D&D 5E Crafting Scrolls and Brewing Potions

[Ricochet]

My experience has been quite the opposite. I've found that the game generally tends to end after a thirty minute arguement of (And this was a real arguement):

"Let me get this straight, I can kill a million goblins and I won't get any better?"
"Yes"
"But some Wizard tasks me with going to the marketplace and getting him some paper, and because I completed a "Quest" I gain in experience??"
"Yes"

Every instance I've seen pulls the players right out of the game, into a fairly major arguement around how a Character would improve in skill with "Accomplishment" (Read quest based as that's what it really is) experience, then half the group or more stops coming and the campaign ends.

Of course, the official WOTC "Give your players a level now!" went over even worse with the players I've shown that to.

I've found that both Quest based and Instantaneous leveling requires a very specific type of group, and outside of that group it becomes extremely polarizing.

It's not that the goblins don't give XP and contribute to level gains, it's just that the calculating is waived. It's still part of the levelling progress and earns the characters new skills (XP), just like the successful completion of the quest does. Yet how large a percentage a million goblins makes up in the progression to the next level is entirely up to the GM (yes, quite arbitrary, but like those responding above, I've seen this approach work out much better than calculating XP).

I'd be quite miserable GMing the groups you have arguing XP calculations vs. level completion "does it make sense" debates, but the great thing about this hobby is that both group-types exist (and many more).

 

[Ath'kethin]

Anecdotal here, but no group I've ever played with has cared at all about XP. You just play the game, and you level up every once in a while. As long as it's established from the start and consistent, there's been no problem using any and all XP systems.

This has been my experience as well. I tend to always play with people from the same pool, though, and we've been playing together since 1995, so maybe we all just understand and appreciate each other's playing styles and quirks.