Too many rules, charts and limitations ruin the game for me. There are plenty of other games for that imho.
Indeed.
Sorry if I might have missed if you already mentioned in any earlier post. But have you tried some sort of hybrid of (lack of better words) classic xp and milestones? If so what was your (the whole group) experiences of that?
and thank you, its nice to see a big community thriving. Read/hear peoples experiences, tips, trix, ideas. Also found a nice corner on Discord with Swedish D&D players :)
@Vedexent: Sorry that my post bemused you. :)
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
- Amid all the bangs and the drama and the passion, its kindness and just ordinary goodness that stands out in the end. -
Yes I have. I have tried awarding half XP for an adventure and then using Milestone/Story Based Advancement at Keystone moments. It worked fine except when players bemoaned that they should have got more XP for playing their character in a certain way, or winning a skill based encounter etc It also meant I was beholden to the numbers - ie always checking the accumulated XP to see when I could change up the encounter difficulty etc.
I just found it easier to use the Milestone/Story Based Advancement. It meant I was never beholden to numbers or sheer mechanics. I could level the group up regardless of whether they had or hadn't achieved enough XP, I could do it after a key moment in the game and I could better prepare and plan for adventures. I reward fantastic roleplaying or clever team work in other ways such as through inspiration points but have found the group don't need much incentive to play in this many regardless.
I've told the group how I level them up so they are always eager to complete an adventure or uncover a mystery. Regardless, my advice is just to try out whatever system you prefer but don't be afriad to adapt it or switch completely if its not working for you.
Thanks for replaying so quickly and shared your experiences. Yup at the moment it is just my partner that is the "player" haven't pulled a whole group as of yet, want to try out first and see what work. As she is bit new to the rpg, dived into Kult Divinity Lost and found rpg fun. But it's always nice to hear others experiences about rules and mechanics, gives lot of ideas.
cheers
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
- Amid all the bangs and the drama and the passion, its kindness and just ordinary goodness that stands out in the end. -
I know I'm late but I like to keep track of how much do the party would have, and level up at approximately the same rate, the main gain from this method is that if a player can't make a session, they aren't behind the other players
I've never DMed before and only played 1 one-shot as a player, but I would like to DM a long game for my friends. I would like to use the milestone system (I'm not sure if it really is the milestone system after reading the comments, but i guess you know what I mean), but also grant bonuses for certain tasks/playstyles. By that I don't mean giving XP towards the next level for social interaction, but to improve used skills.
For example:
Player A did a lot of talking and managed to pull off some hard persuasion checks, but did nearly nothing when it came to combat.
Player B is shy and doesn't want to talk a lot and is more or less just following the group, but when it comes to combat he's a killing maschine with lots of lucky crits or coming up with a great tactic.
Player C went around and stole every coin purse on the market.
Player D did nothing extraordinary. Participated in conversations, and a bit of dmg during combat but nothing game-changing.
Now my idea was to level them all up at the same time after a certain event (defeat the BBEG or whatever), and reward their individual playstyles by granting Player A +1 proficiency in persuasion, player B +1 for ATK Bonus with the weapon they used to dominate the combat encounter and player C +1 sleight of hand. Player D gets no bonus. These proficiency bonuses would be granted more often than the whole level up as a "mini reward" and only if a player really excelled in a certain area.
What do you think about this?
I would like to give them a general main story, with a lot of sidequests that may also take more than one session. My concern now is, that they might get too strong too quickly with 1 level per side quest and extra rewards. (of course the extra rewards will be reduced after a certain point. Maybe every player can only earn +1 for every skill or something like that)
I'd say some of these are overkill. For instance, your rogue going around stealing purses. They already get Expertise that can double their proficiency bonus to sleight-of-hand if they want it. And by level 11 they get Reliable Talent, meaning they can't roll below a 10 for any skill they're proficient in. That means by level 11, with expertise, assuming they max our their DEX, they can't roll less than a 23 for sleight of hand. They're already going to be an unstoppable stealing machine - they don't need more of a bonus.
On the other hand, if a low-charisma player manages to pull off a supremely unlikely persuade check, maybe grant them proficiency in persuasion.
For your Player B, let them find a magic weapon with a +1 bonus. OR, give them once-a-day access to a warlord maneuver from 4e. Matt Colville has a good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoELQ7px9ws
Also, I highly recommend his entire "Running the Game" vid series.
Player A did a lot of talking and managed to pull off some hard persuasion checks, but did nearly nothing when it came to combat.
Player B is shy and doesn't want to talk a lot and is more or less just following the group, but when it comes to combat he's a killing maschine with lots of lucky crits or coming up with a great tactic.
Player C went around and stole every coin purse on the market.
Player D did nothing extraordinary. Participated in conversations, and a bit of dmg during combat but nothing game-changing.
Now my idea was to level them all up at the same time after a certain event (defeat the BBEG or whatever), and reward their individual playstyles by granting Player A +1 proficiency in persuasion, player B +1 for ATK Bonus with the weapon they used to dominate the combat encounter and player C +1 sleight of hand. Player D gets no bonus. These proficiency bonuses would be granted more often than the whole level up as a "mini reward" and only if a player really excelled in a certain area.
I think @Maestrino covered the system-part. Here's some additional thoughts based on my experience as a GM/DM.
First of all giving players XP/bonuses for doing what they're good at can lead to kind of "single minded" play. The "bard" will only try to talk, the rogue only steal etc. That isn't necessarily the most funny sessions.
You can try to give other kind of rewards.
Player A - Give him a friend, an ally or contact. Someone he can use in further sessions. That builds the world, and an ally in a time of need could really mean a difference.
Player B - I would say that in D&D fighting is such a big part, that a player that really shines here, probably doesn't need a lot more rewards. Perhaps give him a cool weapon or something, or you can try with a bad ass reputation.
Player C - If he steals everything - well, shouldn't that be his reward? He got more money, he steals cool stuff?
Player D - This players perhaps deserves a reward more than any of the others. After all, it sounds he had a quite boring time compared to the other players. He at least deserves that you ask him if he had a great time, or if you can do anything to make it better.
I think @Maestrino covered the system-part. Here's some additional thoughts based on my experience as a GM/DM.
First of all giving players XP/bonuses for doing what they're good at can lead to kind of "single minded" play. The "bard" will only try to talk, the rogue only steal etc. That isn't necessarily the most funny sessions.
You can try to give other kind of rewards.
Player A - Give him a friend, an ally or contact. Someone he can use in further sessions. That builds the world, and an ally in a time of need could really mean a difference.
Player B - I would say that in D&D fighting is such a big part, that a player that really shines here, probably doesn't need a lot more rewards. Perhaps give him a cool weapon or something, or you can try with a bad ass reputation.
Player C - If he steals everything - well, shouldn't that be his reward? He got more money, he steals cool stuff?
Player D - This players perhaps deserves a reward more than any of the others. After all, it sounds he had a quite boring time compared to the other players. He at least deserves that you ask him if he had a great time, or if you can do anything to make it better.
Thank you!
Concerning the last player: A very good point. Maybe he's inspired by the actions of his companions and gets a +1, or advantage on his next skill check. (I hope that's still weaker than the other rewards while not being nothing.)
Also, players can't get rewarded for skill checks that use the same attribute again for a certain time, to prevent the "single minded" play.
If you have DM'ed and/or played for a longer period of time you improve your knowledge base, your understanding of what works and what doesn't, how you create a character/encounter/setting.
Also a great way to become set in your ways. And learn a bunch of old editions that you now need to unlearn so that you can learn the new ones.
In general people are already incentivized to do the things they're good at by the fact that they are likely to succeed and be effective. You don't really need more reward for "hitting things with a sword" than "the things you hit fall over dead". The thing that needs incentives are things that are otherwise inefficient (e.g. good characters donating to charity).
" just found it easier to use the Milestone/Story Based Advancement. It meant I was never beholden to numbers or sheer mechanics."
So in short, you no longer had any consequence of tossing too many enemies at your party over and over again. They faced whatever you want and you deprived them of the XP they EARNED because you wanted to act without having any consequences for your actions.
And I'm 110% willing to bet, you didn't let them enjoy the same treatment when it came to their character actions. Encounters are balanced around the monster's XP, and the overall story is balanced around the player's XP. You threw the one check on yourself out the window because it's 'too hard'.
" just found it easier to use the Milestone/Story Based Advancement. It meant I was never beholden to numbers or sheer mechanics."
So in short, you no longer had any consequence of tossing too many enemies at your party over and over again. They faced whatever you want and you deprived them of the XP they EARNED because you wanted to act without having any consequences for your actions.
And I'm 110% willing to bet, you didn't let them enjoy the same treatment when it came to their character actions. Encounters are balanced around the monster's XP, and the overall story is balanced around the player's XP. You threw the one check on yourself out the window because it's 'too hard'.
Wow, lot of hostility to bring into an old post. Lot of assumptions you seem to be putting on who ever you are quoting.
Lets look at the facts, if you rely on XP to level up your players fine, for the most part this is a system left over by previous editions and the Devs are only leaving it in because of that. They themselves do not rely on this and use Milestones for the most part. This is something they have all stated in the past.
The games is definitely NOT balanced around XP at all, encounters do not decided difficulty based on XP but on CR, ad CR has set XP levels sure, but CR is assigned by other things not how much XP a creature should give.
" just found it easier to use the Milestone/Story Based Advancement. It meant I was never beholden to numbers or sheer mechanics."
So in short, you no longer had any consequence of tossing too many enemies at your party over and over again. They faced whatever you want and you deprived them of the XP they EARNED because you wanted to act without having any consequences for your actions.
My experience is that DMs who use milestone/story advancement almost always have PCs gain levels faster than they would based on counting the xp value of the monsters they killed, though a lot of that is because those DMs don't have as many combats.
My current DM seems to do it almost like chapters in a book. Which means we have a super-loose idea of when its coming, but its still a little odd; but I like it. So after we complete a long 5-10 session chapter around a couple cities or issues, suddenly boom, 3 levels at once. It's different, but when it hits, it hits great cause you all feel this swell of power behind you. Usually a couple tweaks to your PC and an AS/Feat.
Thoughts on this idea for milestone leveling a long term (multi-year), levels 1-20, campaign. I want to make it so that lower levels come more quickly and progressively take more time to gain as you go up. I was thinking of doing this.
Session 1, level up from 1 to 2.
Now that youre level 2, you will level up in 2 more sessions.
Then once you hit level 3, 3 sessions later will be your next level up.
And so on until you reach level 20. At level 20 you have 20 more sessions, and at the end of those sessions, the campaign ends. Maybe even throw in some epic boons throughout their 20 sessions as 20th level characters. In total you should have roughly 210 session from start to finish, not including session zero and one-shots. One session a week for 210 weeks, and thats roughly a 4 year game.
roughly 210 session from start to finish, not including session zero and one-shots. One session a week for 210 weeks, and thats roughly a 4 year game.
That is awesome... if you can make the game last that long. Hard to do 4 years.
Even my longest-running Champions campaign with all local people who lived in the same town and were all in high school/college with not much in the way of real world serious commitments (spouses, kids, etc) only lasted 2-ish years. And although I have no real definite plans for my current campaign, back of my mind, I am thinking for the ideas I have for adventures, it'll probably be every other week for ~2 years, maybe partway to 3 years. I hope I can keep it going for that long... but 4 years is a long time.
But if you can go for 4 years, more power to you.
Rollback Post to RevisionRollBack
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 just kinda wing it. If something really cool happens I’ll give them a level. If they defeat a big boss, I’ll give them a level. If it’s been a while since either of those things have happened, I’ll give them a level. Really it’s just whenever you feel that they have earned a level.
You have to remember that while you are running a story and the player characters are in that story, the players are actually human beings playing a game. This is a fact. They are not automatons and they are not going to just act in an expected way without understanding exactly why they are doing it. A game has to have some outlined goals on which the players (not the characters in the story) can sort of hang their narrative hat on and I think that is one of the core problems with things like "milestone XP", or "Finishing an Adventure XP" or even more subtle things like rewards for "good role-playing" or "clever ideas". These are not meta goals, they are participation trophies which is something you can motivate children with, but most of us are playing with adults at the table.
Experience in general is not a goal for hanging a narrative against; it really just exists because people like having new toys to play with. In terms of narrative structure, "You get xp for accomplishing quest X" makes more sense than "You get xp for grinding mobs".
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*checks back into thread*
*immediately hit by level 9 Fireball, failed save*
*crawls away to find the nearest Cleric or Druid*
Indeed.
Sorry if I might have missed if you already mentioned in any earlier post. But have you tried some sort of hybrid of (lack of better words) classic xp and milestones? If so what was your (the whole group) experiences of that?
and thank you, its nice to see a big community thriving. Read/hear peoples experiences, tips, trix, ideas. Also found a nice corner on Discord with Swedish D&D players :)
@Vedexent: Sorry that my post bemused you. :)
- Amid all the bangs and the drama and the passion, its kindness and just ordinary goodness that stands out in the end. -
Hi Tipharet,
Yes I have. I have tried awarding half XP for an adventure and then using Milestone/Story Based Advancement at Keystone moments. It worked fine except when players bemoaned that they should have got more XP for playing their character in a certain way, or winning a skill based encounter etc It also meant I was beholden to the numbers - ie always checking the accumulated XP to see when I could change up the encounter difficulty etc.
I just found it easier to use the Milestone/Story Based Advancement. It meant I was never beholden to numbers or sheer mechanics. I could level the group up regardless of whether they had or hadn't achieved enough XP, I could do it after a key moment in the game and I could better prepare and plan for adventures. I reward fantastic roleplaying or clever team work in other ways such as through inspiration points but have found the group don't need much incentive to play in this many regardless.
I've told the group how I level them up so they are always eager to complete an adventure or uncover a mystery. Regardless, my advice is just to try out whatever system you prefer but don't be afriad to adapt it or switch completely if its not working for you.
Have fun
Hi Delvesdeep :)
Thanks for replaying so quickly and shared your experiences. Yup at the moment it is just my partner that is the "player" haven't pulled a whole group as of yet, want to try out first and see what work. As she is bit new to the rpg, dived into Kult Divinity Lost and found rpg fun. But it's always nice to hear others experiences about rules and mechanics, gives lot of ideas.
cheers
- Amid all the bangs and the drama and the passion, its kindness and just ordinary goodness that stands out in the end. -
I know I'm late but I like to keep track of how much do the party would have, and level up at approximately the same rate, the main gain from this method is that if a player can't make a session, they aren't behind the other players
Hi everyone!
I've never DMed before and only played 1 one-shot as a player, but I would like to DM a long game for my friends. I would like to use the milestone system (I'm not sure if it really is the milestone system after reading the comments, but i guess you know what I mean), but also grant bonuses for certain tasks/playstyles. By that I don't mean giving XP towards the next level for social interaction, but to improve used skills.
For example:
Now my idea was to level them all up at the same time after a certain event (defeat the BBEG or whatever), and reward their individual playstyles by granting Player A +1 proficiency in persuasion, player B +1 for ATK Bonus with the weapon they used to dominate the combat encounter and player C +1 sleight of hand. Player D gets no bonus.
These proficiency bonuses would be granted more often than the whole level up as a "mini reward" and only if a player really excelled in a certain area.
What do you think about this?
I would like to give them a general main story, with a lot of sidequests that may also take more than one session. My concern now is, that they might get too strong too quickly with 1 level per side quest and extra rewards. (of course the extra rewards will be reduced after a certain point. Maybe every player can only earn +1 for every skill or something like that)
I'd say some of these are overkill. For instance, your rogue going around stealing purses. They already get Expertise that can double their proficiency bonus to sleight-of-hand if they want it. And by level 11 they get Reliable Talent, meaning they can't roll below a 10 for any skill they're proficient in. That means by level 11, with expertise, assuming they max our their DEX, they can't roll less than a 23 for sleight of hand. They're already going to be an unstoppable stealing machine - they don't need more of a bonus.
On the other hand, if a low-charisma player manages to pull off a supremely unlikely persuade check, maybe grant them proficiency in persuasion.
For your Player B, let them find a magic weapon with a +1 bonus. OR, give them once-a-day access to a warlord maneuver from 4e. Matt Colville has a good video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QoELQ7px9ws
Also, I highly recommend his entire "Running the Game" vid series.
Thank you! :)
I think @Maestrino covered the system-part. Here's some additional thoughts based on my experience as a GM/DM.
First of all giving players XP/bonuses for doing what they're good at can lead to kind of "single minded" play. The "bard" will only try to talk, the rogue only steal etc. That isn't necessarily the most funny sessions.
You can try to give other kind of rewards.
Ludo ergo sum!
Thank you!
Concerning the last player: A very good point. Maybe he's inspired by the actions of his companions and gets a +1, or advantage on his next skill check. (I hope that's still weaker than the other rewards while not being nothing.)
Also, players can't get rewarded for skill checks that use the same attribute again for a certain time, to prevent the "single minded" play.
Also a great way to become set in your ways. And learn a bunch of old editions that you now need to unlearn so that you can learn the new ones.
In general people are already incentivized to do the things they're good at by the fact that they are likely to succeed and be effective. You don't really need more reward for "hitting things with a sword" than "the things you hit fall over dead". The thing that needs incentives are things that are otherwise inefficient (e.g. good characters donating to charity).
" just found it easier to use the Milestone/Story Based Advancement. It meant I was never beholden to numbers or sheer mechanics."
So in short, you no longer had any consequence of tossing too many enemies at your party over and over again. They faced whatever you want and you deprived them of the XP they EARNED because you wanted to act without having any consequences for your actions.
And I'm 110% willing to bet, you didn't let them enjoy the same treatment when it came to their character actions. Encounters are balanced around the monster's XP, and the overall story is balanced around the player's XP. You threw the one check on yourself out the window because it's 'too hard'.
Wow, lot of hostility to bring into an old post. Lot of assumptions you seem to be putting on who ever you are quoting.
Lets look at the facts, if you rely on XP to level up your players fine, for the most part this is a system left over by previous editions and the Devs are only leaving it in because of that. They themselves do not rely on this and use Milestones for the most part. This is something they have all stated in the past.
The games is definitely NOT balanced around XP at all, encounters do not decided difficulty based on XP but on CR, ad CR has set XP levels sure, but CR is assigned by other things not how much XP a creature should give.
My experience is that DMs who use milestone/story advancement almost always have PCs gain levels faster than they would based on counting the xp value of the monsters they killed, though a lot of that is because those DMs don't have as many combats.
My current DM seems to do it almost like chapters in a book. Which means we have a super-loose idea of when its coming, but its still a little odd; but I like it. So after we complete a long 5-10 session chapter around a couple cities or issues, suddenly boom, 3 levels at once. It's different, but when it hits, it hits great cause you all feel this swell of power behind you. Usually a couple tweaks to your PC and an AS/Feat.
Thoughts on this idea for milestone leveling a long term (multi-year), levels 1-20, campaign. I want to make it so that lower levels come more quickly and progressively take more time to gain as you go up. I was thinking of doing this.
Session 1, level up from 1 to 2.
Now that youre level 2, you will level up in 2 more sessions.
Then once you hit level 3, 3 sessions later will be your next level up.
And so on until you reach level 20. At level 20 you have 20 more sessions, and at the end of those sessions, the campaign ends. Maybe even throw in some epic boons throughout their 20 sessions as 20th level characters. In total you should have roughly 210 session from start to finish, not including session zero and one-shots. One session a week for 210 weeks, and thats roughly a 4 year game.
That is awesome... if you can make the game last that long. Hard to do 4 years.
Even my longest-running Champions campaign with all local people who lived in the same town and were all in high school/college with not much in the way of real world serious commitments (spouses, kids, etc) only lasted 2-ish years. And although I have no real definite plans for my current campaign, back of my mind, I am thinking for the ideas I have for adventures, it'll probably be every other week for ~2 years, maybe partway to 3 years. I hope I can keep it going for that long... but 4 years is a long time.
But if you can go for 4 years, more power to you.
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 just kinda wing it. If something really cool happens I’ll give them a level. If they defeat a big boss, I’ll give them a level. If it’s been a while since either of those things have happened, I’ll give them a level. Really it’s just whenever you feel that they have earned a level.
Experience in general is not a goal for hanging a narrative against; it really just exists because people like having new toys to play with. In terms of narrative structure, "You get xp for accomplishing quest X" makes more sense than "You get xp for grinding mobs".