D&D General XP Awards for -- what????

[Lanefan]

In the context of 4e D&D, my answer is what I posted upthread: the 4e XP system awards roughly 1/10 of the XP needed to level per roughly 1 hour of dedicated play (ie the players actually engaging the fiction by the play of their PCs).

So instead of tracking all the minutiae of that - what encounters were tackled, what skill challenges occurred, what free roleplaying the players engaged in - why not just level the PCs ever 10 hours of serious play, which is to say every 3 to 4 sessions? Or to put it another way, if XP are primarily a pacing device - which is what they are in 4e D&D - then why not just cut out the intermediary and do pacing-based levelling?

Because it's still, in the end, group xp - everyone gets the same.

Group xp is bad, as I've noted and explained various times already this thread.

This claim is not true, at least in the case of 4e D&D. The players get XP whatever they do, provided they are engaging in serious play. The only way in which players can control their progress is by consuming content more quickly - eg completing an encounter or a skill challenge in half-an-hour rather than an hour - but at least at my table no one is interested in that sort of intensity of play!

Of course in Gygaxian dungeon-crawling (which I choose as an example just because it is so different in this respect from 4e), the players can control their progress by choosing which rooms and dungeon levels to explore and raid. This just shows how different XP are in Gygaxian play compared to 4e - they're a reward for success in dungeon-crawling, not just a pacing device.

Further, in Gygaxian dungeon-crawling the players can also control their progress relative to each other far better then they can in your 4e model, as in Gygaxian play xp are awarded individually by PC rather than the whole group getting the same.

There is a corresponding difference between the two systems, also: in Gygaxian play the players exercise significant control over framing, by choosing where to explore and loot. Whereas 4e assumes that the GM will exercise control over framing, although of course having regard to the cues that players send via player-authored quests.

This is one area where I fail to see the difference between 1e play and 4e play, assuming use of the same adventure. I mean, if you ran a 4e crew through Night's Dark Terror would there be any reason to expect them to approach it any differently than would a 1e or B/X crew?

Over the past few months I've been GMing a bit of Torchbearer. It doesn't use XP as such - characters gain levels when their players spend a certain number of Fate and Persona points. These are point spent to allow various sorts of dice pool and dice roll manipulation, a bit like Inspiration in 5e D&D.

Players earn Fate and Persona by taking and/or succeeding in actions that are connected to their PCs' Beliefs, Instincts and Goals. At the end of each session there is also a vote for MVP and for Teamworker - each is worth one Persona.

Your previous posts about Torchbearer had quite piqued my interest in the system - until this. Meta-currencies like these that can affect dice rolls or other in-game things are a non-negotiable hard pass for me.

And I can't even get our crew to vote for the MVC (Character) once a year, never mind once a week!

 

[AnotherGuy]

Meta-currencies like these that can affect dice rolls or other in-game things are a non-negotiable hard pass for me.

Lanefan, this is a bit of a tangent but related, how do you deal with characters played 2D within your games? For example if the player is say more concerned with mechanics and power-gaming than actually roleplaying their character realistically in a particular situation.
Have you weeded out those types of players from your table or is it not a concern?

Second question do you award experience points for great roleplaying?

 

[Lanefan]

Lanefan, this is a bit of a tangent but related, how do you deal with characters played 2D within your games? For example if the player is say more concerned with mechanics and power-gaming than actually roleplaying their character realistically in a particular situation.
Have you weeded out those types of players from your table or is it not a concern?

Combination of a) I don't have any serious powergamers and b) it's not that much of a concern given that even the more 2D-ish types still tend to play each character as itself, thus it's fairly easy to tell if something's out of whack.

Second question do you award experience points for great roleplaying?

Rarely if ever*, as doing so makes it just too easy to fall into the DM-favouritism trap.

* - unless it's an xp-granting social encounter, in which case while those who do the talking usually get most or all of the xp, sometimes I'll give xp to characters for their admirable restraint.

 

[AnotherGuy]

Combination of a) I don't have any serious powergamers and b) it's not that much of a concern given that even the more 2D-ish types still tend to play each character as itself, thus it's fairly easy to tell if something's out of whack.

Fair.

Rarely if ever*, as doing so makes it just too easy to fall into the DM-favouritism trap.

* - unless it's an xp-granting social encounter, in which case while those who do the talking usually get most or all of the xp, sometimes I'll give xp to characters for their admirable restraint.

Interesting. The reason I asked is because if you did you would be essentially giving meta-currencies (XP) to affect dice roles (level advancement), except in say Torchbearers instance the ability to affect dice is immediate and temporary.

With regards to your DM-favouritism camp, in 5e this is more easily handled with ideals, bonds and flaws - so there is something to reference to in order to guide one for justifying the rewarding of a player BUT we did have an instance in our last session where the 1 player disagreed with me for withholding his earning of Inspiration (which now is integrated to level advancement in our game). I felt his roleplaying of a particular social encounter had not satisfied any of his personality traits.
Then because I wanted to be completely fair and unbiased, I opened it up to the other players for their commentary as we do for contentious issues. They each had successfully earned an Inspiration for their characters. In any event they did not agree with him and the discussion took easily a half hour to 45 minutes, he is quite the stubborn chap and because this is a new system I sprung on them I felt it needed to be discussed to limit future issues.
I'm hoping it is not going to be a problem, he is very much power-gamey whereas the others are stronger role-players.

 

[M_Natas]

In the context of 4e D&D, my answer is what I posted upthread: the 4e XP system awards roughly 1/10 of the XP needed to level per roughly 1 hour of dedicated play (ie the players actually engaging the fiction by the play of their PCs).

So instead of tracking all the minutiae of that - what encounters were tackled, what skill challenges occurred, what free roleplaying the players engaged in - why not just level the PCs ever 10 hours of serious play, which is to say every 3 to 4 sessions? Or to put it another way, if XP are primarily a pacing device - which is what they are in 4e D&D - then why not just cut out the intermediary and do pacing-based levelling?

This approach to XP also bears upon your earlier post:
This claim is not true, at least in the case of 4e D&D. The players get XP whatever they do, provided they are engaging in serious play. The only way in which players can control their progress is by consuming content more quickly - eg completing an encounter or a skill challenge in half-an-hour rather than an hour - but at least at my table no one is interested in that sort of intensity of play!

D&D 4e seems to be an outlier. I haven't played it, so I'm going off on your description... it sounds like they adjusted the XP system to work like a milestone system. And that is of course not clever and more complicated than just using Milestones in the first place.

Of course in Gygaxian dungeon-crawling (which I choose as an example just because it is so different in this respect from 4e), the players can control their progress by choosing which rooms and dungeon levels to explore and raid. This just shows how different XP are in Gygaxian play compared to 4e - they're a reward for success in dungeon-crawling, not just a pacing device.

There is a corresponding difference between the two systems, also: in Gygaxian play the players exercise significant control over framing, by choosing where to explore and loot. Whereas 4e assumes that the GM will exercise control over framing, although of course having regard to the cues that players send via player-authored quests.

Over the past few months I've been GMing a bit of Torchbearer. It doesn't use XP as such - characters gain levels when their players spend a certain number of Fate and Persona points. These are point spent to allow various sorts of dice pool and dice roll manipulation, a bit like Inspiration in 5e D&D.

Players earn Fate and Persona by taking and/or succeeding in actions that are connected to their PCs' Beliefs, Instincts and Goals. At the end of each session there is also a vote for MVP and for Teamworker - each is worth one Persona.

This is a type of milestone system but the control is in the players' hands to a significant degree, and it does not require any particular work from the GM. I would assume that something like this could be fairly easily adapted to 5e D&D.

Torchbearer sounds like it is an XP System. Fate and Persona seem to be a form of XP to me in the way you describe it.

 

[pemerton]

Because it's still, in the end, group xp - everyone gets the same.

Group xp is bad, as I've noted and explained various times already this thread.

Bad for you, perhaps. It caused no issues at all in my 4e game.

I mean, if you ran a 4e crew through Night's Dark Terror would there be any reason to expect them to approach it any differently than would a 1e or B/X crew?

Yes. They're very different systems.

Torchbearer sounds like it is an XP System. Fate and Persona seem to be a form of XP to me in the way you describe it.

Fate and Persona are earned as I described, and can be spent as I described. Only when spent do they count towards level gain.

I don't think there is any published D&D XP system which requires making a choice about resource expenditure as a necessary step in the process.

 

[pemerton]

Double post deleted.

 

[iserith]

If the whole table is hanging back, then your point is sound: they need to collectively find a way to get on with it.

The problem comes when only one or two players have their characters hang back, and the rest press on and take the hits. This alone is bad enough, but when the DM uses group xp or milestone/fiat levelling and thus doesn't reward the pressers-on with more xp than the hangers-back, it becomes much worse; as now the hangers-back are in fact being systematically encouraged to do so through a lower-risk same-reward paradigm.

If it's a problem for some of the players, that's for them to work out with their fellow players. There will always be some amount of this: the fighter stands in the chokepoint and takes the hits for the wizard and rogue behind them. The rogue takes the hits when disarming the trap. The cleric becomes the primary target for an intelligent enemy after casting a healing word to bring an ally up from 0 hp. "Kill the wizard first." And so on.

You're misinterpreting the situation I've been describing, I think.

The hang-back players aren't necessarily bored. Anything but, in some cases. But, and here's where I have an issue, some or all of that interest comes from making sure their characters survive and thrive where others perhaps do not, through intentionally - and, as I pointed out earlier, sometimes incrementally - leaving the risk-taking to others while still reaping the rewards those taken risks provide.

Problem is the opposite: they understand cause and effect just fine.

The claim made by you and another poster as I recall was that the DM will be blamed for the game being frustrating and boring because players weren't taking risks. So now you're saying they're not bored or frustrated?

That passage, if your paraphrasing is correct, quite blatantly assumes a Big Damn Heroes style of game. Thankfully, not all games are like that; and it'd be really nice if 5e were to at least acknowledge that not everyone wants to play in that style. Some other perfectly valid styles that don't suit the above paraphrase:

--- cloak and dagger including heists, scams, spying, etc. Locke Lamora stuff.
--- courtly or other intrigues where the PCs aren't all necessarily working for the same side(s) but could be, no-one knows
--- raiding and marauding i.e. you're the ones the Big Damn Heroes are sent out to stop, only they can't. Includes pirates games
--- "Diplomacy"-style campaigns, where the PCs work together only as long as they have to but each have their own conflicting agendae
--- West Marches campaigns, where there may or may not be much story involved until well after the fact when someone (usually the DM) ties all those loose threads together.

For me, any of those would be more interesting in the long run than a Big Damn Heroes game.

I disagree with your interpretation of this as being "Big Damn Heroes." The text later on even leaves open the possibility of becoming villainous. What it says is what I paraphrased and nothing more: This is a game about you portraying an adventurer in a world of swords and sorcery. Your job is to boldly confront deadly perils. In the doing, you have fun and create exciting, memorable tales.

 

[Vaalingrade]

So you just don't have your character take risks?

No, I just recognize that death is a boring risk.

 

[iserith]

D&D 4e seems to be an outlier. I haven't played it, so I'm going off on your description... it sounds like they adjusted the XP system to work like a milestone system. And that is of course not clever and more complicated than just using Milestones in the first place.

Torchbearer sounds like it is an XP System. Fate and Persona seem to be a form of XP to me in the way you describe it.

D&D 4e's experience point awards are as follows:

• XP for killing monsters
• XP for overcoming a trap or hazard
• XP for succeeding at a skill challenge
• XP for a major or minor quest completed

As well, a "milestone" in D&D 4e was achieved whenever the PCs completed two encounters without an extended rest. As a reward, they get an Action Point, if they don't already have one. An Action Point could be spent to give the PC an extra standard action in combat.

So, as you can see, the experience point awards are pretty much the same as D&D 5e's standard and milestone XP methods (including for non-combat challenges). D&D 5e also introduces story-based (commonly and incorrectly referred to as "milestone XP") and session-based awards as an option.