If you have a group with inconsistent attendance, would you consider giving the characters of the absent players half or quarter exp? The players are not flakes or irresponsible, they just have family and work matters to attend to. If they earn a little exp when they aren't there, they won't be as far behind everybody else.
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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?"
This is one of the reasons that I moved to Milestone experience. When the party gets to a milestone, everyone advances in level.
However, if you want to go the XP route, then I'd feed them XP equal to whichever of the active players got the lowest amount of XP. That way, they don't get behind the party, but they don't get as far ahead as they might if they'd attended.
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Give all of the characters the same amount of experience points, always. If there's an attendance issue, that's something to discuss with that player separately, but you shouldn't withhold experience points as a punishment. It's only going to create resentment, and it may affect your other players negatively as well, as their characters might end up adventuring with an underleveled PC.
If you have a group with inconsistent attendance, would you consider giving the characters of the absent players half or quarter exp? The players are not flakes or irresponsible, they just have family and work matters to attend to. If they earn a little exp when they aren't there, they won't be as far behind everybody else.
My current groups operates entirely on session based exp, so missing a session means you don't get the experience points. Everyone in my group said they're fine with that. I don't think that's punishment. In this case, I think it's important to consider that 5E was designed with the idea that different level PCs can work in the same group so long as they remain within the same tier of play (1st thru 4th; 5th thru 9th; etc).
Like I mentioned, this was discussed prior to the game beginning and the group agreed this was an acceptable way for us to progress. Your group might feel differently, but I think it's reasonable to proceed either way as the system supports both methods within a reasonable gap.
I've used different systems and they worked fine; in a 4e campaign we got RP experience every session based on how well we stayed in character and if we came up with cool ideas and such. This wasn't a lot, but it added up over the campaign. Whenever we weren't attending, we got the "encounter" xp but not the RP xp. That way we sometimes were a level apart, but that was usually for a session or two tops.
in my current 5e campaign I just let everyone have the same amount of XP. That way there's not that big an issue if someone misses a session. Attendance is fine, so it's not that big an issue for our party. I've had several players come and go (only 2 of the 5 original party members are still present and right now the party is of 5) and they've all enjoyed this system. Also it meant that they all started at the same amount of xp, so nobody felt left behind.
In my group, you don't get XP if you aren't at the session.
However, we also have the rule that the lowest-level character in the party cannot be more than two levels behind the highest-level character in the party. So if Sam isn't able to attend the game for several months due to grad school, and when they return the highest level in the party is level 9, Sam would be able to auto-advance their level 3 character to level 7. That way they can still keep up with the rest of the party during encounters.
I think this method allows us to reward attendance while also preventing too stark of an imbalance between characters. Best of both worlds!
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
In my group, you don't get XP if you aren't at the session.
However, we also have the rule that the lowest-level character in the party cannot be more than two levels behind the highest-level character in the party. So if Sam isn't able to attend the game for several months due to grad school, and when they return the highest level in the party is level 9, Sam would be able to auto-advance their level 3 character to level 7. That way they can still keep up with the rest of the party during encounters.
I think this method allows us to reward attendance while also preventing too stark of an imbalance between characters. Best of both worlds!
That's a pretty cool system actually :) and works well in 5e I guess? Have you tried it in other systems?
We also used this system in d20 Modern, which is based on 3e I think. The other system that we play (Legend of the Five Rings) has a very different leveling method (if you get three XP per session, the GM is being generous), so it's not as much of an issue there.
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"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I've always played the point XP variant. In my current campaign I'm using the milestone XP. In my opinion it's a lot better. You don't have to worry about splitting the XP evenly, unevenly or any other way. Thanks to it, nobody suffers because he needed to run some errands or was sick.
My online group doles out encounter xp and roleplay xp at the end of each session (about enough xp for a medium encounter for the highest level in the party, though we go up to hard and deadly if the group had some stellar rp that night). We usually designate someone to run the character in combat if we have an absent player. We give encounter xp to the character, while rp xp goes to the players present. We've found this helps keep characters close in level and not "punish" people who have life interfere, while rewarding people who show up.
The rule at my weekly table is similar to Nat_30's, except I only allow one level of difference. So when some of our players leveled up to 8th level, anyone who was still level 6 went up to level 7. Accompanying NPCs that are built on the PC framework level up as well, but they are 2 levels behind the highest leveled PC.
My players are all high school students (well, one might be in middle school); between extracurriculars and jobs, they can't make it every week for legitimate reasons, much like the OP. This way those that are consistent get some reward, but those who aren't able to come aren't penalized too much. With more experienced players and/or more mature players, a wider gap might be a better choice.
My campaign I'm running has shotty attendance even though it did not start that way. The campaign mentions character should at least be level 4 or higher. So right now we've only ran the side missions to level up. Most players are level 3 and giving EXP to those that didn't show up is a stab to those who put in the work and may have lost a limb doing so. I would say however if all the players aren't there then reschedule. Rule #1 is to never separate the group. I've seen this firsthand as to why this makes perfect sense.
I would say however if all the players aren't there then reschedule. Rule #1 is to never separate the group. I've seen this firsthand as to why this makes perfect sense.
Then some games would never happen...
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"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?"
I've been using the Milestone system for advancement. It solves a few issues at once for me.
1.Low levels go by to fast if you use the xp system. It just takes a few "encounters" and you gain a level. With Milestone we can have a much better pace. 2. With XP system I can't make encounters the way I want, because they would give too much xp. It means the players would level up even faster then intended. Milestone leveling lets me make better encounters without having to worry about XP budgeting and bullshit. 3. With Milestone my players stopped being a murderhobo and instead started looking for other ways to deal with situations. Also a lot more role playing is happening. 4. Since you can pace when players level up it means several encounters pass by that give lots of xp. As per previous points. If someone misses out on a few sessions here and there it doesn't matter. They'd have gained the needed xp to level up most likely in the few sessions they were present at the table. Which means they never fall behind the players that do show up every day.
I would never reschedule a playing session as long as there are at least 3 players present to play. Once you start rescheduling there is no end to it. Meaning even less moments you can actually get the group together. I'm never going to do that ever again. Instead I have my sessions at steady and known pre-determined days/time. Everyone knows these months in advance. So you just keep that in mind and schedule your other plans around it...or don't show up. That is the player's decision. Once I did it that way players actually started to show up almost always unlike before. Once you start having irregular moments of play you'll always end up in conflict with someones private plans.
For myself the question is more about characters that died. Do new characters die 1-2 levels below the rest of the party. Or is starting a new character with a lot less magical items/gear enough punishment as is. Something I'm still struggling with.
For myself the question is more about characters that died. Do new characters die 1-2 levels below the rest of the party. Or is starting a new character with a lot less magical items/gear enough punishment as is. Something I'm still struggling with.
?? Please explain =)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
"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?"
What do you guys do when a character dies. Will the new character be 1-2 levels below the party? Have magic items equal to the character that died? etc etc.. Don't really have a satisfying answer to that myself. If you start with a char on equal level and items then what's the point? You could just take your character that died and rename it basically. Which makes death meaningless. From which things just escalate... Why even bother with most of the game mechanics at all then?
For the time being my group at least has the house rule. If your character dies your new character can't be of the same class. To ensure you at least start with something new and fresh instead of just re-naming your char sheet.
We have always awarded xp for good role playing. Not much but usually something between 10% to 20% of the xp for the session. This is not awarded to absentee characters. It's never been a real issue. At worse an especially truant player might lag behind a level after many months of playing.
What do you guys do when a character dies. Will the new character be 1-2 levels below the party? Have magic items equal to the character that died? etc etc.. Don't really have a satisfying answer to that myself. If you start with a char on equal level and items then what's the point? You could just take your character that died and rename it basically. Which makes death meaningless. From which things just escalate... Why even bother with most of the game mechanics at all then?
For the time being my group at least has the house rule. If your character dies your new character can't be of the same class. To ensure you at least start with something new and fresh instead of just re-naming your char sheet.
For character death we usually allow the player to come back at the lowest level in the party with magic items per what the DMG says for a character of that level.
I've never experienced the problem of players just renaming a dead character. With the ability to Raise Dead I don't see why a party can't just take the character back to town and look up the nearest cleric. Or raise the character themselves. I did once consider renaming my character due to a particular DM's penchant for continual campaign reboot. The group would get to level 4 or 5 and then the DM would want to start a new campaign. The merry go round of constant character creation eventually wore me down and I had vowed to just play the same character in each campaign before leaving the group for other reasons.
I use milestones as a party. My group is all adults in their 30s and 40s and it's hard enough to get all of us together (on Skype) without punishing those who have commitments. Maybe reward those that are there with neat items, but don't punish those that want to be there but can't make it. My thoughts anyway!
I knew a GM who would award exp for characters that died and were revived. "Because Death is an experience." not as much as the others who finished the encounter but sometimes with a bonus if the death was heroic. The thing that kept suicide tactics in check was the cost of rez in 1-2nd ed (-1 perm CON loss).
I haven't had many character deaths in my games, my players had no problem rolling new characters. In other systems starting new isn't as harsh as D&D if the party is lvl 5+
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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?"
I let players decide prior to starting a campaign if we will do XP or Milestone. If they choose XP, I have ways of balancing absences.
1) If you opt for your character to be present with the party, and allow one of your fellow players to control them, you get full XP. You took the risks, therefore you get the XP.
2) Characters of lower level receive an XP multiplier. So if the group is 3 level (8)s, 1 level (7) and 1 level (6), I might determine that the level 7 gains x1.5 as much XP, and the level 6 gains x2 as much XP. Once the level 6 hits 7, they drop to x1.5. This allows for those who are present for sessions and contribute/take the risks to feel like they got something extra out of it, while also allowing the players who missed to feel like they are able to close the gap.
But my secret preference is milestone. It lets me plan out the campaign in advance. For my current campaign, for example, there's 16 main plot milestones, so 16 level ups. However, I allow the players to choose for themselves side quests to explore, and if a side quest doesn't advance the main quest they can contribute to a pool of 4 separate level ups. So they could decide to hit the end of the campaign anywhere between level 16-20-- It becomes up to how they've decided to play.
Campaign Milestones 1. First session completed. (I don't like players staying at level 1 too long, it's kind of boring.) 2. First major story point revealed. (I like players reaching 3 quickly, so that they get all of their archetype goodies.) 3. Prologue Completed/Leaving the Starting Town 4. Arrival at the Plot-Important Location 5. Completion of Arc #1 6. Completion of Difficult Plot Dungeon/Retrieval of NPC McGuffin
And that's where they are currently. Level 7 and there's lots of different paths they can choose for main quest, or directions they can go for side-quests. Right now they're just shopping and discovering every possible option they could possibly take... :P
If you have a group with inconsistent attendance, would you consider giving the characters of the absent players half or quarter exp? The players are not flakes or irresponsible, they just have family and work matters to attend to. If they earn a little exp when they aren't there, they won't be as far behind everybody else.
"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
This is one of the reasons that I moved to Milestone experience. When the party gets to a milestone, everyone advances in level.
However, if you want to go the XP route, then I'd feed them XP equal to whichever of the active players got the lowest amount of XP. That way, they don't get behind the party, but they don't get as far ahead as they might if they'd attended.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
Disclaimer: This signature is a badge of membership in the Forum Loudmouth Club. We are all friends. We are not attacking each other. We are engaging in spirited, friendly debate with one another. We may get snarky, but these are not attacks. Thank you for not reporting us.
Give all of the characters the same amount of experience points, always. If there's an attendance issue, that's something to discuss with that player separately, but you shouldn't withhold experience points as a punishment. It's only going to create resentment, and it may affect your other players negatively as well, as their characters might end up adventuring with an underleveled PC.
My current groups operates entirely on session based exp, so missing a session means you don't get the experience points. Everyone in my group said they're fine with that. I don't think that's punishment. In this case, I think it's important to consider that 5E was designed with the idea that different level PCs can work in the same group so long as they remain within the same tier of play (1st thru 4th; 5th thru 9th; etc).
Like I mentioned, this was discussed prior to the game beginning and the group agreed this was an acceptable way for us to progress. Your group might feel differently, but I think it's reasonable to proceed either way as the system supports both methods within a reasonable gap.
I've used different systems and they worked fine; in a 4e campaign we got RP experience every session based on how well we stayed in character and if we came up with cool ideas and such. This wasn't a lot, but it added up over the campaign. Whenever we weren't attending, we got the "encounter" xp but not the RP xp. That way we sometimes were a level apart, but that was usually for a session or two tops.
in my current 5e campaign I just let everyone have the same amount of XP. That way there's not that big an issue if someone misses a session. Attendance is fine, so it's not that big an issue for our party. I've had several players come and go (only 2 of the 5 original party members are still present and right now the party is of 5) and they've all enjoyed this system. Also it meant that they all started at the same amount of xp, so nobody felt left behind.
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
In my group, you don't get XP if you aren't at the session.
However, we also have the rule that the lowest-level character in the party cannot be more than two levels behind the highest-level character in the party. So if Sam isn't able to attend the game for several months due to grad school, and when they return the highest level in the party is level 9, Sam would be able to auto-advance their level 3 character to level 7. That way they can still keep up with the rest of the party during encounters.
I think this method allows us to reward attendance while also preventing too stark of an imbalance between characters. Best of both worlds!
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
That's a pretty cool system actually :) and works well in 5e I guess? Have you tried it in other systems?
Subclass: Dwarven Defender - Dragonborn Paragon
Feats: Artificer Apprentice
Monsters: Sheep - Spellbreaker Warforged Titan
Magic Items: Whipier - Ring of Secret Storage - Collar of the Guardian
Monster template: Skeletal Creature
We also used this system in d20 Modern, which is based on 3e I think. The other system that we play (Legend of the Five Rings) has a very different leveling method (if you get three XP per session, the GM is being generous), so it's not as much of an issue there.
"We're the perfect combination of expendable and unkillable!"
I've always played the point XP variant. In my current campaign I'm using the milestone XP. In my opinion it's a lot better. You don't have to worry about splitting the XP evenly, unevenly or any other way. Thanks to it, nobody suffers because he needed to run some errands or was sick.
My online group doles out encounter xp and roleplay xp at the end of each session (about enough xp for a medium encounter for the highest level in the party, though we go up to hard and deadly if the group had some stellar rp that night). We usually designate someone to run the character in combat if we have an absent player. We give encounter xp to the character, while rp xp goes to the players present. We've found this helps keep characters close in level and not "punish" people who have life interfere, while rewarding people who show up.
My real life table does milestone leveling.
The rule at my weekly table is similar to Nat_30's, except I only allow one level of difference. So when some of our players leveled up to 8th level, anyone who was still level 6 went up to level 7. Accompanying NPCs that are built on the PC framework level up as well, but they are 2 levels behind the highest leveled PC.
My players are all high school students (well, one might be in middle school); between extracurriculars and jobs, they can't make it every week for legitimate reasons, much like the OP. This way those that are consistent get some reward, but those who aren't able to come aren't penalized too much. With more experienced players and/or more mature players, a wider gap might be a better choice.
Trying to Decide if DDB is for you? A few helpful threads: A Buyer's Guide to DDB; What I/We Bought and Why; How some DMs use DDB; A Newer Thread on Using DDB to Play
Helpful threads on other topics: Homebrew FAQ by IamSposta; Accessing Content by ConalTheGreat;
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My campaign I'm running has shotty attendance even though it did not start that way. The campaign mentions character should at least be level 4 or higher. So right now we've only ran the side missions to level up. Most players are level 3 and giving EXP to those that didn't show up is a stab to those who put in the work and may have lost a limb doing so. I would say however if all the players aren't there then reschedule. Rule #1 is to never separate the group. I've seen this firsthand as to why this makes perfect sense.
Then some games would never happen...
"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've been using the Milestone system for advancement. It solves a few issues at once for me.
1.Low levels go by to fast if you use the xp system. It just takes a few "encounters" and you gain a level. With Milestone we can have a much better pace.
2. With XP system I can't make encounters the way I want, because they would give too much xp. It means the players would level up even faster then intended. Milestone leveling lets me make better encounters without having to worry about XP budgeting and bullshit.
3. With Milestone my players stopped being a murderhobo and instead started looking for other ways to deal with situations. Also a lot more role playing is happening.
4. Since you can pace when players level up it means several encounters pass by that give lots of xp. As per previous points. If someone misses out on a few sessions here and there it doesn't matter. They'd have gained the needed xp to level up most likely in the few sessions they were present at the table. Which means they never fall behind the players that do show up every day.
I would never reschedule a playing session as long as there are at least 3 players present to play. Once you start rescheduling there is no end to it. Meaning even less moments you can actually get the group together. I'm never going to do that ever again. Instead I have my sessions at steady and known pre-determined days/time. Everyone knows these months in advance. So you just keep that in mind and schedule your other plans around it...or don't show up. That is the player's decision. Once I did it that way players actually started to show up almost always unlike before. Once you start having irregular moments of play you'll always end up in conflict with someones private plans.
For myself the question is more about characters that died. Do new characters die 1-2 levels below the rest of the party. Or is starting a new character with a lot less magical items/gear enough punishment as is. Something I'm still struggling with.
?? Please explain =)
"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
What do you guys do when a character dies. Will the new character be 1-2 levels below the party? Have magic items equal to the character that died? etc etc..
Don't really have a satisfying answer to that myself. If you start with a char on equal level and items then what's the point? You could just take your character that died and rename it basically. Which makes death meaningless. From which things just escalate... Why even bother with most of the game mechanics at all then?
For the time being my group at least has the house rule. If your character dies your new character can't be of the same class. To ensure you at least start with something new and fresh instead of just re-naming your char sheet.
We have always awarded xp for good role playing. Not much but usually something between 10% to 20% of the xp for the session. This is not awarded to absentee characters. It's never been a real issue. At worse an especially truant player might lag behind a level after many months of playing.
For character death we usually allow the player to come back at the lowest level in the party with magic items per what the DMG says for a character of that level.
I've never experienced the problem of players just renaming a dead character. With the ability to Raise Dead I don't see why a party can't just take the character back to town and look up the nearest cleric. Or raise the character themselves. I did once consider renaming my character due to a particular DM's penchant for continual campaign reboot. The group would get to level 4 or 5 and then the DM would want to start a new campaign. The merry go round of constant character creation eventually wore me down and I had vowed to just play the same character in each campaign before leaving the group for other reasons.
Current Characters I am playing: Dr Konstantin van Wulf | Taegen Willowrun | Mad Magnar
Check out my homebrew: Items | Monsters | Spells | Subclasses | Feats
I use milestones as a party. My group is all adults in their 30s and 40s and it's hard enough to get all of us together (on Skype) without punishing those who have commitments. Maybe reward those that are there with neat items, but don't punish those that want to be there but can't make it. My thoughts anyway!
I knew a GM who would award exp for characters that died and were revived. "Because Death is an experience." not as much as the others who finished the encounter but sometimes with a bonus if the death was heroic. The thing that kept suicide tactics in check was the cost of rez in 1-2nd ed (-1 perm CON loss).
I haven't had many character deaths in my games, my players had no problem rolling new characters. In other systems starting new isn't as harsh as D&D if the party is lvl 5+
"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 let players decide prior to starting a campaign if we will do XP or Milestone. If they choose XP, I have ways of balancing absences.
1) If you opt for your character to be present with the party, and allow one of your fellow players to control them, you get full XP. You took the risks, therefore you get the XP.
2) Characters of lower level receive an XP multiplier. So if the group is 3 level (8)s, 1 level (7) and 1 level (6), I might determine that the level 7 gains x1.5 as much XP, and the level 6 gains x2 as much XP. Once the level 6 hits 7, they drop to x1.5. This allows for those who are present for sessions and contribute/take the risks to feel like they got something extra out of it, while also allowing the players who missed to feel like they are able to close the gap.
But my secret preference is milestone. It lets me plan out the campaign in advance. For my current campaign, for example, there's 16 main plot milestones, so 16 level ups. However, I allow the players to choose for themselves side quests to explore, and if a side quest doesn't advance the main quest they can contribute to a pool of 4 separate level ups. So they could decide to hit the end of the campaign anywhere between level 16-20-- It becomes up to how they've decided to play.
Campaign Milestones
1. First session completed. (I don't like players staying at level 1 too long, it's kind of boring.)
2. First major story point revealed. (I like players reaching 3 quickly, so that they get all of their archetype goodies.)
3. Prologue Completed/Leaving the Starting Town
4. Arrival at the Plot-Important Location
5. Completion of Arc #1
6. Completion of Difficult Plot Dungeon/Retrieval of NPC McGuffin
And that's where they are currently. Level 7 and there's lots of different paths they can choose for main quest, or directions they can go for side-quests. Right now they're just shopping and discovering every possible option they could possibly take... :P