Worlds of Design: The Benefit of Experience

This is a discussion of how one decision in game design can make so much difference in how everything works. In this case we’re talking about RPGs, specifically how experience points (XP) are awarded. What are the consequences of using one method or another (or a combination)?

Picture courtesy of Pixabay.​

“Good judgment comes from experience, and experience comes from bad judgment.” ― Rita Mae Brown, Alma Mater

When it comes to XP, there are three obvious ways to reward it:

• For treasure collected or perhaps more broadly for money collected
• For “monsters” killed—the tougher the monster the more XP
• For successfully completing missions, or just for generally playing well, not for specific XP events

Each of these types of rewards are associated with an edition of Dungeons & Dragons, but they are not limited to that game alone. XP is one of the most direct ways of incentivizing players to play a certain way.

XP for Treasure​

What happens when you give XP only for treasure/money collected? In my opinion, this incentivizes the characters (and players) to be money grubbers, not adventurers. Adventure doesn't matter, all that matters is getting the loot. In the “money collected” mode, they may get XP for success in business as well. They don't worry about “more worthy” objectives such as defeating evil or winning the war or whatever more worthy might be. They become sheer mercenaries. They just want to make money.

XP for treasure can be especially bad in Advanced D&D. At low levels, AD&D can encourage this form of treasure hunting. When I’m a player, I usually want to strive for something more than being a mercenary. A game gives you a chance to be better than you expect to be, to strive for lofty goals. Treasure-hunting isn’t a lofty goal.

If you use the training rules, characters have to grub for even more money than would be sufficient to raise their level via XP; they need a lot more to pay for training. If you're only looking for loot you're only going to fight things that are likely to have loot, and you're unlikely to fight things that don't have loot. Why fight something when you don't get any experience points?

Ask yourself, how often do heroes in adventure novels and movies, do it for the money? Han Solo started out trying to do it that way, but changed his mind. In Glen Cook's The Black Company the characters are mercenaries, but in the end they do things for reasons other than money. The Mandalorian is a mercenary, but finds a different calling in Baby Yoda. And so on.

As an aside: why award XP for mere treasure? Given the chanciness of whether a monster or group will have treasure, doesn’t it become something of a lottery?

XP for Kills​

What about XP for kills? Just like the XP for Treasure above, this motivates adventurers toward a different goal: fighting everything. Their goal is to kill things, not to defeat evil or any other lofty goal. So once again you’ve steered the players that in my opinion is a wrong direction (see "Chaotic Neutral is the Worst").

Video gamers are accustomed to fighting everything in most AAA list games. So this method may feel comfortable to them. If you don’t get XP for kills, then you can try for strategems and sneakiness that don’t necessarily kill the “enemy” but achieve your goals in other ways. That provides more variety.

A combination of these two methods steers players away from the worst excesses, but is still not particularly heroic.

XP for Missions​

What about the third alternative, XP for completing missions, or perhaps for just playing well in general? This is the way I do it. I once wrote a computer program that considered the levels of the characters and how many points each needed to rise a level, and awarded XP accordingly. But you don't need to be that complicated; just give the characters each a particular amount of experience.

Clearly there are going to be people in any adventuring party who are much more important to the success of the party, either because of the character’s capabilities or because of the player’s capabilities, and you can differentiate that (giving each player/character a grade, in effect). Or you can simply give the same amount of experience to each character.

What does this do for the game? It means people play to be successful adventurers, not money grubbers, not killers, adventurers. Isn’t the game about adventure, not about treasure hunting or killing? If you have a campaign where there are clear ultimate goals—defeating evil is the obvious one—then that's what they'll try to do.

Which to Use?​

A lot depends on how you decide to award experience, whether you’re the GM or you’re the game designer. It's important to realize the consequences of these incentives because when players end up playing greedy murder-hobos, it's often at least partially due to the way the game rewards play.

Does XP method affect willingness to cooperate? If each individual is singled out, if each one gets XP according to what treasure they lay hands on, or what creatures they kill, cooperation can suffer badly. Which, in my opinion, destroys the point of RPGs: cooperation.

Your Turn: How do you award experience to player characters?

 

[Laurefindel]

I still have to find a XP system I really like.
TL;DR: I'm still looking for a system that is fair, rewarding, not too meta, and not blatant carrot-and-stick.

On one side, experience should be rewarding, something the players and their characters earn. Ideally more than by just showing-up for the game.

On the other hand, I don't like systems whereas some players gain more XP because they are more extroverted players, are "better" at gaming the system, take more spotlight space (even if it isn't intentional), or optimize their character to make sure they always succeed at whatever that grants XP.

XP based on personal goals have the same issue; some players invariable end-up with objectives that are easier than others, and therefore their character advances faster than other characters.

I believe the solution is XP as a collective reward rather than individual, but party-based objectives can sway the roleplay and actions of the players similarly to how gp-based and combat-based XP system tend to orient play in a certain direction.

The best system would reward the party according to the challenges they faced and how they reacted to it, weighing how success or failure would contribute more or less toward growth, and whether the challenge was a learning curve for this party. It is sometimes said that "success comes with experience, but experience comes with failure". Some systems like Invisible Sun require you to pair two different resources to gain XP, so I could consider a XP system where you need to combine "success tokens" with "failure tokens" to gain XP.

 

[Charlaquin]

There is significant overlap between "killing monsters" and "defeating evil"; to the point that distinguishing between the two is an exercise in pedantry.

That’s far from an uncontroversial opinion.

Moreover, in a system where advancement primarily measures your ability to fight, it doesn't make a lot of sense that you would get better at fighting by doing anything else.

That’s fine, it doesn’t have to make sense.

 

[Lanefan]

First off, experience points are something earned by the character, not the player. No meta-level xp for bringing beer, or for writing up a ten-page backstory for your PC, or for being the funniest player.

Along with this: your character continues to do what it does - including gain xp if it earns any - even though you-as-player missed that session.

Second off, the character gets xp for what it does as an individual. If for whatever reason you're not involved in whatever earned the xp you don't get any of those xp. This is to discourage 'passenger' characters, which have sometimes been a problem in the past.

Third, in my games xp can be earned in several ways. Combat (or avoidance of same) is the most common. Overcoming other obstacles e.g. traps or sticky social situations. And at the end of each adventure I give out a 'dungeon bonus' which in part replaces the xp they'd have got for treasure (which I've never done) and in part covers off all the day-to-day little things that would otherwise earn 1 xp here and 2 xp there that I haven't the patience to track and record. Advancement is (by 3e-4e-5e standards) very slow: this is intentional both to extend the campaign length and to take focus away from levelling and put it on day-to-day adventuring instead.

Fourth, you have to train into a new level and you have to pay for it. The training forces parties to take some downtime now and then and also forces them to share out their treasury (which might otherwise never get done!); and the payments act as a wealth reducer (I could eliminate the payments and just give out less treasure, but where's the fun in that; and a character can always choose not to train at cost of advancing at half-rate).

 

[zarionofarabel]

I like XP systems that reward the PCs for the things they do.

Mythras uses a system where the skills a PC uses are checked, then between sessions there is a chance that those checked skills will increase. Also, the lower the skill level the greater the chance that said skill gains a large increase.

Burning Wheel and Mouse Guard use similar systems of checking skills that are actually used in play and then increasing said skills. With BW the checks earned get harder to gain as skill level increases. With MG the PC must both succeed at using the skill, and fail at using the skill, before it can be increased.

I also enjoy milestone XP systems where the player defines personal goals for the PC. Whenever the PC accomplishes their personal goal they receive XP. This method in particular is good because it drives the narrative in specific directions as the players are keen to have their PCs meet said milestones.

 

[Minigiant]

Practice

We sitting in here -- I'm supposed to be the hero of the realm, and we in here talking about practice. I mean, listen: We talking about practice. Not a fight. Not a fight. Not a fight. We talking about practice. Not a fight. Not the fight that I go out there and die for and play every game like it's my last. Not the fight. We talking about practice, man.

 

[MarkB]

I kind-of like the XP system in Apocalypse World and the similar PBtA systems, where there are three potential outcomes to a check - full success, partial succes, and failure - and if you roll a failure, you earn an XP.

I like it partially because the concept of learning from your mistakes is pretty neat, and partially because it means you always get something out of taking an action, even if it's only XP.

Where it can break down is that I've seen some players basically just trying loads of actions in low-risk situations even if they're things their character is bad at, just for the chance to earn 'free' XP. This tends to take up a lot of time at the table for what amount more to wacky hi-jinks than actual role-play, and also tends to leave the less extroverted or proactive players lagging behind XP-wise.

 

[Laurefindel]

I like XP systems that reward the PCs for the things they do.

(...)

I also enjoy milestone XP systems where the player defines personal goals for the PC. Whenever the PC accomplishes their personal goal they receive XP. This method in particular is good because it drives the narrative in specific directions as the players are keen to have their PCs meet said milestones.

My experience with XP for characters' personal goals is that it's very unequal. It works great in theory, but it hasn't work so well in practice for me.

Some players work really hard to accomplish their character's goal and get nothing until it finally gets resolved, while other players are scoring goal after goal because they have less lofty ambitions. Or else the adventure takes you in a direction that makes your goal extremely hard to complete, while making it very easy for another player.

Then there are players who, naturally, have a more charismatic or leading personality and steer the game in the direction of their own objective, or that of their close buddy's. That can be an issue around the table even when there are no XP involved, but it can be crippling for some players in games where these are the main source of XP.

In other words, character-driven objective rewards extrovert or strong player, leaving the shyer players in the back both in spotlight and abilities. Most of the time it's not even intentional; the shy player may even appreciate the extrovert player's roleplay. A good DM can correct the course as it goes, and "good" players will help each other out to keep thing relatively leveled, but not all groups have that level of experience and camaraderie.

Recently, I've been leaning on group XP for collective and personal goals (among other things), so that the quiet guy will benefit from the big-mouth guy who gets it all otherwise, and the big-mouth gal will benefit from helping the shy gal's character complete her story.

 

[John R Davis]

I like an hourly rate, like Dragonquest, plus a bonus on top for good play

 

[Lanefan]

I kind-of like the XP system in Apocalypse World and the similar PBtA systems, where there are three potential outcomes to a check - full success, partial succes, and failure - and if you roll a failure, you earn an XP.

I like it partially because the concept of learning from your mistakes is pretty neat, and partially because it means you always get something out of taking an action, even if it's only XP.

It leads, however, to an utterly counterintuitive result: those characters in the fiction who are more successful ultimately end up with fewer skills and abilities in said fiction (due to being lower level) than do less-successful characters.

 

[The Crimson Binome]

I like it partially because the concept of learning from your mistakes is pretty neat, and partially because it means you always get something out of taking an action, even if it's only XP.

Between success and XP, one of those things is a temporary in-the-moment benefit, while the other is an enduring part of the character. In almost every case, failure is the preferable outcome. Talk about a perverse incentive.