Are you a stingy DM?

[staz100]

...and you're playing weekly, or at least more than once a month?? :\

Dude, you're BEYOND stingy. You're the Ebenezer Scrooge of GMs. I'm surprised you aren't just kicking your players and shouting "HUMBUG!" at them instead of awarding experience points.

I think the question is how quickly you go through adventures. If it takes your group a long time to get through an encounter, then you may be right on track.
In one of my groups, we played for between 1-2 years, playing mostly every week, before I went from 10th to 11th level. And it wasn't that the DM was being cheap or stingy, we just took that long to get through adventures. But he runs a good game and we all have fun.

As a DM, I don't think I'm stingy. After only a few sessions the party is going to be at 3rd level (and I run a much faster game than the DM above).

 

[Aust Diamondew]

I've been running my new game since June and we've played about 3 times per month (during the summer people constantly go on vacation it seems). The PCs started at 3rd level and 2 sessions ago they achieved 8th so you don't seem stingy at all. I'd say you're stingy. Then again my PCs go up against really bad mofos, generally 1 CR higher than they should.

I'm pretty sure that theoretically PCs are suppose to level up once every 4 sessions. 1 session being 4 hours of play. Or once every 10-12 combats of appropriate CR. Something like that.

Oh yeah, I'm pretty stingy with cash though, but my game is low magic items (they get defense bonuses to AC, save bonuses and a couple other benefits too though).

 

[the Jester]

Hmmmm....

*ponders epic pcs with +1 stuff*

Guess so.

 

[Arrgh! Mark!]

I thought I was stingy, levelling them at once every 2-3 four hour sessions.

And I'm a GM who focuses on getting combat over with quickly.


Yes, you are a stingy GM. But to be honest, its the way to be. People honestly shouldn't 'level' so quickly - once I had a fighter/mage type who levelled from 1 to 15 in a matter of a month and a half. It's a little disconcerting.

 

[DragonLancer]

I am surprised that your players are still playing. Thats rather too slow for character development.

But then, I shouldn't talk because I believe that it should take 4 adventures (not sessions) with much reduced loot to level.

 

[The Grackle]

I prefer being a player in a stingy DM's campaign. Leveling too fast, or getting too much stuff makes me feel like there's no challenge.
Levelling rapidly through the first few levels is okay though.

 

[cignus_pfaccari]

I prefer being a player in a stingy DM's campaign. Leveling too fast, or getting too much stuff makes me feel like there's no challenge.

Our group usually has long sessions on Saturdays...say, from 3 PM to 1 AM or thereabouts. We also have a lot of challenges in each session; it's not quite one long fight, but the fights we have are fairly big. In our Planescape campaign (starting at 5), we've leveled about every other session. I kind of like it; our Birthright campaign had droughts of XP followed by gluts of two levels/session.

Brad

 

[Guilt Puppy]

Two levels in what, six months? I guess that's stingy, but I've played in games that went at about that rate. I'm quite okay with such a rate, as a player.

Personally, I have to make a distinguishment between my IRL games, and the PbP game I'm running, because they're drastically different... At the tabletop, my players generally level once per (6-8 hour long) session. They also generally get covered in gold (well, they keep up with the DMG tables at least, which, considering how quickly they level, means they pick up a lot.)

The PbP I've been running, however, is closing in on two years of game, and the characters are all fifth and sixth level... Some quick math (5 levels of advancement / 21 months) means it's about four months per level -- beating your stingy rate! Of course, that has more to do with the pace of PbP than anything else -- the advancement seems to occur quite rapidly.

Where I am definitely "stingy" in PbP is wealth -- I try to keep the game focused (again, because it's slow-paced to begin with), and find it difficult to fit in plausible reasons for reward because of it. I've been dumping treasure in their laps as liberally as I can, lately (without seeming too unnatural about it), but they're still nowhere close to where the book says they should be, or even where I'd like them to be.

But anyway, as a player, I prefer stingy DMs. Too much leveling gets old fast, and distracts from the rest of the game, IMO. It's just that most people I play with disagree.

 

[Hjorimir]

Well, we started in March and only play once per month. Granted, each session is roughly ten hours in duration, so I guess that is really about two sessions a month if you based it on average session lengths (from what I'm told).

So, twelve sessions if you followed that jibberish. They are about to level again though, so it isn't too bad I guess.

 

[Old One]

Don't Feel Bad...

IMC, we started playing in May of 2001 and the highest level PC is just shy of 8th level. Initially we were playing two 5 or 6-hour sessions a month, but have dropped to 1 6-hour session per month (I think we are up to Session 37 or so). However, only a year of "in-game" time has passed, so they are rocketing up the power scale in the game world.

Now, if you want to talk about stingy, ask my players how many magic items they have !

~ Old One