What is the essence of D&D

[Garthanos]

Personally, I am a fan of XP for gold (as presented in B/X). I see XP for gold as an objective advancement tied to challenging the players.

Why it could be just as challenging rescuing that peasant girl as the princess. ie even in your paradigm can be incredibly challenged and logically get no gold. It was entirely about setting a tone of greed motivation AND yes it wasnt the story any of my players or myself wanted to play.

 

[Garthanos]

But what I am talking about is the interactions between Turn based dungeon / wilderness exploration, wandering monsters, random reaction rolls, light source depletion over time. There is a lot of interesting game developments that happen just with the random procedural engine
Some, examples…

The questions rising from random encounters like those arent even intriguing to me AND that is a huge problem its the wrong kind of story dungeon clearing sheesh with characters having the wrong kind of motivations and so on. It was obvious that there was a game implied in that morasse that I wanted and the hit point mechanism alone showed it was possible Not to mention discussions by Gygax about how a random arrow from a mook couldn't kill Conan and so on. It was that potential for larger than life that made it better than RuneQuest. Not the pedestrian pest killing on a random timer.

 

[Monayuris]

Why it could be just as challenging rescuing that peasant girl as the princess. ie even in your paradigm can be incredibly challenged and logically get no gold. It was entirely about setting a tone of greed motivation AND yes it wasnt the story any of my players or myself wanted to play.

That is actually an inaccurate statement.

In B/X, the rules for Giving out Experience are on page B22:

Experience points (abbreviated XP, as ep
stands for electrum pieces) are given for non-magical treasure and
for defeating monsters. For every 1 gp value of non-magical
treasure the characters recover, the DM should give 1 XP to the

party (this will be divided among all the player characters).

Note the award is for 1 gp value of non-magical treasure the characters recover. The reward gold would not grant experience.

I posit two scenarios

1. A barmaid was abducted by goblins. Her father, a local farmer offers 50gp (the entirety of his savings) to return her safely.

2. A princess was abducted by goblins. Her father, the king of the land, offers 20,000gp (a fraction of his royal coffers) to return her safely.

The goblin abductors, in both scenarios, are exactly the same in composition and loot that they possess.

In a game with XP for killing monsters: 3rd edition, 4th edition, 5th edition. The party would receive the same experience for choosing to rescue the barmaid as they would for choosing to rescue the princess. The only difference is the gold rewards. The players have the choice to be motivated by heroism to save the barmaid or by greed to save the princess.

In a game with Xp for gold: B/X, OD&D, AD&D. The party would receive the same experience for choosing to rescue the barmaid as they would for choosing to rescue the princess. The only difference is the gold rewards. The players have the choice to be motivated by heroism to save the barmaid or by greed to save the princess.

In essessene the games are exactly the same.

 

[Monayuris]

5e teleport... is an example of such and going home is indeed fail safe.
But yes sleep was winning the spell lotto in ADnD too. AND it doesn't matter low or high level non-casters do not get that degree of impact at any level. You do get that?

It is an impactful spell that can turn the tide of one maybe two encounters. There will be other encounters where the fighter tears through the enemy and single handedly wins a fight, or when the thief Moves Silently and backstabs and instant kills a creature. There will be situations where the thief will shine and where the fighter and cleric will shine.

Balance isn't uniform in B/X. It isn't about everyone being equal in every situation, it is about each character having a situation where they excel and the classes take turns excelling in their areas in contribution to the overall group's success.

IF I wanted however I could recast that scene In 4e. Now you might get the ear mite trap 2 weeks journey out but there would be established ameliorating circumstances that made success possible = (note even in this circumstance this could still be trivialized by a caster for instance that party had a caster who knew teleport ritual or remove affliction - boring and not so worthy of story however one little scenario difference and we have skill challenge possibilities like if they do not have all the ingredients or maybe there was some sort of interdimensional shortcut of unknown destination which the ritualist might bend to make the teleport work with fewer ingredients, and require various skills to get there faster, they might be making nature and dungeoneering skill uses to gather the ingredients for that adjusted ritual fast enough (endurance checks strewn throughout for speed) or they might even use another skill check to think of a location about where the ritual could be cast with fewer ingredients (it could have just been a player idea creating a new ingredient in the story - perhaps relating to that magical rift the seen earlier now it has a function) they might be interrupted in the process by monsters (because it would make good story not because of random encounter charts) the historian in the party might remember that there was a high level priest who could help near another secluded monastery which is less time to get to and so on and much of that player driven ideas exploiting character abilities.

This is an intense scenario so the stakes are high and you need a lot of possible routes towards a success in my opinion.

The above is probably more than a bit incoherent and i didnt spend any time thinking of it (...but sometimes on the fly skill challenges turn out very good) AND in my experience the players Ideas are one huge ingredient beyond any planning you make.

EDIT The best skill challenges are things where progress is easily visualized like the chase scene and the likes. So death by parasite is less so but you can use the victims condition to track it. Additionally even the victim could have his endurance resisting the disease to help stages with delirium etc determining progress. ETC, Other characters making successes speed the process yes all can be abstractly inter connected, so he has to in effect make fewer checks. (The victim might be the one best at one of the skills that would help but have to overcome delirium temporarily to contribute)
In 4e the time isnt exact hours it might be a disease track.

Note how knowing the 5e teleport pretty much totally prevents the scenario AND many other similar ones entirely.

And undermines many chase scenes unless you are doing the chasing.

That's a really interesting scenario. I like it.

I understand how you can leverage the skill challenge framework for this. You are creating an adventure/scenario for how teleportation works in your world.

 

[Monayuris]

The questions rising from random encounters like those arent even intriguing to me AND that is a huge problem its the wrong kind of story dungeon clearing sheesh with characters having the wrong kind of motivations and so on. It was obvious that there was a game implied in that morasse that I wanted and the hit point mechanism alone showed it was possible Not to mention discussions by Gygax about how a random arrow from a mook couldn't kill Conan and so on. It was that potential for larger than life that made it better than RuneQuest. Not the pedestrian pest killing on a random timer.

You're welcome to your opinion and I wouldn't expect everyone to be interested in the same things I am.

I find those interactions and the stories and situations and role-playing that develop from open ended and spontaneous gameplay to be what I consider the essence of the game.

I just find heroic save the world quests to be uninteresting. I prefer running and playing in open sandbox worlds where there are multiple possibilities and adventure is driven by the player and their choices as opposed to some quest.

If I were running that kind of game, though, I wouldn't use XP for Gold. I use XP for Gold because it best suits the style of game I want to run.

As far as motivation goes. For me it has nothing to do with greed. The motivation is to seek adventure and overcome threats... wherein the reward is the treasure acquired.

 

[Garthanos]

It is an impactful spell that can turn the tide of one maybe two encounters.

The average number of combats in a day out there in the wild is 2 based on WOTC own polls. Now sure it wouldnt be for the trivialities of 2 orcs in a room.

 

[Garthanos]

I just find heroic save the world quests to be uninteresting. I prefer running and playing in open sandbox worlds where there are multiple possibilities and adventure is driven by the player and their choices as opposed to some quest.

When I mentioned that improvised sometimes are the best on skill challenges I didnt follow through and say my adventure paradigm is based on character goals it was why I have hardly ever bought modules.

Some examples I have had from players, Free the Slaves, Reintroduce my Recluse People to the World at Large, I did have one who was being sent on "suicide missions" to get rid of her by her Organization but get this the idea for the organization and why she was questing came from the player. Shrug.

 

[Tony Vargas]

... where as interestingly enough it was the first edition which had solid tools to help enable that kind of adventuring in cooperative team effort and providing experience point gain based on the challenges faced. The first edition that encouraged DMs to allow character skill use as able to address the big problems as much as say a wizards spell and enabled it at many other levels.

3e certainly presented skills that, sufficiently optimized, could address problems like spells could. Some of 'em, anyway. Diplomancers being the most over the top example.
But, yes, challenges engaging the whole party, resolved taking character skills into account, and yielding corresponding exp for the challenge, not, say treasure gained or foes overcome, sure, 4e was alone in that.

I'd say this is incorrect.
The first edition to provide the experience you describe is probably OD&D or Basic / Expert.

0e didn't even have character skills, per se until the Thief. Let alone for all characters. Exp was for looting and/or killing, not overcoming challenges in other ways that did not involve material gain.

. It does so by way of its extremely detailed exploration procedures. These procedures put a lot of agency in the hands of the players

Thats the famed Gygaxian Skilled Play, sure. Not related to what Garthanos was talking about in the bit quoted, above.

 

[Monayuris]

When I mentioned that improvised sometimes are the best on skill challenges I didnt follow through and say my adventure paradigm is based on character goals it was why I have hardly ever bought modules.

Some examples I have had from players, Free the Slaves, Reintroduce my Recluse People to the World at Large, I did have one who was being sent on "suicide missions" to get rid of her by her Organization but get this the idea for the organization and why she was questing came from the player. Shrug.

Thats cool. I apologize if my post made an incorrect assumption about your gaming.

My experiences with those kinds of adventures have always been poor. I played in a lot of those style campaigns and as a player and I always felt lost and lacked agency. Sounds like your approach is more of my style.

Personally I don't agree with your statements that classic games promote greed and bad motivations and your characterizations of classic D&D game play simply don't match my own experiences.

 

[Garthanos]

. wherein the reward is the treasure acquired.

So why double up... on gold its already in story a valuable resource which you can gain followers or many other things. Why make it experience when it means not getting experience sometimes when the character really did accomplish a lot? Like that skill challenge which allowed them to save their ally I gave. In 1e if they figured out how to get him back the only experience they would get is???? In 4e they would be getting experience for overcoming the challenge (OK they did get a live ally if they succeed)