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

[Belen]

On a related not about XP. I got really frustrated in my last game when my character died and got raised, 3 times in one year real time. I know when you get raised, you lose a level. But I got really behind in XP I was like level 7 when everone else was level 9-10. I was thinking "what was the point of playing when all I'm going to do is lose XP every time I get raised?"

We use the rule that the player picks up a negative level until he would naturally hit another level. It works much better It also models actually being "weaker" because you suffered the trauma of death without losing XP that you gained honestly. After all, you do not forget what you did, so you should not grow less accomplished if you died.

 

[Grimstaff]

Why do some people have issues with events occurring to PC’s that aren’t present (of course it’s much preferred they be). The characters are an integral part of the story and help me shape my plot and game world as much as I help them shape their characters. I don’t see the gulf between DM and PC that so many seem to. We’re both making the world; we’re both making the character, together.

Why is XP such a sore point with people? My game isn’t a job, it isn’t the military. I don’t see why you have to “earn your chops” or some other thing like that. It’s simply an activity friends do together. Why are people bothering to compare themselves to their fellow players, seeing how much XP they have and if they “earned” it? I’m not trying to find out who is the “better” player. Why does that matter? How does that add to the fun? Some has said, “such is life, if you miss out, you miss out.” I’m not looking for harsh real-life in my games; there’s enough of that already. The game should be about fun.
I don’t see XP as a reward, only another game mechanic to progress the story along. The important contributions I’m looking for from my players is them adding to the overall gaming experience. They do this by having interesting characters that are well role-played, not how many spells were cast or what monsters they happened to kill. In my games, I’m looking for a sense of wonder not XP. If all I wanted to see were the numbers on my character sheet go up, I’ll go play one of a million CRPGs.

Having characters fall behind in XP from the other characters doesn’t add to the game. It only decreases the fun. I’ve never seen an intense that it made a game better. The player who is left behind is unhappy, as is everyone else in the group because that character is less effective. I don’t see what it buys you.

Seriously, why do you use exp at all? If you dont care whether players actually EARN them or not, why not just say at some point to them, "you gain a level"?
How do you handle exp subtractions from magic item creation, death, or negative levels? Do you ignore this too?
If players dont have to be present for their character to gain levels, why not just write a summary of next weeks game, attach exp, e-mail it to everyone, and skip the game. Or is the game more like acting out a play?
I honestly can't make sense of your house rule here. DO you players all have the same hit points? Do they get mad if one guy has a better Will save than the next? Why, specifically, do you think its "no fun" for characters to be different levels? Is there some serious Munchkinism going on and no one wants to have less feats or something? But wouldn't Munchkinism destroy your whole "creating a story" contention?
Baffling...

 

[ForceUser]

On a related not about XP. I got really frustrated in my last game when my character died and got raised, 3 times in one year real time. I know when you get raised, you lose a level. But I got really behind in XP I was like level 7 when everone else was level 9-10. I was thinking "what was the point of playing when all I'm going to do is lose XP every time I get raised?"

Don't die.

 

[JoeGKushner]

On a related not about XP. I got really frustrated in my last game when my character died and got raised, 3 times in one year real time. I know when you get raised, you lose a level. But I got really behind in XP I was like level 7 when everone else was level 9-10. I was thinking "what was the point of playing when all I'm going to do is lose XP every time I get raised?"

Which version of D&D are you playing? Unless I'm mistaken, lower level characters get more experience points than higher level ones don't they? That is something I haven't seen enough GMs to, taking care that each PC gets an appropriate amount, instead using 'blanket' amounts of XP for each character regardless of level differences.

 

[el-remmen]

Which version of D&D are you playing? Unless I'm mistaken, lower level characters get more experience points than higher level ones don't they? That is something I haven't seen enough GMs to, taking care that each PC gets an appropriate amount, instead using 'blanket' amounts of XP for each character regardless of level differences.

Is the appropriate part of the 3.5 DMG that discusses this in the SRD? Because it just seems like a lot of work to figure out XP individually based on level.

I think the determine by average level method worked fine (when I wasn't too lazy to do even that).

Then again, I found the 3.0 advancement to be way too fast for my tastes and all XP awards (note that they call them "awards" ) were halved and then when having more than four characters in an encounter (since the system was based on 4) I would multiply the award by four and then divide by the number of characters and then that number would be split up among them.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

so would it be correct to say that in your game XP is awarded for present players based on how much they added to the game and not like the usual challenges overcome etc? or is "added to the game" only a criterion for absent players?

The party is assumed to work together in my games. Each person there contributes in their own way(casting spells that help others, making decisions for the group, adding to the role playing experience). This is one of those situations where I'd love for the people who do more to get more, but there is no fair way of deciding what "more" is, so they get equal.

Actually, such is the decision of the GM, not a fact of life. As seen here, other Gms don't follow that at all. its a choice.

Well, no, it's like everything else in life. If your team doesn't show up for a baseball game, you should expect to lose by default. You could also say this was just the person in charge of the baseball league's decision and he could change it at any time. He could, but he's just being fair, the other team was considerate enough to show up.

Now, what does your game gain or how is it made better by denying xp to the characters of absent players and setting up level mismatches?

A sense of fair play and equality. People showing up for the game because they have incentive do to so more than just desire to show up. I know a couple of my players have missed games for a barbeque with friends, going away for the long weekend, a card game tournament, etc. I'd like to leave them with a choice: Play in the tournament that ONLY happens once every 6 months (so is really important, according to the player in question) and you will miss out on XP. Your choice.

why would the Gm do that?
Why wouldn't he instead run scenes relevent to and focused on the players there?

With this statement, I realize our gaming styles are COMPLETELY different. I might end a game session with "Ok, you are all walking down the hallway of the 4th level of Castle Maure, you were about to open the 3rd door on the left when we ended for the night because Mike had to go to work and Dallas needed sleep.

The story revolves around the WHOLE party, they are all in the corridor, they are all about to walk into a room that likely contains a monster capable of killing them if they don't work together to beat it.

I consider it too much of a hassle to run someone's character while they are gone (I have to DM, too much to think about), and I hate giving control of a character to another player (I've died while my character was being played by someone else, I really hated it and I wouldn't do it to someone else without their express permission. Even then, most people who agree do so because they assume they won't die and their tune changes when it actually happens.). So, due to this, I use the "party member is not really there for this session"...he decides suddenly to scout out another part of the dungeon, he breaks a nail and decides to stand there filing it off no matter HOW long it takes, etc. Generally we handwave WHY the character isn't there, it just isn't.

I also planned out the enemy in the room weeks before assuming the whole party was there. If the pary has 4 people and only 1 of them is a good fighter, and he suddenly vanishes as they are opening the door to a powerful enemy, the rest of the party is in big trouble. The enemy is now twice as hard to defeat as it would have been otherwise. That's why, when enough people don't show up, we cancel the session to avoid just killing off the people who ARE there.

In a heavily role playing game, I could see being a little more lenient, you'll miss that character's personality at your table for a session, but you can invent a story reason for it and everyone is happy. Since I'm big on fair play, I'm not going to come up with story reasons why the enemies weapons are deflected away from the party's head.

My players are motivated by XP. They have their characters planned out for the next couple of levels, they really want to get that next cool spell or that next cool feat. They understand they need to work towards it.

If you want to understand my attitude about this, you have to understand where XP comes from. In 1st Ed, you got XP for DOING things. You got XP for casting spells, you got XP for stealing things, you got XP for killing enemies, and optionally some DMs gave out XP for good role playing. I come from a background of this method. It wasn't up to the DM, I didn't blame them for making up stupid rules, it was in the DMG and the way the game worked. I felt complaining about the way XP worked was an awful lot like complaining that in tennis you have to hit the ball. It's the way the game worked and if I didn't like it, I'd play a different game.

I'm very big on using game systems for what they are designed for. If I want a very role playing heavy system where I rarely, if ever, had a combat, I'd likely get a rules light system that resolved combat quickly and without much detail as that wasn't the focus of the game, likely the story teller system or BESM, or some diceless system. I don't play in this style, we are pretty much classic D&Ders. We focus on going through dungeons and killing enemies, which is what D&D is good at and what the XP system in the DMG is designed to reward.

So, all in all, people in my game get XP based on the monsters defeated during the session and that's it. It is split only amongst those people who helped defeat those monsters. If something strange happens and a character ends up in a battle even if the player isn't, the character still gets full XP as it helped defeat the enemies. It isn't about punishing anyone at all.

 

[JoeGKushner]

Is the appropriate part of the 3.5 DMG that discusses this in the SRD? Because it just seems like a lot of work to figure out XP individually based on level.

I think the determine by average level method worked fine (when I wasn't too lazy to do even that).

The problem with averaging xp thought is that it rewards the higher level characters and punishes the lower level characters as the lower your average level, the higher the xp totals are.

 

[Mallus]

I can answer some of these...

Seriously, why do you use exp at all?

Good question... because its traditional?

If you dont care whether players actually EARN them or not

Define 'earn'.

In every game I've ever played in, there have been players that did little more than roll dice when told to do so (I guess they just liked the company, and that's fine by me). They got XP for showing up. And other players were just lucky idiots. They get XP too.

Since the game --in all pratical terms-- isn't a meritocracy, its not much of a strectch to award a hypothetical good player with a hectice schedule XP for missed sessions.

I personally value quality participation above consistant particiaption.

...why not just say at some point to them, "you gain a level"?

That works too. Escpecially when you view level as a summary of the kind of challenges faced (and a aggregate of the PC abilities used to overcome them).

How do you handle exp subtractions from magic item creation

Items cost gold, time, rare materials, and DM fiat.

death

Hasn't come up yet. This whole 'single party XP total for all PC's' is an experiment.

or negative levels

Again, it hasn't come up. I imagine I'll treat level draining by the book, and make regaining those levels the plot of the next adventure/story arc.

If players dont have to be present for their character to gain levels, why not just write a summary of next weeks game, attach exp, e-mail it to everyone, and skip the game. Or is the game more like acting out a play?

Now this baffles me... My players are present during the game because they enjoy playing. Their satisfaction comes from something other than just accruing XP (which isn't to say that isn't fun).

I honestly can't make sense of your house rule here. DO you players all have the same hit points? snip...

My group doesn't play in the world of "Harrison Bergeron". Everthing isn't equalized.

When you sit down to play, with whatever character, everybody's the same level. That's all.

Miss a few sessions, want to try a new character concept, bring an old character back? Fine, no problem. Just play. That's the interesting part...

 

[Flexor the Mighty!]

Whomever brought up the Cardinals performance in the Series last year I can only say this to you...A pox upon thee!!!

 

[Mallus]

A sense of fair play and equality.

See, its out of a sense of fair play and equality that I tried handing out uniform XP (if you're present or not).

In the (distant) past I've handled XP very differently. Small, common base awards, and then larger, individual ones based on my evaluation of player performance.

But what was I evaluating? I thought at the time I was rewarding 'smart, creative play' and 'superior role playing skills'. And without fail I was merely rewarding play that amused me, or resembled my own. I sadly had to admit I'm no good as an objective arbitrator.

And the only thing I could teach players is how to play like me.

The only fair thing I could do is scrap individual XP awards. Which led me down the primrose path (should that be capitalized?) toward a single party XP total.