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<blockquote data-quote="fearsomepirate" data-source="post: 8197589" data-attributes="member: 7021420">I'm speaking from experience and assuming very little. Most of what you described would be classified as either a railroad stop or a roadblock. Going out into the wilderness solely to experience a main-quest-irrelevant side-story, with no material reward, is something that will be seen by many players as you wasting their time, and once they realize that's all there is, they will start actively avoiding such quests (again, speaking from experience). Ultimately, none of what you described fundamentally alters the railroad-like nature of milestone-based gaming.Milestones are gates. They're railroad stops. There is nothing morally wrong with that, but how players become more powerful fundamentally shapes the kinds of adventures you can run. If you rebuilt something like Temple of Elemental Evil with milestones instead of treasure based XP, it fundamentally alters what the adventure even is. In fact, giving XP for monster-slaying instead of treasure-finding so strongly alters the nature of the adventure that I think it is positively required for you to use the AD&amp;D experience system, regardless of what other system you use for combat, skills, and so on.On the flip side, XP really doesn't work that great for chapter-based, linear storybook adventures, which is why milestones have become so popular in the first place. In other words, XP is great for Castle Greyhawk, and not so great for Storm King's Thunder.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="fearsomepirate, post: 8197589, member: 7021420"] I'm speaking from experience and assuming very little. Most of what you described would be classified as either a railroad stop or a roadblock. Going out into the wilderness solely to experience a main-quest-irrelevant side-story, with no material reward, is something that will be seen by many players as you wasting their time, and once they realize that's all there is, they will start actively avoiding such quests (again, speaking from experience). Ultimately, none of what you described fundamentally alters the railroad-like nature of milestone-based gaming. Milestones are gates. They're railroad stops. There is nothing morally wrong with that, but how players become more powerful fundamentally shapes the kinds of adventures you can run. If you rebuilt something like Temple of Elemental Evil with milestones instead of treasure based XP, it fundamentally alters what the adventure even is. In fact, giving XP for monster-slaying instead of treasure-finding so strongly alters the nature of the adventure that I think it is positively required for you to use the AD&D experience system, regardless of what other system you use for combat, skills, and so on. On the flip side, XP really doesn't work that great for chapter-based, linear storybook adventures, which is why milestones have become so popular in the first place. In other words, XP is great for Castle Greyhawk, and not so great for Storm King's Thunder. [/QUOTE]

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