D&D 5E The Illusion of Experience Points that Everyone Disbelieves

[Giltonio_Santos]

And there you have what I call a dealbreaker. Right now I'm having a blast with the playtest rules. They are fast and easy to run, and I'll be probably making a definitive shift from 2E to 5E once the final game is available. That is, unless the advancement is anything like the OP want it to be. If the game has no XP, I'll gladly come back to run mostly 2E, as I've been doing since about 2008.

I understand that a lot of people run theme park-style games, and I understand that XP is rarely relevant in this kind of game. But bear in mind: it's so easy to ignore the XP table and "level when you want to" that I don't understand why people still want to remove XP from the game. Just ignore it. While it's possible to run a sandbox where "level when you want to" is used, this is a deep change in the way the game is played.

"But experience points are an illusion". No, they're not. In my last session, characters had a very difficult fight, and remembering their XP from memory only, I expected some of them (I also track evolution individually for each character) to advance by the end of the session. In other words, if I was playing by "level when you want to", they would have leveled. By then end of the session, though, nobody advanced. I felt tempted to add a "completing a challenging mission" XP reward to help them reach the magic number, but in the end I decided against it, exactly because I didn't want it to be an illusion, I want it to be a mostly objective goal.

That's how I like to DM, that's how I like to play. I love D&D, I hope they keep "XP to level up" as the core advancement rule forever.

Cheers!

 

[Desdichado]

I understand that a lot of people run theme park-style games, and I understand that XP is rarely relevant in this kind of game.

Uh... what exactly is a "theme park-style game" and what in the world does that obviously pejorative label have to do with the preferred method of character advancement?

I certainly don't recall "leveling up" from Space Mountain to Expedition Everest or whatever last time I was at DisneyWorld. I'm really struggling to find any way in which that label is in any way at all relevant.

But bear in mind: it's so easy to ignore the XP table and "level when you want to" that I don't understand why people still want to remove XP from the game. Just ignore it. While it's possible to run a sandbox where "level when you want to" is used, this is a deep change in the way the game is played.

Not necessarily, which I think was the perhaps mis-stated point of this thread in the first place. Even sandbox style games can just as effectively be run with ad hoc XP awards, in which case, the "XP is an illusion" is a valid point. An over-stated point, but not an invalid one.

 

[Dungeoneer]

There seems to be an assumption in this thread that those of us running XP-less games (~50% if you believe the poll thread below!) aren't throwing difficult fights at our players. That is absolutely not true. When I run 4e I will throw monsters at the players that are as tough as they can be while still being theoretically beatable. The +/- 5 level rule of thumb works pretty well for this.

What I don't do is throw laughably unbeatable monsters at my players a la oD&D's wandering monster tables. Given that in 3.x and 4e rolling up a character is a major endeavor I think this is a perfectly defensible position. Insta-kill baddies which grind the game to a halt are no fun for the kind of game we're playing. Also no fun is a monster with defenses that can only be hit on a natural 20. Even if the party can keep themselves alive that fight is going to take FOREVER. I get why you might drop in massively over-leveled baddies in 1e and 2e but they seem a lot less workable to me in 3.x and 4e.

So I'll thank you to leave your 'theme park' comments at the door. We do tough fights, and sometimes the players leave with their tails between their legs. Sometimes someone dies. Sometimes we're playing Gamma World and I TPK the party*. But that ain't gonna be because they were level 1 and WHOOPS they got stepped on by a tarrasque.

* Not on purpose. But I've played a handful of short 4e GW campaigns and at least two ended in TPKs. I think GW is just a lot more swingy thanks to random character generation.

 

[TwoSix]

Ho..ho.. ho..

Ah, chicaboog noon-eeg Skyscraper. Tah keeng sa leeng ah pak dungeon master, peeska chatah: may now kung bantha poodoo!


Ya koon tacha poonoo nee sah, gee.

Translated from Huttese:

Ho, ho, ho (iconic Jabba laugh here).

It's too late for that, Skyscraper. You may have been a good dungeon master, but now you're bantha fodder!

Your powers will not work on me, boy.

 

[Desdichado]

...

Are you trying to sound like one of the Worm Guys from "Men In Black"?

I'm pretty sure he's quoting (or interpreting, in any case) Jabba the Hutt.

 

[Mistwell]

Uh... what exactly is a "theme park-style game" and what in the world does that obviously pejorative label have to do with the preferred method of character advancement?

I certainly don't recall "leveling up" from Space Mountain to Expedition Everest or whatever last time I was at DisneyWorld. I'm really struggling to find any way in which that label is in any way at all relevant.

Not necessarily, which I think was the perhaps mis-stated point of this thread in the first place. Even sandbox style games can just as effectively be run with ad hoc XP awards, in which case, the "XP is an illusion" is a valid point. An over-stated point, but not an invalid one.

I've never heard the term, but I will take a guess.

Imagine each "Land" within Disneyland is instead labelled with a range of levels. So, Fantasyland = Levels 1-3, Fontierland = Levels 4-6, Adventureland = Levels 7-10, etc.. The players then are guided by the DM to enter the "Land" that is appropriate to their average party level.

 

[TwoSix]

Uh... what exactly is a "theme park-style game" and what in the world does that obviously pejorative label have to do with the preferred method of character advancement?

Theme park style games (as opposed to sandbox games) is common nomenclature in MMOs, where games like World of Warcraft constantly add new level appropriate content for players to experience (like adding a new ride to a theme park.) This would be contrasted with the sandbox games, like Ultima Online, Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE, etc., where the game is primarily driven by player generated content, and it's easy for a player to end up in well over their head.

 

[Desdichado]

So I'll thank you to leave your 'theme park' comments at the door. We do tough fights, and sometimes the players leave with their tails between their legs. Sometimes someone dies. Sometimes we're playing Gamma World and I TPK the party*. But that ain't gonna be because they were level 1 and WHOOPS they got stepped on by a tarrasque.

The tagline for my setting is, "D&D rules, Call of Cthulhu play paradigm." Monsters that you literally can't beat and aren't expected to fight are commonplace.

Relatively speaking.

 

[Desdichado]

Theme park style games (as opposed to sandbox games) is common nomenclature in MMOs, where games like World of Warcraft constantly add new level appropriate content for players to experience (like adding a new ride to a theme park.) This would be contrasted with the sandbox games, like Ultima Online, Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, EVE, etc., where the game is primarily driven by player generated content, and it's easy for a player to end up in well over their head.

Ah. That makes sense. I've never heard that before, but I guess I don't run with the MMO crowd either.

 

[Umbran]

It's Huttese, I believe.

Ah, yes, got it. Amazing what imagining it said in a deep voice vs. a high voice will do to perception.