D&D 5E D&D's XP & advancement system is a bit broken. I have a solution.

[pming]

Hiya!

You may not realize that 5e's XP and advancement system has some inherent problems. I didn't until I did some number crunching. The biggest problem is that encounter difficulty does not always correlate with the xp payout for the encounter.

I explain the problems and propose a solution in this episode (and accompanying blog post) of my Game Master's Journey podcast.

A couple things...

"I didn't until I did some number crunching". Ah-ha! There's yer problem, son. You got your fancy number-wranglin' mixed up with the nebulous vagaries of imaginative play. Seriously though...in ANY roleplaying game, numbers rarely match up with actual play experience. Rarely.

At any rate...I think you are missing the forest through the trees, so to speak. Here's a question for you: Do your players walk away from the table happy and ready for next session? Yes? Ok, then you're doing it right. Who cares if it takes longer, or shorter than whatever is recommended in the books.

Gaining levels is not, contrary to popular belief, the end-all and be-all of playing an RPG. The real reward for playing an RPG is sitting around a table, laughing with friends, and playing make-believe to create a story everyone will remember to their death-bed.

I didn't read your whole blog...but it looked to me like you put waaaaay to much time into thinking about this. Your entire "fix" isn't a fix; it's just a different way of handling XP. The current way it is in the books isn't broken...it works just fine (as many others in the thread have mentioned).

I never 'design adventures' for any mechanical reasons. I write adventures. I mean, I'm not going to suddenly stop putting goblins into the goblin caves because the "xp budget for the PC's levels" has been reached. I have 14 more caves, with a small training cave, a goblin-gladiatorial pit-fighting arena, and a cave for visiting "dignitaries" with an envoy of two ogres from nearby Two-Deaths-Gorge and their pet worg. Likewise, if the PC's start exploring a small, three-cave area with a single, crazed, hobgoblin witchdoctor in it...and that takes 2 hours of play time due to in-character roleplaying...I'm not going to suddenly drop a hill giant on them so they can get enough XP to reach the "adventure session budget". In all honesty...I am at a loss for why this sort of thing seems even remotely important to a campaign.

^_^

Paul L. Ming

 

[Celtavian]

It was pretty simulation-y during the AD&D days, apparently moreso in 2E than in 1E, but I guess it could also vary wildly between DMs (as it still does).

From what I gather, Gygax was never one for simulation, or really for role-playing at all. I seem to recall his once suggesting that advanced players should just go ahead and create characters at high levels, since character level was supposed to correlate to player skill. Much of what was coming out in the late eighties and throughout the nineties was designed as a reaction to Gygaxian Game-ism, just as modern day has so many games that seem to be a reaction to the predominant Simulation-ism which took its place.

Notice how you're using words like simulation-y. That's because D&D was never very good at simulation. I think the hardest they tried was 3E. If they were trying in 1E and 2E, they weren't trying very hard. Now 3E tried pretty hard. They did add some stuff I liked like flat-footed AC and touch AC. D&D has always had a hard time with simulationism, while maintaining the core class structure of its game. Classes are a bad way to engage in simulation. Any semblance of the real world does not operate on the basis of class. Skill-based games like GURPS are far better at simulation. They go so far to simulate the real world that it becomes tedious to run.

 

[feartheminotaur]

So, I'm not getting fat, I'm turning into Christian Bale? Niiice...

 

[ChrisCarlson]

Only if it drops drastically back down once in a while as well...

 

[devincutler]

This. D&D is not and never was a simulation. Seems RuneQuest would be a better fit for that style of play anyhow.

Yep. For those not in the know, Runequest is a completely classless system, abiding solely by skills. Everytime you use a skill in a stressful situation you get a check mark for that skill. When you have a chance to rest and reflect you have a chance to go up in that skill (chance diminishes as you get more skilled in the skill).

The RQ system is, IMO, the most simulationist and works well as long as the DM stops shenanigans like PCs trying to use every possible skill each session just to get a check mark.

But it doesn't work for D&D. D&D is not simulationist. It is more heroic and "legendary".

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Notice how you're using words like simulation-y. That's because D&D was never very good at simulation. I think the hardest they tried was 3E. If they were trying in 1E and 2E, they weren't trying very hard. Now 3E tried pretty hard. They did add some stuff I liked like flat-footed AC and touch AC. D&D has always had a hard time with simulationism, while maintaining the core class structure of its game. Classes are a bad way to engage in simulation. Any semblance of the real world does not operate on the basis of class. Skill-based games like GURPS are far better at simulation. They go so far to simulate the real world that it becomes tedious to run.

Every game is a balance between simulation and playability. It's a spectrum, and class-base systems tend to be further from the simulation end than skill-based systems are, but there's no hard dividing line. You need to make concessions if you want the game to be playable, but it's down to personal preference where the exact tipping point is.

Be sure to not accidentally conflate simulation with realism, though. GURPS is a pretty good simulation of the real world (as far as games go), with almost enough concessions to playability (IMO) for it to actually be playable. It's not necessary for a game to simulate our world, though, as long as you're consistent and everything jives between the game mechanics which describe the world and what's actually going on within the narrative of that world. For example, if you're playing Highlander and your primary advancement is from decapitating other immortals, then it would make sense that your strength and sword skill and all of your other stats should improve at the same time, because that's how the world works and everyone knows it.

The question at hand is whether experience points are necessarily meta-game information, in D&D, and I maintain that they don't need to be. They are primarily earned by doing a number of actions which would, quite reasonably (from an in-game perspective), allow a character to improve at those things which actually improve with level. If you don't stray too far from the basic assumptions of the game, then the quantifiable improvements in the skill and abilities of our Player Characters should make sense to outside observers within the game world.

It's a lot like the issue of armor, which was addressed... at some point during 5E development. As they said, even though it would be more realistic for armor to grant DR rather than every attack being a binary pass/fail, it's still understood (from the character perspective) that plate armor is better protection that leather. That information is in-game knowledge, which the characters can act on, rather than out-of-game information that would require meta-gaming to act on.