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Post by hamurai on Nov 7, 2022 23:19:53 GMT -6
how can you learn anything from bringing home a sack of coins? I always took that as the abstract indicator of a treasure-hunting game which rewards: - learning to navigate the dungeon, for example by mapping and using that map - overcoming puzzles, traps, monsters and other perils - the ability to plan ahead (because sometimes you might need hirelings to carry your stuff, you need provisions, torches, etc.) If you're unable to do these things, your likelihood of returning with that bag of coins is diminished. That, of course, needs a DM who does hand out treasure according to or along the lines of the treasure tables. why you only get XP for treasure you bring home, why low-level monsters are worth less XP for high-level adventurers You can't learn from those who don't know anything beside the tricks you already know. That's how I see less XP for low-HD monsters, especially so for high-level adventurers. Personally, I can't see the confidence explanation taking root in my games. I'd have to raise the level of drunks, then If you brought home any piece of a defeated enemy, would that not mean even more XP, if presented in a tavern? Not sacks of gold and stories of dead zombies, but a pile of zombie heads (or the evil witch) burning in the village square. Not the dragon's hoard and stories about how it was defeated, but the actual head of the dragon.
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Post by Vile Traveller on Nov 8, 2022 4:01:43 GMT -6
Not the dragon's hoard and stories about how it was defeated, but the actual head of the dragon. Why not both! Rather like anti-money laundering rules today, you have to prove where you got that loot!
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Post by robertsconley on Nov 8, 2022 13:42:38 GMT -6
I use milestone awards. But where players and the group as a whole set the milestone. My job is to decide how difficult it is to achieve the goal and set the award accordingly. I used this system for a long time when it comes to D&D. It takes more work on my part because I don't use any formal mechanics for setting goals. Instead, I have to pay attention to what the players want to do as their individual characters and what they decide to do as a group. For example, the group decides to explore the Cave of Chaos. That would be a major milestone in my judgment. Given the nature of the cave, the group would likely have will shortly have the plan to take it on. Listening to their plans will outline what the minor milestones will be. In addition, each player will generally have some goal in mind, saving enough to buy a suit plate armor for example. Finding a particular spell to copy into their spell book. Those are milestone once achieved I will tack onto a player's individual award. General once the players get used to the idea that I am perfectly fine with them trashing my setting, they will start planning to do things beyond just getting "stuff". Like making an ally out of the local baron for example. So those become milestones I give awards for. I very much dislike traditional XP awards because they force players into unnatural behaviors like being overly greedy. Or in the one campaign, I was recently involved with forced to spend incessantly which led to frivolous spending just so I can keep advancing in order to achieve the real goals I had for the character. In that campaign, gold didn't count for XP unless you spent it on something. Didn't like it one whit. But I do count traditional monster XP because in my opinion, that is a significant learning experience that makes sense to get experience from. Below is a copy of the original rules I used from the early 80s when I was using AD&D 1e. Then what folks will call milestones now, I considered rewarding good roleplaying. But I wound up adopting the milestone terms because many players don't like to be actors. I found it works just as well if the players just acts as version of themselves with the abilities of the character. The key is interacting with the setting and setting goals they can achieve for themselves from what they discover. And finally it helps with running my campaigns as a sandbox. It doesn't matter what the group decides to do it is something they can get XP from accomplishing.
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Post by doublejig2 on Nov 8, 2022 14:10:41 GMT -6
I'm still hammering out XP's for my Myria Dia campaign. I'm going to include rendering a service in lieu of payments for training, which in AD&D at least, are rather large. Myria Dia is a slow leveling campaign with a loose plot: Est. Level / Adventure1st Against the Abbey of the Iron Star 2nd Slave Mines & the Chattel Pens 3rd Undeath Hearth of the Bitterbread 4th Many Hands of House Rol Pol 5th Wicked Vortex of the Stripped Ones 6th Black Grasp: Assassins of Mount Razor 7th Against Zentrix & the Golem Paddock 8th Sir Jenwick & the Temple of Light 9th Hobgoblin War Riders of the Doomfire Nobles 10th F’eyd the Fang and the Obliteration Star of Surly Hall 11th Against Yddo the Sorcerer I will use Necromancer Games one-off (Morrick Mansion, Siege of Durgam's Folly, etc.) for the services rendered to keep the plot intact while justifying leveling up. And I will link them up! Thanks for posting the above, Rob.
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Post by dicebro on Nov 9, 2022 6:26:15 GMT -6
how can you learn anything from bringing home a sack of coins? What challenges did you overcome to get the coins?
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Post by Mordorandor on Nov 11, 2022 7:06:17 GMT -6
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. .... So, our devious plan worked ....
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Post by atlantean on Nov 13, 2022 11:21:44 GMT -6
As a player, I preferred to get XP for treasure and magic items over any other method. It just made getting that stuff more fun.
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Post by Marcia B. on Nov 13, 2022 17:08:22 GMT -6
l 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.) The idea of XP as confidence is new to me, but I love the social dimension of it that you brought up! Something I’ve wanted to try in D&D along those lines is XP as investment, that you put into land or firms or similar projects—such that you do not possess the money as a hoard, but as an active force on the surrounding world (through rent, wages, etc.). Thinking about XP as confidence then helps contextualize XP as having possession of part of society so to speak, and being able to control more or less social forces as you increase your wealth and influence (which, like you said, is ultimately a measure of other people’s confidence in you).
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 12, 2023 15:36:24 GMT -6
Dave Hargrave gave awards both for monster slaying and for what might broadly be called notability. The latter was stretched a bit with his awards for even fairly routine spell casting, but more clear when it came to securing magic items, bonuses for slaying major demons and such, undertaking especially risky actions, and misfortunes such as getting seriously injured, cursed or killed.
Because those scores were relatively small, and he did not give points for mundane loot, even his revised tables of XP requirements made it very challenging to achieve the high levels for which he provided.
I prefer to keep the focus on larger goals rather than incidental actions. Objectives other than treasure in the most literal sense can be worked out with players. I want to emphasize the aspect of conversation about those beforehand; in my view, clarity as to the stakes is an important part of the game function. It’s an element of game strategy, enhancing the importance of player decisions that in my view gets undermined when XP awards are a mystery subject to the referee’s whim.
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Post by dwayanu on Feb 12, 2023 16:08:12 GMT -6
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... Yes, it evokes a broad swathe of the sword & sorcery genre. Kull and Conan didn’t buy their way to thrones so much as “by this axe I rule!” Of course there ought to be plunder for your company of men at arms or crew of pirates, but — like the heroes of the Iliad — your concern with largesse due retinue and payment due mercenaries ought to be merely means to the end of your own pursuit of what is truly worthy: the glory that will live in song when flesh has gone to grave. I’m not sure, but I think the default rule in Barbarians of Lemuria may be more simply that whatever cash you acquire in one adventure has automatically been squandered before the next. You get a chance to buy equipment that you can carry with you, but real estate investment is assumed to be beyond an adventurer’s concern.
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