Let's Talk About Metacurrency

[VHawkwinter]

Nothing at all wrong with downtime training and study going hand in hand with xp.

I suppose, but I'm not sure you need to restrict it further with XP when downtime, and access to training materials / teachers, can also be restricted. Why do you still need XP for that? Or do you mean some other way?

where xp really do become meta is if they become a spendable currency such as 3.xe D&D had them. That IMO was awful design.

Spending it on permanent magic items isnt the best, but It's better than having XP spent as your meta currency for rerolls like Buffy (or old SW IIRC).

 

[Maxperson]

Spending it on permanent magic items isnt the best, but It's better than having XP spent as your meta currency for rerolls like Buffy (or old SW IIRC).

3e kinda had that as well. There were several spells that had an XP cost to accomplish the spell effect.

 

[pemerton]

Rolemaster has a simulationist, or at least quasi-simulationist, approach to XP.

But D&D doesn't, in any of its versions.

 

[aramis erak]

Not necessarily.

They're an abstraction, sure, but an abstraction of something very real in the fiction: becoming better at what you do as you continue to do it.

The concept does work much better if one has training-to-level-up rules in place, though, as at that point it maps nicely to almost any repeated training regime in real life. You learn the theory and method in class, go out into the field (or workplace) and put that into practice, then when you've mastered that you come back to the class for the next round of theory and method. I've done this for both work (sales training) and hobby (sailing training when young).

XP are simply an abstraction of your progress in mastering the most recent round of theory-and-method training.

D&D XP raise the same things (based upon your class) no matter what you earn them from. that makes them meta. The gain is immaterial of what it's from. Johnny Runnaway, Morale 3 antihero fighter, gets all his XP from avoiding encounters... but still gains an improvement to hit and more hit points from his XP. Bobby Bellicose gains his XP from actually fighting... but, being a fighter of the same level as johnny, gets exactly the same gains. All very meta.

Likewise, not all AD&D XP are from

Many games XP (or EP, AP, CIP, additional CP, etc.) are even more thoroughly meta - What you choose to raise need not have any relationship to what you've used. Many more, using class and level, may as well be D&D for experience purposes.

GURPS and Hero both allow you to spend the additional Character Points on whatever... buying off disads, increasing skills known (even if unusued)... but many GMs require narrative support. Only if the GM limits advancement to that which has narrative support is it not meta — but the rules assume the meta mode.

Traveller T4 "Marc Miller's Traveller" - the award of XP is meta - even tho' the XP can only be used to raise a skill you've used in session - because it's for playing the session and/or good roleplay.
The few games where Experience is purely abstraction and not meta tie it to used ability.

• BRP — including RuneQuest — the experience tick is for using the skill. pure abstraction.
  • Note that some tie to session, others to adventure, others to character months,
• Burning Wheel (& BE, MG, TB) — Experience ticks are tied to specific abilities and earned by use of those abilities.
• MegaTraveller — Experience is tracked to the specific skill based upon use thereof
• Classic Traveller — specific in character training regimens are needed, and are considerably less effective than Character Generation at adding skills over time.

I've a dozen more less well known ones that do likewise.
Of several hundreds I've read/run.
About half a dozen lack any advancement at all... Yes, there are games with no provisions for character change.

 

[aramis erak]

Rolemaster has a simulationist, or at least quasi-simulationist, approach to XP.

But D&D doesn't, in any of its versions.

Not really. It has a requirement that you mark what you're studying at the start of a level... (I'm looking at ChL/CaL 1989 printing)... but there's no requirement that any of your XP be earned for use of those skills.

 

[Lanefan]

I suppose, but I'm not sure you need to restrict it further with XP when downtime, and access to training materials / teachers, can also be restricted. Why do you still need XP for that? Or do you mean some other way?

The xp tell you when you need to train, after which you have to at some point take some downtime and go do that training before you can advance much further.

As with many things, 1e had the right idea then butchered the execution of said idea.

Spending it on permanent magic items isnt the best, but It's better than having XP spent as your meta currency for rerolls like Buffy (or old SW IIRC).

Yeah, I wouldn't be a fan of that either.

 

[Lanefan]

D&D XP raise the same things (based upon your class) no matter what you earn them from. that makes them meta. The gain is immaterial of what it's from. Johnny Runnaway, Morale 3 antihero fighter, gets all his XP from avoiding encounters... but still gains an improvement to hit and more hit points from his XP. Bobby Bellicose gains his XP from actually fighting... but, being a fighter of the same level as johnny, gets exactly the same gains. All very meta.

In both cases they are getting better at what they do through doing more of it, which is what's being abstracted by the xp system. In WotC-era D&D they'd each likely choose feats and augment skills as they advance - with said advancement gated behind xp - to support their approach: Johnny would look to improve his stealth, speed, and diplomacy while Bobby would want to improve his techniques and methods of bending people's noses into their faces.

This, yet again, is where in-fiction training comes in handy. Even though Johnny might prefer to avoid encounters, when he shows up at the mercenaries' guild for Fighter training they're gonna teach him, among other things, how to hit and dodge better whether he likes it or not.

 

[aramis erak]

In both cases they are getting better at what they do through doing more of it, which is what's being abstracted by the xp system. In WotC-era D&D they'd each likely choose feats and augment skills as they advance - with said advancement gated behind xp - to support their approach: Johnny would look to improve his stealth, speed, and diplomacy while Bobby would want to improve his techniques and methods of bending people's noses into their faces.

This, yet again, is where in-fiction training comes in handy. Even though Johnny might prefer to avoid encounters, when he shows up at the mercenaries' guild for Fighter training they're gonna teach him, among other things, how to hit and dodge better whether he likes it or not.

Except that training in AD&D is separate and required after acruing the XP. (Not that most play it that way.)

 

[Maxperson]

D&D XP raise the same things (based upon your class) no matter what you earn them from. that makes them meta. The gain is immaterial of what it's from. Johnny Runnaway, Morale 3 antihero fighter, gets all his XP from avoiding encounters... but still gains an improvement to hit and more hit points from his XP. Bobby Bellicose gains his XP from actually fighting... but, being a fighter of the same level as johnny, gets exactly the same gains. All very meta.

That makes it abstract, but not entirely meta. Whether it's from avoiding encounters, fighting, or doing fighter class stuff, it still represents experience and improvement from what you are doing in the fiction.

It's not the best way to simulate improvement, but is still representative. If it's representative of advancement, then XP isn't entirely meta.

 

[Maxperson]

Except that training in AD&D is separate and required after acruing the XP. (Not that most play it that way.)

Yes, if you use the training rules, that makes the XP entirely meta as it's not what you are doing to earn the XP that is advancing you. It's the training you are paying gold for AFTER you've gotten the XP.