D&D General Experience Matters - The benefits of XP

[Shiroiken]

I generally prefer advancement granted at set intervals, but this does bring up a valid point; if what you need to do to advance isn't telegraphed, it may lead to a sense of it not being earned, or, worse, subject to the arbitrary whims of the DM (well, more arbitrary than usual, at least).

So if I continue this trend, I think, for the future, I need to let the players know exactly what they need to accomplish in order to advance.

This is why I point out my customized XP system during session 0. I give out combat xp, social xp, and exploration xp, so the players know they can gain advancement from any kind of encounter. Additionally, I occasionally have quest xp for completing adventures, since many times the characters have the option to simply quit the adventure whenever they like; quest xp encourages them to see it through to the end.

 

[Oofta]

I don't particularly want to force any playstyle on anyone, even if I understand why people do. In addition, I don't want to grant XP for just killing things. So then it always became "grant XP for overcoming obstacles. But how much XP? Do you grant XP for organizing a town militia? Having a session where you help plan the revolution?

I found I was just handing out XP because I wanted people to level so I could tell different stories at a different scale.

So I ditched XP and now just ask people how quickly they want to advance in our session 0 and we use that as a rough guideline.

 

[Clint_L]

As DM I just have the party level up when it makes sense in the story. Nobody has asked for individual EXP.; I don't think most could be arsed to track it, though if all the players wanted to do it I wouldn't care. As a player I have no preference; whatever the group consensus is. It's not a thing I feel super passionate about; there are pros and cons to each style.

Milestone wouldn't work in my home game, though, because they are at the extreme end of sandbox design. So I never really know what the party is going to do far enough in advance to plan levelling around it. But I use it in my beginner campaigns, because they are a set number of games so I can just schedule the level-ups according to what game they are on.

 

[payn]

The main reason I prefer XP is that it is an objective measurement of my character’s progress.

I can know objectively that defeating 10 skeletons grants me X amount of XP. I can make objective choices for what I need to accomplish to advance my character.

It’s not up to the whims of the DM and it’s not up to if I role-played in-character to an arbitrarily determined expectation. XP is numbers on the sheet and acts as a kind of score sheet for how well I am playing.

That’s not to say one can’t have story based XP.

As mentioned, milestone xp is not necessarily synonymous with story based xp. You can have objective milestones that grant xp/level ups. They just need to be based on milestones that are player known and understood.

If everyone at the table knows what milestones are needed to level, they can make objective and informed choices in a manner that is possible with XP.

I've actually moved away from XP for all these reasons. I dont want the players thinking about how many skeletons they killed and how many they need to kill to level up. I dont want the players to pick X many locks, or talk to Y many people to level up. I dont want the players to think going left will not lead to the end, but to a tunnel of more XP, so the end is met with a new level.

I know being down on metagaming is totally uncool these days, but I prefer a much more organic experience. I want the players to explore the game by interest of the character instead of interest in the character's numbers. Go where the interest is, not where the right number of X to level is. The game has only improved since moving to milestone for me. Which, yes, is also when the PCs engage the game and advance the plot enough. Also, no, they do not know when this will happen. They engage the game to make it happen. I know, I'm a total jerk, but I can live with it.

 

[Micah Sweet]

Players tend to do what they are incentivized to do. If the DM gives XP for combat, they players will tend to engage in combat. If the DM gives XP for staying on the plot, they'll tend to stay on the plot. If the DM gives milestone XP for achieving specific goals, then they'll tend get after those goals. (Perhaps those goals are player-generated, too.) Not every player, not every time, but the tendency is there because it is rewarded.

If the group's method for character advancement is "level up whenever the DM feels like it," which is what many people call "milestone XP" (even though it's not defined that way in the rules), what is being incentivized here? Nothing, really. Except pestering the DM periodically to level up, I suppose.

That last thing is definitely incentivised. My players ask about level up at the end of every session, no matter how we played or what happened. I've been wanting to go back to XP for a while.

 

[Lanefan]

I've actually moved away from XP for all these reasons. I dont want the players thinking about how many skeletons they killed and how many they need to kill to level up. I dont want the players to pick X many locks, or talk to Y many people to level up. I dont want the players to think going left will not lead to the end, but to a tunnel of more XP, so the end is met with a new level.

I know being down on metagaming is totally uncool these days, but I prefer a much more organic experience. I want the players to explore the game by interest of the character instead of interest in the character's numbers. Go where the interest is, not where the right number of X to level is. The game has only improved since moving to milestone for me. Which, yes, is also when the PCs engage the game and advance the plot enough. Also, no, they do not know when this will happen. They engage the game to make it happen. I know, I'm a total jerk, but I can live with it.

I disagree with just about all of your rationale but somehow still find myself arriving at the same (bolded) conclusion.

They're going to get xp through exploring the world and dealing with the challenges it throws at them. What I specifically and intentionally want, however, is a setup where those characters who do things and take risks are rewarded more than those who do not, and in a more concrete and measurable way than just DM fiat.

I don't care if characters in the same party are of different levels. That's just not a consideration, particularly seeing as my game has bespoke progression tables for each class and also includes things like level-draining undead.

As for "going where the right number of xp to level is", with one rare exception this doesn't come up as advancement in my game is very slow anyway. They just go where the adventure is (and the treasure, of course!). The rare exception is when a character is just a very few xp away from bumping, and in the fiction I've no real problem with the character feeling "that close" to needing to train again and going out to get those last few xp. (I once had a character get stuck for a while at 119,998 xp when he needed 120,001 to bump - where was a Goblin when I needed one!)

I also don't give out xp after every encounter or even after every session, unless I know someone's on the cusp of bumping. I give them out in batches instead, every half-dozen sessons or so usually, or at the end of any adventure just to close the books on it. (particularly if I know there's about to be some character turnover while in town)

 

[abirdcall]

I stuck with XP in 5e for a while.

I was giving out chunks of XP for completing objectives and at some point I realized I was doing milestone levelling with extra steps so I did away with the XP.

I don't care how the party completes their objectives as long as they do.

Completing quests is one measure of success that gets rewarded with levels, the other main reward is treasure.

Typically if the party does really well on a quest they can find more of the treasure. If they're barely able to survive they don't have the time or ability to find all the treasure.

I don't think I would be into a game where everyone levels up regardless of whether they succeeded or failed at their quest.

 

[payn]

I disagree with just about all of your rationale but somehow still find myself arriving at the same (bolded) conclusion.

They're going to get xp through exploring the world and dealing with the challenges it throws at them. What I specifically and intentionally want, however, is a setup where those characters who do things and take risks are rewarded more than those who do not, and in a more concrete and measurable way than just DM fiat.

I don't care if characters in the same party are of different levels. That's just not a consideration, particularly seeing as my game has bespoke progression tables for each class and also includes things like level-draining undead.

As for "going where the right number of xp to level is", with one rare exception this doesn't come up as advancement in my game is very slow anyway. They just go where the adventure is (and the treasure, of course!). The rare exception is when a character is just a very few xp away from bumping, and in the fiction I've no real problem with the character feeling "that close" to needing to train again and going out to get those last few xp. (I once had a character get stuck for a while at 119,998 xp when he needed 120,001 to bump - where was a Goblin when I needed one!)

I also don't give out xp after every encounter or even after every session, unless I know someone's on the cusp of bumping. I give them out in batches instead, every half-dozen sessons or so usually, or at the end of any adventure just to close the books on it. (particularly if I know there's about to be some character turnover while in town)

Yeah we've discussed this before. I think you have an extremely old school style, which is fine, but its very out of fashion. I prefer a balanced system where PCs are closer in ability and power, and that adventure construction makes sense. I prefer point buy and/or stat arrays, CR systems that are more accurate, and dont see XP earning as some kind of lure to get players to do dangerous things. I especially, dont want competition amongst the players to earn XP over each other. The two of us are on opposite ends of the spectrum on this.

The OP, however, should certainly pick your brain. Lanefan is definitely different than 95% of posters here.

 

[DEFCON 1]

What I specifically and intentionally want, however, is a setup where those characters who do things and take risks are rewarded more than those who do not, and in a more concrete and measurable way than just DM fiat.

As @payn states in the post above this one... your older style works in this way for you because apparently you need it to work in this way, LOL. You actually have players who choose not to take risks. And if that's the case, and it is something you need to disincentivize... not giving those players XP is a great way to do it.

But for many of the rest of us... this "hanging back" and avoiding risk from some players is not something we might often experience. Maybe its because our gameplay does not run the risk of TPKs as much as your older style does, or that everybody just enjoys taking risks equally, who knows? But our games are just not on the same tightrope yours are-- where you threaten your player's characters imminent destruction all the time, and get them to go along with it by giving them the bennies of XP.

Perfectly valid way to play, but just a way that many of us have moved away from over the years. Like at my table, we play because we enjoy the experience of playing, not because we are going to get a reward for doing so. I guess you could say our game's "experience" is actually going to the players and not their characters, LOL.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I only ever actually ran a game with XP once and that experience (heh) was enough to decide to never do it again.

For one, every session had to end early for me to tabulate all the XP. Oh, I started out with an XP budget for everything I had planned, but then the players did other things, ran into different encounters than I planned, accomplished things I didn't expect and so that plan when out the window. So instead we just sat around the table waiting for me to do math and guessing instead of doing something fun like playing more or making a run to the seven eleven at 1am.

And the fact that my group was creative and unpredictable meant the XP they then earned made them level unpredictably. They would bypass a chunk of something and then not be ready for what came next or they would be super extra and then rofl-stomp everything. Keep in mind this was before I discovered that CR is basically a Secret Test of DM character where you pass by learning not to use it.

Then they started to cotton on to the fact that sometimes their cleverness screwed them out of XP (because based on how the 3e DMG put it, they could get XP for finding another way to solve an encounter gave XP, but if they never run into that encounter because they went around Robin Hood's barn to get to the thing it was leading to? Nope.) and started arguing among each other to be less clever and act less in character so they wouldn't die.

This and seeing how XP was used in other campaigns gave me a nasty 'operant conditioning' taste in my mouth where it felt like I was expected to train my players with XP like a scientist trains a dog with treats and... these people are my friends; I don't want to feel that way about them.

Finally, I was rereading the DMG and realized that you don't level as soon as you ding, you level when the DM says you can spend XP to level. So I was like 'why am I doing all this work when I'm supposed to say when to level in the first place?'.

So I stopped.