I can “reward players for actually accomplishing things, no matter the approach they take” with XP just as easily. Gaining XP for “overcoming the challenges” does not mean they have to kill the thing.
You can, but if you aren't also awarding XP for killing monsters, you're just using a version of milestone leveling. If you are awarding XP for killing monsters, then the players can try to level up without ever actually accomplishing anything.
When I say I award XP for “everything,” I mean it. I award XP for picking locks and haggling with merchants. I award XP for killing monsters, but I also award XP for sneaking past them and for convincing them to let the party by or even for tricking other NPC adventurers into the monsters’ lair as a distraction. I award XP for everything.
And who determines if they “ever actually accomplish anything” me or them? As far as I’m concerned, it shouldn’t be me. If I am the person who decides what is or is not a “worthy accomplishment” then I just dropped a railroad on the party. If they players want to drop what they’re doing in the middle of an adventure to go *** about shopping that’s up to them. They decided what they want to accomplish, not me.
Okay we aren't monsters for using XP... lol obviously you're describing a very specific circumstance that probably involved a discussion with that player.
There is nothing inherently better between milestone of XP leveling. There are very specific disadvantages to each. Myself and @IamSposta both said we resolved the XP shortfalls by rewarding social encounters etc... with XP.
For me the milestone system lacks the feel of dynamic growth for the player. My players don't like the idea of it and like the growth of the character being a personal achievement or goal. I'm curious if you're speaking as a DM or a player. What do your players prefer?
The only time that I've had a player leave for an extended period of time to where they would miss out on enough XP to warrant a level difference they had to be gone for things outside of their control, ie work/military duty. Needless to say when they were able to join again we had done some leveling to their character so they could actually play.
I am doing a sort of Milestone progression right now, sure but I've made sure to let my players know why it is happening and they all were okay with it. I've likened it to the calm before the storm.
As far as a level gap goes, I think it really depends on where the level gap takes place. The gap between levels 1-3 is much more important and much more deadly then a gap between levels 14-16.
I have kept his PC around and run it as an NPC, and I let the players control it in combat. The character has been present... has risked his life several times... and in more than one battle has been the key to victory. Why wouldn't the character get the XP for doing that?
Ahh, I don’t do that if I can avoid it.
If I allow that PC in combat, then there is a very real possibility that PC will die and I would feel bad killing them without the player’s presence, but I also refuse to give them plot armor.
That PC would have gotten shitfaced drunk and been blacked out for all those sessions. I find some excuse for that PC to be absent in some way. So why would that PC gain XP for being blackout drunk in a tavern for 5 sessions?
One time, I had a PC “mysteriously disappear from their room” and then I ran a solo bit for them to catch them up before their return.
I was firmly an advocate of XP. Then I started running two games of Out of the Abyss, one face to face and one Play by Post.
Without spoiling anything, in the beginning of the Out of the Abyss module, the characters shouldn't be taking on fights at all if it is in their power to do so, for reasons... Yet, whenever I gave my players the options to push onwards (roll for random encounters), they frequently risked exhaustion to have a chance at another encounter for the sole purpose of getting more XP. There was no in-character reason for doing this... it was clearly meta-gaming levels of trying to maximize their XP gain.
We are now on the second half of Out of the Abyss, and I discussed with my players and switched to Milestone. Everything is much better. The player decisions are no longer laser focused on 'getting the XP' and more on the situation presented to them in the module. They are now laser focused on finding the easiest (laziest) solution, which breeds creativity and tracks with what actual characters would want.
I use exp because adventures are long. It lets me know how much the the party has accomplished (roughly) since the last level. If I didn't track it, I might toss a level at them at inconsistent times. There is also no guessing game as to when they might level up.
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"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
Our players are all mature, and they understand that we play the game for fun, and the way we like it, and we are certainly not there to be trained by the DM throwing us little carrots to encourage us to play differently than we do (whether it's carrots for slaying monsters, gaining gold or "roleplaying" correctly). If we want to change the playstyle, we have open discussion and we collectively agree to change or improve some parts of the game, we do not expect our characters to be rewarded for that.
That's an awesome place to be in! My group is not currently in such a place, and not everyone is. That sounds like something that is more related to the expectations of the players and DM that are set before the game starts, rather then something that is tied to xp gain. The people in my group, including myself, are all in our early 20's though so I suppose there is some differences in experience between you and I in real life.
I would feel super shitty killing someone’s PC while they weren’t even there.
I don't feel great about PCs dying ever. And yes I would probably feel worse if he wasn't there.
However... he can't both be there all the time and not risk any death. He's chosen to be there all the time (in character). Risk of death comes with that.
I know he would not get angry if his character died. The guy has lived for 17 sessions, with us playing him for 14. So he knows if he dies now, we kept him alive for a really long time.
Plus he has more HP than anyone else in the party so odds are, if he dies... well, they're probably looking at a TPK.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I guess for me it also boils down to the fact that I never run adventures as written, and my campaigns are more of a west marches the players do whatever they want and I adapt the story to what they want to do. Sure there is an overarching narrative, but applying a milestone system to game that doesn't have any clear milestones seems completely arbirtary to me. Does anyone use milestone for an open ended campaign? If so, how do you decide when to reward milestone level gain?
...the players do whatever they want and I adapt the story to what they want to do...applying a milestone system to game that doesn't have any clear milestones seems completely arbirtary to me....
I guess for me it also boils down to the fact that I never run adventures as written, and my campaigns are more of a west marches the players do whatever they want and I adapt the story to what they want to do. Sure there is an overarching narrative, but applying a milestone system to game that doesn't have any clear milestones seems completely arbirtary to me. Does anyone use milestone for an open ended campaign? If so, how do you decide when to reward milestone level gain?
The only real difference between milestone and XP on paper is granularity. Think of "a milestone" as "an experience point," and in this system characters just need far fewer experience points to level up. Players are free to set their own goals and do what they want. Once they accomplish their goals, they get an XP, etc.
This cuts down on bookkeeping for the DM and is especially useful for non-combat experience, which the DMG gives very little guidance on.
Some DMs, like Sposta here, are happy to figure out XP rewards for activities the DMG doesn't discuss explicitly. This is how I'm handling the campaign I do use XP for. But that's a bit much to ask of many DMs; it's easier to just say "Did you do what you set out to do? Cool, have a milestone."
Another thing that occurred to me as I was reading through this thread is that it's not only pacing that impacts these things, but also what the players actually think to be rewards. In my long-term game, again, we don't use XP or milestone leveling; we just level up when we finish an adventure, which is maybe every three to five months. "Leveling up" simply isn't important to us in and of itself. The leveling system is there to provide some underlying structure to character abilities and the challenges they face, but we're not playing to level up. We're playing for the narrative rewards of "making my gang the most powerful in the city" or "fixing my aunt's relationship with her teacher" or "saving the prince from far-right nationalist kidnappers and also maybe kissing the prince."
I can't see how you can run session, or at least sessions with combat with players 5 levels apart.
Say you have 4 party members at level 11 and one at level 6, do the bad guys focus all their attacks on the 17s or do you one shot the level 6 guy. I can't see that being fun for the guys that have to spend all their resources keeping the level 6 guy alive / resurrected or for the guy that gets struck down all rthe time (if the level 6 never gets attacked then it is obvious DM fudging.
If a player doesn't turn up for half the sessions without good reason I ask him to leave the group as they are not committed to the game, if they have a good reason as in Biowizard's example why "punish" them by making them a liability to the party.
If one party member missed the boss fight and another missed two sessions that were mostly RP it is very likely the one who missed two sessions will have more xp than the one who missed one is that fair?
While I prefer milestone levelling, I think XP levelling should party based XP
If you want to give players a penalty for not turning up you could only give gold and magic item awards to people in the session as this will not brak the game like havng characters of very different levels would but I would not even do that as it raises questions such as if the party spend 6 weeks on a quest for an NPC do you not reward the person who was there for the last session ut there for the other 5?.
While I am not against XP based leveling, I prefer milestone by far. Awarding XP for killing creatures only encourages players to be murder hobos, and they make nonsensical choices to get XP. Since I am running a homebrew campaign, the players level up or get 'halfway' to a level up each time they accomplish a major task. If any player has a really good roleplaying moment, I might decide to give them inspiration.
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All stars fade. Some stars forever fall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Homebrew (Mostly Outdated):Magic Items,Monsters,Spells,Subclasses ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I can't see how you can run session, or at least sessions with combat with players 5 levels apart.
Say you have 4 party members at level 11 and one at level 6, do the bad guys focus all their attacks on the 17s or do you one shot the level 6 guy. I can't see that being fun for the guys that have to spend all their resources keeping the level 6 guy alive / resurrected or for the guy that gets struck down all rthe time (if the level 6 never gets attacked then it is obvious DM fudging.
If a player doesn't turn up for half the sessions without good reason I ask him to leave the group as they are not committed to the game, if they have a good reason as in Biowizard's example why "punish" them by making them a liability to the party.
If one party member missed the boss fight and another missed two sessions that were mostly RP it is very likely the one who missed two sessions will have more xp than the one who missed one is that fair?
While I prefer milestone levelling, I think XP levelling should party based XP
If you want to give players a penalty for not turning up you could only give gold and magic item awards to people in the session as this will not brak the game like havng characters of very different levels would but I would not even do that as it raises questions such as if the party spend 6 weeks on a quest for an NPC do you not reward the person who was there for the last session ut there for the other 5?.
I think if you find yourself in a situation where your players are 5 levels apart there needs be a conversation between the Dm and the player who is 5 levels behind.
Also, I disagree that XP should be party wide even of someone isn't able to come to a game, and the loot should be withheld. I would never do that with my group. Perhaps its just the way my game is set up, but all the player characters are apart of a guild that they started, so if one of the players cant come their character is at the guild doing paperwork or crafting or whatever, while the rest of the party are doing contracts. Does the player that misses getting as much xp as the party that is doing contracts? No. Do they still get a share of the loot because they were still doing things? Yes. That being said, I don't currently play the game with people I don't know/don't trust and we are all pretty good friends so if something comes up that involves withholding loot there is usually a conversation in character that happens to justify it.
Again, if there is a player that is consistently not coming, its more important to me to worry about why and remove them from the game entirely rather then worry about how and what their character is doing while the player is away. If the player wants to come back then we will work on what the character was doing when it becomes relevant. After all, in most games its not like there is only one group of adventures in the world, what's stopping that player from leaving the player party joining with some other group then coming back afterwards?
I guess for me it also boils down to the fact that I never run adventures as written, and my campaigns are more of a west marches the players do whatever they want and I adapt the story to what they want to do. Sure there is an overarching narrative, but applying a milestone system to game that doesn't have any clear milestones seems completely arbirtary to me. Does anyone use milestone for an open ended campaign? If so, how do you decide when to reward milestone level gain?
The only real difference between milestone and XP on paper is granularity. Think of "a milestone" as "an experience point," and in this system characters just need far fewer experience points to level up. Players are free to set their own goals and do what they want. Once they accomplish their goals, they get an XP, etc.
This cuts down on bookkeeping for the DM and is especially useful for non-combat experience, which the DMG gives very little guidance on.
Some DMs, like Sposta here, are happy to figure out XP rewards for activities the DMG doesn't discuss explicitly. This is how I'm handling the campaign I do use XP for. But that's a bit much to ask of many DMs; it's easier to just say "Did you do what you set out to do? Cool, have a milestone."
Another thing that occurred to me as I was reading through this thread is that it's not only pacing that impacts these things, but also what the players actually think to be rewards. In my long-term game, again, we don't use XP or milestone leveling; we just level up when we finish an adventure, which is maybe every three to five months. "Leveling up" simply isn't important to us in and of itself. The leveling system is there to provide some underlying structure to character abilities and the challenges they face, but we're not playing to level up. We're playing for the narrative rewards of "making my gang the most powerful in the city" or "fixing my aunt's relationship with her teacher" or "saving the prince from far-right nationalist kidnappers and also maybe kissing the prince."
I will agree that the system I employ includes a bit more bookkeeping, or at least necessitates holding more stuff in ones head.
But notice, everyone here uses the system that they feel best encourages the players to play to the narrative. I picked the method I did to make sure they players never had to worry about getting XP, they could be assured that doing whatever they chose would get XP so they shouldn’t have to worry about it. You did the same, just with a different system.
But notice, everyone here uses the system that they feel best encourages the players to play to the narrative. I picked the method I did to make sure they players never had to worry about getting XP, they could be assured that doing whatever they chose would get XP so they shouldn’t have to worry about it. You did the same, just with a different system.
My objections to XP are less about ensuring that characters level up regardless of their methods pursuing a narrative and more about ensuring that they don't level up if they aren't trying to accomplish something.
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When I say I award XP for “everything,” I mean it. I award XP for picking locks and haggling with merchants. I award XP for killing monsters, but I also award XP for sneaking past them and for convincing them to let the party by or even for tricking other NPC adventurers into the monsters’ lair as a distraction. I award XP for everything.
And who determines if they “ever actually accomplish anything” me or them? As far as I’m concerned, it shouldn’t be me. If I am the person who decides what is or is not a “worthy accomplishment” then I just dropped a railroad on the party. If they players want to drop what they’re doing in the middle of an adventure to go *** about shopping that’s up to them. They decided what they want to accomplish, not me.
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@BioWizard...
Okay we aren't monsters for using XP... lol obviously you're describing a very specific circumstance that probably involved a discussion with that player.
There is nothing inherently better between milestone of XP leveling. There are very specific disadvantages to each. Myself and @IamSposta both said we resolved the XP shortfalls by rewarding social encounters etc... with XP.
For me the milestone system lacks the feel of dynamic growth for the player. My players don't like the idea of it and like the growth of the character being a personal achievement or goal. I'm curious if you're speaking as a DM or a player. What do your players prefer?
The only time that I've had a player leave for an extended period of time to where they would miss out on enough XP to warrant a level difference they had to be gone for things outside of their control, ie work/military duty. Needless to say when they were able to join again we had done some leveling to their character so they could actually play.
I am doing a sort of Milestone progression right now, sure but I've made sure to let my players know why it is happening and they all were okay with it. I've likened it to the calm before the storm.
As far as a level gap goes, I think it really depends on where the level gap takes place. The gap between levels 1-3 is much more important and much more deadly then a gap between levels 14-16.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
Ahh, I don’t do that if I can avoid it.
If I allow that PC in combat, then there is a very real possibility that PC will die and I would feel bad killing them without the player’s presence, but I also refuse to give them plot armor.
That PC would have gotten shitfaced drunk and been blacked out for all those sessions. I find some excuse for that PC to be absent in some way. So why would that PC gain XP for being blackout drunk in a tavern for 5 sessions?
One time, I had a PC “mysteriously disappear from their room” and then I ran a solo bit for them to catch them up before their return.
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Well, if he dies, he dies. That is how D&D is played. The player knows this. It's also the price (risk of death) for getting XP.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yes I have also done solo sessions or small group sessions to align a character with the main party after a prolonged absence.
Xp for so many reasons. ask me when i have time and i can tell you some
I am an average mathematics enjoyer.
>Extended Signature<
I would feel super shitty killing someone’s PC while they weren’t even there.
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I was firmly an advocate of XP. Then I started running two games of Out of the Abyss, one face to face and one Play by Post.
Without spoiling anything, in the beginning of the Out of the Abyss module, the characters shouldn't be taking on fights at all if it is in their power to do so, for reasons... Yet, whenever I gave my players the options to push onwards (roll for random encounters), they frequently risked exhaustion to have a chance at another encounter for the sole purpose of getting more XP. There was no in-character reason for doing this... it was clearly meta-gaming levels of trying to maximize their XP gain.
We are now on the second half of Out of the Abyss, and I discussed with my players and switched to Milestone. Everything is much better. The player decisions are no longer laser focused on 'getting the XP' and more on the situation presented to them in the module. They are now laser focused on finding the easiest (laziest) solution, which breeds creativity and tracks with what actual characters would want.
I use exp because adventures are long. It lets me know how much the the party has accomplished (roughly) since the last level. If I didn't track it, I might toss a level at them at inconsistent times. There is also no guessing game as to when they might level up.
"Sooner or later, your Players are going to smash your railroad into a sandbox."
-Vedexent
"real life is a super high CR."
-OboeLauren
"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
-Ilyara Thundertale
I mean, Yes please tell me. You don't need to right now. There is no timer on this.
That's an awesome place to be in! My group is not currently in such a place, and not everyone is. That sounds like something that is more related to the expectations of the players and DM that are set before the game starts, rather then something that is tied to xp gain. The people in my group, including myself, are all in our early 20's though so I suppose there is some differences in experience between you and I in real life.
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"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
I don't feel great about PCs dying ever. And yes I would probably feel worse if he wasn't there.
However... he can't both be there all the time and not risk any death. He's chosen to be there all the time (in character). Risk of death comes with that.
I know he would not get angry if his character died. The guy has lived for 17 sessions, with us playing him for 14. So he knows if he dies now, we kept him alive for a really long time.
Plus he has more HP than anyone else in the party so odds are, if he dies... well, they're probably looking at a TPK.
WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
I guess for me it also boils down to the fact that I never run adventures as written, and my campaigns are more of a west marches the players do whatever they want and I adapt the story to what they want to do. Sure there is an overarching narrative, but applying a milestone system to game that doesn't have any clear milestones seems completely arbirtary to me. Does anyone use milestone for an open ended campaign? If so, how do you decide when to reward milestone level gain?
This^^^
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The only real difference between milestone and XP on paper is granularity. Think of "a milestone" as "an experience point," and in this system characters just need far fewer experience points to level up. Players are free to set their own goals and do what they want. Once they accomplish their goals, they get an XP, etc.
This cuts down on bookkeeping for the DM and is especially useful for non-combat experience, which the DMG gives very little guidance on.
Some DMs, like Sposta here, are happy to figure out XP rewards for activities the DMG doesn't discuss explicitly. This is how I'm handling the campaign I do use XP for. But that's a bit much to ask of many DMs; it's easier to just say "Did you do what you set out to do? Cool, have a milestone."
Another thing that occurred to me as I was reading through this thread is that it's not only pacing that impacts these things, but also what the players actually think to be rewards. In my long-term game, again, we don't use XP or milestone leveling; we just level up when we finish an adventure, which is maybe every three to five months. "Leveling up" simply isn't important to us in and of itself. The leveling system is there to provide some underlying structure to character abilities and the challenges they face, but we're not playing to level up. We're playing for the narrative rewards of "making my gang the most powerful in the city" or "fixing my aunt's relationship with her teacher" or "saving the prince from far-right nationalist kidnappers and also maybe kissing the prince."
I can't see how you can run session, or at least sessions with combat with players 5 levels apart.
Say you have 4 party members at level 11 and one at level 6, do the bad guys focus all their attacks on the 17s or do you one shot the level 6 guy. I can't see that being fun for the guys that have to spend all their resources keeping the level 6 guy alive / resurrected or for the guy that gets struck down all rthe time (if the level 6 never gets attacked then it is obvious DM fudging.
If a player doesn't turn up for half the sessions without good reason I ask him to leave the group as they are not committed to the game, if they have a good reason as in Biowizard's example why "punish" them by making them a liability to the party.
If one party member missed the boss fight and another missed two sessions that were mostly RP it is very likely the one who missed two sessions will have more xp than the one who missed one is that fair?
While I prefer milestone levelling, I think XP levelling should party based XP
If you want to give players a penalty for not turning up you could only give gold and magic item awards to people in the session as this will not brak the game like havng characters of very different levels would but I would not even do that as it raises questions such as if the party spend 6 weeks on a quest for an NPC do you not reward the person who was there for the last session ut there for the other 5?.
While I am not against XP based leveling, I prefer milestone by far. Awarding XP for killing creatures only encourages players to be murder hobos, and they make nonsensical choices to get XP. Since I am running a homebrew campaign, the players level up or get 'halfway' to a level up each time they accomplish a major task. If any player has a really good roleplaying moment, I might decide to give them inspiration.
All stars fade. Some stars forever fall.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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If there was no light, people wouldn't fear the dark.
I think if you find yourself in a situation where your players are 5 levels apart there needs be a conversation between the Dm and the player who is 5 levels behind.
Also, I disagree that XP should be party wide even of someone isn't able to come to a game, and the loot should be withheld. I would never do that with my group. Perhaps its just the way my game is set up, but all the player characters are apart of a guild that they started, so if one of the players cant come their character is at the guild doing paperwork or crafting or whatever, while the rest of the party are doing contracts. Does the player that misses getting as much xp as the party that is doing contracts? No. Do they still get a share of the loot because they were still doing things? Yes. That being said, I don't currently play the game with people I don't know/don't trust and we are all pretty good friends so if something comes up that involves withholding loot there is usually a conversation in character that happens to justify it.
Again, if there is a player that is consistently not coming, its more important to me to worry about why and remove them from the game entirely rather then worry about how and what their character is doing while the player is away. If the player wants to come back then we will work on what the character was doing when it becomes relevant. After all, in most games its not like there is only one group of adventures in the world, what's stopping that player from leaving the player party joining with some other group then coming back afterwards?
Buyers Guide for D&D Beyond - Hardcover Books, D&D Beyond and You - How/What is Toggled Content?
Everything you need to know about Homebrew - Homebrew FAQ - Digital Book on D&D Beyond Vs Physical Books
Can't find the content you are supposed to have access to? Read this FAQ.
"Play the game however you want to play the game. After all, your fun doesn't threaten my fun."
I will agree that the system I employ includes a bit more bookkeeping, or at least necessitates holding more stuff in ones head.
But notice, everyone here uses the system that they feel best encourages the players to play to the narrative. I picked the method I did to make sure they players never had to worry about getting XP, they could be assured that doing whatever they chose would get XP so they shouldn’t have to worry about it. You did the same, just with a different system.
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My objections to XP are less about ensuring that characters level up regardless of their methods pursuing a narrative and more about ensuring that they don't level up if they aren't trying to accomplish something.