Sorry If Im stepping on anything covered in the other XP thread still ongoing but after a brief scan i think Im touching on something different here.
A buddy and I were discussing XP the other night and came a startling conclusion. We had totally different perspectives on just what XP actually represents.
I believe its representative of the character's life experience, their accumulation of knowledge and refinement of skills. A character spending a week watching the local smithy work would therefor gain some XP. If possible it should be in something related if the system allowed it but if not and XP is more general, he should still earn some.
He held that in most games it has very little if anything to do with actual practice, instruction, hands on improvement of abilities or knowledge but rather is an abstract system to reward participation and more importantly, success, in the game. There for the guy watching the smith wouldnt get squat unless he tried to make something, rolled well and then was rewarded for his success.
Fighting and losing therefore would be worth a lot to me but almost nothing to him.
Whats your opinion? Should a character receive experience and develop in his abilities because the Player roleplayed well that session for example?
You are both wrong. Or maybe you are both right.
I prefer experience to be tied to character actions much like in the real world. So they get better at what they do during play and what they practice and train at (which usually occurs outside of play.) That's one of the reasons I prefer games that are not level-based, particularly games like Runequest, BRP, and Call of Cthulhu where the system easily connects those things to what characters improve. However, from a game perspective I like a certain amount of rewarding participation and success. I think it makes for a more fun game experience. It also allows me to provide some incentive or reward for what I want to see at the table.
But the PCs can only use their experience points (or whatever we use to track stuff) to improve things (skills, stats, what have you) that their characters used under pressure during play or that they explicitly said they were practicing or training in or that they could implicitly be presumed to be practicing. Here are some examples.
- During the session your character fought dangerous opponents (made skill rolls under pressure) using your bow or your sword and shield. You used the skill under pressure in play, so you could improve your skill with bow or with sword and shield.
- Your character finds a fencing master who agrees to teach you (for pay, for a favor, whatever). Explicitly you are training so you can increase your fencing skill, learn new maneuvers, get better fighting with a sword, or whatever makes sense for improvement in the system in use.
- You've told the GM that your character has been practicing driving a chariot in his spare time. Explicitly you declared stuff that your character is working to improve so you could improve that.
- Your character traveled through the wilderness. During the session your character spent 2 weeks of game time riding a camel with a camel caraven. Implicitly you have practicing camel riding so you could improve your camel riding skill.
- During the last several sessions your character and his party have been guarding a diplomatic mission in the Netherlands. You might be presumed to have been picking up the language in day to day activities and transactions so implicitly you could learn or improve your ability to speak Dutch.
It's a reward mechanism, essentially abstract. In D&D XP give Levels, which represent the Power/Heroism/Awesomeness of the PC, not their lived experience. You certainly do not get XP in D&D for watching a smith work, except in some degenerate approaches to 3e D&D. You might at most eventually acquire skill points or tool proficiency, depending on the edition. Practicing smithing does not give you XP, does not give Levels, does not increase your hit points or your Power/Awesomeness.
I agree totally but you understand many systems dont distinguish between XP gained with your sword and XP gained learning Dutch. You get XP and then level up, receiving whatever abilities come with it. In this case WHAT your character does to earn XP becomes the big question. But I totally agree it should be character related only, not GAME related.
Ive seen GMs do the any or all of the following..
Award XP for showing up at a session.
Award XP for performing some bit of roleplaying or introducing a joke that was really entertaining.
Award XP for depicting their character's personality really well.
Award XP for having their character act in accordance with a flaw they have.
Award XP for bringing the snacks or settling an argument between players at the table.
I cant see where any of these things would have the slightest effect on the character's development in the world they consider reality. They arent even aware of the existence of a "player". How could something the player does or simply behaving normally in their perception, result in furthering their personal development?
Quote from: rgrove0172;1013992He held that in most games it has very little if anything to do with actual practice, instruction, hands on improvement of abilities or knowledge but rather is an abstract system to reward participation and more importantly, success, in the game. There for the guy watching the smith wouldnt get squat unless he tried to make something, rolled well and then was rewarded for his success.
Fighting and losing therefore would be worth a lot to me but almost nothing to him.
That's much how I do it (in D&D), though I often give half XP for a lost battle well fought. I am rewarding participation, but I reward success even more.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1014002I cant see where any of these things would have the slightest effect on the character's development in the world they consider reality.
The reason those things might matter is because it's a game.
That said, something like Pendragon is possibly an exception to #3 on your list being disconnected from the character and game world since Pendragon explicitly tracks and changes personality and passions based on character actions which the player is implementing and roleplaying out.
It's a game. Like bringing me beer always nets some XP.
The way I look at it, you are not just rewarding the character, you are also awarding the player and it's cool to give out little bonuses like that.
As always its a matter of perception and objective. For me Roleplaying is all about "making believe", the gamey rule stuff are just necessary evils to avoid the "I got you! No you missed" things when it comes to resolving actions. I dont look at RPing as a Game at all, or at least I try not to. I realize a certain amount of gaminess is necessary but I try to minimize whatever I can. I consider XP awards for non-character actions in that category.
The distinction between the "rewards" is why I generally prefer systems that have some small OOC currency, such as Action Points or Hero Points or the equivalent, in addition to XP. Then regardless of how the system manages it, I change it so that XP is earned by a character for doing things in the game, while the OOC currency is earned by the player for performing activities that we also value as a group. Exactly how the XP works (for training or only quests or success) varies. Likewise, how the OOC currency works can vary, including how it is gained. But there is a line between them.
There are several reasons I prefer this. For example, one minor one is a mild aesthetic distaste for using XP for OOC activities, such as showing up or OOC funny comments or the like. However, mainly I prefer the division because that way I can easily vary the importance of either, based on the players at the table. I'll see anything from players that will all but ignore the OOC part, in which case I can simply not award them, all the way to players that will happily engage at that level, and actively drive the game in ways that everyone finds fun. When you tie those sort of things to character growth, it can distort player behavior, because now you might have a player that really has no interest in OOC behaviors (good or bad), but feels compelled to engage just to advance the character. That seldom works very well.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1014002I agree totally but you understand many systems dont distinguish between XP gained with your sword and XP gained learning Dutch. You get XP and then level up, receiving whatever abilities come with it. In this case WHAT your character does to earn XP becomes the big question. But I totally agree it should be character related only, not GAME related.
Ive seen GMs do the any or all of the following..
Award XP for showing up at a session.
Award XP for performing some bit of roleplaying or introducing a joke that was really entertaining.
Award XP for depicting their character's personality really well.
Award XP for having their character act in accordance with a flaw they have.
Award XP for bringing the snacks or settling an argument between players at the table.
I cant see where any of these things would have the slightest effect on the character's development in the world they consider reality. They arent even aware of the existence of a "player". How could something the player does or simply behaving normally in their perception, result in furthering their personal development?
Yeah, I don't give XP for those or other purely OOC stuff.
I do give XP for in-character written session accounts, and for mapping. In those cases both player & PC write the account/draw the map.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1014032The distinction between the "rewards" is why I generally prefer systems that have some small OOC currency, such as Action Points or Hero Points or the equivalent, in addition to XP. Then regardless of how the system manages it, I change it so that XP is earned by a character for doing things in the game, while the OOC currency is earned by the player for performing activities that we also value as a group. Exactly how the XP works (for training or only quests or success) varies. Likewise, how the OOC currency works can vary, including how it is gained. But there is a line between them.
There are several reasons I prefer this. For example, one minor one is a mild aesthetic distaste for using XP for OOC activities, such as showing up or OOC funny comments or the like. However, mainly I prefer the division because that way I can easily vary the importance of either, based on the players at the table. I'll see anything from players that will all but ignore the OOC part, in which case I can simply not award them, all the way to players that will happily engage at that level, and actively drive the game in ways that everyone finds fun. When you tie those sort of things to character growth, it can distort player behavior, because now you might have a player that really has no interest in OOC behaviors (good or bad), but feels compelled to engage just to advance the character. That seldom works very well.
Excellent post. I agree 100% and do a bit of that myself. (Awarding "bennies" for OOC stuff)
XP for showing up makes some sense as being experience for generally showing up to life. Bringing snacks seems very meta and OOC as a reason to award XP, but I have seen some games do it.
I like what I remember of the old White Wolf experience. You got points for showing up, points for learning something (in character), and points for role playing. I also like the BRP system of awarding checks to skills a character used which can then be cashed in for chances to improve those skills.
Palladium Books had a long list of things to gain XP for including using skills (succesfully or unsuccessfully), beating foes in combat, clever plans, being party leader, tripping traps and taking damage. all sorts of practical adventuring things that would presumable make you a better adventurer.
D&D's XP for gold is perhaps the most abstracted. Representing all the things you did to gain the treasure that weren't killing monsters. It always felt a bit awkward to me. It didn't account well for time spent in training for one thing.
If I was given free reign to just use whatever system I wanted I would probably award XP based on time and activity, perhaps on a monthly (in game) basis. If you had a fairly productive, challenging, dangerous month... you get a lot. If you had an uneventful few weeks on ship or horseback, visited a couple quiet village and maybe had a fight or two... you get less. Of course this is for an abstract Leveling system like D&D wherein all XP goes in one basket.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1013992Sorry If Im stepping on anything covered in the other XP thread still ongoing but after a brief scan i think Im touching on something different here.
A buddy and I were discussing XP the other night and came a startling conclusion. We had totally different perspectives on just what XP actually represents.
I believe its representative of the character's life experience, their accumulation of knowledge and refinement of skills. A character spending a week watching the local smithy work would therefor gain some XP. If possible it should be in something related if the system allowed it but if not and XP is more general, he should still earn some.
That's where I'm at, too.
QuoteHe held that in most games it has very little if anything to do with actual practice, instruction, hands on improvement of abilities or knowledge but rather is an abstract system to reward participation and more importantly, success, in the game. There for the guy watching the smith wouldnt get squat unless he tried to make something, rolled well and then was rewarded for his success.
And for many groups' games, your friend is right:)!
QuoteFighting and losing therefore would be worth a lot to me but almost nothing to him.
Well, no, fighting and losing doesn't really help you learn fighting...but that's tied to the general patterns losing reinforces, and is beyond the scope of this thread. Fighting, being put in a spot, and triumphing nonetheless, however, would be worth more to me than either losing, or winning easily;). Of course, it doesn't happen much.
QuoteWhats your opinion? Should a character receive experience and develop in his abilities because the Player roleplayed well that session for example?
Well, good roleplaying is generally tied to expressing some skills and attitudes that would help his character's performance, so why not?
Whether the player should be required to spend those on the skills he used most in the session, is another matter entirely:D!
Quote from: rgrove0172;1014046If I was given free reign to just use whatever system I wanted I would probably award XP based on time and activity, perhaps on a monthly (in game) basis. If you had a fairly productive, challenging, dangerous month... you get a lot. If you had an uneventful few weeks on ship or horseback, visited a couple quiet village and maybe had a fight or two... you get less. Of course this is for an abstract Leveling system like D&D wherein all XP goes in one basket.
I think (though I'm not sure) that I prefer some intermediate ground, where we all make a nod towards XP being tied to whatever the character was doing, but then we don't enforce it very strongly, and certainly don't have much rules to back it up. I don't want to deal with the accounting, for the most part. It's possible that a system design to make such tracking as painless as possible would appeal. I've had Fantasy Hero groups that mostly worked that way, but where one or two people kept bucking the spirit of the table, and it really annoyed the rest of the group. "We shouldn't need to spell out that Rolf isn't going to be improving in this area, since it has nothing to do with his character, and is in fact a blind grab at abusing the system." I did step on that kind of thing as a GM, but I dislike being forced to do it ad hoc.
Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1014032The distinction between the "rewards" is why I generally prefer systems that have some small OOC currency, such as Action Points or Hero Points or the equivalent, in addition to XP. Then regardless of how the system manages it, I change it so that XP is earned by a character for doing things in the game, while the OOC currency is earned by the player for performing activities that we also value as a group. Exactly how the XP works (for training or only quests or success) varies. Likewise, how the OOC currency works can vary, including how it is gained. But there is a line between them.
There are several reasons I prefer this. For example, one minor one is a mild aesthetic distaste for using XP for OOC activities, such as showing up or OOC funny comments or the like. However, mainly I prefer the division because that way I can easily vary the importance of either, based on the players at the table. I'll see anything from players that will all but ignore the OOC part, in which case I can simply not award them, all the way to players that will happily engage at that level, and actively drive the game in ways that everyone finds fun. When you tie those sort of things to character growth, it can distort player behavior, because now you might have a player that really has no interest in OOC behaviors (good or bad), but feels compelled to engage just to advance the character. That seldom works very well.
Hmmm...your idea and especially your justification for the division is interesting. :cool: I'm going to have to think how I might do something like this for my current Star Wars campaign.
Quote from: DavetheLost;1014041I also like the BRP system of awarding checks to skills a character used which can then be cashed in for chances to improve those skills.
I've always like the RQ/BRP/Pendragon method of a check for appropriate skill use then later a roll to try to improve.
- What improved was directly related to what your PC did.
- The number of subjective decisions for the GM were manageable.
- Bookkeeping was simple.
- The system allowed a lot of flexibility for the shape of the learning curve, i.e. you could make improvement fast, slow, or vary it based on skill level to make skill mastery a big thing or to keep characters in a sweet spot longer.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1014026As always its a matter of perception and objective. For me Roleplaying is all about "making believe", the gamey rule stuff are just necessary evils to avoid the "I got you! No you missed" things when it comes to resolving actions. I dont look at RPing as a Game at all, or at least I try not to. I realize a certain amount of gaminess is necessary but I try to minimize whatever I can. I consider XP awards for non-character actions in that category.
Thar's a perfectly reasonable position. I will point out that if you prefer the roleplaying activity to be as minimally 'a game' as possible, then advancing your characters abilities from a lower power level to a higher one (however the game in question achieves this) is also a gamist concept that doesn't need to happen (at all, or at a particular pace, or for any particular reason). At this point, you can almost divorce advancement from any xp system whatsoever.
It varies by game and group and can be either, as others have said.
Personally, I want things to make sense in the game and be as consistent as they can be, so I tend not to like much of anything to be tied to the players (including rewards and incentives), real-world time, game sessions, etc. I also don't like disproportionate changes in character ability based on nothing that makes sense to me in the game world, so unless a PC has a psychological block where they can't realize their full abilities unless they attain some goal, I don't much like XP for goals, because I don't think that's generally how people improve at all.
XP for gold seems like a very unsatisfying abstraction to me, particularly because I also don't think it makes much sense for the world to offer fixed amount of treasure for things correlated to how challenging they are - "Treasure Class" seems like an obviously incorrect/weird model of how money possession works as well. And, gold (and what it can purchase) is clearly its own reward.
Tying adventuring-class levels to political/administrative position also seems off to me, since more often than not, the people heading governments and guilds or whatever have no particular adventuring or combat ability. If I used class-based character systems, it seems to me that the skill of gaining and maintaining a position of power would be its own class (probably conferring no combat abilities, and using a different type of improvement system from adventuring XP).
It depends.
You can go both ways, but I think that to some degree you need abstraction. The more you try to base xp-giving on 'life experience', the more complex the system for it has to become.
For me, it's enough to figure out an XP method that makes sense within the genre you're trying to emulate. There are lots of ways to do that.
Quote from: rgrove0172;1014002I agree totally but you understand many systems dont distinguish between XP gained with your sword and XP gained learning Dutch. You get XP and then level up, receiving whatever abilities come with it. In this case WHAT your character does to earn XP becomes the big question. But I totally agree it should be character related only, not GAME related.
Ive seen GMs do the any or all of the following..
Award XP for showing up at a session.
Award XP for performing some bit of roleplaying or introducing a joke that was really entertaining.
Award XP for depicting their character's personality really well.
Award XP for having their character act in accordance with a flaw they have.
Award XP for bringing the snacks or settling an argument between players at the table.
I cant see where any of these things would have the slightest effect on the character's development in the world they consider reality. They arent even aware of the existence of a "player". How could something the player does or simply behaving normally in their perception, result in furthering their personal development?
I award XP for all those things but still maintain that XP is life experience in setting. I like having the carrot for players to behave at the table to make the session progress more smoothly. Sure the character itself doesn't learn anything from this but honestly the awards are usually so small that at later levels it is nearly inconsequential (but at that point people are usually treating the game as pretty serious business).
In Lion & Dragon, players get Xp for just showing up, if they complete some kind of major adventure or quest (just what constitutes those terms is left entirely up to the GM), and optionally one player each session gets XP for 'best roleplayer'. That's it.
So in essence, this is the method to use when you don't want characters to have to do any specific thing to get XP, and leave them free to just play their characters however they want.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1015379In Lion & Dragon, players get Xp for just showing up, if they complete some kind of major adventure or quest (just what constitutes those terms is left entirely up to the GM), and optionally one player each session gets XP for 'best roleplayer'. That's it.
So in essence, this is the method to use when you don't want characters to have to do any specific thing to get XP, and leave them free to just play their characters however they want.
That's one of the strong points of the game, indeed;).
Quote from: RPGPundit;1015379In Lion & Dragon, players get Xp for just showing up, if they complete some kind of major adventure or quest (just what constitutes those terms is left entirely up to the GM), and optionally one player each session gets XP for 'best roleplayer'. That's it.
So in essence, this is the method to use when you don't want characters to have to do any specific thing to get XP, and leave them free to just play their characters however they want.
Interesting, so the same way I run it in my home games.
Yeah, in my experience it's pretty liberating for the players, and it means they can focus entirely on playing their character however that character would be.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1015379In Lion & Dragon, players get Xp for just showing up
Literally, or do they have to engage in adventurous activities? I often award session XP, but not if the players just sit around planning & take no in-game action.
To each their own for sure.
I would think playing a character true to form woukd present the same opportunities to gain experience as it does in real life. No distinction needed. But playing without a nod towards what actually earns experience and then just handing it out for giggles seems a little gamey.
Quote from: S'mon;1015712Literally, or do they have to engage in adventurous activities? I often award session XP, but not if the players just sit around planning & take no in-game action.
I still award XP for that since they showed up and spent time playing it out.
A lot of my sessions are just the players RPing being in a tavern and bantering. (At least online.)
Quote from: rgrove0172;1015756I would think playing a character true to form woukd present the same opportunities to gain experience as it does in real life. No distinction needed. But playing without a nod towards what actually earns experience and then just handing it out for giggles seems a little gamey.
It depends on how much downtime or assumed time goes in between each session. If you're extremely compressed because the characters are constantly in danger and you go a few sessions still in the same day, then it can seem a little odd. Still, L&D is a Class-based game, so meant to be abstracted.
Quote from: S'mon;1015712Literally, or do they have to engage in adventurous activities? I often award session XP, but not if the players just sit around planning & take no in-game action.
If nothing actually got accomplished in a session, I'd probably say that this was not a complete session and so they wouldn't get XP for it.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016055If nothing actually got accomplished in a session, I'd probably say that this was not a complete session and so they wouldn't get XP for it.
I think that's reasonable then. I recall Savage Worlds recommends 2 XP for a typical session, which allows for 0, 1, 2 3 & maybe 4 XP depending on how much gets done. Running high level Mentzer Classic I tended to end up just awarding around 25,000 XP for a typical session rather than try to calculate it. But I once had a 3e group who could sit around planning for an entire session, I wouldn't want to reward them with XP for wasting my time.
Quote from: RPGPundit;1016055If nothing actually got accomplished in a session, I'd probably say that this was not a complete session and so they wouldn't get XP for it.
Well, in my case, I consider "roleplaying their characters for four hours" to be something of an accomplishment. Usually players are goal oriented and don't really play out anything personality wise, but if they pull that off in a tavern for an entire night because they enjoy it then it sounds worth rewarding to me.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1016169Well, in my case, I consider "roleplaying their characters for four hours" to be something of an accomplishment. Usually players are goal oriented and don't really play out anything personality wise, but if they pull that off in a tavern for an entire night because they enjoy it then it sounds worth rewarding to me.
I typically give XP for social events where the PCs are interacting with NPCs. I don't give XP for players planning their next move even if it is analogous to PCs planning their next move - in D&D the two are often not distinct.
Quote from: S'mon;1016180I typically give XP for social events where the PCs are interacting with NPCs. I don't give XP for players planning their next move even if it is analogous to PCs planning their next move - in D&D the two are often not distinct.
There is players planning their next move outside of the game, or out-of-character, but if they're doing it AS their PCs, with all of their PCs own biases and concerns, then I still count it as worth something.
Also usually it isn't even planning, it's just bantering and talking about stuff around the tavern. For instance, the last session, the Rogue nearly died in the dungeon, and he was talking to the party cleric about considering converting to his faith because of the near death experience, and the two talked about the afterlife.
If you only have one kind of "award" then it has to do multiple duty. I think it would be nice to give XP (or whatever the given game uses for character improvement) for actual experience, and bennies for metagame stuff like showing up or being a good role player. You can be fairly generous with the bennies if you like--it's one area where Burning Wheel is onto something IMO, also found in other games and faintly echoed in the 5e Inspiration rule--although making it bankable gives it more oomph, as does the BW idea of trading in points for a permanent bonus.
Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1016169Well, in my case, I consider "roleplaying their characters for four hours" to be something of an accomplishment. Usually players are goal oriented and don't really play out anything personality wise, but if they pull that off in a tavern for an entire night because they enjoy it then it sounds worth rewarding to me.
Yes, if actual roleplaying is happening that might qualify for a completed session.
If what you have is a bunch of player meta-talk about how they're going to get ready to go do something, that's not roleplaying, though.