoming obstacles. In either case, experience is still just experience (by the common definition).

Given that the reaction tables and charm spells provide for a less-detailed interface than the combat rules, and only a few characters may end up participating in that - either the Bard uses Diplomacy, or the Wizard casts Charm - this is likely to result in an unsatisfactory play experience for many. One benefit of using the combat metric is that every player can participate in combat.

pemerton said:

I've just been looking at the Book of Lairs II (published by TSR in 1987). Every "lair" begins with a list of "hooks", which say things like "If there is an elven PC, a hybsil from the forest comes to him/her and tells him/her of the Hybsils' troubles with the gnolls". That is framing the PCs into an encounter. It's a pretty basic bit of GMing technology.

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If a hybsil magically appears because they sense an elf with the PC flag, then that's contrived framing and only a bad DM would ever do that. What it sounds like is that the hybsil is there regardless, and it is in a position where it would approach an elf when it sees one, which makes it a case of a world-building. Good DMs build worlds where interesting things are likely to happen.

pemerton said:

This is also bizarre, but for different reasons.

(1) It posits an aim of play ("entering the dungeon") which makes virtually no sense in simulationist terms.

(2) It avoids all questions of "framing" by simply eliding them - somehow the PCs know a dungeon is there (but no one ever walked up to them and told them, or asked them to do something about it), and somehow the PCs have existence and motivations (but the world beyond them never actually acted upon them in some proactive fashion), but the dungeon itsel is inert until the players have their PCs interact with it.

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I haven't mentioned why the dungeon exists, or why the party would want to go there. Obviously, there must be logical reasons for these, or else the entire game would be pointless. The party needs to weigh their motivations against what they can determine of the dungeon, in order to decide whether they want to enter and how they want to approach it.

One common mistake of bad DMs is that the PCs don't have sufficient motivation to enter a dungeon; or they have some motivation, but it's contrived rather than arising naturally from the setting and the characters.

pemerton said:

I've just been looking at the Book of Lairs II (published by TSR in 1987). Every "lair" begins with a list of "hooks", which say things like "If there is an elven PC, a hybsil from the forest comes to him/her and tells him/her of the Hybsils' troubles with the gnolls". That is framing the PCs into an encounter. It's a pretty basic bit of GMing technology.

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If you mean it's framing the PCs into the encounter with the hybsil, then true; but the party retain the option of ignoring it and moving on. The example from earlier, where drow just appear around the PCs and attack, is worse: the party have no choice but to engage, and no real choice* in what for that engagement will take: they have to fight.

* - well, they could always choose to surrender, I suppose.

There's a difference between hooks, where a DM drops things in to the game to see if anyone bites but the PCs can always say no or ignore them; and framing, where something happens and the PCs are unable to ignore it or just say no.

This is also bizarre, but for different reasons.

(1) It posits an aim of play ("entering the dungeon") which makes virtually no sense in simulationist terms.

(2) It avoids all questions of "framing" by simply eliding them - somehow the PCs know a dungeon is there (but no one ever walked up to them and told them, or asked them to do something about it), and somehow the PCs have existence and motivations (but the world beyond them never actually acted upon them in some proactive fashion), but the dungeon itsel is inert until the players have their PCs interact with it.

It is possible to play a game that exemplifies (2) - Moldvay Basic is the best published example, but the whole of classic D&D is all about this style of play - but it only avoid GM "framing" by compleltely abandoning any pretensions of world simulation.

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Realistically, the PCs know the dungeon is there because they sought information about possible options for adventuring and in response the DM dropped a hook in form of a rumour or legend or map or whatever. Why would you assume nobody told them about it or asked them to deal with it?

And maybe the world has tried acting on it before. The DM's hook could easily include "a group went up there last summer and never came back", both as a nod to continuity and a warning that this place might be just a little risky.

Lanefan

Saelorn said:

Given that the reaction tables and charm spells provide for a less-detailed interface than the combat rules, and only a few characters may end up participating in that - either the Bard uses Diplomacy, or the Wizard casts Charm - this is likely to result in an unsatisfactory play experience for many.

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Gygax's rules for reactions are actually quite subtle, in terms of the weighing of various inputs into a reaction roll. Later editions drop some of this. 4e adopts a quite different but also rather subtle system for resolving social interaction. I think 5e also has something, but I'm less familiar with it.

As for the idea that only bards and wizards do social interaction - that is not true to my own experience, and seems to be mostly the result of GM's running social encounters in a very non-dynamic way.

Saelorn said:

One benefit of using the combat metric is that every player can participate in combat.

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I know from experience that every player can participate in social interactions (just as, in the real world, everyone at the table is participating in the social activity of playing the game - verisimilitude!).

Saelorn said:

If a hybsil magically appears because they sense an elf with the PC flag, then that's contrived framing and only a bad DM would ever do that. What it sounds like is that the hybsil is there regardless, and it is in a position where it would approach an elf when it sees one, which makes it a case of a world-building.

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Telling the players "A hybsil approaches you as you wander through a meadow, and adresses you in elvish" is not worldbuilding (under any standard definition of world-building I'm familiar with).

Designing a "meadows" random encounter table, then putting hybsils on it, then rolling up a hybsil encounter, would count as an application of worldbuilding - but that is not what is going on when a referee uses The Book of Lairs II!

Saelorn said:

One common mistake of bad DMs is that the PCs don't have sufficient motivation to enter a dungeon; or they have some motivation, but it's contrived rather than arising naturally from the setting and the characters.

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One obvious motivtion to enter a dungeon would be to rescue a captured family member. But by your lights it would be bad GMing (because "contrived") for the GM to write a dungeon with a captive in it who is related to one of the PCs. (This would also be bad GMing by [MENTION=45197]pming[/MENTION]'s lights, based on this recent post, but I think for different reasons from you.)

I don't really know what you regard as the proper way for a GM to give PCs sufficient motivation to enter a dungeon, when it is verboten for the GM to deliberately write in any part of the gameworld to engage some cue or signal sent by a player in the build or play of his/her PC. You talk about a world in which "interesting things" happen, but that must mean "generically interesting, given some generic set of motivations". This would seem to lead to many rootless PCs with few personal/intimate motivations - or else players who write their PCs to accord to the GM's world/plot.

Lanefan said:

Realistically, the PCs know the dungeon is there because they sought information about possible options for adventuring and in response the DM dropped a hook in form of a rumour or legend or map or whatever. Why would you assume nobody told them about it or asked them to deal with it?

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So instead of framing the PCs into an encounter, the GM runs an "imaginary" encounter off-screen? Did the players have the option to have their PCs stick their fingers in their ears, or to walk away, when the rumour-bearer turned up in that off-screen event?

The point I'm making is that the game can't proceed without the referee providing the players with some sort of information (but not other information - the gameworld is authored, and that fiction is conveyed by one person telling it to another person; it is not an actual world that actual people explore and inform themselves about by actually sensory investigation).

Lanefan said:

If you mean it's framing the PCs into the encounter with the hybsil, then true

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Which was my point. AD&D 2nd ed (and even late 1st ed AD&D products, like the Book of Lairs II) assumes that the GM will frame the PCs (and, thereby, the players) into encounters.

Lanefan said:

the party retain the option of ignoring it and moving on. The example from earlier, where drow just appear around the PCs and attack, is worse: the party have no choice but to engage, and no real choice* in what for that engagement will take: they have to fight.

* - well, they could always choose to surrender, I suppose.

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This is all conjecture which depends heavily on table norms, and which the D&D rulebooks have never said anything about.

For instance, in the case of the hybsil, for all you know if the PCs tell the hybsil to go away, then the GM decides it attacks them; or decides that the gnolls attack the PCs in the night (which is not noticeably different from the drow encounter you don't like); etc.

And with the drow, the PCs can run, or ally themselves, or (as you note) surrender, or try and calm the situation by talking to the drow, etc. The idea that fighting is the only option seems very narrow to me.

Lanefan said:

There's a difference between hooks, where a DM drops things in to the game to see if anyone bites but the PCs can always say no or ignore them; and framing, where something happens and the PCs are unable to ignore it or just say no.

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I don't know why you would invent your own definition of what it is for the GM to frame the PCs into a situation, and then impute it to me.

Here's one definition of "situation" from someone who has thought a bit about RPGing: "Situation is the center. Situation is the imaginative-thing we experience during play." Framing the PCs into a situation, therefore, is establishing that there is some thing, some event, going on that calls for a response[/i]. In the fiction, that response will come from the PCs (or perhaps a pseuo-PC like a henchman etc under player control). At the table, that response will be authored by the player.

If the situation is an approach by a NPC, and the player in question decides that his/her PC ignores the NPC, then the rules of D&D leave the GM with a range of ways that the NPC in question might respond, regardless of whether that NPC is a hybsil or a drow.

A hook, as I understand it, is different from a situation because it tends to involve the referee narrating some event that already occurred (eg via "boxed text").

You're in a tavern. A grizzled old man approaches you, with a glint in his eye. That's framing the PCs into a situation.

While you're in the tavern, a grizzled old man with a glint in his eye asks you if you're interested in undertaking an exploration and rescue mission in the forest to the north. That's a hook, but it's not really a situation. The GM has already resolved the would-be situation him-/herself: the PCs listended to the NPC and received his/her message.

I think the first - done well - tends to make for a more interesting RPG experience. The second, in my experience, is the companion of railroading and lacklustre fiction pre-authored by the GM.

Obviously others, presumably on the basis of different experiences and different tastes, prefer the second.

pemerton said:

So instead of framing the PCs into an encounter, the GM runs an "imaginary" encounter off-screen? Did the players have the option to have their PCs stick their fingers in their ears, or to walk away, when the rumour-bearer turned up in that off-screen event?

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Players as a collective party: "We check some places where adventuring opportunities might be found. Joe checks with the Mercenaries' Guild, and also keeps his ears open in the dockside taverns. Sybil asks if the Thieves' Company know of anything. Valiente looks in with the MU's Guild - they've always got something on the boil, those guys. And Terrence can check with his temple, see what they might know of...and then keep an open ear in the market. We'll all regather at our inn at sunset and each report our findings."

From this description, and past experience, the DM knows she can probably skip over all the info-gathering roleplay and jump straight to narrating their findings when they meet again that night:

DM: "So, one at a time. Joe - nothing at all in the taverns but you did see someone had put up a notice in the Merc's Guildhall recruiting for help in a Yeti-hunting expedition in the mountains. Sybil - the Thieves mentioned a ship in port; seems for some contractual reason they can't touch it but they dropped hints that they're very curious about what - or who - it's carrying. Valiente - yeah, the mages have some things they want doing: seems one of 'em will pay big if someone will bring in some legitimate and verifyable Beholder parts (and says he knows where to find some, only they're still attached to their owners), while another is looking to hire a crew to go and clean out Tavistock Tower so she can move in. Terrence - looks like you came up dry this time but the temple are still really pleased with you after your success last time out!"

So, options abound - lots of hooks there, whether the party decides to run with any of 'em or not. But no framing, just prompted narration now that leads later to whatever happens next when-if the party follow up on one or more of these hooks...or seek out others.

I don't know why you would invent your own definition of what it is for the GM to frame the PCs into a situation, and then impute it to me.

Here's one definition of "situation" from someone who has thought a bit about RPGing: "Situation is the center. Situation is the imaginative-thing we experience during play." Framing the PCs into a situation, therefore, is establishing that there is some thing, some event, going on that calls for a response[/i]. In the fiction, that response will come from the PCs (or perhaps a pseuo-PC like a henchman etc under player control). At the table, that response will be authored by the player.

If the situation is an approach by a NPC, and the player in question decides that his/her PC ignores the NPC, then the rules of D&D leave the GM with a range of ways that the NPC in question might respond, regardless of whether that NPC is a hybsil or a drow.

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Same is true in reverse; if a PC proactively approaches an NPC and is ignored the rules allow the PC to do - or try - any number of things. No news here.

A hook, as I understand it, is different from a situation because it tends to involve the referee narrating some event that already occurred (eg via "boxed text").

You're in a tavern. A grizzled old man approaches you, with a glint in his eye. That's framing the PCs into a situation.

While you're in the tavern, a grizzled old man with a glint in his eye asks you if you're interested in undertaking an exploration and rescue mission in the forest to the north. That's a hook, but it's not really a situation. The GM has already resolved the would-be situation him-/herself: the PCs listended to the NPC and received his/her message.

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The first is a potential hook, unexplained as yet. The second is the same thing only with the explanation already included. They both somewhat expect a reaction of some sort from the PCs.

And the DM hasn't resolved the situation, she's just presented it in the second option and kinda waved at it in the first. It doesn't resolve until the PCs say yes to the mission, or no to the mission, or start haggling about reward/price, or talk to the old man about something different, or roll him for his pocket change, or just tell him to get lost.

I think the first - done well - tends to make for a more interesting RPG experience.

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It forces the interaction into much more minute (and time-consuming) detail...which may be good at some tables that like going into these minutae and not so good at other tables where this is in theory no more than a scene-set for the coming adventure. In an ideal world perhaps this level of detail would be sustainable; but in reality this level of detail all the time would make my already-long campaign take forever.

The second, in my experience, is the companion of railroading and lacklustre fiction pre-authored by the GM.

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Railroading is when the PCs have no choice. Above I list 6 obvious choices that they have, without even going into any deep thought; hardly a railroad.

Lacklustre fiction, on the other hand...hey, nobody's perfect. But oftentimes the DM is also expected to provide the story at least to some extent, and so we do what we can.

Lanefan

Lanefan said:

Players as a collective party: "We check some places where adventuring opportunities might be found. <snippage> We'll all regather at our inn at sunset and each report our findings."

From this description, and past experience, the DM knows she can probably skip over all the info-gathering roleplay and jump straight to narrating their findings when they meet again that night:

DM: "So, one at a time. Joe - nothing at all in the taverns but you did see someone had put up a notice in the Merc's Guildhall recruiting for help in a Yeti-hunting expedition in the mountains. Sybil - the Thieves mentioned a ship in port; seems for some contractual reason they can't touch it but they dropped hints that they're very curious about what - or who - it's carrying. Valiente - yeah, the mages have some things they want doing: seems one of 'em will pay big if someone will bring in some legitimate and verifyable Beholder parts (and says he knows where to find some, only they're still attached to their owners), while another is looking to hire a crew to go and clean out Tavistock Tower so she can move in. Terrence - looks like you came up dry this time but the temple are still really pleased with you after your success last time out!"

So, options abound - lots of hooks there, whether the party decides to run with any of 'em or not. But no framing, just prompted narration now that leads later to whatever happens next when-if the party follow up on one or more of these hooks...or seek out others.

<snip>

the DM hasn't resolved the situation, she's just presented it in the second option and kinda waved at it in the first. It doesn't resolve until the PCs say yes to the mission, or no to the mission, or start haggling about reward/price, or talk to the old man about something different, or roll him for his pocket change, or just tell him to get lost.

It forces the interaction into much more minute (and time-consuming) detail...which may be good at some tables that like going into these minutae and not so good at other tables where this is in theory no more than a scene-set for the coming adventure.

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Well, obviously I agree that in your example there is no framing of the PCs into a situation. That was my point. The potential situations - encounters with various NPCs who have various motivations that may intersect in interesting ways with those of the the PCs - are all elided by GM narration. The GM tells the players a series of stories about what happened to their PCs, and then narrates some GM-authored backstory/plot (about the mountain expedition, the beholder parts, etc).

Lanefan said:

Railroading is when the PCs have no choice. Above I list 6 obvious choices that they have, without even going into any deep thought; hardly a railroad.

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Choosing between six bits of GM-authored backstory and plot is still choosing between six bits of GM-authored backstory and plot.

When do the players get to influence what the game's fiction will be?

EDIT: Another way to put it: a rail-roading adventure path doesn't cease to be a rail-roading adventure path because the players get to choose which of the six rail-roads the group is going to work through.