D&D (2024) D&D Dungeon Master’s Guide (2024)

[AbdulAlhazred]

Gold for XP is an optional rule. Player actions for XP down to the detail of spells cast, potions and spells made, cleric's following their ethos, rogue abilities used, fighters fighting monsters - they are all there in the 2e text.

It has all the same mechanics that you see in 1e and then some.

It awards soft skills - awards for good roleplaying, awards for clever ideas. It adds story awards with examples:

"Rescue the prince."
"Defeat the marauding orcs"
"Cleanse the haunted castle"
"Find the assassin of the late queen"

Just like with Ravenloft's goal is self-evident "Slay the Vampire", many of these are equally self-evident. Because they are not mechanically spelled out in the text of the PHB/DMG does not mean that they are not self-evident when the players sit down at the game table.

It is an invented problem.

Sure, you can import almost any of the conventions of 1e into 2e. However 2e is intended to be run with story based awards, not XP for treasure. XP for monsters it is a bit more ambiguous about, as this generally falls into the ambit of fighters and maybe priests in some cases.

But how can you fail to see that story awards are fundamentally different from treasure based awards? While it may be that GMs spell out some of the former, their very nature changes the structure of the game entirely!

 

[mamba]

Apparently, the DM doesn't decide that either, the rule books establish when and how to place treasure.

has been forever since I took a look at 1e, but I do not recall that. In that case it would also need to establish risk vs reward though, so say what kind of treasure, what types and number of monsters and what difficulty and lethality of traps etc. belong on each dungeon level (or correlate to which char XP since they do not gain levels in sync).

I do not remember it doing so, and I certainly do not remember anyone playing that way (that would be somewhat besides the point however)

I am not saying that it might not have been the tighter loop and that Gygax did not have this in mind, I am just not seeing the game breaking if you do not follow it, so what if you also rely on ability checks etc. and get XP for things other than gold.

Almost no one followed this pretty much right from the start. For the proliferation of D&D it certainly was an advantage that Gygax failed at enforcing that playstyle

 

[mamba]

You know exactly what the risks and rewards are. On dungeon level 1 you will face level one monsters and recover level 1 treasure, it's spelled out clearly in the MM and DMG! The details are left to the DM to draw up, but the exploration rules, schema of rooms, corridors, etc. is clearly delineated in multiple ways, etc

guess I will need to take a look at that, I do not remember that, but then it has been 40+ years

 

[TiQuinn]

But how can you fail to see that story awards are fundamentally different from treasure based awards? While it may be that GMs spell out some of the former, their very nature changes the structure of the game entirely!

It changes the players' motivations particularly when it comes to exploring. It changes the utility of certain skills, items, rules like hirelings, and so forth. But what it doesn't do, as has been suggested, is fundamentally change the role of the DM, and the role of the PCs. The DM still creates the world and the dungeon, and the players act upon that accordingly.

 

[mamba]

That is almost certainly due to a wide range of other changes cuts and areas in the rules that now design against the styles of play once aided by xp for gold and the assorted rules that fell victim to the tyranny of fun. Ironically 5e's defenders will often claim that these kinds of changes were made to support those kinds of adventures as if "you're the gm, you figure it out & make it work" without rules support is somehow empowering those old adventure styles.

it’s not like 1e had any support for them either, if anything it had less. The changes are more along the lines of ‘here are some skills and this is what they help with’ and ‘here are DCs for various difficulties’ etc. of course making it work is left to them DM, that was always the case

It was extremely rare for players to run into an inappropriately scaled dungeon like you are describing for a few reasons. Firstly is the fact that barring stuff like tomb of horrors or dcc funnels where the goals were very different it simply was not fun slaughtering players or designing dungeons that the players effortlessly smash while bored to tears. Secondly is the fact that a GM who did find that fun was likely to find themselves without players fairly quick.

and yet Gary was railing against monty hauls and level 40 characters as early as 1975/6 (reading Playing at the World 2e right now…), so no, it was not that rare, nor was everything a dungeon delve even then

It might not be what he had intended, but that did not stop anyone

 

[tetrasodium]

<Trying desperately to follow what you're trying to illustrate.>


,You're losing me.


I think I follow this "in theory" but it's a phenomenon that I have never experienced. Players get involved in the story because they want to be involved in it. And DM isn't so much telling the story as building it, with the player's active involvement.

Often when you and I speak, I can't understand where you're coming from, because I can't even envision what a table like you are implying would even look like. So I think that I resist your illustrations (assuming that I understand them correctly) on that basis.

Am I right that you are (generally) trying to illustrate a potential worst case scenario (as opposed to, say, your expected 'everyday' experience)? Because I think it makes more sense on that level. But I'm not sure.


I did probably miss that part, because I can't imagine it happening. I mean, don't get me wrong, I expect any game/story that is made by a group of individuals to include side-tangents and unforeseen routes to point B or unexpected solutions to problem Y.

That's a feature, not a flaw.

I think that there are a couple problems here,

1: every single time Crawford says something like "d&d is about letting you tell your story" he's talking about players not GMs

2: At no point have I said anything that hints at Bob being the GM rather than a player. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that Bob is the GM making up an adventure on the fly while ignoring the adventure he himself prepared while citing "mY cHaReCtEr..." while roping his fellow players into the story he showed up to "tell".

3: Often the other players just want to show up & play d&d no matter what the adventure is & when they have no reason to be personally invested in caring that bob is trying to drag them off in search of a grue that did not exist until the GM sighed & started building an adventure on the fly for the story Bob came set to tell through the GM.

4: If you somehow got that mixed up, your claim of feature rather than bug can be discarded.

Thank you for the reply

This is incorrect. The milestone is the goal that must be reached and you have to do stuff to reach it.

If they are doing everything except for "the goal" & only managing to have a session at all because the GM is building stuff on the fly instead of running prepared content that leads towards "the goal", they are doing stuff without working towards "the goal" and without experience points or some other numerical system of tracking progress it very much results in pure milestone leveling being stuck without advancement. Without advancement player frustration eventually points at the GM rather than Bob's endless sidequest chasing.

I am not sure I am following you here. Off quest actions can still receive benefits regardless if you are using milestone or not. I don't see how this needs to differ between XP for gold or XP for monsters or XP for milestones. You just get new / different milestones if needed.

Some of this is undoing your weird fisking & is going to repeat pr rephrase things already said but fisked off as a separate thing to be questioned in isolation... They absolutely could get benefits regardless, but without an immediate feedback leading to an immediate question like "Hey GM, why did we get so little treasure/experience from that?" there is no immediate "well I had to improv the whole thing because you guys are ignoring x y & z along with all the attempts I made to point you back at the adventure instead of whatever bob was chasing so I didn't feel giving more would be reasonable". Without that immediate all eyes on bob there is no reason for Alice Dave Cindy & Ed to tell Bob how they already have an adventure & remind him of all the in game/personal reasons they want to do it more than the story Bob came wanting to "tell"

I can't follow you here. I am having real hard time trying to understand what you are saying / suggesting. What does Bob's idea have to do with anything? Why can't the DM or the player's say no to Bob? What does Bob's tangent having anything to do with level advancement at all? I am really not understanding the argument you are trying to make.

The GM absolutely could say no to Bob... -BUT- the GM doesn't want to just slam the door & make it look like they are railroading their players. The other players likewise absolutely could say no to Bob -BUT- once again... frequently they just want to show up & play dnd no matter what the adventure is & Bob's subverting of the adventure to go off as ome of his sidekicks on his Bob's llatest sidequest is as good as anything else when they themselves have no personal reason to care what adventure they go off doing.

Ok, I think I might understand what you are saying here, but this seems like quite a corner case. Regardless there are many ways to reward or, if you are so inclined, punish players / groups that go off task. This is true whether you are using milestone leveling or not. So, here are some suggestions for treatment of Bob's tangent in a milestone campaign:

1. (punitive): give nothing for the side quest to keep them focused on the prepared story. This is, IMO, one of the worst choices. It can / could lead to some of the issues you describe.
2. (reward) side quest results in gold / treasure. This could be the reward straight up (my PCs always find it rewarding to get treasure!) or it could also include key clues or items needed to help complete the main quest.
3. (reward) information. A classic reward is to get information that is important to the main quest and / or nudge them back to the main quest. Again, my PCs are always looking for more information to make solving a task easier, so this is good reward for them
4. (reward) milestone achievement. Depending on the depth and length of the side quest it can generate its own milestone(s) and leveling possibilities.

We run a pretty sandbox campaign (we don't use published adventures and I mostly DM on the fly) and I make use of options 2-4 quite a bit. I can't say for sure that it works for other groups, but it keeps my players happy and I think it should for many groups.

That bold bit is not true and more than one of your "suggestions" demonstrates that 100%.

1. if the players are getting experience regularly and get what they feel is bad experience doing Bob's sidequest the GM built on the fly they immediately notice that they get less than expected or nothing. With milestone progression they regularly get nothing anyways & don't bring it up until "hey gm, it's been a while" unless you are awarding milestone levels like every session or so.
2. I feel like I've covered this more than once today. This is the edition that expects no gold & treasure with no real needs to spend it on if it is gained. Getting less than players feel they need or expect while going off on Bob's side quest that the GM built on the fly lacks any weight to be immediately concerned about when using milestone leveling in such an edition. Beyond that... How do you expect rewarding players for going off on bob's quest to subvert.
3. Reward? Why would the players be rewarded for going off on Bob's little sidequest instead of a quest that might lead towards the next milestone goal?
4. This ignores the fact that Bob doesn't care because he came to the table with a specific story he wanted to "tell" and often the rest of the group just wants to play dnd without really caring what adventuring they go off doing. Also I was talking about why milestones invite problems that are actively hindered by using some quantifiable scale of progression like exp or gold for exp. The ones I'm familiar with are just milestone awarded=+1 level... what milestone system are you referencing (maybe a book and page number?) where players track a pool of "milestone achievements" till they bank enough to level? Why would rewarding the players for going off on bob's endless sidequests while the world hypothetically burns accomplish anything of note?

 

[tetrasodium]

it’s not like 1e had any support for them either, if anything it had less. The changes are more along the lines of ‘here are some skills and this is what they help with’ and ‘here are DCs for various difficulties’ etc. of course making it work is left to them DM, that was always the case

2e had some... so did 3.x.... I might not be an expert on 4e, but I seem to recall it being fairly clear about expecting things like regular gear improvements meaningful carrying capacities & so on.

 

[dave2008]

I think that there are a couple problems here,

1: every single time Crawford says something like "d&d is about letting you tell your story" he's talking about players not GMs

2: At no point have I said anything that hints at Bob being the GM rather than a player. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that Bob is the GM making up an adventure on the fly while ignoring the adventure he himself prepared while citing "mY cHaReCtEr..." while roping his fellow players into the story he showed up to "tell".

3: Often the other players just want to show up & play d&d no matter what the adventure is & when they have no reason to be personally invested in caring that bob is trying to drag them off in search of a grue that did not exist until the GM sighed & started building an adventure on the fly for the story Bob came set to tell through the GM.

4: If you somehow got that mixed up, your claim of feature rather than bug can be discarded.


If they are doing everything except for "the goal" & only managing to have a session at all because the GM is building stuff on the fly instead of running prepared content that leads towards "the goal", they are doing stuff without working towards "the goal" and without experience points or some other numerical system of tracking progress it very much results in pure milestone leveling being stuck without advancement. Without advancement player frustration eventually points at the GM rather than Bob's endless sidequest chasing.

Some of this is undoing your weird fisking & is going to repeat pr rephrase things already said but fisked off as a separate thing to be questioned in isolation... They absolutely could get benefits regardless, but without an immediate feedback leading to an immediate question like "Hey GM, why did we get so little treasure/experience from that?" there is no immediate "well I had to improv the whole thing because you guys are ignoring x y & z along with all the attempts I made to point you back at the adventure instead of whatever bob was chasing so I didn't feel giving more would be reasonable". Without that immediate all eyes on bob there is no reason for Alice Dave Cindy & Ed to tell Bob how they already have an adventure & remind him of all the in game/personal reasons they want to do it more than the story Bob came wanting to "tell"

The GM absolutely could say no to Bob... -BUT- the GM doesn't want to just slam the door & make it look like they are railroading their players. The other players likewise absolutely could say no to Bob -BUT- once again... frequently they just want to show up & play dnd no matter what the adventure is & Bob's subverting of the adventure to go off as ome of his sidekicks on his Bob's llatest sidequest is as good as anything else when they themselves have no personal reason to care what adventure they go off doing.

That bold bit is not true and more than one of your "suggestions" demonstrates that 100%.

1. if the players are getting experience regularly and get what they feel is bad experience doing Bob's sidequest the GM built on the fly they immediately notice that they get less than expected or nothing. With milestone progression they regularly get nothing anyways & don't bring it up until "hey gm, it's been a while" unless you are awarding milestone levels like every session or so.
2. I feel like I've covered this more than once today. This is the edition that expects no gold & treasure with no real needs to spend it on if it is gained. Getting less than players feel they need or expect while going off on Bob's side quest that the GM built on the fly lacks any weight to be immediately concerned about when using milestone leveling in such an edition. Beyond that... How do you expect rewarding players for going off on bob's quest to subvert.
3. Reward? Why would the players be rewarded for going off on Bob's little sidequest instead of a quest that might lead towards the next milestone goal?
4. This ignores the fact that Bob doesn't care because he came to the table with a specific story he wanted to "tell" and often the rest of the group just wants to play dnd without really caring what adventuring they go off doing. Also I was talking about why milestones invite problems that are actively hindered by using some quantifiable scale of progression like exp or gold for exp. The ones I'm familiar with are just milestone awarded=+1 level... what milestone system are you referencing (maybe a book and page number?) where players track a pool of "milestone achievements" till they bank enough to level? Why would rewarding the players for going off on bob's endless sidequests while the world hypothetically burns accomplish anything of note?

I am sorry i just can't follow your logic. Like I don't really understand what you're writing. When I do think I understand, it is so vastly different from my experience I assume I didn't really understand. Sorry, I am not getting it. I will just say milestone leveling works for my group and our whole campaign is one tangent after another!

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I think that there are a couple problems here,

1: every single time Crawford says something like "d&d is about letting you tell your story" he's talking about players not GMs

How do you know what's going on in Crawford's head? I'm pretty sure that he's talking about both players and DMs.

2: At no point have I said anything that hints at Bob being the GM rather than a player. I have no idea how you came to the conclusion that Bob is the GM making up an adventure on the fly while ignoring the adventure he himself prepared while citing "mY cHaReCtEr..." while roping his fellow players into the story he showed up to "tell".

I have no idea how you got the impression that I thought you were saying that Bob was a DM. I thought you were saying that Bob was creating "his own story" contrary to the DM's wishes. When done poorly, that could be a PiTA for a DM, but "normally" IME, it's simply a tangent that Bob creates, that may lead to fun at the table, but that if the DM and/or the other players are not on board for, Bob will come around to join the others following the plot of the game.

3: Often the other players just want to show up & play d&d no matter what the adventure is & when they have no reason to be personally invested in caring that bob is trying to drag them off in search of a grue that did not exist until the GM sighed & started building an adventure on the fly for the story Bob came set to tell through the GM.

Again, sure, if Bob is some kind of problem player. Otherwise, he's simply joining in with a collaboration that may or may not lead where he intends when he suggested a side-tangent. And usually, IME, if that side-tangent isn't a logical extension of the "main story" then no one will go along with it, and it will quickly go away. A problem that fixes itself when everyone is playing the game without being a jerk.

As long as Bob's side-adventure is fun for the other players and the DM, then it really doesn't matter. And if it isn't, it doesn't need to be a "no" to Bob, exactly, it's just that his side-quest just quickly leads back to the main story. And Bob would be on board with that, or they're not playing nice with others.

4: If you somehow got that mixed up, your claim of feature rather than bug can be discarded.

Sorry, what? I don't think that I mixed anything up.

If they are doing everything except for "the goal" & only managing to have a session at all because the GM is building stuff on the fly instead of running prepared content that leads towards "the goal", they are doing stuff without working towards "the goal" and without experience points or some other numerical system of tracking progress it very much results in pure milestone leveling being stuck without advancement. Without advancement player frustration eventually points at the GM rather than Bob's endless sidequest chasing.

Man, this Bob guy sure is a jerk. Maybe you should kick him out. (I'm mostly kidding, but he really seems like a problem!)

But I still don't see the theory part of the problem - if the DM is going to follow Bob's side-quest, (and they would only do it, IMO, if it seemed like an interesting thing that other players were on board for) then that side-quest would include a conclusion, at which point, if it's suitable, it would be its own milestone.

IMO, The only important difference between Milestone leveling and "math XP" is whether you bother nickel-and-diming the points, grinding every goblin, or reward people for doing cool things in the fiction. YMMV.

 

[FitzTheRuke]

I am sorry i just can't follow your logic. Like I don't really understand what your writing. When I do think I understand, it is so vastly different from my experience I assume I didn't really understand. Sorry, I am not getting it. I will just say milestone leveling works for my group and our whole campaign is one tangent after another!

This is how I feel too, and I'm really trying to engage with as much patience, consideration, and honesty as I can.