D&D General Experience Matters - The benefits of XP

[payn]

I disagree with that last bit; there's certainly railroading going on, only as everyone has agreed to riding said rails it's not a negative thing.

If it denies me the ability to make fictionally-reasonable choices for my character (which could include talking the party into going way off the ranch) it's a railroad. Whether or not I've meta-agreed not to make such choices doesn't change this.

Which, of course, doesn't matter because as soon as you make a choice as a player you have self-railroaded lol.

 

[Lanefan]

FFS, I dont even know how you play the game.

Not sure what you mean here. The goal of the moment might be to clear out the Giant's lair, so that's what the party does, but the greater goal might not yet become apparent until you've cleared out the Giants, found their link to the neighbouring Barony, and dealt with the corrupt Baron; because only then does it become clear that the real goal is to find out what corrupted the Baron and deal with that.

All of which assumes the players/PCs are, and stay, on board with this story arc; they always have the freedom to decide to follow other paths and also have the freedom to cycle characters in and out when it makes fictional sense. Individual and non-goal-related xp allows these freedoms.

 

[Lanefan]

Which, of course, doesn't matter because as soon as you make a choice as a player you have self-railroaded lol.

Not if that choice can be changed later, I haven't.

Once I've declared an immediate action "I swing at the Knight" or "I climb the wall" or "I pick the stall vendor's pocket" then I'm committed to it, yes; but at the more macro level of making plans and setting goals there's always time for change.

 

[iserith]

I disagree with that last bit; there's certainly railroading going on, only as everyone has agreed to riding said rails it's not a negative thing.

If it denies me the ability to make fictionally-reasonable choices for my character (which could include talking the party into going way off the ranch) it's a railroad. Whether or not I've meta-agreed not to make such choices doesn't change this.

Railroading literally means being coerced or tricked into doing something. That can't happen if you freely agree to it. You probably think of everything in terms of a sandbox. That's not how every game is designed. Pick the XP system that fits the game being played.

 

[Cruentus]

Railroading literally means being coerced or tricked into doing something. That can't happen if you freely agree to it. You probably think of everything in terms of a sandbox. That's not how every game is designed. Pick the XP system that fits the game being played.

To me, there is a difference between older school "adventures", which were usually coded to a narrow level range, and modern "adventure paths" where one goes from level 1-15 or whatever. I think those would likely require different XP approaches. And those would all be discussed at either the beginning of the campaign or adventure, or whatnot (a one-shot game probably doesn't need XP).

I ran 5e "Milestone" experience for my last 5e campaign (which lasted a year and a half, and we got to 6th level). I'm doing XP for Gold/Exploration/RP using OSE Advanced in a sandbox style Greyhawk game now. Its a totally different animal in terms of how the game is progressing, and what the expectations for leveling are.

In the OSE game, they know how to gain XP, and how much they need for level. They are always walking into more dangerous situations that they might not be able to manage.

In the Milestone (5e) game, they gained experience, but didn't know when they would level (I tried to keep it commensurate with what the campaign/encounters needed). So while it was a "sandbox", and players could choose to go wherever they wanted, the encounter requirements and enemies sort of dictated how quickly they gained levels.

I prefer individual XP awards for gold, exploration, and generally being clever.

 

[kigmatzomat]

I get why adventure paths are milestone.

But philosophically, Milestone are "Destiny" and experience is "free will".

Perseus kills Medusa as the gods desired? Level up.

Odysseus escapes Polyphemus? Wander the ocean failing to get home, no levels for you.

From a more contemporary and less extreme scenario, if the shortlings are asked to carry the One Thing to destroy it in Mount Boom while the army makes a distraction, but the shortlings get scared and run away, have to escape the Thing Wraths and dodge a dragon and a giant spider before realizing how bad the world will get if the monsters win and turn back....how does Milestone handle that?

Well, they didnt progress their "goal", it was all a player-driven sideshow.

Ok, so maybe you let players declare their goal (good milestone gm, have a cookie) and their goal was "escape to with the elves"....except now they are going back after abandoning that goal.

But in all cases it's absolutely Experience.

My group is much more sandbox. They may think two disconnected plots are part of a bigger whole and go on a tangent. Or they may decide the clues point them somewhere completely different. And maybe they just reject a mission entirely.

As a player, I dislike milestone. I want a sandbox, even if there is an overarching plot. Milestone creates a constraint of not deviating off the script, even if it makes more sense, because it will "punish" the other players by delaying leveling. It is an anti-motivation for proposing a something materially different from the obvious path.

And let's be clear, a lot of players seriously enjoy leveling, deriving a ton of satisfaction from that. Screwing that up for them is like them rushing past the social encounters I like.

Could be because none of the milestone GMs have ever announced what the milestone objectives were.

 

[Clint_L]

I've played with a zillion different ways of gaining exp and levelling...and I have to confess that as hard as I try, I cannot come up with a preference. Honestly, I don't think any of them really felt that different. Back in the olden days progression was much slower, but that was by design and not a function of the experience point system used (i.e. you could use the same system and just dish out experience like candy if you wanted...and plenty of groups did). I do remember obsessing over my experience points when I was getting close to a level up, but on the other hand I still know when a level-up is likely happening soon and start thinking about my choices.

So I'm not sure, from my own anecdotal experience, whether these are really as meaningful differences as we might think (I think that is probably true of a lot of the stuff we discuss, TBH...not that I still don't like discussing it).

 

[Clint_L]

Railroading literally means being coerced or tricked into doing something.

Not in games. In the context of games, being on a rail just means that the plot is largely pre-determined. It's not necessarily bad, it's just descriptive. The Last of Us, for example, is very much on a rail but is an acclaimed video game.

 

[iserith]

Not in games. In the context of games, being on a rail just means that the plot is largely pre-determined. It's not necessarily bad, it's just descriptive. The Last of Us, for example, is very much on a rail but is an acclaimed video game.

And that is where people start to apply it so broadly it loses all meaning to the point of some really ridiculous definitions that were recently thrown around in another thread. It's not a rail - it's a plot. It's railroading - which is by definition bad - when the players are seemingly offered a false choice to follow the plot or not follow the plot and their "choice" leads them always back to the plot. If instead I say, this adventure involves a specific plot, the game we're playing involves following said plot, you get XP or levels by staying on it (milestone XP or story-based advancement, respectively), and you agree, then there's no railroading going on where following the plot is concerned.

 

[Vaalingrade]

It is really weird seeing experience both touted as 'free will' but also a tool for operant conditioning.