Quote from: Bren;784726Well here's one explanation. Some people see experience awards as being related to what the character actually does or experiences in the game world rather than as some metagame pacing mechanic. Since in a given adventure different characters will do or experience different things - I would say that is an obvious axiom really, it is unlikely that they will or should each always gain the exact same experience. By giving them the exact same experience each time you are unfairly awarding extra experience to the character who did and experienced relatively little on the adventure while unfairly taking away experience from the character who did or experienced a lot on the adventure so as to arrive at some middle of the road experience award for everyone in the group.

I'm kind of schocked that I had to actually type all that out given how obvious the point seems.

Yes, that is obvious (although it's rarely used in games like D&D which tend so simply share experience out among the party - it's more common in games like Rolemaster or Runequest where characters gain experience independently from each other and experience is tied to specific actions). But that wasn't what Beagle and I were talking about.

Beagle wasn't talking about different characters experiencing different things and therefore getting different amounts of experience.

He wasn't talking about characters at all.

He was talking about some players having their characters do things that he considered "awesome" and some not - and basing the amount of experience the characters get on how "awesome" he found those actions (although he initially worded it as some players "trying harder" to try to mask the blatant subjective favouritism inherent in what he's doing).

And specifically he was strongly implying that not varying experience by how "awesome" the player is is unfair to the "awesome" players because they aren't properly rewarded over and above the mundane players for being more "awesome".

That's what I was asking him to explain. How showing a lack of such favouritism can be considered "unfair".

It has nothing to do with different characters having different experiences and everything to do with him wanting to reward players who do things that he prefers, and characterising anyone who doesn't do that as "weak" for wanting to "avoid potential conflicts". Rather than, you know, simply not wanting to play favourites in the first place.

Quote from: Will;784732I have liked very direct 'reward by doing' systems, like BRP.
You use a skill? Check it. At the end of the session, go through every skill that's checked and roll against it. If you fail, you gain points in the skill.
This sets up a dynamic where you are encouraged to try different things, and there's diminishing returns as you get better, it's hard to improve.
More importantly, IMO, it doesn't involve any real judgment calls to determine if someone is doing it 'right.'

Notably, though, BRP isn't a level system, which adds a different spin on things.

I did like one system - I can't remember the game that used it but I think it was Living Steel - that was a bit like BRP except that you only got a check in a skill when you failed a skill check with it, not every time you used it. The point being that you learn from mistakes. The rules included the line "experience is what you get when you failed to get what you want".

I think that the system didn't make you roll for checks at the end of a session, but simply counted them up and your skill increased when you had a number of checks greater than its current value. (Obviously the checks then reset when the skill increased.)

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;784797Yes, that is obvious (although it's rarely used in games like D&D which tend so simply share experience out among the party - it's more common in games like Rolemaster or Runequest where characters gain experience independently from each other and experience is tied to specific actions).

You're begging the question here, aren't you?

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;784797Yes, that is obvious (although it's rarely used in games like D&D which tend so simply share experience out among the party - it's more common in games like Rolemaster or Runequest where characters gain experience independently from each other and experience is tied to specific actions). But that wasn't what Beagle and I were talking about.

Separate experience was RAW in OD&D and AD&D. Everybody gets the same experience regardless of what they do in the game is not part of the original rules and from my perspective it is a more recent (21st century?) innovation. Every group I ran or played D&D with used separate experience. We used separate experience in other games as well e.g. Star Wars D6 and Honor+Intrigue.

Now I don't have a problem with group experience, though it's not to really to my taste. I can see some advantages (obviously it takes less effort to track) and I can see several reasons why it would appeal to people. What I find really odd, is the visceral reaction I hear from some people who are opposed to giving out separate experience as well as the comments by some folks who can't seem to even understand why anyone would prefer separate experience.

I imagine a lot of it comes from many examples and experiences with how XP rewards of that sort often work out in practice.

I suspect most people have played that way at least occasionally.

In my current hacked 5e game and for the last year or two in my hacked no-feat 3.5 game I just let non-spellcasters add their entire d20 roll (on the die) to damage after 3rd level.

Seems to do the trick.

(Monsters do like d30 and 2d20 damage regularly.)

Quote from: Bren;784829Separate experience was RAW in OD&D and AD&D. Everybody gets the same experience regardless of what they do in the game is not part of the original rules and from my perspective it is a more recent (21st century?) innovation. Every group I ran or played D&D with used separate experience.

I used to do separate experience for AD&D. I stopped because I found it to be a pain in the ass to calculate. It was extra work that didn't add much to the game. Then I stopped using AD&D XP tables, and went to a unified table.  Eventually I dropped XP calculation altogether, and simply leveled everyone up at the same time. All done for ease of play.

If I were to run a campaign where PCs dropped in and out of the party on a session-by-session basis (and I might be doing that for my upcoming 5E campaign), I would go back to group XP calculation per session. If one PC participates in 7/8 sessions while another participates in 5/8, that should be captured in the advancement. But since I won't be awarding XP for magic items (the main differentiation between individual character XP in AD&D), I see no point in going back to individual character XP.

Quote from: Haffrung;784834I used to do separate experience for AD&D. I stopped because I found it to be a pain in the ass to calculate. It was extra work that didn't add much to the game. Then I stopped using AD&D XP tables, and went to a unified table.  Eventually I dropped XP calculation altogether, and simply leveled everyone up at the same time. All done for ease of play.

I get it can be a pain. I never found it to be a pain for me, but back then I used to figure out separate checks with tax and tips. (Partly because I could. Partly because we were poor.) Compared to those calculations, figuring separate XP is a snap.

Now I'm too lazy to figure separate checks and well off enough that I don't need to give a shit if I end up paying for someone else's drink or appetizer.

QuoteIf I were to run a campaign where PCs dropped in and out of the party on a session-by-session basis (and I might be doing that for my upcoming 5E campaign), I would go back to individual XP calculation. If one PC participates in 7/8 sessions while another participates in 5/8, that should be captured in the advancement.

That seems the most obvious advantage to using separate experience. Which makes it no surprise that this (drop in/drop out play) was how the original game designers played.

Quote from: Marleycat;784612I suppose? Would it help if I whacked him in the balls?

I would pay good money to see that.

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;784609I found out later from a friend that played 3.5 under this guy and quit, that he gives melee characters 20% more XP per encounter and only gives spellcasters XP based on the spells they cast in a session.

This sort of thing sort of works in AD&D where each class has its own XP total. In 3E or 5E I think multiclassing where you have one XP track and split levels messes with this. Like - do multiclass characters get double XP (both class rewards) and just advance faster in total levels?

Quote from: Tommy Brownell;784609I found out later from a friend that played 3.5 under this guy and quit, that he gives melee characters 20% more XP per encounter and only gives spellcasters XP based on the spells they cast in a session.

I am wondering if a gish would gain +20% XP, and spell XP too...
Actually, make that a warlock gish casting Eldritch Blast at the darkness ALL THE TIME

Quote from: Dirk Remmecke;784632But there are games where xp rewards don't work that way at all.

For a long time I GMed the German game, Midgard. (A 1981 EPT clone that evolved into its very own thing.)
It has three different kinds of xp, based on combat, magic, and general stuff, and a character can only invest the proper kind of xp into new weapon skills, spells, or skills. The rules are quite strict on how to award xp (per damage output, per energy invested into a spell, per successful skill use, per days travelled, etc.).

Had. The current 5th edition has pooled the different XP into a single resource, and offers a generalized per adventure/session XP system as an alternative. (An alternative that had already been a very popular as a houserule before - I like the direct feedback per action of the traditional Midgard XP method, but it comes with a lot of bookkeeping during the session in a system that already has a lot of bookkeeping going on.)

Instead of the old combat/magic/general XP, practice points tied to specific skills, weapon skills and magic categories have received a more prominent role. 25% of all successful skill checks (and 5% of successful weapon and magic checks) lead directly to virtual XP useable for the used ability only. Sorta like a bankable BRP checkmark.

Quote from: Bren;784829Separate experience was RAW in OD&D and AD&D. Everybody gets the same experience regardless of what they do in the game is not part of the original rules and from my perspective it is a more recent (21st century?) innovation.

I think we're talking about different things here.

Yes, D&D does assume that characters who have different experiences will get different experience points. But it also assumes that characters who have the same experience will get the same experience points (which is why I said it "tends to" simply share experience out among the party, rather than saying it always does).

RAW in AD&D is that when a party kill some monsters the experience is shared equally between those who were there contributing to the fight no matter how insignificantly (and the DMG uses those exact words).

I was contrasting D&D with things like Rolemaster where three characters fighting the same monster can come out of the fight having gained very different amounts of experience points from it depending on their specific actions (and the specific actions of the monster). The experience points for killing the monster aren't simply shared equally between the characters fighting it.

But what D&D definitely doesn't say is that different characters should be given different amounts of experience depending on how closely the play-style of their players matches the DM's preferences - which is what Beagle and I were talking about.

QuoteNow I don't have a problem with group experience, though it's not to really to my taste. I can see some advantages (obviously it takes less effort to track) and I can see several reasons why it would appeal to people. What I find really odd, is the visceral reaction I hear from some people who are opposed to giving out separate experience as well as the comments by some folks who can't seem to even understand why anyone would prefer separate experience.

I hope you don't think I have a "visceral" reaction to giving separate experience in general based on the actual experiences of the characters - I've already mentioned that I like that in some games. In D&D (at least in editions that have unified level charts) I tend to ignore experience tracking completely and just have the characters go up a level after each "adventure" or whenever it seems appropriate; although that's not due to a dislike of separate experience, but simply because it's easier that way and has much less bookkeeping.

What I do have a reaction to is the assertions that I should be giving varying amount of experience based on how "awesome" the players are pour encourager les autres and that it's "unfair" and "weak" of me to do otherwise.

Quote from: Blacky the Blackball;784915But what D&D definitely doesn't say is that different characters should be given different amounts of experience depending on how closely the play-style of their players matches the DM's preferences - which is what Beagle and I were talking about.
.

It comes close in the 1e training rules.
Basically if you haven't been roleplaying "according to your class" which is to say fighters are heroic and lead from the front etc. then the DM is supposed to apply a training time and cost multiplier.

So if you decide that your fighter is a coward who avoids combat but became a knight cos his father forced him to or that your thief is brash and cocky and doesn't bother to sneak or check for traps you might get eh same XP but as it will take you longer and cost more to train you will progress in levels slower (a cowardly fighter by this rule would be unable to advance to 2nd level if they had just enough xp to do so as they wouldn't have enough gold to pay for 4 weeks training.)

Quote from: jibbajibba;784918It comes close in the 1e training rules.
Basically if you haven't been roleplaying "according to your class" which is to say fighters are heroic and lead from the front etc. then the DM is supposed to apply a training time and cost multiplier.

So if you decide that your fighter is a coward who avoids combat but became a knight cos his father forced him to or that your thief is brash and cocky and doesn't bother to sneak or check for traps you might get eh same XP but as it will take you longer and cost more to train you will progress in levels slower (a cowardly fighter by this rule would be unable to advance to 2nd level if they had just enough xp to do so as they wouldn't have enough gold to pay for 4 weeks training.)

Oh man, I'd forgotten about training costs! In all the years I played AD&D I never encountered a single DM that ever used them.

Kind of like the Weapon-vs-AC table, in that respect.

(Although now I've said that I'll probably be inundated with people saying that everyone they've played with used both and that my experiences are unique!)

Quote from: Beagle;784626Wait. You think that an equal distribution of XP is actually a good thing?!? Why?

Because it fosters teamwork. When you check the Angels scoreboard, it doesn't read, "Angels 1, Mike Trout 2, Yankees 0."