Why did early editions of D&D rely on Treasure for experience points?

[Rune]

There's also an element of fiction emulation going on. Much of the inspiration for the game was sword & sorcery pulp and the protagonists of such were often quite mercenary. Having treasure account for the majority of the XP gained made the risk:reward ratio a crucial (and prominent) calculation in a party's decision-making process.

 

[pemerton]

There's also an element of fiction emulation going on. Much of the inspiration for the game was sword & sorcery pulp and the protagonists of such were often quite mercenary. Having treasure account for the majority of the XP gained made the risk:reward ratio a crucial (and prominent) calculation in a party's decision-making process.

Unfortunately, the genre emulation is a bit of a failure. Conan quite often gets little or no treasure, an indeed sacrifices it in order to do the right thing by others (eg Tower of the Elephant; Jewels of Gwahlur). But in treasure-for-XP D&D, the incentives are to sacrifice others in order to keep the treasure.

 

[miniaturehoarder]

I am a newbie DM, and haven't hosted a game yet, but am curious (after reading stuff on the web for past couple weeks), why did early editions rely on treasure to get experience points? Later editions don't reward nearly as much treasure right? Is it because you were to avoid fighting with monsters at all costs? Trying to understand the differences.

Eyes on the prize!

Low HD monsters were worth little XP and were encountered in large numbers, it behooved the party to deal with them quickly (area effect or avoidance) to get to the real prize, the Treasure. 100 bandits were a pittance in XP but their loot could be worthwhile to get to. Larger more powerful foes were worth ok XP, but were far more dangerous so taking them on could be worth it for higher level parties.

Low level parties sought out treasure, high level parties sought out treasure and worthy foes.

 

[QuaziquestGM]

Take a look at the way odnd handled encumbrance.

Encumbrance was measured in coins weight for a reason.

The overall game was structured as a resource management game. The goal was the escape the dungeon with the highest value of treasure you could carry. copper, silver, and gold coins all weighed the same, so you picked up every coin you found, but as you neared your limit you would drop low value coin and equipment
if you found something more valuable to carry. You had just better remember to keep enough torches to make it back out after you have found the treasure pile....

 

[TarionzCousin]

Unfortunately, the genre emulation is a bit of a failure. Conan quite often gets little or no treasure, an indeed sacrifices it in order to do the right thing by others (eg Tower of the Elephant; Jewels of Gwahlur). But in treasure-for-XP D&D, the incentives are to sacrifice others in order to keep the treasure.

Or, if Conan ends one story with lots of treasure, he has lost it all before the next story begins.

Conan wasn't very good with budgeting.

 

[gamerprinter]

Another reason I think is that D&D 1e was a lot deadlier to PCs than later editions, I think I can count on one hand the number of my PCs that lived past 7th level, most were killed long before 7th, but I seem to remember those that survived the early levels hit a wall at 7th level on lots of adventures. So in a much deadlier D&D, you had to be smart and sneak around the monsters and avoid combat if at all possible, to get the treasure and your experience points.

 

[Celebrim]

Another reason I think is that D&D 1e was a lot deadlier to PCs than later editions, I think I can count on one hand the number of my PCs that lived past 7th level, most were killed long before 7th, but I seem to remember those that survived the early levels hit a wall at 7th level on lots of adventures.

As with so much about 1e, there is no single experience of the game. I thought much as you until I had set in on the tables of more DMs.

How deadly 1e is depends on a lot of things.

1) What method of character generation is provided for? Depending on which approved method you used, the methods would generate on average anything from barely survivable ordinary persons to veritable demigods. A fighter with 18 str or 18 con (or both!) roughly twice as powerful as one with ordinary stats, such that a 5th or 6th level fighter with two 18's is about worth a 10th level fighter without either.
2) How much treasure is provided, particularly with regards to magical items? The amount of treasure that the game provided varied even within its own guidelines, depending on which guidelines were considered definitive. In particular, the sort of random treasure provided by treasure type in the monster manuals, the random treasure in the appendix on dungeon generation, and the amount of treasure in published adventure paths (GDQ, for example) varied greatly. If you played with the monster manual being definitive, about 2/3rds or less of the XP a player would earn would come from treasure and magic items would be quite rare and extraordinary finds. If on the other hand you took GDQ or other published modules as definitive, each adventure was intended to provide sufficient treasure to ensure at least one and sometimes two levels were gained in the course of play, magic items would be plentiful, and treasure would be often 90% or more of the earned XP.
3) How closely were the rules adhered to? This was of particular importance with regard to spellcasters. If spellcasters weren't handicapped by application of the rules on casting time and so forth, they'd quickly become very powerful indeed.
4) How RB was your DM? Particularly as the party reached 10th level or so, and particularly if they had as much advantages as the game allowed, the game sort of broke down. Consider that the monsters in the game were rated on a scale of I through X, and that this rating corresponded to the average dungeon level they'd be encountered on, which in turn corresponded to the average level of the PC expected to reach that level. In order to provide continued challenge at 10th level and beyond, a DM had to be tactical, inventive, and have a degree of system mastery to choose and abuse the few foes available that could provide challenge to high level characters.
5) Are we talking before or after the Unearthed Arcana? The classes, class options, spells, and items in the Unearthed Arcana - to say nothing of probably the second most potent means of character generation if it was employed - significantly increased the expected power level of low level characters, effectively boosting the party by a couple of levels compared to pre-UA parties.

In the extreme case of a DM running a very tight ship, employing chargen of 4d6 drop 1 and watching it to prevent cheating, giving out treasure only as indicated by the treasure types (and even then putting a finger on the scale to stop potent items from appearing at low level), fully leveled up as a RBDM, and not running Unearthed Arcana, 1e was very deadly indeed. In the opposite case of a DM allowing generous chargen, generous magic item placement, UA rules and limited or no restrictions on spellcasters, little tactical acumen and conscious avoidance of 'unfun' or 'unfair' monsters (such as those with energy drain), 1e AD&D was really only particularly deadly at 1st level (and then only with no house rule that allowed maximum hit points at 1st level).

 

[gamerprinter]

...snip...

Well I found my experience generally true with many DMs, including myself as DM. I started with one group up until 1983, then I joined the US Army for 4 years (playing many games with different groups at different stations) and by the time I got out of the army, or shortly thereafter 2e was released. However, different DMs approached the game differently, as it was the early days of D&D and there were no absolute commonalities for every table. If I remember right, most of the time, if you rolled your own stats, and rolled terribly, most DMs would allow you a second set of rolls and use the second or best of the two. I can only remember one PC reaching 18th level in all the years I played 1e.

I played one UA barbarian that I recall. I had a better barbarian experience when the only version was from Dragon magazine, of course that guy had an intelligence of 4 (4d4 was the roll for intelligence from Dragon magazine), it was one of funnest/funniest PCs I had run (at the time) with natural 18's in STR, CON and CHA. I can't recall playing any other UA classes. Of course XP leveling was more for barbarians than wizards, if I recall correctly.

Yes, 2e was much less deadlier than 1e had ever been, and 3x hardly different than 2e in that way. As far as magic items went, most DMs were stingy, IME in 1e and unfun monsters were no more rare than any other rare encounter. I don't recall too many TPKs in 1e, but if your DM allowed you to roll a new character at the same level as the one that died, most everybody in the party died at least once by mid levels (7 - 10), some more than once.

Of course all this is probably anecdotal, but it was what I experienced.

 

[Celebrim]

I can only remember one PC reaching 18th level in all the years I played 1e.

Starting at 1st level, I've never seen one make it past 12th at any table, and at my own table none had ever made it past 7th starting from 1st. Most of that those is simply the amount of time involved in leveling though, as most of the PC's were still alive at that point. It's just that without force feeding 1e character treasure in order to level them, leveling past name level in 1e is extremely slow. Each encounter is going to bring only a couple of thousand XP to the entire party, and you need millions of XP to level the party up just one level. We were leveling about once a year playing 8 hour sessions 30-40 times a year.

Most to the point, starting from 1st level, the highest I've yet seen a character reach at my own table in any system is 8th level (in 3e and still alive, 7th was the previous record in 1e). More often characters enter or reenter an ongoing campaign at somewhere above 1st level, and level up from that point. So for example, you might see 7-12 or even 3-15, but rarely 1-10+. I've heard of it, I've just never seen it happen. Which is why the AP's of 3.X with there assumption of 1-20 as a complete campaign always struck me as so bizarre.

Nobody I knew above the age of 13 in a 1e game had ever claimed to have a 20th level character, and the 13 year old that did make that claim (a 32nd level paladin) and who complained to me the game had gotten boring and was talking about how weak Morgan Le Fey was based on her stats, I killed in about 20 minutes of play using only a handful of ordinary monsters to prove to him that there was more to the game than just flipping to a page of the MM (or the Deities & Demigods!) and making attack rolls.

So when did the default expectation become, "Your character is going to reach 20th level", so that we create AP's for it? Back in the day, even the claim would have seemed a bit munchkin and proof of Monte Haulism. I can remember when the default expectation was, "Your character probably won't survive more than 4 levels from the time you start play, and if your character does that character is going to be one you'll really remember and be hugely invested in." The more usual thing was to boast (as I am here) of just how much of a RB your DM was (see Weird Pete for this behavior as a stereotype). I always assumed most of the upper levels of the charts were purely theoretical and they ended where they did because in practice you'd never hit the implied caps. I basically still assume that. In the unlikely event I'm still running the same campaign 5-6 years from now, I still wouldn't expect to have 20th level PC's roaming around.

 

[gamerprinter]

Nobody I knew above the age of 13 in a 1e game had ever claimed to have a 20th level character, and the 13 year old that did make that claim (a 32nd level paladin) and who complained to me the game had gotten boring and was talking about how weak Morgan Le Fey was based on her stats, I killed in about 20 minutes of play using only a handful of ordinary monsters to prove to him that there was more to the game than just flipping to a page of the MM (or the Deities & Demigods!) and making attack rolls.

Indeed I remember constantly hearing from one person how his 1e party were all 12th level and could destroy any encounter placed before them by their DM. I finally ran a single encounter as a one-time DM for his group versus an opponent druid/wizard 1 level lower than anyone in their party, without using any house rules and easily TPK'd them just using spells within that encounter. It was just to prove a point, their DM was way too easy on them.

If memory serves that 18th level PC I mentioned, I think started at 7th level.