Those other two pillars

[Derren]

I don't think this is an indication the game is less about this stuff though.

Actually it does.
The whole game boils down to conflict resolution. It can be a literal conflict solved by violence, but also a conflict in opinion (diplomacy). Even things like deciphering a ancient text or building a fortification is in an abstract way a conflict the character participates in.
And when the system gives you a lot of tools to solve one kind of conflict but not the others it is clearly making priorities what sort of conflicts it considers important and which not. And its not even that everything none combat usually lacks rules, even advice is very sparse as again, most advice in the DMG deals with how to create balanced combatants, how many combats you should run in a session, how to effectively use unbalanced combats, etc.

How much advice is there on how to progress socially? To move in a complex social web (or help creating them)? How much advise is there for multi stage tasks or for affecting the world without combat? Even advise on how to deal with famous PCs is lacking, if not missing in most editions.

 

[ExploderWizard]

I don't think this is an indication the game is less about this stuff though. It is just because a lot of gamers (less so now, but there are still a lot of us who feel this way) don't find we need as many mechanics for things like social interaction as we do for combat. It isn't that combat is taking center stage in our games at all, it is that we need combat rules because combat is where you see more disagreement over outcomes. In social scenarios, many of us find it easier to operate without mechanics. This isn't true for everyone of course. There are lots of people who like skills such as Diplomacy or who enjoy Social Combat mechanics. But a good chunk of the gaming community is just as happy to play without this stuff. This is one of the reasons I think you can't really say a game is all about combat simply because it has lots of combat crunch in it.

Ah yes the old attitude of believing that if something is at all important then there should be a massive amount of rules coverage. This is loosely connected to the bogus theory that if the players are not rolling handfuls of dice then they aren't really doing anything. Gaming is a social activity and reducing every element to an interaction with the mechanics does not play to the strengths of tabletop.

Roleplaying- theres an app for that.

No so much.

 

[S'mon]

I use the 4e Quest XP awards for achievement of social and exploration goals. With minor & major quest awards and variable levels, I find it works very well, better than an XP-per-session tally unrelated to what actually happened.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Actually it does.
The whole game boils down to conflict resolution. It can be a literal conflict solved by violence, but also a conflict in opinion (diplomacy). Even things like deciphering a ancient text or building a fortification is in an abstract way a conflict the character participates in.
And when the system gives you a lot of tools to solve one kind of conflict but not the others it is clearly making priorities what sort of conflicts it considers important and which not. And its not even that everything none combat usually lacks rules, even advice is very sparse as again, most advice in the DMG deals with how to create balanced combatants, how many combats you should run in a session, how to effectively use unbalanced combats, etc.

How much advice is there on how to progress socially? To move in a complex social web (or help creating them)? How much advise is there for multi stage tasks or for affecting the world without combat? Even advise on how to deal with famous PCs is lacking, if not missing in most editions.

Again, it boils down to what you need advice and rules for. A substantial number of gamers have no need or social mechanics or mechanics tailored to exploration to focus on those during play. I am not saying this is so for everyone, but for a lot of people it is the case. I ran mainly investigations, hunts, and gothic inspired combat light adventures for 2E. I didn't need many rules to achieve that. And so much of the 2E era was about setting and characters. But the system is mainly combat because most peope need combat rules.

As for there not being much advice on non combat stuff, read any of the DMGs or any if the setting specific material (from pretty much any edition) and you see tons of stuff on npcs, town building, commerce, adventure structures, campaign building, etc. The game is about a lot more than combat alone even if it hasnt always offered as mant mechanical resolutions for non-combat stuff.

 

[Bedrockgames]

I use the 4e Quest XP awards for achievement of social and exploration goals. With minor & major quest awards and variable levels, I find it works very well, better than an XP-per-session tally unrelated to what actually happened.

I dont know 4E well, but the game has rewarded other things for sometime. The 2E dmg rewarded characters for non combat activities. Pretty sure 3E had stuff like story reward, and 1E, if I recall rewarded XP for the gold you acquired (which can mean exploration as much as combat). Plus in any given settingm there are rewards beyond experience for exploration and social interaction (land, titles, allies, etc).

But all that said, i dont think games leaning more heavily on rewarding combat mean they are about combat anymore than real life is about being strong, aggressive or smart, just because those can often be rewarded. There are different approaches to XP in games, and not all of them use XP as a way of focusing the purpose of the system. Some just try to use them as believable outcomes of character actions, others try to reward the most measurable things (and combat is pretty easy to measure).

 

[(Psi)SeveredHead]

I'd like more guidance on non-XP rewards for social and exploration.

Somewhere in the DMG2 4e, there's a great example of an exploration-based skill challenge leading to combat. The PCs are hunting bandits, and can either do it quickly or slowly. If they do it quickly the next encounter is easier (there were guidelines about what to remove to make the encounter easier), or go slowly, so the bandits get reinforcements... but are also surprised.

Unfortunately, most exploration skill challenges seem to be based purely on avoiding negatives. Roll to avoid losing healing surges (or avoid getting lost). The issue isn't even the rules, I didn't see much in the way of similar guidance in 2e or 3e either.

 

[pemerton]

And what do you get for more XP? Mostly combat power because there isn't all that much non combat stuff to begin with.

First, I don't see how this relates to my point that 4e seems to me to do what the OP was asking for, namely, provide a structure for rewards in the other two pillars which don't subordinate them to combat as sources of XP.

Second, in 4e going up levels gives you new utility powers (which for many classes can be non-combat if the player wants), feats (which can be used to gain non-combat capabilities, eg Skill Training and Skill Focus), and items (which can be skill-enhancing if desired, or non-combat Wondrous Items, etc).

 

[S'mon]

I dont know 4E well, but the game has rewarded other things for sometime. The 2E dmg rewarded characters for non combat activities. Pretty sure 3E had stuff like story reward, and 1E, if I recall rewarded XP for the gold you acquired (which can mean exploration as much as combat).

Yep, just saying I like the 4e quest XP structure, with minor & major quests. The 4e Skill Challenge system is useful if you want a lot of formal structure - IME it works quite well for exploration, but I find it much too constricting for social activities so I don't use it for those.

The 4e quest XP system can be boiled down to:

Achieve Major Goal of PCs' level - PCs get 1/10* the XP needed to level up.
Achieve Minor Goal of PC' level - PCs get 1/50** the XP needed to level up.

*Which is the same as what the PCs get for a standard on-level combat encounter, or a
standard on-level monster for each PC.
**I use 1/40 as that is the XP for a 'minion' monster for each PC.

The numbers can be read off the 4e encounter XP chart.
Players can set their own goals/quests, and this system makes it easy to award XP for
achieving them. The GM can also set quests for the PCs. I like this system a lot and will sometimes use it in eg BX D&D, eg I might use the Fighter XP chart and give 1st level PCs 200 XP each for achieving a major goal.

Edit: While I don't much like "session XP" as a concept, I keep the 'major quest XP/standard
encounter XP/one tenth of XP to level' number in mind as a guide to minimum XP to award for a
session where the PCs have been active (no turtling) but it's not that clear what they've accomplished.

 

[Sadras]

I was thinking about the "interaction" and "exploration" pillars. We have had a lot of discussion saying that the rules should support those pillars as well (or approaching) as they do the combat pillar.

People who play D&D for the other two pillars get direct enjoyment from discovering new things, and solving problems through diplomacy. But does the game actively reward this?

Anyone have any suggestions?

Yes, modifying the XP system requires the least effort and makes the most sense. Below is our system.

Group XP and Unison Leveling
In our group we use group XPs and unison leveling given that the party gains the experience or the lore collectively for the most part. Sure one might not share the knowledge with the rest of the party - but since everyone levels up at the same time, there is no use in keeping separate XP tallies. Therefore XP gained through knowledge contributes to all.

Slowed Advancement Rate
We have also decided to slow the advancement, since the party all levels up we have used a system which takes the party XPs into account: We multiply the XPs needed for one level of advancement by the number of characters within the party. So if 9,000 XP is required to advance to the next level and there are 4 characters, the required XP for everyone to go up a level is 4 x 9,000 = 36,000 XP. I'm not going to go into the benefits/drawbacks from slower advancement - they're fairly obvious and everyone knows why they would or wouldn't do it.

Earning XP

Gaining Knowledge of the Setting and its People 10 XP
Gaining through meeting, travelling, researching
Knowledge can be experience or lore, active or passive.
The Setting includes travelling to new locations (roads, villages, towns, natural locations i.e. mountain range), experiencing new cultures, laws or races, learning history, myths or legend...etc
People being NPCs
It is a once off XP award per setting knowledge gained or NPC encountered.

We bump the XP value to 50 XP for major storyline/campaign characters and locations (treated like a minor goal accomplished, refer below).

Combat Experience
Encountering a type of monster for the party's first time 10 XP
The first time gaining knowledge of the monster's ablities 5 XP
For instance the party encounters and defeats a Dragon for the first time - the group gains 5 XP for experiencing anyone of these - its Breath Weapon, Strength, Tail Attack, Flight, Intelligence, Spells, Claw Attack, Acute Senses...etc

Encountering and slaying orcs again and again earns you 0 XP, unless each orc brings something new to the experience.
This slays the kill-spammers for the sake of XP, not that I'm suffering from such players in my group, it just makes more sense.

Gaining Lore of the Supernatural and Magic 5-10 XP
Usually 5 XP relates to player ability (spells), 10XP would relate to Setting knowledge
For instance our character recently discovered his fireball does not bloom in a confined space, like a corridor, D&DNext (5 XP) but he has learned that in Glantri, the wizards are able to bloom their fireballs, as per 1st-2nd edition rules (10 XP)
He would have to travel to Glantri to train in order to gain the ability of blooming his fireball in a confined space.

Iconic and Character Defining Moments 5-15 XP
Comedic moments during play, genius plans, interaction between PCs and/or NPCs, character defining moments...
When PCs have some great dialogue or debate amongst each other and they roleplay within their characters roles, I believe they should be awarded for that - its an encouraging mechanism that works. Our Paladin in the group is often driven into struggle with the other PCs due to their actions or words conflicting with his moral or religious code. It draws out great roleplaying moments for which him and the others are rewarded for.

Minor and Major Goals accomplished 50 and 100 XP respectively
Goals could be personal (attaining Knighthood, discovering the cure for a character's curse) or they could be the mission of the entire party.
I have attached one of XP sheets so you can see how it works out. It does have a labour intensive component to maintain but it works for us.

 

[Bedrockgames]

Yep, just saying I like the 4e quest XP structure, with minor & major quests. The 4e Skill Challenge system is useful if you want a lot of formal structure - IME it works quite well for exploration, but I find it much too constricting for social activities so I don't use it for those.

oh, i wasn't disagreeing with your post. I was just useing it as a starting point to say that the game has rewarded things other than combat for a long time (responding to posters claiming the game is about combat because that is what the bulk of the rules cover).