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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Crimson Binome" data-source="post: 7731647" data-attributes="member: 6775031">AD&D still had an option for individual awards by class (so magic users gained XP by casting spells, fighters gained by fighting, thieves gained by finding treasure). It also retained the option for all classes to gain XP from treasure, in which case thieves gained double for that; in this case, treasure is used as a rough metric for success, since other goals are difficult to quantify and it's reasonable(ish) to assume that a party which was very successful at one goal also succeeded equally well at its other goals.Third edition primarily awarded experience for combat, because levels primarily govern how good you are at combat. You don't gain experience for crafting a sword, because crafting a sword doesn't make you better at fighting. (The fact that your level also determines how good you are at crafting is just poor system design. There are several places in 3.x where they saw how things could be integrated into their standardized system mechanics, but failed to ask whether they should be.) Still, advancement by combat isn't any better or worse than advancement by wealth; both ways are easier to quantify than the alternatives, so it's just a question of what's easier and what seems least ridiculous. (I would argue that getting better at picking locks by slaying a lot of dragons is relatively less silly than being to slay dragons because you won the lottery, but both are contrived corner-case scenarios.)That is a very good example of how framing is something that bad DMs do. I can't imagine a group of players who wouldn't roll their eyes at that, while tallying a mark in the "do not play with this DM" column. Maybe 4E players, I guess.Honestly, that whole quote just amounts to a lot of words for world-building. The DM builds the dungeon, and populates it, and places it within the world; the players are the only ones who can decide whether their characters enter, or how to approach each room, or whether to just bury the whole thing and move on to the next town.</blockquote>

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