Why Calculated XP is Important

[Fenes]

2. Those many of you who don't even give out ExP and instead just level the party up, how do you account for characters who just don't do their part? Or who missed a significant part of an adventure (got captured, wandered off, lost their mind, etc.)? And, how do you account for developments that cause someone to *gain* a level e.g. lucky pull from a Deck of Many Things?

That's easy: I don't. All I expect is that players have fun and don't harm the fun of the group. I do not care if they manage that by their characters dungeon crawling, or being involved in a prison break, or by simply goofing off.

Maybe this is all an issue with the faster level advancement of 3e-4e games; where missing out a few batches of ExP can quickly put you a level or two behind. (then again, a death-revival cycle in 3e has the same effect) I find in 1e that giving out ExP individually by encounter tends to separate the wheat from the chaff over the long run; those characters that get in there and give 'er do better than those who stand back and watch, and justice is served.

I'd not know - we play weekly, and we advance about 1 level per year these days. I also do not consider anyone "wheat" or "chaff" depending on how effective their characters are, or how much they kill.

The other assumption I'm making here (and I'll guess I'm making it in error, given what I've read so far) is that one of the things you're doing as DM is keeping notes during a session of exactly who got involved in what. This makes it easy to figure out ExP later; just divide the total available ExP for each given encounter by the number of characters involved in it, and repeat for each encounter. But you have to keep the notes...

I keep such notes (and type up a detailed campaign chronicle each week), but I'd never bother to use them to deal out exp.

 

[FireLance]

Speaking of which, what DM in his right mind expects the players to "Sit, Role Over, and Beg" just to get to 30th level? Why, when I make a character, I expect to just be 30th level. Why should I have to show up for a bunch of lower-level game sessions to get there? Why should I be expected to earn those levels? Why should I have to do anything? The DM who expects me to do anything has clearly mistaken me for a dog.

Here's the disconnect: you seem to think that getting to 30th level has to be an achievement. In a more "casual" playstyle, it's not. If the DM and the players want to have a 30th level game, the DM can just prepare a 30th level adventure and the players can just create 30th level characters, and they can play.

Now, I do personally have a preference for a more sequential series of games, in which the players run 1st-level PCs in the first session, 2nd-level PCs in the next and so on, but that's because I think it makes it easier for the players to understand how their characters perform in-game when they start at low level and gradually increase in power and ability, and because I prefer narratives in which the characters take on increasingly greater challenges. I do not believe that the "right" to play a higher-level character is something that needs to be earned.

 

[roguerouge]

I seem to recall psychological tests on risk/rewards with rats that may seem relevant here. When the rat hit the lever in a certain way, the rat earned a reward, a food pellet. The rat learned to predict the future consequences of his actions and learned a behavior. But when they gave the rat pellets on a totally random and ever-changing pattern of his actions, the rat essentially gave up.

Fortunately, xp is not the only reward, so games that provide it by DM fiat will not end up with dispirited rats, I mean, players. Gold is a reward. Magic items are a reward. Feeling clever is a reward. Feeling mighty is a reward. Feeling influential is a reward.

So long as the other player motivators are tangible and strongly connected to player behavior, I don't see a problem with DMs awarding levels willy-nilly. Of course, if my DMs were to do this, after a year or so, I'd probably grab them by the lapels and start shrieking for my XP like an addicted lab rat.

 

[roguerouge]

In broad terms, it should be horizontal character advancement, not vertical character advancement. More things to do, not more powerful things to do.

That's not true for every player, though. I've definitely played with players who just get confused when they get more options. Some players, of whatever experience level, just want to hit things, and don't respond well to getting ropes of climbing or rings of swimming. It just rots on their character sheet.

 

[Aus_Snow]

Those many of you who don't even give out ExP and instead just level the party up, how do you account for characters who just don't do their part? Or who missed a significant part of an adventure (got captured, wandered off, lost their mind, etc.)? And, how do you account for developments that cause someone to *gain* a level e.g. lucky pull from a Deck of Many Things?

In theory (because those things don't happen, at least at this time, and besides, I've come to strongly prefer the experience in play of completely level-less RPGs), the first two would be more the player in question's loss than anything (and certainly not requiring further 'punishment'), and the third (DoMT or the like) simply wouldn't exist as possibilities.

 

[Ariosto]

Sure, you can just create characters of level X if that's what your game is "about." One of the things I don't like about 4E is how it removes the option of playing relatively ordinary characters like 1st-level ones in old D&D. Unless you cook up house rules for it, 4E PCs are "heroes" right off the bat. It's also fine to decouple further advancement from the old model of something earned through skilled strategic play -- but any claim that the approach is somehow objectively superior is just not tenable in a "D&D" context.

If that's your cup of tea and yet you find yourself in an old-style game, then remember that player experience and ability can be critical. In some scenarios, a hundredth level character might get killed easily with poor play!

Complaints about DM favoritism highlight the main reason I like the classic approach of XP for treasure. It's up to the players how to secure and divide treasure; all I need do as DM is place it in the environment.

It's also an objective easy to convey and evaluate even in terms the characters (who presumably don't know anything about XP) can understand.

Although it may seem counter-intuitive, it also tends in my experience to broaden players' focus to considerations other than racking up experience levels. If that's what you want to do, then there's a clear way to do it -- but not everything worth doing for other reasons is necessarily a means to that end. Thus, those other reason are left to stand on their own merits rather than being implicitly so insufficient as to need an XP "artificial sweetener."

 

[Mallus]

Why should I have to show up for a bunch of lower-level game sessions to get there?

Presumably because you enjoy playing the game.

 

[FireLance]

Presumably because you enjoy playing the game.

Exactly. Well said!

 

[Ariosto]

One factor that seems to me pertinent is that the advantages of gaining a level in D&D are overwhelmingly more "power" in terms of the traditional "Underworld & Wilderness Adventures." They have mainly to do with winning fights, and avoiding or surviving other perils to life and limb.

Attempts to have them reflected more in terms of other character "skills" tend to replace role-playing with "roll-playing."

To the extent that one's interest is more in role-playing activities, level advancement matters the less.

 

[Mustrum_Ridcully]

Yes.

Speaking of which, what DM in his right mind expects the players to "Sit, Role Over, and Beg" just to get to 30th level? Why, when I make a character, I expect to just be 30th level. Why should I have to show up for a bunch of lower-level game sessions to get there? Why should I be expected to earn those levels? Why should I have to do anything? The DM who expects me to do anything has clearly mistaken me for a dog.

Urm......

On the other hand, maybe No.


RC

You are conflating leveling over time with handing out specific XP rewards for player actions.

Deciding that you start at level X and will go up from there is nothing more than an agreement between players and DM. "You know, we'd like to play characters that go adventuring and do stuff and grow in power over time."

You don't need XP rewards for slaying monsters, for solving riddles, for making the most funny comment, for role-playing out the romance with the bar maid or whatever for that. It doesn't necessarily hurt either, but you need an agreement, and you should look to the fact that no matter how you "reward" players, it is to everyones enjoyment of the game.