In terms of narrative structure, "You get xp for accomplishing quest X" makes more sense than "You get xp for grinding mobs".
Also players, even the best ones, are not immune to wanting rewards. Which means that players will often do what you reward them to do (as long as they also like doing it -- doesn't work if they're miserable doing it). If you reward them for grinding mobs, they will grind mobs. If you reward them for completing quests, they will complete quests.
I saw this in no uncertain terms in Champions. In that game, XP was awarded that could directly become points in your powers or stats... +1 XP could be used to give you +1 strength, for example. With GM permission, of course.
So you didn't give out thousands of XP in Champions... You gave out a few per scenario (= adventure). The old Champions XP table said you got 1 XP (one, you did not read that wrong) for "completing the adventure." Then you got +1 if it was "a long adventure with many encounters." Not +1 per encounter, just +1 total, for it being very long. Then +1 if the players overcame "significant noncombat challenges". And another +1 for "roleplaying in character". And that was, in general, it for an adventure (there were some other possible +1 and -1 bonuses/penalties to XP, like -1 for RPing against character, that almost never applied to any session I ran). You thus got something like 1-4 XP per adventure. You got 3 if you didn't really do much RP, and 4 if you RPed well.
That 1 xp difference doesn't seem like much... once. But added up over 30 scenarios, one of my players in the 2 year campaign got 30 more experience, because he always RPed and stayed in character, than another player who wasn't into RP and just wanted to do combat. 30 points is massive -- it could literally let you do twice as much damage as the guy who has 30 less points. Every phase. In every battle. (It didn't do that much, because he spread the points around, but this is just to explain how it works.)
We saw, very quickly, as players, that in Champions, there were major rewards (literally, +25% xp bonus) for RPing. And there were also rewards (another +25%) for finding non-combat solutions and using your noggin. These rewards were not described in the old D&D rules -- there all you got XP for was killing and looting.
So, the same group of players -- RPed and found non-combat solutions all the time in Champions... and just hacked and looted in D&D. Because... Players tend to do what you reward them to do.
So, if I want them to complete tasks, rather than go around killing everything... I reward them for completing tasks, not killing. For example, last session, 2 weeks ago, we had 3 or 4 big battles in one night, but they only accomplished one minor milestone, which at that level is only 125 xp. And one of the players pointed this out -- how this is very different from the xp/kill model. They got the least xp that night, after doing the most fighting. Why? Because the fights were optional - their goal is to rescue their friends, and they were going through a necropolis room by room killing everything and taking its loot. They chose to do that -- but I did not reward them (with XP) for it (though the got some decent treasure), because that is not the goal. The goal is to save their friends.
Nobody was upset about it -- they all know how milestone XP works. But I suspect in tonight's session they might do a little more bee-lining toward rescuing their friends than they were doing last time.
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Your kind of missing the point. Experience points is the primary driver in the "game" component of the RPG experience.
Um.... no, not really. The primary driver in the 'game' component of RPGs is achieving goals the players find compelling (wealth and power in a generic fantasy setting), levels are really just a useful tool for making progress towards those goals.
Milestone leveling is not "grant xp randomly", it's "grant xp for overcoming challenges".
Yup.
Just tonight my group beat a skill challenge to close an evil summoning portal, rescued 6 NPCs from the ritual, and did all that by solving a puzzle to break their way into the evil temple. Three major milestones, XP for those three.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Yeah, no, it really isn't a reward for overcoming a challenge, its an award for doing exactly what is expected of them to do, the adventure you wrote for them in the way that you wrote it.
You can do milestones just fine in an open world. It just means that there are a bunch of optional milestones -- when you have a dungeon, instead of getting an award for each fight you get into, you just get an award for clearing the dungeon, and it doesn't matter if you clear the dungeon by killing the inhabitants, sneaking through and taking out the boss, negotiating, or whatever -- and if the PCs go haring off in an unexpected direction, you create new waypoints at the same time as you create the adventure for whatever they find when going off in that unexpected direction.
When I was 16 years old, I joined a Homebrewed 1st ed. D&D campaign in where 2 DMs rewarded the clerics, after casting the spell Create Holy water = 25 XP. It was pretty hilarious watching the cleric earning more lvls than the rest of the players there.
There was 2 DMs to manage a group of 7 players, which sometimes worked separatedly (to collect information, or inside the dungeon, and elses).
I actually have a beginners’ AD&D2e module that specifically instructs the DM to award bonus XP to Thieves for disarming traps, to Fighters for charging into battle, and to all Spellcasters whenever they cast any spell.
I actually have a beginners’ AD&D2e module that specifically instructs the DM to award bonus XP to Thieves for disarming traps, to Fighters for charging into battle, and to all Spellcasters whenever they cast any spell.
AD&D 2nd edition is to AD&D 1st edition, what 4th edition is to 3rd edition and that is all I'm going to say on that subject.
I don’t recall 2e being anywhere near as different from 1e as 4th was from 3rd.
For crying out-loud, your practically making my point for me, sometimes I think people disagree just so they can disagree.
No, it's because you're missing the point of disagreement. Milestone leveling is not "grant xp randomly", it's "grant xp for overcoming challenges".
I don’t use Milestone leveling, but I still grant XP for ”overcoming challenges.” I just let the players choose which challenges they wish to overcome.
My point is not to argue, just to say that Milestones or XP, they are merely different yardsticks. It’s how and why they are earned that’s more important than which method is used IMO.
I don’t use Milestone leveling, but I still grant XP for ”overcoming challenges.” I just let the players choose which challenges they wish to overcome.
I offered to let my players pick their own goals at the end of each session for next session and do (some) of the XP that way. They didn't want it. They wanted me to write the goals -- they felt this was more "objective."
I think they're nuts but... I have kept doing the milestones myself.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
That said, I do think there is a really big and very important difference between earning XP and being awarded XP and it boils down to how you pursue rewards, what you know about the goals and potential rewards, what you can personally do to attain a reward.
The way you earn xp is by doing things that the DM and/or game system consider worth xp. Milestone xp is earned xp.
Gold = XP in my opinion is the universal D&D favorite, it produces the best results, which is not surprising, this was Dave's and Gary's design and like they have been on just about everything when it comes to D&D, they are were right about this.
Wealth is its own reward, it doesn't need to be associated with the xp system, and it makes absolutely no sense as a basis for xp (winning the lottery makes me better at stuff?), which is why it disappeared rather rapidly.
Wealth is its own reward, it doesn't need to be associated with the xp system, and it makes absolutely no sense as a basis for xp (winning the lottery makes me better at stuff?), which is why it disappeared rather rapidly.
It also practically forces the PCs to become thieves even if their personalities and character designs don't call for it, because every gp you leave in the dungeon or in a rich merchant's house is a point of XP you didn't get to earn.
I love 1e AD&D, and if I were to play it, I would probably use most of it unmodified, but I would absolutely modify the XP system. Even as kids in high school, I remember saying to my best friend that I thought it was a little strange that characters like Lawful Good paladins and Neutral Good clerics were getting experience from two things that are pretty much universally considered evil in the real world -- killing and stealing. Often times, the monsters, if "evil aligned" were literally sitting in their own home (their lair) minding their own business, and adventurers would go in there, kill them all, and take their stuff. In the real world, that would be called "pillaging." In fact, after we started playing Champions, in which you never took anything from anyone other than disarming a villain and turning his evil weapon over to the appropriate authorities, and in which many characters had a "Code against killing" and mostly just KO'ed enemies, I took to calling D&D by the nickname "P&P" ("Pillaging and Plundering").
We discussed in those days, coming up with a way to award XP other than pillaging and plundering, but the system didn't really support it, and we either weren't creative enough or maybe just not motivated enough to change it. Then in college we learned Rolemaster, and the RM idea was, "you get XP for achieving the task, by whatever means." For instance, if a room full of orcs is guarding the way forward and you need to get past them, in RM, you got the XP "for the orcs" whether you killed them, bribed your way past, sneaked your way past, or what have you. The goal was "get past the orcs," and if you do it, you get the XP for "overcoming the challenge of getting past the orcs," not for murdering them and taking their stuff.
Once we saw it could be done that way, some of us had no interest in going back to D&D for years. It's one of the reasons all but one of us skipped 2e altogether. I even said, "Why would I want to go back to Pillaging and Plundering when we have Rolemaster?"
But again... to each his own. Some people like Pillaging and Plundering. And there are times, even now, when I wish I could get into a game on my off-weeks (when I am not DMing 5e) that was more 1st edition "dungeon crawl" style of just killing and looting. But today this would be by my choice, rather than being the only option as it was back in the day.
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WOTC lies. We know that WOTC lies. WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. We know that WOTC knows that we know that WOTC lies. And still they lie.
Because of the above (a paraphrase from Orwell) I no longer post to the forums -- PM me if you need help or anything.
Well, in a game like Shadowrun (at least the older editions, I’m unfamiliar with the current one) Nuyen (money) = Karma (XP) because the entire point of the game was to make money by doing shadowruns. That made sense. D&D is no longer that kind of game.
Monster = XP undoubtedly the worst invention of modern D&D culture means that there is absolutely only one way to accumulate XP, by finding and killing monsters, this is the standard to which D&D was switched after 1st edition AD&D. There are no other solutions possible under this approach, the players MUST become murder hobos.
I disagree with that. My players get awarded the XP no matter how they overcome those challenges that the monsters represent. If they kill them, sure. If they convince them, sure. If they sneak past them, sure. Whatever. They don’t have to kill the monsters to “overcome the challenges.”
As a player, I by far prefer to have exp so I can watch my progress. Milestone leveling feels so arbitrary. I understand that it makes things easier for DMs, but I don't like it at all as a player.
That said, I've earned exp for things that didn't include killing monsters. Any practical application of your skills should earn you exp whether it's killing monsters, sneaking into a building, tracking down fugitives...whatever. Anything that has consequences and requires the skills of a character should be rewarded with exp, upto and including failure. I learn more from things I do wrong than things I do right. That's how experience works.
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Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Milestone leveling feels so arbitrary. I understand that it makes things easier for DMs, but I don't like it at all as a player.
Milestone leveling does use XP. You get XP for achieving milestones.
What you are talking about is "story based leveling," where you gain a level at story points, rather than an amount of experience. "You saved the king and restored his throne -- everyone levels up!" is not milestone leveling. It's story based.
Milestone leveling is, "You saved the king -- 100 xp. You restored his throne - 200 xp." (You could save the king but not restore his throne to him, conceivably.)
Also players, even the best ones, are not immune to wanting rewards. Which means that players will often do what you reward them to do (as long as they also like doing it -- doesn't work if they're miserable doing it). If you reward them for grinding mobs, they will grind mobs. If you reward them for completing quests, they will complete quests.
I saw this in no uncertain terms in Champions. In that game, XP was awarded that could directly become points in your powers or stats... +1 XP could be used to give you +1 strength, for example. With GM permission, of course.
So you didn't give out thousands of XP in Champions... You gave out a few per scenario (= adventure). The old Champions XP table said you got 1 XP (one, you did not read that wrong) for "completing the adventure." Then you got +1 if it was "a long adventure with many encounters." Not +1 per encounter, just +1 total, for it being very long. Then +1 if the players overcame "significant noncombat challenges". And another +1 for "roleplaying in character". And that was, in general, it for an adventure (there were some other possible +1 and -1 bonuses/penalties to XP, like -1 for RPing against character, that almost never applied to any session I ran). You thus got something like 1-4 XP per adventure. You got 3 if you didn't really do much RP, and 4 if you RPed well.
That 1 xp difference doesn't seem like much... once. But added up over 30 scenarios, one of my players in the 2 year campaign got 30 more experience, because he always RPed and stayed in character, than another player who wasn't into RP and just wanted to do combat. 30 points is massive -- it could literally let you do twice as much damage as the guy who has 30 less points. Every phase. In every battle. (It didn't do that much, because he spread the points around, but this is just to explain how it works.)
We saw, very quickly, as players, that in Champions, there were major rewards (literally, +25% xp bonus) for RPing. And there were also rewards (another +25%) for finding non-combat solutions and using your noggin. These rewards were not described in the old D&D rules -- there all you got XP for was killing and looting.
So, the same group of players -- RPed and found non-combat solutions all the time in Champions... and just hacked and looted in D&D. Because... Players tend to do what you reward them to do.
So, if I want them to complete tasks, rather than go around killing everything... I reward them for completing tasks, not killing. For example, last session, 2 weeks ago, we had 3 or 4 big battles in one night, but they only accomplished one minor milestone, which at that level is only 125 xp. And one of the players pointed this out -- how this is very different from the xp/kill model. They got the least xp that night, after doing the most fighting. Why? Because the fights were optional - their goal is to rescue their friends, and they were going through a necropolis room by room killing everything and taking its loot. They chose to do that -- but I did not reward them (with XP) for it (though the got some decent treasure), because that is not the goal. The goal is to save their friends.
Nobody was upset about it -- they all know how milestone XP works. But I suspect in tonight's session they might do a little more bee-lining toward rescuing their friends than they were doing last time.
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.
Um.... no, not really. The primary driver in the 'game' component of RPGs is achieving goals the players find compelling (wealth and power in a generic fantasy setting), levels are really just a useful tool for making progress towards those goals.
No, it's because you're missing the point of disagreement. Milestone leveling is not "grant xp randomly", it's "grant xp for overcoming challenges".
Yup.
Just tonight my group beat a skill challenge to close an evil summoning portal, rescued 6 NPCs from the ritual, and did all that by solving a puzzle to break their way into the evil temple. Three major milestones, XP for those three.
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.
You can do milestones just fine in an open world. It just means that there are a bunch of optional milestones -- when you have a dungeon, instead of getting an award for each fight you get into, you just get an award for clearing the dungeon, and it doesn't matter if you clear the dungeon by killing the inhabitants, sneaking through and taking out the boss, negotiating, or whatever -- and if the PCs go haring off in an unexpected direction, you create new waypoints at the same time as you create the adventure for whatever they find when going off in that unexpected direction.
When I was 16 years old, I joined a Homebrewed 1st ed. D&D campaign in where 2 DMs rewarded the clerics, after casting the spell Create Holy water = 25 XP. It was pretty hilarious watching the cleric earning more lvls than the rest of the players there.
There was 2 DMs to manage a group of 7 players, which sometimes worked separatedly (to collect information, or inside the dungeon, and elses).
My Ready-to-rock&roll chars:
Dertinus Tristany // Amilcar Barca // Vicenç Sacrarius // Oriol Deulofeu // Grovtuk
It's almost like there is no single correct answer for every group :P
No, impossible. One size MUST fit all!
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.
BigLizard,
I actually have a beginners’ AD&D2e module that specifically instructs the DM to award bonus XP to Thieves for disarming traps, to Fighters for charging into battle, and to all Spellcasters whenever they cast any spell.
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I don’t recall 2e being anywhere near as different from 1e as 4th was from 3rd.
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AD&D 2nd edition is kind of two or three different editions (early 2e vs Skills and Powers, etc) but the difference is more like 3.0 vs 3.5e.
This is the most wild thread I have ever seen to date.
I don’t use Milestone leveling, but I still grant XP for ”overcoming challenges.” I just let the players choose which challenges they wish to overcome.
My point is not to argue, just to say that Milestones or XP, they are merely different yardsticks. It’s how and why they are earned that’s more important than which method is used IMO.
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I offered to let my players pick their own goals at the end of each session for next session and do (some) of the XP that way. They didn't want it. They wanted me to write the goals -- they felt this was more "objective."
I think they're nuts but... I have kept doing the milestones myself.
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.
The way you earn xp is by doing things that the DM and/or game system consider worth xp. Milestone xp is earned xp.
Wealth is its own reward, it doesn't need to be associated with the xp system, and it makes absolutely no sense as a basis for xp (winning the lottery makes me better at stuff?), which is why it disappeared rather rapidly.
It also practically forces the PCs to become thieves even if their personalities and character designs don't call for it, because every gp you leave in the dungeon or in a rich merchant's house is a point of XP you didn't get to earn.
I love 1e AD&D, and if I were to play it, I would probably use most of it unmodified, but I would absolutely modify the XP system. Even as kids in high school, I remember saying to my best friend that I thought it was a little strange that characters like Lawful Good paladins and Neutral Good clerics were getting experience from two things that are pretty much universally considered evil in the real world -- killing and stealing. Often times, the monsters, if "evil aligned" were literally sitting in their own home (their lair) minding their own business, and adventurers would go in there, kill them all, and take their stuff. In the real world, that would be called "pillaging." In fact, after we started playing Champions, in which you never took anything from anyone other than disarming a villain and turning his evil weapon over to the appropriate authorities, and in which many characters had a "Code against killing" and mostly just KO'ed enemies, I took to calling D&D by the nickname "P&P" ("Pillaging and Plundering").
We discussed in those days, coming up with a way to award XP other than pillaging and plundering, but the system didn't really support it, and we either weren't creative enough or maybe just not motivated enough to change it. Then in college we learned Rolemaster, and the RM idea was, "you get XP for achieving the task, by whatever means." For instance, if a room full of orcs is guarding the way forward and you need to get past them, in RM, you got the XP "for the orcs" whether you killed them, bribed your way past, sneaked your way past, or what have you. The goal was "get past the orcs," and if you do it, you get the XP for "overcoming the challenge of getting past the orcs," not for murdering them and taking their stuff.
Once we saw it could be done that way, some of us had no interest in going back to D&D for years. It's one of the reasons all but one of us skipped 2e altogether. I even said, "Why would I want to go back to Pillaging and Plundering when we have Rolemaster?"
But again... to each his own. Some people like Pillaging and Plundering. And there are times, even now, when I wish I could get into a game on my off-weeks (when I am not DMing 5e) that was more 1st edition "dungeon crawl" style of just killing and looting. But today this would be by my choice, rather than being the only option as it was back in the day.
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.
Well, in a game like Shadowrun (at least the older editions, I’m unfamiliar with the current one) Nuyen (money) = Karma (XP) because the entire point of the game was to make money by doing shadowruns. That made sense. D&D is no longer that kind of game.
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I disagree with that. My players get awarded the XP no matter how they overcome those challenges that the monsters represent. If they kill them, sure. If they convince them, sure. If they sneak past them, sure. Whatever. They don’t have to kill the monsters to “overcome the challenges.”
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As a player, I by far prefer to have exp so I can watch my progress. Milestone leveling feels so arbitrary. I understand that it makes things easier for DMs, but I don't like it at all as a player.
That said, I've earned exp for things that didn't include killing monsters. Any practical application of your skills should earn you exp whether it's killing monsters, sneaking into a building, tracking down fugitives...whatever. Anything that has consequences and requires the skills of a character should be rewarded with exp, upto and including failure. I learn more from things I do wrong than things I do right. That's how experience works.
Any time an unfathomably powerful entity sweeps in and offers godlike rewards in return for just a few teensy favors, it’s a scam. Unless it’s me. I’d never lie to you, reader dearest.
Tasha
Milestone leveling does use XP. You get XP for achieving milestones.
What you are talking about is "story based leveling," where you gain a level at story points, rather than an amount of experience. "You saved the king and restored his throne -- everyone levels up!" is not milestone leveling. It's story based.
Milestone leveling is, "You saved the king -- 100 xp. You restored his throne - 200 xp." (You could save the king but not restore his throne to him, conceivably.)
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.