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Message: <blockquote data-quote="StupidSmurf" data-source="post: 2555284" data-attributes="member: 35893">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"  <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" /> 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!  <img src="http://www.enworld.org/forum/images/smilies/devious.png"  class="smilie" loading="lazy" alt=":]" title="Devious    :]" data-shortname=":]" /></blockquote>

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