Why punish a player if they can't come to the game?

[Izerath]

Its not punishement, it called being fair

I award 50% XP if a player is absent but the PC is with the group. If its an RP session, where people are doing their own thing between adventures, I have on occassion awarded nothing to an absent player because they didn't participate in any way whatsoever.

The players that do show up deserve the full XP. Rewarding a player that blows off the game to go see a movie on opening nite, or some other lame excuse, is the justification for this approach. With a mature group, it matters little, but life does get in the way, and they take the good with the bad.

For us its just a fact of gaming life.

 

[howandwhy99]

The problem with that is that the player roleplaying the int 6 half-orc barbarian won't be getting as much xp as the player who is also playing an int 6 half-orc barbarian, but playing the character intelligently.

Roleplaying is rewarded. Good ideas, doing something you wouldn't if you used metagame knowledge, even playing dumb. But you are right in that most DM's prefer to reward intelligent, challenging play. Keeping an Int 6 Half-orc alive and viable in a highly political campaign IS challenging. Expressing the best course of action for the party, but making it look like a stupid remark requires intelligence.


EDIT: Question: If all characters hold the same experience count at all times, what happens when to an absent player's character during a TPK? Is their character dead too? Or were they "off-screen"?

 

[el-remmen]

I believe there are better ways of doing that. Talk to the player, let him know it's a problem. If he continues being inconsiderate, ask him to leave the game. I don't see why a game-mechanic would be used to deal with what's essentially a personal problem between player and DM.

I guess I don't see it as a personal problem so much as a "game policy", but you may have a point there.

But, veryone understands at the outset how it is gonna be.

The talking comes when it continues to be a problem - right now I think we understand each other (we talked about the GEN CON thing).

 

[ThirdWizard]

I don't understand. . . But maybe that is because I only give out XP every 8 to 12 sessions.

An 8th level character gets more xp from an encounter than a 9th level character. If one character levels to 9th level, and another stays 8th because he missed a session, then the next session the one who missed will recieve more xp than the one who didn't. This can cause the player who missed a session to have a higher xp total than the others. I've seen it happen when a player dies and loses a level. I have a House Rule, however, to prevent that exact issue from actually occuring.

I believe there are better ways of doing that. Talk to the player, let him know it's a problem. If he continues being inconsiderate, ask him to leave the game. I don't see why a game-mechanic would be used to deal with what's essentially a personal problem between player and DM.

Agreed. To me, this is trying to resolve in out of game issue with an in game issue, similar to killing a PC because you believe the player to be disruptive (altough on a much smaller scale).

I guess the difference is we award experience for all in-game awards. If you acquire an ally, steal gold without a fight, or discover a key peice of information, then your PC gains experience. Some of these benefit the whole group, even those who did not attend.

To me, gaining the in game benefit is all the reward that is needed. Having a new ally within a wizard guild is benefit enough. No xp reward is required.

 

[el-remmen]

I hope your group plays every week. For my group that would be every 4 to 6 months!!!

We aim for every 2 weeks - but lately it has been more like once a month.

The last time I gave out XP was sometime in December or January.

 

[billd91]

Then say you start with 5 pieces and get one every game instead.

Then you're not playing chess and the analogy is still irrelevant.

Besides, being a two-player game, for every game you've missed, someone else has missed one too. That should spread the misery around a little.

 

[el-remmen]

An 8th level character gets more xp from an encounter than a 9th level character. If one character levels to 9th level, and another stays 8th because he missed a session, then the next session the one who missed will recieve more xp than the one who didn't. This can cause the player who missed a session to have a higher xp total than the others. I've seen it happen when a player dies and loses a level. I have a House Rule, however, to prevent that exact issue from actually occuring.

Even when I used CR and stuff to determine XP I always used average party level to determine what a monster was worth.

 

[DonTadow]

D&D is a game. But you're thinking of it backwards. Being 12th-level in a 12th-level campaign isn't a reward. It's the status-quo. It's where you need to be to meet the challenges you'll face in the game. To return to the chess comparison, being 12th-level in a 12th-level campaign is like having the appropriate chess pieces on your side of the board. You've got the tools you need to play.

Now imagine a weekly chess game. Only each time real life commitments force you to miss a game, I'm going to take away one of your chess pieces. So after missing three sessions (business trip took you out of state, let's say,) everyone else is still playing normal chess, while you have to play without two pawns and a rook.

Does that sound right to you?

Falling behind in XP is not going to put you on an uneven playing field for the game. Most adventures are drawn up to allow for up to two level difference between characters. There's no such thing as a "12th level campaign". There is low, mid, high and epic levels. Your analogy doesnt work because the game is created to allow for things such as level loss by ability or by death thus the higher you go the more frequent you will have players with different levels. A player woudl have to miss a heck of a lot of sessions to drop below two levels and at that point is that player even worth playing with. With players like that I drop their characters to npc mode and ...essently they play an npc when they come. No real adventures or stories are drawn around their characters.

Chess doesnt work as an anology for this . chess is a turn based game that requires only two players. If someone's not there... well they are probably going to lose because the other person doesnt have an opponent. Using your chess example again, as it can be as stratigic as d and d, someone else can't play your game because no oen else knows your exact strategy. If you're not there for three turns yes you'll lose and it isn't really fair to the players actualy playing chess to play your turn for you putting the burden of you losing on them.

 

[ThirdWizard]

Even when I used CR and stuff to determine XP I always used average party level to determine what a monster was worth.

They actually changed it for 3.5.

 

[Patryn of Elvenshae]

Then you're not playing chess and the analogy is still irrelevant.

Besides, being a two-player game, for every game you've missed, someone else has missed one too. That should spread the misery around a little.

Alright. Make it a six-way game of Risk.

If you're not present at the beginning of your turn, you don't get to collect armies.