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

[Majoru Oakheart]

The PC's team always plays the same opposing team (though they try to hide that fact by assuming various disguises, changing species, and occassionally cross-dressing). And the coach of the opposing team --me!-- is a nice guy whose only goal is making sure the other side has a good time facing an appropriate level of challenge.

So if the other team is down players, he takes a few people off his roster. Really, he ought to be fired...

Well, I don't...not because of missing players. When the players fought the Prince of Evil Fire Elementals, Imix, he didn't lose hit points from the ones written in the mod because someone decided not to show up that session(and someone did, and it was basically the finale of the mod).

I'm more simulationist, I suppose. I make some exceptions for a couple small things in terms of making the game fun. However, when I plan adventures, I think "Alright, there's a high priest, he'll be about CR..14 because the PCs are 12 and I want a challenge. I'll give him 4 followers in the room with him, CR 8 each. Sounds about right for what I want."

So, when I have that room written up and the PCs open the door, it will be harder if they have less people there.

I also wouldn't say I'm the "nice guy" in this situation. I choose appropriate CRs for the enemies so as not to kill the PCs off needlessly, but I don't use bad tactics if it looks like I'm winning to swing it back in the PCs favor (except in Living Greyhawk where the mod authors put in too powerful encounters and you have to). My goal is to play the enemies as they would actually think, it is only my secondary goal to make sure the PCs have an appropriate challenge. I like to think of it more as a FAIR challenge though. The enemy wasn't designed specifically to kill them, it's fair.

 

[billd91]

Hmm... So if one character has, say 30,384 XP and another has 26,284 XP, then the one with more XP will be able to better play his character. Eh, that would mean that a wizard who makes lots of items or the barbarian who died in my previous example isn't as good a player as the guy who only shows up to 80% of games but never died or used his XP for an alternate purpose.

EDIT: My point being that XP does not equal ability in and of itself. It is far more complex. A 20 year veteran will play a 10th level barbarian just as well or better than a newbie who leveled his character up to 10 in his first campaign.

But you're missing the fact that the player who has always been there, even though he currently has fewer XPs, has EARNED more than the player who has had absenses.

I'm not certain that there's always a causal relationship between playing time and player skill (since some players never seem to learn), but it's hard to deny that it's a significant factor in becoming a better player for most experiences.

 

[StupidSmurf]

Here's how I break it down:

1. Experience points are points awarded for your PC's experiences in the adventure. If you don't experience anything that session, why get any points?

2. Why must everyone be exactly the same level? As long as everyone's within a few levels, what's the problem?

3. To repeat what others have said, I don't see withholding XP as punishment. I see granting XPs to be a reward, reflecting the player's (and by extension, his PC) participation.

I feel the need to point out here, for the record, that I do indeed "have a life" I'm married, have four kids (the oldest just started college). Our campaign consists of me, and eleven players. Of those 11, 4 of them are from my family, namely my wife and the 3 older kids. Four other of the 11 are two married couples. The remaining 3 are single guys, one of them a busy college student. We play every other Saturday. Although we play "for fun," we still do take it seriously within the context of the game. That includes a sense of fairness, as in, you get rewarded based on what you do.

Now, there have been times that people who missed a session still got some swag from that session. We've had the occasional "No one claimed this Cloak of Elvenkind, and we know it'd be just perfect for your Ranger so we saved it for you." sort of thing happen. But the ground rules have been that if you're at a session, your PC gets XP, a share of the coinage, and getting a pick of the loot. If you're not there, you don't get XP, you don't get gold, and if there are any unclaimed items you can pick through them.

Maybe I'm just fortunate to have a group that's not grabby and picky, but who still maintain a certain level of understanding about rewards. Also, if someone misses a session or two, well, that's regrettable but it happens. Since our PCs don't earn enough XPs to advance a level per session, it's not that big a deal.

In the past, I HAVE had players who blew the game off just because they felt like it. Fine, that's their prerogative. But I'll be darned if I'm going to reward them just because they decided to sit in on someone else's game at the last minute. Heck with that. Especially if that person had the only (healing/arcane power/rogue, take your pick) in the group.

Our group's philosophy is this: you game because you have the interest, opportunity and free time for it. If you have a date, or a family gathering, or need to study, fine...do it. Those things take priority. It's called life. If it happens too often, we can talk about it, and maybe work out something (perhaps a brief solo 'catch up' adventure for an hour before game time?). But if you think you can goof around and not show up and think that you'll get the same rewards as those who came to the game and risked their PCs' health/lives in an adventure, then you've got another thing coming!

 

[Mallus]

So to use your own example, you feel it would be unfair to not give Bob a Christmas bonus even though he misses work all the time? Brother, in the real world Bob would count himself lucky to have a job, getting a bonus for nothing would be the least of his worries!

A game played in a social setting isn't a job. It's meaningless to compare the two.

For starters, the goals of workplace and a recreational game are completely and irreconcilably different.

 

[billd91]

IRl if i get my christmas bonus and bob doesn't, i have more money to spend and bob doesn't. bob is not however negatively impacted by my move up economically. he still gets the same bang for his buck. The "challenges" placed on his money do not get tougher.

In an RPG setting, when this equates to me being a higher level than bob, the difference is he IS negatively impacted. The challenge is based on partly level and bob is now below average. he is fighting tougher opposition and with less than the rest, which puts him at a disadvantage when it comes to what tools he has to use when trying to be the guy doing the cool stuff.

Consider an exaggerated but not extreme case. Three roleplayers and a combat guy play DND. Th Gm is heavy into Rp awards and, naturally, those more inclined to roleplay get more of those awards and so pretty much routninely they get more xp than the combat guy. Everyone is doing what they enjoy but one is simply getting less "credit" and slowly becoming less capable of meeting the increasing threats.

In the spending money example, the "benchmark" is an objective thing. The price of milk wont go up for bob because of my bonus. So the value of bob's money remains the same and he doesn't really lose anything.

In the DND thing, since the challenges are increased as the other player's capability increases, the value of the combat guys stuff effectively goes down.

The trouble with this analysis is that even though the character falls behind, the 3.5 experience system compensates for it. In fact, the farther he falls behind, the more it compensates. There are also plenty of ways in-game that the other players can behave (involving treasure distribution and tactics) to compensate for their less dynamic companion.

 

[Arravis]

So, RP bonus awards, as mentioned in the core rules, aren't your cup of tea, then?

As mentioned a while back (lost in morass that is this thread, hehe), at the end of the game the players all vote for the best-RP in the game and that person gets a chit (we use blue glass stones) that can be turned in for XP or a re-roll. The RP awards are essentially given out by the players for the players (the DM doesn't get a vote, unless it's a tie), so issues of favoratism, and so on don't come up.

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

It's pretty clear that the rules as written see experience points as a reward to the player rather than the character. In our culture's stories, people who come back from the dead tend not to come back less powerful. Gandalf, Obi-Wan-Kenobi, Jesus, etc. are more powerful when they return from the dead. And yet, when a character dies, there is an XP loss. This seems to model the game punishing a player for letting the character die.

I disagree that this is clear. You only get XP for defeating challenges according to the RAW, there are some optional rules about rewarding people for good role playing, but they aren't standard.

3.5e edition sees XP as...the "life force" of your character. The more you experience in terms of life or death, larger than life situations the more "powerful" you are in every way.

This attempts to model the "hero" approach. Characters are more powerful than other people because they are the heroes of the story. No matter how they face enemies, they get "stronger". It is an attempt to simulate the characters from stories who seem to gain power dramatically compared to those of the "normal" world. Mainly, it is a risk vs reward concept. You risk death when facing anything that has a CR, therefore you grow stronger for defeating it. This way, heroes who go out adventuring and defeating the evils of the world are the strong ones and those who hide in their homes studying find they grow stagnant due to no real EXPERIENCE. Thus, the name of it.

The IC excuse for losing XP for dying or creating magic items is that you lose part of your life force when you are brought back to life and you must put part of your life force into a magic item to allow it to function. Since your life force determines everything about you in the D&D world, you also lose some of your abilities when you die.

Yes, it ALSO serves an OOC reason, and it's likely the IC reasons are just justifications for the OOC ones. However, I can envision a world where it is a force as described above. It means that heroes are more powerful than everyone else for a REASON, they face the risk. Fortune favours the bold and all of that.

 

[Grimstaff]

A game played in a social setting isn't a job. It's meaningless to compare the two.

For starters, the goals of workplace and a recreational game are completely and irreconcilably different.

I know, but everone keeps using bad analogies to justify their position, so the imp in me feels the need to use their own bad analogies against them!

 

[Mallus]

Well, I don't...not because of missing players. When the players fought the Prince of Evil Fire Elementals, Imix, he didn't lose hit points from the ones written in the mod because someone decided not to show up that session(and someone did, and it was basically the finale of the mod).

In that case, I'd reschedule. Especially if the session was intended to be some big, dramatic climax (and in part, that's out of ego. I'd want to wow the maximum number of players with my climax... um... maybe I should rephrase that....)

I'm more simulationist, I suppose.

The funny thing is that I consider myself something of a simulationist too. But I see simulation as a means to an end (enjoyment of the game), rather than an end in and of itself. I just can't see the value in that. The goal is to provide an enjoyable experience to all parties involved.

So I'm willing to bend the simulation aspect of the game up until just before the breaking point...

My goal is to play the enemies as they would actually think, it is only my secondary goal to make sure the PCs have an appropriate challenge. I like to think of it more as a FAIR challenge though. The enemy wasn't designed specifically to kill them, it's fair.

See, I reverse that. 'Playing the enemies as they'd really think' has to be in the context of --in service of-- the goal of challenging and entertaining the players.

How strictly one adheres to the internal logic of the simulation will vary greatly. I know some people around here stop having fun the minute they suspect the DM is modifying the challenge on the fly for metagame reasons. I'm not questioning the validity of that stance.

But in the final analysis, whatever the DM does has to be in service of players enjoyment (and in this case I count the DM as one of the player ). Otherwise its just masturbation...

 

[Majoru Oakheart]

I work much as you do -- with different party members at different experience levels but "player improvement" makes zero difference to me and is not a factor for me in my decisions. Player fulfilment is the name of the game for me. But interestingly, giving everyone equal XP, in my experience, is not actually a recipe for everyone finding their experience award equally fulfilling.

Yes, I agree. If I started giving out equal XP, my players would complain about the fact that they rescheduled their plans just so they could show up and they get the same XP as the guy who cancelled to play card games or hang out with his friends at a barbeque.

Either that or the complain that they were only 11th level compared to the 13 of the rest of the group, the enemies were harder for them, shouldn't they get more reward for defeating them?

So, I give out the XP in the book.