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

 

[Arilyn]

The idea that meta-gaming is bad should not be considered an extreme view. It should be the very minimum that all role-players can agree on.I thought that was the standard terminology to describe people who play those types of games, like FATE and Burning Wheel. I've heard it in many places. Hippies are normally considered one of the least malicious subcultures in recent history, so I wasn't aware that the term might be offensive.Why would I possibly show any respect for meta-gamers, when their entire position is defined by destroying the hobby that I care about? I will stop dis-respecting these individuals when they stop dis-respecting the hobby.

I do not believe for a minute that your hippie comment was not meant to be an insult.
The rest of your post is just proving my point.

 

[Kobold Boots]

A small difficulty with this just occurred to me.

Looking at our various locations, I see you, Saelorn and Manbearcat are all in eastern North America. I'm on the west coast, three hours time difference but not insurmountable.

Pemerton, however, is (I believe) in Australia. That would put him roughly half a day out of synch, thus finding a common time to do this would be...well, difficult at best.

Lanefan

The only way that works is if we were to run at 7-8pm EST and Pemerton was willing as that would be 7-8am his time. I've had some managerial responsibilities that put me in charge of folks in Malaysia and while that was entirely painful on a day to day basis, I can imagine that the difference is manageable if folks were willing to overcome it.

That said, my desire to do so is in no way any guarantee that anyone would want to. I'm relatively new here after a long time off and I've already had one mini-tantrum - not very compelling in a DM I'd say, regardless of how good I may be - it's still a risk to take to trust me just yet.

KB

 

[Kobold Boots]

And how long did any of those games/campaigns last?

Lanefan

Shhhh. Don't ask the hard questions. Everyone is a 20 year plus DM with the same group on the Internet.

 

[Kobold Boots]

The idea that meta-gaming is bad should not be considered an extreme view. It should be the very minimum that all role-players can agree on.I thought that was the standard terminology to describe people who play those types of games, like FATE and Burning Wheel. I've heard it in many places. Hippies are normally considered one of the least malicious subcultures in recent history, so I wasn't aware that the term might be offensive.Why would I possibly show any respect for meta-gamers, when their entire position is defined by destroying the hobby that I care about? I will stop dis-respecting these individuals when they stop dis-respecting the hobby.

Passion is good. Delivery needs work.

My personal beliefs..

1. No one is disrespecting something by choosing to do something else insofar as no one is harmed doing so.

The concept that metagamers are disrespecting conventional RPG is a bit rough if only due to what I fear would be significant damage to both hobbies if either side just went away. I have played quite a few systems in addition to D&D and I'm a better D&D DM because of it. Now if you have a specific "indie-hippie person" that's actively saying "I want to lead an inquisition against D&D with my friends who live in an autonomous collective that have decided D&D is inferior." I'll agree with you about them only.

2. "Hippie" is a label. Initially there was no negative connotation for about 50 years, but early in the 60's the term fell in with the drug culture due to popular media at the time. If you don't want labels to be interpreted badly on a forum community by someone who may not be favorably disposed to whatever argument you're making.. don't use em.

Just opinions, nothing personal here. I like what you post generally.
KB

 

[pemerton]

TYou complain about the lack of open dialogue, while showing zero respect for the more modern ideas, which have been emerging in this hobby for quite a number of years now.

Just to pick up on this (not to contradict it, but to point out that it's actually quite an understatement):

Gygax's DMG (1979), p 90 (under the heading "Territory Development by Player Characters":

Assume that the player in question decides that he will set up a stronghold about 100 miles from a border town, choosing an area of wooded hills as the general site. He then asks you if there is a place where he can build a small concentric castle on a high bluff overlooking a river. Unless this is totally foreign to the area, you inform him that you can do so.​

That is a pretty banal example of "saying 'yes'" to a player suggestion/request about the geography of the gameworld. Classic Traveller (1977) also recognises that players will contribute to making sense of the geography of the gameworld (and in the first session of my current Traveller campaign, after I rolled the starting world it was a player who suggested that (given its stats) it was obviously a gas giant moon).

Games with "fate point"-type mechanics were published in the 1980s (the James Bond 007 RPG is one example).

Over the Edge was published in 1992. It has inconsistent tendencies within it (nicely discussed by Ron Edwards here), but while the main text is by Jonathan Tweet the game includes an essay by Robin Laws that explains that "GMs will find it fruitful to approach decisions as an artist creating a collaborative work with players." And the PC design system is based on free descriptors, similar to many later "indie" and "indie"-style RPGs.

Maelstron Storytelling was published in 1997, and is the first example I'm aware of of descriptor-based PC sheets supporting closed scene-resolution mechanics. That's at least a few years before HeroWars and then HeroQuest as an example of the same approach, and more than 10 years before 4e's skill challenges.

So what I'm trying to say is that "modern" ideas have been part of the RPGing hobby more-or-less from the get-go; and while 2nd-ed and White Wolf-sytle gaming may have become dominant in the 80s and 90s, it has never been exhaustive of what RPGing has been taken to include.

The default style of the current D&D edition seems at its best when hewing to your description so I'm not surprised. We've had some discussion about drifting it in a more "Nar"/PC-oriented mythic style that seemed unsatisfying; as a game engine I think it is ill-equipped to go there.

I agree with the first sentence. The second also seems fair. Although I don't have a really good sense of what might be done by pushing backgrounds and inspiration hard, the lack of serious non-combat resolution mechanics does seem to create limitations.

D&D is malleable enough to be able to handle pretty much anything pre-modern-technology (and can even deal with a bit of that sprinkled in), thus a Greco-Roman-era setting is just as playable as a Renaissance European setting or something prehistoric.

As far as technological tropes are concerned, D&D is rather weak for anything where heavy armour is not on the table, because fighters as a class lose access to an important class feature (ie decent AC) without access to heavy armour (including its magic versions).

As far as story tropes are concerned, D&D (outside of 4e) cannot even do something like Conan especially well: in Conan nearly every person is killed or knocked unconscious with a single blow (Conan being an obvious exception) - eg when Conan is attacked by were-hyenas, he dispatches them one blow per hyena. But in D&D (outside of 4e) were-hyenas would have 4 or so HD and hence double-digit hit points and hence not be able to be punched to death. 4e is an exception, because it has minion rules which allow for one-blow kills of beings other than rats and kobolds.

That's not to assert that D&D is especially focused; rather, that it is not as malleable as you assert. I don't think that Burning Wheel, Cortex+ Heroic Fantasy Hack or Rolemaster is narrower in any significant fashion.

And how long did any of those games/campaigns last?

I ran a GH Rolemaster campaign that lasted for 8 years, and an OA Rolemaster campaign that lasted for 9 years. My first 4e game went for 6+ solid years, but is now played only intermittently as we have an understanding that we won't play it unless everyone can make it.

Over the past couple of years we've run multiple games concurrently, so all but Burning Wheel is in single digits of sessions.

There is no correlation between approach to RPGing and length of campaign, in my experience. It's much more about the mechanical capacity of the system to support developments in the story: Rolemaster breaks down between 20th and 30th level; 4e has a cap at 30th level (which is where our game currently is); etc.

Shhhh. Don't ask the hard questions. Everyone is a 20 year plus DM with the same group on the Internet.

I think I've got more actual play posts than anyone else on ENworld. My 4e actual play posts go back to Jan 2011. I guess it's possible I just made all those events up. . . .

Just because the characters care about rescuing elves, and there are elves to be rescued, it does not necessarily follow that those characters will find the relevant dungeons and explore it and find what they're looking for. But yes, the primary alternative to rescuing the elves is in failing to rescue the elves.

So the players may fail to find the adventure at all; or fail to rescue the elves.

I hope it's fairly clear why I call that a railroad.

Consider the Lord of the Rings, as an example. The GM is responsible for creating the ring, all of the bad guys, and thousands of years worth of history. The players are encouraged to make characters who have a reason to undertake this quest. The scenario is worth playing out, because we don't know what will happen. The choices of the players all matter, because the end isn't written yet, and the only way to see what happens is to play out the consequences of those choices.

The LotR is a novel, not an actual play report. Nothing can be inferred about the actual play of a RPG simply from a post-hoc description of the story.

But consider this: a GM first plots out some backstory about a ring etc. Then writes an episode about a trip to Bree and an escape from the inn there. Then write an episode about travelling to Rivendell, and an attack on Weathertop. Then an episode about a trip through Moria. (This could be thought of as analogous to a DL module, or a short AP.)

At that point, the basic outline of events is already established. No choices or suggestions that the players make is going to alter it. Maybe the GM notes include the following sidebar "If the players try to have their PCs avoid Moria by taking the pass, it becomes impassable due to weather." And "If the players try to backtrack through Moria, they find their way blocked by an undefeatable balrog". Etc. But we don't need those little bits of icing to discern the railroad in the cake.

We don't know, in advance, whether the PCs will make it through all the episodes or not (maybe there is a TPK in Bree; maybe the players can't solve the riddle at the entrance to Moria - although the GM's notes might then allow for an INT check, with a note that the GM should fudge it to make sure the players get the information they need; or perhaps a friendly talking swallow sent by Radagast gives them the answer if the GM thinks they've puzzled about it for long enough). What we do know is that, if the game is to occur, it will have this basic shape with this sequence of events, and it will all be focused on this fiction that the GM has already written.

It's not that the players have no control. Players have absolute control, over the decisions made by their characters.

Having control over what I wish for my PC is no control at all, in the context of gameplay. In your model, the players have no ability to actually change the ingame situation. Everything is up to the GM.

What players don't have is the burden of figuring out what else is going on in the world. The player doesn't have to worry about establishing what the weather is like, or the conditions of a wall they might want to climb

Nor do they in any of the game I'm GMing. If you don't understand that, I strongly encourage you to reread my account of how action resolution works, and who has what sort of authority and responsibility for establishing the shared fiction.

A player can say "I look for handholds" in my game, just as in yours. The difference is that, in my game, the players' desire for the wall to have handholds is actually relevant to determining whether, in the ficiton, it does or doesn't. (The method I use, to repeat again, is "say 'yes' or roll the dice").

someone always barges in with some completely ludicrous idea about how nothing really exists

No one in this thread has said nothing really exists. I have made the obvious point that imaginary things don't really exist - that's inherent in them being imaginary. Only young children think otherwise.

 

[Kobold Boots]

I think I've got more actual play posts than anyone else on ENworld. My 4e actual play posts go back to Jan 2011. I guess it's possible I just made all those events up

It's fair to assume slight. I apologize. In my defense, the original post I quoted did not have the user associated with the quote inline so my reply was a general one, not intended to be applied to you.

Since we're elaborating, just for the future.

My first game was in 1981. It was a juvenile one off intended to satisfy my older cousins who simply used it as a way to take advantage of or crap on their younger cousin. We played a few games, I sucked and retreated to reading the game and making maps. Over time, I played a few more games, still sucked. Went to military school and got into wargaming and history. Played a few more games, made a few more maps, group stabilized. Game went 4 years til we went to college. Never called it a "campaign" we were playing very serially but about six months in players started talking about building on what happened "last time".

I still say to this point that if it wasn't for my constantly making maps and writing out character sheets, my penmanship would be lousy. The hobby was good for trying to neaten up writing, because the character sheets didn't take kindly to crappy lettering. I still don't know if I took architectural drawing because I liked designing, or because I wanted neater game notes.

Anyway on to college. (about 5 years of real game experience once a week). It's the 90s, I call these the dark times. Transition to 2nd edition from 1st was easy enough and the first generation of characters was put aside for a bit. Built out another section of the game world which now was considered a "campaign" because I first heard the term used proactively at this time and actively thought about prepping in the "world" because it would cut my "prep".

I feel I learned a lot about people and performing during this time. Without any doubt in my mind, I sucked at DMing because I couldn't connect across a table with what people wanted. Until this point I had only DM'd friends with a common desire to put up with the game because we weren't really able to do much else with our downtime. Here, we had distractions and better things to do, so the game better be fun, or we weren't going to be doing it much. I was entirely too formulaic. By the end of the 90s I dropped tabletop in favor of LARP.

The 2000s - LARP and 3X - So this is what I'll call a mentorship in WTF. I was fortunate enough to be on the home turf of NERO and while Ford wasn't part of the equation anymore he left behind some wonderful people who were running LARPs in my neighborhood. One person in particular was highly talented and had all the answers for how to manage 70 plus players, for two days, four times a year and get folks to pay 70 bucks each to do so. That one person had a strong writing committee around him, and I soaked it all in.

To be entirely fair, I was also very good at being a giant jerk during this time and I didn't appreciate what I was a part of until long after my ego convinced me I could do what they were doing, better than they did it and was proven entirely wrong. One thing that came away from it though was my first experience with meta when about 15 of those LARPers allowed me to DM them over a three-four year span. Easily the best gaming of my life and where I finally broke through on DMing.

So on meta. If you have the right players and they're willing to do things like
- Have one main plot and three side plots for their character
- Involve two other PCs in their side plots.
- Still take part in the main storyline of the campaign
- Write post event letters about what their characters experienced and tell you in character what they want to do next.
- Actually play NPCs in cut scenes to develop the world further
- Allow you to facilitate

The game lives and is absolutely amazing. These players became the second generation of characters such that I was able to bring some friends in from the first group via PBP and hand off the early plot from the 1st ed game. The 2nd ed game events colored things somewhat but were relegated to trivia by the end. This group ended due to my aforementioned jerk behavior and I've apologized where I could.

Anyway, by this time, I've got a strong love of the game as it was and a great grounding in meta or story over mechanics. What comes next goes entirely in the other direction.

2008 - 4e - Wargaming. - By this time I had really screwed myself in terms of gaming as I had alienated almost everyone I had known locally and those that weren't had pursued careers away from my area. Went to a local gaming store, ran a game there for a few months and continued the trend. Many reasons for being a jerk but no excuses. Take away was I had a new group of folks that liked my DM style and agreed to play through the Shadowfell series of adventures.

This was sort of a throwback as we had at least one player that was really 1st ed/2nd ed and a few that were more third, but I think I was the only one that truly appreciated 4e due to its wargaming/positioning basis. it's still my favorite version of D&D but it's probably because I liked ASL and other Avalon Hill games back when I was in mil school. So that's another three years of gaming off and on in the DM chair. While I did superimpose those modules on my own game world I did not interleave them with the 1st/3rd groups timeline and consider them more in line with the 2nd ed group as I did have a couple of those folks take part once or twice when they were available.

2017 - I've taken five years off. It was necessary to deal with some things that were contributing to my less than wonderful behavior and focus on family. Better person, not necessarily interested in starting fights on forum boards about games. So as I started the post I'll end it.

Sorry for the slight. Obviously looking for the next group. Willing to be open about history due to anonymity and to establish some common knowledge

Be well
KB

 

[The Crimson Binome]

As far as story tropes are concerned, D&D (outside of 4e) cannot even do something like Conan especially well: in Conan nearly every person is killed or knocked unconscious with a single blow (Conan being an obvious exception) - eg when Conan is attacked by were-hyenas, he dispatches them one blow per hyena. But in D&D (outside of 4e) were-hyenas would have 4 or so HD and hence double-digit hit points and hence not be able to be punched to death. 4e is an exception, because it has minion rules which allow for one-blow kills of beings other than rats and kobolds.

You could model such a thing in third edition, through use of the Power Attack feat. There's no conceptual issue with Conan being level 20 while everyone else is level 1-3. It just doesn't make for a very exciting narrative, because we see how skewed the odds really are.

Back in the OGL days, when everything was getting converted to d20, one of the games which made the transition was called Testament. It was supposed to be a game about role-playing in the Biblical era, and it included conversions for many Biblical figures into d20. Relevant to the topic at hand, it has Goliath as something like a level 13 giant fighter, and David is like a level 25 multiclass rogue/priest/paladin. It doesn't change the events of the story in any way; it just changes our interpretation of them.

Having control over what I wish for my PC is no control at all, in the context of gameplay. In your model, the players have no ability to actually change the ingame situation. Everything is up to the GM.

A player has at least as much control over the game world as the player has over the real world; often significantly moreso, since they are acting in the capacity of their PCs, many of which possess great skill or strength or magical ability. Which is exactly the amount of control that the players should want, if they mean to actually role-play and not just tell a story.

A player can say "I look for handholds" in my game, just as in yours. The difference is that, in my game, the players' desire for the wall to have handholds is actually relevant to determining whether, in the ficiton, it does or doesn't. (The method I use, to repeat again, is "say 'yes' or roll the dice").

The player still has to worry about those things becoming established as a result of their actions, whether or not they take a personal hand in deciding yea or nay. When you live in a world where things only become fixed once they are observed, you have to be careful about what you choose to observe (which is not the main complaint here, but it is ridiculous and worth mentioning).

No one in this thread has said nothing really exists. I have made the obvious point that imaginary things don't really exist - that's inherent in them being imaginary. Only young children think otherwise.

Only young children (or someone indoctrinated into the cult of meta-gaming) would fail to grasp that, for the purposes of meaningful resolution, we must treat imaginary things as though they did exist. The fact that things are imaginary cannot possibly affect how they resolve, because they are only imaginary in an out-of-game context.

 

[Kobold Boots]

You could model such a thing in third edition, through use of the Power Attack feat. There's no conceptual issue with Conan being level 20 while everyone else is level 1-3. It just doesn't make for a very exciting narrative, because we see how skewed the odds really are.

Back in the OGL days, when everything was getting converted to d20, one of the games which made the transition was called Testament. It was supposed to be a game about role-playing in the Biblical era, and it included conversions for many Biblical figures into d20. Relevant to the topic at hand, it has Goliath as something like a level 13 giant fighter, and David is like a level 25 multiclass rogue/priest/paladin. It doesn't change the events of the story in any way; it just changes our interpretation of them.
A player has at least as much control over the game world as the player has over the real world; often significantly moreso, since they are acting in the capacity of their PCs, many of which possess great skill or strength or magical ability. Which is exactly the amount of control that the players should want, if they mean to actually role-play and not just tell a story.
The player still has to worry about those things becoming established as a result of their actions, whether or not they take a personal hand in deciding yea or nay. When you live in a world where things only become fixed once they are observed, you have to be careful about what you choose to observe (which is not the main complaint here, but it is ridiculous and worth mentioning).
Only young children (or someone indoctrinated into the cult of meta-gaming) would fail to grasp that, for the purposes of meaningful resolution, we must treat imaginary things as though they did exist. The fact that things are imaginary cannot possibly affect how they resolve, because they are only imaginary in an out-of-game context.

I think perhaps you two are posting more to disagree with each other than actually say something is different?

 

[Lanefan]

The only way that works is if we were to run at 7-8pm EST and Pemerton was willing as that would be 7-8am his time.

That'd be about 4-5 p.m. here. OK.

That said, my desire to do so is in no way any guarantee that anyone would want to. I'm relatively new here after a long time off and I've already had one mini-tantrum - not very compelling in a DM I'd say, regardless of how good I may be - it's still a risk to take to trust me just yet.

As long as the players can have tantrums as well, all is good.

 

[Manbearcat]

Its late. I'm tired.

This hippy indie GM who needs to be McCarthyismed out of the hobby because he is going to destroy it with his viva la resistance ways is going to watch an episode of Peaky Blinders and go to bed. I'll get some heretical hippy indie responses up tomorrow (that should no doubt immediately be destroyed in the face out of existence for the sake of the hobby and RPG children everywhere).