What! Limper has a gripe?

[Limper]

Tom Cashel: When did effort equate to munchkin?

Gothmog: I like it MUCH more codified than my off the cuff method.

Kestrel: If they can't take the heat.... Competition is healthy. I dont get resentful if they do a better job than I do, we all have off days. When there is incentive I do better, I get more into character.

hong: Are you aware there is a thing called capital letters? They are used to denote things such as Names..... the thought has crossed my mind, but I'd rather see fairness.

Dinkeldog: *Limper whacks Dinkeldog with a rolled up newspaper!*

Optional huh... I guess we used them for so long it seemed gospel... and they were good motivators. They aren't really a friend... but a friend of a friend who no longer plays with our group... they are inherited dead weight. I have suggested such but they are a bunch of nonconfrontationalists... if you can't guess I'm rather confrontational.


What I'm sensing is that many of you would sacrifice story, would give up immersive play, would do without the cohesion of having the group play at its peak and play FOR the story created, you'd give up all of this.... just so someones feelings wouldn't get hurt.

Wow I expected better....

 

[Storminator]

What you're really looking for Limper, is a way to humiliate and demean the "useless player," and cya by pointing to a rule.

Sounds like fun.

PS

 

[Mark Chance]

Hmm...

hong: Are you aware there is a thing called capital letters? They are used to denote things such as Names

Are you aware that there are such things as subject-verb agreement, pronoun-antecedent agreement, and that Names is not a proper noun and shouldn't be capitalized?

Gee! Isn't nit-picking fun?

What I'm sensing is that many of you would sacrifice story, would give up immersive play, would do without the cohesion of having the group play at its peak and play FOR the story created, you'd give up all of this.... just so someones feelings wouldn't get hurt.

I don't game with "someone" and I'm not concerned with "someone's" (note the correct use of the apostrophe) feelings. I game with my friends, and I am more concerned with my friends' feelings than I am with something as completely inconsequential as a game. All of that aside, XP rewards for roleplaying, story goals, et cetera, are not missing from the core rules. There are some fairly specific guidelines for these very sorts of things in the DMG.

So, you're problem with the lack of such XP rewards is not a problem with the rules. It is a problem (albeit a personal one) with the game you're playing in.

 

[Corinth]

D&D is an RPG. An RPG. That RP stands for Role Playing, and guess what it comes before. That's right, the word game. D&D is Role Playing first, game playing second.

Your grasp of English is faulty. "Game" is a noun, whereas "Role-Playing" is an adjective that modifies the noun. D&D is a game; it is quite possible to play the game without ever playing a role, but it isn't possible to play a role without playing the game. Role-playing is neither necessary nor required to participate in a game of D&D, or in all but a handful of RPGs.

Matters of role-playing are wisely left where they are best handled: by individual groups of players, and by those who make up those groups, because they are not universal concerns. Matters of gameplay are universal, which is why they take presidence and receive the supermajority of time, attention and resources from all levels of the gaming community.

 

[WizarDru]

Re: Hmm...

So, you're problem with the lack of such XP rewards is not a problem with the rules. It is a problem (albeit a personal one) with the game you're playing in.

It certainly sounds like it. This isn't a DM gripe, this is a player griping that he's 'carrying someone else's weight'. Regardless, the issue is that Limper feels that if someone doesn't roleplay his way, they shouldn't share a cut of the XP pie, and one should eject anyone who doesn't play up to his standards.

I've used XP rewards and straight divisions...and I've found that XP sharing works better for me. RP rewards excerbated the disparity on levels that began with the occasional player death, and engendered unhappiness from players who didn't benefit from it as often. It didn't create an aura of comptetion (though I've seen that happen often enough at RPGA games and tournaments), but instead just created an air of unhappiness, when one player was excellent during combats, but had little desire to flesh his character out any more than absolutely necessary. Did that make him a bad player? No, just a different one with a different playstyle.

One might add that RPGs didn't start out with much 'role-playing' for some time. Read Gygax's posts about most of the early years of D&D...not much angst there, just getting the most loot. Again, not my playstyle, but let's be clear: this is D&Ds heritage. We may play it part-theatre these days, but it wasn't always so.

 

[Limper]

*Limper bows to Mark*

Mark: You are the nit pick master! I'm surprised lice still exist! Hasn't the lower case h bothered you?

Silverthrone: Well said I'm sorry I missed your post... timing wise it was when I was typing my reply... hell I liked that so much I'm erecting a shrine in your honor! Kudos!

WirarDru: It's not that they don't roleplay my way.... they don't roleplay and you are correct they are bleeding me of MY earnings. They do not contribute... I do, I work hard at contributing to the game, IF your going to play the game you should work hard at contributing as well.... if you don't go play computer games or watch a movie.... dont waste my time or my XPs!!!

 

[Duncan Haldane]

So gaming is it's own reward and being good at it is it's own reward as well eh?

Then I suppose by that rational sports players should play for free. Gamiing is it's own reward.

Most sports players that do play play for free. Most sportmen/women are AMATUERS. Those that get paid are PROFESSIONALS.

Limpers, as far as we have been told in this thread, is not a PROFESSIONAL roleplayer.

Duncan

 

[Limper]

Well Duncan I've long lobbied for pay for my effort but since I can't seem to get any takers... I'm settling for XPs.

 

[ForceUser]

Down with the communistic welfare XP system!

The guys I game with, I have gamed with for years. Nobody is a thespian and we're all friends. Aside from occasional story awards and roleplay awards, we all get the same exp and we are fine with that. This is because for us it's not a competition and we only play to have fun.

 

[Saeviomagy]

Silverthrone - a lot of people point to a time when sports players did indeed have to hold down a regular job, because they played for free, and for the love of the game, as a better time for sports as a whole. In fact there are still a lot of sporting groups who play for fun, believe it or not. Just like there are a lot of role-playing groups who have not yet gone pro.

I suppose if you were a professional role-player, you might be entitled to whinge about your xp salary, but you'd also have some pesky contractual requirements, and would be required to wake up early so your role-playing coach could yell at you when you failed to support the team, you'd have to go through the rigmarole of regular drug-testing and you'd probably also have to not speak ill of your sponsors for fear of your team being dropped, and unable to compete in next season due to not being able to buy good enough players. People wholly unsuited to academic life would be going through college on the backs of role-playing scholarships, sucking away badly-needed resources in order to build massive role-playing arenas!

Limper - explain how the 2nd ed rules encouraged anything except being a bunch of backstabbing bastards? Woohoo! 2xp for every gp of value the thief manages to rob someone of! 50xp/level of the spell for every spell the wizard uses to solve a problem! In games where people care about XP and these have been used, I've witnessed only trouble. Fighters trying to keep other party members out of a fight so they bag the extra XP for defeating a foe in single combat. Wizards leaping to the fore to slap down an unneeded spell, just for the XP. Rogues pinching all the party gear.

Whining about how you're not the highest level character just because you're you is certainly something I would consider munchkineous. It's saying "I can't have fun unless I'm beating someone". Is that who you are?