D&D General An alternative to XP

[Charlaquin]

Even in tight-knit continuing parties or single-party games there'll frequently be times when one or more characters get xp while one or more others don't.

Not in my experience (heh).

A thief or ranger, for example, would get xp for taking the risks involved in scouting ahead alone but nobody else would as nobody else did the scouting.

That’s if the party has a ranger or rogue (or other sneaky character), the group is willing to engage in party-splitting, and the scout character is willing to take XP-worthy risks while ahead of the party. Again, not really a common occurrence in my experience of the typical way modern D&D is played - though admittedly not unheard of.

A PC who happens to sleep through a combat* wouldn't get any xp for it. And so on; boiling down to if you aren't involved in doing something you don't get xp for it.

* - yes, this happens more often than one might expect; particularly if the combat is short and-or can be easily dealt with just by those PCs on watch.

I’ve never seen this happen in my life, but it would be hilarious.

 

[Lanefan]

That’s if the party has a ranger or rogue (or other sneaky character),

Though I've seen it done, IMO it'd be unwise of a party not to have at least one such character in its lineup.

the group is willing to engage in party-splitting,

There seems little sense in asking the clanky Fighter or the clumsy Wizard to be stealthy; and information is valuable. Again, it'd be an unwise party that didn't use its stealth resources as info-gatherers and scouts when doing so makes sense.

and the scout character is willing to take XP-worthy risks while ahead of the party.

The "xp-worthy risk" lies in the very fact of being alone, without available backup, in a potentially dangerous place. Even if you-as-DM know it's safe the PC in the fiction doesn't; thus in the PC's eyes she's taking a risk and - one would think - she would earn some xp for that.

I should note here that I view xp as being an in-setting (though abstracted, of course) measure of the PCs' on-the-job learning and experience; by doing what they do they slowly get better at what they do.

Again, not really a common occurrence in my experience of the typical way modern D&D is played - though admittedly not unheard of.

You're not exactly selling me on "modern D&D" here...

 

[Yaarel]

CR is a notoriously loosey-goosey system. The dirty little secret is, combat XP is just as arbitrary as non-combat XP.

If the xp system itself is loosy-goosy, then its granularity is pointless. (No pun intended.) It becomes farcical to microcount meaningless numbers.

For this reason too, it becomes more accurate to use a simpler number, counting the encounter as a whole, and deciding if it turned out to be easy, standard, or hard.


I agree the creature rating system in the DMs Guide is inconsistent. (And the official monsters dont even use it! I actually the CR on a Business Card method that deconstructs the official monsters.) But it doesnt matter. It is good enough for the ballpark of a level-appropriate encounter. Whether the encounter turns out to be easy or hard is evaluated after the encounter is over - regardless of whatever its creature rating and experience points say it is "supposed" to be. The cr and xp dont matter, except to prepare an encounter. But its actual difficulty will be whatever it will be.

 

[DND_Reborn]

That is straight out of the 1e DMG. Not its finest advice, but it is in there.

Citation please. I looked for it, didn't find it.

Mid-adventure training has caused the generation of numerous replacement characters in my game.

Then you are the anomaly IME, not the norm.

Why? You can adventure without leveling, so if you are pulling a PC out of the adventure to level you are sort of metagaming IMO because their only reason to train is to gain a new level...

So, like I said, IME we only pulled PCs and introduced new ones if it was pertinent to the story.

 

[Ovinomancer]

I don’t think any of the things you listed here as benefits of counting encounters can’t also be said of XP. Or, rather, I don’t think these are benefits of either reward system, they’re benefits of deciding what reward to give after the encounter is over instead of deciding in advance when designing it. There’s no reason you couldn’t do that with XP, and using XP only provides more granularity of how much to award after the fact.

Only if lethal combat is what you award XP for.

[image snipped]
CR is a notoriously loosey-goosey system. The dirty little secret is, combat XP is just as arbitrary as non-combat XP. Sure, there’s a bit of math that allows you to more reliably eyeball how likely a combat encounter is to kill the PCs, but eyeballing is really all it is. And most DMs I hear from ignore CR anyway. If you trust yourself as a DM to eyeball combat encounter difficulty, why not trust yourself enough to eyeball non-combat encounter difficulty?

That feeling of “realness” is purely illusory. You’re right that most DMs undervalue non-combat challenges, but I think trying not to do that is a much more direct solution to that issue than not using XP.

Out of combat XP is more loosey goosey. No matter how many Orcs I fight, I get the same XP per orc. This is fixed. Sure, the number of orcs present in an encounter can be variable, but there are clear guidelines on how what range of orcs for what effect works -- I'm still fighting discreet orc units with assigned XP.

No, for out of combat, the direction is that the GM can determine, if they want, that something can earn XP. And that you can use one of the encounter bands as a guide for how much to award. This is waaaay more loose.

 

[Oofta]

I don’t mean to suggest that using XP is factually superior. It is, however, factually true that human brains absolutely love watching progress bars fill up.

I think you misunderstand. What I’m saying is deeply viscerally satisfying is seeing a visual indicator of progression advance as a result of your actions. That’s just a fact of human psychology and has nothing to do with what part of D&D anyone focuses on.

Is it? I'm sure it is for some. I always found it just overhead because for me the reward was playing the game. This seems like a very "one true way" and "everyone thinks the same as I do" statement. It may be true in general, but individuals vary. I assume you could find some study that "proves" this but those studies look at one aspect of motivation in isolation, they don't consider the entire experience.

I never really cared about XP. I cared that we saved the day, defeated the bad guy. XP was just an annoying hassle and led to "Can we just go kill some orcs? I'm really close to levelling!" Blech. I want players doing what they think their PCs would do, not what the game dictates.

Before people chime in "Why would anyone risk their lives without that XP dangled in front of them?" Why do people climb mountains? Volunteer to go to war? Ever leave their parent's basement? Leave home to explore the wilderness? People take risks all the time. The reasons they risk their necks will vary from person to person. When I play D&D I want to motivate the character, not the player.

What you’re describing actually supports my position. These players found the progress bar effect so deeply, viscerally satisfying that in comparison, nothing else about the game even mattered. They needed to make that bar fill up so badly, it became the soul focus of play for them. Now, that’s a perfectly legitimate reason not to want to use XP, but it’s not a counter-example of the satisfaction that XP delivers.

But the fact that it became the sole motivation is what I hate about XP. It's no longer role playing what their characters would do, it's grinding out XP. That does mean that I'm not the right DM for some people. I've come to realize that's not really a problem, it's just reality that I can't be the right DM for everyone.

...
XP isn’t “why I play,” I just recognize it as a powerful game-design tool.

For some people. Not for everyone.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I never really cared about XP. I cared that we saved the day, defeated the bad guy. XP was just an annoying hassle and led to "Can we just go kill some orcs? I'm really close to levelling!" Blech. I want players doing what they think their PCs would do, not what the game dictates.

A couple times I tracked XP for the characters instead of having the players do it. I told them if they ever asked "How close am I to leveling?" I would remove their XP for the last session.

Then when someone had enough XP, I would inform them they could level their PC.

 

[Charlaquin]

You're not exactly selling me on "modern D&D" here...

I’m not trying to. It isn’t to your tastes and that’s ok.

 

[Oofta]

I'm sorta amused by all the responses (and the OP) that call XP gamey but then turn around and totally dig on levels. I mean, I get not wanting to deal with XP, it's just the argument that XP is gamey but levels.. aren't?

In real life people can become more proficient at what they do. They go from playing chopsticks to Chopin, from playing in the living room to a concert hall. As a game, D&D has to simplify that process and gaining a level is "chunky", but it's still based on real world experiences that people have of growth in expertise over time.

People level up in real life. On the other hand I want PCs to do what the PCs would do because it's a role playing game, it's about immersing yourself in a person living in a different world. I want motivation to be based on what the character in the game perceives, not what the player cares about.

 

[Charlaquin]

If the xp system itself is loosy-goosy, then its granularity is pointless. (No pun intended.) It becomes farcical to microcount meaningless numbers.

The granularity is its own point. It allows you to give it out in smaller quantities, without preventing you from giving it out in larger quantities. It’s much more versatile, and as far as I can tell the only drawback is that you have to do a bit more math. Again, well worth the tradeoff in my opinion.

For this reason too, it becomes more accurate to use a simpler number, counting the encounter as a whole, and deciding if it turned out to be easy, standard, or hard.

Again, nothing about XP prevents you from doing this. It simply allows you to have more difficulty categories in-between those, if you want to.

I agree the creature rating system in the DMs Guide is inconsistent. (And the official monsters dont even use it! I actually the CR on a Business Card method that deconstructs the official monsters.) But it doesnt matter. It is good enough for the ballpark of a level-appropriate encounter. Whether the encounter turns out to be easy or hard is evaluated after the encounter is over - regardless of whatever its creature rating and experience points say it is "supposed" to be. The cr and xp dont matter, except to prepare an encounter. But its actual difficulty will be whatever it will be.

Right, but you can do that and give XP for an easy encounter if you judged the encounter to be easy. Again, what you’re describing is a benefit of judging encounter difficulty after the fact, which you can absolutely do with XP.