Why I dislike Milestone XP

[iserith]

I guess that's where I disagree. I don't need or want a carrot (or a stick) in the form of XP to motivate my players. The campaign should grow and evolve based on what's most engaging and fun for the group. I set the scene, the players tell the story and tell me (sometimes literally) if they want more or less of any given pillar.

It's rather bold to state how a campaign "should" be rather than, say, make that claim for your own campaign and no other. I'd have to know more about your particular campaign to examine how I would set up the advancement system for such a game.

What system do you use now?

 

[Satyrn]

It's hard to "waste" resources in 5E considering how forgiving it is of resource expenditure. You regain all HP and spells with a long rest. While you may have some other resource that take longer to recover (HD) or you might use some potions that's not very typical.

Spark of inspiration! (Also, completely off topic)

I've been "grittying up" the resting rules in prep for a megadungeon crawl. I've been adding requirements of food and water (or substitute a level of exhaustion) in order to recover the limited use features like ki points, superiority dice and spell slots - and hit dice, too.

Long rest healing is only done by spending hit dice just like a short rest. And just like a short rest, the character must be tended to with a successful Wisdom (healing kit) check to be able to spend those hit dice.

That spark of inspiration was ignited by your "you might use some potions that's not very typical" line.

I'm gonna introduce a healing potion that skips the healing kit - so the players can have something that will let them get in some guaranteed healing when they absolutely must. Thanks!

 

[Oofta]

It's rather bold to state how a campaign "should" be rather than, say, make that claim for your own campaign and no other. I'd have to know more about your particular campaign to examine how I would set up the advancement system for such a game.

What system do you use now?

Overly sensitive much? A thousand apologies if it wasn't clear I was talking about my campaign and preferences. Do I have to put a "run your campaign the way you want" disclaimer on every single post?

I don't want to use tools to artificially push/pull/prod/incentivize players in my campaign towards a specific style of campaign or play style, it's not my preference. If I and my players want a specific style of campaign, I'll set up the necessary environment.

Campaign about warfare and conflict? I'll plonk them into the middle of a war. Intrigue and mystery? It will probably be a city with a dark underbelly. Dungeon delving? Part of my world with no major conflicts, but plenty of dungeons to loot. What the group does in that environment is up to them, I simply describe the world, they tell me what they do in that world. I then do my best to have the world and events respond in a logical fashion.

As far as leveling, as I've stated before it's based on story, logical advancement, and what the group is enjoying. I've had games where we had several sessions at 1st level (or below) and sessions where we skipped levels and had people fill in what happened between levels.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying doing it other ways is wrong, or that I have the one true way of running a campaign. e.g. Run your campaign the way you want.

 

[iserith]

Overly sensitive much? A thousand apologies if it wasn't clear I was talking about my campaign and preferences. Do I have to put a "run your campaign the way you want" disclaimer on every single post?

I don't want to use tools to artificially push/pull/prod/incentivize players in my campaign towards a specific style of campaign or play style, it's not my preference. If I and my players want a specific style of campaign, I'll set up the necessary environment.

Campaign about warfare and conflict? I'll plonk them into the middle of a war. Intrigue and mystery? It will probably be a city with a dark underbelly. Dungeon delving? Part of my world with no major conflicts, but plenty of dungeons to loot. What the group does in that environment is up to them, I simply describe the world, they tell me what they do in that world. I then do my best to have the world and events respond in a logical fashion.

As far as leveling, as I've stated before it's based on story, logical advancement, and what the group is enjoying. I've had games where we had several sessions at 1st level (or below) and sessions where we skipped levels and had people fill in what happened between levels.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying doing it other ways is wrong, or that I have the one true way of running a campaign. e.g. Run your campaign the way you want.

Do you have a particular setting that you use for all of your campaigns?

In terms of leveling up, is that basically when you as DM decide it's time? Do the players have any notion as to when that might be in advance?

 

[5ekyu]

Overly sensitive much? A thousand apologies if it wasn't clear I was talking about my campaign and preferences. Do I have to put a "run your campaign the way you want" disclaimer on every single post?

I don't want to use tools to artificially push/pull/prod/incentivize players in my campaign towards a specific style of campaign or play style, it's not my preference. If I and my players want a specific style of campaign, I'll set up the necessary environment.

Campaign about warfare and conflict? I'll plonk them into the middle of a war. Intrigue and mystery? It will probably be a city with a dark underbelly. Dungeon delving? Part of my world with no major conflicts, but plenty of dungeons to loot. What the group does in that environment is up to them, I simply describe the world, they tell me what they do in that world. I then do my best to have the world and events respond in a logical fashion.

As far as leveling, as I've stated before it's based on story, logical advancement, and what the group is enjoying. I've had games where we had several sessions at 1st level (or below) and sessions where we skipped levels and had people fill in what happened between levels.

Disclaimer: I'm not saying doing it other ways is wrong, or that I have the one true way of running a campaign. e.g. Run your campaign the way you want.

Hey you said "I dont need..." "The campaign..." and another "i set the scene" and "they tell me" after it in one paragraph. . How could anybody think you saying "the campaign" in the middle of all those "i" and "me" meant you were talking about your game and not every game ever played??

;-)

 

[Oofta]

Do you have a particular setting that you use for all of your campaigns?

In terms of leveling up, is that basically when you as DM decide it's time? Do the players have any notion as to when that might be in advance?

I've run in my own home/shared campaign world for the last ... umm ... long, long time. When was the blue box released?

As far as how quickly the group levels, it's something I discuss with the group during the session 0 and have an ongoing discussion as the campaign progresses. It's also linked to story achievements and goals (not necessarily the ones I initially set, they tend to grow organically).

For example in the last campaign I ran we basically leveled every other game session. Others? We dawdled along at lower levels, basing leveling on what made sense for the story. Later on we skipped levels at higher levels because while the story was interesting and they wanted to see it through to the end (and get to 30th level in my 4E campaign) but it was becoming kind of a slog. At lower levels they were fighting the local corrupt law enforcement, at higher levels they were trying to stop Ragnarok and bouncing around planes of existence.

So I certainly have more flexibility than, say someone that runs canned mods.

 

[iserith]

I've run in my own home/shared campaign world for the last ... umm ... long, long time. When was the blue box released?

As far as how quickly the group levels, it's something I discuss with the group during the session 0 and have an ongoing discussion as the campaign progresses. It's also linked to story achievements and goals (not necessarily the ones I initially set, they tend to grow organically).

So it sounds like story-based advancement to me or some variation of it, as defined in the DMG.

For example in the last campaign I ran we basically leveled every other game session. Others? We dawdled along at lower levels, basing leveling on what made sense for the story. Later on we skipped levels at higher levels because while the story was interesting and they wanted to see it through to the end (and get to 30th level in my 4E campaign) but it was becoming kind of a slog. At lower levels they were fighting the local corrupt law enforcement, at higher levels they were trying to stop Ragnarok and bouncing around planes of existence.

So I certainly have more flexibility than, say someone that runs canned mods.

It sounds like you've played in various editions. What's the edition you've played the most? In what edition did you decide to stop using standard XP as the advancement system?

 

[Oofta]

So it sounds like story-based advancement to me or some variation of it, as defined in the DMG.



It sounds like you've played in various editions. What's the edition you've played the most? In what edition did you decide to stop using standard XP as the advancement system?

Edition I played most? Hard to say. Hours played? DMed? Duration of campaign? I'd guess 3.5 which is also when I stopped bothering with XP soon after I started rewarding XP for non-combat encounters. I've been playing/DMing 5E since it was released.

The way I do things may not work for everyone, but I've never had anyone complain about it either.

 

[iserith]

Edition I played most? Hard to say. Hours played? DMed? Duration of campaign? I'd guess 3.5 which is also when I stopped bothering with XP soon after I started rewarding XP for non-combat encounters. I've been playing/DMing 5E since it was released.

The way I do things may not work for everyone, but I've never had anyone complain about it either.

That sounds about right. In almost all cases, people I've talked to about when they stopped doing standard XP awards was in D&D 3e or 4e. Those who played multiple editions, that is. Chiefly because D&D 3e was a bit cumbersome and D&D 4e because it became a significant problem when characters weren't all the same level or close to it. (I think 3e was the same in that regard as well.) So they either assumed those were both still problems in D&D 5e or didn't remember why they abandoned it in the first place and kept on doing so. That's not always the case with everyone, but there might be something to it.

D&D 3e did have "story awards" for noncombat challenges. Interestingly, it notes: "As a rule, you probably don't want to hand out a lot of experience for these kinds of encounters unless you intentionally want to run a low-combat game." It goes on to remark that unless the PCs do something "impressive," there should be no reward. I think this means that sufficient difficulty must have been overcome to be deserving of a reward as opposed to a "roleplaying award" which is given to players for "playing a role well" - whatever that means - in a way that "enhances the game." These awards seem a lot more ad hoc than the guidelines provided in D&D 5e. The more ad hoc something is, the more easily it can be dismissed as unnecessary it seems to me.

Can you confirm that you are doing something like story-based advancement in your campaign, as defined in the DMG? I don't want to make assumptions.

 

[Oofta]

Can you confirm that you are doing something like story-based advancement in your campaign, as defined in the DMG? I don't want to make assumptions.

Why does it matter? As I've stated before, I do leveling based on "chapters" or roughly on number of successful encounters. Depends on the group preference and the campaign. But I've been doing it for a few years now, I'm not concerned about the category.

My only goal/logic/method is to level up in a way that makes sense for the story we're telling. For me, that means ignoring XP.