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]

Secret backstory is usually not unknowable back-story.

This is a key point. As long as the truth of the world is established before-hand, every single observation of the world will be consistent with that truth, as long as the GM doesn't mess up.

And incidentally, the GM is far less likely to mess up when they only have to compare each new observation against one true state of the world, than when they have to compare every new observation against each individual truth which has previously been established during play.

 

[darkbard]

This is a key point. As long as the truth of the world is established before-hand, every single observation of the world will be consistent with that truth, as long as the GM doesn't mess up.

And incidentally, the GM is far less likely to mess up when they only have to compare each new observation against one true state of the world, than when they have to compare every new observation against each individual truth which has previously been established during play.

These are virtually identical, differing only in the method by which they become established. The former is established in the sense that [MENTION=42582]pemerton[/MENTION] intends by "world-building" in the other thread, immutable pre-authoring of material by the GM, at least part of which is unknown to the players. The latter is established through play via scene framing by the GM that builds off PC build and belief goals and PC action declarations and their consequences. The totality of the latter is the "true state of the world."

 

[The Crimson Binome]

These are virtually identical, differing only in the method by which they become established. The former is established in the sense that @pemerton intends by "world-building" in the other thread, immutable pre-authoring of material by the GM, at least part of which is unknown to the players. The latter is established through play via scene framing by the GM that builds off PC build and belief goals and PC action declarations and their consequences. The totality of the latter is the "true state of the world."

The method of establishment also has an impact on the ease-of-checkability. When the entire backstory of the world is authored by one person, it's easier to check each new question against that one state than it is to compare against each individual element that has been codified as a result of play.

If someone asks about the contents of a small shed, it's easier for the GM to remember what that is if the GM was the only one responsible for authoring that content (during the GM-prep phase), than if the contents may have been influenced at any point during previous sessions, possibly without direct involvement from the GM. If the GM knows that there's a weed-whacker in the shed, then remembering that is easier than remembering that there was previously established to be garden shears in the kitchen and something that was probably a weed-whacker or leaf-blower or something like that in the garage (but nobody really remembers, because it was getting late - except for Jef, who knows that it was a weed-whacker and had written it down as such, but was in the bathroom during this discussion). And so the GM says there's a weed-whacker in the shed (after someone succeeds on a check to find one), and then Jef comes back and is confused as to why there are two weed-whackers in this house, and the narrative gets derailed as they go off on this meaningless tangent that only arose because someone forgot. You could easily imagine the circumstances as more troublesome, if the item being searched for was a specific key or a map or something.

Not to mention that the former method gives the GM the option of actually writing this all down ahead of time, during their prep phase, so they know exactly where in their notes to check for a definitive answer if they'd forgotten.

(The bigger difference, regarding the state of the world and how it is generated, is knowing that something only becomes true when you become aware of it can cause the rational decision to be intentionally not learning information that you don't want to be true. If you see someone murder a loved one in front of you, the rational decision should be to not check and see if they're actually dead, because learning that will causally make it true. It's the sort of logic that normally only shows up in stories about time travel. If you're not sure whether you might need a ladder or a bucket tomorrow, absolutely avoid checking the contents of that shed until you know what you're looking for; in fact, avoid looking anywhere, because more uncertainty now leads to more opportunities later.)

 

[darkbard]

The method of establishment also has an impact on the ease-of-checkability. When the entire backstory of the world is authored by one person, it's easier to check each new question against that one state than it is to compare against each individual element that has been codified as a result of play.

<snip>

Not to mention that the former method gives the GM the option of actually writing this all down ahead of time, during their prep phase, so they know exactly where in their notes to check for a definitive answer if they'd forgotten.

I see that what you say here can be true. But I've read so many gaming supplements and campaign setting guides and such over the many years I've played (and designed plenty of homebrew material of my own), that I find it's much easier to keep track of the details that emerge in actual play, whereby group experience of the details validates and solidifies the details. But perhaps that's a function of how my individual memory works. I find the same to be true of textual details: I have far better recall of the details of a text discussed in a group setting, generally (say, in a classroom discussion), than one I read on my own. (The same goes for texts that I write: if they are discussed with others, say at a conference, I have better recall (and understanding!) of my own written words than if the words are experienced only by me.)

 

[pemerton]

Other ways that exist to get around an obstinate public official that are open to most character types:

• Is a bribe expected or customary? Pay it.
• Is there anything he cares about more than blocking you? Threaten it or offer protection in a persuasive way.
• Is there something that must occupy his attention completely? Cause it to happen and deal with his fill-in.
• Is there something in his life that causes him angst? Solve it and earn a favour in return.
• Is there a reason he doesn't like the PC group in particular? Change it.
• Is the obstinacy to further his own interests or to work against the realm's? Expose it.

Basically, step one is discover why you are being stonewalled. Step two is resolve that issue.

Even if the obstinacy is unbreakable, go around it:

• Connive an "accidental" encounter at a public event or appearance.
• Persuade a friendly guard/servant/official to deliver a hand-written note begging for an audience or spelling out the threat.
• Talk to someone the chamberlain cannot refuse (like the head of the priesthood, sister of the king, powerful noble, foreign embassy, and anyone else the king meets with) to bring you or your message to the king.

Nothing on these lists prevents a wide variety of GMing styles for being applied.

Different approaches don't rule in or out any particular fiction.

The difference would be where the fiction comes from: are the players, in trying to discover the reason for stonewalling, trying to learn what idea the GM has come up with? Or is the fiction being established by way of action declaration/resolution?

 

[Lanefan]

(The bigger difference, regarding the state of the world and how it is generated, is knowing that something only becomes true when you become aware of it can cause the rational decision to be intentionally not learning information that you don't want to be true. If you see someone murder a loved one in front of you, the rational decision should be to not check and see if they're actually dead, because learning that will causally make it true. It's the sort of logic that normally only shows up in stories about time travel. If you're not sure whether you might need a ladder or a bucket tomorrow, absolutely avoid checking the contents of that shed until you know what you're looking for; in fact, avoid looking anywhere, because more uncertainty now leads to more opportunities later.)

Which is going to sooner or later directly influence the run of play in terms of how players / PCs approach information gathering - they'll end up running on a need-to-know basis only, as what they don't know can't affect them; as opposed to asking about anything they feel like.

Learning more about the game world as seen and experienced by your PC - whether that info is relevant to the immediate run of play or not - makes playing in it a richer and more immersive experience. Does anyone deny this?

And so if a rules system somehow implicitly discourages this as posited in the quote above? Hardly a desirable outcome, I dare say

Lan-"which leads to more immersion: a DM who tells you the weather only when it's going to be relevant, or a DM who tells you the weather every day no matter what"-efan

 

[pemerton]

If you're playing a game GMed in accordance with "say 'yes' or roll the dice", and you (as your PC) see a loved one murdered in front of you, the rational thing to do is to try and save them. If you succeed, they're saved! If you fail, they're not saved, and probably dead unless the GM is feeling a bit sentimental and softens the blow of failure (perhaps they're just comatose).

If you just walk away and leave them, then of course the GM has been given carte blanche to declare them dead! You, the player, have signalled that you don't care!

 

[chaochou]

Learning more about the game world as seen and experienced by your PC - whether that info is relevant to the immediate run of play or not - makes playing in it a richer and more immersive experience. Does anyone deny this?

Tell me about all your experiences with player-driven games. After all, you must have loads to be able to make such an authoritative claim.

I've played and run games in the way that @pemerton describes, as well as games more freeform and player-driven than he describes, and your claim is false. Immersion can come just as much from player control - which gives investment in each new situation - as GM description of 'their world', which I don't care about.

Your immersion may well come from the play you describe. I find your playstyle tedious. So I'd like to hear you explain your claim that what provides immersion for you, must by definition also provide immersion for me.

Good luck with that.

 

[pemerton]

Learning more about the game world as seen and experienced by your PC - whether that info is relevant to the immediate run of play or not - makes playing in it a richer and more immersive experience. Does anyone deny this?

Learning about the gameworld that is irrelevant to the play of the game - which means, in effect, the GM reading me bits of his/her notes - is not very immersive to me. Frankly, if I want that sort of immersion I will read a novel - most published novelists are better writers than most GMs I have encountered (me included).

Learning about my PC's experiences which I care about (as player, and as "inhabitant" of my PC) does make the game immersive. But I don't need the GM to have pre-authored the gameworld in order for that to take place.

 

[Nagol]

Tell me about all your experiences with player-driven games. After all, you must have loads to be able to make such an authorative claim.

I've played and run games in the way that @pemerton describes, as well as games more freeform and player driven than he describes, and your claims is false. Immersion can come just as much from player control - which gives investment in each new situation - as GM description of 'their world', which I don't care about.

Your immersion may well come from the play you describe. I find your playstyle tedious. So I'd like to hear you explain your claim that what provides immersion for you, must by definition also provide immersion for me.

Good luck with that.

Oh! Oh! Can I play too?

I'm happy to run player-driven games like FATE and Dungeon World; I'll even offer additional tools (like Whimsy Cards) to inject player direction into more traditional GM led games like D&D, Ars Magica, and Champions. I don't like playing in player-driven games though because I find the ability to stay in the role of my character to be far more rewarding the few times I actually do get to play. I find it a much richer and more immersive experience!

Immersion and enjoyment is subjective so what I like you need not. Except for chocolate. Everyone must enjoy chocolate. Anyone who does not needs to be regarded with suspicion.