Fascinating. Why not? Because you want to model learning curve? How is xp rewarded in your game?
In brief*:
1 - combat: those who help out get xp, those who did nothing or who weren't even there get nothing (one could argue those who were there but did nothing still learned, but I intentionally do it this way to encourage involvement rather than sitting back)
2 - significant new experiences other than combat, e.g. the first time someone of importance (king, deity, etc.) is met, or the first time a major spell gets cast
3 - encounter avoidance (but only if they both a) know the encounter was there to be avoided and b) don't later go back and deal with the encounter, to avoid double-dipping)
4 - significant other actions e.g. disarming a particularly difficult trap, finding a creative way out of a tight spot, risky scouting, etc.
5 - successful negotiations or social interactions of relevance
6 - "dungeon bonus" given at the end of each adventure to reflect both a) the experience of having completed the mission and b) to handwave all the little tiny bits of xp they'd otherwise pick up during day-to-day adventuring that I can't be bothered to calculate
7 - there's probably a couple of minor or infrequent things I'm forgetting (one I just remembered is Thief xp for value stolen - in my current campaign this has come up maybe two or three times in nine years of play)
1 4 and 6 above are (usually) given individually i.e. not everyone gets the same amount. For 6 it's usually based on how much of the adventure you were around for thus a character who joined halfway through will only get (usually) half dungeon bonus.
2 and 3, while sometimes variable, are more often given equally to all who were present.
5 is tricky - usually the character(s) who actually do the talking get a bit more but everyone gets some assuming they had input ahead of time.
By far the majority of xp earned come from combat and dungeon bonus, though it varies from one adventure to the next - one might be lots of stealth work while the next is a full-on slugfest.
I give them out now and then - maybe once per 4 or 5 sessions on average - unless someone is close to bumping in which case it's done much more often; and in any case the characters don't get xp for actions on any given day until they wake up the next morning.
* - well, maybe not so brief
Sorry. Operant Conditioning Chamber. Subject animal (in this case humans) is in a controlled environment. Subject animal has a basic need. Some sort of apparatus is introduced to obtain that need (classically a lever or a switch for food or water). Subject animal learns to manipulate said apparatus to obtain fulfillment of basic need.
So here we're talking about the game's basic need to address premise and play risky married to the player's basic need of character progression and chosen archetype manifesting in the fiction.
Reward Cycle.
OK.
Again, fascinating. Are you talking about stuff related to GM agency or player agency? Or are you talking about stuff like genre mash-up?
There's an 'or' in there, so I can just answer yes.
Genre mash-up is an obvious: if the rules say no laser rifles but I want to chuck in a laser rifle, in it goes. If the rules say a player or DM doesn't have the right (or the agency) to do x but it makes more sense to me that they should, the rules lose. The reverse is also true: if the rules give more agency to one or the other than makes sense to me, the rules again lose.
Let's imagine a scenario where you're gaming and all of the stuff that you want to happen in actual play is just plain happening by following the rules (not subordinating them). The GM isn't exercising any more agency than the system requires of them (and the system states that their agency ends where the players' agency and the system's agency begins).
Up to here, if it's working all is good. However...
The GM isn't bearing any extra cognitive workload beyond what the system requires of them (so they're mentally fresh and vigorous to flex their creativity muscle to the max and able to sustain it).
If I'm the DM and my creativity leads me to think of something outside the rules (e.g. a laser rifle) then suddenly the rules are constraining me - if I let them. But in the philosophy I go by, where it's the DM's game and she can do what she likes, this can never be an issue. Flip side, however, is the DM has to take care and be responsible about what she's doing or changing to avoid butchering her own game.
What would be the value in upending that equilibrium?
Variable, dependent on too many factors to list. But: the key is that if the rules say not to do x and you thus never try doing x you'll never know whether doing x is in fact better or worse than not doing it. (this applies to the player side as well - 3e's 'a rule for everything' design tends to discourage such out-of-the-box thinking, which to me is a shame) My take as DM is to just try it, knowing that it'll either work or it won't, and if it doesn't just be prepared to admit to a mistake and move on. (which is how I go about it when I kitbash the system - it's either gonna work or it isn't but I won't know until I try)
Or do you think that equilibrium is absolutely impossible to achieve by following a system's rules?
Equilibrium is very possible to achieve within a (halfway-well-designed) system's rules. However, that equilibrium may or may not come at cost of either a) constraining creativity on one or both sides of the screen or b) boredom. EDIT: or c) frustration, as either the DM or one or more players has come up with a better rule or way of improving play.
And we haven't even got to houserules yet.
Can you give a hypothetical play example of something that you believe is completely impossible for a principled system (with coherent/robust rules) to achieve?
Offhand, not really; as I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "a principled system" as opposed to any other system. But the genre-breaking element is an obvious place to start. Hypothetically if the rules state there are no "modern" elements included in the game how can I then run "Expedition to the Barrier Peaks" or an equivalent? I either have to make up rules for it myself (and I've no idea how these sort of systems react to kitbashing or houseruling), or abandon the idea of running that adventure (thus, I as DM am constrained in what I can do). Neither is an ideal solution, though my own preference would be to make up the rules, hope for the best, and plow ahead with it.
Lanefan
