Quote from: Emperor Norton;811955Actually, going back to Far Cry 3 and the planning and recon stuff, you could probably take some cues from that:

Taking over an outpost awarded 500xp. Having no alarms go off gave you gave you an extra 50xp. Taking over an outpost without being spotted, which required all the legwork and planning gave 1500xp.

I don't know anything about Far Cry but I think there is a flaw in this example  as it suggests earning the virtually currency XP is a stronger pull than  actual gameplay (which in fairness is probably true in MMOs). I am pretty sure no one has ever gone to the game shop thinking "Man, Imma gonna earn so much XP in this game!". I expect most people will be anticipating all the cool they will get to do, the definition of cool being something that varies from person to person.

Some people like clever and careful, that's cool. But if I am not one of those people, then what we're saying is I could play the game the way I want, go in Arnie style, mow everything in sight down grinning like a maniac  and earn less XP or I could play like my grandma and earn more XP.

Now if XP were real, hard cash, the stuff I can spend in the shops I can see why one might hesitate. But that given the only value XP have is that enrich the game experience the whole thing starts  a little twisted. It comes down to rewarding players with virtual currency for not playing the game they way they want to.

The rational thing to do is for the clever and careful player to buy Far Cry 3 and for the impulsive and daring players to play something else.

PS:
To be clear, the basic approach outlined in the Far Cry example is absolutely fine, giving more XP for solving problems in the more genre appropriate way is cool but in the end it remains the player's choice which way to proceed and I don't think the lure of more sweet, sweet XP would sway me from what I might consider more fun because XP without fun are pretty worthless.

Quote from: Soylent Green;812027I am pretty sure no one has ever gone to the game shop thinking "Man, Imma gonna earn so much XP in this game!".

A game shop, no.

A game, yes.  We still deliberately go on outdoor adventures in the mountains in OD&D when we're after serious XP.

Hell, even in dungeon adventures we do that.  Lower levels = better loot = bigger XP haul.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;812021Maybe you should just award EXP for gold only like AD&D.

I thought of doing that myself for 5E. Or does that break the system?

Or disassociate levelling from XP altogether, and level when the GM says so.

I would just start tossing out XP for clever plans. And the fun part is that if they start realizing that clever plans = more xp + less hp loss meaning more possible adventuring per day, then it starts getting really heavy in the amount of extra XP they can earn.

Just really make sure that you make it obvious that is why they are getting it. Say "Ok, you get 500 xp for overcoming the challenge, and oh, take another 500 for coming up with a good plan to do it."

(If you don't want to speed up leveling, just make the challenges worth less, then make them worth about the same as they would be otherwise if they finished them cleverly).

Also be up front about this.

Some of the 'teach your players' stuff comes across as really patronizing to players.

http://www.madadventurers.com/angry-rants-lazy-dms-and-non-experience-systems/

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;811440It wasn't a case of "well we know how to do an in-depth city campaign, we just prefer not to do that" or "we prefer not to subvert the trope of the dungeon by investigating contacts, etc" they were smart people, their brains just weren't going there, they were in "D&D Mode".  Once they found out experientially that they didn't have to be, the whole thing broke open.

Having someone guide them at first is super helpful.  Trying to get a bunch of people who think "RPG = dungeon bash" to do a political city campaign can be pretty difficult.  If they're used to "problem = fight" (and yeah, I know that's a misconception of dungeon crawls, forgive this for the purpose of the example), then they're not going to understand the likely consequences of their actions, etc.

Trying to learn a new mode of play, when you're already immersed in a particular mode of play, without someone to kind of show you the ropes is almost always a frustrating and counter-productive experience.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;812021Maybe you should just award EXP for gold only like AD&D.

I thought of doing that myself for 5E. Or does that break the system?

The only difficulty is if the game you intend is based on a certain income (gold spent on buying or making magic items or whatever) and that amount of gold doesn't match the XP you want. You could fix that (if you know the amounts of gold and XP you want) by adjusting the ratio of XP earned per gold piece.

I played in a game where only copper gave XP, so a treasure could be worth the same and have different amounts of XP. I think the DM only did it to mess with people (you had to carry the copper home if you wanted the XP) and with the idea from OD&D that XP equaled treasure; I was not aware of any in-game rationale.

Quote from: Kiero;812030Or disassociate levelling from XP altogether, and level when the GM says so.

This gets my vote. The way D&D's leveling works is fairly silly and arbitrary anyway; my PC goes to bed at one level with all his regular skills and abilities and wakes up the next morning suddenly able to make an extra attack/round, use new abilities, cast new spells and/or possibly have a neat new trick or two from a feat.

Why not take the process to its logical conclusion and just have everyone level up when the DM feels it's appropriate? It saves her/him prep time and effort in figuring out how much to award for non-combat gains and spares everyone else the bother of having another bloody number to keep track of.

To be clear, I don't think this should be the universal approach. In Earthdawn, f'rex, Legend Points actually serve a purpose in that they're essentially the currency one uses to improve one's character. In D&D, though, it's just an arbitrary number used to gauge theoretical progress toward the next level. My group's just been leveling up when the DM tells us to for a few years now and no one has felt the loss of tracking XP (least of all her brother and myself, who are the veteran players at the table). Hell, for all I know she actually is keeping track of it and telling us to level when the rules say so. From the outside, it's impossible to mark a distinction.

I like leveling when the GM (subject to some consensus) feels right.
And that is driven, to some extent, by the actions of the players in 'achieving stuff.'

I DO like players to articulate goals, to help get a sense of how things are progressing. (Even in sandbox, 'I want to kill that fucking hob warlord' can be a perfectly serviceable goal)


In a more traditionalist style, I prefer to give XP per dungeon/adventure, and add various subgoals.
So, for example, 'if the party acquires the sixteen gems of Arbalest in the lowest room of the Tomb of the Dour Arbalestine King, they get BLA XP. There's also a secret tome, the Tomb Tome of Toombs, that is worth BLER XP. IF they manage to rescue the villagers, that's another GORT XP.'

And then have at it.

Quote from: woodsmoke;812137Why not take the process to its logical conclusion and just have everyone level up when the DM feels it's appropriate? It saves her/him prep time and effort in figuring out how much to award for non-combat gains and spares everyone else the bother of having another bloody number to keep track of.

I'd prefer that too... with a general preference for it to happen during down time between adventures... say we've returned to town with loot, sought training and repair and whatever... come out shiny, new and improved.
Much less jarring than the sudden beam of light, mid battle and one guy's stats shoot up.

QuoteIn Earthdawn, f'rex, Legend Points actually serve a purpose in that they're essentially the currency one uses to improve one's character.

The whole time I was playing Earthdawn, several years, I saw maybe two Legend points spent. Not sure why... but they seemed like a last resort sort of thing.

Yeah (bonus) XP-per-event is perfectly serviceable too, and it works more or less perfectly whether you're running a game like D&D with an all-at-once leveling system or a more granular skill-based system like Star Wars or 7th Sea (or pseudo-skill-based like Earthdawn).

It also maintains the benefit of making the DM's job easier, which is something I always want to do as best I reasonably can as a player.

Quote from: Simlasa;812142I'd prefer that too... with a general preference for it to happen during down time between adventures... say we've returned to town with loot, sought training and repair and whatever... come out shiny, new and improved.
Much less jarring than the sudden beam of light, mid battle and one guy's stats shoot up.

Yeah, that's how we handle it. Works well enough for me.

Quote from: SimlasaThe whole time I was playing Earthdawn, several years, I saw maybe two Legend points spent. Not sure why... but they seemed like a last resort sort of thing.

...how did people improve their skills and talents and level their characters? Or did 3e/Classic change the way that works? As I recall, in first and second edition, you'd spend legend points to purchase new ranks and improve your abilities, which is how your character increased circles.

Quote from: Simlasa;812142I'd prefer that too... with a general preference for it to happen during down time between adventures... say we've returned to town with loot, sought training and repair and whatever... come out shiny, new and improved.
Much less jarring than the sudden beam of light, mid battle and one guy's stats shoot up.

Yeah, that's how we handle it. Works well enough for me.

Quote from: SimlasaThe whole time I was playing Earthdawn, several years, I saw maybe two Legend points spent. Not sure why... but they seemed like a last resort sort of thing.

...how did people improve their skills and talents and level their characters? Or did 3e/Classic change the way that works? As I recall, in first and second edition, you'd spend legend points to purchase new ranks and improve your abilities, which is how your character increased circles.

I can't remember ever playing D&D where XP was awarded earlier than at the end of the adventure - when the party got home or at least to a safe place where they could rest up - and we always assumed that it took weeks to gain the new level's abilities. (Is it just a long rest now, like recovering HP and spells?)

Leveling up in the middle of battle sounds like a dumb video game thing, but that doesn't mean the only alternative is for the GM to decide leveling without even tracking XP.

Quote from: dbm;812020Serious question: How would you model this in DnD where a tough guard probably has 50hp?

In my experience this is one of the big limits of the game when compared to games with more simulation its combat like GURPS, Runequest or even Rolemaster.

Interesting you should mention GURPS in this context, because GURPS has an extremely NON-granular XP system compared to many a game system.  

For those of you unfamiliar, the guidelines given in GURPS 3rd are, per session:

+1-3 pts, for good roleplaying;
-1-5 pts, for poor roleplaying;
+2-4 pts, for successful completion of a mission;
-1-2 pts, for partial failure of a mission or significant setbacks in a multi-session adventure;
-4-5 pts, for disastrous failure of a mission;
+1 pt, for a clever action or solution to a specific problem, in character, per action.

The recommendation is for 2-3 pts/session on the average, never to go below zero, never to go above five.

A similar system could be bolted on to any game system which hands out XP, D&D included.  Just decide how much XP constitutes a good day of play, a great day of play, or a rotten day of play, and work the percentages from there.  That way, you don't have to worry at all how much XP to hand out for a tough guard as opposed to a not-so-tough guard as opposed to a tough guard who was drunk, as opposed to ...