tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post5970887554952424864..comments2024-03-26T02:03:33.336-07:00Comments on Mazirian's Garden: XP for GP and Retro-Gaming: What are the Alternatives?Ben L.http://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comBlogger47125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-12079565451031483632021-08-01T10:36:06.073-07:002021-08-01T10:36:06.073-07:00Good post, though I haven't yet run into a pro...Good post, though I haven't yet run into a problem with standard X.P. awards since returning to AD&D a few months back. A couple things that help immensely in the 1E game: 1) x.p. is awarded for magic items (whether retained or sold), and 2) the basic "economy" of the system/setting consumes more money (necessitating more push for treasure). <br /><br />[I had somehow forgotten about these things until started playing AD&D again, but Back In The Day we ran 1E up to very high level characters and never had issues with the standard x.p. system due to these two things]<br /><br />All that being said: my 2013 game FIVE ANCIENT KINGDOMS offers MANY additional methods of earning bonus x.p. based on world exploration: first long journey (via land, or sea, or air), first use of particular magic items, visitation of various capitals or legendary locations, damage sustained on adventures, and Milestone Accomplishments. <br /><br />Now MY Milestones (developed long before the advent of 5E with their stupidness) are a specific list of objectives, each of which can be accomplished only once: marriage, domain establishment, resurrection, achieving vengeance, leading men in war, reaching old age, etc. Each milestone is a life event, that causes a character to automatically advance to the next level of experience (based on the maturation and increase of confidence that comes from such an achievement); as said, each can be achieved once (your character might get married several times, for example, but you only gain the Milestone bonus the first time you tie the knot). For players that want their characters to be more "goal focused," this provides a method of advancement outside of the normal pillaging/looting. <br /><br />My list is about a dozen, though some are class specific (establishing a guild for thieves, for example). Since characters in 5AK only go up to 15th level, Milestones COULD account for up to 60% of your advancement...but that would be EXTREMELY difficult. Also, many Milestones carry additional responsibilities (or hindrances) that might cause hesitancy in player pursuit of such objectives...and that's fine. Players are welcome to keep looting the Underworld, too, if that's more their speed.<br />; )JBhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03263662621289630246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-64111871833759456972021-01-31T02:56:47.951-08:002021-01-31T02:56:47.951-08:00I've been running a science-fantasy game since...I've been running a science-fantasy game since last November on an alien world very inspired by Tekumel. I award xp primarily for gold, also for "dealing" with encounters (diplomacy, cunning-avoidance [not mere flight], or victory), and, still a bit haphazardly, for direct exploration.<br /><br />Some characters were just recently invited into the "inner" city meant only for citizens, and I debated whether to award xp for that ... it's the kind of situation/engagement I want to engender with xp, but it was planned by me, resultant from an organic development of encounters in previous sessions.<br /><br />I opted no xp for it (b/c instituted by me, the referee), but it is the kind of thing I want to award xp for--engaging with the society, in the sense that in EPT one is theoretically rewarded by engagement with the setting both by xp and social-standing. (& EPT is an OSR-type game of exploration/discovery)<br /><br />But EPT only implicitly promises that, connecting levels to social-status, and xp is still gained by gold-gain. (later Tekumel is perhaps more "sophisticated"? I've only got EPT)<br /><br />Reading this, and thinking about EPT's limitation, and my hopes, I can see perhaps gaining xp through social/setting engagement by attaining objective social status. It could be merely tied to the taxes you pay each year, kind of the way classical censuses divided populations into laborers/hoplites/hippikoi/etc. according to income ... or public liturgies, games, or sacrifices paid for by characters ... the buying of citizenship, or admission into the ranks of certain mysteries, secret societies, or attaining certain titles ... I can vaguely see ways to establish objective xp awards for such things (liturgies=carousing as an easy one, e.g.)<br /><br />Anyway, great thought-fodder of a post. I'll have to chew this cud for a whileCullenhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06525346014856998303noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-39806173493078982802020-07-07T05:52:32.429-07:002020-07-07T05:52:32.429-07:00That sounds amazing, and I can't wait to see w...That sounds amazing, and I can't wait to see what your game is like. Any version of adventuring in the dreamlands is near and dear to my heart. I like how this system offers experience points an an invitation to risk yourself by doing cool things while dreaming. That's my kind of gamble!Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-14177609341503620882020-07-07T05:49:24.967-07:002020-07-07T05:49:24.967-07:00Thanks for sharing those posts. I had forgotten th...Thanks for sharing those posts. I had forgotten that Dangerous Journeys doesn't use GP for XP (no surprise given how super-heroic players start out). Your final solution is basically: advancement for showing up. It's not a bad solution. I don't disagree that players don't need motivation through an incentive system to pursue goals in roleplaying (obviously). But I find the incentives allow for overcoming objective success conditions, which is a fun part of the game in the style I play.Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-387182223490443562020-07-06T21:36:55.489-07:002020-07-06T21:36:55.489-07:00Firstly, apologies if my last post went wonky, I c...Firstly, apologies if my last post went wonky, I can only seem to do this on my laptop, not my iPhone!... -_-;;<br /><br />Long time reader, first time poster. I'm not using a D&D-derived system so this might be too far from the discussion, but in my own Dreamland RPG I'm working on, "leveling up" is accomplished by spending Memories, which essentially = casting spells and also = taking risk.<br /><br />Basically, following an idea from the book version of "The Neverending Story", in Dreamland, you perform most of your coolest powers (spells) by spending your Memories of the waking world. Unlike in "The Neverending Story," you don't necessarily get them back.<br /><br />You can also lose Memories accidentally, sort of in the same way you'd lose hit points. Memories are divided into 1/2s, so a Memory can be "forgotten" or "half-forgotten".<br /><br />Each time you wake up, you have a risk of essentially losing Sanity and getting messed up, based on how many Memories you lost in the previous dream. So, the more Memories you spend/lose in one night, the greater risk you have of going insane (essentially -- it's not 'exactly' insanity) and eventually losing your soul.<br /><br />So essentially, the way you advance in the game is by casting cool spells and conjuring dream stuff (using Memories), which entails risk, but you don't want to cast TOO many spells at once (i.e. lose TOO many Memories) or you'll go insane too fast and your character will 'die'. So advancement comes from taking risks, but not TOO many risks too fast.<br /><br />Also, since you are literally losing your Memories of your waking life as you do this, you are becoming weirder and weirder as you advance in power, even though you may not technically develop any 'insanities.' So that's the roleplaying aspect.Jason & Jayhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08382538007150266805noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-60560077022289484262020-07-02T10:49:45.128-07:002020-07-02T10:49:45.128-07:00Hello! You asked for our thoughts, and it seems th...Hello! You asked for our thoughts, and it seems the conversation is ongoing, so I'll drop a link to a discussion of this that I had, thinking like you about the mismatch between the game mechanic XP=GP and character motivation.<br /><br />https://lichvanwinkle.blogspot.com/2020/06/xp-for-gp-versus-greed.html<br /><br />I have also proposed ditching experience points entirely.<br /><br />https://lichvanwinkle.blogspot.com/2020/04/ditch-experience-points-forever.html<br /><br />This is a great discussion here! It sounds as if a lot of variations are floating around.Tom Van Winklehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/00498476328377801884noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-56555992185568806322020-07-02T09:04:09.003-07:002020-07-02T09:04:09.003-07:00DM fiat is a fair criticism. The system strongly b...DM fiat is a fair criticism. The system strongly biases towards "Average"--"Hard" generally means at least one PC dropped/died, "Easy" means that the party didnt sweat at all. <br />I haven't found that PCs seek out Hard encounters to level faster--those are also the things that are more likely to flat-out kill you. John Bragghttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02572341050529523488noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-1514686580022994342020-07-01T11:41:11.583-07:002020-07-01T11:41:11.583-07:00You could do a level cap, but I find mid-tier or h...You could do a level cap, but I find mid-tier or high level is fun now that we're getting into it. (The party is 5th-8th level now.) So I wouldn't want to cap it at the point where gold stopped being (as) motivating. <br />About 2 I have reservations for the retro-gaming style of play I'm doing. First of all, in order to overcome objective challenges in pursuit of a reward, the players need to know what counts as a challenge in advance. (Your system seems very loose and to depend almost entirely on DM fiat.) Second, I think that scaling XP to difficulty could create strange incentives. For example, it incentivizes parties to do things that are hard, rather than to think about challenges so as to overcome them easily through cunning, etc. I prefer the rewards to be out there, and not scaled to the difficulty the party actually has in getting them.<br /><br />But you might be thinking, a clever plan counts as doing something hard, even if the cleverness of it makes getting the MacGuffin easy. Maybe so, but then we're really in the realm of the DM deciding by fiat what experience points people get based on "how well" they did. Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-91692050097520414352020-07-01T08:34:34.908-07:002020-07-01T08:34:34.908-07:00Ideas:
1. Level cap. If the PCs are past the poi...Ideas:<br />1. Level cap. If the PCs are past the point of GP being a motivator, because they're pursuing in-character, in-setting goals besides "get rich / get gud", maybe they're past the point where XP is relevant. <br />2. My 3X homebrew solution--scrap XP for Encounters. 3rd edition set an expectation of 13 1/3 level-appropriate Encounters to level. I rounded that off to 10 Encounters (100 XP each for math purposes), and stopped worrying about XP values at all--some encounters were Easy (50 XP) and some were Hard (200 xp). <br />Counting encounters becomes a matter of enumerating what the party/PC did--was it trivial (no XP), easy, moderate or hard. You slipped past the goblins (easy? trivial?), cunningly evaded the trap (average?) bribed the ogre (average?), successfully ran away from the minotaur (average?) surprised and murdered the troll (average? hard?), Found the Treasure (average? hard?). <br />Note that the same encounter can be Hard for a lower-level PC and Average or Easy for a higher-level PC. <br />Obviously retroclones don't run on a 3X basis, but once you've decided that an Average difficulty encounter is worth 100 XP, you can convert the class XP tables easily. Heroes of Thaumasiahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/14586877369941932898noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-40289908294132516002020-06-27T04:56:20.032-07:002020-06-27T04:56:20.032-07:00I have run Through Ultan's Door for 4 years no...I have run Through Ultan's Door for 4 years now using the 1 XP per 1 GP rule, about 100 sessions of the original campaign, which is still going, and about 15 sessions with a second group that I started to playtest the more polished material as I got it into shape for the zine. You can see the role of treasure as motivator in the zine with all the lovingly described treasure as the inducement to engage with different areas, like the tombs in the Catacombs of the Fleischguild, or the Heart of Haldicar.<br /><br />Speaking generally, the material in the zines is produced in the first instance with a view to retro-game play that involves a heavy emphasis on exploration, open-worlds, and overcoming challenges. Of course, you can easily take the material and go in another direction with it!Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-73260985649919037522020-06-26T23:31:22.067-07:002020-06-26T23:31:22.067-07:00As a matter of interest, is this the way you run T...As a matter of interest, is this the way you run Through Ultan’s Door? If so, is that philosophy in mind when you design your scenarios and settings?Alistairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04631364538623314004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-21213780607434584542020-06-26T11:26:17.272-07:002020-06-26T11:26:17.272-07:00This sounds VERY COOL. I'd love to take a look...This sounds VERY COOL. I'd love to take a look at it.Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-77873504799999411852020-06-26T11:25:19.445-07:002020-06-26T11:25:19.445-07:00I agree. Something I've failed to articulate, ...I agree. Something I've failed to articulate, much less explain, in any of these discussions is the sense that in retro-gaming play, we want player goals to be *different* from the objective success conditions that they pursue. They're things that players do because they want to do them, in part using the resources they get from satisfying the objective success conditions. In a way, pursuing character or group goals is more like a reward, or an emergent byproduct of core activity, in OSR play. Instead, we incentivize a core activity (exploration, treasure) that doesn't really correspond to the pursuit of any determinate individual goal, but just says: interact with the setting in a mode of exploration and overcoming objective challenges. And then allow people to build goals on top of that as they become involved in the world. I think the comments to this post have brought out the fact that people don't understand why to incentivize particular goals messes with a certain kind of open-world play. There's something important about the neutrality of GP or even rewarding exploration (e.g. gamified uncovering hexes). Obviously, I've been at pains in this post to point out the limits of that neutrally. But I do think we want something that tells you to engage with the world in the mode of exploration and overcoming obstacles, while also letting you do absolutely anything else you want to do. Rescue the prisoners, or defeat the villains, or protect the weak, etc. are not like that. Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-42582660727131272682020-06-26T09:31:17.643-07:002020-06-26T09:31:17.643-07:00I've been writing up a hexcrawl with the goal ...I've been writing up a hexcrawl with the goal of keeping the feel of objective xp / xp-for-treasure, while offering a more heroic fantasy vibe.<br /><br />You're exploring the ruins of a fallen empire to recover the relics they plundered from your homeland centuries ago. XP is for discovering the location of and then retrieving relics. There relics of all different levels of power, so they are basically treasures with gp values, but they don't actually provide wealth (some do serve as magic items you can use). Wealth can still be obtained, and is useful for funding your expedition, winning favor from local factions, etc, but its up to you how much effort you want to devote to acquiring it. In addition to xp, the relics contribute to rebuilding the shattered spiritual essence of your homeland, and advancing the influence of your faction, toward shaping its future.Kalypteinhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/05988999210118074246noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-91481109552360286412020-06-26T09:28:29.719-07:002020-06-26T09:28:29.719-07:00I have thought about, and experimented with, a num...I have thought about, and experimented with, a number of alternatives, and for me the beneficial aspects of XP for GP most difficult to replicate with other approaches are the in-world material granularity and the thematic fungibility. Most of the other alternatives are chunkier, making it harder to have partial scores, or less connected to material aspects of the game world, such as accomplishing quest milestones, or more thematically specific, such as rescuing prisoners. (Recovering treasure has some thematic ties, as you note well in the post, but it is easier to cast GP as a means to many different ends, whereas options with less thematic fungibility seem more likely to be ends as such.) No immediate suggestions, but perhaps we could get at some options by brainstorming around those aspects specifically.Necropraxishttps://www.blogger.com/profile/12716340801054739658noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-82697085638575004562020-06-26T05:28:16.932-07:002020-06-26T05:28:16.932-07:00I read EB once I got it, and saw that Into the Odd...I read EB once I got it, and saw that Into the Odd is quite different, which is why I decided to stay with ItO and see how we go. EB is likely to be done as a separate game, I think, because it does feel different. I may borrow things from it, but at the moment my ItO game has already morphed a little: as we decide something needs a hack or houserule, it is illuminating to see the group’s different rpg experiences surfacing in how they take to or address the percieved problem that we think needs fixing. The other reason I’m sticking with ItO is, strangely enough, because it is my way of getting back into a more D&D like headspace. I am not yet convinced that EB is ‘better’, only that it is different, and that time and experience with each system will tell: and then, of course, it’ll only be the way it pans out for our group. YMMV as they say.<br /><br />As for Traveller: we rarely ever had Merchant characters in the groups I was a part of. We were more likely to have a scout with a ship than be hooked up with a merchant, so Trade was never a thing in my gaming circles. It is interesting how different experiences yield quite different views of things.Alistairhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04631364538623314004noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-30477942898735805412020-06-25T22:12:51.792-07:002020-06-25T22:12:51.792-07:00Those set of tweet, I believe, have been some of t...Those set of tweet, I believe, have been some of the most insightful about D&D I've seen in the last ~3 months. Certainly in the last 1.<br /><br />Its a great solution to a problem.Warren D.https://www.blogger.com/profile/05634722785917786420noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-48193506235323331422020-06-25T21:12:34.807-07:002020-06-25T21:12:34.807-07:00Yes that has a very similar vibe! In some follow-u...Yes that has a very similar vibe! In some follow-up post @AvashIslam emphasizes that Conan stories are not about him being king, but about him regaining being king after having lost it. The idea is that using or losing the thing is fun, either it means you're actually engaging with the game (i.e. drinking the damn potion), or it means you have a whole adventure right there in front of you: rebuild what was taken from you.Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-13530650206290969892020-06-25T21:02:14.281-07:002020-06-25T21:02:14.281-07:00I have a little trouble parsing what you're sa...I have a little trouble parsing what you're saying and the assumptions behind it. In my longest running game, we've player perhaps 100 sessions, and the highest level character is 8th level, with some still at 5th. Naturally, in 15 sessions my players were still below at 5th level. Probably most were 2nd, some were maybe 3rd and some were 1st. I think you and I have very different time scales in mind when we think about experience and levels.<br /><br />Also, I should say that the game I run is focused from the beginning on winning experience points in an extremely hazardous environment. If people mess around and don't take it seriously, their characters die given the challenges I've set up. That's the whole basis of the pleasure of the way I play. It sounds like you and your group set up a very different vibe from day 1. Basically, it sounds like we're not playing the same game. (No judgment of value there, just pointing out that it sounds like we're up to different things.)Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-34236721092637619792020-06-25T20:56:21.875-07:002020-06-25T20:56:21.875-07:00I never read Into the Odd, but Electric Bastionlan...I never read Into the Odd, but Electric Bastionland, which is Into the Odd 2E, has no leveling at all. You can get more hp from getting certain "scars", but it has no leveling mechanic. I'll take a look at the original ItO. As for Traveller, at least in the original black book (1977), you would only own your ship if you were in the merchant service and got the right rolls, which is pretty unlikely. Otherwise, you had your ship with a big loan from the bank, and a lot of the calculus was about how much it cost to pay for fuel, and crew, and repairs, while also paying for the bank loan. Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-67540212890896856542020-06-25T19:49:06.326-07:002020-06-25T19:49:06.326-07:00Wow, that's an XP idea that I've actually ...Wow, that's an XP idea that I've actually *never* heard before. Really worth thinking about, and kind of similar to AD&D 1e's xp for magic items in one particular way. <br /><br />EOTB from the awesome but rarely-updated blog here https://csio.blogspot.com/ says he awards XP for consumable magic items (potions, scrolls, etc) *when the player uses them*. If the potion breaks or the scroll burns up in a fireball, that XP is gone. He said it was to encourage his players to use the damn stuff during their adventures instead of hoarding it, so he could give them something new. Pretty neat idea.HDAhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13506175636615989219noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-51820808834005052872020-06-25T09:06:49.851-07:002020-06-25T09:06:49.851-07:00Oh, I remember that post! That's a good one fo...Oh, I remember that post! That's a good one for sure. Very interesting mechanic that ties advancement to emergent stories and storytelling! I worry about it not incentivizing overcoming objective challenges, since I find that way of playing a lot of fun, but I think it's amazing. Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-60654825329156527062020-06-25T09:04:15.362-07:002020-06-25T09:04:15.362-07:00Wow, thanks for that Claytonian. I think that'...Wow, thanks for that Claytonian. I think that's super interesting! I agree about the richness of the treasure and how to spend it problem, a good system of downtime activities would really help here, keeping players in a space of hard choices throughout when it comes to both spending their money and time. As for the implausibility of treasure being around, I think that's just a setting issue--he was imagining a setting where it didn't work, but there are plenty where it does. I think placing the gold in the hands only of rich humans, if combined with the XP for GP rule, would lead to a campaign of heists, or perhaps revolution, or banditry. That could be a fun game for sure. Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-72928182167079990282020-06-25T08:58:44.685-07:002020-06-25T08:58:44.685-07:00That all sounds like it worked wonderfully for you...That all sounds like it worked wonderfully for your group. The Mutant Year Zero approach wouldn't quite work for the kinds of games I run, since the play style involves objective success conditions in the world, the same for everyone (i.e. no rewards for personal goals), and an otherwise open sandbox setting. Learning about PCs is not really something I'd want to directly incentivize, since that's a story element that I would prefer to emerge organically from play as a side effect of the players being invested in the game. (Character development and backstory is not really at the core of the activity in the games I play.) What works better for me is the idea you mention of rewarding people for discovering things in the setting. I mention a couple versions of that, and I can imagine others as well--setting information as treasure, if you will. (You can see from my above comments why I don't like milestones.)Ben L.https://www.blogger.com/profile/04568198881628052274noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4202612634352350608.post-51472119252223254602020-06-25T08:56:35.077-07:002020-06-25T08:56:35.077-07:00Like your overview.
My playgroup were always unde...Like your overview.<br /><br />My playgroup were always under level 5 after 15+ sessions due to the "reward" of XP in games never fitting our playstyle. We got most of our XP from showing up or by summing up what had happened last session.<br /><br />At the table, players play the game that's right for them regardless of the "reward" and "growth" dangling cat-toy-ishly above.<br /><br />We were a bunch of lazy cats that would rather eat and design an inordinate amount of decorous food and read a bunch of books about the shitnope we ran away from as we collect firewood for money for food for the night and we'd dance in the streets and yeah the XP Disher-Outer would eventually blow the town up and yeah we'd try and save it by getting everyone to form a line and putting out the fires, but then we'd soon make it to another town and the whole cycle would start all over again.<br /><br />That said, we had great times.<br /><br />---<br /><br />Say you wanted to reward that kind of play. Okay, fine. Maybe you want to introduce healthy delving practices to our group. Sure. I'd say give us: <br /><br />* the deed to a museum that needs filling or <br />* our fav cafe needs ingredients during some shortage or <br />* our library network needs people to move books around or<br />* that mountain one of us likes to wake up and write a poem about every day one day just has a hole punched through it only to discover through a bunch of poetry checks the town needs to have less nightmares in order to fill the hole that has developed in the mountain's heart or<br />* inherit us some fixer-uper vehicle of an NPC passing away who'd like us to take it on "one more trip across the land" <br /><br />or w/e.<br /><br />Takeaway: XP not tailored to fit your group goes ignored.Tibia Wardhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11007982521169349571noreply@blogger.com