[In the style of Daztur] XP Rewards vs. XP Awards

[Daztur]

I used to be in the no XP camp but I've broken out of that since XP can be a useful carrot for encouraging the sort of behavior you want, you just have to make sure that the XP encourages behavior that makes the game more fun.

This reminds me of FATE points which are usually gotten for bad things happening to your character or you doing something intentionally that puts your character in a bad situation. I think they can both work but in different ways.

XP as reward tends to promote heroic play or at least "irrational" play, i.e. players doing things that aren't smart because they fit "what the character would've done."

XP as award tends to promote more pragmatic play with character nobility being rarer but seeming more "real" when it does crop up since the player isn't get a reward for doing so.

Depends on the game you want to play I guess, I'd use the first for d'Artagnan and the second for Grey Mouser.

 

[Starfox]

My take on Xp is that it is a matter of story progression. I do understand the OPS arguing and agree to a point, but to me that's only small waves on the top of the big tide that is character advancement.

I have a story of X chapters. At the end, I want my players to be level Y. Each session, they should get xp enough to get Y/X power. Heroic, dramatic, or particularity successful sessions can get a bigger share of this xp, but the total award remains constant.

 

[Herremann the Wise]

A really interesting discussion everyone!

In terms of award/reward (or I suppose intrinsic/extrinsic motivation), I think you point out a very interesting theoretical difference between the two. For me, I suppose the real meta-design question here is:

- Do you want all the characters to be the same level; or do you want different characters to potentially be of different levels? Do you want to reward the characters; or do you want (or need) to reward the players?

I suppose with some groups, you don't want to distract players with meta-considerations such as XP; while with other players, you need to guide them so that everyone has fun at the table by rewarding certain player behaviour.

Kitchen Sink Approach to XP
In terms of the original question, I think my preference is funnily enough a kitchen sink approach. Imagine a mini-quest where the PCs have to rescue the Princess from the Cave-Orcs. Successfully rescuing the Princess gets a broad XP Award - 500XP. Killing individual cave-orcs does not get you XP. However, killing the Shaman or possibly their Leader does (50 and 100XP respectively). You don't want to compel players to have their characters clear out a dungeon; I don't want them feeling like they need to kill every cave-orc. Alternatively if they can bargain the Princesses life, they still get the broad XP reward while negotiating an effective truce might get a sizeable bonus (150XP).

Now there's another situation where you may offer XP in combat; and that is when your character gets got... so to speak. That cave-orc shaman might have an ability to dominate those weak of will and our rogue with the willpower of a peanut gets done over. Perhaps there can be a smaller amount of XP for suffering those highly effective and nasty effects (a 25XP "reward" to use the OP parlance). The cave-orc leader may infuse herself with the power of her ancestors and likewise may incapacitate a PC while going berserk (15XP). And those regular cave-orcs that you don't get squat for, well when 4 of them mob you, that's worth a little something too (10XP). Having unusual or highly specific abilities reward those characters affected may be an interesting (and somewhat fair) way of doing it.

Now reclaiming the cave-orc's private stash is an interesting one. Offering XP for treasure like offering XP for every single monster defeated pushes players to leave no stone unturned. Completism in dungeoneering is cool but I don't want to encourage players into tedium, and so general treasure should carry no further reward than its intrinsic value which is normally good enough. However, when the quest is all about recovering the Blood Ruby of the Lich King, that is when XP should be handed out. In this case, the cave-orc's stash gets you 0 XP.

And of course this does not get into many of the other benefits of securing the princess' father's favour, a village's appreciation for a long-standing truce or other campaign specific rewards. It would of course be interesting to attach such story-touchstones mechanically to character development; but that is another topic again.

Best Regards
Herremann the Wise