Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
I agree, if characters only get XP for combat players will have a tendency to metagame them into murderhobos so they will level up. If the party want to get into a bandit hideout, and notice the entrance is guarded, they can sneak around and look for a back way, try to convince the guards they on friendly terms, (looking to join, buy stolen goods or something), distract the guards and go in while they are diverted etc all of which is creative and probably what a basically good group would do. If all those options give 0 XP they party are likely to just go straight into battle.
Some of my players prefer the combat side of things which I understand. I do also when I am playing. However as my campaign start to get a little more involved rather than just "here's your next job, go" I feel rewarding them for well role played social interactions is going to make them want to do so more often and do well within them.
I switched over to milestone leveling based on completion of the story line. I do not have any players that need to be pushed to role play and this way no one has record the XP totals However, younger players I have found like it and gives them something to gauge their progress on.
And in the past, there would be XP for traps and story awards in some systems.One Pathfinder game had hardly any combat (about 20% of a level), but we kept getting story awards for doing smart or correct things. Those awards and the traps the thief disarmed caused us to go from 1st to 2nd.
And sometimes the story awards of XP can be done to nudge the players to do the "right" thing. One time I gave out bonus XP for the party members that had not stolen anything from a good priest. That ended up pushing half the party up a level and allowed them to show off. The other 2 got about 50 GP in items and a healing potion. The one who was almost a murder hobo toned down his murdering and thieving to try to get more XP from role playing when he saw that being good was rewarded.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
Absolutely. I also do not use Inspiration, but instead awkward an additional 25XP/instance. I award XP for social encounters, puzzles, traps, finding clues, everything.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
Definitely. Typically, I’d award them Roughly what they would get from a standard combat of their level. And make sure to tell them that, so they will start thinking there is just as much reason to talk their way out of a situation as there is to fight. It helps them see adversaries as more than just a bag of xp they need to crack open.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
Absolutely. I also do not use Inspiration, but instead awkward an additional 25XP/instance. I award XP for social encounters, puzzles, traps, finding clues, everything.
Same here. I use XP because my campaigns are West-Marches style, so there’s lots of drop in and out. I award XP for avoiding encounters in unusual ways, often as much as just dusting the baddies.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
Absolutely. I also do not use Inspiration, but instead awkward an additional 25XP/instance. I award XP for social encounters, puzzles, traps, finding clues, everything.
Same here. I use XP because my campaigns are West-Marches style, so there’s lots of drop in and out. I award XP for avoiding encounters in unusual ways, often as much as just dusting the baddies.
The objective is not to “kill the wabbit,” the objective is to “overcome the challenge.” That can be done any darned way they choose.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
Absolutely. I also do not use Inspiration, but instead awkward an additional 25XP/instance. I award XP for social encounters, puzzles, traps, finding clues, everything.
Same here. I use XP because my campaigns are West-Marches style, so there’s lots of drop in and out. I award XP for avoiding encounters in unusual ways, often as much as just dusting the baddies.
The objective is not to “kill the wabbit,” the objective is to “overcome the challenge.” That can be done any darned way they choose.
Yep!
If the objective is “defeat the BBEG Evil Necromancer enslaving a town”, the party can fight him on his turf, convince the people to overthrow him themselves, destroy his secret phylactery, or even convince a dragon to do the work for them... I try to not ever pigeon hole the party into a solution, I let their characters decide how they want to do it. And the XP awards are based on whether they succeed, not whether they did it a specific way that I wanted.
Campaigns are much more fun to DM when you leave them open like this.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters.
Let me answer this with something that may sound strange. There is no such thing as a "non combat encounter." There is also no such thing as a "combat encounter."
An encounter is an obstacle in the path of the characters, something stopping them from getting what they want. Combat is merely one of the ways the characters can resolve the encounter. They could resolve it with negotiation, stealth, intimidation, deception, or any number of other ways.
If the characters successfully resolve the encounter then they should get XP, regardless of what method they used to resolve it.
Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters.
Let me answer this with something that may sound strange. There is no such thing as a "non combat encounter." There is also no such thing as a "combat encounter."
An encounter is an obstacle in the path of the characters, something stopping them from getting what they want. Combat is merely one of the ways the characters can resolve the encounter. They could resolve it with negotiation, stealth, intimidation, deception, or any number of other ways.
If the characters successfully resolve the encounter then they should get XP, regardless of what method they used to resolve it.
It should be noted that even if the GM planned for the encounter to involve combat, killing the bad guys isn't a requirement. If the PCs negotiated, bribed, sneaked past,or whatever the encounter they should still get exp.
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"............anybody got any potatoes? We could drop a potato in each hole an' see which ones get viciously mauled by horrible monsters?"
I use milestone XP. I set up goals or tasks for the PCs and they get XP for completing the task. Regardless of how it is done. If they want to murder-hobo their way through, they can do that. If they want to slick-talk their way through, they can do that. Or at least try, in both cases. The XP is granted for attaining goals, not for defeating monsters. Yes, defeating monsters often is part of the goal but if they can find another way to do it, more power to them.
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Characters should get rewards/advancement for accomplishments, period.
I'm on the "they solved the problem, how doesn't matter, they get the advancement reward", bandwagon.
I like awarding XP, because it's a number the Players can look at, track, and see going up as they accomplish things. Even if you're using milestones, you can convert them into XP equivalents.
Figuring out appropriate XP for social or stealth encounters can be tricky, though. It's best to just stick to the stock base rewards for Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly for their level, and ask yourself: how hard did the Party have to work at this? How much of a risk were they at? A 5th level Party with 4 Characters was caught inside the inner sanctum of the Temple, by the Guardian Paladins, and they managed to persuade, wheedle, lie, and perform their asses off, burning inspiration and luck to make themselves sound so believable and managed to talk their way out of being dispatched by the Temple guard? That's probably a Hard, if not Deadly encounter that they had to work their butts off to achieve. So - a Hard encounter for 4, 5th level Characters is 3,000XP, so that's what I would award them.
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I'm going to get emphatically opposed to a lot of what you just said - but I want to be clear that I'm reacting from my stylistic preferences. It is not my intention at all to say that the things I'm objecting to are objectively wrong, or that I think you should change how you do things, or that your Table is bad for doing them, or that I believe your preferences are a reflection on your character.
Clearly, if it works for you and your Players, then it works for you - and that's justification enough.
I agree that you don't need to reward Players - so trying to mold Player behavior by rewarding their Characters I think is a lost cause ( I didn't always think so ). So - XP rewards for things like role-playing, or building a backstory - I think these things are a mistake. I think we as DMs are better suited finding Players whose approach to the Game mirrors - or at least is compatible with - our own, than it is to try and shape Player preferences to what we want, by bribing them.
However, rewarding Characters still makes sense to me. Your point about the Characters neither noticing or needing rewards for behavior modification is well made. But if you practice something, you get better at it. That's not rewards per se, that's just cause and effect. Reward is perhaps a bad term here, since it's not what is really going on. What is happening is your Character is getting to be a better Fighter, or a better Caster, or develops a deeper relationship with their God or Patron, by practice and development. If they don't practice or develop those things, they don't get better. I do not believe that Characters should advance randomly or arbitrarily, or by the dramatic needs of the Narrative.
What you're describing is advancement by DM fiat. It's possible to do that well, and until I see evidence to the contrary I'll assume you are, but it is the Character advancement system which is the most susceptible to abuse. It is the advancement system that has the most disconnect between the Player and DM expectations, because it's completely subjective and arbitrary. I've seen more abjectly slothful DM'ing justified by that advancement system than any other. It's also the system I've seen more DMs embrace than any other, and it's the system I've seen the most Player complaints about. I suspect that many DMs love it simply because it's simple and zero effort. I suspect that the Players who dislike it hate the arbitrary nature of it. I suspect there's an element of that, even at your table, or it would not be "still a joke at the end of every game to be the first to ask if we get another level".
I both agree & disagree with "if a player is here to play the game, it should be for the sake of the game itself, not for some rewards doled out by one of his friends". I would agree, because I'd like this to be the case; I'd like to able to agree with this. But I don't think it is how gaming works for Humans. I disagree, partly because I think should is the most dangerous word in any Human languages, but mostly because it's pretty clear that's not how Human psychology actually seems to work.
If it was how gaming worked for Humans, then single player video games wouldn't have scores, and achievements ( badges and trophies ) on gaming platforms like Steam or PS4/5 wouldn't be so popular. Humans are status seeking social animals; scores and metrics matter to us. In a kinder, gentler world, the pure joy of the game would be all that there was ( and it's still a component, no argument there ), and all we would need, but it isn't that world and we like seeing our numbers go up. We like seeing progress. It's why gold stars on grade school childrens' homework assignments is effective. Humans are wired for concrete reward systems - we have structures in our brains evolved around that. It's why operant conditioning works on Humans, and why - even if you're not trying to use rewards to modify the Players' behaviors - they still like seeing incremental and concrete progress.
"it also allows the DM to keep us at a certain level or boost us up a bit if he feels that a specific power would be annoying (for example in case of a criminal investigation) or would be fun to have - or necessary - in a given scenario". I'm sorry - but I vehementlydisagree with the idea that the DM needs to manage the Party, and shepherd their options and decisions. I do not believe that a DM has any need ( or frankly right ) to decide ahead of time what the Party's options or tactics should be. I would not be a Player at the table of any DM who felt they need to suppress the Party's advancement, merely to make their design tasks easier - and if I couldn't build challenging scenarios and encounters around the Party's abilities at any time, then I wouldn't feel right DM'ing.
Of course, I think the central disconnect between my preferences and yours, is that you seem to embrace Story over Verisimilitude. That's neither right or wrong - it's merely personal priorities. You also seem to view the DM as having an elevated right to mold the Narrative. If you're trying to fish out the best story, and you view the DM as being the primary author and editor of that story, and so long as the Party has justifiable complete trust that the DM is considering their wants and preferences as well as their own, then this might work. I suspect this is the situation at your table.
Conversely, I would rather embrace Verisimilitude over Story - but just barely. I'm very interested in the Story, but as I see it I'm neither the author, nor the editor. It's not my story to mold. What I'm interested in is running a consistent, plausible, and reasonably predictable game world ( at a mechanics level ), and letting the Story be an emergent property of the interactions of the Players' choices within that framework - of which I'm one. I'm not interested in DM fiat, or the DM molding the Party's options and abilities to aim towards a story beat that has been predetermined as being desirable. I'm interested in discovering the emergent story beats along with Players. And I think that the more objective and concrete you can make the game, the closer you get to an objective consensus of how the story evolves. Clearly, it will never be a pure consensus; we still need an arbitrator of the rules, and someone to make judgment calls - but those calls can be based in the internal logic of the game world rather than on some authorial intent of the DM.
Since that's what I'm aiming for, a concrete, transparent, and objective advancement system makes the most sense - for me, and my table. It doesn't need to be rewards, but clear and objective-as-possible chain between Character actions and consequences, untrammeled as possible by DM subjectivity or personal Narrative preferences, is where I'm aimed.
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Obviously, the characters, being totally imaginary, don't need rewards and certainly do not feel them, so basically, you are Rewarding the players.
I'm very confused here. Are the players not RPing at all? Because it seems to me that reward should be a major in-character motivation for most PCs. Do the PCs in your game never try to collect on a bounty? Ask for rewards of treasure after helping the king get back his missing daughter? Argue over who gets to keep the +1 longsword?
It seems to me that if one is RPing one's character, such reward-based motivation ought to be present. Even in Champions, a game which has no classes, no races, no levels, and in which XP plays a very small role compared to D&D (at least the way my group played it), the heroes were still motivated by rewards: positive press, bystanders cheering when they show up, heck one group got the key to the city of Chicago after saving it from the Atomic Monster. Although the heroes would have saved the city regardless, the players certain RPed their characters' extreme pleasure at being recognized in such a way.
Assuming that your players are, in fact, RPing their characters, then what is the rationale for arguing that all the PCs care nothing for rewards? Are they all Franciscan monks who have taken vows of poverty and humility? I mean then maybe, I could see it. Otherwise, PCs should want rewards.
Now they don't have a meta understanding of what experience points are, but they surely understand that they have learned from this experience and gained from it. They know spells they didn't know before. They have wisdom they didn't have before. Surely even in everyday practice, we make statements like this. I have heard people say, they don't mind losing a game/match/etc. because they learned more from it. This is the real world analog of saying something like "Losing levels you up faster." And for people who want to learn and improve and hone their craft (whatever that craft may be), there is recognition that some experiences are much more valuable to that process of self-improvement than are other experiences.
Just yesterday, I concluded a 2-month-long summer workshop run by the faculty development group at my university. It was awful. They wasted my time on having me fill out a bunch of unnecessary paperwork that has nothing to do with whether I became a better teacher or not. All those 2 months, and I don't feel like I gained a single point of experience, in D&D terms. They made the mistake at the end of it, of asking for our feedback, and I wrote the equivalent of a couple of pages, explaining all the ways in which I did not value -- did not feel rewarded by -- the experience. All the things that should have been done differently, so that the experience would have been valuable to me.
Surely your PCs, again if you folks RP, should feel the same way. We define the sorts of gains I'm talking about in game terms by using "levels and experience points," but in live, we all gain valuable knowledge and insight every time we have a learning experience. And most of the time, we talk about these experiences in very similar terms to those in game. We just don't put numbers on them.
So the idea that somehow you don't need to use XP in a game because "the characters wouldn't care about it...." that's just because you're taking the experience points literally. No, they won't care about points, but they will recognize when they have had a valuable learning experience, and those trying to hone their skills and abilities to become better at what they do, will feel rewarded for such experiences. At least, as I say, if you are doing RP.
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I'm not going to go into recursive quotes - especially as I don't think we actually diverge that drastically - or at least you've convinced me that yours in an unusual setup that is entirely workable for you, but I'm skeptical as to whether your approach is applicable justlyto the majority of tables out there. I'll just react to a couple of points.
First - from your descriptions, I get the impression that you're doing it right. I did say it was possible to do it right. I just very seldom see it done right - or rather done for the right reasons. You're filling in a lot of the blanks correctly ( or at least in a way I can respect - since I don't think "correctly" has much meaning here ) with the fact that you've got a solid, long term, relationship of trust between your members. That's impressive. It's also not an option open to very many tables.
I agree that leveling up in D&D isn't optimal or very realistic. A lot of it doesn't make sense from a "real world" perspective, and I agree that in many way advancement systems like Runequest or Call of Cthulhu would be better real world analogues. It would be more realistic ( although not necessarily a better game ), if we could pull classes, and class advancement apart. There are whole discussions around that, I'm sure, regarding alternative mechanisms for leveling in D&D.
As for murder mysteries - I simply don't run them, past maybe introductory levels, because such adventures just don't make sense in the standard fantasy D&D setting. It doesn't make sense in the standard D&D setting any more that it would make sense to run a "travel across the American Midwest" adventure in a modern setting. That might be an interesting challenge if the game was set in the early 1800s, and you can give the Characters covered wagons, but it makes no sense in the 21st century. That doesn't mean I would prevent my Players' Characters from driving on the Highways, or taking aircraft flights, or otherwise "[twist] the world and the rules, arbitrarily". I think we agree there. Trying to twist the mechanics to force a bad fitting Narrative into a system and setting which doesn't support it, isn't the way to go. I just wouldn't run that type of Adventure; it's pointless.
But from my perspective, twisting the means of character advancement unilaterally, arbitrarily, and temporarily, to meet the DM's desires for the Narrative type is not any better. When you do so, it is absolutely the case that the "the DM shepherds their options or decisions". If the Characters would have option A in the upcoming Adventure that the DM has planned, the existence of that option would be inconvenient for the DM to deal with, and the DM deliberately arbitrarily and inconsistently retards the Characters' advancement to prevent the Characters from having that option, when in any other case they would advance those Characters, how is it anything else than managing the Party for the DM's convenience?
To me, the rules can be whatever the table agrees upon, and that can be anything; RAW is just a starting point. But I don't feel a DM has the right to arbitrarily change the rules under the Players, including the pace of advancement proportional to Character accomplishment, for purposes of DM convenience. Consistent Player effort should come with consistent - or at least explainable - advancement. DM fiat is arbitrary. RPGs are about making choices ( as your Character ), and meaningful choices are only possible when the rules are either consistent, or when everyone is at least aware of, and signs off on, the changes to the rules (usually that's not a problem, because the rules exist for a purpose: to produce a particular type of game experience, and if your group doesn't have a consensus on the desired game experience, you shouldn't be a group). The DM's power lies in running the most of the world, and making judgement calls where the rules are nebulous , open to interpretation, and need a human ruling to smooth out.
I don't think I'm "reading way too much about the DM's role here" - I'm stating that these are the implications behind allowing the DM to arbitrarily, temporarily, and unilaterally futz with the advancement mechanics, to serve the Narrative. Whether they exercise those powers are not, that arrangement gives them the potential to wield them. I agree it's "too much", so I am not comfortable with the DM arbitrarily, temporarily, and unilaterally futzing with the advancement mechanics.
An analogy struck me while I was trying to figure out where our perspectives differ.
It's like you're describing a village, or a small state, with an absolute monarch. There are traditions, but no hard codified Laws. All is left up the arbitrary wisdom of the ruler. That's a scenario which can work, if there can be absolute trust between the ruler and the citizens. If the citizens can accept that the application of the ruler's power will be inconsistent and arbitrary, but have absolute faith that the inconsistencies in the application of that power are being done - ultimately - with the well being of the citizens in mind, and that the ruler will never abuse their infinite arbitrary power for their own convenience or ends, then it's a viable system.
If that's the type of group you've managed to construct after knowing these people for 33 years, then that is very impressive, and I would judge you very fortunate for having that solid a relationship in your group. If it works for your group, then I think you have an admirable gaming group.
I also think that game groups like that are exceedingly rare. Given the age of most Campaigns, the fact that many groups are put together our of relative strangers, and the makeup of human nature, I think that most groups that adopt this form of governance - that is, ruling by DM fiat - quickly devolve into the RPG equivalent of a corrupt banana republic. I've seen innumerable examples of groups tearing themselves apart in just this fashion.
Conversely, what I'm describing is more akin to a constitutional & parliamentary monarchy. There is a body of codified Law, which all citizens - including the ruler - are subject to. Law is applied consistently over time ( unless the Law is changed ), and over all persons subject to it. The Law can be changed, but it must be changed by consensus of all affected by it. The ruler has executive power within the Law, to make rulings, especially when the Law is inconsistent or incomplete, but they can't just make up or alter Law arbitrarily, and the Laws need to be transparent to those subject to them. Such a framework, which is based on a covenant of consistent rules, rather then the benevolence and wisdom of a human autocrat, aren't perfect - but I think they're less likely to be unstable, and there is less potential for abuse in those groups whose executive isn't a Solomon like benevolent dictator. Ironically, if you do have a Solomon like benevolent dictator, then that form of autocracy is much more efficient. But the world is woefully short on Solomons these days.
I'd like to think I'd be a Solomon like benevolent dictator, and let's pretend that I am - but it really doesn't matter if am, or not. What matters is how I am perceived by the Players. All it takes is one disgruntled Player to suspect that I'm not playing fair with them, and dislike it, for the whole benevolent dictator DM fiat structure to come apart. They don't have to be right, they don't have to be reasonable, they may be totally self-serving and self-delusional because they don't like my ruling. It doesn't matter - that poisons the well. Working within the "constitutional & parliamentary monarchy" model insulates and protects the DM as much as the Players. If the rules are clear, transparent, consistent, and adaptable through consensus, no one can reasonably accuse the DM of being arbitrary and unfair.
Your way seems to work for your group, and I'm both impressed and a tad envious :) But I think yours is a minority situation.
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Can i ask, Do other DMs give XP to players for dealing with non combat encounters. For instance if your players deal with a non combat RP session exceptionally well, would you and what kind of XP would you award ?
If I would reward XP at all, I would definetely reward RP and non-combat encounters.
For me, a social encounter is still an encounter. And also sneaking, stealing, removing traps, all same level as combat.
However, I prefer milestone leveling.
I agree, if characters only get XP for combat players will have a tendency to metagame them into murderhobos so they will level up. If the party want to get into a bandit hideout, and notice the entrance is guarded, they can sneak around and look for a back way, try to convince the guards they on friendly terms, (looking to join, buy stolen goods or something), distract the guards and go in while they are diverted etc all of which is creative and probably what a basically good group would do. If all those options give 0 XP they party are likely to just go straight into battle.
Some of my players prefer the combat side of things which I understand. I do also when I am playing. However as my campaign start to get a little more involved rather than just "here's your next job, go" I feel rewarding them for well role played social interactions is going to make them want to do so more often and do well within them.
I switched over to milestone leveling based on completion of the story line. I do not have any players that need to be pushed to role play and this way no one has record the XP totals However, younger players I have found like it and gives them something to gauge their progress on.
And in the past, there would be XP for traps and story awards in some systems.One Pathfinder game had hardly any combat (about 20% of a level), but we kept getting story awards for doing smart or correct things. Those awards and the traps the thief disarmed caused us to go from 1st to 2nd.
And sometimes the story awards of XP can be done to nudge the players to do the "right" thing. One time I gave out bonus XP for the party members that had not stolen anything from a good priest. That ended up pushing half the party up a level and allowed them to show off. The other 2 got about 50 GP in items and a healing potion. The one who was almost a murder hobo toned down his murdering and thieving to try to get more XP from role playing when he saw that being good was rewarded.
Absolutely. I also do not use Inspiration, but instead awkward an additional 25XP/instance. I award XP for social encounters, puzzles, traps, finding clues, everything.
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Definitely. Typically, I’d award them Roughly what they would get from a standard combat of their level. And make sure to tell them that, so they will start thinking there is just as much reason to talk their way out of a situation as there is to fight. It helps them see adversaries as more than just a bag of xp they need to crack open.
Same here. I use XP because my campaigns are West-Marches style, so there’s lots of drop in and out. I award XP for avoiding encounters in unusual ways, often as much as just dusting the baddies.
The objective is not to “kill the wabbit,” the objective is to “overcome the challenge.” That can be done any darned way they choose.
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Yep!
If the objective is “defeat the BBEG Evil Necromancer enslaving a town”, the party can fight him on his turf, convince the people to overthrow him themselves, destroy his secret phylactery, or even convince a dragon to do the work for them... I try to not ever pigeon hole the party into a solution, I let their characters decide how they want to do it. And the XP awards are based on whether they succeed, not whether they did it a specific way that I wanted.
Campaigns are much more fun to DM when you leave them open like this.
NO! The goal is always to kill the Wabbit. Join the Paladins of Fudd to smite the vile Wabbit's existence from this plane.
Sure thing. PCs get experience for everything that advances the game.
"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
Let me answer this with something that may sound strange. There is no such thing as a "non combat encounter." There is also no such thing as a "combat encounter."
An encounter is an obstacle in the path of the characters, something stopping them from getting what they want. Combat is merely one of the ways the characters can resolve the encounter. They could resolve it with negotiation, stealth, intimidation, deception, or any number of other ways.
If the characters successfully resolve the encounter then they should get XP, regardless of what method they used to resolve it.
It should be noted that even if the GM planned for the encounter to involve combat, killing the bad guys isn't a requirement. If the PCs negotiated, bribed, sneaked past,or whatever the encounter they should still get exp.
"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 use milestone XP. I set up goals or tasks for the PCs and they get XP for completing the task. Regardless of how it is done. If they want to murder-hobo their way through, they can do that. If they want to slick-talk their way through, they can do that. Or at least try, in both cases. The XP is granted for attaining goals, not for defeating monsters. Yes, defeating monsters often is part of the goal but if they can find another way to do it, more power to them.
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.
Characters should get rewards/advancement for accomplishments, period.
I'm on the "they solved the problem, how doesn't matter, they get the advancement reward", bandwagon.
I like awarding XP, because it's a number the Players can look at, track, and see going up as they accomplish things. Even if you're using milestones, you can convert them into XP equivalents.
Figuring out appropriate XP for social or stealth encounters can be tricky, though. It's best to just stick to the stock base rewards for Easy, Medium, Hard, Deadly for their level, and ask yourself: how hard did the Party have to work at this? How much of a risk were they at? A 5th level Party with 4 Characters was caught inside the inner sanctum of the Temple, by the Guardian Paladins, and they managed to persuade, wheedle, lie, and perform their asses off, burning inspiration and luck to make themselves sound so believable and managed to talk their way out of being dispatched by the Temple guard? That's probably a Hard, if not Deadly encounter that they had to work their butts off to achieve. So - a Hard encounter for 4, 5th level Characters is 3,000XP, so that's what I would award them.
My DM Philosophy, as summed up by other people: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1rN5w4-azTq3Kbn0Yvk9nfqQhwQ1R5by1/view
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@Lyxen
I'm going to get emphatically opposed to a lot of what you just said - but I want to be clear that I'm reacting from my stylistic preferences. It is not my intention at all to say that the things I'm objecting to are objectively wrong, or that I think you should change how you do things, or that your Table is bad for doing them, or that I believe your preferences are a reflection on your character.
Clearly, if it works for you and your Players, then it works for you - and that's justification enough.
I agree that you don't need to reward Players - so trying to mold Player behavior by rewarding their Characters I think is a lost cause ( I didn't always think so ). So - XP rewards for things like role-playing, or building a backstory - I think these things are a mistake. I think we as DMs are better suited finding Players whose approach to the Game mirrors - or at least is compatible with - our own, than it is to try and shape Player preferences to what we want, by bribing them.
However, rewarding Characters still makes sense to me. Your point about the Characters neither noticing or needing rewards for behavior modification is well made. But if you practice something, you get better at it. That's not rewards per se, that's just cause and effect. Reward is perhaps a bad term here, since it's not what is really going on. What is happening is your Character is getting to be a better Fighter, or a better Caster, or develops a deeper relationship with their God or Patron, by practice and development. If they don't practice or develop those things, they don't get better. I do not believe that Characters should advance randomly or arbitrarily, or by the dramatic needs of the Narrative.
What you're describing is advancement by DM fiat. It's possible to do that well, and until I see evidence to the contrary I'll assume you are, but it is the Character advancement system which is the most susceptible to abuse. It is the advancement system that has the most disconnect between the Player and DM expectations, because it's completely subjective and arbitrary. I've seen more abjectly slothful DM'ing justified by that advancement system than any other. It's also the system I've seen more DMs embrace than any other, and it's the system I've seen the most Player complaints about. I suspect that many DMs love it simply because it's simple and zero effort. I suspect that the Players who dislike it hate the arbitrary nature of it. I suspect there's an element of that, even at your table, or it would not be "still a joke at the end of every game to be the first to ask if we get another level".
I both agree & disagree with "if a player is here to play the game, it should be for the sake of the game itself, not for some rewards doled out by one of his friends". I would agree, because I'd like this to be the case; I'd like to able to agree with this. But I don't think it is how gaming works for Humans. I disagree, partly because I think should is the most dangerous word in any Human languages, but mostly because it's pretty clear that's not how Human psychology actually seems to work.
If it was how gaming worked for Humans, then single player video games wouldn't have scores, and achievements ( badges and trophies ) on gaming platforms like Steam or PS4/5 wouldn't be so popular. Humans are status seeking social animals; scores and metrics matter to us. In a kinder, gentler world, the pure joy of the game would be all that there was ( and it's still a component, no argument there ), and all we would need, but it isn't that world and we like seeing our numbers go up. We like seeing progress. It's why gold stars on grade school childrens' homework assignments is effective. Humans are wired for concrete reward systems - we have structures in our brains evolved around that. It's why operant conditioning works on Humans, and why - even if you're not trying to use rewards to modify the Players' behaviors - they still like seeing incremental and concrete progress.
"it also allows the DM to keep us at a certain level or boost us up a bit if he feels that a specific power would be annoying (for example in case of a criminal investigation) or would be fun to have - or necessary - in a given scenario". I'm sorry - but I vehemently disagree with the idea that the DM needs to manage the Party, and shepherd their options and decisions. I do not believe that a DM has any need ( or frankly right ) to decide ahead of time what the Party's options or tactics should be. I would not be a Player at the table of any DM who felt they need to suppress the Party's advancement, merely to make their design tasks easier - and if I couldn't build challenging scenarios and encounters around the Party's abilities at any time, then I wouldn't feel right DM'ing.
Of course, I think the central disconnect between my preferences and yours, is that you seem to embrace Story over Verisimilitude. That's neither right or wrong - it's merely personal priorities. You also seem to view the DM as having an elevated right to mold the Narrative. If you're trying to fish out the best story, and you view the DM as being the primary author and editor of that story, and so long as the Party has justifiable complete trust that the DM is considering their wants and preferences as well as their own, then this might work. I suspect this is the situation at your table.
Conversely, I would rather embrace Verisimilitude over Story - but just barely. I'm very interested in the Story, but as I see it I'm neither the author, nor the editor. It's not my story to mold. What I'm interested in is running a consistent, plausible, and reasonably predictable game world ( at a mechanics level ), and letting the Story be an emergent property of the interactions of the Players' choices within that framework - of which I'm one. I'm not interested in DM fiat, or the DM molding the Party's options and abilities to aim towards a story beat that has been predetermined as being desirable. I'm interested in discovering the emergent story beats along with Players. And I think that the more objective and concrete you can make the game, the closer you get to an objective consensus of how the story evolves. Clearly, it will never be a pure consensus; we still need an arbitrator of the rules, and someone to make judgment calls - but those calls can be based in the internal logic of the game world rather than on some authorial intent of the DM.
Since that's what I'm aiming for, a concrete, transparent, and objective advancement system makes the most sense - for me, and my table. It doesn't need to be rewards, but clear and objective-as-possible chain between Character actions and consequences, untrammeled as possible by DM subjectivity or personal Narrative preferences, is where I'm aimed.
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'm very confused here. Are the players not RPing at all? Because it seems to me that reward should be a major in-character motivation for most PCs. Do the PCs in your game never try to collect on a bounty? Ask for rewards of treasure after helping the king get back his missing daughter? Argue over who gets to keep the +1 longsword?
It seems to me that if one is RPing one's character, such reward-based motivation ought to be present. Even in Champions, a game which has no classes, no races, no levels, and in which XP plays a very small role compared to D&D (at least the way my group played it), the heroes were still motivated by rewards: positive press, bystanders cheering when they show up, heck one group got the key to the city of Chicago after saving it from the Atomic Monster. Although the heroes would have saved the city regardless, the players certain RPed their characters' extreme pleasure at being recognized in such a way.
Assuming that your players are, in fact, RPing their characters, then what is the rationale for arguing that all the PCs care nothing for rewards? Are they all Franciscan monks who have taken vows of poverty and humility? I mean then maybe, I could see it. Otherwise, PCs should want rewards.
Now they don't have a meta understanding of what experience points are, but they surely understand that they have learned from this experience and gained from it. They know spells they didn't know before. They have wisdom they didn't have before. Surely even in everyday practice, we make statements like this. I have heard people say, they don't mind losing a game/match/etc. because they learned more from it. This is the real world analog of saying something like "Losing levels you up faster." And for people who want to learn and improve and hone their craft (whatever that craft may be), there is recognition that some experiences are much more valuable to that process of self-improvement than are other experiences.
Just yesterday, I concluded a 2-month-long summer workshop run by the faculty development group at my university. It was awful. They wasted my time on having me fill out a bunch of unnecessary paperwork that has nothing to do with whether I became a better teacher or not. All those 2 months, and I don't feel like I gained a single point of experience, in D&D terms. They made the mistake at the end of it, of asking for our feedback, and I wrote the equivalent of a couple of pages, explaining all the ways in which I did not value -- did not feel rewarded by -- the experience. All the things that should have been done differently, so that the experience would have been valuable to me.
Surely your PCs, again if you folks RP, should feel the same way. We define the sorts of gains I'm talking about in game terms by using "levels and experience points," but in live, we all gain valuable knowledge and insight every time we have a learning experience. And most of the time, we talk about these experiences in very similar terms to those in game. We just don't put numbers on them.
So the idea that somehow you don't need to use XP in a game because "the characters wouldn't care about it...." that's just because you're taking the experience points literally. No, they won't care about points, but they will recognize when they have had a valuable learning experience, and those trying to hone their skills and abilities to become better at what they do, will feel rewarded for such experiences. At least, as I say, if you are doing RP.
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.
@Lyxen
I'm not going to go into recursive quotes - especially as I don't think we actually diverge that drastically - or at least you've convinced me that yours in an unusual setup that is entirely workable for you, but I'm skeptical as to whether your approach is applicable justly to the majority of tables out there. I'll just react to a couple of points.
First - from your descriptions, I get the impression that you're doing it right. I did say it was possible to do it right. I just very seldom see it done right - or rather done for the right reasons. You're filling in a lot of the blanks correctly ( or at least in a way I can respect - since I don't think "correctly" has much meaning here ) with the fact that you've got a solid, long term, relationship of trust between your members. That's impressive. It's also not an option open to very many tables.
I agree that leveling up in D&D isn't optimal or very realistic. A lot of it doesn't make sense from a "real world" perspective, and I agree that in many way advancement systems like Runequest or Call of Cthulhu would be better real world analogues. It would be more realistic ( although not necessarily a better game ), if we could pull classes, and class advancement apart. There are whole discussions around that, I'm sure, regarding alternative mechanisms for leveling in D&D.
As for murder mysteries - I simply don't run them, past maybe introductory levels, because such adventures just don't make sense in the standard fantasy D&D setting. It doesn't make sense in the standard D&D setting any more that it would make sense to run a "travel across the American Midwest" adventure in a modern setting. That might be an interesting challenge if the game was set in the early 1800s, and you can give the Characters covered wagons, but it makes no sense in the 21st century. That doesn't mean I would prevent my Players' Characters from driving on the Highways, or taking aircraft flights, or otherwise "[twist] the world and the rules, arbitrarily". I think we agree there. Trying to twist the mechanics to force a bad fitting Narrative into a system and setting which doesn't support it, isn't the way to go. I just wouldn't run that type of Adventure; it's pointless.
But from my perspective, twisting the means of character advancement unilaterally, arbitrarily, and temporarily, to meet the DM's desires for the Narrative type is not any better. When you do so, it is absolutely the case that the "the DM shepherds their options or decisions". If the Characters would have option A in the upcoming Adventure that the DM has planned, the existence of that option would be inconvenient for the DM to deal with, and the DM deliberately arbitrarily and inconsistently retards the Characters' advancement to prevent the Characters from having that option, when in any other case they would advance those Characters, how is it anything else than managing the Party for the DM's convenience?
To me, the rules can be whatever the table agrees upon, and that can be anything; RAW is just a starting point. But I don't feel a DM has the right to arbitrarily change the rules under the Players, including the pace of advancement proportional to Character accomplishment, for purposes of DM convenience. Consistent Player effort should come with consistent - or at least explainable - advancement. DM fiat is arbitrary. RPGs are about making choices ( as your Character ), and meaningful choices are only possible when the rules are either consistent, or when everyone is at least aware of, and signs off on, the changes to the rules (usually that's not a problem, because the rules exist for a purpose: to produce a particular type of game experience, and if your group doesn't have a consensus on the desired game experience, you shouldn't be a group). The DM's power lies in running the most of the world, and making judgement calls where the rules are nebulous , open to interpretation, and need a human ruling to smooth out.
I don't think I'm "reading way too much about the DM's role here" - I'm stating that these are the implications behind allowing the DM to arbitrarily, temporarily, and unilaterally futz with the advancement mechanics, to serve the Narrative. Whether they exercise those powers are not, that arrangement gives them the potential to wield them. I agree it's "too much", so I am not comfortable with the DM arbitrarily, temporarily, and unilaterally futzing with the advancement mechanics.
An analogy struck me while I was trying to figure out where our perspectives differ.
It's like you're describing a village, or a small state, with an absolute monarch. There are traditions, but no hard codified Laws. All is left up the arbitrary wisdom of the ruler. That's a scenario which can work, if there can be absolute trust between the ruler and the citizens. If the citizens can accept that the application of the ruler's power will be inconsistent and arbitrary, but have absolute faith that the inconsistencies in the application of that power are being done - ultimately - with the well being of the citizens in mind, and that the ruler will never abuse their infinite arbitrary power for their own convenience or ends, then it's a viable system.
If that's the type of group you've managed to construct after knowing these people for 33 years, then that is very impressive, and I would judge you very fortunate for having that solid a relationship in your group. If it works for your group, then I think you have an admirable gaming group.
I also think that game groups like that are exceedingly rare. Given the age of most Campaigns, the fact that many groups are put together our of relative strangers, and the makeup of human nature, I think that most groups that adopt this form of governance - that is, ruling by DM fiat - quickly devolve into the RPG equivalent of a corrupt banana republic. I've seen innumerable examples of groups tearing themselves apart in just this fashion.
Conversely, what I'm describing is more akin to a constitutional & parliamentary monarchy. There is a body of codified Law, which all citizens - including the ruler - are subject to. Law is applied consistently over time ( unless the Law is changed ), and over all persons subject to it. The Law can be changed, but it must be changed by consensus of all affected by it. The ruler has executive power within the Law, to make rulings, especially when the Law is inconsistent or incomplete, but they can't just make up or alter Law arbitrarily, and the Laws need to be transparent to those subject to them. Such a framework, which is based on a covenant of consistent rules, rather then the benevolence and wisdom of a human autocrat, aren't perfect - but I think they're less likely to be unstable, and there is less potential for abuse in those groups whose executive isn't a Solomon like benevolent dictator. Ironically, if you do have a Solomon like benevolent dictator, then that form of autocracy is much more efficient. But the world is woefully short on Solomons these days.
I'd like to think I'd be a Solomon like benevolent dictator, and let's pretend that I am - but it really doesn't matter if am, or not. What matters is how I am perceived by the Players. All it takes is one disgruntled Player to suspect that I'm not playing fair with them, and dislike it, for the whole benevolent dictator DM fiat structure to come apart. They don't have to be right, they don't have to be reasonable, they may be totally self-serving and self-delusional because they don't like my ruling. It doesn't matter - that poisons the well. Working within the "constitutional & parliamentary monarchy" model insulates and protects the DM as much as the Players. If the rules are clear, transparent, consistent, and adaptable through consensus, no one can reasonably accuse the DM of being arbitrary and unfair.
Your way seems to work for your group, and I'm both impressed and a tad envious :) But I think yours is a minority situation.
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'm pretty sure that's the longest thing I've seen written on these forums.
Sorry, just saying.
"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?"
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