An Older Experience System

[green slime]

Each Xp ystem has its own advantages and disadvantages.

XP for treasure "squandered" encourages further participation/immersion in the World, beyond self-aggrandizement.

I like this idea, but it needs some further thought.

 

[Doug McCrae]

What to do with the gold? This question has vexed D&D for some considerable time. Squander? Pay training costs? Buy magic items?

Squander is good for a Conan feel. Buy magic items is verisimilitudinous, but commodifies magic too much for the tastes of some.

When we played 2e in the early 90s, one of my DMs kept a very tight limit on the gold we gained, I think the most anyone ever had was about 1000gp, and also allowed us to buy potions, and only potions. This is the solution I currently favor though I also like the idea of ignoring money completely, Dragonlance style, which, I admit, isn't verisimilitudinous. In the real world, money is quite useful.

 

[green slime]

If you are giving XP for spending cash to attain specific goals, and the player figures out a clever way to achieve that goal without spending the cash, are you going to withhold the XP? Tell them that reaching the goal is impossible without spending the cash? Anyone who has a major problem with railroaded plots think carefully before you answer.

If you want to encourage a behavior, you'll generally get the most success if you reward the behavior as directly as possible.

If you want to reward a character for establishing a school, give them XP for establishing a school. How they go about it (by politics, conquest, spending raw cash, or some combination) isn't as relevant as their accomplishing the goal.

I think the point here, is not the goal itself, which can of course be achieved if the character chooses to build a school himself with hs own hands, or tricks someone into building it, and which should probably merit its own kind of reward, but that the character is actually facing a choice.

See, given a goal in the game, the player will often strive to achieve that goal, earning XP on the way. Lots of players pursue goals relentlessly, and often have some strange understanding that "we must achieve this goal, because the DM has prepared this." Whereas, squandering resources on non-personal agendas, forwarding the world, is actually a choice made by the player, with the money in his hand.

The player gets to decide: "Hmmmm.... new sword, or a great party (gains friends / reputation / influence with party crowd), or sponsor orphanage (gain other friends / reputation / influence), or buy the town guard new uniforms (could be handy when I next need to avoid the city goal). So it isn't a goal per se (such as ridding the westmark of trolls), but a means to encourage involvement in the game beyond killing things and taking their stuff, selling it and buying yet better stuff.

It isn't obvious that blowing 1000 gp on a party with the Mayor may be more beneficial to the character gamewise, and in the long term. Yet without the XP encouragement, few players will. Having a system which awards this behaviour, will encourage it.

It isn't the same as setting a goal: party with the mayor : XP reward. Few players are going to come with that suggestion on their lonesome (Dear DM: If I throw the Mayor a big birthday party, will my character earn XP?).

It is: Here's your share of the gold. What do you want to spend it on? You know you get XP for seeking to gain influence and increase your reputation by wasting it? But you get to choose how its wasted!

Conan: WENCHES!!! BEER!!! (hairy barbarians everywhere cheer)
Merlin: I sponsor a researcher at the Wizardry school.
Shadows: grease the wheels of the underworld by buying XXX for important senators.
Paladine: I give it all away to state orphanages!

 

[the Jester]

Just because there's a point of diminishing returns doesn't stop some players from interrupting every room description with inquiries like "is there paper in the desk? how many sheets? is it good quality? is there ink? how many jars? any blank ledgers? bookbinding materials? surely there's some expensive vellum for important documents?" and don't put those players anywhere near an alchemist or wizard laboratory.

So? If they are enjoying themselves, let them! If half the party is bored, they'll open the next door. The problem will solve itself.

 

[Haltherrion]

So? If they are enjoying themselves, let them! If half the party is bored, they'll open the next door. The problem will solve itself.

It is usual to have a player or two who will drag things out for their own amusement given a chance and most groups will, being decent people in the main, tolerate it longer than they should, reducing the overall enjoyment of the group.

Why have an XP system that encourages such behaviors?

 

[Beginning of the End]

The beauty of the Arneson system (as opposed to BD&D XP-for-treasure) is that you gain XP only on money spent in achieving your goals, not just for getting the treasure, nor for spending it on that +5 sword. In fact, buying that +5 sword slows your progression, because all that gold has now not been spent on buying XP.

Justin Alexander once playtested a system where characters could spend money to purchase training to duplicate the effects of magical equipment instead of directly buying magical equipment. It had some glitches, but it was an interesting way of keeping the math balanced while still having characters who were inherently awesome instead of awesome because they had nifty equipment.

In any case, a variant of this could be an interesting expression of the "treasure for XP" idea.

If you want to encourage a behavior, you'll generally get the most success if you reward the behavior as directly as possible.

One of the behaviors being encouraged, however, is explicitly "go look for treasure". And since treasure is gained through adventuring, the system enforces a balance between the adventuring portion of a character's life (where they go to get the treasure) and the non-adventuring portions of the character's life (the goals they spend the treasure to achieve) while still allowing the individual player and group to define exactly what balance is ideal for themselves.

First of all, this isn't the way I play, so I can't speak to how it works out in practice. It's just the context in which, as far as I know, these old XP systems were used.

While it's true that the very earliest dungeons were "start at the dungeon entrance", it wasn't long before Arneson's groups were exploring the world outside of the dungeon. And that was driven by the player's desire to explore the agendas of their characters outside of the dungeon; and insofar as that's true, I suspect the XP system had something to do with it.

My problem with this system was that some players are constantly looking at everything you describe in terms of gp. Tear down the tapestries, cast Strength and carry the statues out of the dungeon. At the end of clearing out a dungeon, they would be casting shrink item on large objects so they can sell them later in town. One player would take secondary skills and NWPs to emulate knowledge of anatomy so he could autopsy every monster to sell its parts to men in robes and pointed hats. "How much do I get for spleen of bullywug?" "2 cp." "Each? I'll take it."

The "strip the dungeon" thing can be a bit debilitating when it comes to designing awesome adventure venues. ("I'd love to include a door of solid gold, but let's be honest: The ers are going to melt it down.")

But, frankly, it doesn't take treasure = XP for the PCs to enter "strip the dungeon" mode. It just takes "treasure is valuable" for that to happen. And that seems like a fairly basic property of treasure.

 

[Haltherrion]

But, frankly, it doesn't take treasure = XP for the PCs to enter "strip the dungeon" mode. It just takes "treasure is valuable" for that to happen. And that seems like a fairly basic property of treasure.

LOL very true

As for XP, XP is linked to levels which in D&D are the most valuable commodity so players will always optimize for XP which is why various XP systems can cause undesired behaviors.

I recently moved to a time based leveling. Essentially no XP at all although you can also think of it as session XP of the amount XP-per-Level/Sessions-per-level. What did my players say when I proposed it? "You mean we can just sit around doing nothing and we will still level?"

They were kidding but trust a player to find any way to exploit an XP system. And trust a ref to try to react: I told them "sessions per level will vary by what you are doing in those sessions."