Level Up!

[Stumblewyk]

It's hard to tell exactly how much this is influencing their decisions. Maybe your players really don't care. Maybe they stay in character most of the time but jump on situations that seem like they would give a good experience reward. Maybe their every action is silently judged against getting the biggest experience reward possible.

You could very well be right, but I think it comes down to game style more than anything. I reward XP, 100% as detailed in the 4e PHB, but my game is very casual. We play once a month, and it's as much a social gathering as it is a game night. XP just isn't the motivating factor to show up and play.

But I play in a weekly game that is anything but casual, and I still don't see this mentality at the table. A challenge is presented, and we overcome it or not. If it earns us enough XP to level, fantastic. If not, we'll get it next time (we hope).

I should point out, I'm not stirring the hornets nest to imply that anyone's doing anything wrong as DM or that anyone's game is lacking in any way. I'm really am just curious as to what type of game/player attracts this kind of metagame approach. =/

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

I think it's a valid question Stumblewyk, I think it's the type of gamer who is more of a 'by the book' person and doesn't like change or to deviate from the RAW. There are plenty of rules lawyers out there that adhere strictly to RAW and get very umm anal retentive about it.

I think for the more casual and laid back people, they tend to not care as much about how the experience is doled out. These are the guys and gals who like to get together to have fun and socialize more. They are the types of people who get more excited by a good night of role playing and memories.

I think on the other hand there are those who are very serious about it being exactly as the books state, they are the ones who want to go by RAW and try to keep it as close to that type of game as possible. Not to say they don't have as much fun, but they probably try to keep as close to in character at all times as possible in my opinion.

I don't think there's anything wrong with playing on either side of the fence and I've been part of both types of groups and still have fun doing my favorite hobby.

 

[moxcamel]

[MENTION=73201]Traveon Wyvernspur[/MENTION] , I think the fact that the system works equally well for either type of player speaks volumes to how well designed 4e really was. I'd have never considered xp-less games with previous editions, it would have just been flown in the face of how those systems were built. I know 4e has its detractors, but imho it's the most robustly designed version to date, and the fact we can have an xp-less discussion without having to come up with work-arounds speaks well to it.

 

[Traveon Wyvernspur]

[MENTION=67954]moxcamel[/MENTION] yep I hadn't played xp-less prior to 4E, the system really does allow it much easier than the previous systems. I like all editions, but have been playing 4E for a while now w/o using xp and am loving it. It was actually after reading a story hour on this forum that I decided to go xp-less and go by sessions instead to level up and am really surprised at how well received it was by my group. They don't feel the need to kill everything and go treasure hunting every session, they like the ability to advance things with good role playing as well.

 

[Riastlin]

The metagame argument works both ways though.

"Gee, I'd really like to go check out Emmerson Lake, but the current 'chapter' seems to suggest we go to Lake Palmer and completing the chapter will earn us a level up based on past history."

For me, my players like the "tangible" progress denoted by XP. If they decide to go check out the cave off the main path (of both the road and the story) they are not "penalized" for side tracking from the story. At the same time, if they decide to just start killing stuff indiscriminately, they won't be getting any XP anyway. I can't recall an instance where it seemed a decision was consciously being made simply to collect XP. I have; however, had an entire adventure spawn from a comment made in passing by me in describing the location the party arrived at in pursuance of their current quest. They put the "active" quest on hold while pursuing the side quest which ended up being an adventure unto itself and which kept me on my toes since I hadn't planned for it.

Had they felt they'd only get "story appropriate" XP though, there's a good chance they'd have ignored the side quest.

All that being said, I do not see an actual need to give out XP in 4th Ed. since there is no longer the issue of using XP in item creation and the casting of spells, etc. At the end of the day, if the group is content, then you are doing it "right".

 

[LostSoul]

Interesting discussion! My guess on what XP does:

It creates a relationship between what the PCs do in the game world and how the PCs change. Certain actions lead to certain amounts of XP; not all actions lead to the same amount of XP. Thus you can see that what choices you make for your PC does has an impact on how fast your character changes and grows. This works for Quests as well as killin' monsters.

It promotes a player-driven game. When all choices are equal, there isn't a difference between them (see Tic-Tac-Toe). If players want their characters to change, they can make choices to determine the rate of that growth - within a certain window, of course.

It reflects the game world in that creatures who have a greater effect on the game world tend to be worth more experience to defeat.

I'm not sure any of this actually holds up, though.


I don't think I'd want to play in a game that didn't award different amounts of XP based on the choices I made. I would play in a game that only awarded XP for Quests, though.

 

[jester_gl]

Over the course of a level, the DM who follow the guideline will have to give x magic item, x gold pieces, about 10 encounters, etc. Since I started 4th edition I planned my games 1 level at a time.

Started by making a list of the item and other treasures I would give out during the level, then creating the encounters (or possible encounters) and skills challenges. Round out the level by giving quest reward for the missing xp and items, and you have a simple adventure.

Of course this work best if you have cooperative players or you know in advance what weird things they will do. I once had planned what would happens for when they would set fire to the castle, while they were supposed to protect that castle. The players did just that and fun ensued while escaping the burning castle. And they thought they had me outwitted for a moment.

 

[BobTheNob]

I have been awarding levels at key points in the campaign since 4e was first released and I would recommend it to anyone.

My take on "tracking XP", its actually a game dinosaur. Yes, it gives a means by which we can associate value with game objectives and ensure that players are getting their due. However, it does have its downsides...

* Its hard work. Keeping track of it takes work. Im lazy, so its too much for me. I only have limited brain power, and I would prefer to put that toward designing interesting encounters and storyline than number crunching
* Since combat gives XP, players have motivation to pick fights with everything, leading to the cliched party of psycotic mass-murderers
* If I wanted to crunch numbers, I would have been an accountant

But ask the key question : Whats the point of leveling at all? Well, character growth, and the kick you get out of it, taking on cool and new abilities, finding ways of dominating the situation in ways you never could before. These things are liniked to Level growth, NOT XP growth.

The important aspects of character growth occur with or without XP, and to me that leaves me asking the question, why the hassle?

(Note : Many of my player felt "uncomfortable" with this when I frst put it forward, being old school players. Since then, everyone has changed their minds. arbitrary level growth is just as rewarding, and much much easier)

 

[Nemesis Destiny]

I have played in a couple games where we eschewed XP in favour of just levelling when the DM decided that we did. The first one was a 3.x game run by my wife; she decided with all the other work she had to do as a DM, figuring out XP was not something she wanted to deal with, so it got dropped. It worked wonderfully. It felt very episodic and it was a fun change.

Another DM in our group then tried it in a different 3.x campaign, and that was done mostly because one player in the group was super-picky and whiny about things like "bonus" XP, especially when he wasn't the one getting any. So, to placate him, the DM just eliminated XP and decided when we would level. This also worked out well.

I have not yet tried it, but may at some point. I've run plenty of other XP-less systems like Shadowrun and Call of Cthulhu, but they have a much different mechanic for increasing character power (karma and improve-what-you-use systems, respectively), so that's not an equal comparison.

I've seen how it can and does work in D&D, and yeah, I really feel like it's optional. Especially for groups like ours that are more story-focused. Sure, if it was a dungeon crawl, I might feel more need to track XP, but otherwise, I think it's largely unnecessary.

 

[moxcamel]

The metagame argument works both ways though.

"Gee, I'd really like to go check out Emmerson Lake, but the current 'chapter' seems to suggest we go to Lake Palmer and completing the chapter will earn us a level up based on past history."

No-xp games don't have to be episodic. I'll grant you that I'm running my first no-xp game right now, so I can't speak from experience, but even if you want to run a free-form type game, you can run an xp-less game by just deciding amongst yourselves when it's time to level up. So maybe your players decide to divert to Emmerson lake, they do some exploring and some good deeds and maybe clean out an evil cultist temple or two, and then ding, time to level.