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.

View attachment 88552​

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]

pemerton is using a more modern style of GMing, which is becoming more common. It's my preferred style, and it works really well, especially in keeping players engaged. There are lots of games which encourage this style, which are definitely rpgs, (13th Age, Fate, Cortex Plus, Dungeonworld, Gumshoe, etc.)

I have read through Fate, perused 13th Age, and had the contents of the remaining three summarized to me. They are not definitely RPGs. They are arguably RPGs. There is definitely not any sort of universal consensus on the matter.

I would say that most of them are RPG-adjacent; with the exception of Fate, which is a garbage fire.

 

[Arilyn]

If something exists within the game world, then there is a definite height it is within the game world. As the GM and setting-designer, you know what that height is. You must know it, in case it becomes relevant. If one of the PCs uses any method to measure it, then you need to know what to tell them, based on the reality which is known to you and the uncertainty involved in their method.

What you are describing is not an objective reality. It is not a world like our own world, or like any conceivable world. It is Schroedinger's world. It is a meaningless story construct, for perpetuating meaningless stories.
The truth of the situation must be fixed, regardless of the quality of the observation. That is how any reality must operate. A fluctuating quantum reality, where you can causally change the fundamental nature of a wall by attempting to climb it, would be an absurd place and is not worth discussion.
You may have been playing games for longer than I have, but I doubt that you've been role-playing for any significant period of that. Nothing you've said here indicates that you have any idea what it means to role-play.

These are rather strange assertions. No GM could possibly have worked out every piece of reality ahead of time in their creation. That's absurd. You often have to make up things on the spot, depending on player decisions, and choosing the most interesting or letting the players' rolls guide the reality is good GMing.

Of course we are not creating objective realities. We're telling stories, and are guided by the laws of narrative. No one could create a whole world which totally matches reality. How would that even be possible?

As for role playing. Well, I really don't want to get into that fight again....

 

[Arilyn]

I have read through Fate, perused 13th Age, and had the contents of the remaining three summarized to me. They are not definitely RPGs. They are arguably RPGs. There is definitely not any sort of universal consensus on the matter.

I would say that most of them are RPG-adjacent; with the exception of Fate, which is a garbage fire.

Of course they are rpgs. You not liking that particular style does not change their designation. RPG-adjacent...Really???

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Of course they are rpgs. You not like that particular style does not change their designation. RPG-adjacent...Really???

RPG-adjacent, in that there is some role-playing that you can probably do within them, though it's not really their focus.

The fact remains that we don't have an internationally-recognized bureau of standards for designating what is and is-not an RPG. As such, it remains up for debate, unless there's universal consensus. Which there isn't, because I disagree with you.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

These are rather strange assertions. No GM could possibly have worked out every piece of reality ahead of time in their creation. That's absurd.

I didn't say they had to figure it all out ahead of time, but they could figure out any detail they felt like, if they really wanted to. The only time-constraint is that they must know every detail before it becomes relevant, and the only content-constraint is that they can't use out-of-game knowledge to determine that detail.

If someone casts a powerful divination spell and contacts the god of mountains, because they want to know exactly how tall a particular mountain is, then you need to answer that question. Likewise if they scan it from orbit. Within the game world, there is some objective value for how tall it really is; and as the creator of that setting, the GM is responsible for providing that answer.

You often have to make up things on the spot, depending on player decisions, and choosing the most interesting or letting the players' rolls guide the reality is good GMing.

Of course we are not creating objective realities. We're telling stories, and are guided by the laws of narrative. No one could create a whole world which totally matches reality. How would that even be possible?

Good and bad are subjective, but if you're meta-gaming, then you're doing it wrong. (In case you haven't heard, meta-gaming is bad.) The first job of the GM is to create the world, and describe it in as much detail as they need to, such that the players can make decisions for their characters. Ergo, the GM must describe the world in at least as much detail as the players need to make their decisions.

 

[Arilyn]

RPG-adjacent, in that there is some role-playing that you can probably do within them, though it's not really their focus.

The fact remains that we don't have an internationally-recognized bureau of standards for designating what is and is-not an RPG. As such, it remains up for debate, unless there's universal consensus. Which there isn't, because I disagree with you.

Their whole focus is role playing, therefore, they are role playing games. The vast majority of players, designers and publishers don't seem particularly confused by the concept. The ubiquitous section, "What is a Role Playing Game?", which graces the first few pages of almost every rpg are practically identical. So no, there is no lack of a definition. On the other hand, there are many different games encompassing many different styles. Picking one particular style and dismissing the rest is silly. By your definition, there are more rpg-adjacent games than actual rpgs! Doesn't that become impractical?

 

[pemerton]

If something exists within the game world, then there is a definite height which it has within the game world. As the GM and setting-designer, you know what that height is. You must know it, in case it becomes relevant.

Well I can tell you, it is established in my BW GH game that there is a pyramid in the Bright Desert (the PCs beat up on some orcs who were going to try and enter it); but I - the GM - do not know how high it is.

I can also tell you that Jabal the Red lives in a tower in Hardby, and that a lot of the action of the game has taken place in that tower. But no one knows exactly how high that tower is either; it has never come up as relevant. (It is established that there are multiple floors, and an internal staircase, but I don't think the number of floors has ever been established either.)

The absence of such fictional details has not been an obstacle to the game going on.

If one of the PCs uses any method to measure it, then you need to know what to tell them, based on the reality which is known to you and the uncertainty involved in their method.

I would make something up. Or, if it mattered to the PC that it be this height rather than that (eg "the Tower at the Naval of the World is known to be exactly 100 cubits tall", or whatever), then the determination of the height might be the result of a successful (or unsuccessful) Towers-wise check.

What you are describing is not an objective reality. It is not a world like our own world, or like any conceivable world. It is Schroedinger's world. It is a meaningless story construct, for perpetuating meaningless stories.

<snip>

The truth of the situation must be fixed, regardless of the quality of the observation. That is how any reality must operate.

With respect, I posit that JRRT's stories in LotR are more meaningful than any story that has ever resulted from your RPGing. Yet there is no "truth" as to the exact height of Glordindel, or Cirdan, or Haldir, or indeed most of the characters who populate those stories. Tolkien never told us, because it didn't matter. And a story that has not been told, and that cannot be inferred from what has been told, doesn't exist in some Platonic realm! It is a non-existent thing.

Sticking with character heights for a moment - no system for generating heights in a RPG that I've encountered has ever yielded details more accurate than fairly coarse fractions of an inch. Of two PCs both who turn out, on the random height table, to be 5' 10", it seems likely that one is in fact taller than the other. But no one knows which. Because the authorship hasn't happened yet.

You can wish as much as you like that imaginary worlds might write themselves without active authorship, but only children believe that that is actually possible. To believe that there are things that are "true" of fictions in the absence of acts of authorships is to be out of touch with reality!


EDIT:

I didn't say they had to figure it all out ahead of time, but they could figure out any detail they felt like, if they really wanted to. The only time-constraint is that they must know every detail before it becomes relevant, and the only content-constraint is that they can't use out-of-game knowledge to determine that detail.

If someone casts a powerful divination spell and contacts the god of mountains, because they want to know exactly how tall a particular mountain is, then you need to answer that question.

You didn't say that the GM must be able to figure it out. You said the GM must know it. I can figure out how many bricks are in the walls of my house, by counting them. But I've never actually done the count, and so I don't know that. Can be known is not a synonym for is known.

And as far as figuring it out before it becomes relevant - if the only trigger for working out the height of a NPC, or a building, or a mountain, is that a player asks, then the GM is not figuring it out until it becomes relevant!

And this clearly is triggered by out-of-game knowledge - namely, the out-of game knowledge that the person casting the divination spell is a PC (there can be oodles of NPCs casting such spells, and hence learning the height of the mountain, but this won't require the GM to actually work out what that height is).

Knowing that the players care about the height of the mountain, because their PCs have asked a god about it, there are a range of ways the GM might work this out. Gygax, in his DMG, suggests that if the players are looking for a plot of land suitable for building a castle on in a certain place, then the GM should let them find it unless it is obviously out of place for the established terrain/geography of that place. The fact that you prefer another method - eg random tables that purport to model ingame causal processes, despite never delivering a range of results remotely commensurate to the actual diversity of the real world - doesn't establish any sort of truth about what counts as roleplaying.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

Their whole focus is role playing, therefore, they are role playing games. The vast majority of players, designers and publishers don't seem particularly confused by the concept. The ubiquitous section, "What is a Role Playing Game?", which graces the first few pages of almost every rpg are practically identical. So no, there is no lack of a definition.

You might be surprised in how much that text actually does vary between games. Suffice it to say that many RPG-adjacent games incorrectly believe that they are RPGs, and conveniently redefine the medium so that they are still included. Such is life in a hobby without unifying oversight.

On the other hand, there are many different games encompassing many different styles. Picking one particular style and dismissing the rest is silly. By your definition, there are more rpg-adjacent games than actual rpgs! Doesn't that become impractical?

Impractical for whom? As long as we can distinguish between actual games where you role-play as a character within an objective world, and other games where you tell a story about a character within a narrative construct, the definition is doing its job.

 

[Arilyn]

I didn't say they had to figure it all out ahead of time, but they could figure out any detail they felt like, if they really wanted to. The only time-constraint is that they must know every detail before it becomes relevant, and the only content-constraint is that they can't use out-of-game knowledge to determine that detail.

If someone casts a powerful divination spell and contacts the god of mountains, because they want to know exactly how tall a particular mountain is, then you need to answer that question. Likewise if they scan it from orbit. Within the game world, there is some objective value for how tall it really is; and as the creator of that setting, the GM is responsible for providing that answer.Good and bad are subjective, but if you're meta-gaming, then you're doing it wrong. (In case you haven't heard, meta-gaming is bad.) The first job of the GM is to create the world, and describe it in as much detail as they need to, such that the players can make decisions for their characters. Ergo, the GM must describe the world in at least as much detail as the players need to make their decisions.

But I can't possibly know ahead of time, what information the players are going to want to know, so I'm going to have to make things up on the spot. As a GM, I don't want to waste my time deciding how tall every mountain is, or the colour of every horse on the street, just in case a player wants to know. It's a waste of my time, which could be better spent on interesting npcs and villainous plots.

The evils of meta-gaming are over-rated in my opinion. Character sheets, rolling dice, picking what feats you are going to learn are all minor forms of meta gaming anyway. Having players contribute to the narrative engages them in the fiction, relieves some of the burden on the GM, and is just plain fun. If the players ignore the beggar on the street, who has a vital clue, there is no sin in getting that clue to the players in another way. Having the story grind to a halt is way worse. And no, this is not railroading, because what the players choose to do is still entirely up to them.

What you are describing is very heavy on the simulationist end of the spectrum. Role playing can encompass your preferred style as well as mine. What I find amusing is that the "narrative snobs" might very well accuse you of being not a true role player!

 

[pemerton]

As the GM, I can tell the players that they should create characters who would care about rescuing elves, because if they don't then there won't be much to the campaign.

<snip>

The PCs are the ones who determine whether or not the elves are rescued, or if something else happens entirely.

These two sentences are in contradiction. If the first sentence is true, then either (i) the game is about rescuing elves, or (ii) there is no game; hence (i) whatever game there is is about rescuing elves. So whatever happens in the shared fiction, it's going to pertain to the rescuing of elves. The scope of "something else entirely" seems to extent to trying but failing to rescue the elves.