XP Through the Editions

[Reynard]

Over in this thread I mistakenly assumed it was 3E, not 2E, that changed the Xp rules from primarily treasure based to primarily monster/encounter based. This surprised me, so I got to thinking about XP in each of the editions and how they inform play (or not, if your experience is different).

To summarize, XP was awarded for the following:

OD&D/BD&D and AD&D 1E: Killing monsters but primarily for recovering treasure.

AD&D 2E: Overcoming monsters, plus an adventure "story award" (equal to or less than the total monster XP), plus individual awards based primarily on hewing to class stereotypes.

3E: Overcoming challenges, which includes traps and role-playing encounters, as well as creature combat (with a nod toward avoiding encounters, though I can't say that for certain).

4E: Similar to 3E except that instead of being figured based on the encounter, the encounter is figured based on the XP budget (which is based on party level). Also, there are Quest awards -- major and minor, individual and group.

In the "old school" grouping, we have most XP coming from treasure, which supports (or creates?) the fundamental aspect of old school play -- avoid combat and get to the treasure, while scouring the entire complex for every possible crevice and secret hideaway. The goal is exploration, because exploration leads to treasure, and treasure leads to XP. The "balance" for all this treasure is heavy costs -- maintenance, paying henchmen and hirelings and extremely expensive training dues (not top mention the tax man at the edge of town).
Note that in Arneson's campaign, he only gave XP for treasure spent, so those "balancing" factors were likely less important, but the net result is the same (and perhaps a little more sword and sorcery).

2E was the "story edition", grown out of the late 1E Forgotten Realms and Dragonlance novel series. It was also the High Fantasy (rather than sword and sorcery) Edition. It's XP system supported these things just as well as O/AD&D did theirs -- keeping the action high and tying development (and therefore "success") to story and niche (i.e. character) protection. I had actually forgotten this, but now that I think back, I am not sure whether I gave XP for gold or not. Likely since I came from BECMI, I did early on and later used the core 2E system.

With 3E, the XP system seemed(and still seems, running Pathfinder) very strongly tied to combat, even more than 2E. 2E emphasized the "story" whereas 3E emphasized the adventure and combat aspects -- not just in how XP was doled out, but in how the two editions were presented via adventures and the like. 3E was "back to the dungeon" without the benefit of the gold-XP exploration motivator -- which led, I think, to an unbalanced emphasis on combat (a trap that might provide the same XP as an encounter was an order of magnitude more deadly, given the vagaries of the CR and EL system). So called "story awards" seemed an after thought (get XP from a CR X encounter for talking to the shopkeeper!) rather than an integral part of the system.

I don't have a lot of experience with 4E, because it is largely not my cup of tea, but I get the feeling it is a weird, evolved offspring of 2E and 3E. With its Quest awards and pre-determined XP budgets, it strikes me as considering "story" pretty heavily, but since those budgets are spent on "level appropriate" monsters and traps (plus the odd skill challenge) it has a 3E-ness to it. Again, I don't play much 4E, and never long term, so I can't speak to any effects on play based on the XP system over the long haul.

Thoughts?

 

[Beginning of the End]

Reactions to OD&D: Experience Points

There was actually a very large shift between the original White Box rules for XP in 1974 (insofar as they existed at all) and the Supplement I rules in 1975.

 

[Aberzanzorax]

This is going to be clumsy at best, apologies.

I've always been a fan (in 2e and 3e) of ignoring a lot of the formal xp awards and essenially levelling up players based on the "story award/overcoming challenges mesh" component...to the point that in some campaigns 50-90% of a level will be the result of this.

In essence, when a certain level of heroism has occurred, the heroes become that much more heroic.

I used "DM judgement" to award xp based upon activities, actions, successes and failures, to decide when and if the players deserved to advance.


I don't know if this response is helpful (I hope it might be), but frankly, I think my group had houseruled xp to be "DM purview" and more of a judgement call than a true currency as is often presented as the "carrot" in many D&D games of all editions.


I'd say, though, that the more the game revolves around story and "actions" (not combat action), the more players feel comfortable with xp being a more organic and less mechanistic component of the game.


Don't know if that helped, but it was my honest experience as a DM and player in AD&D, 3e, and now up through Pathfinder.


EDIT: I wonder how often xp is houseruled or waived in the interest of the group. I mean, how many groups currently enforce a "start at level 1" paradigm when a player dies and cannot/will not be resurrected?

 

[Lanefan]

I've run a few 4e adventures (but not using 4e rules) and got the feeling from reading them that the writers - or the system - seem to want to micromanage both treasure and ExP to a much greater extent than any previous edition. I also can't say what effect if any this might have on long-term play.

One big difference between editions is that 1e (and 2e?) rules gave out ExP to those who actually participated in earning them, while 3e and 4e give 'em out to the whole party regardless who did what.

I've always been a fan (in 2e and 3e) of ignoring a lot of the formal xp awards and essenially levelling up players based on the "story award/overcoming challenges mesh" component...to the point that in some campaigns 50-90% of a level will be the result of this.

In essence, when a certain level of heroism has occurred, the heroes become that much more heroic.

I used "DM judgement" to award xp based upon activities, actions, successes and failures, to decide when and if the players deserved to advance.

Players, or characters?

So you know where I'm coming from, I'm almost completely opposite from you in how I do ExP. Here, during the adventure it's almost all from combat, and only those characters who actually participate get ExP for a given battle. At the end of each adventure or completion of each mission, I'll give out what we call "dungeon bonus"; this is in part to make up a bit for not giving ExP for treasure (we ditched this about 30 years ago) and also to cover off in a blanket way all the picky-picky little things each character would do during the day that might earn ExP but I'm too lazy/busy to record. The dungeon bonus is usually broken down by time - if it's a 10-day adventure and I've decided the bonus is 75 ExP per day, then anyone who was in for all 10 days gets 750.

EDIT: I wonder how often xp is houseruled or waived in the interest of the group. I mean, how many groups currently enforce a "start at level 1" paradigm when a player dies and cannot/will not be resurrected?

A player dies or a character dies? (can you tell this is one of my pet peeves?)

I make 'em start half a level to a level below the party average and never higher than an existing party member if possible - though exceptions happen.

Lan-"are you experienced?"-efan

 

[Ahnehnois]

I've always been a fan (in 2e and 3e) of ignoring a lot of the formal xp awards and essenially levelling up players based on the "story award/overcoming challenges mesh" component...to the point that in some campaigns 50-90% of a level will be the result of this.

In essence, when a certain level of heroism has occurred, the heroes become that much more heroic.

I used "DM judgement" to award xp based upon activities, actions, successes and failures, to decide when and if the players deserved to advance.


I don't know if this response is helpful (I hope it might be), but frankly, I think my group had houseruled xp to be "DM purview" and more of a judgement call than a true currency as is often presented as the "carrot" in many D&D games of all editions.


I'd say, though, that the more the game revolves around story and "actions" (not combat action), the more players feel comfortable with xp being a more organic and less mechanistic component of the game.

I used to award total ad hoc XP. This was largely 'quest XP' and XP for skill use, with combat being half or less. I later decided that determining this XP was unnecessary and simply started leveling up the party whenever I felt like it. I generally use the rules and am not a big ad hoc guy, but I never bothered to even learn the CR/EL system or how it worked. The other DMs I've played with have similarly ignored the XP rules. Based on what I read here, I think quite a few gamers (or at least ENWorld posters) do this.

The point is that to me it's really strange to talk about '3e XP' and '4e XP'; how many players of either game actually use that system as written?

 

[pemerton]

4E: Similar to 3E except that instead of being figured based on the encounter, the encounter is figured based on the XP budget (which is based on party level). Also, there are Quest awards -- major and minor, individual and group.

<snip>

I don't have a lot of experience with 4E, because it is largely not my cup of tea, but I get the feeling it is a weird, evolved offspring of 2E and 3E. With its Quest awards and pre-determined XP budgets, it strikes me as considering "story" pretty heavily, but since those budgets are spent on "level appropriate" monsters and traps (plus the odd skill challenge) it has a 3E-ness to it. Again, I don't play much 4E, and never long term, so I can't speak to any effects on play based on the XP system over the long haul.

4e has four sources of XP: combat encounters (XP based on total XP budget of defeated monsters), skill challenges (XP based on complexity of challenge, and in the Essentials revisions awarded whether the PCs succeed or fail at the challenge), quests, and "drama" (as per DMG 2, every 15 minutes of story-advancing roleplay earns an XP award equivalent to defeating one monster of the PCs' level).

And all XP awards - even for drama, or individual quests - are shared with the whole party.

Given that an encounter with 5 equal level monsters takes around about an hour to play out (some tables are quicker, some slower, but I think this is something like the average), that a complexity 5 skill challenge (which delivers the same rewards) would not normally be much quicker, and that an hour of "drama" earns equivalent XP to a 4-monster encounter, I draw the following inference: XP in 4e are a system for advancing the PCs on the basis of time spent playing the game.

This impression is, in my view, reinforced by the express option stated in the DMG to not use XP at all, and just advance the PCs one level every 8 or so encounters.

XP, then, aren't really a reward in 4e, at least in the sense that you can't earn more of them by playing smarter (unless you find a way to make your combats quicker!). It's very different, I think, from the treasure-based XP of 1st ed AD&D and other early versions.

To me, this also fits in with the complaint that, in 4e, your PC never gets better because of the scaling DCs. I think that the scaling aspect of 4e is not really about the PC getting better at all - like the XP rules, it's a way of pacing the overall story of the game. If you use the published monsters, then a natural consequence of the scaling rules is that as PCs gain levels they'll be fighting fewer humanoids et al and more demons et al, culminating in Orcus, Vecna or Lolth. The overall idea of the game seems to be that, over the course of a campaign, the players (via their PCs) experience "the story of D&D". And the XP mechanics are part of the machinery that produces this result.

I've run a few 4e adventures (but not using 4e rules) and got the feeling from reading them that the writers - or the system - seem to want to micromanage both treasure and ExP to a much greater extent than any previous edition.

Agreed. The micromanagement of XP I've tried to analyse in the previous paragraph.

Treasure, in 4e (especially pre-Essentials), is explicitly part of the character build rules. As you gain levels you get your treasure parcels to improve your PC. The DMG even encourages players to make explicit to the GM the sort of treasure they want to help their PC builds.

So treasure, also, is not a reward, because treasure depends on levels (10 parcels per level), levels depend on XP, and XP is "per unit of time played".

This is also why I don't think 4e is a gamist RPG - or, at least, not a traditional one. To play 4e with the idea tha you can earn more XP or collect more treasure by playing smarter - in the sort of way that Gygax talks about playing AD&D in the 1st ed PHG - you would have to tweak the rules and guidelines quite a bit. You'd want to drop the rule that skill challenges award XP on success or failure; you'd want to change the way you build encounters, to make combat more risky (and combat might become more risky anyway, if PCs aren't automatically getting the items that the scaling rules presuppose); you'd want to drop drama awards for XP; and you might want to drop quest XP also, because quest XP (especially for player-initiated quests, which the DMG encourages) aren't really about rewarding smart play. And if you want competition between players to earn XP, you'd also have to drop the rule that XP awards are shared across the whole party.

 

[Reynard]

I don't care much for ad hoc XP -- whether house ruled or official -- simply because IMO it disenfranchises the players. They are responsible for going and getting XP, by making choices about what they do and where they go and how the engage the things in the system that provide XP. In a way, it is related to the idea that everything has to be "level appropriate" and that the notion of "story" games and "adventure paths". All of these things work together to change the relationship between GM and Player in a way i don't like.

I like to think of the GM as adjudicator of the rules, referee of the game and, most importantly, Framer of the action. He isn't a storyteller or a narrator. His job isn't to put hoops in front of the PCs for the players to jump through. His job is simply to open the door to the whole funhouse and let the players loose.

Ad hoc XP awards fail, I think, in allowing players choice about how they are going to "succeed". of course, there are other measures of success, but I have found in 25+ years of GMing that it is XP that still drives the D&D player. Even the amateur dramatist who wails and chews scenery as they take down the Nefarious Villain ends up asking, at the end of the session, "How much XP do we get?"

 

[Mallus]

I don't care much for ad hoc XP -- whether house ruled or official -- simply because IMO it disenfranchises the players. They are responsible for going and getting XP, by making choices about what they do and where they go and how the engage the things in the system that provide XP. In a way, it is related to the idea that everything has to be "level appropriate" and that the notion of "story" games and "adventure paths". All of these things work together to change the relationship between GM and Player in a way i don't like.

I like to think of the GM as adjudicator of the rules, referee of the game and, most importantly, Framer of the action. He isn't a storyteller or a narrator. His job isn't to put hoops in front of the PCs for the players to jump through. His job is simply to open the door to the whole funhouse and let the players loose.

Ad hoc XP awards fail, I think, in allowing players choice about how they are going to "succeed". of course, there are other measures of success, but I have found in 25+ years of GMing that it is XP that still drives the D&D player. Even the amateur dramatist who wails and chews scenery as they take down the Nefarious Villain ends up asking, at the end of the session, "How much XP do we get?"

I like the "open the door to the funhouse and let the players loose" line a lot. But part of the way I do that in my campaigns is to eliminate XP entirely. I don't reward the players for interacting with the game world in any specific way outside of having the world react in a reasonable, or a reasonable facsimile of reasonable, fashion.

I don't want players chasing XP. So I don't give any out.

If the players want to fight long, tactical battles... great, I'll roll out the mat. If they want to explore, I'll give them as many fantastic vistas as I can after a long week at the office. If they want to talk art with the high-falutin' NPC's... I'll put on a beret and pantomime smoking a clove cigarette. If they just want to talk amongst themselves in funny elf voices... well, I'll sit back, sip my drink, and chuckle.

In short, I try to give them a world to play in. I've found bean-counting their imaginary life experiences really doesn't help that. The downside of this, obviously, is my game is somewhat less of a game. But I try to make for that by providing more world.

 

[howandwhy99]

I include XP to enable the players to level their PCs. If they want to level, they engage in the game in acts in which they recognize XP is gained. Leveling is neither necessary, expected, nor by far the only way to increase the numerical character power of the PC.

I reward according to class in a variety of categories, but all are for overcoming challenges. Treasure, resources, etc. are all their own reward.

 

[Reynard]

Another aspect of XP dependent upon edition is that in O/B/AD&D, different classes required different amounts of XP to go up a level. This was a balancing tool, which speaks to how balance in older editions was something that happened over the long term and was not necessarily a concern in a given encounter or even adventure.