Upgrade your account to a Community Supporter account and remove most of the site ads.
Enchanted Trinkets Complete--a hardcover book containing over 500 magic items for your D&D games!

Reply to thread

Message: <blockquote data-quote="Lord Pendragon" data-source="post: 2550653" data-attributes="member: 707">That's what I hate about analogies.  Once one is introduced, there are certain folks who will do nothing by try to pull apart the analogy, rather than address the issues it was meant to illustrate.  :\ The point of my chess analogy was that penalizing a player in xp for not being able to make a game deprives him of the tools necessary to play the game when he does make it.  Naturally, one session at no xp isn't going to do anything, but if this is the DM's standard procedure, then over the course of a campaign I can certainly see a PC falling behind by three or four levels.As a personal example, I was hospitalized while my gaming group moved from 9th- to 12th-level.  If I had gotten no experience for that time, my 9th-level character would have been meat as soon as he returned to that 12th-level game.  Why should my DM punish me for an event that was beyond my control?  I desperately wish I could have made those games, and am more than happy that I can make it now.  Where's the sense in the penalty?I'm not going to pick apart your own analogy, easy enough as it might be.  Instead let me try and address the concern you mean to illustrate.  I agree, that if a player is blowing off your game for no good reason, something has to be done.  But it is my stance that xp penalties are the wrong way to go about it.  It's a metagame issue--either the player doesn't value your game enough, or doesn't have the courtesy to adhere to a schedule, or simply has ADD or some other attention disorder.My own comments are not about players simply "blowing off" a game.  They're about players who have legitimate reasons to be absent--work, illness, family trip, etc.--and have courteously informed the gaming group as early as they could.  For those people, I see no reason to penalize them for their absence.  The absence itself is the penalty.Regarding people who regard xp as a reward, I remain firm in my stance.  D&D does not reward exemplary play.  In our group, I am by far the most tactically-minded of the group.  I am the one who comes up with the plans that allow us to defeat armies, or powerful demons, etc.  Another player is definitely the most daring.  Neither of us are rewarded any more than any other player.So if D&D does not reward creativity, does not reward critical thinking, and does not reward courage and daring do....then why on earth should it reward mere presence?  The reward for being present is getting to actually play D&D, instead of reading about the session in an e-mail.  Everything else is tangential.</blockquote>

Verification