D&D 5E EXP options That we use.

[KarinsDad]

What reason do they give for hating it? No trust in you as the DM? I do it this way, and my players don't mind. I actually find it less arbitrary than just adding up XP for dead monsters, as the levels come when it makes the most sense.

As a DM, I do not hand out XP at all. I total up XP and when the PCs reach level, I let the players know.

I never did like handing out XP "at the end of the session". As DM, it forced me to do work that I didn't want to do at the table. I preferred to interact which the players, joke, etc. at the end of a gaming session.

So similar to you, I tell the players when it happens, but I use an XP system to figure that out instead of DM fiat. Either way (yours or mine), his players would not like it.

 

[arjomanes]

One factor that's important is player consistency. If your players are the same each session, then tracking XP is less important. They all get the same XP at the same time and all level up at once.

I run an open sandbox game with a pool of a dozen or so players, with 3-8 generally playing any given session. It's important to track XP and reward it at the end of each session since each game has slightly different players (though a core group of 7 remains pretty consistent for most games).

 

[Blue]

The part of the article I found useful was that XP is a form of player reward, and a way for players to measure their progress. Which is something that is lost when you just have leveling at campaign milestones.

There is that. One of the reasons I like how 13th Age does it. You get Incremental Advances (a small bit of what you'll get when you level) and it could be every session or whatever seems appropriate. Players are getting rewarded. But there's no XP, even under different names like number of IA to collect. Levelling happens when the GM says to level.

It's wonderfully freeing in that there is no hardcoded assumption on what you must do to advance. That's a really big thing when you think about it. It's like when 4e divorced treasure packets from "kill the enemy and take their stuff". You could do that, but it could also be a reward from the mayor for scaring off the bandits, etc. How your table wants to do it is supported no matter what.

 

[Vael]

I'm not entirely sold on 13th Age's system of incremental advancement ... at least, outside of 13th Age. I can see it works for 13th Age, because of the bucket of benefits one gets as one levels and it's a compressed system of only 10 levels.

But I like the process of just stopping and leveling a PC. Parsing out the benefits of a level over time also gives this weird "in between" level feel. I don't know, I haven't tried it, as the only 13th Age I ran was a one-shot. There is satisfaction to the whole "DING!" moment when you earn your level up. And reintroducing XP would help make a level feel earned. And let you know how far until the next "DING!"

 

[UselessTriviaMan]

We've recently begun a 5E campaign, to get a feel for the system. (So far, we've been having a blast.) The GM doesn't like the XP RAW, so we agreed on a simple system: What level is the group? That's how many sessions it'll take to level up. So after the first session, we all went to level two. After two more sessions, we've all just gained level three. And so on. It's worked well for us. YMMV.

 

[Nebulous]

We've recently begun a 5E campaign, to get a feel for the system. (So far, we've been having a blast.) The GM doesn't like the XP RAW, so we agreed on a simple system: What level is the group? That's how many sessions it'll take to level up. So after the first session, we all went to level two. After two more sessions, we've all just gained level three. And so on. It's worked well for us. YMMV.

That's what i did for Lost Mine. It works for us.

 

[aramis erak]

Lol, fair enough. I've been reading his stuff for awhile, and just ignore the self-aggrandizement and general ranty "my way is the only way" nature. The part of the article I found useful was that XP is a form of player reward, and a way for players to measure their progress. Which is something that is lost when you just have leveling at campaign milestones.

Also, one can use XP to reinforce the themes of one's campaign. So, yes, gain XP for defeating monsters and challenges. But if you're running a political intrigue campaign, XP can be granted when the players do stuff "politically", every favour earned, every rival denounced, and so on.

One of the great revelations for me when I first started looking at RPG theory discussions (around 1999) was the reward cycles.

Now, reward cycles are covered in every halfway credible Psych 101 class taught. I'd been subconsciously tailoring my reward cycles to get the effects I wanted... usually, at least.

D&D 5E vaguely discusses 3 reward cycles in various places:
1: XP/Levels for accomplishing goals and besting foes. In the rules, it doesn't discount for non-combat solutions...
2: Inspiration and the play of one's Ideal/Bond/Flaw/Personality
3: Treasure and improved gear.

It does call them out; it's not strongly dealing with any of them. It's basically just telling you to think about which options to use, and noting that it affects the way things play somewhat.

Honest and detailed advice about reward cycles can easily be enough to fill a college course... it's a complex subject, and a good detailed treatment is a heavy text - or an entire discussion board.

But it boils down to this:
Players tend to do what is rewarded.
If you call it out in play and give it screen time or character or mechanical rewards, it tends to happen more often in the future. For whatever version of It you care for.

 

[SirAntoine]

There was a post on here about using the old 1E method of 1XP =1 Gold. Not sure if that equates out, but thats another method.

That's fantastic, but characters need too little experience in 5th edition to advance each level. I would recommend trying out 1 XP per platinum piece.