Gold for XP revisited

[Finarvyn]

James on Grognardia has an interesting discussion going on about XP and whether they should be awarded based on treasure collected.

He mentions Dave Hargrove's Arduin and lists some examples about other things that might give XP from that campaign.

I'd like to add that Tunnels & Trolls gives XP for falling into traps, with the explanation that a person who gets trapped has hopefully learned something by the experience.

I'm of mixed minds on the issue.

1. Gold for XP is simple. Earn loot, gain XP from the adventure. Of course, this gives players a double gain since they can also spend the money in addition to gaining the XP.

2. XP for other actions can be a good idea, but can lead to absurd actions by greedy players. Imagine two thieves who continually pick each other's pockets during an adventure, trading off a valuable gemstone and both going up in levels. Or a magic-user who casually starts the campfire with magic, puts the party to sleep for the night, and then levitates a cow just to burn off those last spells before sitting down to memorize new ones -- should he get XP credit for these actions? I think we'd all argue that the answer is "no'.

So how to do experience, then?

My own rule is simply not to bother to count XP anymore. I just let the players play, get rich or not, kill stuff or not, and when we hit a convenienet stop-and-rest point (Rivendell, if you will) they gain a level. This happens after a few adventures or after many, based on when I feel the party deserves a level. More frequently at first, then progressively slower and slower as they appraoch my "top out" level cap around level 9. Often I zoom them up to level 4 (hero) and they stay there for a while, then hurry them along to level 8 (super hero) where they stay for a lot longer, then do a "final quest" to level 9 or 10 and then they retire these characters to start over the next game.

Just curious as to how others do it.

[Deleted]

I give XP for treasure gained and monsters slain and have never, either mechanically or philosophically, had a problem with it.

Of course, I'm a "run your campaign your way" kind of fellow so this should not be viewed as a

(a) a challenge to anyone's campaign world or referee style, or

(b) an invitation to a debate (such debates will be ignored without apology).

[tavis]

I used a system similar to yours in a 3.5 game using the Savage Tide adventure path from Paizo, Fin. It worked well to deal with some of the issues specific to the constraints of that type of campaign (e.g. there wasn't a problem with having to adjust the scripted parts of the adventure to match 3.5 challenge expectations due to the PCs having become higher-level than they were supposed to be due to side treks, or lower-level due to skipping past parts of the script that didn't make sense to use in play).

In my White Sandbox OD&D campaign I like that the focus on getting gold to earn XP encourages a more greedy and gritty style of play. The Savage Tide game had more of a saga feeling, wherein the characters were destined to rise to power by following their inclinations & the events of the story. By contrast, I like that there are specific goals that the White Sandbox cares about (i.e. turning a profit from one's dungeoneering) and that there's no guarantee that anyone will ever level up even if they fervently devote themselves to gold-mongering.

I do let PCs get XP once for each GP they bring safely back to town and then again for each GP they fritter away on wine, women, and song, as I posted about at The Mule Abides. The ability to customize what things your character cares about spending on helps balance the game-enforced focus on gold as the engine of advancement.

I like the comments at the Grognardia post that suggest translating "story" awards back into gold pieces. I think I'm going to use that for a recent session in which the PCs managed to do all manner of difficult things without killing anyone or gaining any treasure. I'd been tempted to create a new system of XP, but instead I'm going to have one of the other forces in the campaign who gained in power as a result of those events simply give the PCs a hunk of treasure in thanks. I like how that stays within the existing OD&D framework, makes sense in the game-world, and fuels spending that gold on carousing or other player-driven activities.

[Finarvyn]

Oct 18, 2009 9:06:35 GMT -6 @dubeers said:

Of course, I'm a "run your campaign your way" kind of fellow so this should not be viewed as a
(a) a challenge to anyone's campaign world or referee style, or
(b) an invitation to a debate (such debates will be ignored without apology).

Oh, I hope our audience won't fall into a petty sniping war over stuff like this. I was just trying to get a feel for the kinds of things that DMs use for XP.

I know that I did XP "by the book" for decades before I morphed into my present form, and my Swords & Wizardry: WhiteBox rules still suggest XP totals for levels, etc., so I'm not anti the whole idea. I just don't bother with it anymore. (I don't bother with encumberance, either, but that's another thread... )

[Arminath]

For my Onn campaigns I give out 1/20 the XP total needed for a character to level as a role-playing bonus in addition to monster kills and gold recovered.

I've fiddled with using the 2e XP bonuses (Fighters getting 10 xp/HD killed, Thieves getting XP for doing 'useful' thieving activities, spellcasters getting 10 xp/spell level for spells cast in a useful manner), but dropped this due to the fast levelling it created.

[fitz]

I allow the use of gold for XP, but only when paying for training and only up to a maximum of 50% of the required XP. That way the players have to make a decision on how they want to benefit from their riches -- by advancing their characters, or by buying stuff.

The complete explanation is here on my website.

[Deleted]

Oct 18, 2009 12:52:55 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Oh, I hope our audience won't fall into a petty sniping war over stuff like this. I was just trying to get a feel for the kinds of things that DMs use for XP.

Me, too. I guess the subject makes me a little nervous. If my post sounded harsh I didn't mean to come across that way, by the way.

[makofan]

For a player, adventure and player development is the rationale behind play. For the character, gold or phat loot is the reason he is adventuring. Good, easy scoring mechanism that makes sense in character motivation

[Random]

In addition to gold and monsters, I've been known to toss out extra XP when a player outsmarts me. I suppose it's additional motivation to be clever.

[chgowiz]

I have been known to award players for overcoming monsters versus killing them - I'm liberal in the "kill things, take stuff" to allow that "killing" and "overcoming" can be consonant if the end goal was to "get stuff".

[blissinfinite]

I give out the standard exp. for monsters and gold but not for general spending of their gold (on equipment and what not). If they want to spend their gold for exp. then they have to spend it on something specific to their class. MU's writing scrolls or new spells in their book and researching new spells, clerics donations to their temple or cause, fighters and thieves, a roll on Jeff Rients' Carousing Mishaps chart. It gives them an incentive to keep spending their ill-gotten gains and to seek more.

[coffee]

I always wonder about the guys who don't give xp for treasure.

I mean, sure, it's their game and I respect that. But the game, that is the rules themselves, assume that xp will be granted for treasure. And that means that something like 80% of a character's xp should come from gold.

So if some DMs don't want to give xp for gold, why don't they give five times as much xp for killing monsters? That way, the characters will progress at the rate the game assumes they will and they can leave treasure out of it.

[Finarvyn]

Oct 20, 2009 9:56:04 GMT -6 coffee said:

I always wonder about the guys who don't give xp for treasure.

I mean, sure, it's their game and I respect that. But the game, that is the rules themselves, assume that xp will be granted for treasure. And that means that something like 80% of a character's xp should come from gold.

So if some DMs don't want to give xp for gold, why don't they give five times as much xp for killing monsters? That way, the characters will progress at the rate the game assumes they will and they can leave treasure out of it.

As always you raise valid points, Coffee. I guess my no-XP philosophy came out of the annoyance at haing to keep track of such things. I find that gold makes its own reward, and tired of giving players the gold and then giving them XP for the gold. My game may come off as too "storytelling" for some DM's, but it's still basically OD&D and if I do go back to counting XP I think that counting gold is a lot better than most of the other options out there.

However, I also like your idea of mulitplying monster kill XP times 5 (or simply re-doing the class experience charts by dividing by 5) in order to maintain the "proper" rate of advancement. Hmmm. I might tinker with that...

See, this is the kind of discussion I like to see in this place. We can totally disagree on our methods but still take home cool ideas for our game.

[coffee]

Well, if it helps you out, I'm happy.

I originally came up with the notion of multiplying xp because I'm currently in an AD&D game where the DM -- you guessed it! -- doesn't believe in xp for treasure.

(He also changed combat so that a player's entire turn happens on his (individual) initiative, but if he wants to cast a spell THEN casting time is a factor. But Gygax was pretty clear in the DMG that spell-casting in combat shouldn't happen often. Although that seemed weird to me, since Gary played a lot of spellcasters himself...)

[Random]

Oct 20, 2009 11:04:56 GMT -6 coffee said:

Well, if it helps you out, I'm happy.

I originally came up with the notion of multiplying xp because I'm currently in an AD&D game where the DM -- you guessed it! -- doesn't believe in xp for treasure.

(He also changed combat so that a player's entire turn happens on his (individual) initiative, but if he wants to cast a spell THEN casting time is a factor. But Gygax was pretty clear in the DMG that spell-casting in combat shouldn't happen often. Although that seemed weird to me, since Gary played a lot of spellcasters himself...)

What did this guy start with (out of curiosity)? The whole "your entire turn happens on your initiative" was a big logic problem I had with 3E.

Imagine 100 3E barbarians all lined up 40' apart. They could pass a torch pretty darned far in just 6 seconds, er wait, 600 seconds, or maybe just 6 seconds... you see the issue?

[coffee]

He started with straight-up AD&D. But AD&D still has the one minute melee round, held over from Chainmail.

It might make sense in Chainmail, when you have formed bodies of troops reacting to orders, but for individuals moving about, one minute is too long (given the movement rates and such). And this guy would know: He fights in the Society for Creative Anachronism (SCA). He actually wears armor and knows what that feels like. So I'm going to cut him some slack in deciding that the AD&D system didn't measure up.

But he kept the 10 segment thing. He just dropped the entire round into 1 segment (of 6 seconds), which is then subdivided into 10. The problem is, he uses a d10 for initiative. (It sounds very much like 3e, up to that point). But then, you go on whatever "segment" you rolled.

So, Joe Fighter can move his movement, draw and knock an arrow, aim and release, and the arrow can travel downrange and strike the target. If Joe Fighter rolled a 9, this all happens in 9.

But if Joe Cleric (that's me) wants to cast a Cure Light Wounds on somebody, he takes his initiative (say 7) and adds the 5 segments casting time -- and that puts him in segment 2 of the next round!

That's where I wigged out.

[Morandir]

I use XP for GP, as well as 50 XP/HD for monsters killed. But I will also give out XP for overcoming challenges in a creative way. For instance, in our last session the PCs were attempting to recover a gem in the possession of a demon cult. Getting it required infiltrating the cult's volcano complex - a place crawling with monsters, cultists, and demonic guards, as well as the demon itself. Through a combination of luck, skill on the part of the players, and judicious use of Invisibility spells, they were able to get the gem and get out without getting into a single fight, even when they accidentally tipped the guards off to their presence.

On the other hand, they failed to do any looting. So no monsters killed and no treasure gotten = no XP. I didn't feel like that was right (since they played exceptionally well), so I gave them a large amount of XP anyway.

I'm thinking about adopting the rule that you only get XP for GP that you spend frivolously; buying a new sword gets you nothing, but wasting it all on booze does. This encourages PCs to spend their ill-gotten gains as quickly as possible, thus giving all the more motivation to go dungeoneering again.

Mor

[coffee]

Oct 20, 2009 14:48:54 GMT -6 Morandir said:

On the other hand, they failed to do any looting. So no monsters killed and no treasure gotten = no XP. I didn't feel like that was right (since they played exceptionally well), so I gave them a large amount of XP anyway.

Absolutely right. They should get something for that.

I'm thinking about adopting the rule that you only get XP for GP that you spend frivolously; buying a new sword gets you nothing, but wasting it all on booze does. This encourages PCs to spend their ill-gotten gains as quickly as possible, thus giving all the more motivation to go dungeoneering again.

Mor

See, now, this one leaves me cold. I mean sure, your game your rules. I don't want to step on any toes.

But I don't want to have to "squander" my money to get xp for it; what if I want to save it up to build a stronghold? That is the original endgame for D&D, and I think it's a good one. But I don't want to be penalized for playing the game the way it was designed.

[Finarvyn]

Oct 20, 2009 15:07:36 GMT -6 coffee said:

I don't want to have to "squander" my money to get xp for it; what if I want to save it up to build a stronghold? That is the original endgame for D&D, and I think it's a good one. But I don't want to be penalized for playing the game the way it was designed.

Interestingly enough, I think that First Fantasy Campaign has rules for blowing money to gain experience. I think Dave's example includes buying a horse and equipment (for zero XP) plus spending money on wine/women/song (for some number of XP).

Also in one of the early issues of Dragon there is some sort of "Orgies, etc" article that proposes a similar thing.

I'm not saying it's a good idea, but it has apparently worked successfully in several campaigns and it would help get rid of the problem of characters with too much loot.

I assume it's what one might call the "Conan rule" or "Fafhrd & Grey Mouser rule" whereby characters always start out each new adventure totally broke...

[tavis]

Oct 20, 2009 16:57:43 GMT -6 Finarvyn said:

Interestingly enough, I think that First Fantasy Campaign has rules for blowing money to gain experience.... Also in one of the early issues of Dragon there is some sort of "Orgies, etc" article that proposes a similar thing.

Indeed! I summarize the Orgies, Inc. rules here. The FFC rules are too complex to summarize (or to understand, in my case) but they do involve earning XP for GP spent on special interests, which differ by class.

I use both XP for getting GP and XP for spending GP in my campaign, which still has a quite low rate of level advancement (three PCs have gone from starting level 3 to four in over a dozen sessions). I definitely allow stronghold development as a "frivolous" expense that's worth XP, since it doesn't directly improve the PC's chance of survival. In many OD&D games there isn't much to spend money on that does!

[billhooks]

I'm in favor of XP for treasure recovered, period, but I think there's work to be done to give PCs (especially non-spellcasters) more interesting stuff to spend money on. Carousing, sure, but also: various titles, privileges and honors conferring specific advantages within the home city (bearing arms within the town gates, access to the magic library, you can probably think of even better ideas), or membership in international fraternal orders that give the characters a point of contact when they travel. Part-ownership in a business, ship or mercenary company. Marrying into a family with a good name that's fallen on hard times. The responsibilities entailed by these sorts of things can be material for the DM to create challenges that involve intrigue, interpersonal drama, politics, etc.

Basically, my experience is that players WANT to have their characters spending money on status, political power, weird tables to roll on that could give them something awesome or screw them, and so forth. If there's something there for us to play with, we'll play with it.

[Morandir]

Oct 20, 2009 15:07:36 GMT -6 coffee said:

But I don't want to have to "squander" my money to get xp for it; what if I want to save it up to build a stronghold? That is the original endgame for D&D, and I think it's a good one. But I don't want to be penalized for playing the game the way it was designed.

Sure, I can totally understand that, and for a BTB game that's what I would do. I probably should have mentioned that I run a more "Conan-esque" kind of game, where the PCs typically stay in the wandering adventurer mode rather than establishing themselves permanently in one place. This being the case, there's really not much to spend money on so for my game it makes more sense to award XP for coming up with interesting ways to fritter it all away, especially if they do so in a manner that provides further adventuring opportunities (buying a treasure map, for example).

But if they wanted to pursue the traditional endgame and build strongholds, I'd be totally cool with that. Then I'd be able to break out Chainmail for mass combats... ;D

Mor

[aldarron]

Agreeing here with Morandir and Tavis that spending loot (ala Arneson) in a character related way or dedicating it to a character related purpose is the method I'm preferring these days. The other option I've done is just a flat amount per completion of an adventure.

The trouble with the "story points" solution is that its wildly subjective and even the same DM can differ in the amounts awarded depending on mood. I remember one time in particular in an AD&D campaign where I thought my character had been particularly clever with a series of traps in a passageway and my DM penelized my XP award for what he said was reckless behavior. <sigh>

[capheind]

You just have to get creative to bilk them out of their money. I make them pay maintenance fees for their lifestyle, wizards have to pay their collegiate tuitions, Thieves have to live it up or else loose status, Fighters have to buy shiny things, trade in fine horses, and wench it up less they come afoul of their militias "don't ask don't tell" policy . You could also occasionally throw a cursed treasure, such as all GP must be spent in a single drunken weekend or it turns into an assortment of very irritated frogs. I call the latter the preceding adventure before "Dude where's my horse?"

[Mordorandor]

A reward system necessarily incentivizes the behavior to earn the reward.

That's why I prefer awarding XP btb (OD&D version):

If you find treasure, you can get a lot of XP (so go explore/searching the dungeon) ...

But don't think it's THAT easy because the dungeon is a labyrinth (so map) ...

And the treasure is sometimes guarded (so a little bit of XP for monsters) ...

But don't think you can sit on the 1st level and keep leveling up (so relative XP awards).

It tends to encourage the type of game play I prefer: Quick sessions of exploration, filled with some fighting, but not as a primary goal, in search of great wealth.

[howandwhy99]

I prefer rewarding XP according to class (the Role in RPGs). So each class is playing a different game for different ends which focuses on the player's increased experience and expertise in that class.

Gold for XP was 1974 originally. And Dungeon! Boardgame. But I believe the game improved by making the game more about roleplaying and supporting different roles. I.e. class mastery.

By putting the players into character improvement positions which were orthogonal to other teammates, D&D made goal setting, planning, and cooperation more interesting as challenges and the whole a more rewarding game to play well.

That player conflict challenge matters. And can lead to positive personal growth.

[Mordorandor]

Nov 6, 2022 19:05:03 GMT -6 howandwhy99 said:

I prefer rewarding XP according to class (the Role in RPGs). So each class is playing a different game for different ends which focuses on the player's increased experience and expertise in that class.

Gold for XP was 1974 originally. And Dungeon! Boardgame. But I believe the game improved by making the game more about roleplaying and supporting different roles. I.e. class mastery.

By putting the players into character improvement positions which were orthogonal to other teammates, D&D made goal setting, planning, and cooperation more interesting as challenges and the whole a more rewarding game to play well.

That player conflict challenge matters. And can lead to positive personal growth.

I've leaned this way many times and have always returned to this question: why reward the players for playing to class, if what offers them the greatest odds of continued success is playing to class?

That is, isn't the reward for playing to class simply the greater chance of success, and thus, the greater instances of success; that is, of getting more treasures more frequently for longer periods?

Sure, one could be successful in getting treasure playing against type/class. But what are the odds of growing ever more powerful by consistently doing so?

Seems unlikely. So players are naturally incentivized to play to class because it's the one surest way to maintain the greatest chances of getting the most treasure in the long run.

In which case, the very act of choosing a class, or more accurately in an open table forum, the very act of choosing which character/class to play for a particular session, given the characters other players are choosing to play, could be the mini-game of role-strategy and conflict players engage in when deciding how best to earn XP that session.

[hamurai]

I'd say you'd have to at least be careful and open-minded when rewarding XP for (role-)playing a class. Not everyone will have the same opinion about what that class is.

As I understand you, it's not enough for a FM to kill enemies to get the XP reward, but what is? Does a FM have to be offensive? Does a FM have to have the highest kill count?
Similarly, what qualifies a Cleric for that XP reward? Healing HP? Yelling "For [insert deity name]!" every time they go into battle?

It's easy to fall into the MMORPG mindset, where roles are Tank, Damage Dealer, Healer, maybe Supporter, too. Some in my group often use these roles for our RPGs when creating characters. I think it limits character role-playing and player creativeness.

@topic:
For my "old school games" I use XP for gold, plus some group XP for uncovering secrets/lore about my game world (so there are XP to give out even when there's no or not much treasure gained), plus some group XP for puzzles and similar challenges.

[Vile Traveller]

I still favour XP for gold over other models.

With all PCs being thieves with additional fighting, magic, or undead-turning special abilities.

[talysman]

Not sure why this thread got resurrected, but hey, I didn't participate when it was first run, so I'll offer my perspective now.

I do xp for gold and a tiny bit for killing monsters. I had some other rules for XP in other ways, for example solving a problem with natural abilities gets you 10 x the applicable ability scores (so if you persuade one group of monsters to attack another, you get 10 x Charisma.) But I kinda dropped these other XP rules because of my shifting opinion of what XP and levels are.

Standard interpretation I hear from many people is that XP represents experience as in learning. I think this is why some people object to XP for gold: how can you learn anything from bringing home a sack of coins?

But for me, experience is confidence, both your confidence in yourself and the confidence of others in your abilities, which feeds your own confidence. When you bring back sackloads of treasure and tell people in the tavern about fighting zombies and goblins, people start believing you're kind of a badass. This explains why gold is worth more than killing monsters (it's tangible proof, vs. just stories,) why you only get XP for treasure you bring home, why low-level monsters are worth less XP for high-level adventurers, and why name-level characters can build strongholds and collect taxes (people respect them and believe they can run a barony.)

I'm not adverse to XP from other sources, but I'm having trouble thinking of what other sources would fit well into the confidence interpretation. Certainly, you could award XP for something like rescuing the princess, although it's probably easier to set a monetary reward and award XP for that rather than figuring out the princess's level. Class-based XP rewards seem the most difficult to fit into this interpretation. Maybe M-Us get a small XP bonus the first time they demonstrate casting a high-level spell, or when they sell a spell they researched to the local wizard's guild. Fighters could get XP for winning tournaments, even if they don't kill anyone. Thieves get an XP bonus for completing a mission for the guild. That kind of thing.