D&D General XP: How Do You Like To Earn It?

[Vael]

Other question, are milestones always level ups or are they ever just XP awards that might not be enough to level?

Since we don't track XP, only milestones notable enough to cause a level up are noted.

I generally don't care to track XP granularly, so I'm in the 1983 camp. It's fun for a CRPG to watch the bar fill up, but not worth the math and leads to XP farming at the table.

Ironically, when I've noodled about alternatives to XP ... I tend to think I'd go with the other thing from videogames ... achievements. There'd be plot achievements (find the macguffin, talk to vital NPC, discover villain's plot, etc.), player-driven achievements (craft a magic item, find lost family), and fun, whacky achievements (roll three Nat 1s in a single combat, roll a nat 20 on a superfluous check, kill a monster with an improvised weapon, score a critical hit on a foe with less than 3 HP, etc). Then it'd be a simple, you level when you have X Achievements. Some would be public, others private. It'd be more work, but possibly more fun than just math.