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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5813347" data-attributes="member: 27160">I don't see the XP system in 4E as a "reward" system, really - and it was often a dubious one in earlier editions, too, I think. I see it rather as a pacing mechanism; a way to keep characters powers changing and fresh (and thus a continuing challenge to use well) and to provide an outlet for the "character and party building skill" as the game progresses. If players feel incentivised to "step on up" to more encounters in order to get to the next level, that is an added bonus but not really the main function of XP as I see it.Pulling off coups d'oeil and "cool moovz" in combat is certainly a major focus of intra-player kudos, but there are other elements, too. Tracking how many milestones the party manage to hit before taking an extended rest is one "measure of success"; I stick to the old "daily magic item use" system to make these a bit more mechanically useful. Strategic choices about what encounters to engage with in what order in order to successfully complete the "mission" are also increasingly important.In general, though, the players seem content for there to be a fairly linear story that they act as an "audience" for as it joins the encounters one to another and lends them some context. Their role in the story, though, is as antagonists, rather than protagonists. They follow the story, rather than decide its direction; as such the story is not really their focus during actual play, since they are not the ones making it happen, they are merely reacting to it.Outside of actual play, there is story (both in the sense of "tales of what happened when..." and in the sense of "this is what the situation is, and what we have to stop is this plot..."). Inside actual play, though, the focus is on beating the encounter with a minimum of resources (daily powers and healing surges) and preferably using clever tactics to do so (positioning, power combinations, use of terrain and so on).</blockquote>

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