What! Limper has a gripe?

[MeepoTheMighty]

My buddy used to play some system...Rolemaster maybe? I dunno..where you got XP every time you used a skill. This led to the inevitable "I do a backflip" or "I pick the lock on my front door 100 times" situation.


I think the equal XP is a good thing. If you have a new player, or a shy player, or whatever, they shouldn't feel intimidated by the others, and penalizing them is only going to make things worse.


Ever play Shining Force for the Genesis? Characters in that game only got XP when they damaged a monster. The healers, therefore, NEVER LEVELED.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

do you think just having your job is it's own reward?

It is if you're Lawful Neutral.

I, too, reward for RP. However, the shy need not worry, for I have learned to work with such individuals and coax them into participating more and more. How did I learn to do it? Why, because my own shyness was broken through RP.

Consider then that the game rewards for challenges and combat, and the DMG doesn't present a single challenge that can't be overcome through the roll of a die. Thus, the best rewards come to those that stack up the best bonuses and modifiers.

By its very design, then, the game rewards those most able to min/max and power game their characters, while developing a character who's Skills and Feats are oriented towards their character as opposed to their numerical superity produces a character below CR's expectations and are thus punished due to their mortality rate since DMs, told how to DM their game by CR, are unable to determine the power level of the PCs. Why would they bother to rate the strengths of a PC when the DMG and CR dictates how powerful a PC is supposed to be?

I would rather reward Players that participate in the story elements (of this here role-playing game) than the ones that spend all of their time rooting around for the next baddie to kill; The former make the task of DMing worth my time and effort while the later desires little more than for me to crank out monsters for them to kill.

 

[alsih2o]

do you think just having your job is it's own reward?

yes. but i may be a bad example here

 

[MeepoTheMighty]

do you think just having your job is it's own reward?

Considering how I've spent 4 hours of this workday reading various websites (mostly this one) and another hour away on lunch, I think having my job is an accomplishment itself.

 

[Duncan Haldane]

My buddy used to play some system...Rolemaster maybe? I dunno..where you got XP every time you used a skill. This led to the inevitable "I do a backflip" or "I pick the lock on my front door 100 times" situation.

I suspect you are referring to any Chaosium game here - perhaps Runequest.

In that system if you made a successful roll for a skill in a difficult situation you got an experience check. At a suitable time (I think it's normally a week later, but generally at the end of the scenario) you got to roll for XP against all your checked skills.

It's a % system, and you had to roll above your current level for it to improve, so as you got better at skills your improvement slowed.

In those games picking your own lock or doing a backflip for no reason should not give experience checks. They should come in under rules for training.

Anyway, it was a somewhat awkward system, with lucky players getting more powerful characters quicker. I also like a levelled system, where one can easily gauge the strength of a party.

Duncan

 

[Limper]

It is if you're Lawful Neutral.



I would rather reward Players that participate in the story elements (of this here role-playing game) than the ones that spend all of their time rooting around for the next baddie to kill; The former make the task of DMing worth my time and effort while the later desires little more than for me to crank out monsters for them to kill.

My DMing philosophy is.. I reward the player who contributes to the story. I reward facilitators.

 

[spunky_mutters]

The experience check system doesn't give you more powerful characters quicker (well I guess it could depending on what you mean it's quicker than). That system had nasty combat, and you only did skill checks during downtimes. To go from your base 20% with a weapon to being a weapon master of 100% takes 30-40 adventures! And because of the amount of skill checks you have to do, you're not going to be lucky on all of them. The sheer number will see averages win out.

I think combat needed some mods at high skill levels or else it's just attack/parry until someone crits or fails, but I've been ref in campaigns that went for years and the players certainly didn't build up power quickly (if at all). The benefit of that system is you get a check on skills you succeed at. So the guy who hits gets a check in melee, while the others will get POW checks or craft, or whatever they use. I was quite happy with the system while we were using it. It did have it's problems, but I don't think rapid advancement was one of them.

 

[Limper]

I truely loved RuneQuest.

 

[rounser]

IMO, individual XP awards promote, reward and reinforce more bad play habits than good ones.

They promote one-man-upship, destructive inter-player/PC competitiveness, and monopolising of the DM's time. They effectively punish teamwork and attempts to ensure that other players are having a good time. It also punishes "quiet" roleplaying and "supporting actors", necessary parts of most any group to avoid everyone trying to steal the spotlight all the time.

It is in general far too difficult to police fairly, leading to stupidities whereby the theif does something daring and gets an individual XP award for it, whereas the only way he was able to do it without dying was by help from the cleric who healed him earlier...and the cleric gets squat because the DM didn't see the connection.

 

[Bendris Noulg]

Sounds like you've had a bit of bad luck, usually resulting from DM's that gave indiscriminately and considered hamming it up to be good role-play. In the past 10 years, I've had nothing but good luck with it. Of course, I'm rather selective over who joins my table, so I probably eliminate most of these problems while screening prospective members.

After all, in a game that virtually requires teamwork (aside from the occasional solo game, which I've both Played and DM'd over with equal success), interupting teamwork not only shouldn't be rewarded, but will most often get the party killed.