D&D 5E Gaining Experience

[Uller]

There was an xp grind in Ghosts of Dragonspear Castle...perhaps multiple grinds, I don't remember. The PCs were encouraged to roam around the swamp killing monsters until they hit 4th level before tackling the second adventure. Or the DM could just hand wave it and move the party to 4th level. My group chose the latter. We prefer to keep the story moving. Not all groups are like this but the game certainly can support multiple play styles.

 

[JWO]

I don't like grinding for XP in videogames, let alone in a tabletop RPG where the amount of play time is limited by how often you can all get together. Seems like too much of a distraction from the story.

 

[Umbran]

I can't stand xp grinding in CRPGs. My group gets together about twice per month on average for about 4 hours per game. I would consider it a complete waste of time if they wandered around just looking for stuff to kill with no reason behind it.

For players who are particularly into the tactical wargame aspect of RPGs, I would think it a perfectly acceptable way to play. For such players, though, I'd expect the overall need for there to be a reason or goal other than, "kill things and take their stuff," to be pretty low in the first place.

My current group, though, is like Uller's. We meet on two weeknights a month, for relatively short sessions, but they are players who want to have an interesting story unfold. If the story is going to progress at all, we don't have time to waste on combat for the sake of gaining experience.

However, I think this is all missing a major point - there's precious little need to ever "grind" in a tabletop RPG. Grinding happens in a computer game, because software has a release cycle. Relevant content cannot be added in at arbitrary points, and instead appears, if ever, only with the release of expansions to the game, leaving the possibility that there are gaps where those no interesting content around appropriate for the character's power level. The game can programmatically generate random encounters, but it cannot generate plot to tie those encounters into a sensible adventure. Thus, we end up with grind filling the gaps. Mind you, modern games (like Skyrim, say) have more sophisticated designs in which large chunks of interesting content are not of fixed power level - they adjust to the power of the character when he or she first encounters the content to some degree, reducing grind.

Tabletop RPGs do not have this problem. The GM is not a computer, and can insert new relevant content anywhere he or she pleases. If the BBEG is still too powerful for the PCs, a lieutenant can be inserted, or the like. Unless the GM is short on time to prepare, there's never a need to grind. So, why would one want to do so?

 

[iserith]

I think it's important to note that a "grind" is a bad outcome of what is essentially a play "loop" that occurs in D&D. The play loop is that fighting monsters (and all that entails) is fun and you get XP, loot, and Inspiration for it which leads to advancement. This advancement allows you to fight cooler and more powerful monsters and so on and so on. XP reinforces this loop - do a fun thing, get rewarded.

When we see it as a grind, it's because the loop is being done wrong - too slow, not as interesting as it could be, or contrary to the established parameters of a particular game (such as "follow the plot" or "this campaign is more about exploration or social interaction than combat").

So not every jaunt into the forest to net XP is a grind - just the badly done ones. A lot of this goes to DM skill, but a good portion is related to what everyone's expectation for the game is.

 

[evilbob]

I get 3 to 4 hours, once a week (until recently, once per two weeks), and grinding for XP is at the absolute BOTTOM of my list for play experiences. I hated random encounters 30 years ago, and also now.

I have to say, this thread is really interesting - although my personal opinion falls closer to this. Our group isn't really up for "tactical minis battle game" anymore because that's just not what is interesting to us anymore. Cool stories are our bread and butter, although as others have said there's no reason you can't make up cool stories to go with random battles.

For what it's worth, the XP gains do seem pretty slow once you get to 3rd level. You might try the default out and see how it works for you, especially if you don't give extra XP for quests or anything like that. Also, I'm pretty sure the DMG has an entire random dungeon generator ready to go for you, so that should help you build whatever random encounters you'd like.

in 5th Edition, encounters should be fast enough so you can have 20 or more good fights in a single session.

WOW! What is your secret?!?! We are lucky to get 4 battles into 2 hours - which is still an improvement from an average of about 1 from 4.0 - and I can't imagine playing at 5x this speed.

 

[Umbran]

And, really, "plot" is problematic too because people use it differently. I think you are using it to mean "pre-scripted", while I would use it to mean the literary meaning - what happened.

Keep on the Borderlands has a plot - the players are expected to explore (and probably kill everything they meet) the Caves of Chaos. It's the most likely event of that adventure. Certainly not the only one, but, I'd say the most likely. The Slave Lords modules had a pretty strong plot running through them, as do the Against the Giants modules.

There's also the form of "plot" that isn't pre-scripting, and isn't "the events of the players going in ad killing everything". There the plot of, "logical continuation of events the players are invested in" or "set of elements for the PCs to interact with that have fairly complicated origins and possible consequences".

 

[Ricochet]

I'm guessing quick decisions by players and no miniatures as the main reasons for combats going fast. It is for us, at least.

As GM, you need to step in when players experience "analysis paralysis". I do it by saying "Player X, you're up, and Player Y, you're next" when we go through the turns. It gets people prepping and ready.

 

[Lanefan]

I like both sorts, My 4e Loudwater campaign is a Lanefan style epic with dozens of adventures, started in 2011 and we just played the 81st session - http://frloudwater.blogspot.co.uk/ - the 4e PCs are 22nd level but the actual campaign scope feels more like ca 12th level in AD&D.

I have to say I'm impressed that you managed to do this using 4e, which doesn't seem as well suited to long campaigns as 0-1-2e. Did you slow down the level-advance rate?

I think D&D design needs to accommodate both sorts of campaign.

It can. The 5e designers just didn't put the options in, for some reason, nor really any guidelines on what to do to best achieve a very fast 6-month 1-20 campaign or a 10-year open-ender.

What I have seen is "loot grind", where adventurers hoover up every piece of treasure they can find even after the goal of the dungeon has been well and truly met. I don't think I've ever seen anyone complain about that.

Of course not. Neutral Greedy is the tenth alignment, after all.

Lan-"if it's not tied down, steal it; if it is tied down, untie it and then steal it"-efan

 

[S'mon]

I have to say I'm impressed that you managed to do this using 4e, which doesn't seem as well suited to long campaigns as 0-1-2e. Did you slow down the level-advance
rate?

No, I find 4e advancement very slow by default, I had to add a good bit of bonus xp to get
advancement to the current rate of around 1 level per 4 3 hour sessions, which works well.
We rarely get more than 1 fight in a 3 hour session.

 

[SirAntoine]

I have to say, this thread is really interesting - although my personal opinion falls closer to this. Our group isn't really up for "tactical minis battle game" anymore because that's just not what is interesting to us anymore. Cool stories are our bread and butter, although as others have said there's no reason you can't make up cool stories to go with random battles.

For what it's worth, the XP gains do seem pretty slow once you get to 3rd level. You might try the default out and see how it works for you, especially if you don't give extra XP for quests or anything like that. Also, I'm pretty sure the DMG has an entire random dungeon generator ready to go for you, so that should help you build whatever random encounters you'd like.


WOW! What is your secret?!?! We are lucky to get 4 battles into 2 hours - which is still an improvement from an average of about 1 from 4.0 - and I can't imagine playing at 5x this speed.

I'm just in the planning stage. I shall try to run 8 hour sessions, so there is plenty of time for dialogue and down-time activity.