I use a mishmash of the experience point awards suggested by Sean Punch in Dungeon Fantasy 3: The Next Level and my own idea of what's awesome.
GURPS normally hands out character point awards in a manner largely left up to the GM, based on pretty broad guidelines. Hey, it's a toolkit, go DIY.
DF provides some (optional) concrete suggestions modeled on old-school games and video games (and who knows where else), with points for killing monsters based on relative power, points for exploration, etc. I'm not a big fan of points for killing things. It makes killing monsters, in maximum numbers and frequency the whole point. I prefer to reward exploration, profit, and getting home alive. So here's what I do, as written to my players with a little expansion.)
XP RULES:
We will use a modified version of the Advancement rules from DF3, pg 42. I won't give out points for killing things. I don't care if you kill stuff or not unless it's part of some mission or quest. I will give out points for getting things done and so on.
Completion (from DF3 pg. 42): "At the adventure's end, everyone gets 5 points if the party returns to town [or the Keep, or a safe base, etc.] with enough loot to pay off any sponsor, rest for a week ($150), and recharge all power items completely."
There are adjustments for insufficient loot to do this (-1), dead PCs (-1 each), minimal exploration (-2 or more), discovering quest item(s) requested by a sponsor (+1), finding hidden or special areas (+1), etc. Minimum is 0 points for the session.
"Enough loot" doesn't count expendables, so don't worry about expended arrows, food, paut, etc., just paying your bar tab, sponsors, and to replace power.
Roleplaying: If you find a way to make your disadvantages and quirks matter in the game in an especially disadvantageous and/or entertaining way, you will get between 1 (minimum) and 3 (maximum) bonus points. If your disadvantages help you, you don't get a bonus for them that session - getting an advantage from a disadvantage is sufficient bonus! Physical disads and flat-out stat reductions (reduced Speed, for example, or Hard of Hearing) don't count here, as they have constant in-game effects.
Awesome Bonus: If you do something especially clever, cool, or otherwise awesome, I will give the whole damn party bonus points. Encourage each other to be awesome. "Awesome" is not a die roll, its a memorable action that makes the game better.
Most Valuable PC: Every session, at the end of the session, the party can vote at the end on who gets a bonus point just for being the most useful, best roleplayer, best dresser, brought the best beer, whatever. It's up to you guys what it's for and who gets it. I'd be disappointed if you give it someone as a "you need this to get another level of sword" bonus though.
Notes
How has this worked in play? Pretty well. The PCs have been averaging 5 points a session, although they took home 4 for the session where Volos died, and Honus took home only 4 for his solo trip (he did a lot, but in a much-shortened session and he didn't go all that far, so I cut the rewards down a bit per "insufficient exploration.") No one is complaining of a slow pace of growth and it doesn't seem to be too quick, either, so I feel like I'm in a sweet spot at the moment.
No points for killing things means no one sees monsters as targets per se, just as obstacles to exploration and getting money. Mostly money - more than one expedition has been extended to "one more room" to get enough money to ensure they turn a profit, although I doubt that's solely due to a desire for points (in fact no one has mentioned points as a reason). This also means the players seem open to bribing monsters, hiring goblinoids, and other such fun stuff in order to get more loot.
This system effectively makes treasure worth points, as well as being its own reward, but not on a D&D-style value-for-xp basis. Either you turn a profit and get a base 5 point or you don't, and you get a base 4 points, and if you failed to turn a profit because you went home early, a further -2. The need for money for upkeep and new gear and carousing and whatnot is so high that no one has failed to scrabble for treasure, as I mentioned above. Plus I'm iffy on rewarding behavior you want to do anyway, instead of punishing failure to do stuff. This seems to act more like punishing failure - if you don't make a profit and barely explore and run home to keep your guy safe, consider yourself lucky if get some character points. Take risks and play the game as intended and you'll get a steady improvement to your character.
In practice, I haven't been awarding roleplaying bonuses, because I pretty much expect you'll roleplay and my players pretty much do so. Everyone has been roleplaying their characters in an entertaining way. But no ones disads have come up in such a way to make me think extra points over and above the ones they got for taking them are warranted. I'm keeping it on the books in case someone does something really amazing that falls in this category.
No Awesome Bonus yet, but I'm sure it will come.
MVPC voting has been fun, and I'm happy to get direct input from the players and they seem to enjoy it too.
I like this. Though there have been various levels of emphasis on killing things in old school dungeon games, the sweet spot for me is a preference for getting loot with a dramatically lowered emphasis on killing things.
ReplyDeleteI have to say that the number of points you get for killing monsters under Moldvay Basic is so insignificant, you might as well not even count them. The pocket change on the monsters ieven more useless. Pretty much the only thing that has a real impact is the 1200 g.p. pieces of jewelry and so forth. You could pretty much add 35% the xp's for *TREASURE* items and ignore everything else and you'd probably have the gist of what Moldvay intended-- with a lot less math!
ReplyDeleteKilling monsters for the perks is an Ultima II thing, not old school D&D. Moldvay basic is much closer to Zork and Adventureland in terms of what it rewards....
While I'm always ready to decry the computer-"RPG" influence on the real thing, I think your timing may be off here - Ultima II came out in 1982, whereas AD&D started in 1977-9. And AD&D (DMG p.85) makes it clear that experience is given out first for monster-slaying, second for treasure (and treasure is implied to be gained primarily by killing the monstrous owners).
ReplyDeletejeffro and rogerbw have stumbled on one of the great OSR "discoveries"! Different iterations of the game have had different levels of emphasis on killing monsters vs. acquiring loot. Even in OD&D, different supplements have different levels of emphasis on each.
ReplyDeleteWell, Roger, just mark that down as one more thing that is wrong and/or broken with AD&D. ;)
ReplyDeleteVideo games are probably the main culprit in the "kill stuff for xp but none for treasure." That's easier to code, surely - XP just becomes a monster stat and you give it to the person who whacked the monster. Gold giving XP would mean you'd need to divvy it up, only at town, after selling things, etc. etc. which has to be harder to write. I played games in the "I need 1 more k of RAM to run this game!" era and you always got points for killing stuff, not otherwise.
ReplyDeleteAs for Moldvay, yeah, it's true. And yes, every D&D iteration and rulebook has its own assumptions, and so did every game. I've played AD&D games where magic items only gave XP if you used them and heard of others were they only gave you if you sold them.
Then you had different games - GURPS with XP for roleplaying and mission completion (in 1e-3e), Rolemaster with XP for practically everything (miles traveled, new experiences, dying, killing stuff, finding stuff, etc.), etc. I figured I had free reign to do whatever I want and yet still remain in the spirit of the style of game I wanted to run.
I just wanted something easy to use and which rewarded things I wanted done. So far it seems like I got that. It's consistent enough people can roughly plan on reward levels (reduces questions about saving up or not), harsh enough and focused enough to encourage people to do the stuff the game is about, and generous enough that people feel it's worth risking their paper man more for better rewards.
Like I said, so far so good!
The "selling magic items for xp" rule in Munchkin has always been confusing to me. I just never remembered that the magic item lists ever had an xp value... and there were no rules for running a magic-oriented pawn shop. How in the world did people work that stuff.
ReplyDelete@jeffro - I can't tell you when it started, but AD&D had xp and gold values for all of its magic items. Page 121 of the DMG says you get the xp listed for the item if you keep it, and the gp value is the "usual" selling price . . . and that you get xp based on the sales price. It even has rules for trying to get around that by selling it to another PC (short version - you don't get the higher xp you'd get from selling it, you get the low xp from keeping it).
ReplyDeleteWeird, I know, but that Healing potion is worth 200 xp if you keep it, or you can sell it for 400 gp and 400 xp.
That's where that Munchkin rule is from. "I can keep this +1 sword or level up. Hmmm..."
Not all that weird an idea - it sounds like the kind of idea a DM would come up with after realizing his PCs had an alarming amount of stuff they were hauling around. Or just a DM who likes players to make hard choice.
DeleteSo my votes are for either "anti-hoarding" measure, or just evilness.
Doesn't sound that weird. It's either a DM that likes to torture his players with hard choices, or one who's trying to get them get rid of stuff instead of arriving at a big fight with a keg of healing potions.
DeleteI'm adding two more category to this, by the by, to see how it plays out in my just-about-to-start GURPS DF Temple of Elemental Evil:
ReplyDeleteExploration Bonus: Finding secrets, figuring out backstory, and generally poking in corners will be rewarded. In any session where you find something/solve a puzzle/figure out a piece of background that enriches the game or leads to something not ‘on the beaten path’, I will reward the party 2 points, with an extra point to the party member responsible if it was clearly mostly a one-person effort.
Named NPCs: Because this is the Temple of Elemental Evil and you are (at least putatively) here for slightly more than just spoils of war, I will also reward points for the slaying of specific NPCs. They should be fairly obvious when they occur, and the point value may vary wildly.
I'm slightly worried that the first may be over-encouragement, since the criteria as written already reward exploration, but with ToEE specifically there are parts that do a lot to enrich the feel of the module, but will not likely be found unless players are pro-active in looking for them.
For exploration, you might just want to drop the bonus to 1 point for a major find or significant puzzle.
DeleteOr you can count finding certain things as equivalent to a profitable trip, regardless of any profit, and tell them such things exist. That way if they discover of the prison entrances, or what some special doors do, or whatever, it doesn't matter if they pull a profit that session or not, they still get a base 5 points. Then tack on the +1 for really special finds if they make a profit anyway.
Otherwise, I think that would work.
Let me know how it works!
I'm adding two more category to this, by the by, to see how it plays out in my just-about-to-start GURPS DF Temple of Elemental Evil:
ReplyDeleteExploration Bonus: Finding secrets, figuring out backstory, and generally poking in corners will be rewarded. In any session where you find something/solve a puzzle/figure out a piece of background that enriches the game or leads to something not ‘on the beaten path’, I will reward the party 2 points, with an extra point to the party member responsible if it was clearly mostly a one-person effort.
Named NPCs: Because this is the Temple of Elemental Evil and you are (at least putatively) here for slightly more than just spoils of war, I will also reward points for the slaying of specific NPCs. They should be fairly obvious when they occur, and the point value may vary wildly.
I'm slightly worried that the first may be over-encouragement, since the criteria as written already reward exploration, but with ToEE specifically there are parts that do a lot to enrich the feel of the module, but will not likely be found unless players are pro-active in looking for them.