Pages

Tuesday, December 17, 2013

Discouraging Bootstrapping If You Prefer To

My post the other day generate a lot of discussion, here and on Google+. Some people have some negative feelings about what I called "bootstrapping" low-level PCs. That is, high level guys providing gear, escort, support, extra shares of treasure, etc. to get those low-level guys to level up faster.

Although my remarks were related to class-and-level games, it inevitably got mixed together with point-buy GURPS since I play that and many of the commentors do as well.

But let's say, in a class-and-level game, you want to discourage low-level guys from wanting to pal around with high level guys on their early adventures and discourage high-level guys from trying to smooth the path too much. What can you do?

Here is what I've come up with.

Divide all gold XP regardless of shares - if the groups hauls home 2000 gp for 4 members, levels 4, 3,, 2, and 1 and the first three toss all the gold to the last guy . . . too bad. They all still get 500 xp for it instead of 0, 0, 0, and 2000. The lack of division doesn't matter, the reward is for the finding and bringing back and the finding and bringing back is equally shared.*

Divide XP by level - A pretty brutal approach, but divide out XP by level. If the 4-3-2-1 team above split that gold XP, it would be 4+3+2+1 = 10 shares at 200 each. 4th level guy gets 800, 3rd 600, 2nd 400, and 1st 200 xp. I call this brutal because it means slower-level character types will always lag behind faster-leveling types and this method reinforces that level after level. Rich get richer, poor get richer much more slowly than before.

Go All DMG On Them - Use the AD&D rule about dividing too-low level monster XP (p. 84-85); this will reduce the value of monsters slain (and possibly treasure gained.) You'll still survive longer when your 1st level guys go adventuring with Jack's 8th level cleric, but you won't get much XP and will level more slowly for doing so.

Defacto Henchmen - If a character is at least X levels below the average party level, or at least Y levels below the highest party member's level, then, like NPC henchmen, they get 1/2 XP. The XP is still divided normally (so that 4-man group would get 500 xp each) and then the defacto henchmen would get half of that (250 xp each). Setting this to 3+ levels is probably okay in old editions of D&D, since the party would still fit into the generally 3-level range of suggested levels in modules.

You can also put a level cap on this - once you reach level Z, it doesn't matter anymore. Let's say that's 5th level. Once you hit 5th level, you gain full XP even if you go adventuring with Lord Lordington the 9th level fighter. You're not going to pull as much weight as him but you've reach some minimal level of ability. Now you're just taking extra risks. Have fun in White Plume Mountain, Mister.

Any and all of those tricks can discourage people from trying to bootstrap, if you're opposed to it.

Me, I'm not - it makes a lot of game-world sense as well as meta-game sense. And while being level 1 is really fun, you don't always want to spend a lot of time there. But if the group wants to discourage it, those are some game-mechanical ways to do it in a class-and-level system.

* This came up elsewhere - isn't this the RAW? In Basic Set D&D, it is - and page 4 of B2 The Keep on the Borderlands makes this explicit. But Holmes Basic says differently on page 11, merely saying treasure (and thus experience) is "usually" divided evenly, even singling out thieves stealing extra gold and not dividing the experience up with the others. OD&D doesn't have an example of multiple PCs earning experience that I can find. So while the editions moved towards dividing it evenly, the RAW wasn't consistent cross-edition back in the day.

11 comments:

  1. "But let's say, in a class-and-level game, you want to discourage low-level guys from wanting to pal around with high level guys on their early adventures and discourage high-level guys from trying to smooth the path too much. What can you do?"

    I'm curious how this would really work in practice. Theoretically if someone is playing with a group everyone wants to play together, so why would a GM want to discourage the lower level folks from rolling with the higher level folks? Or maybe this would be more of an issue for organized or convention play?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I can't tell you - I think it's fine and makes perfect sense. In a more adversarial group (like Mike "Old Geezer" Mornard mentions here) it might be unwelcome. Plus some people who commented on my Google post felt it was a bad thing!

      Delete
    2. Wow, Blackmoore sounds pretty wicked. I kind of like the harshness of it though.

      Delete
  2. Diving up by level might not be so bad, depending on the version of class-and-level game you're playing. Most, in my experience, don't use linear level breakpoints, so you might not ever catch up, but you wouldn't necessarily lag farther behind.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Yeah, although it's funny if you learn as much per trip as Sneaky the Thief, and then he always learns more than you!

      Delete
  3. I tought the first method of dividing xp from gold was the norm...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I think it's the norm but I've run across at least one group where it depending on your personal take.

      Delete
  4. In my own campaign, I prefer to divide XP evenly among all participants. At the end of the session, we total up all XP earned from monsters and treasure and divide it evenly among the characters who participated. After a particularly large treasure haul, it's not uncommon for a lower level character to level up, possibly even multiple times. Since I use training times, this sort of thing can put a character out of play for months at a time. So bootstrapping is fairly easy.

    In my friends' campaign, bootstrapping is relatively difficult. He awards XP based on individual accomplishments (XP for casting spells, doing damage, etc.). Casting magic missile is only worth so much XP, whether you cast it on an orc or a dragon.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Wow, that second method sounds really, really rough. I like the even division, helps to level the playing field, but I think that's also a product of the majority of my gaming been with groups where everyone's the same level anyway.

      Delete
    2. The "experience by action" method has a lot going for it. But when I played with a similar system in Rolemaster it ended up being a lot to keep track of. This is why I have a flat XP system in my GURPS game - my players can literally track XP for me, since they know the relatively few parameters well enough and it doesn't matter who did what to get there.

      Still, if you can work out and track the details, it's not a bad way to go. :)

      Delete
    3. The main problem with the XP system he uses, to get back on the subject of bootstrapping, is that it rewards higher level characters disproportionately. The idea is to reward characters for being proactive and participating, but it puts a premium on successful actions. Getting past level 1 tends to be slow, since the way to survive level 1 is letting the higher level fighters deal with the big, tough monsters while we try to help and not die at the same time.

      Delete