If you're planning on running a full campaign (1-20) with milestone leveling, how many of the milestones should you have planned out beforehand? Should you at least know some broad strokes about what might happen down the road and when you would want your characters to level up? Or just plan out a few at a time and see where the adventure takes them?
Yeah, that's the general idea - I just don't want to be too slow or too quick about it. Like, leveling up and leveling up and then realizing that now you need to curb the leveling for a long time before you run into the final chapters of your campaign.
I don't plan out when the part will level, I just keep an eye on where the story is going and track how many encounters they've had. I also dole out levels based on accomplishments, this way when the party does something that is important, such as defeating a villain or successfully navigating a peace treaty, they get a major reward along with any nifty trinkets that are associated.
If you go by the method in many adventure modules, you'll give out a level after each major story beat. The party successfully thwarts a plan enacted by the thieve's guild which leads to getting information about the crown being in on it, level. The party travels across the realm to reach the crown and saves a village from an orc invasion, level. They reach the crown after a long trip and gathering information around town, no level. They find out that there's an impostor on the throne and they've been captured, level. And so forth, you find that certain events trigger a level and move the story forward simultaneously.
I've used Milestones, and I totally agree it is an easier system for the DM.
However, I have moved back to XP, even though it's more work for me, for a couple of reasons.
Players like seeing actual concrete progress, session over session, even if they haven't gone up.
Players that know they're likely to go up next session, based on their XP totals, will plan their level up changes - so that goes pretty smoothly when they do.
You can attach XP to certain behaviors that you want to encourage ( or discourage ) in your game. For example, I have a "clever idea" bonus ( for tactical, strategic, or getting around obstacles ), I have a bonus for Players making choices based on what their Character would want, or think, or believe - even if the Player knows better, and/or it is game-mechanically sub-optimal. I even have a "failing your way out of situation" penalty, where if the Party screws up horrifically, they get a much reduced XP for the resulting actions ( e.g. their mission to work out a treaty with the Bugbears, and they offend the chieftain, and have to slaughter their way out of the Bugbear camp, then the get reduced XP for the combat, as it only resulted from their failure ).
It's absolutely more of a workload on the DM to use XP, and milestones work very well for progressing, but XP can actually give you some benefits that milestones cannot.
You can even do a bit of hybrid, where you hand out XP for encounters, and also attach XP rewards to "story milestone moments" as well: "You solved the mystery, rescued the beautiful monster from the clutches of the evil princess! Everyone get 1,200 XP!".
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.
Whichever way you go with it, you can also rely on your gut feeling when it comes to granting a milestone level-up. Sometimes (or is it usually?) the campaign plan just goes sideways, and it'll be ambiguous whether the party has earned the level. Then you just gauge whether they've made comparable progress to whatever you had in mind before and keep rolling!
Yeah, that's the general idea - I just don't want to be too slow or too quick about it. Like, leveling up and leveling up and then realizing that now you need to curb the leveling for a long time before you run into the final chapters of your campaign.
If you do have a planned big bad for a specific level, then just be ready to deploy him when they get to that level. Or you can scale up him or give him a few body guards. And once that is done, you can end the campaign or start planning a bigger bad.
I'd play milestone a little more by ear. Did your last encounter feel like a milestone? Did the party play so well that you feel they deserve it? Was it story significant? Has it just been a while? I try to consider some combination of those
I think part of the problem with the discussion is we probably all have different answers to "What do you mean by Milestones"?
On one side of the spectrum, is the view that they are really just "blocks of experience" and that it takes a number of "major milestones", with "minor milestones" being some fraction of a Major. The DMG give an optional rule for conversation between a major milestone and a Hard encounter, and a minor milestone with an easy.
That's really just the XP system with really big XP points, and no scaling of milestone requirements for leveling up ( since Hard/Easy encounters already scale with level ).
I actually kind of like this approach, as it's easier book-keeping. I can give out a standard block of XP for an encounter of a given difficulty, and call it a "milestone". I don't have to do fiddly exact calculation. They're level 6, and that was somewhere between a Hard and Deadly encounter? Everyone gets 900 XP. Don't care if the exact XP calculation would have been 923, or 874 XP.
On the other end of the spectrum is the view that you hit a major story event - a "milestone" and you level up. That's really just "level up by DM fiat".
I find that DMs love the "level up the Party when your gut feeling tells you it's about time" - as that's the least amount of work for the DM. Unfortunately, I think that Players tend to view this as "I get to level up just for showing up!" ( or maybe that's not even a requirement, if you have a Player who can't make it one session and still levels up with everyone else ).
I've also found that Players generally prefer being able to see concrete progress session-over-session, so they like XP.
So - I tend to dish out milestones of standardized packages of XP.
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.
I moved from another DM's 2e campaign where we simply recorded our experience, and I hated it. It took forever to level, and the experience rewarded by the DM seemed arbitrary.
Now I am DMing Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I asked the players first if they would be cool with trying milestone since I wanted to build the story elements around the character's level progression to personalize the story. At the same time, I wanted the characters to level up at a reasonable pace, but I didn't want to reward the players for not progressing the story and I didn't want to reward players for not attending, so the rule I gave myself was that I would personally record each player's experience yet hide this from them. It is essentially milestone, but I'm making sure it's not paced too radically. I also have a somewhat arbitrary rule where only one player actually has to accrue experience to reach the proper level, while everyone else only needs 2/3. This typically rewards the player who attends the most and is the most effective to level first, but most others are in lockstep... even ones who only attend 2 out of 3 sessions.
I don't make the Players track their own XP - since all the Characters are tracking in a DnD Beyond campaign, I update their XP directly - but I do let them know what is awarded, and for what: my awards aren't arbitrary. Hell, I published a chart showing what was handed out, XP-wise, and for what, at each level up to 20.
I'm toying with the idea of giving them a "report card" email, detailing their totals, and what the XP was awarded for, after each session.
Matilda Barto: Session 6 ( Level 3 )
1 x Deadly Combat Encounter: 300XP,
1 x Medium Social Encounter: 150XP,
"Clever Idea" Bonus : 50XP,
Uncovering World Lore Bonus: 50XP
Character development Bonus: 50XP
Total: 600XP
I think that if you just level up arbitrarily ever X sessions ( and I've done that ), you get minimal engagement from some of your Players. They realize they don't need to put in effort - they just need to show up.
It's a sad fact of Human nature that you get the behaviors that you monitor and reward.
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.
Don't forget the other side of the equation, you can also hold leveling back a bit. One of the nice things about milestone is that you don't have to feel rushed with the party out leveling the adventure, especially if you had a heavy rp session or the session dragged. This is especially helpful if you've got an entire level/story arc/etcetera planned out and you know that the next spell level will bypass or make the adventure too easy; 3rd and 6th level spells always seem to cause a shift in play style.
Don't feel bad about holding that level back. You can always throw in a slight more useful item, or let them level up a bit quicker next time.
I think that's called "screwing your Players to make your life easier".
I would counsel adapting your adventure to remain challenging, rather than kneecapping your Players' accomplishments.
If I was a Player, and I figured out my DM was doing this, I'd be pissed. Don't tell me you'll "make it up to me later", you're literally changing the game under me.
Edit: Out of curiosity, I showed that statement about deferring leveling to fit the planned DM narrative to a couple of my Players, and got a "WTF!" response, so I'm pretty sure it's not just me.
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.
I think that's called "screwing your Players to make your life easier".
Well: it's not like it makes the game more challenging, since if your PC levels up, so will the opposition (not that I would find a more challenging game less fun anyway).
But it does mean that players won't get to play with new abilities as soon. Is that what you mean?
Two anecdotes:
In the last game I played in, the DM kept us at the same level for the better part of a year. We were OK with that because: we were still gaming, it didn't alter the challenge, and we didn't have to reprint character sheets as often.
In my own games when I was leveling a PC for a novice player, to save paper I would level them up every 3 levels... they would start 1 level ahead of the rest of the group, then they would be equal, then they would be a level behind, then I would print another sheet (again: one level ahead of the rest of the group).
I think that's called "screwing your Players to make your life easier".
Well: it's not like it makes the game more challenging, since if your PC levels up, so will the opposition (not that I would find a more challenging game less fun anyway).
But it does mean that players won't get to play with new abilities as soon. Is that what you mean?
The way I view it - which may not be the way other people view if ( and that's fine ) - is that I have an obligation to "play fair" with the Players.
If I'm - partly - an adjudicator of the rules, and the person who "runs the system", then I have an obligation to be consistent, and impartial.
If I start changing the game under the Players, for my convenience, that's unfair.
In a way yes, it's because "players won't get to play with new abilities as soon". According to the game we all agreed to play, they've earned those abilities. Players like leveling up, Players like getting new abilities. For many Players, that's part of the fun.
If I'm withholding aspects of the game which contribute to their fun, for my own convenience ( I don't want to put in the effort to change up the adventure to keep it fun and challenging ) I would consider that a "dick move". I'm saying "my convenience is more important than your enjoyment".
Frankly, DM'ing is a lot of work. We accept that. But, If I'm not willing to put in the work to "Play fair" with my Players, maybe someone else should take the helm.
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.
The way I view it - which may not be the way other people view if ( and that's fine ) - is that I have an obligation to "play fair" with the Players.
If I'm - partly - an adjudicator of the rules, and the person who "runs the system", then I have an obligation to be consistent, and impartial.
As a simulationist: I completely agree, and it's why I try to run pre-written campaigns as written (which means not altering if the players become too powerful mid-way through). My own milestone method stayed in line with the expected progression of the published campaigns I used (and was possibly even faster than normal XP progression)... but had it been slower than normal, I wouldn't expect players to be upset.
Still: if a DM wrote their own campaign, and didn't adequately account for PC's leveling up... sure, that mistake is on them.
Note: in 3.5e, leveling discrepancies eventually self-corrected (since over-leveled PC's got less XP, while under leveled ones got more). Now however, more campaigns use milestone leveling, or Organized play-style adventure restrictions.
The way I view it - which may not be the way other people view if ( and that's fine ) - is that I have an obligation to "play fair" with the Players.
If I'm - partly - an adjudicator of the rules, and the person who "runs the system", then I have an obligation to be consistent, and impartial.
As a simulationist: I completely agree, and it's why I try to run pre-written campaigns as written (which means not altering if the players become too powerful mid-way through). My own milestone method stayed in line with the expected progression of the published campaigns I used (and was possibly even faster than normal XP progression)... but had it been slower than normal, I wouldn't expect players to be upset.
Still: if a DM wrote their own campaign, and didn't adequately account for PC's leveling up... sure, that mistake is on them.
Note: in 3.5e, leveling discrepancies eventually self-corrected (since over-leveled PC's got less XP, while under leveled ones got more). Now however, more campaigns use milestone leveling, or Organized play-style adventure restrictions.
I perhaps have an advantage here, as I do lots of NPC/Situation preparation, but almost no plot planning ( preferring to figure out what all the "bad guys" will do next in "real time"), so it's not that hard for me to switch up an encounter to make it more challenging. Plus, I run my game out of my laptop, so using something like Kobold Fight Club, I can figure out what I need to add to a combat encounter to re-balance it, in seconds.
If someone had a pretty rigid plot structure defined, it would be much harder to scale things in real time, so I can understand the temptation to defer leveling up, even if I don't agree with it.
Your comment about the XP balancing going away with more people moving to "Milestones" ( by which most people mean Story Based Advancement, I believe ), is well made. I much prefer "XP block Milestones" - easier bookkeeping, consistent and fair rewards, and yes - you get some of that XP balancing back.
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.
Spoken like someone who doesn't spend hours prepping an adventure.
The thing about milestone is as the DM you set the milestones. The players don't need to know what they are. I've ran for at least one group where a player calculated XP based on monsters killed (yes he tracked every one just because he was that type of person), even though everyone agreed ahead of time on milestone advancement.
You'll also note that I specifically mentioned spell level 3 (tier 2) and 6 (tier 3) where the play style tends to change. Outside of those levels, adding a few more monsters or increasing monster HP and/or damage handles it.
Your assumption about how much time a person puts into their game has nothing to do with Milestone or XP leveling. I have next to no time to prepare my adventures, I am lucky if I can spend 2-4 hours of prep for 3, yes 3, adventures I run. I use both XP and Milestone leveling in my adventures, I choose the approach based on the type of people at my table. As you mentioned you had one player who would calculate the XP gained in a Milestone game, if I had that kind of player I'd put it up to a vote at the table to see which approach to take. In my case one of the tables prefers to have XP rewarded due to a majority vote, so I give out XP at the end of the sessions.
The argument that hitting specific tiers will break the planning that is going into a game is, by its own merit, the definition of bad planning. If the DM isn't aware that the players are at the threshold of leveling up, then that DM needs to keep better notes. It takes nothing to write down the highest XP total that anyone in the party might be at, it's just good bookkeeping the same as notes about what the party did during the last session. Milestone leveling, in this situation, is simply a way for the lazy DM to not have to track one number, instead arbitrarily give a level when they feel it's time. This is borderline DM fiat activity, and it should not be used in this manner.
Proper milestone leveling doesn't take into account what level the players are at, it simply rewards hitting certain checkpoints. A challenge that was meant for level 5 players could be accomplished by level 4 players with ingenuity and creativity. When they finish that challenge they get a level, yay milestone, they get one level even though the task was "technically" beyond their means. Then they go and complete a task that was meant for level 3, but now they're level 5, so does that mean they don't get a level, they do because they hit a checkpoint, now they're level 6, only it was much easier than originally planned. Milestone leveling doesn't give two hoots about what level you are, simply that you accomplish the requisite tasks to reach that milestone, whether the task is beyond the suggested level or below.
If you're planning on running a full campaign (1-20) with milestone leveling, how many of the milestones should you have planned out beforehand? Should you at least know some broad strokes about what might happen down the road and when you would want your characters to level up? Or just plan out a few at a time and see where the adventure takes them?
DM - Above & Below
Depends on your own plans. I'm pretty sure my DM just levels us every couple of sessions to keep it fresh and instill a sense of progression.
Yeah, that's the general idea - I just don't want to be too slow or too quick about it. Like, leveling up and leveling up and then realizing that now you need to curb the leveling for a long time before you run into the final chapters of your campaign.
DM - Above & Below
I don't plan out when the part will level, I just keep an eye on where the story is going and track how many encounters they've had. I also dole out levels based on accomplishments, this way when the party does something that is important, such as defeating a villain or successfully navigating a peace treaty, they get a major reward along with any nifty trinkets that are associated.
If you go by the method in many adventure modules, you'll give out a level after each major story beat. The party successfully thwarts a plan enacted by the thieve's guild which leads to getting information about the crown being in on it, level. The party travels across the realm to reach the crown and saves a village from an orc invasion, level. They reach the crown after a long trip and gathering information around town, no level. They find out that there's an impostor on the throne and they've been captured, level. And so forth, you find that certain events trigger a level and move the story forward simultaneously.
I've used Milestones, and I totally agree it is an easier system for the DM.
However, I have moved back to XP, even though it's more work for me, for a couple of reasons.
It's absolutely more of a workload on the DM to use XP, and milestones work very well for progressing, but XP can actually give you some benefits that milestones cannot.
You can even do a bit of hybrid, where you hand out XP for encounters, and also attach XP rewards to "story milestone moments" as well: "You solved the mystery, rescued the beautiful monster from the clutches of the evil princess! Everyone get 1,200 XP!".
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.
Whichever way you go with it, you can also rely on your gut feeling when it comes to granting a milestone level-up. Sometimes (or is it usually?) the campaign plan just goes sideways, and it'll be ambiguous whether the party has earned the level. Then you just gauge whether they've made comparable progress to whatever you had in mind before and keep rolling!
If you do have a planned big bad for a specific level, then just be ready to deploy him when they get to that level. Or you can scale up him or give him a few body guards. And once that is done, you can end the campaign or start planning a bigger bad.
I'd play milestone a little more by ear. Did your last encounter feel like a milestone? Did the party play so well that you feel they deserve it? Was it story significant? Has it just been a while? I try to consider some combination of those
I think part of the problem with the discussion is we probably all have different answers to "What do you mean by Milestones"?
On one side of the spectrum, is the view that they are really just "blocks of experience" and that it takes a number of "major milestones", with "minor milestones" being some fraction of a Major. The DMG give an optional rule for conversation between a major milestone and a Hard encounter, and a minor milestone with an easy.
That's really just the XP system with really big XP points, and no scaling of milestone requirements for leveling up ( since Hard/Easy encounters already scale with level ).
I actually kind of like this approach, as it's easier book-keeping. I can give out a standard block of XP for an encounter of a given difficulty, and call it a "milestone". I don't have to do fiddly exact calculation. They're level 6, and that was somewhere between a Hard and Deadly encounter? Everyone gets 900 XP. Don't care if the exact XP calculation would have been 923, or 874 XP.
On the other end of the spectrum is the view that you hit a major story event - a "milestone" and you level up. That's really just "level up by DM fiat".
I find that DMs love the "level up the Party when your gut feeling tells you it's about time" - as that's the least amount of work for the DM. Unfortunately, I think that Players tend to view this as "I get to level up just for showing up!" ( or maybe that's not even a requirement, if you have a Player who can't make it one session and still levels up with everyone else ).
I've also found that Players generally prefer being able to see concrete progress session-over-session, so they like XP.
So - I tend to dish out milestones of standardized packages of XP.
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.
I moved from another DM's 2e campaign where we simply recorded our experience, and I hated it. It took forever to level, and the experience rewarded by the DM seemed arbitrary.
Now I am DMing Lost Mine of Phandelver, and I asked the players first if they would be cool with trying milestone since I wanted to build the story elements around the character's level progression to personalize the story. At the same time, I wanted the characters to level up at a reasonable pace, but I didn't want to reward the players for not progressing the story and I didn't want to reward players for not attending, so the rule I gave myself was that I would personally record each player's experience yet hide this from them. It is essentially milestone, but I'm making sure it's not paced too radically. I also have a somewhat arbitrary rule where only one player actually has to accrue experience to reach the proper level, while everyone else only needs 2/3. This typically rewards the player who attends the most and is the most effective to level first, but most others are in lockstep... even ones who only attend 2 out of 3 sessions.
My house rule (which worked for HotDG, RoT & ToA) was: level up every other session until 7th level, after which: every 3rd session.
I don't make the Players track their own XP - since all the Characters are tracking in a DnD Beyond campaign, I update their XP directly - but I do let them know what is awarded, and for what: my awards aren't arbitrary. Hell, I published a chart showing what was handed out, XP-wise, and for what, at each level up to 20.
I'm toying with the idea of giving them a "report card" email, detailing their totals, and what the XP was awarded for, after each session.
Matilda Barto: Session 6 ( Level 3 )
Total: 600XP
I think that if you just level up arbitrarily ever X sessions ( and I've done that ), you get minimal engagement from some of your Players. They realize they don't need to put in effort - they just need to show up.
It's a sad fact of Human nature that you get the behaviors that you monitor and reward.
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.
Don't forget the other side of the equation, you can also hold leveling back a bit. One of the nice things about milestone is that you don't have to feel rushed with the party out leveling the adventure, especially if you had a heavy rp session or the session dragged. This is especially helpful if you've got an entire level/story arc/etcetera planned out and you know that the next spell level will bypass or make the adventure too easy; 3rd and 6th level spells always seem to cause a shift in play style.
Don't feel bad about holding that level back. You can always throw in a slight more useful item, or let them level up a bit quicker next time.
I think that's called "screwing your Players to make your life easier".
I would counsel adapting your adventure to remain challenging, rather than kneecapping your Players' accomplishments.
If I was a Player, and I figured out my DM was doing this, I'd be pissed. Don't tell me you'll "make it up to me later", you're literally changing the game under me.
Edit: Out of curiosity, I showed that statement about deferring leveling to fit the planned DM narrative to a couple of my Players, and got a "WTF!" response, so I'm pretty sure it's not just me.
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.
Well: it's not like it makes the game more challenging, since if your PC levels up, so will the opposition (not that I would find a more challenging game less fun anyway).
But it does mean that players won't get to play with new abilities as soon. Is that what you mean?
Two anecdotes:
The way I view it - which may not be the way other people view if ( and that's fine ) - is that I have an obligation to "play fair" with the Players.
If I'm - partly - an adjudicator of the rules, and the person who "runs the system", then I have an obligation to be consistent, and impartial.
If I start changing the game under the Players, for my convenience, that's unfair.
In a way yes, it's because "players won't get to play with new abilities as soon". According to the game we all agreed to play, they've earned those abilities. Players like leveling up, Players like getting new abilities. For many Players, that's part of the fun.
If I'm withholding aspects of the game which contribute to their fun, for my own convenience ( I don't want to put in the effort to change up the adventure to keep it fun and challenging ) I would consider that a "dick move". I'm saying "my convenience is more important than your enjoyment".
Frankly, DM'ing is a lot of work. We accept that. But, If I'm not willing to put in the work to "Play fair" with my Players, maybe someone else should take the helm.
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.
As a simulationist: I completely agree, and it's why I try to run pre-written campaigns as written (which means not altering if the players become too powerful mid-way through). My own milestone method stayed in line with the expected progression of the published campaigns I used (and was possibly even faster than normal XP progression)... but had it been slower than normal, I wouldn't expect players to be upset.
Still: if a DM wrote their own campaign, and didn't adequately account for PC's leveling up... sure, that mistake is on them.
Note: in 3.5e, leveling discrepancies eventually self-corrected (since over-leveled PC's got less XP, while under leveled ones got more). Now however, more campaigns use milestone leveling, or Organized play-style adventure restrictions.
I perhaps have an advantage here, as I do lots of NPC/Situation preparation, but almost no plot planning ( preferring to figure out what all the "bad guys" will do next in "real time"), so it's not that hard for me to switch up an encounter to make it more challenging. Plus, I run my game out of my laptop, so using something like Kobold Fight Club, I can figure out what I need to add to a combat encounter to re-balance it, in seconds.
If someone had a pretty rigid plot structure defined, it would be much harder to scale things in real time, so I can understand the temptation to defer leveling up, even if I don't agree with it.
Your comment about the XP balancing going away with more people moving to "Milestones" ( by which most people mean Story Based Advancement, I believe ), is well made. I much prefer "XP block Milestones" - easier bookkeeping, consistent and fair rewards, and yes - you get some of that XP balancing back.
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.
Spoken like someone who doesn't spend hours prepping an adventure.
The thing about milestone is as the DM you set the milestones. The players don't need to know what they are. I've ran for at least one group where a player calculated XP based on monsters killed (yes he tracked every one just because he was that type of person), even though everyone agreed ahead of time on milestone advancement.
You'll also note that I specifically mentioned spell level 3 (tier 2) and 6 (tier 3) where the play style tends to change. Outside of those levels, adding a few more monsters or increasing monster HP and/or damage handles it.
Your assumption about how much time a person puts into their game has nothing to do with Milestone or XP leveling. I have next to no time to prepare my adventures, I am lucky if I can spend 2-4 hours of prep for 3, yes 3, adventures I run. I use both XP and Milestone leveling in my adventures, I choose the approach based on the type of people at my table. As you mentioned you had one player who would calculate the XP gained in a Milestone game, if I had that kind of player I'd put it up to a vote at the table to see which approach to take. In my case one of the tables prefers to have XP rewarded due to a majority vote, so I give out XP at the end of the sessions.
The argument that hitting specific tiers will break the planning that is going into a game is, by its own merit, the definition of bad planning. If the DM isn't aware that the players are at the threshold of leveling up, then that DM needs to keep better notes. It takes nothing to write down the highest XP total that anyone in the party might be at, it's just good bookkeeping the same as notes about what the party did during the last session. Milestone leveling, in this situation, is simply a way for the lazy DM to not have to track one number, instead arbitrarily give a level when they feel it's time. This is borderline DM fiat activity, and it should not be used in this manner.
Proper milestone leveling doesn't take into account what level the players are at, it simply rewards hitting certain checkpoints. A challenge that was meant for level 5 players could be accomplished by level 4 players with ingenuity and creativity. When they finish that challenge they get a level, yay milestone, they get one level even though the task was "technically" beyond their means. Then they go and complete a task that was meant for level 3, but now they're level 5, so does that mean they don't get a level, they do because they hit a checkpoint, now they're level 6, only it was much easier than originally planned. Milestone leveling doesn't give two hoots about what level you are, simply that you accomplish the requisite tasks to reach that milestone, whether the task is beyond the suggested level or below.