D&D 5E Poll: Experience, Leveling, and Groups

[Tony Vargas]

In traditional D&D, it's playing a game where the goal of play is to acquire gp and xp. Success is measured by your avatar's ability to acquire gp and XP without dying. Handing gp and xp out to people who didn't play would be senseless, like playing Monopoly and then handing out Monopoly money to people who didn't actually play.

And magic items, don't forget. Sure, early D&D could tend towards that Monopoly-like style. Campaigns could be short or episodic, nothing more than crawling through a dungeon level-by-level collecting rewards and avoiding arbitrary/random death, no need to name your character before 5th level, etc. It started as a wargame, afterall, and wargames typically have victory conditions.

It's changed since then, of course.

 

[S'mon]

And magic items, don't forget. Sure, early D&D could tend towards that Monopoly-like style. Campaigns could be short or episodic, nothing more than crawling through a dungeon level-by-level collecting rewards and avoiding arbitrary/random death, no need to name your character before 5th level, etc. It started as a wargame, afterall, and wargames typically have victory conditions.

It's changed since then, of course.

Well, I still run a lot of campaigns more or less in that style!

Edit: People do name their PCs, though. And I'm surprised if you think that "crawling through a dungeon level-by-level collecting rewards and avoiding arbitrary/random death" is not still a standard play style, I thought 3e's 'back to the dungeon' mantra was a return to that style, and that it has stayed common ever since. Certainly most of the published 3e and 4e adventures I own seem little more than kill stuff/get XP.

 

[Tony Vargas]

I'm surprised if you think that "crawling through a dungeon level-by-level collecting rewards and avoiding arbitrary/random death" is not still a standard play style, I thought 3e's 'back to the dungeon' mantra was a return to that style, and that it has stayed common ever since. Certainly most of the published 3e and 4e adventures I own seem little more than kill stuff/get XP.

Don't get me wrong, "back to the dungeon" brought me back to the game, I was sick of 2e's multiple settings and trying to be Storyteller. But dungeons started at least trying to make sense long before that, and part of that was reasons to go into them other than just gold & exp. Reasons for the PCs, in character. 'RP' as well as 'G.'

 

[Man in the Funny Hat]

You start out talking bout players (they are the ones who show up or not, disrupt or not, etc) but then finish by taking about PCs.

I think it's interesting to consider whether XP are awarded primarily to the character (as @Lanefan has described above) or to the player (which is where most of those who advocate "no attendance, no XP" seem to be coming from). Presumably this should make a difference to the way in which they are awarded.

Quite true. I have long perceived of xp as a PLAYER reward rather than something that is owed to a character because the character was simply created. Part of that had to do with repeated insistence of certain people on having NPC's "earn" their xp in the same way as player characters - going on adventures, hoarding loot, killing monsters.

Without earning xp just as PC's earn xp NPC's could not/should not level up. DM's were supposed to be able to explain what an NPC did to become x level in their class just as a player would be able to recount his PC's adventures.

But XP doesn't work like that. A DM ASSIGNS levels to an NPC, the NPC only "earns" xp when he is adventuring with player characters. Player characters earn XP and advance in level not by simply existing at the same game time as other player characters but by the player conducting the character THROUGH actual game play. As Gary mentioned in the DMG the sensible way for a PC to earn xp would be for MU's to sit in a library and just read books of magical theory and practice casting. A fighter would improve in his abilities not by killing a few orcs, but by training. A thief would improve not based on the amount of money he stole, but on his practicing repeatedly at picking pockets. But again, D&D xp doesn't work like that. It works by accumulation of points awarded for participating in adventures - killing monsters and taking their loot.

A player who is not there to run his PC makes that character, virtually by definition a NON-player character. I'm not going to tell anyone they're wrong (as such) for awarding xp to a character who isn't being run by a player, but... that's just not how I understand D&D xp to work.

 

[Libramarian]

Don't get me wrong, "back to the dungeon" brought me back to the game, I was sick of 2e's multiple settings and trying to be Storyteller. But dungeons started at least trying to make sense long before that, and part of that was reasons to go into them other than just gold & exp. Reasons for the PCs, in character. 'RP' as well as 'G.'

Honestly I'm sick of the contrived dungeon quests like so-and-so's son has gone missing, please kill some monsters and bring him back home. Or such-and-such village will be destroyed unless the brave heroes go to this X on the map and kill all the monsters. Right now I find the idea of going into a dungeon just for the gold and the power to be more appealing. I like dungeons better when they make sense, but in the sense of a coherent and effective atmosphere. Atmosphere > story.

 

[Mishihari Lord]

I want XP as a reward for character activity. I won't play in a game where this isn't the case.

I strongly prefer a simulationist style to my games. Characters get better by doing stuff. That makes perfect sense. Even when it doesn't have a direct cause and effect relation (e.g. I fireballed some orcs to death and now I'm better at climbing walls) monsters killed and treasure earned are still reasonable proxies for time spent adventuring and are thus a reasonable metric for getting better at everything. When a player is absent in my game his character doesn't do much of anything so he doesn't get XP.


Also, receiving a reward for your achievements is fun. I enjoy XP as recognition that my character was successful.

The biggest argument against awarding xp for activity has always been that disparate PC levels cause problems. I've never actually seen this in play, and I've run games where we had 1st level PCs and 12th level PCs in the same party. As long as everyone has some spotlight time and everyone usually had something effective to do it was all good.

 

[Li Shenron]

The player who missed the session was already punished - they missed the session.

If that's not enough punishment, then the player isn't engaged with the campaign.

I'm in the camp that says that playing is its own reward, and not-playing its own punishment.

I feel no need to further compound either by not awarding XP to those who are unable to make it.

I don't understand the obsession with punishment.

I don't punish players who aren't playing, I reward players who play.

XP and treasure are a reward, not an entitlement, only if you see it as entitlement then not getting them feels like a punishment.

 

[Imaro]

Don't get me wrong, "back to the dungeon" brought me back to the game, I was sick of 2e's multiple settings and trying to be Storyteller. But dungeons started at least trying to make sense long before that, and part of that was reasons to go into them other than just gold & exp. Reasons for the PCs, in character. 'RP' as well as 'G.'

I think this is heavily dependent on the type and feel of one's campaign. Gold, arcane knowledge, and experience certainly make sense as motivation for a more morally gray swords and sorcery feel...as do dungeons that are strange, otherworldly, realms that don't necessarily make "sense".

 

[ren1999]

edit, wrong thread.

 

[Mallus]

There's a difference between mother in the hospital, double-book with a pub crawl, and just forgot as excuses.

There is - but it's not a distinction that I personally care to make. YMMV. The way I look at it, if I like someone well enough to keep inviting them into my home, into my campaigns, them I'm willing to cut them some slack.

Besides, sometimes a soul needs a good pub crawl . As a matter of fact, I'm somewhat overdue...

2) Levelling everyone as a group removes the ability to reward creative thinking, role-playing, good behaviour, and the like with experience. Should alternative rewards be in the game? Either as part of the core rules or as a module.

I don't think this is true (at all).

The reward for creative thinking and good role-playing is success; the PCs achieving their desired outcomes with the minimum undesired consequences.

I get the need for a positive feedback loop during play, but rewarding players with metagame currency after the fact isn't the only way to get it.

The best reward for a cunning plan is having it work.

Really? I think you're rather underselling the basic notion of a game (in which achievements defined by the rules are attributed meaning by participants and observers). For example, I think many people feel rather strongly that the San Francisco Giants recently achieved something greater than "fun" simply by playing a game (while the same "fun" is not much of a consolation prize for the other teams). The sense of achievement from performing well in a game, arbitrarily defined as its rules might be, can be a major driving force in people's lives.

True -- but RPGs aren't competitive games the way baseball games and chess matches are. Victory is terribly subjective; the PCs 'win' against 'teams' assembled, coached, and deployed by a referee who's job is to challenge them, or simulate events in a fictional world, not take home the trophy. The rules are flexible guidelines, prone to being modified on the fly or even switched on and off on a case by case basis (they're more erratic, even, than penalty calls in American football!).

Achievements are pretty subjective, too. Sure, there's PC survival and weath/power gains, but there are also intangibles; story rewards, character growth (in terms of characterization, not level), rewarding relationships in the game's fiction. Not to mention 'achieving' really entertaining failures.

For example, some of the crowning achievements of out old 4e campaign where character tag lines, like Lizzy the Communist Dwarfs battle-cry "Universal Health Care!".

Where was I? Oh... the joy of RPGs is that people get so many different things out of them, there are many different kinds of success. I suppose I could hand out bonus XP to players for 'hitting their marks' (however they define them), but I choose not to. Mainly because I refuse to reward players for playing the way I do -- and I'm fully aware that's exactly what I'd end up doing if used individual XP awards.

(I'm well acquainted with my own inescapable subjectivity)

So I let the reward for good play be in-game success and fond memories, and leave XP as a pacing mechanism.

There's also the creative aspect of the game, which can constitute artistic achievement. Not that many people will ever see it, but there are many great artists toiling away in obscurity, some under the auspices of playing an rpg.

Absolutely -- but I one thing I refuse to be as DM is an art critic. Again, artistic achievements in my campaigns -- such as they are -- are rewarded through the player's talking about other peoples' PCs/exploits years later.

Certainly, I can see the motivation to want to recognize player achievement by "keeping score" using XP, even though I don't do it.

I think campaigns that push the game aspect of the game really benefit from XP as an explicit score-keeping mechanism -- they're just not the ones I run (but I'd be game to play in one).