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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bullgrit" data-source="post: 5264553" data-attributes="member: 31216">I appreciate the idea of gp=xp more nowadays than I did 25 years ago when I removed that from my AD&D1 games. That idea is a great motivator for exploration, (which I love in D&D), and it does put traps and battle in a "more proper" light -- that is, avoiding traps and battle are sometimes better than taking them on. Wandering monsters are better avoided instead of are something to hope for. Wandering danger vs. wandering xp.But, and this is a legitimate "but," it does tend to mean PCs should have a greedy streak in their character. Any character that doesn't have a greedy streak will end up missing out on xp for not having that character trait. A party of thieves would be better xp-getters than a party of knights.The gp=xp idea is good for parties of dungeoneers who are just dungeon crawling for the fun of it. But if they are, say, a rescue party sent into the dungeon to rescue the princess, then rescuing the princess should be what you reward with xp. Rewarding the party for "wasting" time searching everything for treasure is counter productive to the more heroic goal.Something I tried in my most recent D&D3 games:I made up the "dungeon" with a McGuffin for the PCs to find and bring out. I then figured up what I thought they'd have to go through in the dungeon to successfully retrieve the goal. I added up the xp for that, and left out xp for anything not "in their way".That is, say the "dungeon" has 20 "encounters". 14 of those "encounters" are in some way between the PCs and the McGuffin. (The other 6 are side encounters, or just generally not in the way.) I'd add up the xp value of those 14 encounters, and that would be the reward they get for retrieving the goal.Even if the party managed to find a way around some (or even all) of the "encounters", they got the full xp I had calculated. If they put effort on the irrelevant "encounters," well, that was a waste for them.Unfortunately, this approach wasn't a hit with my group. (I told them of my method before I implemented it.) They liked essentially getting xp for encounters they found a way to sneak past, but they didn't like being denied xp for goal-unrelated encounters they took on.Overall, xp for gp is a great reward system for a certain kind of play style, (one which I enjoy), but it is a detriment to a different play style, (one which I enjoy, also). But the xp for killing monsters isn't "great" for any play style *other than kick in the door and kill the monster*, and it is sometimes bad for many play styles. The xp for goals is good for certain play styles, but it's bad for other play styles.I haven't seen a perfect xp system for all play styles. I've kind of accepted that I have to pick a play style I want to have at my table and then choose the xp system that rewards it.*Edit between the asterisks*Bullgrit</blockquote>

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