Do you use Xp Penalty and when ?

[Hammerhead]

I personally never take away any experience from my players; we play to have fun, after all. However, I have given one player the authority to take away experience from anyone else as a joke, since he always tries to get everyone else to stop giving me ideas. Another system of punishment we use exclusively on one player who is an incorrigible punster is to tell him offensive jokes.

I tend to give bonus XP for great roleplaying, although it depends on the character. One player plays a shy and withdrawn half-orc, so he tends to get bonus XP for not saying much. Astoundingly clever plans tends to give the entire group bonus XP, unless said plan was the primary creation of one player. I have gotten some complaints from one player because certain adventures and sessions may focus on the backstory of one character more than the other, and this player argues that since he has less attention on his backstory he gets less roleplaying XP.

 

[pogre]

The only XP penalty I give is for Monty Python quotes during the game. Yes, I like Monty Python, but it was necessary - very necessary :\

 

[Numenorean]

Hello,

I wonder if many DM inflict Xp Penalty to their players ? If yes can you tell what is the reason you do it ?

I personnaly think that Xp Penalty discourage the players and they have maybe other way to punish my players.

What do you think ?

Thanks you !

The XP penalty is a tool of the DM. It is a tool to encourage positive behavior in the game and at the gaming table and punish other disruptive or negative types.

For example I had a guy who was trying to take advantage of my "DM newness" to 3e and he was outright cheating. Once I realized this he got 50 Xp at the end of the adventure whereas the others were getting 700-900xp. It got his attention and the problem was fixed immediately.

In that case it was used to fix an out of game problem.

I've used it before to encourage or reward smart or good playing skills in game, and to penalize the person who just sits there, doesn't get in to character, and treats the session like 3 hours of Everquest.

As the DM it is your job to set the rights and wrongs of your game. One of your mains tools in doing that is the rewarding of XP. Of course if you need to, you can alsways simply tell the person to leave and not come back

 

[Darth K'Trava]

The only XP penalty I give is for Monty Python quotes during the game. Yes, I like Monty Python, but it was necessary - very necessary :\

I wish I could have that instituted in our games. There's TOO MUCH monty python crap going around the table and it's annoying. It's bad enough one of my fellow players ruined python for me.

 

[twofalls]

I have used (recently) xp penalties for alignment infractions. The following (kinda large) thread had changed my thinking on this issue and I will no longer be doing so.

http://www.enworld.org/showthread.php?t=127142

 

[Doc_Klueless]

I do not use XP penalties as I really think they are ineffective and can have a snowball effect on bad behavior.

See, IME, a person who get penalized for bad roleplaying/whatever, tends to fall behind the rest of the group... the further behind he is, the less he cares about the character... the less he cares about the character, the worse he is at roleplaying that character... which leads to more xp penalty... rinse, lather, repeat. I'm usually much better off if I just take the player to the side and talk to him about his actions, rather than using xp penalty road.

I especially don't use or like the multiclass penalty. I'm not going to penalize someone for playing the type of character they want to play. Where's the fun in that?

I also don't require xps to be spent on the creation of magical items, simply because 9.9 times out of 10, the wizard/whatever is creating the magic item to either intentionally further a group goal or it ends up getting used that way whether they intended it that way or not. The only way I would require him to spend xp on it would be if I took a like amount of xp from the rest of the group at the same time. I don't want anyone to "fall behind" the group while trying to help the group. If you see what I'm trying to say.

Bonus xp are penatly xp by another name. You're just penalizing the rest of the group that didn't get the bonus xp. Or worse, you end up encouraging "spotlight fever" in an attempt by the other players (either consciously or not) to earn/win those xp so they a) don't fall behind or b) get a leg up on the competition, so to speak. The exception is if the group as a whole thinks the player did something so fantastic that he just has to get some kind of reward for it.

For example: Player b,c &d: Dude, player A just sacrificed life and limb protecting the princess by diving in front of the ballista boltl. That takes NADS! He's gotta get somethingfor it!

 

[MoonZar]

Thanks you for all your feedback, this help me to think when i know the general opinion of other dm about a topic.

 

[MoonZar]

never mind... i was going to say something, but i changed my mind hehehe

 

[Steel_Wind]

I use them from time to time (read: very rarely) to illustrate that there has been remarkably inconsistent roleplaying choice made in game that has un contrary to the root of their class or race without just cause. I tend not to do this for mere alignment penalties. It needs to be more than that.

Here is an example from my current cmapign and the only XP penalties I've assessed arose out of this incident.

A Lawful good Wizard who permits torture in his presence is, well, a bad- ass Mofo who will choose an expedient path where it's necessary. Repeated over time, this would indicate a shift to Lawful Neutral or worse, but that's a different topic: it's not a manner of XP penalties.

Same incident, 2 lawful good Knights of Solamnia permitted torture of a humanoid in their presence. One walked away claiming the suden need to go be somewhere else while the other remained as a witness - but in the first case there was no essential difference in the act - as it was wilfull blindness.

There was no suggestion that an innocent's life was being saved or the state's vital interests were at stake or some other mitigating factor to justifiy the torture. IT was a matter of expediency - pure and smple.

This went beyond an alignment variation, but went to the heart of KoS' Honour Bound feat, their devotion to the Oath and the Measure as Squires of the Crown and their alignment. Taken together - this was an act which was simply contrary to the characters they were supposedly playing and they knew it. They permitted it because it was expedient and another player in the group was pressing to do it.

I assessed a 50 XP point penalty to each in the XP log. (Conversely, I sometimes award XP for sticking to one's guns in difficult situations, so sauce for the goose is also sauce for the gander.) It was minor penalty and was only intended as a caution to not take the expedient path again and expect to remain a True Knight.

The players understood the penalty and the matter was left resolved. It was not the first time the quandary presented itself in the campaign and I am sure it will not be the last.

Significant penalities of, say, 1,000 XP would be met with hard looks from players I'm sure. A penalty to some players might be anathema in some gaming circles. I won't say what's right and what's wrong on any one-size-fits-all basis, but in the above example, I felt it an appropriate minor penalty and underscored the issue without turning it into a meta-gaming issue IMC.

YMMV.

 

[Darkness]

No XP penalties.