"Are the Authors of the Dungeon & Dragons Hardcover Adventures Blind to the Plight of DMs?"

[MNblockhead]

I think the APs do a good job of supporting the Milestone Leveling system in favor of XP. Which I think is probably a smart move. [MENTION=6563]Azzy[/MENTION] makes a good point above that we're all guessing what is easy or difficult for a new DM, but I would think taking away XP and all the maintenance that goes with it would probably make things easier.

I mean, I've been DMing for a long time and I ditched XP a while back and it's helped quite a bit.

I think that's why the APs largely seem to assume Milestone XP....it's simply easier. "The characters should likely be at least 4th level before they go to this area" is a lot easier to understand and process for a DM, regardless of their experience behind the screen.

I know many long-time DMs and players would hate the idea of having no XP, and that's fine, but to me, it makes more sense for that to be the "advanced" method, and leave Milestone as the default. Especially since the published adventures cover such a large level range.

When I started playing TTRPGs again, I started with the XP model I remembered from the over 20 years prior when I played before. But I wanted more than XP for kills, so I read the DMG advice and come up with a convoluted set of XP rules for solving issues, avoiding danager, exploration, and meeting milestones. I ditched it after two sessions and went to leveling up roughly each monthly 8-hour session so we goto to play from 1 to 20 over two years.

But per-session and narrative milestone leveling aren't as fulfilling for me. Doesn't feel like DnD. Takes away player agency. "You'll level up when I say you do, regardless of what you do." This is why the old gold=xp model was actually brilliant. You can get that gold by killing the dragon or by tricking it out of its lair. And you better have a plan for how you will move it and avoid having powerful groups try to take if from you in transit. The DM built the world--stocked the dungeons. But the players had experience and leveling under their control. They could take more risks and if they played it smart, could level up more quickly. Or take it slow. Or die. My next campaign after CoS will be the new Rappan Athuk by Frog God Games, which is being update for 5e but replaces the XP mechanic with the old gold for XP model.

But I also like (usually prefer) running story rich campaigns. That is why I like the Padron's fractional milestone approach. Leveling is not by DM fiat. The players know that if they explore more, they get more XP. If they interact more they get more XP (by meeting important people, learning important info), if they complete quests, they get more XP, and if they find important macguffins they get more XP.

The XP for kills has always been the least interesting way of giving XP. I don't want to run my games where players XP farm like a bad old-school MUD. God, I hated having to spend hours going back to lower level dungeons killing rats until I leveled up enough to do something interesting. At least with XP for gold you could get over your head, but if you played it smart and AVOIDED the powerful monsters, you could still come away with treasure. Fraction milestone leveling makes it easy to support narrative leveling without taking away player agency.

 

[hawkeyefan]

Interestingly enough, an article aimed at new DMs went up today on D&D Beyond.

https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/160-improvisation-in-d-d-for-new-dungeon-masters

Some solid advice in there.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

... ~0 towns, ~0 NPCs, ~0 exploration, ~0 social interaction, etc.

That's a really weird way to count.

Named for the assumed hub of a tavern in Waterdeep (albeit not giving more info about Waterdeep without going to other sources), Oakhurst - 0 towns.

Durnan, random chart of NPCs, whatever NPCs might be mentioned in the actual adventures - 0 NPCs.

And roughly ~0 DMs on hand to fill in the exploration and social interaction parts just like old-school adventures used to expect that the DM would be filling in everything except a list of room descriptions with no coherent story behind them.

 

[hawkeyefan]

When I started playing TTRPGs again, I started with the XP model I remembered from the over 20 years prior when I played before. But I wanted more than XP for kills, so I read the DMG advice and come up with a convoluted set of XP rules for solving issues, avoiding danager, exploration, and meeting milestones. I ditched it after two sessions and went to leveling up roughly each monthly 8-hour session so we goto to play from 1 to 20 over two years.

But per-session and narrative milestone leveling aren't as fulfilling for me. Doesn't feel like DnD. Takes away player agency. "You'll level up when I say you do, regardless of what you do." This is why the old gold=xp model was actually brilliant. You can get that gold by killing the dragon or by tricking it out of its lair. And you better have a plan for how you will move it and avoid having powerful groups try to take if from you in transit. The DM built the world--stocked the dungeons. But the players had experience and leveling under their control. They could take more risks and if they played it smart, could level up more quickly. Or take it slow. Or die. My next campaign after CoS will be the new Rappan Athuk by Frog God Games, which is being update for 5e but replaces the XP mechanic with the old gold for XP model.

But I also like (usually prefer) running story rich campaigns. That is why I like the Padron's fractional milestone approach. Leveling is not by DM fiat. The players know that if they explore more, they get more XP. If they interact more they get more XP (by meeting important people, learning important info), if they complete quests, they get more XP, and if they find important macguffins they get more XP.

The XP for kills has always been the least interesting way of giving XP. I don't want to run my games where players XP farm like a bad old-school MUD. God, I hated having to spend hours going back to lower level dungeons killing rats until I leveled up enough to do something interesting. At least with XP for gold you could get over your head, but if you played it smart and AVOIDED the powerful monsters, you could still come away with treasure. Fraction milestone leveling makes it easy to support narrative leveling without taking away player agency.

That's cool. I am not a fan of all the maintenance and tracking that goes along with XP. And we have players who can't make every session, so then it starts to become a case of them bein gpenalized for not making it, and so on. So we ditched XP entirely. This dates back to the 2E days, really.

Now, I am not really saying that leveling should be at the whim of the DM alone. In relation to the published adventures, I think the designers have given some thought to their suggestions. For games that aren't using a published adventure, or perhaps are doing so but in a different way than expected, then I think the DM should take a lot of things into consideration.

In my campaign, we're using some of the published books, but in a much more sandboxy way (with the exception of an excursion to Barovia to play through Curse of Strahd largely as presented, although altered for level 7 to 8 and no more). My campaign has been running since 5E started, and the players have gone through quite a lot of adventures, some from older editions, some from this, and some homebrew. If I did XP, they'd all be level 20 and retired. Instead, they're level 11 and we have lots left to go.

Pacing is the biggest reason to me to alter the XP system and use Milestone in favor.

But for the Adventures to be run as presented in the books, I think it's the far easier method to use.

 

[Guest 6801328]

That's a really weird way to count.

Named for the assumed hub of a tavern in Waterdeep (albeit not giving more info about Waterdeep without going to other sources), Oakhurst - 0 towns.

That should be your sign that the straw you are clutching at is reaching it's tensile strength limit....

Dude, it's really quite easy. Repeat after me: "Ok, I guess there's one adventure that breaks their formula, and maybe it did appeal to a different audience from the Adventure Paths. My gut feel, though, is that they wouldn't grow their market by producing two separate lines of adventures, each designed to appeal to a different user profile."

I couldn't possibly argue with that.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

That should be your sign that the straw you are clutching at is reaching it's tensile strength limit...

...wait, you're saying using facts to support my arguments rather than just pulling things out of my nethers is clutching at straws? Physician, heal thyself.

...I guess there's one...

Two. Storm King's Thunder also uses a different "formula".

I couldn't possibly argue with that.

Fact check: besides disagreement on the above number, the sentence you put in quotes is an accurate summation of my arguments thus far - and you've done the impossible, because you've been arguing with me about it for a while now.

 

[Guest 6801328]

Two. Storm King's Thunder also uses a different "formula".

Because some of the elements are optional (or mutually exclusive, depending on how you run it?). OMFG I can't believe you are so determined to prove yourself right on this.

I'm done.

 

[AaronOfBarbaria]

Because some of the elements are optional (or mutually exclusive, depending on how you run it?). OMFG I can't believe you are so determined to prove yourself right on this.

I'm done.

...and you called me dramatic?

But yeah, because the formula is different, I'm saying the formula is different - sorry that bothers you so much.

 

[Satyrn]

(I'm just always looking for an excuse to use that first emoticon, and I found the above discussion was interesting and weird enough to justify it)

 

[ArwensDaughter]

I don't know that I exactly qualify as a new DM, but I still think of myself as a novice. Of the WOTC published adventures, I've only run (most of) LMOP and (currently) TOA. I (or rather my son) has HOTDQ and TftYP on the shelf; I've read through a church of Hoard, looked only briefly at Portal. I've also run some downloadable more "modular" adventures, both AL and 3p.

Hoard struck me as fairly railroady, though not as railroady as most of the modular adventures I've run. My players have a tendency to think out of the box and go ways that adventure designers didn't envision. In one case, I had to strike out on my own and devise my own "AP" due to those decisions.

TOA has worked pretty well for me and my group, although I would definitely appreciate a "guide" that put together disparate clues/info, etc. One of the things I've appreciated about it is that is in many ways both a setting and an adventure. If the players go "off the rails" I've still got places, encounters, and background/lore to work with. And I like how they've leveraged DMsGuild, by encouraging Adept authors to create adventures for places in Chult TOA didn't detail. It means I can run more adventures in Chult easily buy buying one of them.