D&D General Experience Matters - The benefits of XP

[Li Shenron]

Lots of DMs do level up the PCs whenever they feel like it and call it "milestone."

If they do one thing and call it another it's their problem. Let's not back them up.

 

[Li Shenron]

Doesn't that then just become another railroading technique - the players have to stay on-mission or on-script because if they don't they won't level?

No thanks.

Seriously? Successfully completing a quest is now railroading??

Look, my favourite campaign type is the sandbox, which is the opposite of railroading. And by the way I am not even myself using milestones XP but I defend the legitimacy of the method.

You can anyway totally use milestones XP and have multiple quests or adventure threads so that is no single railroad to follow. Or you can combine milestones XP with other rewards for doing something outside the main story line (reward that can also be XP but then clearly we're off the strictly milestones XP method and into a hybrid method).

That said, even if I prefer sandbox games, there's nothing wrong with having a main story to follow, and I am pretty sure it is the most common way to play D&D today. Published adventures are designed NEEDING the PCs to level up: this is something I personally do NOT like, but if that's the norm then milestones XP is a totally fine alternative to traditional micro-advancement, which is fine as well but also comes with its own downsides.

Maybe you hate being rewarded by staying on track, but others actually need to have a purpose laid in front of them.

 

[Lanefan]

Seriously? Successfully completing a quest is now railroading??

No, but being forced to complete a specific quest in order to level up is. As in, the DM lets it be known the next milestone will come when the princess is rescued, which means that no matter what else they do - or might want to do - sooner or later they have to rescue the princess if they ever want to level up.

Look, my favourite campaign type is the sandbox, which is the opposite of railroading. And by the way I am not even myself using milestones XP but I defend the legitimacy of the method.

You can anyway totally use milestones XP and have multiple quests or adventure threads so that is no single railroad to follow. Or you can combine milestones XP with other rewards for doing something outside the main story line (reward that can also be XP but then clearly we're off the strictly milestones XP method and into a hybrid method).

What I was pushing back against was someone's idea upthread that suggested telling the players where the next milestone is so they'll know to go there.

Some other options, which I personally would never use but are still out there, are:
--- levelling every x-number of non-downtime sessions pretty much no matter what they do and without regard to where they might be in an given plot or adventure at the time
--- if the campaign consists of discrete adventures, levelling up at the completion of each adventure no matter what that adventure might be

These options still don't solve the problem of a character getting xp (in form of levels) that hasn't earned them.

That said, even if I prefer sandbox games, there's nothing wrong with having a main story to follow, and I am pretty sure it is the most common way to play D&D today. Published adventures are designed NEEDING the PCs to level up: this is something I personally do NOT like, but if that's the norm then milestones XP is a totally fine alternative to traditional micro-advancement, which is fine as well but also comes with its own downsides.

The big problem I have with adventures that need the PCs to level up is that it almost hard-forces a certain speed of advancement even if that's not what the DM wants. For example, one of the tricks I use for making a campaign last longer is to greatly slow down the advancement rate, which runs into trouble if I want to use any of the published modules...unless of course I just accept the fact that the early parts of that adventure might be a cakewalk for the PCs and the latter parts might be above their heads.

Maybe you hate being rewarded by staying on track, but others actually need to have a purpose laid in front of them.

I don't like being forced to stay on track. If the DM wants us to do mission A but we instead go off and do just-as-risky mission B we should get (roughly) the same xp for it; but this just can't happen with hard-coded milestones.

I also push back against milestone levelling in favour of individual xp so as to allow characters to come and go as the players desire; and to not have it that characters get xp while they're dead or otherwise not adventuring for a while; and because I'm a bit chaotic and want to occasionally see elements arise in the game that bestow or remove xp or levels to lucky or unlucky individual characters (e.g. Deck of Many Things, level drain effects, magic surges, etc.).

 

[cbwjm]

No, but being forced to complete a specific quest in order to level up is. As in, the DM lets it be known the next milestone will come when the princess is rescued, which means that no matter what else they do - or might want to do - sooner or later they have to rescue the princess if they ever want to level up.

I think in a case like this, assuming the DM is even telling the players when they will next level up, and I don't think many DMs really do, the players have already bought into rescuing the princess as the quest. Sandbox play can be fun, but don't underestimate the number of players that like a clearly defined quest, many would be keen to be told what the next quest is, not everyone wants unlimited freedom to wander around the game world.

 

[Mecheon]

I don't like being forced to stay on track. If the DM wants us to do mission A but we instead go off and do just-as-risky mission B we should get (roughly) the same xp for it; but this just can't happen with hard-coded milestones.

I'm going to argue against this because, Risky Mission B is as much of a milestone as Risky Mission A is. Someone applying it as milestone XP should be giving it on both situations, not just situation A. How is that a hard-coded milestone? DM just goes "Yeah, you've completed the appropriate challenge, ding"

As compared to individual XP which is... Literately just MMO XP where the incentive instead becomes "How can I easily get XP" and trying the oft-mentioned silly tactics of "Oh I just mass-killed some things through an inventive tactic, how much XP do I get for the mass-murder" with all of the grace of a frost mage AoE farming gnolls to hit level 60 the fastest. Milestone XP is "You get XP from completing Appropriate Tasks, so do quests and tasks to level", whereas individual XP instead becomes "Whoops my brain regressed into all that time I spent in Runescape, WoW and FFXIV, time to de-populate this beach full of hobgoblins because they're the quickest way to level blue mage to 70 because I go from level 1 to 17 in a single kill and my warrior friend is keeping them all aggroed and murdered"

 

[S'mon]

Not in games. In the context of games, being on a rail just means that the plot is largely pre-determined. It's not necessarily bad, it's just descriptive. The Last of Us, for example, is very much on a rail but is an acclaimed video game.

Some people do use "railroad" to mean "linear plot", yes, ignoring the dictionary & RPG definition of "railroading" as coercive.

 

[S'mon]

It's railroading - which is by definition bad - when the players are seemingly offered a false choice to follow the plot or not follow the plot and their "choice" leads them always back to the plot.

If done without coercion, that's Illusionism.
If done via GM force - "Infinite Draconians spawn until you get back on the road" then it's Railroading.

 

[S'mon]

I'm going to argue against this because, Risky Mission B is as much of a milestone as Risky Mission A is. Someone applying it as milestone XP should be giving it on both situations, not just situation A. How is that a hard-coded milestone? DM just goes "Yeah, you've completed the appropriate challenge, ding"

As compared to individual XP which is... Literately just MMO XP where the incentive instead becomes "How can I easily get XP" and trying the oft-mentioned silly tactics of "Oh I just mass-killed some things through an inventive tactic, how much XP do I get for the mass-murder" with all of the grace of a frost mage AoE farming gnolls to hit level 60 the fastest.

I actually have 2 PCs in my Stonehell campaign farming mutant trolls for the XP right now. I kinda admire their determination. If it goes on too long, then not being CRPG characters, the trolls will just leave.

 

[payn]

I'm going to argue against this because, Risky Mission B is as much of a milestone as Risky Mission A is. Someone applying it as milestone XP should be giving it on both situations, not just situation A. How is that a hard-coded milestone? DM just goes "Yeah, you've completed the appropriate challenge, ding"

As compared to individual XP which is... Literately just MMO XP where the incentive instead becomes "How can I easily get XP" and trying the oft-mentioned silly tactics of "Oh I just mass-killed some things through an inventive tactic, how much XP do I get for the mass-murder" with all of the grace of a frost mage AoE farming gnolls to hit level 60 the fastest. Milestone XP is "You get XP from completing Appropriate Tasks, so do quests and tasks to level", whereas individual XP instead becomes "Whoops my brain regressed into all that time I spent in Runescape, WoW and FFXIV, time to de-populate this beach full of hobgoblins because they're the quickest way to level blue mage to 70 because I go from level 1 to 17 in a single kill and my warrior friend is keeping them all aggroed and murdered"

While I do think this is an unflattering example of individual XP play, I cant say its not what I experienced either.

 

[iserith]

If done without coercion, that's Illusionism.
If done via GM force - "Infinite Draconians spawn until you get back on the road" then it's Railroading.

I try not to proliferate the use of Forge waffle, which I believe that is.