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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Fanaelialae" data-source="post: 4727431" data-attributes="member: 53980">Maybe it's just me, but it doesn't seem especially difficult to alter xp rewards to suit a group's needs.I once proposed running a D&D campaign without xp (characters would level at appropriate points during the campaign) but was met with a lot of resistance from my players.  After discussing it with them, it essentially boiled down to the fact that they simply enjoy getting xp!  They don't give a damn if I "manipulate" xp amounts to achieve the same effect, so long as some xp keeps rolling in.4e, at its base assumptions, is an adventure game.  As such, the rules reward xp for furthering the adventure.  It can be for bringing Harold the Rather Unpleasant to justice (probably combat), or convincing Duke Whatshisface that he needs to dispatch troops to the Pass of Randomimposingnoun NOW (a social skill challenge).  Now, I realize that per RAW you don't have to role play convincing the Duke.  You can roll a few Diplomacy and Bluff checks and move on.  My group, and I'm sure many others, would also find that rather unfathomable (though I accept it might work for the playstyle of some groups out there).  As far as I am concerned, convincing the Duke is a role playing encounter, because that is how we will play it.Both killing Harold and convincing the Duke reward xp because both further the adventure, despite that one is combat while the other is social challenge/role playing.Randomly flirting with Nina the barmaid doesn't further the adventure, even if it does demonstrate your character's deep-seated fascination with barmaids, hence the system's base conceit doesn't reward xp for this (though I doubt WotC ninja death squads would suddenly appear if the DM did reward xp for this). <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f609.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=";)" title="Wink    ;)"  data-smilie="2"data-shortname=";)" />If I was running a socialite game, for example, I would grant xp primarily for role playing and anything else i wanted to encourage, and eliminate combat xp.  Of course, if I didn't want any combat in the campaign I might not run it as D&D because D&D characters are inherently combat effective.  IMO, despite what some say, I don't doubt that you could run a social D&D game with minimal or no combat.  Combat effectiveness is not always a good fit in a social-style campaign.  Additionally, certain types of players might still want to fight, despite that this won't be rewarded.  Admittedly, you could just roll with the punches (pun intended) and feed this aggressive behavior back into the plot.  Alternatively you could run a system with stronger combat deterrents (from what I've read this is true of the Star Trek RPG).  If combat is deadly then the combat loving player will either have to adapt to a more social playstyle, stock up on blank character sheets, or find a game that better suits his needs.It's all dependent upon the type of gaming and campaign environment that you want to encourage, of which xp is only a small, though potentially very relevant, subset.</blockquote>

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