What Is an Experience Point Worth?

It seems like a simple question, but the way you answer it may, in effect, determine the metaphysics of your game. Many RPGs use some sort of "experience point" system to model growth and learning. The progenitor of this idea is, of course, Dungeons & Dragons; the Experience Point (XP) system has been a core feature of the game from the beginning.

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Yet what exactly an experience point is remains unclear.

Think about it: can anyone earn an XP under the right circumstances? Or must one possess a class? If so, what qualifies an individual for a class? The 1st-edition Dungeon Master’s Guide specifies that henchmen earn 50 percent of the group’s XP award. In other words, they get a full share awarded, but then only "collect" half the share. Where does the other half go? Did it ever exist in the first place?

These esoteric questions were highlighted for me recently when I recreated a 20-year-old D&D character from memory for a new campaign I’m playing in. All I could remember of this character from my high school days was her race and class (half-elf Bladesinger, because I liked the cheese, apparently) and that the campaign fizzled out after only a handful of sessions. If I made it to level 2 back then, I couldn’t rightly say.

I asked my Dungeon Master (DM)—the same fellow who had run the original game for me back in the days of the Clinton administration—whether I could start a level ahead, or at least with a randomly-determined amount of XP (say, 200+2D100). Being the stern taskmaster that he is, he shot down both suggestions, saying instead that I’d be starting at 0 XP and at level 1, just like the rest of the party. As justification, he said that my character had amassed 0 XP for this campaign.

As the character probably only had a few hundred XP to her name to begin with, I let the matter slide. But it did get me thinking: do Experience Points only exist within the context of individual campaigns? Was my DM onto something?

This sort of thinking can in turn lead down quite a rabbit hole. Are classes themselves an arbitrary construct? Do they exist solely for players, or are non-player characters (NPCs) also capable of possessing classes and levels? Different editions of D&D have presented different interpretations of this question, from essentially statting up all NPCs as monsters, with their own boutique abilities (as in the earliest iterations of the game), to granting NPCs levels in "non-adventuring classes" (the famous 20th-level Commoner of 3rd-edition days).

The current edition of D&D has come back around to limiting classes and XP awards to player-characters only—which brings us back to our original question: are Experience Points, like character classes, meant to function solely as an abstract game mechanic, or are they an objective force within the game world? How do you, the reader at home, treat XP in your campaigns?

contributed by David Larkins

 

[The Crimson Binome]

To handle short-ish falls that may be survivable, or longer falls where you land on a forgiving surface. Once a fall gets beyond about 50' onto a hard unyielding surface the falling damage RAW become rather useless; even more so if the landing area is jagged or spiked.

How do you know whether a fall is short-ish and potentially survivable, if not by rolling the dice and comparing against hit points? Why would 49' deal ~14 damage and have no chance of death (unless the character had fewer than 48 hit points), while 51' is instant death no matter what? What is the actual rule by which you run the game?

 

[The Crimson Binome]

You write as if based on events that happened in the past and would be interesting for the players are inconsistent. But they're not.

For instance: the random encounter is with a bounty hunter. In the past, the PCs stole something from a powerful NPC. The GM could decide that the bounty hunter is looking for some random NPC the PCs (and players) have never heard of; or could decide that the bounty hunter is on the track of the PCs at the behest of the person they stole from.

If you make that determination based on what you think would be more interesting for the players, then it necessarily wasn't determined by internal causality from past events. Regardless of whatever post-hoc rationalization you might make for how something could have happened, the real reason is that you-the-GM thought it would be more interesting for the players.

If you don't already know the past events leading up to a random encounter, then the only fair method is to make an honest guess at the probability, and then roll randomly if uncertain. Pushing your personal preferences of what you want to happen constitutes an act of meta-gaming, which is cheating in any RPG worthy of that label.

If a player has a clever idea contingent on clouds being visible there's any number of ways of handling it.

Again, details of different RPGs vary, but my default would be to allow the check, and if it fails narrate a lack of sufficient visible clouds as a cause of the failure.

In most cases, the player would look at the observable fact (whether or not there are clouds), and then choose to make the attempt or not depending on the state of that variable. If you cannot describe the environment to the players, at least as far as what their characters can observe, then you have failed in your first and most important duty as the GM.

 

[pemerton]

In most cases, the player would look at the observable fact (whether or not there are clouds), and then choose to make the attempt or not depending on the state of that variable.

By player I assume you mean character?

In any event, I'm assuming about something that gets easier, the more cloud there is (eg "I'm a vampire who wants to avoid being burned by the sun: I dodge from shadow to shadow, avoiding patches of sunlight"). If the state of the clouds is already established in the fiction, then it might provide a modifier to the check; but if it hasn't been, then the state of the clouds is one thing that might be read of the check result.

If you cannot describe the environment to the players, at least as far as what their characters can observe, then you have failed in your first and most important duty as the GM.

But what are you going to say, when a player asks about the cloud cover? I assume there are metereological measures of degree of cloud cover, but (i) I don't know what they are, and (ii) I wouldn't be able to correlate them to what I can see in the sky on a day-to-day basis, and presumably neither would most PCs. If I tell the player "There's some cloud, but it's not raining and there are patches of sunlight breaking through", what does that mean to the player vis-a-vis his/her PC's clever scheme to exploit the cloud cover?

This is what the dice are for.

If you make that determination based on what you think would be more interesting for the players, then it necessarily wasn't determined by internal causality from past events. Regardless of whatever post-hoc rationalization you might make for how something could have happened, the real reason is that you-the-GM thought it would be more interesting for the players.


If you don't already know the past events leading up to a random encounter, then the only fair method is to make an honest guess at the probability, and then roll randomly if uncertain. Pushing your personal preferences of what you want to happen constitutes an act of meta-gaming, which is cheating in any RPG worthy of that label.

It can never be determined by internal causality from past events, because fictional events exert no causal power in the real world (only imaginary causal power in the imagined world).

If the GM assigns probabilities and rolls, then the reason for outcome (1) rather than (2) - say, a bounty hunter seeking strangers rather than a bounty hunter seeking the PCs - is not internal causality either. The reason is (i) the GM's decisions about odds, (ii) the causal forces that operated on the dice, and (iii) the GM's decision to give effect to the rolled result.

So then the question is - why is a game in which the GM makes determinations based on assigning odds and rolling dice per se a better RPG than on in which the GM makes decisions based on what's interesting? Here's one reason it might be better: the players can't make predictions about the future game state based on knowldege of what is interesting and engaging to them. Here's one reason it might be worse: it's more likely to produce a boring experience, which is not a virtue in a game.

Neither has any particular connection to roleplaying, as neither is about the players' play of his/her PC.

 

[Lanefan]

How do you know whether a fall is short-ish and potentially survivable, if not by rolling the dice and comparing against hit points? Why would 49' deal ~14 damage and have no chance of death (unless the character had fewer than 48 hit points), while 51' is instant death no matter what? What is the actual rule by which you run the game?

What I use isn't hard-and-fast; but there comes a point where I'll bypass hit points completely and either go to a straight save-or-die (on a made save you'll just take a boatload of damage and maybe still die) or straight to death if you'd clearly die even on a made save.

Hit points are great for simulating combat where their loss reflects you getting nicked, bruised, fatigued from parrying and dodging, and so forth until the real damage sets in at the end. But you can't dodge the planet, nor can you parry it - and hitting it at great speed will do far more than nick or bruise you (if you're not wearing decent armour a 100' fall onto flat concrete in the real world will likely spread parts of you over the nearby area; 50' onto a hard jagged surface ain't pretty either).

Same thing for jumping into red flowing lava and assuming your ring of fire resistance is going to save you. Sorry. The absolute best you can hope for is to die just slightly more slowly than if you didn't have the ring; with the difference being little enough that someone watching from the shore probably wouldn't notice it.

But what are you going to say, when a player asks about the cloud cover? I assume there are metereological measures of degree of cloud cover, but (i) I don't know what they are, and (ii) I wouldn't be able to correlate them to what I can see in the sky on a day-to-day basis, and presumably neither would most PCs. If I tell the player "There's some cloud, but it's not raining and there are patches of sunlight breaking through", what does that mean to the player vis-a-vis his/her PC's clever scheme to exploit the cloud cover?

This is what the dice are for.

I'd say exactly the same thing - "that's what the dice are for" - but probably mean something completely different.

Yes - if you-as-DM haven't described today's weather yet, assuming the PCs are able to observe it, then if-when someone asks about it you pull out some dice and roll on the weather tables you in theory have handy; with the roll (or your narration) maybe modified for continuity by yesterday's weather. (if it was rainy and cool yesterday the odds are just a little higher than usual it'll also be rainy and cool today, to reflect that it might be a pattern settling in rather than a passing phase) But a player would never make this roll.

"There's some cloud, but it's not raining and there are patches of sunlight breaking through" tells me a lot as a player. It tells me that if I really need to avoid the sun I'd best stay on the shady side of the hills (though for clarity I'd ask you about windspeed and-or how fast the clouds are moving - if they're moving quickly that makes it much more likely I'll get caught in the open by an unexpected sunny break - and here I-as-DM would have the player roll for their success in avoiding the sun); it also tells me that if I need clouds in the sky for a spell or whatever e.g. Call Lightning I have them available, and also that the sun is visible enough that I can use it for navigation and-or timekeeping if I need to.

Lan-"being a life-long weather geek really has its uses in DMing"-efan

 

[Kobold Boots]

What modern American film would compare to Casablanca!

I've seen it favorably compared to Allied with Brad Pitt.
Casablanca is better, it's just not modern scale.

KB

 

[Manbearcat]

The short answer is that this is narrative causality, which is an absurd principle for any world to operate on. If a game world demonstrates narrative causality, such that things happen because it's just a story, then nothing that happens actually matters in any way -- because it's just a story.

Isn't evaluation of narrative causality from a player's perspective verboten (for you) metagaming?

How about this. In human history there is an enormous cross-section of people who see "narrative causality" underpinning much/most/all of everything that happens to us. The metaphysical hand of a deity (or deities), fate, destiny, design. These all are profound components of "the human cognitive bias toward narrative."

A man fails to rescue his sister before she blows her head off with a gun but stares into her dead eyes for a moment.

A few years later, the same man holds his dog of 16 years for the 24 hours as her poor body winds down (because her vet was on vacation and he didn't want her to die on a cold slab at the hands of a stranger). He watches the biological process and stares into her dying eyes.

His beloved mother comes down with the worst type of cancer and it takes everything from her over the course of 22 horrific months of despair and degradation. He cares for her in the last 45 days when she is completely bed-ridden. Watches the body wind down. Stares into her eyes as she takes her last breath and the light fades forever.

Humans, such as they are, are prone to see narrative causality in this chain of events; one event steeling the man's emotional fortitude for each subsequent event perhaps. Some folks certainly look at that and "see" the signature of an unknowable, but caring designer in such chain of events; "God only gives you what you're capable of handling." Others still see some other type of narrative.

The point?

"Narrative Causality", as it is, is absolutely_fundamental_to_the_human_experience. So calling a player metagaming about narrative causality either "not RPGing" or immersion-breaking while simultaneously not castigating the player for doing the metagaming themselves...?

That all strikes me as a bit incoherent and it may be a cognitive bias (this anti-narrative causality/metagaming crusade you have) on your part which burdens your clarity of thought on this issue.

 

[pemerton]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], that's an interesting post - if the player-as-PC understands the "narrative causality" as an ingame phenomenon, then that's just RPGing a typical (non-scientistic) human being; and if the player-as-PC understands it from the point of view of GMing techniques, then the player is him-/herself metagaming, which is (ex hypothesi, for [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]) forbidden.

Your fork seems sound to me.

 

[Manbearcat]

[MENTION=6696971]Manbearcat[/MENTION], that's an interesting post - if the player-as-PC understands the "narrative causality" as an ingame phenomenon, then that's just RPGing a typical (non-scientistic) human being; and if the player-as-PC understands it from the point of view of GMing techniques, then the player is him-/herself metagaming, which is (ex hypothesi, for [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION]) forbidden.

Your fork seems sound to me.

That's the long and short of it.

I'm an atheist. As an atheist, I don't believe in a metaphysical narrative underpinning the actions of each and everyone and everything in the universe.

However, I'm an extreme minority in my country. I'm an even more extreme minority amongst the world's collective population.

If you consider me against the 250-300 k history of humanity...I'm so remote that I'm barely there.

Humans have an evolved need for meaning underlying their existence, for purpose and metaphysical heft to their actions and their connections with their loved ones (and others).

Now consider the idea of atheism in a D&D setting. Its absolutely preposterous! Consequently, it seems to me that nearly universal belief in narrative causality (of course this isn't a coincidence...its a test/reward/punishment/a sign!) would only be sensical. Accordingly, players disputing situation framing under the auspices of "narrative causality foul(!)" would not only be metagaming themselves in tendering the consideration (for shame!), but also behaving in an extremely atypical fashion if channeled into the characterization of their PC (which I think [MENTION=6775031]Saelorn[/MENTION] also has an issue with because it damages the world simulation).

 

[Sadras]

The short version: the GM does not pre-author ingame events. The GM does not rely on secret backstory to inform adjudication. The basic driver of play is the GM's description of an ingame situation which (because of the way it presses the PCs'/players' buttons) generates action declarations from the players, which - when resolved - lead to a new situation that generates new decisions etc.

...snip...

There is no pre-authored story. There is situation, action, resolution, new situation.

...snip...

If the situation is an approach by a NPC, and the player in question decides that his/her PC ignores the NPC, then the rules of D&D leave the GM with a range of ways that the NPC in question might respond, regardless of whether that NPC is a hybsil or a drow.

so

Example A

You're in a tavern. A grizzled old man approaches you, with a glint in his eye. That's framing the PCs into a situation.

And then what happens????
If a strange looking gentleman came to my table, I'd either wait for him to get on with why he approached me or I'd greet him and ask him what he wants. That is the natural flow of things.

If I as player have to 'input' that this man knows the secret to reading a treasure map I have been unsuccessful at deciphering, I'd find that situation pretty (in your own words) 'lacklustre' and very much railroaded on the part of the PC.
Sounds the the DM is introducing NPCs for PCs to railroad and pre-author with their objectives.

If that is not the case, then I really see no difference between example A and example B.

Example B

While you're in the tavern, a grizzled old man with a glint in his eye asks you if you're interested in undertaking an exploration and rescue mission in the forest to the north. That's a hook, but it's not really a situation. The GM has already resolved the would-be situation him-/herself: the PCs listended to the NPC and received his/her message.

I think the first - done well - tends to make for a more interesting RPG experience. The second, in my experience, is the companion of railroading and lacklustre fiction pre-authored by the GM.

 

[pemerton]

As an atheist, I don't believe in a metaphysical narrative underpinning the actions of each and everyone and everything in the universe.

<snip>

Now consider the idea of atheism in a D&D setting. Its absolutely preposterous! Consequently, it seems to me that nearly universal belief in narrative causality (of course this isn't a coincidence...its a test/reward/punishment/a sign!) would only be sensical.

I put fantasy into basically two camps.

There's romantic, providential fantasy - King Arthur, JRRT, Dragonlance, etc - in which atheism is as you say absolutely preposterous, and PCs should absolutely take "narrative causality" as a given within the world they inhabit.

And then there's modernist, even existentialist fantasy - REH, Elric, etc - in which there is no providence. In the optimistic version of this (Conan), individual human will can triumph. In the pessimistic version (Elric), the world is doomed to eternal recurrence resulting from the interplay of forces which frame human action ultimately as meaningless. In this sort of fantasy, the only causation that is of an significance is human will. Thus, the GMing "sin" in this sort of fantasy would be to fudge the dice when resolution is taking place - because that would be to replace will and action with providence. But manipulating events up to that point is neither here nor there: if the world the character inhabits appears to be a "narratively caused" test of the individual, that's no matter, because the will can work upon that as much as upon anything else.

The idea that the events of the game have purchase or meaning only if the GM deliberately takes no interest in setting them in motion strikes me as a very strange premise for a game that involves shared fiction (because a premise for boring fiction), and as not connecting to any vision of fantasy at all. Consider even HPL: in his fantasy he asserts that the world is uncaring and indifferent, but that's not the actual stories he tells - these involve any number of opportunities for the characters to discover and react to this notional cosmic indifference. You don't simulate HPL fantasy by actually indifferently framing events and encounters so that's their's a meaningful chance of the PCs never experiencing anything of interest or significance.