XP for not-gold

[Finarvyn]

I know that 1 GP = 1 XP is a standard for the game but I was thinking about the 5E concept that XP is awarded for monster kills and puzzle solving and attaining certain victory conditions, but not for gold earned. This got me wondering what percentage of XP earned typically comes from monster kills and what percentage from gold.

For example, if we estimate that only 10% of the XP comes from actual monster kills, then I could take the OD&D XP charts and move the decimal point to get a non-gold XP equivalent chart. 0, 2000, 4000, 8000, etc would become 0, 200, 400, 800, and so on. Or, I could reconfigure the monster kill XP chart by multiplying those by 10 so that the M&T charts would be intact.

The problem is that I really haven't done XP by the book for a number of years, and my intuition for this may be really skewed. Anyone have a good guess as to the gold versus non-gold XP ratio for a "typical" OD&D campaign?

[oldkat]

I've always disliked the idea of gold somehow equaling experience; I know its a game, but I always felt there should have been a "better" way to address it. (Note: I've also never been satisfied with subsequent publications and their justification of GP = XP either.)

Of late, I'm just inclined to remove this from the system; after all, one gets tomb-robbing experience from performing the actions necessary to obtain the loot, not from the loot itself. So, I'd (1)up the XP assigned to monsters by some kind of multiplier; perhaps 5, 10, 20, or whatever. (2) Create XP tables for actions that characters continually perform in the course of their level-climbs; Turn Undead, Cast Spells, Move Quietly(sneak about, not the thiefy thing), Detect Secret/Hidden portals, and of course, thiefy stuff too. And since all characters get XP for killing monsters, I'd give Fighter types (including the dwarf, elf, hobbit, paladin, ranger)an additional 1 XP for every point of damage they personally inflict on monsters/creatures.

Put the whole system on more of an individual achievement system, and less a group/kick-starter thing.
Sure, its a bit more paper keeping for the Referee; but from all I've noticed, of late (reading forums for the past 9 years), we probably need more dedicated (than lazy) DMs.

[Mike]

My understanding of the GP = XP justification is: more the greater the challenge, the greater the GP reward. I've got no problem with that. My only issue is what happens to the gold once you haul it out of the dungeon.

In the early days I never gave it a moment's thought and was happy to imagine the characters reclining in vast pools of gold and gems; then, one day one of my players asked how the local economy was coping with a handful of reprobates having more disposable cash than the duke. They bought up all the local property and the housing market collapsed. Happens all the time in Western Australia.

[Finarvyn]

Oldkat & Mike -- you have each summed up some of my dislike of the current system and the reason I'm looking for an alternate. My typical games tend to be more "goal oriented" where I might decide to level everyone up at the completion of a mission or a module. Works well for my group, but I've been playing in a 5E game and I like the fact that folks who don't play every week get a penalty by not earning XP. But I don't like the fact that gaining XP also goes hand-in-hand with game wealth, which should be its own reward.

That's what got me thinking about using the XP tables but tweaking them to represent non-gold factors instead of giving gold for XP. I don't really want my players to have piles of gold lying around as a byproduct of leveling up.

[Merias]

If you use the 100xp per HD from the 3LBBs, a bigger portion of XP comes from monsters, at least at low levels. In my last OD&D campaign, I also gave this XP if the monster encounter was cleverly avoided. There is also the 'XP only for gold spent' idea, which I've tried. That works only to a point, however.

Another idea - I'm in a PbP game where the ref is using the unified DCC XP charts (10xp for 1st level, 50xp for 2nd, 110xp for 3rd), and giving XP awards based on play contribution. So one player might get an extra XP or two for a given encounter if they handled it well, or were more involved. Gold XP is not given, and it cuts down quite a bit on the hoarding. Lots of treasure isn't even deemed worthy of being taken. This seems to be working well so far.

[chicagowiz]

Finarvyn, I have such a crazy XP system that I've never really put it down in words, but I'll try. This applies to my OD&D and AD&D games. I use a spreadsheet to calculate this all out. After 6 years, it's pretty foolproof.

At it's core, I award 1gp of treasure = 1XP.
-- A caveat to that is if the players take individual items, then that treasure XP is awarded to them personally. Same for magic items. The person with the item gets the XP.

I award 1HD = 100XP for monsters defeated, even in AD&D. I convert the +1s, +2s into decimal equivalents for the HD. So OD&D 1+1HD = 117XP. AD&D 1+1HD = 113XP.
-- I do calculate the ratio of player level of XP, so if a 1st level person beat that 1+1 monster, they get the full. A third level person is ratio'd accordingly.

I award eXPloration XP ala Jeff Rient's logic: jrients.blogspot.com/2009/12/exploration.html -- I calculate the XP if a 1st level person did this, how far up would it raise them to being a Hero? (4th level). So in my campaign, if a 1st level person went into the d**ned-infested downtown square of Irecia, that would be an automatic 2nd level, maybe even a 3rd level. Now scale from there. I pull these values from my butt when they encounter the place.

I award 1HD = 100XP even if the defeat isn't fatal to the monsters. Cleric turned the undead and they ran off? XP awarded. Did the monsters become best buds with the players through bribes or spells? XP awarded.

I award some RP XP if it fits the players' class and it's a pretty awesome event. Lawful clerics wrecking Chaos altars? XP awarded, based on what I'd give a first level cleric doing the thing. Mage doing a "Dispel Magic" ritual on the glowing evil portal to Hell with things crawling out, but she sticks with it and -ZIP-, the thing is gone. XP awarded. Again, what would a first level get, and ratio it from there. (A Superhero level Wizard isn't going to get as much because, yannow... Hellish Portals with things crawling out is a weekly date-night for that level.)

For henchmen, I award half XP to them, then spread the rest out over the rest of the party.

Finally, as a way of encouraging the "West Marches" concept of players making information available to all, if players post adventure logs and/or maps to the campaign wiki (for all to see), then they get a 10% XP bonus on what they earned the previous game.

*whew*

[Porphyre]

Feb 11, 2016 11:44:30 GMT -6 chicagowiz said:

I award 1HD = 100XP even if the defeat isn't fatal to the monsters. Cleric turned the undead and they ran off? XP awarded. Did the monsters become best buds with the players through bribes or spells? XP awarded.

I tend also to reward peaceful resolution of problems and good diplomacy in this way. 

[chicagowiz]

Oh! I forgot something really important too!

One of the fun bits from playing in Chirine ba'Kal's Tekumel game at GaryCon 2015 was the aftermath -- that successfully completing the mission raised my "level" automatically! He hadn't mentioned it during the game, but afterwards, because I like keeping my characters and bringing them out for future games with the same GM/system, I had asked what our rewards/XP were. He then explained this to me:

>- What exactly would our reward have been, in terms of favors, allegiances
>and such?

First, you and your clan would have been owed a huge favor, or a series of small favors, by the Temple of Avanthe itself; your rescued hostage would have also owed you some favors as well, as would her clan and home temple in Tu'umnra. That's very handy, as it would benefit you in your future career. Your own Temple would have recognized this, and given you a promotion one step up in your rank as a priest; you would also get preference in future promotions and advancement, and even start to get more favors and 'inducements' from the rest of your temple as you would be regarded as an 'up and coming' 'stand-up kind of guy' who can be relied to get the job done.

(emphasis mine)

Then...

>- How much XP did we earn for the successful completion?

Well, this is in some ways a very difficult problem; In Phil's campaign, we never counted XP. I don't use XP in my own campaign, really - I fall back on the cultural aspects, and when you do something like this the Temple would call you in and le you know that a place in the Temple academy was now open and you're being sent off to study - you'd get new spells and skills that way. It's what we did out at Phil's, which is why I am a Fifth level / circle priest for administrative purposes, and a Tenth level / circle sorcerer for magical purposes. I am also a Kasi on the staff of two Tsolyani legions, Searing Flame and Mnashu of Thri'il (the latter is Mike Mornard's legion), I've served as a provincial and city governor, and I currently feed the wives and family by being the contractor for the defense of the Temple of Mretten and the Nyemesel Islands. It all adds up; I live quite comfortably, actually.

(emphasis mine)

So I've adopted this as well. If my players do something so heroic that their fame would naturally spread and their social/political position would be improved within whatever organization they are in, then I reflect that as a level increase.

To better explain that, I equate "Hero" (4th level) with someone "regionally known" but not necessarily known throughout the world. I equate "Superhero" (8th level) as someone known across the lands, worldwide, someone who could become a ruler of a political entity in their own right.

So this is a subjective call, for sure, but I equate their actions to "does this bring someone to the level of a Hero or Superhero, or what would the organization think of how this advanced them?"

So if Mazlor the Mighty, cleric of the Light (Lawful), defeats a major villain of Chaos, it's entirely possible that this would "bump" him a level (and I know that Mazlor's player reads the OD&D Board, so this is ONLY AN EXAMPLE! ) because defeating a major villain would be rewarded with increased political power within the Church and more fame throughout the land.

As Chirine mentioned, this is a difficult problem to equate to XP, so I've had a discussion with my players that this might happen. What I'll normally do is put a note on their character sheet of "Congratulations! You're now 4th level! Your XP is currently x,xxxx" and we move on. I'll let them know in play if this is because of fame: "Congratulations! You've been named as Heroes of the Duchy!" or organization "You've now moved up in the Thieve's Guild with that recent elimination of the rival. Here's your current XP x,xxx" ...

[Deleted]

Okay, first:

Why XP for gold? SO that wandering monsters are a HAZARD, not XP on the hoof. Jolly Blackburn lampshades the hell out of this in "Knights of the Dinner Table," where you get crap like Newt hamstringing horses in the stable as "a low risk source of locally available XP" and Dave wandering through the forest banging saucepans together to draw wandering monsters.

THAT is the reason you get 95% or more of your XP for gold and not monster kills. Wandering monsters are not supposed to be XP that deliver themselves.

[oldkat]

But this doesn't have to be the case, Mike--

...where you get crap like Newt hamstringing horses in the stable as "a low risk source of locally available XP" and Dave wandering through the forest banging saucepans together to draw wandering monsters.

--

if the Game Moderator is attempting to create a different justification for how the mechanic works. The fact that XP = gold is simply the end result, just as XP (only less so) for killed monsters is, as well.

An easy solution to this (not the,but an ) is simply to not allow XP for monsters when they are of lesser HD value than the character slaying them. IOW, a L10 fighter would never get XP for killing a single creature less than 10 HD in a single encounter. In mass encounters, where the total HD value of lesser creatures was worth 10, 20 or 100 times the level of the characters involved, awarding of XP could be the standard. (Bookkeeping required? "OHHHHH NOOOO!" exclaim the many of lesser ambition! lol)

In the end, it's all in how one wants to do his thing.

[sepulchre]

chicagowiz wrote:

I award eXPloration XP ala Jeff Rient's logic: jrients.blogspot.com/2009/12/exploration.html

I have been framing xp this way for sometime, I like Jeff's layout here very much.

gronanofsimmeryia wrote:

Why XP for gold? SO that wandering monsters are a HAZARD, not XP on the hoof.

Well said. May not be the only way to award XP, but it explicates the framework provided and informs how one might embellish or reduce it.

[cooper]

The answer is you give XP for whatever action you are attempting to encourage your players to do. If you want to reward your players for going around and fighting monsters, then the answer is to create reward incentive to do so.

[Finarvyn]

This is a fascinating discussion. I had kind of expected some "yeah, just divide the numbers in the chart by ten and it works fine" sorts of responses, but instead most of the posts seem to validate the way I've been doing it the last decade or two where I don't bother to count XP at all.

Chicagowiz, thanks for the info about Phil Barker's campaign. I knew that Dave often hand-waved XP but didn't know that Phil did this as well.

Gronan, when I do bother to count XP I always assumed that avoiding the monster, negotiating with the monster, or other ways of diffusing the situation counted as much as actually killing the monster. I've always thought of monsters as being a challenge and not an XP factory, but I'm glad to be reminded of this because many of my players may be thinking of them in terms of XP only even if I am not.

[chicagowiz]

Feb 14, 2016 8:11:30 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Chicagowiz, thanks for the info about Phil Barker's campaign. I knew that Dave often hand-waved XP but didn't know that Phil did this as well.

You're welcome! I'm getting the impression that most of these old wargame-campaigners wanted their players to get the hell through the lower levels so they could raise armies and do interesting things at a larger scale! I am starting to get "why" now, as I am learning all sorts of interesting things about my world through doing some solo wargaming in figuring out my "strategic level" rules. And considering that most of the older guys tended to talk to each other about their campaigns and what worked, it makes sense that they would adopt similar ways.

What I find really interesting is that a good chunk of us 2nd and 3rd generationers who go back to these simpler rulesets trend in that same direction and to those same ways.

[premmy]

Feb 13, 2016 18:34:43 GMT -6 @gronanofsimmerya said:

Okay, first:

Why XP for gold? SO that wandering monsters are a HAZARD, not XP on the hoof. Jolly Blackburn lampshades the hell out of this in "Knights of the Dinner Table," where you get crap like Newt hamstringing horses in the stable as "a low risk source of locally available XP" and Dave wandering through the forest banging saucepans together to draw wandering monsters.

THAT is the reason you get 95% or more of your XP for gold and not monster kills. Wandering monsters are not supposed to be XP that deliver themselves.

I agree there's nothing inherently wrong with XP for gold; however, you're setting up a false dilemma here. You're implying that EITHER the party gets XP for gold and then 95% of the XP is from there, OR they don't, and THEN they NECESSARILY get all of it from monsters, and that there are NO other options.

Which is not true. If the DM wants to encourage the party to be heroes and "do the right thing", he can just hand out discretionary XP awards for saving the village from raiders, finding the murderer, or stealing the battle plans from the middle of the Bad Guy's encampment - even though none of these involving recovering much treasure. If he wants to encourage dungeon exploration, he can hand out XP for mapping secret passages and new transit points between levels. If he wants to encourage cattle raiding because, say, it's a Celtic-inspired setting, he can hand out XP for loot in livestock, but not in gold. Or, like others have said before, he can just declare "you've all gone up a level" when he feels the time is right.

The DM can set up any XP system he wants, he's not constrained to "95% gold, 5% kills" or "100% kills and it's bad". It's not a sacrilege, and it's not "you're no longer playing DnD". Changing the XP system to suit your purposes better isn't a bigger deal than inventing a new monster or a new magic item.

[Deleted]

I always interpreted XP from treasure as XP earned for the more exploratory and roleplaying aspects of the adventure -- character development business -- whereas XP from monsters killed as XP earned from the business of killing.

I felt that -- while more giving XP wise than later editions -- it was balanced by some editions' caps on levels gained per adventure.

[codeman123]

I simply don't give xp for monster kills or gold anymore. I used to but now i just give xp based on goals and role playing etc. I also give everyone the same amount as a group but if someone does something clever etc. i give more to the group as a whole. I also tell my players how i award xp and that some one that does not contribute will effect the xp for everyone.

[EdOWar]

I kind of like Omega World's free-form experience system, where PCs are awarded XP based on how they interacted with the world instead of based on treasure or killing monsters. A timid party might only get 500 XP for the session, while an over-the-top session (such as picking a losing fight with a Deathbot, or playing around with a neutron bomb) could be worth 5,000 XP, whether they succeed or fail (though, if they fail they're probably dead regardless).

[Finarvyn]

If my memory is correct (which it often isn't) the old SAGA system for Dragonlance 5th Age had an XP system where characters were awarded level based on "quests" instead of individual encounters. I suppose this could be interpreted as entire modules or actual sit-down gaming sessions, depending upon how quickly the DM wants the group to advance. I'll have to find the chart later, but in my mind I can see something like this:

Level Quests
1 0
2 1
3 2
4 4
5 8
6 16
7 32
8 64
9 128

[Deleted]

Jan 8, 2017 6:19:13 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

If my memory is correct (which it often isn't) the old SAGA system for Dragonlance 5th Age had an XP system where characters were awarded level based on "quests" instead of individual encounters.

SAGA did this and I've seen it in a few boardgame/rpg hybrids as well (such as Dungeoneer). The issue with advancement based on quests is how to determine what is or isn't a quest. It's trendy nowadays to have player defined goals but I've never had luck with this as it encourages players to choose the most linear and easily obtainable goals for advancement. Plus it tends to split the party.

For a traditional RPG, a quest based XP system is perfect for a more railroady "story" campaign. Where the GM creates the quests in sequence (each one balanced according to the party's current power level) and the players dutifully follow them along. This is probably what SAGA was going for. If you don't want to play this way, the GM will need to prep a variety of quests for various play styles and difficulty (which is something they probably should be doing anyway), adjusting the value of each quest accordingly. Taken to its logical conclusion, you'll end up with an XP system that's almost exactly like that found in 3e.

I've said it before, but the XP system for 3e was the most well designed XP system ever found in a D&D game (I'm not overly familiar with 4e and 5e so I might be underestimating those versions).


That being said, I come from a primarily Runequest background. A game which has a most eminently logical advancement system. But an advancement system that actually discourages players from taking risks. You want to find the weakest challenge possible to get your checkmarks.

XP for gold, however, encourages players to seek out adventure better than any other system. By tying the XP to a fixed value (i.e. the treasure in the dungeon), you not only encourage players to go into the dungeon, but you encourage the players to go deeper into the dungeon for the more valuable loot. The players, at least in their minds, are confident that they can bypass, trick, defeat, or otherwise neutralize the bad guys guarding that treasure. There's more risk, but there is more rewards. When you only get XP for monsters defeated or quests completed, you've tied the reward inseparably to the risk.

With treasure XP, there's always the chance that the players will find that stash of hidden gems and make away with loads of XP without having to face its dangerous guardian. It's sort of like gambling. There's always a chance, however slim, that you'll get a great reward so the party's greed will tempt them deeper and deeper.

This is why I consider XP for gold superior to other methods even if it isn't as logical as Runequest or as well designed as 3e.