Reply to thread

Message

<blockquote data-quote="pemerton" data-source="post: 7732087" data-attributes="member: 42582">XP don't cause player skill. But if playing a high level PC is a reward for being a skilled player, then tying levelling to demonstrations of skill makes sense.Gygax clearly thought it was &quot;improper&quot; (a type of soft &quot;cheating&quot;) for inexperienced and unskilled players to nevertheless build and play high level PCs. The intro to Tomb of Horrors describes the purpose of that dungeon being to bring such players to grief.With the right social contract in place, I think Gygax's XP system can do the work he wanted it to. But I think it's completely crazy to hang onto it, or a loose variant of it, when the social contracts and goals for play are completely different. Hence my doubts about its utility in 2nd ed AD&amp;D, 3E and 5e. (I'm excepting 4e here because XP in 4e is not really a variant on Gygaxian XP at all.)That may well be true. But a lot of RPGing, including D&amp;D play, does not inovlve &quot;going through linear dungeon crawls and making it to the next level&quot;. For a very evocative account of an alternative approach to dungeon play, which also makes sense of the idea of XP as a reward for skilled play, have a look at <a href="https://plus.google.com/111266966448135449970/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5" target="_blank">Luke Crane's description of his Moldvay Basic experiences</a>.(For the record, I don't play classic D&amp;D. I sucked at it, as a GM, 30-odd years ago, and that hasn't changed. Nor do I have the patience for it as a player. But it's a real thing, and &quot;story milestones&quot; have no work to do in it.)</blockquote>

[QUOTE="pemerton, post: 7732087, member: 42582"] XP don't cause player skill. But if playing a high level PC is a reward for being a skilled player, then tying levelling to demonstrations of skill makes sense. Gygax clearly thought it was "improper" (a type of soft "cheating") for inexperienced and unskilled players to nevertheless build and play high level PCs. The intro to Tomb of Horrors describes the purpose of that dungeon being to bring such players to grief. With the right social contract in place, I think Gygax's XP system can do the work he wanted it to. But I think it's completely crazy to hang onto it, or a loose variant of it, when the social contracts and goals for play are completely different. Hence my doubts about its utility in 2nd ed AD&D, 3E and 5e. (I'm excepting 4e here because XP in 4e is not really a variant on Gygaxian XP at all.) That may well be true. But a lot of RPGing, including D&D play, does not inovlve "going through linear dungeon crawls and making it to the next level". For a very evocative account of an alternative approach to dungeon play, which also makes sense of the idea of XP as a reward for skilled play, have a look at [url=https://plus.google.com/111266966448135449970/posts/Q8qRhCw7az5]Luke Crane's description of his Moldvay Basic experiences[/url]. (For the record, I don't play classic D&D. I sucked at it, as a GM, 30-odd years ago, and that hasn't changed. Nor do I have the patience for it as a player. But it's a real thing, and "story milestones" have no work to do in it.) [/QUOTE]

Verification