Level Up!

[moxcamel]

In the Dark Sun game I just joined, the DM prefers to keep everyone's XP together to make things simpler. Players who are absent even get splits on XP and loot. Our first combat, everyone got about 700XP, but to get caught up, my wife and I got a bonus 2k. So we started w/10k and ended at 12702. Tomorrow's session should let us hit L8

I award the same xp even to missing players, to avoid this problem. It works out well because I rarely have a player miss more than one game in a row, and we just have somebody else run his or her character that session. And it also avoids the problem of having everyone except one or two players level up, thus wasting their time as they sit around waiting for everyone else to level up their characters.

Although in my current campaign, and for the first time ever, we're not doing xp. And I'm loving it so far.

 

[SabreCat]

Oh, yeah, I do have shared party XP too. The party scorecard has one character's worth of XP progress written out on it (currently 14th level, 47,390 / 57,000 XP for next level). In a given session, the XP earned gets divided by the number of characters present and added to that total.

I don't think I'd ever do that any other way. Being behind by a level for circumstances out of your control (work, bereavement, etc.--whatever reasons players have for missing sessions) would be painful, I'd think.

 

[moxcamel]

Yep. For years my group used to play with the rule that if you weren't there, you didn't get xp. During one campaign we set up an xp "vault" where players could elect to deposit some amount of their xp into their "account" whenever they earned it. The account earned, iirc, 5% "interest" per game session up to some maximum, I forget, and you could withdraw if you missed a session. Anyway, it was a load of book keeping, and the player that was managing it left at some point, and we never kept up on it. It sort of worked though.

 

[Gilwen]

My current group transitioned over well...they were concerned I wasn't handing out XP but saw that after 8 - 12 encounters they'd gain a level. They have never missed the extra book work. I'm starting DMing a new group and first words out of thier mouth was now many XP to level. We'll see how they react to the no xp leveling. For me as a DM and Player I like not having to keep track of the numbers. For one of my characters i kept a "kill" log for a while instead of an xp log and it was fun for a while. However, for leveling without xp I htink you have to be consisent. Don't go from leveling 8 - 12 enounters to leveling every every 20 without a good reason.

Gil

 

[AbdulAlhazred]

We did keep track of XP for quite a while, but then it was just extra book keeping and didn't seem like it was really worth the effort. I can pretty much tell you when the PCs have enough XP to level anyway in 4e. It just isn't that hard. I make a note of when the party leveled and a note of each encounter they've had more or less. If there's a decent amount of non-combat stuff or some plot elements get resolved then I just eyeball that in. Run into a bunch of tough encounters in a row, you may level a bit sooner, do some really cool stuff, maybe the next level happens a tiny bit sooner, but in general the PCs level at logical story points and it is the same as using XP give or take.

Really though, I don't think the players in my game are THAT wrapped up in advancing at any particular rate. They obviously like to level up, but it isn't the primary focus of the game. More a matter of helping things develop and keeping it interesting.

 

[DNH]

Really though, I don't think the players in my game are THAT wrapped up in advancing at any particular rate. They obviously like to level up, but it isn't the primary focus of the game. More a matter of helping things develop and keeping it interesting.

This. For me as a DM, story is everything. I am fortunate that the people I play with (and they are the same people I have played with for donkey's years) feel the same. They enjoy the story we are telling much more than the numbers and so on that sit behind it all. Sure, you need to advance the characters and everything but that will happen when we want to tell different stories.

It's a bit like World of Warcraft versus Lord of the Rings Online, if you like. The former (imo) is all about the endgame and the quicker you get there, the better (they even reduce xp requirements for levelling, every time they bring out an expansion, which makes the endgame come along sooner whether you like it or not); the latter is all about the journey and you would actually be a fool to rush along to the level cap as you would miss most of all the best stuff (there is in fact too much content!).

 

[BobTheNob]

I use the XP system as written, with the exception of some bonus XP when players use twist cards. I love it. It's one of the two "minigames" I get a kick out of when DMing, the other being treasure parcel distribution.

(First I have a little gigglem then I respond with...)Wow, you mentioned the two things I hated most about DMing and consequently the two things I have erradicated from my game.

Horses for courses indeed.

 

[Daern]

This

There are a couple of advantages

1) You can bribe players for roleplaying, campaign journals, helping with the dishes, attendance, whatever
2) It lets you start new characters slightly lower than current characters if you want. They'll eventually catch up a little due to the experience being "worth more" at lower levels

That said, any Game I'm gm'ing I just go the "level when I feel like it" route.

This. I get more session write-ups and artwork from my players when I give out XP. People like points.

Hell, we give each other XP on Enworld!

 

[Daern]

Xp!!

Well I guess I just maxed my XP giving abilities, but the point is, everybody loves to get XP!
Its like the most popular new feature on these boards. I totally get people not wanting to keep track of yet another number. When I DM I cheat it so they more or less level up every session, but the players like getting XP anyways. It's a pleasant fiction.

XP!

 

[Tequila Sunrise]

Yeah, giving XP is like having an extra credit card, albeit a low-maximum one. Want snacks? Bonus XP for anyone who brings rice crispy treats! Want an amateur massage? Give your g/f bonus XP!

...Okay, maybe that's not the best use of XP. Some players do really like to get it little by little though, and to know exactly how far from next level they are. That said, I don't do XP either. If my players asked me to, I dunno, I might go back to doling it out. But I'd probably forget to calculate it for a lot of encounters, and subconsciously try to make it a general hassle for my players.

I did XP during 2e and 3e, and in hindsight it just wasn't worth the time.