Quote from: Caesar SlaadAle & Whores, that is?

At high levels it was Champagne & Courtesans.

As it stands at the moment, so far every group I've played in has by and larged ignored the XP rules and handed them out by fiat.  In some cases just given flat levels, to save on bookkeeping.  Xp by characer action would wind up getting ignored just as readily as the existing CR system.

As for treasure, as was pointed out, treasure is XP, just of a different sort.  The game balance in 3.0/3.5 is built around the expectations that PC will have a certain gold value worth of magical crap, depending on their level.  That's what the PC starting gold by level table in the DMG is all about.  

Giving XP on top of that would just break the balance.  You'd have to effectively rebalance the entire XP scale and treasure tables.

It's actually sometihng of a problem I find in a lot of fan made NWN modules, as the designers don't seem to understand the importance of treasure balance at all.  You either wind up with uber stingy GMs, and thus characters with gear totally uncommensurate with their level, or monty haul stuff where it just piles on the gold and loto in insane quantities.

Even the official campaigns have similar problems really.

Quote from: SosthenesWhich you use to fighter bigger evils and get bigger spoils. Ad nauseam...
I once created a SR character (hey, it was the only game in town) and spent all my beginning cash on permanent luxurious lifestyle. I won!

You know, this is a fundamental problem with cyberpunk games (and a lot of other genres, thinking about it).  The goal is that one last big score, the one that will allow them to retire from this incredibly dangerous lifestyle

I was playing a Shadowrun character, a grizzled mercenary whose stated goal was to get enough money together to retire, open up a gun shop and settle down with his wife and kid

Second adventure into the campaign we got lucky.  Picked up a side trek the GM didn't think we'd go for and wound up with a reward for rescuing the daughter of someone very rich and picked up a pile of expensive kit.  I nearly retired him, but I was having too much fun playing him.  I think in the end I was going to have him funding an orphanage

It's not just cyberpunk - pirate games have a similar problem.  I once knew this incredibly successful pirate LARP group that fell apart after they'd finally found the McGuffin

Quote from: Hastur T. FannonYou know, this is a fundamental problem with cyberpunk games (and a lot of other genres, thinking about it).  The goal is that one last big score, the one that will allow them to retire from this incredibly dangerous lifestyle

I wouldn't say this is really a problem, it just encourages a different style of game. No long-running campaigns, no wide spread of character advancement. You play, you win, you retire (you get offed by the corps). SR1-3 advancement rules sucked anyway, you became much too good way too soon.

"Traditional" RPG has a unprecedented length of character development.

Without a doubt, the best system for XP is the one found in True20:  The PCs level whenever the GM says they level.

Formalizing this, and realizing that you don't need anything else beside the GM's judgement (and some kind of guidelines to help GMs make their choices, but not a complicated point-counting system) is the most radical advancement of all of True20's components.

RPGPundit

Quote from: SosthenesI wouldn't say this is really a problem, it just encourages a different style of game. No long-running campaigns, no wide spread of character advancement.

Good point.  You need to taylor your campaign to your players expectations and goals for their characters, otherwise you end up rail-roading

A friend of mine was once telling me about this new campaign he was playing in, really looking forward to it because, as he said, "it's Exalted and we all get to play pirates!"

A couple of sessions later I asked him how it was going.  He looked disappointed, made "choo-choo" noises and made a gesticulation indicating that the campaign was now being pulled along by the plot train.  Apparently one player wanted to play a pirate, then the rest of the players wanted to play pirates, but the GM had an entirely different campaign in mind - and didn't tell the players.  They'd even taken Sail charms (/shudder)

Quote from: RPGPunditWithout a doubt, the best system for XP is the one found in True20:  The PCs level whenever the GM says they level.

Formalizing this, and realizing that you don't need anything else beside the GM's judgement (and some kind of guidelines to help GMs make their choices, but not a complicated point-counting system) is the most radical advancement of all of True20's components.

RPGPundit

I pretty much agree with this. I think a group should trust the GM to give the level bennie when it seems most appropriate, It isn't that hard to do. I did it while I was running a RIFTS campaign many years ago when I decided I had enough on my mind running the rules to bother calculating XP, and it worked out great.

...Which brings up Palladiums XP system (which I'll get to in a second).

First of all- I like the current D&D XP system, and I think it works for the most part. It's flexible enough for me to have the session where the characters spend the entire night gambling or following clues but don't actually fight anything. And then follow it up by the session where there's a lot of battle. Also, the flow in the current system is constant.

Other levelling systems I've played in seem to have a 'quagmire point' where characters simply cease to level, and just sort of grind slowly away. THIS IS THE REAL ISSUE. In Palladium that level is 7th-8th or so. In 1st Edition (AD&D), we never went far past 9th ("name level"), but that was a long time ago. Earthdawn had a grinding point as well. D&D currently solves this problem, and does a pretty good job of moving characters forward constantly, but there is an inconsistency with things like CRs as Ryan Dancey is saying.

I'm against going back to the gold=XP system as a solution (sorry jrients!). It creates more problems than it solves, because by the end of it, you have to give out hoards of multiple thousands of coins. The only fun thing about that is watching the players come up with a plan to get the gold hauled out of the monster lair.

Two proposed solutions:

Dancey: "XP would be awarded for characters successfully using class features to overcome challenges"

Pundit: "Just have the GM determine when the party levels"

I'm not sure I like either one of those, although both would be acceptable if they took into account the issue of flow (maybe in the GM's advice section).
Dancey's solution doesn't seem to account for the notion that it's best for the party to stay around the same XP if possible. (Maybe he doesn't agree!)
Pundit's does but also seems to be a bit arbitrary.  

Also I find this 1 level every 4 sessions (or 16 hours) to be a bit simplistic.

My Ideal is-
1st level: 2 sessions max. Maybe just 1 session!
2nd level: 2-3 sessions.
3rd level-10th level: 3-4 sessions each.
11th-16th: 4 sessions each
17th-20th: 5 sessions each.

I want a system that levels characters up to 10th in 6 months of regular, weekly sessions. (That's around 25 sessions).  And after a year (around 50 sessions or so) I want the party to be reaching 20th. A campaign takes around a year for me.

Okay, so .. Palladium.

Palladium has an interesting XP system:
you get points for skill use (25 points each!), and you get points for things like 'overcoming obstacles or challenges'. And you get XP for 'good roleplaying'.

But then you also can get XP for 'avoiding violence' or 'coming up with a cool plan'. You even get XP for having a plan that fails.

It's a great system, and each player usually goes in turn and says what they did in the session "I used 10 skills.. I helped defeat the Flumph.. I had the plan to fool the wererats by using giant puppets.. " whatever, and that determines his XP. It has only one problem: none of the awards scale. So whether you are 1st level or 19th.. you still only get a lump award of 150XP for 'avoiding violence' or whatever. So you generally hit 7th and just sit there for a few months.

Solve that problem, and you have a good XP system.

Quote from: NicephorusThat's one of the things I don't like  about any kind of equation for advancement.  What if we're having fun a level 5 and really don't want to get beyond level 10?

I also don't like the record keeping and the fiddling.

I agree completely.  I don't care what the system is I always hand out xp according to how well I think the players/characters have done and also with relation to how fast I want them to advance.  Now I prefer systems that you can use XP to by advances along the way and not hold out for the next level up.  However that doesn't change things.  The thought of players trying to 2nd guess me by totalling how much XP they got based on how many monsters they killed, locks they picked or treasure they've stollen.  That's pretty much the antithesis of how I think any XP system should work.

At that point you might as well just plop them in the dungeon and give them a score card and go nuts.  Hmmm sounds kinda like a typical Wargame setup actually....

Quote from: Abyssal MawIt's a great system, and each player usually goes in turn and says what they did in the session "I used 10 skills.. I helped defeat the Flumph.. I had the plan to fool the wererats by using giant puppets.. " whatever, and that determines his XP.

Yeah the method was interesting - the round robin chat afterwards I mean.  I've used this concept in other systems before handed out XP based on what I thought they did, then basically allowed the players to tell of their exploits and boast to gather some more xp out of the situation.  Even if they are boasting over things I've already given them XP for.  It's fun to hear of the things they think are interesting.  It also helps keeping things in characters (all boasting is in character).  It helps pump themselves up and also has helped in giving the characters reasons to stick together as a sort of camradery develops.

QuoteIt has only one problem: none of the awards scale. So whether you are 1st level or 19th.. you still only get a lump award of 150XP for 'avoiding violence' or whatever. So you generally hit 7th and just sit there for a few months.

Solve that problem, and you have a good XP system.

See that to me isn't a problem.  I don't see the reasoning why a character should advance from level 1 - 2 and 10 - 11 in the same ammount of time.  Sure you fight tougher monsters or pick harder locks but your supposed to be.  It also helps keep the power escalation down.

Experience points can be a visual help. It will take a while 'til you gain that next level, so for a few sessions you might not gain anything mechanically. XPs let player track their progress to a goal that might be quite far away (maybe not neccesary in the fasttrack world of D20).

Experience points also work like candy. The GM 'throws' some to the players to give them some short-term appreciation. In other games this is often done with some "bennie" points, and some games without levels actually use those directly to increase your abilities.

I recently tried Hackmaster with some players. While we agreed that it's just to baroque for normal play, we had some fun with the XP rules. There was quite some competition about who'll get the award for most damage dealt. On a related note, the Hackmaster honor system works quite nice as a short-term reward mechanic. This game's really not all old-school Gary-speak and polearms. The fifth edition might be worth looking at...

Quote from: jrientsThe major problem with the current system is the loss of the XP for treasures recovered.

:confused: Do you mean magic items made? You don't lose XP for just finding treasure.

Quote from: jrientsAlso, I want the record to reflect that I still think Ryan Dancey is a horse's ass.

Well the fact he doesn't even know how the D&D XP system currently works doesn't make him look good.

QuoteIn 3rd Edition, challenges are given "Challenge Ratings" (CR).  A chart is used to determine the Encounter Level (EL) of a given part of an adventure using the CRs of the challenges the characters confront in that section of the story.  Then the EL is used in another chart to determine how many XP are earned by each character.

The EL is used just to judge the difficulty of the encounter and to award treasure it isn't used to award XP that just comes from the CR of the creatures or traps or whatever.

Quote from: Bagpuss:confused: Do you mean magic items made? You don't lose XP for just finding treasure.

No.  Under previous versions every 1gp worth of loot you wrested from the world earned you 1xp.

And you thought that was a good thing?

Personally I like systems that reward XP for failures as well as success. After all you learn from mistakes.