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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Bawylie" data-source="post: 7573296" data-attributes="member: 6776133">Choice. You’re missing choice. If I’m a player and I earn XP by making discoveries, defeating monsters, finding treasure, and making friends then I FEEL like my choices are weighed and rewarded. If I just gain a level from time to time, and the connection between my choices and that level gain are not very strong, then I do NOT FEEL like my choices are rewarded and that I can just sit there and still gain levels. Here’s an example. In my games, monsters that are tougher than you are are worth more XP and monsters that are less tough than you are worth significantly less XP. Discoveries are always worth a moderate amount of XP, and helping your allies is always worth a moderate amount of XP.  How do you think my players behave? What do they do? What do they try to avoid doing?Now if I were to just give them levels whenever I felt it was appropriate, I would lose the connection between the behaviors and the rewards. Any rewards would have to come from another source, but there still wouldn’t be a sense of progress toward character development. Can you guess how they behave in this scenario? Maybe. Maybe not. Theoretically, they should play the same, regardless. But IMX (and speaking only for games I’ve run at my table), they do not play the same. The fiat system is always less focused and less engaged. It comes with a “when do we level?” after every session. With earned-XP, even earning it based on various milestones/quests, they’re more driven and even go after side rewards because they feel like they’re making progress. And let’s be honest, a major component of a classed-based game with levels is character advancement. Removing the feeling that YOU affect that advancement also removes some of the satisfaction of the advancement itself. This is not always a welcome trade-off. But the difference really is how your choices feel.</blockquote>

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