Ahnehnois
First Post
You're right I am getting threads crossed. This is still a thread about editions of D&D though.
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XP Through the Editions
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Crazy Jerome
First Post
In a game of D&D where treasure is the driving engine for XP, to know exactly what effect you'll get, you have to determine whether the players want what the characters want, or whether they want something different.
To wit, the reason a 4E game with XP only from treasure would work with my group--without adjusting, say, the relative abilities of the rogue and the fighter--is that the characters want to avoid combat, but the players do not. They want to dare much, and thus sometimes fail and get forced into a fight. It's more like the written Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, than the classic 1st ed. operational strategy version of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. (Not entirely, as games aren't written stories, and the operational strategy version is hardly devoid of daring--but certainly further along the axis towards the written version.)
One of the reasons we went through characters so fast in our early 1E days was that we tried to play it more daring than the rules favored.
To wit, the reason a 4E game with XP only from treasure would work with my group--without adjusting, say, the relative abilities of the rogue and the fighter--is that the characters want to avoid combat, but the players do not. They want to dare much, and thus sometimes fail and get forced into a fight. It's more like the written Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, than the classic 1st ed. operational strategy version of Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser. (Not entirely, as games aren't written stories, and the operational strategy version is hardly devoid of daring--but certainly further along the axis towards the written version.)
One of the reasons we went through characters so fast in our early 1E days was that we tried to play it more daring than the rules favored.
I think it's reasonable to assume that for most players, if they know what XP is awarded for, they will pursue that more aggressively and be more likely to avoid activities that don't pay off.
They'll also exhibit this same pattern based on what they THINK is rewarded for XP.
In games where the method is unknown, they'll probably just do whatever they think is worth it, which is usually doing stuff like killing monsters and taking their stuff.
Obviously, there's exceptions like players who don't care about XP. In statistics, exceptions don't count.
An observation made about my friend's "evil and greedy" campaign, is that the XP award system would become unbalanced if pursued aggressively. My friend ran a 3e game for an "evil" party. The players whole strategy is find NPCs with good magic gear and take it. Each successful hit increased their power level beyond the expected money to level ratio because they were not relying on random drops but targeting specific known hot spots. If XP was awarded by treasure, the PCs would more rapidly than average because of the singularity in their adventures.
As an side observation. They were also known for not sticking to the mission. A good party will generally take a certain path to get to the bad guy to rescue the princess. They'll at least drive that direction and keep trying until they can't. An evil party, much less predictable and thus harder to write material for. These guys were king at that. The moment they decided the job was not worth the trouble, they would pack up. As a result, the GM had a harder time determining what would motivate them or even where they would go next.
From what I can tell from the anecdote, heavy rewarding on a behavior may result in unbalanced game play. It certainly could be abused by a group with a natural heavy focus on that area.
They'll also exhibit this same pattern based on what they THINK is rewarded for XP.
In games where the method is unknown, they'll probably just do whatever they think is worth it, which is usually doing stuff like killing monsters and taking their stuff.
Obviously, there's exceptions like players who don't care about XP. In statistics, exceptions don't count.
An observation made about my friend's "evil and greedy" campaign, is that the XP award system would become unbalanced if pursued aggressively. My friend ran a 3e game for an "evil" party. The players whole strategy is find NPCs with good magic gear and take it. Each successful hit increased their power level beyond the expected money to level ratio because they were not relying on random drops but targeting specific known hot spots. If XP was awarded by treasure, the PCs would more rapidly than average because of the singularity in their adventures.
As an side observation. They were also known for not sticking to the mission. A good party will generally take a certain path to get to the bad guy to rescue the princess. They'll at least drive that direction and keep trying until they can't. An evil party, much less predictable and thus harder to write material for. These guys were king at that. The moment they decided the job was not worth the trouble, they would pack up. As a result, the GM had a harder time determining what would motivate them or even where they would go next.
From what I can tell from the anecdote, heavy rewarding on a behavior may result in unbalanced game play. It certainly could be abused by a group with a natural heavy focus on that area.
Great post - and I still can't XP you yet!
This describes about a year of my first Rolemaster campaign back when I was an undergraduate. You don't need to be evil, either - just somewhat mercenary. After all, in the typical fantasy city there are always plenty of cultists, spies, slavers etc who you can kill and loot without feeling too morally compromised!
Kurtomatic
First Post
I've given some thought to awarding XP on a combination of treasure, and objective-based achievements.
Like early versions of D&D, you'd get minimal XP from just fighting. You'd avoid unnecessary fights and put more effort into exploration. However, there would be still be monsters that carry or guard considerable treasure, making them a target.
Achievements (OMG v1d30g4m3!!!), on the other hand, would be like quest XP but in reverse. For instance, discovering an important secret about the dungeon, defeating a special monster (that doesn't already have a trove), or inflicting enough casualties on the Orc tribe that they abandon the site. (See the Slaughterhouse Project [angrydm.com] for an excellent way to organize a site-based game with objectives.)
It's like a reverse quest, because the players do not have a list of predefined quests to work with in advance. Achievements instead serve to encourage player exploration. Planted clues, and even multi-stage chained achievements, can give players direction that they can follow or ignore as they choose.
The idea is to add a little more flavor to the mix than straight-up gold farming. And really, isn't XP for treasure just another kind of quest? Call it the Fame & Fortune quest. Fame for achievements, and Fortune for the loot.
Like early versions of D&D, you'd get minimal XP from just fighting. You'd avoid unnecessary fights and put more effort into exploration. However, there would be still be monsters that carry or guard considerable treasure, making them a target.
Achievements (OMG v1d30g4m3!!!), on the other hand, would be like quest XP but in reverse. For instance, discovering an important secret about the dungeon, defeating a special monster (that doesn't already have a trove), or inflicting enough casualties on the Orc tribe that they abandon the site. (See the Slaughterhouse Project [angrydm.com] for an excellent way to organize a site-based game with objectives.)
It's like a reverse quest, because the players do not have a list of predefined quests to work with in advance. Achievements instead serve to encourage player exploration. Planted clues, and even multi-stage chained achievements, can give players direction that they can follow or ignore as they choose.
The idea is to add a little more flavor to the mix than straight-up gold farming. And really, isn't XP for treasure just another kind of quest? Call it the Fame & Fortune quest. Fame for achievements, and Fortune for the loot.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
I hope it plays better than it sounds, because as written that sounds horribly homogenous, pre-processed and bland.
If you ever wanted to convince me not to play 4e as written, congratulations: you've done it. That said, the fix is easy and obvious; and it starts with ignoring the dependencies you note above...
...and continues with the changes you note here. (though I think I'd keep ExP for skill challenges)
Huh?
What you describe (way above) is as gamist as it could possibly get...treasure comes out of the realm of both story and simulation to become just another cog in the mechanics.
Lan-"if 4e gives experience points for drama, there might be hope for me yet"-efan
Lanefan, by "gamist" I mean the Forge sense - where the RPG is about competition between the players, or by the players together against the situation set up by the GM, or both. The shorthand slogan for this is "step on up"!
AD&D XP is gamist in this sense - only those players who "step on up", who use steel and wits to rob the monsters, get XP. Merely faffing won't earn you XP.
Wherease 4e XP is not gamist in this sense - you don't have to "step on up" to earn XP, you just have to spend time at the game, and even if you faff around or fail at the skill challenges you'll still get XP.
The features of the system that I think are what you are calling "gamist" - ie just another cog in the mechanics - I would tend to call "metagame". Again, I'm following Forge terminology here.
Having sorted out a translation manual for the technical terms, I want to actually disagree with one thing you said. The treasure doesn't come out of the realm of the story. It's not as if loot suddenly appears from nowhere in the PCs backpacks. They find it, or are given it, or steal it, the same as usual. It's just that the opportunities for this to happen are shaped to a significant extent by the metagame pacing concerns.
This feature of 4e is yet another reason why I really do think that - apart from a few broad mechanical devices like AC and hit points - it is a completely different game from AD&D. I'm not directly setting out to persuade you not to play 4e as written, but having seen the sort of game you describe - big parties, NPCs as well as PCs, competition between PCs, quite a bit of PC death, some of that death caused by intraparty treachery at the end of an adventure, etc - I would say: if this is what you are wanting from your RPG, 4e would have to be tweaked a bit to deliver it.
That said, 4e isn't boring. And it's not without conflict. It's just that the interest isn't in the adventuring as such. It's in the changes to the PCs, and the gameworld, that result from the adventuring. It's about adventuring as a means to some other story-related end, rather than an end in itself. In that way 4e might owe something to 2nd ed (hesitant as I am to admit this, given my deep deep dislike for 2nd ed). But without the railroading - because it gives the GM and players the tools to build the story together on the fly.
AD&D XP is gamist in this sense - only those players who "step on up", who use steel and wits to rob the monsters, get XP. Merely faffing won't earn you XP.
Wherease 4e XP is not gamist in this sense - you don't have to "step on up" to earn XP, you just have to spend time at the game, and even if you faff around or fail at the skill challenges you'll still get XP.
The features of the system that I think are what you are calling "gamist" - ie just another cog in the mechanics - I would tend to call "metagame". Again, I'm following Forge terminology here.
Having sorted out a translation manual for the technical terms, I want to actually disagree with one thing you said. The treasure doesn't come out of the realm of the story. It's not as if loot suddenly appears from nowhere in the PCs backpacks. They find it, or are given it, or steal it, the same as usual. It's just that the opportunities for this to happen are shaped to a significant extent by the metagame pacing concerns.
This feature of 4e is yet another reason why I really do think that - apart from a few broad mechanical devices like AC and hit points - it is a completely different game from AD&D. I'm not directly setting out to persuade you not to play 4e as written, but having seen the sort of game you describe - big parties, NPCs as well as PCs, competition between PCs, quite a bit of PC death, some of that death caused by intraparty treachery at the end of an adventure, etc - I would say: if this is what you are wanting from your RPG, 4e would have to be tweaked a bit to deliver it.
That said, 4e isn't boring. And it's not without conflict. It's just that the interest isn't in the adventuring as such. It's in the changes to the PCs, and the gameworld, that result from the adventuring. It's about adventuring as a means to some other story-related end, rather than an end in itself. In that way 4e might owe something to 2nd ed (hesitant as I am to admit this, given my deep deep dislike for 2nd ed). But without the railroading - because it gives the GM and players the tools to build the story together on the fly.
Lanefan
Victoria Rules
There's no point in using Forge terminology or definitions with me.
I define "gamist" as shorthand for "game mechanics driven", in a sense. Experience points are and always have been gamist. Treasure could be simply part of the narrative and-or part of the simulation up till 4e but 4e has tied it too into the mechanics.
To me the term gamist doesn't apply here. ExP are gamist all the way in any case, it's just that 1e and 4e use different mechanical ways and means of giving 'em out.
Metagame to me means "outside the game" and is usually applied to knowledge or information players know and characters don't, or shouldn't.
Exactly, which to me is part of the problem. You can't have a no-treasure game; but more importantly you can't have a highly-variable-treasure game where in one adventure you get stinking rich and the next you get near nothing, the game assumes the treasure will accrue at a nice steady pace. Not, at least, without kitbashing the system upside the head once or twice.
Then again, were I ever to run 3e one of the first things I'd throw out would be the wealth-by-level guidelines.
Yep, and that leads straight back to the endless discussion about which one really is D+D; because if they're that different they can't be realistically called the same thing.
By "tweaked a bit" I'm assuming you mean "crumpled into a little ball then origami-ed into unrecognizability", hm?
Thing is, if I wanted I could do all this with 4e. 'Course, once I got done with the toolbox the system would be about as close to 4e as our current system is to 1e, which is best described as "vaguely recognizable".
1e and 3e can do this just as well - been there, done that in both.
In all cases, though, I'd think the interest in theory would lie in the day-to-day adventuring and character interactions on the small (i.e. session-level) scale and the overall story and character careers on the large (i.e. campaign-level) scale. And in all cases it's often that the story doesn't appear until partway through when the DM has that "aha" moment and synthesizes it all into something coherent.
Lan-"as player, my most recent PC death was by party during a treasury division"-efan
Lalato
Adventurer
I don't know that I buy these broad general sweeps people are making about the various editions with regard to XP. In my experience (playing since 1981, every edition except OD&D and Holmes), The game really hasn't changed that much with regard to player motivation at the table.
Maybe your games have a marked change in tone when you play different editions, but for me, we still chase after bad guys or monsters... sometimes we kill them, sometimes we avoid them... and we always go after their loot.
One of the more morbid aspects of D&D has always been looting the bodies of the fallen. In my experience that hasn't changed. No matter how "good" the PCs are, they always loot. Even the supposedly Lawful Good paladins of old did it.
So... to sit here and say that one edition gives you XP for exploration and another for something else doesn't jibe with me at all. You get XP for killing stuff. Sometimes you get XP for overcoming obstacles. In an abstract way... you can get XP for loot... or maybe the loot makes you more powerful which allows you get more XP from other sources. Either way, it's all the same to me.
I'll leave the rest of you to argue over exaggerated nuances, if you like. Then again, I may just be getting grumpy in my old age.
Maybe your games have a marked change in tone when you play different editions, but for me, we still chase after bad guys or monsters... sometimes we kill them, sometimes we avoid them... and we always go after their loot.
One of the more morbid aspects of D&D has always been looting the bodies of the fallen. In my experience that hasn't changed. No matter how "good" the PCs are, they always loot. Even the supposedly Lawful Good paladins of old did it.
So... to sit here and say that one edition gives you XP for exploration and another for something else doesn't jibe with me at all. You get XP for killing stuff. Sometimes you get XP for overcoming obstacles. In an abstract way... you can get XP for loot... or maybe the loot makes you more powerful which allows you get more XP from other sources. Either way, it's all the same to me.
I'll leave the rest of you to argue over exaggerated nuances, if you like. Then again, I may just be getting grumpy in my old age.
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