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<blockquote data-quote="Balesir" data-source="post: 5473697" data-attributes="member: 27160">I think what you may be missing is that although, naturally, the players have goals, and the characters have goals, these goals are not neccessarily the same.&nbsp; In what we are calling &quot;challenge based play&quot; the goal of the players is to take on and beat challenges through the agency of their characters.&nbsp; The characters may or moy not have some other goal that means that they must overcome these challenges.&nbsp; But it is also possible for the characters to have in-game goals that are completely unconnected with the goals that the players have in doing the activity of roleplaying.&nbsp; The players might wish to imagine experiencing a world, a character or a situation that is alien to them, for example.&nbsp; Or they might wish to explore a question like &quot;can murder ever be justified&quot; without the trauma of actually murdering somebody or the misfortune of meeting someone so vile that their murder might actually be justified.&nbsp; Just because challenges and objectives are a natural part of existence does not mean that in-game challenges and objectives are neccessarily the main focus of desire when people decide to do some roleplaying.Awarding xp for failed skill challenges is something I am coming to agree with, in fact, although it goes alongside including consequences for both successes and failures during the challenge.&nbsp; As an example, a challenge I ran last weekend involved an encounter with each failure, set such that the encounter xp value upon complete failure was equal to the xp value of the skill challenge.&nbsp; The encounters gave no xp - but the challenge as a whole gave xp whether succeeded or failed at.Treasure, in the regular sense, I see as part of character &quot;advancement&quot;.&nbsp; In other words, they are just another aspect of xps.&nbsp; Many players see xps/levels as the &quot;reward&quot; for beating encounters - and to an extent it's fun to see/treat them that way.&nbsp; But really it would be a failure of the whole enterprise if play at lower levels was not fun, too.&nbsp; There is a sense, I think, in which xps/levels are an aspect of the &quot;stepping up&quot;/challenge in themselves.&nbsp; OK, you were able to competently manage a character with that power and number of schticks - now try with even more capability and stuff to cope with!&nbsp; The tendency of some to use their (highest level) character's level in bragging contests speaks to this element, too.To an extent, all of the aims of play are something of a case of smoke and mirrors.&nbsp; We should never completely forget that these characters and worlds of which we speak actually exist only in our imaginations.&nbsp; The desires, feelings, capabilities and achievements of our characters are as ephemeral as the world in which they live, and the only real benefit to be gained from the activity of roleplaying is the &quot;fun&quot; we find in the contests, world building and storytelling we do while pursuing it.&nbsp; For various arbitrary values of &quot;fun&quot;.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Balesir, post: 5473697, member: 27160"] I think what you may be missing is that although, naturally, the players have goals, and the characters have goals, these goals are not neccessarily the same. In what we are calling "challenge based play" the goal of the players is to take on and beat challenges through the agency of their characters. The characters may or moy not have some other goal that means that they must overcome these challenges. But it is also possible for the characters to have in-game goals that are completely unconnected with the goals that the players have in doing the activity of roleplaying. The players might wish to imagine experiencing a world, a character or a situation that is alien to them, for example. Or they might wish to explore a question like "can murder ever be justified" without the trauma of actually murdering somebody or the misfortune of meeting someone so vile that their murder might actually [I]be[/I] justified. Just because challenges and objectives are a natural part of existence does not mean that [I][B]in-game[/B][/I] challenges and objectives are neccessarily the main focus of desire when people decide to do some roleplaying. Awarding xp for failed skill challenges is something I am coming to agree with, in fact, although it goes alongside including consequences for both successes and failures during the challenge. As an example, a challenge I ran last weekend involved an encounter with each failure, set such that the encounter xp value upon complete failure was equal to the xp value of the skill challenge. The encounters gave no xp - but the challenge as a whole gave xp whether succeeded or failed at. Treasure, in the regular sense, I see as part of character "advancement". In other words, they are just another aspect of xps. Many players see xps/levels as the "reward" for beating encounters - and to an extent it's fun to see/treat them that way. But really it would be a failure of the whole enterprise if play at lower levels was not fun, too. There is a sense, I think, in which xps/levels are an aspect of the "stepping up"/challenge in themselves. OK, you were able to competently manage a character with that power and number of schticks - now try with even more capability and stuff to cope with! The tendency of some to use their (highest level) character's level in bragging contests speaks to this element, too. To an extent, all of the aims of play are something of a case of smoke and mirrors. We should never completely forget that these characters and worlds of which we speak actually exist only in our imaginations. The desires, feelings, capabilities and achievements of our characters are as ephemeral as the world in which they live, and the only real benefit to be gained from the activity of roleplaying is the "fun" we find in the contests, world building and storytelling we do while pursuing it. For various arbitrary values of "fun". [/QUOTE]

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