Quote from: jhkim;814473OK, that's your preference. As a player, I don't want to be graded on my gameplay - any more than I want to be graded by drinking buddies for how much I'm contributing to the fun of the party, or graded for my contributions to a communal project. I have fun playing and doing things for their own sake. Getting a good grade from a GM with this attitude is an anti-motivator for me, if anything.

I see XP mainly as a way to change things up, not a mark of how good a player someone is. I usually cringe when a player beams with accomplishment at their 15th level wizard or similar, because it seems like a very poor measure.

That said, there are of course many other ways to change things up / pace your game, so XP are not necessary. In the longest campaign I've played in, a Call of Cthulhu campaign, we haven't been doing experience checks at all.

OK, that's your preference.



I suppose if we all did this the threads would just be too short and insufficiently contentious.

^It can be educational to see why people have certain preferences compared to other ones at least.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;814554^It can be educational to see why people have certain preferences compared to other ones at least.

It can, in the same way that knowing my friend likes very hoppy beers and that I don't tells me that we will sometimes prefer to drink different beers. But framing preferences in leisure activity as some bigger philosophical issue of egalitarianism, fairness, promoting friendship, inclusivity or whatever other reason someone wants to use to justify why their preference in XP systems is morally or philosophically better is just idiotic twaddle.

Just tell me what you like. Don’t bother trying to justify why you like what you like. Almost every choice or preference in gaming is simply a matter of taste, not of morality.

I mean this as a general comment. It is not directed solely at jhkim, his post just provided a convenient vehicle for my comment.


mAcular Chaotic, the juxtaposition of your post and the last line of your sig is kind of funny.

Quote from: Bren;814557Just tell me what you like. Don't bother trying to justify why you like what you like. Almost every choice or preference in gaming is simply a matter of taste, not of morality.

(not talking about jhkim here, more in general)

Yet I get a LOT of shit for "we made up some shit we thought would be fun."  I've had people badgering me about "why did we think it fun"?

Well, you know what, we didn't talk about it!  Somebody would come up with an idea and say "Hey, you know what would be cool?  Call this brown critter a Rust Monster and when it hits you your armor rusts away!"  And people would say "COOL!" or "SHITTY!" and the idea would either be incorporated or not.

Gary liked polearms.  No shit.  Why?  Never asked, he never said, and I bet a beer the answer would have been "because."

We simply didn't engage in the intensive navel-gazing that seems to be common in some parts.

Of course, this is also influenced by the fact that "Greyhawk," as proto-D&D was called in Lake Geneva, was only one of a myriad of games we were playing.  When in the course of a month you play "Greyhawk" three or four times, two TRACTICS WW2 battles, a CHAINMAIL fantasy miniatures battle, a Civil War battle, Milton Bradley's STRATEGO, and a game or two of Afrika Korps by Avalon Hill, things look different.

Oh, yeah I forgot a couple playtest sessions of "Boot Hill" too.  Yes, that's right, Gary was writing Boot Hill AS HE WAS ALSO WRITING D&D.

Quote from: Old Geezer;814207Okay, he's a first level half-dragon Klingon.  Since he's part Klingon he gets a +1 to his CON roll.  As a half-dragon at first level he can breathe fire with a range of ten feet one time a day for 1-6 points of damage, one target only.

We have a core of about 4 people who always show up and a handful of players who come and go. What we have done is the core group just plays all the characters when the intermittent players are not present. Really not that hard for someone to play 2 characters at one time. XP is awarded based on what happened during the session and is split per normal rules. The two "advantages" to showing up every session are you get to make the choices as to what the party does and get first pick of any treasure that the party gets that session. This solves the problem for our group fine.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;814554^It can be educational to see why people have certain preferences compared to other ones at least.

Yeah, my take too.  Heck, I spend a lot of time and trouble arguing why I think the way I do.  Sometimes I agree that things are matters of preference, and no harm no foul either way, much of the time I argue why I'm right and those who disagree with me aren't.

And sure, I know I seldom convince anyone of anything, just like all of you seldom convince me of anything.  But Bren's right: this'd be a pretty boring board if we didn't rant on.

Well, even convincing someone of the other side isn't necessarily the most beneficial part. By arguing your case, you become more familiar with the reasons that you hold your position, and become familiar with alternative viewpoints as well.

Quote from: Old Geezer;814173You're taking a hypothetical and turning it into a catastrophe.  Do you actually have a point or are you merely wallowing in theoretical angst?

This thread started off about intermittent players; if you turn into an intermittent GM when the players take you up on promised freedom, then maybe you need to recognize that "any of which the players can choose or not choose to take" is a hollow boast. If the intermittent GM isn't bad, then why should anyone worry about the intermittent player?

Quote from: jgants;814234I think that's a dumb way to look at things.

If you offer the players freedom and then penalize them for taking it by cancelling the session, a penalty that isn't even comprehensible to the characters, that's dumb. There are plenty of penalties available that make sense in the game world if you want to discourage them.

Without any indication of why the players decide to head to the Isles of Langerhans (hormonal imbalance, probably) instead of taking the existing adventuring opportunities, I guess I can't say anything more.

QuoteWhat is the alternative, exactly?

I'll stand by my original suggestion of having easily repurposed challenges available; any new direction is probably going to be distant enough or uncertain enough that the players shouldn't expect to get into it without running a gauntlet of likely hazards, enough for one game session. And that easy-to-improvise initial barrier may discourage both players and characters in a sensible way. If you make possible a new direction that's easy to take up and don't prepare even one session of it, that's on you as a DM.

Quote from: Will;814174I think what Rawma is saying is that he wants to play a half-dragon klingon.

Quote from: Old Geezer;814207Okay, he's a first level half-dragon Klingon.  Since he's part Klingon he gets a +1 to his CON roll.  As a half-dragon at first level he can breathe fire with a range of ten feet one time a day for 1-6 points of damage, one target only.

Your paltry bribes will not sway me from principled defense of the freedom of sandbox campaigns from being befouled by the stray cats of almost-semi-railroading! :rant:

But replace Klingon with green Barsoomian, throw on wings for short range flight and then I'm good. :cool:

Quote from: rawma;814599This thread started off about intermittent players; if you turn into an intermittent GM when the players take you up on promised freedom, then maybe you need to recognize that "any of which the players can choose or not choose to take" is a hollow boast. If the intermittent GM isn't bad, then why should anyone worry about the intermittent player?

I would point out that if you read this thread carefully I have never said that an intermittent player is a problem.  If they are present they play, if they are not they do not.  Easy peasy.

However, your mindless blather about intermittent GM and hollow boasts is simply inane and has nothing to do with anything.

Quote from: rawma;814599If you offer the players freedom and then penalize them for taking it by cancelling the session, a penalty that isn't even comprehensible to the characters, that's dumb. There are plenty of penalties available that make sense in the game world if you want to discourage them.

I don't think Old Geezer or I were saying anything about penalizing the group for not following an adventure hook. Not getting to play for a couple of weeks isn't a penalty, it's just something that happens.

Having to push back a session or two of the campaign isn't to dick around the players, it's because as DM I need time to plan out adventures for the new location.

I can't whip up an interesting dungeon to explore or a cool villain with a plot in motion or a whole host of interesting NPCs out of my ass, I spend weeks planning that kind of stuff so the game flows smoothly when we have it. I don't like making stuff up on the fly so I don't do that.

Otherwise, a whole lot of the game session would be everyone sitting around waiting while I have to look stuff up, roll on charts, etc. That won't be fun for me or the players.

I create the typical sandbox for the PCs to interact with. If they want to step outside the sandbox, I'm going to need more time to create more things. Just because there might be a delay in moving forward with the new direction doesn't make it railroading. Sometimes you just have to wait for what you want.

Quote from: jgants;814697I don't think Old Geezer or I were saying anything about penalizing the group for not following an adventure hook. Not getting to play for a couple of weeks isn't a penalty, it's just something that happens.

Well, that's the problem: neither of you is recognizing that this is a penalty or cost to at least some players. For them, it's a cost they can avoid by taking on what you've already prepared; they may even be fine with paying it in order to pursue something else that really interests them. But some of those players may have been discouraged from exploring off the path because of that cost.

I recognize that suspending for further preparation can be necessary despite my best effort to avoid it. The distance and routine dangers I have prepared thinking it will keep the players from an unprepared location until I can prepare, doesn't always work.

QuoteHaving to push back a session or two of the campaign isn't to dick around the players

Given Old Geezer's usual style of posting, he might view that as an added benefit. But he's probably nicer to his players than to this forum.

The "monolithic party" game form is what basically makes this an issue, but i.m.e. it's not a big one in TSR-era D&D because of the rough doubling of xp totals per level up to 'name'.

One thing we did back in the day was use the Arduin Grimoire III hp system. That gave a lot more at 1st and much slower gains, so the ratios for character levels were a lot smaller. (Monsters stayed the same.) Hackmaster gave a 'kicker' (to monsters as well), which accomplishes the same kind of thing.

Quote from: rawma;814729Given Old Geezer's usual style of posting, he might view that as an added benefit. But he's probably nicer to his players than to this forum.

That's because I play with people who can actually read.

You've turned "none of the players want to do any of the things I have ready so I need time to get something else ready" into "arbitrarily cancelling the game just to make players unhappy."

Which says nothing about gaming, or about my game, but says a lot about you.

Quote from: Old Geezer;814778Which says nothing about gaming, or about my game, but says a lot about you.

Your defensiveness, even in the face of a joke, says more about you than I needed to know.