D&D 5E What Single Thing Would You Eliminate

[Charlaquin]

If I don't have any nails to drive, why should I buy and master a hammer?

It’s a useful tool, worth knowing how to use well. That’s about the extent of the analogy’s usefulness.

The argument you made in post #289 read as: xp is always more fun than not xp, because getting points is fun, and this fun happens whether we notice it or not.

I think games with XP-based advancement are subtly but significantly more psychologically rewarding than games with session-based or story-based advancement. I didn’t think I needed to qualify that I meant when those systems are being run competently, because if we don’t take that as a baseline assumption, the conversation becomes much more complicated. Obviously if you run any system poorly the experience is going to be worse than another system run competently.

 

[Charlaquin]

Well, presumably the PCs don't have the in-world concept of XP or even leveling per se. People's skills improve over time, but the levels are just a simplification of gradually increasing skill.

Sure.

So I personally want motivations to come from in-world motivation of the PCs that the players are running. I want the emphasis on decision making to be what makes sense for Grog the Barbarian over what might make sense for Grog's player Joe.

I don’t see this goal as exclusive with XP. If you reward the player for behaviors that make sense for the character, you reinforce rather than undermine this goal. Rather than treating the game and the metagame as intrinsically conflicting, I favor game design that aims to put them in concert with one another.

In other words I don't want the players looking at that ogre as 450 XP I want them to see it as a dangerous big dumb brute, a bully.

Why not both?

They can fight the ogre, they can try to intimidate it, they can try to trick it, they can decide to try to convince it to change it's ways. No solution to a problem should be "better" than another.

This can be achieved by awarding experience for overcoming the challenge, regardless of the means by which it is overcome.

I don't want them going to the fiery tower over the idyllic village because they think the tower will allow them to level more quickly, I want them to figure out what their PC would do.

Sure. I prefer games that focus on characters who “would do” the more exciting thing.

Does that make more sense?

I understand your position in principle, I just don’t see how it’s a counter to my argument that by not tying character advancement to specific in-game activity, you remove the agency from character advancement. As a player, I want to feel like my choices have an impact on my character advancement. I want there to be clear ways to pursue that advancement, rather than being forced to simply accept it when it comes.

Not that there's a right way or wrong way to play of course.

Of course.

 

[TheSword]

I mean agency over your character advancement. If you just level up when the DM says you do, there’s no specific actions you can take to influence that. You can’t actively pursue character advancement. You just have to accept it when it comes.

In an adventure Path, you level up when the adventure says to. It’s not arbitrary.

 

[Oofta]

Sure.

I don’t see this goal as exclusive with XP. If you reward the player for behaviors that make sense for the character, you reinforce rather than undermine this goal. Rather than treating the game and the metagame as intrinsically conflicting, I favor game design that aims to put them in concert with one another.

Why not both?

This can be achieved by awarding experience for overcoming the challenge, regardless of the means by which it is overcome.

Sure. I prefer games that focus on characters who “would do” the more exciting thing.

I understand your position in principle, I just don’t see how it’s a counter to my argument that by not tying character advancement to specific in-game activity, you remove the agency from character advancement. As a player, I want to feel like my choices have an impact on my character advancement. I want there to be clear ways to pursue that advancement, rather than being forced to simply accept it when it comes.

Of course.

Well, XP is always to a certain degree going to be "artificially driven by DM decisions" as someone else stated above. After all, the DM decides what monsters to use if nothing else. But it's even more so if I start rewarding XP for alternative solutions. Tack on the fact that if my players are having fun doing things that are not thwarting enemies but are progressing the plot I have to just make up XP numbers.

So, yes, I could make up XP for solving mysteries, smoothing ruffled feathers that furthers the plot, starting businesses, exploration and so on. But those numbers just went from mostly made up to completely made up.

But I also kind of just reject your basic premise. Getting XP never felt particularly rewarding to me, and without evidence to the contrary your assertion that it's subliminally rewarding is something that can't be proven. All I know is that some of my most enjoyable experiences have been in games that didn't use XP. YMMV of course and there is no one solution.

 

[Charlaquin]

In an adventure Path, you level up when the adventure says to. It’s not arbitrary.

My complaint wasn’t that it’s arbitrary, it was that I as a player have no control over it.

 

[Lanefan]

Well, presumably the PCs don't have the in-world concept of XP or even leveling per se.

Spellcasters sure will, even if only in terms of what degree (i.e. level) of spell they can cast and what's required in order to gain the ability to do so.

And it's not at all difficult to imagine Monks and all warrior-types using a vague equivalent to a martial-arts belt system in the real world, to designate different stages of training/ability.

So I personally want motivations to come from in-world motivation of the PCs that the players are running. I want the emphasis on decision making to be what makes sense for Grog the Barbarian over what might make sense for Grog's player Joe.

In other words I don't want the players looking at that ogre as 450 XP I want them to see it as a dangerous big dumb brute, a bully. They can fight the ogre, they can try to intimidate it, they can try to trick it, they can decide to try to convince it to change it's ways. No solution to a problem should be "better" than another.

Same here, which ideally means they should get the same 450 xp for dealing with that Ogre no matter what their solution might be; as long as it's dealt with and no longer remains a threat to either the PCs or those who the PCs were trying to protect.

 

[Lanefan]

Besides, if you do monster/treasure XP, it's still up to the DM to put the monsters and treasure there, so it still ends up being leveling up when the DM tells you to. The DM just uses a different method of achieving the same thing.

Not necessarily.

A DM could put great big scads of treasure out there and have hordes of monsters around every corner, but that DM still doesn't have nearly as much control over xp earned in that the players/PCs can still choose not to engage with the monsters and-or they can unintentionally miss most of the treasure.

 

[Lanefan]

In an adventure Path, you level up when the adventure says to. It’s not arbitrary.

Only if you're running/playing the AP in that manner. It's completely the DM's choice whether to use actual xp, or the built-in level points, or to tweak or alter the level-points and use that.

 

[Xetheral]

What cost? Writing a number down once a week? I think a lot of groups have stopped using them because their value is not intuitively obvious and their cost is. But I do think it creates a subtly but significantly better player experience, at only a minor bookkeeping cost to the DM.

The time-saving advantage of not tracking XP on a per-encounter basis is heightened at tables where the DM doesn't balance encounters based on CR. In combination, not tracking per-encounter XP and not using CR to balance encounters lets the DM avoid the entire CR system in the first place. That's a lot of math and record-keeping avoided.

My issue with story based advancement isn’t that players are encouraged not to take risks. It’s that there’s no clear association between an action the player can perform and progress towards leveling up. There’s no sense of agency, of knowledge that you can actively pursue leveling up. You just have to blindly follow the plot and hope the DM gives you a level for doing
so.

I understand your position in principle, I just don’t see how it’s a counter to my argument that by not tying character advancement to specific in-game activity, you remove the agency from character advancement. As a player, I want to feel like my choices have an impact on my character advancement. I want there to be clear ways to pursue that advancement, rather than being forced to simply accept it when it comes.

That's definitely a major style difference between us. As a player I don't want a clear way to actively pursue leveling up distracting me from making IC decisions.

To the extent that I'm letting OOC factors intrude on my sense of immersion, I'd rather prioritize things like table fun (e.g. asking myself whether a possible IC decision is going to increase or decrease the fun of the other players) over consciously thinking about making IC decisions to speed up character advancement.

 

[billd91]

My complaint wasn’t that it’s arbitrary, it was that I as a player have no control over it.

That’s not really true. The Paizo APs are set up so that characters level up at certain parts of the chapter - partway through a larger encounter area/dungeon, after the events in a chapter have played out, etc - generally not just something like hours or sessions played. And that means a group of PCs does have some control - do they focus on advancing their way up the storyline or do they pursue other agendas as well, delaying their advancement along the path and their level advancement?