XP - How do you do it?

[Mercurius]

I run a 4E game and was going to post this in the 4E Discussion forum, but think it is just as relevant to other forms of D&D. So 4Editionists Non-4Editionists alike, please feel free to comment.

or the first five or six levels of my 4E campaign I was assigning XP pretty much by the book, although sometimes giving a smallish (100 XP) bonus for roleplay, a nice tactical stunt, or some other rewardable action. It got tricky, though, because most sessions one out of the five players was not present; at one point we expanded to seven players, which increased the likelihood of more than one player not making any given session; one or two people were more prone to miss sessions, so I didn't want them to fall too far behind, so I opted to go for a more static "everyone levels up at the same time, at the DM's discretion." The player who recommended it also thought that a good way to "penalize", so to speak, players for not being present was that they wouldn't get a share of the treasure during the session they missed.

Since then we have re-contracted to five players (plus myself, the DM) and I have learned to miss the old XP approach. I am thinking of going back to the RAW + occasional bonuses, but wanted to hear what other DMs do, in particular what you do about players that miss a session - do their characters get XP? Do you let them fall behind? Etc.

 

[khantroll]

My game is 3.5, but I do it RAW + bonuses for inventive play. In my games, if characters fall behind, they fall behind as long as it does not seriously upset the group dynamic. If it will, then they may get a few XPs or magic items to bring their power in line with the other members.

 

[Nagol]

Character advancement is driven from RAW for whatever game I'm running.

If I want a different type of advancement, I'll look for a game that better mimics what I'm trying to accomplish.

 

[Cor_Malek]

Regardless of whether I was DM or a player - only players that were present were given experience. On top of that, RP/quests/circumstantial/tactical decisions were always rewarded with more points than killing stuff (but than again I don't think I ever gamed with people who started out with DnD - it was always either Rolemaster/MERP or Warhammer).
So in the end there was always disparity between power of various characters, and it made for a lot of fun interactions. For example when I left a couple of early sessions and came back to see not only our party's weakest character improve - but player leading it as well. Of the top of my head I can remember only one player openly displeased about it - he was DM-ing a lot as well + was into optimization, so we could tell that "He'd make a different call as DM". But his character was well built, and in the end it seemed he had a lot of fun when it was obvious how much more powerful his druid was - even if he was behind some of us (level-wise). It could seem that lower CL would hurt a caster - but not if he's a summoner.

I like building a character and having at least illusion of being relevant to his development. With fixed xp I can do whatever I want, and still get my share of experience, which kinda kills my buzz.

That's practice. As far as theory goes, I plan to completely exclude kill-xp from my games, something I've seen work miracles for the RPG experience if done right (it's not easy to find like-minded groups). And don't get me wrong - it's not to eliminate combat for sake of storytelling. I just want fighting to be associated mostly with loss of resources, and thus making other options viable - which puts strategy and tactics on a whole another level. And makes it possible to actually make more believable, not level appropriate, worlds.

 

[samursus]

Since I am playing an AP, WotBS, I have opted to level the players whenever the module calls for it. There were some errors in the 4e conversion that didn't add up, and my OCD tendencies spent waaay too much time trying to figure it out.

In another group, I have done away with XP all together... its kind of a narrativist/Rping make-it-up-as-I-go-along type game.

 

[fanboy2000]

I've been doing it this way since the end of 3.5, and it's how I do it in 4e too.

• Everyone gets 100-200xp for being on time.
• XP for killing monsters. (Almost by the book, I give out more xp than recommended because I want the group to level faster)
• XP for doing interesting things.

If level disparity starts running rampant, I'll level everyone up to same level during a lull between adventures. Every so often my group decides to take a few months off in-game. When they come back, they're all the same level.

 

[True_Blue]

I've been doing experience by just having the PC's level up when I think its appropriate. This worked out really well for me, but some PC's have expressed they don't find it as fun. They enjoy it when they play and gain gold, magical items, *and* xp. Its almost like a commodity that they like to collect. So it takes some of the fun away from them, by just having them level up whenever I feel they are ready.

I can see their side of it, since I can see where you feel like you accomplished something by building up those xp. None of them are power gamers, so I dont worry about them searching out random encounters, or other such stuff, in order to gain xp. I think they just want the accomplishment of collecting the xp little by little. Me just telling them they level up takes away some of that fun.

I know it will end up taking a little bit more of my time to add up xp points, and make sure everything is on track, but if it makes them enjoy it a little more, than I am willing to do so. No big deal.

 

[Diamond Cross]

Well, after playing WoW I hate grinding for XP so I tend to give it by completing quests and goals, finding treasure, participation, and creative play.

 

[Umbran]

I'm not running a 4e game right now, so I don't have a particular plan I prefer to use.

When running 3.x, I tended to use a variant: Determine how much XP the monsters and challenges would be if defeated in the obvious way (fighting, disarming traps, what have you). Half to 3/4ths of that XP is what they get for just playing, and the other portion is for playing in interesting ways - cunning plans, solid characterization in role-play, cracking up everyone at the table with a really good joke, and so on.

In the classic Deadlands game I currently run, I use the standard system - it has a built in GM-throttle, and doesn't penalize players for having scheduling conflicts too much.

 

[LostSoul]

4E; I hand out XP as per RAW. PCs who are not active because their player missed the session do not get any XP. The party has a range of levels, from 1 to 4. (And 6 hirelings.)