I prefer not tracking as a DM and as a player yet I experienced a weird phenomena a couple years ago in a 3.5 pbp game where the DM awarded xp and we tracked it.
I was playing a +1 LA aasimar wizard, and I did a bunch of crafting so my level and xp were behind everybody else's. Since I was a level or two lower facing the same challenges I got more xp when the DM awarded it because of the way xp is calculated in 3.5.
I got a little thrill each time xp was awarded from getting more than everybody else in the group and having it called out. "Everybody gets 500 xp, except Voadam. He gets 620."
In games where it is all equal it feels like an annoying waste of most everybody's time, but when I'm singled out for more there is a small benefit (for me).
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I've gone both routes; tried leveling up at story-based points, or in an AP when it recommends and have also tried going with XP by the book.
In the end, players wanted something tangible but, especially for higher level games, it became monotonous. We use a simple XP system (I believe it's modified from somewhere, but for the life of me I can't recall where I read it to modify from...). Anyway, if anyone finds it feel free to reference it.
I did some digging and found the article that I base my game on. It sounds like what you're suggesting.
http://www.paperspencils.com/2011/10/22/pathfinder-house-rule-simple-experi ence-points/
That's close, actually; it was modified from paul's simplified xp that they link in that article. I had not previously read THIS article, and having now read it I find it nifty that we both arrived at a fairly similar conclusion!
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As a GM I lean more towards just leveling people when I think they should be leveled, and a player I don't really mind either way as long as the GM isn't a dick. I've done both, and both are viable.
My GM in my main campaign keeps meticulous track of our XP for us, and awards bonuses for effective role-playing and things. It's a plot heavy game, and she cares more about the plot-holes left by a character absence than is probably healthy (since player absence is inevitable.) I was lucky enough to consistently attend, and didn't decide to change characters because I was bored while some other party members did. Between those two factors my guy is level 10 where most everyone else is at 8 still. And while it sucks to have a power gap... It's kind of nice to have your consistency rewarded, you know? I don't want to punish people who have real life get in the way, but if you only have 4 people and 1 or 2 don't show up, it's nice to throw something to the ones who do.
So I have mixed feelings about awarding people XP if they are absent. If you DO award XP to people who aren't around you should probably just ditch XP all together. Which is also legit.
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I've been GMing Rise of the Runelords for a while now (the characters are 11th level) and I've just been using the advancement guide at the start of each chapter to decide when the characters need to level up. Sometimes it feels like they haven't done enough to realistically level up, so I will throw in a side quest or simply delay levelling until it feels 'right'. Some of my players also have an uncanny sense of when they should be levelling, so I use that as a guide as well.
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In my home game I have also decided to do away with XP. I make encounters that suit my player's abilities and then level them after 3 or so sessions. Since I have the framework of the whole campaign planned out, I can also take monsters that I'm jonesin' to run and insert them at the level-appropriate time in the campaign.
My players don't seem to miss it.
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I've been GMing Rise of the Runelords for a while now (the characters are 11th level) and I've just been using the advancement guide at the start of each chapter to decide when the characters need to level up. Sometimes it feels like they haven't done enough to realistically level up, so I will throw in a side quest or simply delay levelling until it feels 'right'. Some of my players also have an uncanny sense of when they should be levelling, so I use that as a guide as well.
Awarding levels can lead to accordioning of advancement but I haven't met anyone yet who really minds or even really notices. It meant that maybe they spend a little less time at level 3 but more time at level 4 than they would if XP were handed pout, but they leveled up during some downtime in town rather than on the way to the dungeon or somesuch.
So, I gave up on actually assigning experience points a while back as a bit of an experiment. I was hoping to curb the "murder hobo" tendencies that were arising in some of our games along with a "we're going to need to kill this thing sooner or later anyways" outlook.
So I took away xp and replaced it with a milestone and completion chart for the adventure that allowed the party to gain levels by resolving major plot points or story arcs, and a separate tracker for side quests where they gained roughly a third of a level for each completed side quest. It's actually worked out very well, and I find the party is much more likely to explore solutions that involve diplomacy, intimidation, redirection, misdirection, etc. than thy ever did previously. I've also drastically reduced the number of unplanned NPC deaths which is a plus.
Has anyone else tried this? Did you have positive results? Or do you prefer using the experience point system, and if so, why?
I use XP, but XP is awarded for overcoming obstacles (including combat) and succeeding at major events (milestones, story arcs, whatever you wanna call 'em), or in some cases for doing cool stuff (you might get some bonus XP if you manage to start a guild or something), etc.
In general this means that you get the same XP reward for talking your way through an ogre rather than carving your way through him, or sneaking past the ogre, or charming the ogre into being your BF1DL (Best Friend 1 day / Level). This is how the d20 system was intended to be used (based on the 3.x DMG explaining that sneaking past an ogre and never fighting him warranted full XP for the ogre).
Being able to toss out some XP points for minor plot related things can be pretty cool too. If a PC is interacting with the campaign in fun ways such as getting promoted in an organization, overcoming an arch-nemesis that's a big deal to the PC, or doing something above and beyond usual heroic or nefarious antics.
In essence, I find XP to be a nice thing to dosh out to folks for doing stuff. I see it as essentially being the exact thing you describe with milestones and such, except on a sliding scale. It's also highly useful since I'm generally pro-sandbox, so a "side quest" is often indistinguishable from the "main quest" after a little bit, or may change from main to side pretty regularly.
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You can also use XP to reward creativity and cool ideas. For example, if a player decides to try to look around a corner using a mirror, you might award them with a little XP. If the player does something in-character that seems awesome but doing so denies the player a more tangible reward, tossing them some extra XP can be nice (this is especially true if the GM is running an AP or sandboxy game where enemies don't always scale to the party's level).
XP can also be used to encourage things you'd like to see in the game. When awarding XP, let the players know what earned them bonus XP. For example, if you're trying to encourage the players to spend a bit more time exploring stuff, consider awarding a little bonus XP for the secret door the party found. If you want to encourage a more heroic game where enemies are given quarter, award full XP for enemies forced to flee, let go, or captured. Captured enemies who provide information about quest stuff might award more story-XP, which subsequently makes players consider not killing everything.
It can be a nice carrot on a stick, and let's be real, a lot of us really like collecting XP knowing that next level is on the approaching horizon.
In general, try to be consistent in whatever you do, and make the reward fit the situation and power range of the party. Awarding 600 XP to a 1st level PC for helping an old lady across the street is kind of silly, but awarding an extra 25 XP because the party befriended an NPC might be pretty cool.
I also track story awards and don't reduce them based on the number of players in the party. Part of the reason I do this is because I often try to include character-specific adventure hooks and such in my games, and I want to encourage players to help each other and not worry about who is getting the most "screen time" this week. If the party decides to help member #3 find her missing husband then everyone gets bonus XP when member #3 scores plot-XPs, which helps to remind them that they're in it together and work together to succeed.
I've been using story goals and rp rewards to determine when a party is ready for the next level. It's actually taken the murder hobo lets-kill- everything mentality out of things and made the game more fun again. Much like some of you, it just seems to work better. We end up in some rather convoluted plots that require heavy role playing and trying to bomb through that defeats the purpose. Generally you can tell when your players are ready to advance.
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Wait, wait. Why did the amount of deaths decrease after the XP thing was shifted? XP is awarded for overcoming challenges, not for icing monsters/people. Those solutions shoulda given XP anyway and thus been equally viable.Correct?
You're correct.
I use XP myself. I never found the math to be a problem. Other methods work fine for other people I'm sure. As for why I use XP, I don't run APs, so the "story line" isn't set in stone. Encounters differ from trivial to brutally hard. Sessions may include few "encounters" / obstacles or many. I find experience points easier to use. It covers overcoming obstacles by any method, not just combat, and it is effective in handing out rewards appropriate to the level of challenge. In short, it works for me.
Ah, experience! I yearn for the heady days of yesteryear when clerics needed 1500 XP for second level, fighters and halflings needed 2000, magic-users required 2500, thieves ('rogue', heh, that's the best Diplomacy check ever made) needed a paltry 1200, dwarves 2200, and elves topped the chart at 4000.
And the DMR stated quite clearly on page 12, “. . . they get 1 XP for each 1 gp of treasure.”
Seriously, though, I do and I don't use XP.
In the game I DM'ed only my wife through for 11 years as an elf that spanned 400 years in-game, I didn't use XP at all; just told her at milestones when to level.
I've done AP's where I used milestones but I'm currently running a game with mostly brand-new players and they're used to video game rpg's with XP's so I'm using them again for familiarity.
I don't believe there's a hard and fast correct way. It all depends on DM & players' preference. The chart on p. 398 of the CRB is really very easy to use and I don't find the math to be very challenging.
When using XP, I allow absent PC's to receive half of what attending players get. I've never had this create a big gap, just minor lags and no player has expressed displeasure (the perks of attendance). I don't use hero points nor action points (I think that the players' superior abilities to the commoner is heroic enough).
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I don't use XP. The math becomes unwieldly, the party will level at different rates and players are punished for not making it to every session.
When running APs I'll use the progression chart and level up the party when the story finds it appropriate, which has been working out well. My players still tend to gopher around for side quests and optional objectives because they enjoy exploring the AP to the fullest, and hoover up any extra treasure.
If I'm running my own storyline I'll level up the party whenever it feels appropriate - I'll generally note down appropriate points 1, 2, or 3 levels ahead and adjust as the party progresses.
I will sometimes "delay" a player's level up by one session as a disciplinary action if he misses sessions and doesn't give me a heads up. "I can't make it to Pathfinder tonight because my cousin's in town and we're going out drinking" is fine, "I couldn't make it to Pathfinder last night because my cousin was in town and we went out drinking" isn't.
When I'd normally give out bonus xp to reward players for going above and beyond the call of duty, I instead give out hero points or something similar.
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You can also use XP to reward creativity and cool ideas. For example, if a player decides to try to look around a corner using a mirror, you might award them with a little XP. If the player does something in-character that seems awesome but doing so denies the player a more tangible reward, tossing them some extra XP can be nice
I do not like extra xp given because most often that rewards the loudest players, not the most creative ones.
Those who grab the spotilght more often will have more opportunities to shine and get bonus xp. That makes them level faster, enabling them to shine even brighter.
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We use XP for running Adventure Paths, because they're nicely setup for advancing characters appropriately while doing so..
The APs work great without XP as well by using the advancement track. win/win
You can also use XP to reward creativity and cool ideas. For example, if a player decides to try to look around a corner using a mirror, you might award them with a little XP. If the player does something in-character that seems awesome but doing so denies the player a more tangible reward, tossing them some extra XP can be niceI do not like extra xp given because most often that rewards the loudest players, not the most creative ones.
Those who grab the spotilght more often will have more opportunities to shine and get bonus xp. That makes them level faster, enabling them to shine even brighter.
I agree with this. I had to ditch XP because it was too much of a meta-construct for my table to handle. My players would hone in on whatever they felt or seen as xp potential behaviors and ignored everything else. They also cosntantly tried to showboat to my personal playstyle sensabilities. I wanted them to make decisions they felt were appropriate for the character and to do things they were interested in and not straightjacket themselves into XP hunts.
I dont like varying levels amongst the party. I dont need to reward players for attendance. My players want to be there but real life tends to crop up. If a player is flaky he will play at someone elses table. That said, there was a thread about rules you dont like but think are good to be in the rule book. I think xp works well as a guide for encounter building and leveling. I just prefer to keep it under the hood to stop table Shenanigans. I am glad the good folks at Paizo have made leaving XP out a painless choice.
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I was thinking about this yesterday, and I think another reason we've gravitated away from xp is that the CR system just never seems to work quite right for my group. Very often I've found that "simple" challenges can turn in to unexpectedly difficult or deadly challenges, while preparedness, inspiration, or plain dumb luck can reduce a high CR challenge to a triviality.
The group just seems more willing to explore other alternatives when something that should have been easy becomes a roadblock, and less indignant when they overcome a difficult challenge with ease and aren't suddenly drowning in xp. Removing the idea that they have to bull through a challenge so they can be rewarded, or the idea that they should be getting more than the already copious loot that accompanies a higher level challenge seems to create a smoother and more immersive gaming environment. It stops being an APL + 3 challenge that's going to be worth X amount of xp, and becomes just another component of the story. It's kind of like PFS; they'll get their 1 xp out of 3 towards the level for the encounter no matter what, and the stuff they do along the way is more important for affecting their reputation, wealth, and connections in the game world.
I use both systems, but mainly XP since my games tend to be more sandboxey than story driven. Experience points are rewarded to the party as a whole, not individual awards. I think that individual awards can be divisive.
You can also use XP to reward creativity and cool ideas. For example, if a player decides to try to look around a corner using a mirror, you might award them with a little XP. If the player does something in-character that seems awesome but doing so denies the player a more tangible reward, tossing them some extra XP can be niceI do not like extra xp given because most often that rewards the loudest players, not the most creative ones.
Those who grab the spotilght more often will have more opportunities to shine and get bonus xp. That makes them level faster, enabling them to shine even brighter.
Well I pointed out that all bonus XP is awarded to the whole group. Also, if you can tell the difference between the loudest and most creative, you'll probably have little trouble rewarding both for their contributions. ^_^
I'm in an AP temporarily running no exp and gming a game with exp.
My personal preference is I like exp because it rewards players for taking up side quests, investigating tangents and offers a tangible reward for exploration. The idea that exp encourages "murder hobo" to me sounds more like a problem with HOW exp is rewarded rather than a problem WITH it. Tell a group they get more exp for using diplomatic means and then I'm sure you'll have a far different group.
Often side quests can turn out to be more involved than the main story line.
In one game my players were investigating a lead and by sheer luck bumbled into a Scarni guild house (local mafia). Trying to investigate another crime they demanded to see behind their closed doors, of course the Scarni impolitely refused. With failed knowledge local rolls they tried to force their way into the back rooms and ended up with dozens of guards after them, to escape they set fire to part of the guild house and earned prices on their heads.
Forced to lie low by sleeping in the town crypts (and contracting disease), they ended up sneaking around town until they decided to offer tribute to the Scarni. Through negotiations they were able to pay a sizeable sum and had to run around town naked as penance, by a d6 roll they earned themselves a -6 to their diplomacy in town.
What was going to be a 10 minute interaction, turned into about 3 hours of role playing and story. The group was much worse off in terms of gold and reputation. If they didn't earn experience for it or could only gain experience based on railroad tracks, the group is essentially punished for their adventure.
As a GM I am very meticulous in my accounting of days passed and experience gained. Players who fall behind are easily able to make use of the Ultimate Campaigns downtime system to gain exp. I'm surprised to find some players choose not to gain exp and build items or work instead, the biggest thing is I offer my players the choice.
We don't use them anymore. I had too many bad experiences with needing to put in filler in order to reach a plot-necessary level. Sometimes there is really no way to do that (Runelords 5 was a good example). Also I hate bookkeeping with a passion.
We also tried one AP (Shattered Star) where we didn't do loot either--just wealth by level. The player liked it fine, but I didn't; since he didn't need the loot he didn't look at it, and I felt that lost some of the setting-building qualities. Also it felt too artificial to me. (The reason we tried is that we kept not having enough loot--he would bug me to put in more to keep up with wealth by level, and I'd forget, and it was just stressful. But I don't think abolishing loot is a solution I'll try again.)
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We don't use them anymore. I had too many bad experiences with needing to put in filler in order to reach a plot-necessary level. Sometimes there is really no way to do that (Runelords 5 was a good example). Also I hate bookkeeping with a passion.
We also tried one AP (Shattered Star) where we didn't do loot either--just wealth by level. The player liked it fine, but I didn't; since he didn't need the loot he didn't look at it, and I felt that lost some of the setting-building qualities. Also it felt too artificial to me. (The reason we tried is that we kept not having enough loot--he would bug me to put in more to keep up with wealth by level, and I'd forget, and it was just stressful. But I don't think abolishing loot is a solution I'll try again.)
Yeah, while I think removing xp has only served to enhance the game, loot is something I definitely wouldn't change, especially for APs. I find myself annoyed on a personal level when campaign specific loot with its own name and cool abilities gets sold at the first opportunity so they can pay to throw an extra +1 on the ol' greatsword.
If the player's running a Fighter or something where they have severe mechanical impetus to be doing that, I prefer to throw in a legacy weapon that'll level along with them .
We're still settling on how to do things, I think, especially as we have a group of kid players. I love the ideas in this thread, given me a lot to think about.
I tend to hate tracking XP, for one thing I'm not that fast at math, but I do also like to give small amounts for thinking outside the box, cooperating, good RPing - whatever helps advance the game because the guys are still learning.
I find giving out xp ingame tends to distract my players, and they get into omg kill that thing get more xp mode, much much easier.
I really like the idea of setting leveling points, assuming the party accomplished certain set goals. I may well run with that, at least for the majority and simply add minor xp awards along the way.
The one (not so) innovative thing I've done with my guys that they quite liked was awarding titles at the end of an adventure. As a kind of a remembrance of the adventure. My oldest for instance, playing a Rogue, must have checked dang near every ten feet for a trap ("Because I know you mom!" he said... lol) So I gave him the title 'Paranoid much?'
I do think I will work out a more formal way of doing this more often. I can see it can be worked into the game in a more RP fashion as well. It definitely tickled the players and served as a great reminder of their past.
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I find myself annoyed on a personal level when campaign specific loot with its own name and cool abilities gets sold at the first opportunity so they can pay to throw an extra +1 on the ol' greatsword.
Hopefully I'm misunderstanding your thrust here.
Say a player has invested time and creativity on the +1 flaming greatsword he already has ("The Big Kahuna Burninator"). As a DM, I consider it churlish to tell him that's not good enough, throw a +1 flaming holy halfling-bane spear ("Drak'kari'i the Barbi-Shrimp Skewer!") at him, make up a big backstory for it, and then yell at him if he prefers to keep the greatsword. I'd much rather give him a way to add the holy halfling-bane stuff to the Burninator. As a player, I find myself annoyed on a personal level when PC-specific details with their own names and cool abilities get pre-empted by a DM who thinks he knows better than I do what my character should be like.
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I find myself annoyed on a personal level when campaign specific loot with its own name and cool abilities gets sold at the first opportunity so they can pay to throw an extra +1 on the ol' greatsword.Hopefully I'm misunderstanding your thrust here.
Say a player has invested time and creativity on the +1 flaming greatsword he already has ("The Big Kahuna Burninator"). As a DM, I consider it churlish to tell him that's not good enough, throw a +1 flaming holy halfling-bane spear ("Drak'kari'i the Barbi-Shrimp Skewer!") at him, make up a big backstory for it, and then yell at him if he prefers to keep the greatsword. I'd much rather give him a way to add the holy halfling-bane stuff to the Burninator. As a player, I find mysewlf annoyed on a personal level PC-specific details with their own names and cool abilities get pre-empted by a DM who thinks he knows better than I do what my character should be like.
That's why I mentioned prefering to do legacy style weapons for players who want that "invested" feeling with their weapon (and why I wrote a class ability for the Vizier in Dreamscarred Press' upcoming Akashic Mysteries project that straight up lets you swap enchantments from a new item to your existing favored beatstick). If Joey decides that the Big Kahuna Burninator is his favorite new thing, I certainly don't want to take it away from him or force him to use something I think is cool instead.
My problem lies more with a character laying claim to the weapon as his piece of loot so his +1 greatsword with no name can be a +2 greatsword with no name, and someone who might have gotten use out of the unique item doesn't it get it because there was another piece of loot they also needed, maybe just a little bit more. My group's gotten quite a bit better about just letting people use what's going to work for them and trusting that either it'll all shake out by the end of things or they'll find a way to make it up to anyone who got shorted, so this hasn't been as much of a problem in recent years as it was before though.
Magic mart is probably my least favorit aspect of the game, both because it cheapens the value of magic weapons, and because it tends to feed the splatbook optimization fever. I don't have any problems with optimization (and most of my characters would probably be considered optimized), but I'd prefer it to be a pleasant out of game compliment to the in-game progression, rather than bleeding into the game and attacking the suspension of disbelief, with things like "All right, I'm gonna go scrap Frostreaver here so I can pick up a pair of gloves of dueling and get the dueling property added to my sword!"
Where did you hear of these Gloves of Dueling? What do you mean "Dueling property"? I have a really hard time with this idea that part of becoming a card carrying adventurer includes a subscription to "Adventurer's Weekly" with a detailed catalogue of the hundreds, if not thousands, of adventuring aids in existence.
I prefer the "wish list" approach, where they let me know out of character the kinds of things their character wants and bleed them in to the story at natural intervals or sub them in to the loot itself in place of something that's unlikely to see use by the group. /derail
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This is my point exactly and is a prime example of why I avoid milestones. In the frist breath says the players and punished for not making a session if XP is used and then in the next says "I will delay a level up as a form of discipline". It's the same thing, at least with XP you don't level up for a logical reason, you didn't show, you didn't adventure, you didn't get XP, simple math. Milestones, you didn't level because the GM was butt hurt.I don't use XP. The math becomes unwieldly, the party will level at different rates and players are punished for not making it to every session.
When running APs I'll use the progression chart and level up the party when the story finds it appropriate, which has been working out well. My players still tend to gopher around for side quests and optional objectives because they enjoy exploring the AP to the fullest, and hoover up any extra treasure.
If I'm running my own storyline I'll level up the party whenever it feels appropriate - I'll generally note down appropriate points 1, 2, or 3 levels ahead and adjust as the party progresses.
I will sometimes "delay" a player's level up by one session as a disciplinary action if he misses sessions and doesn't give me a heads up. "I can't make it to Pathfinder tonight because my cousin's in town and we're going out drinking" is fine, "I couldn't make it to Pathfinder last night because my cousin was in town and we went out drinking" isn't.
When I'd normally give out bonus xp to reward players for going above and beyond the call of duty, I instead give out hero points or something similar.
I don't think that example really has anything to do with the difference between milestone leveling and xp, it's just an example of a GM using character progression as a way to enforce his expectations (for good or ill). IT wouldn't be any different than if the Gm said "Had you called ahead before going out, I would have just awarded your character the xp for the evening".
Whether the GM is delaying a milestone or withholding xp, at the end of the day he's punishing the player for not being there with the exact same results (something I personally don't really approve of).
I find myself annoyed on a personal level when campaign specific loot with its own name and cool abilities gets sold at the first opportunity so they can pay to throw an extra +1 on the ol' greatsword.Hopefully I'm misunderstanding your thrust here.
Say a player has invested time and creativity on the +1 flaming greatsword he already has ("The Big Kahuna Burninator"). As a DM, I consider it churlish to tell him that's not good enough, throw a +1 flaming holy halfling-bane spear ("Drak'kari'i the Barbi-Shrimp Skewer!") at him, make up a big backstory for it, and then yell at him if he prefers to keep the greatsword. I'd much rather give him a way to add the holy halfling-bane stuff to the Burninator. As a player, I find mysewlf annoyed on a personal level PC-specific details with their own names and cool abilities get pre-empted by a DM who thinks he knows better than I do what my character should be like.
That's why I mentioned prefering to do legacy style weapons for players who want that "invested" feeling with their weapon (and why I wrote a class ability for the Vizier in Dreamscarred Press' upcoming Akashic Mysteries project that straight up lets you swap enchantments from a new item to your existing favored beatstick). If Joey decides that the Big Kahuna Burninator is his favorite new thing, I certainly don't want to take it away from him or force him to use something I think is cool instead.
My problem lies more with a character laying claim to the weapon as his piece of loot so his +1 greatsword with no name can be a +2 greatsword with no name, and someone who might have gotten use out of the unique item doesn't it get it because there was another piece of loot they also needed, maybe just a little bit more. My group's gotten quite a bit better about just letting people use what's going to work for them and trusting that either it'll all shake out by the end of things or they'll find a way to make it up to anyone who got...
Unfortunately, this is a problem inherent to the system and it doesn't really work well without it.
The issue stretches back to 2E and how it focused on Faerun's more heavy-magic setting that existed at the time. 3.0 inherited that issue, then promptly made it worse in 3.5 when they introduced material-based weaknesses and did away with the old scaling system. Eberron made it even more worse by increasing the number of materials and making magic even more ubiquitous. Pathfinder inherited the problem from 3.5 and, given its releases, is quickly sliding down the Faerun and Eberron path.
DnD Next actually has specifically addressed this issue, though they had to switch back to Faerun because it's the only setting they have where the issue is easily fixed. Pathfinder could fix it, but not without a significant rebuild of the entire system.
This is my point exactly and is a prime example of why I avoid milestones. In the frist breath says the players and punished for not making a session if XP is used and then in the next says "I will delay a level up as a form of discipline". It's the same thing, at least with XP you don't level up for a logical reason, you didn't show, you didn't adventure, you didn't get XP, simple math. Milestones, you didn't level because the GM was butt hurt.I don't use XP. The math becomes unwieldly, the party will level at different rates and players are punished for not making it to every session.
When running APs I'll use the progression chart and level up the party when the story finds it appropriate, which has been working out well. My players still tend to gopher around for side quests and optional objectives because they enjoy exploring the AP to the fullest, and hoover up any extra treasure.
If I'm running my own storyline I'll level up the party whenever it feels appropriate - I'll generally note down appropriate points 1, 2, or 3 levels ahead and adjust as the party progresses.
I will sometimes "delay" a player's level up by one session as a disciplinary action if he misses sessions and doesn't give me a heads up. "I can't make it to Pathfinder tonight because my cousin's in town and we're going out drinking" is fine, "I couldn't make it to Pathfinder last night because my cousin was in town and we went out drinking" isn't.
When I'd normally give out bonus xp to reward players for going above and beyond the call of duty, I instead give out hero points or something similar.
First of all, I'm not sure if you actually understood the sentence - I said I will delay a level for one session. After the single session "in the penalty box" where the player still gets to play, he levels up and continues to level up with the party as normal. He's not straggling a level behind the party for the rest of the game, he plays a single session one level behind the rest of the guys as a reminder.
That said, I'm not sure describing my reaction as "butt hurt" based on a single sentence is really necessary, but I'll give you a bit more context so you can at least make an informed decision on the state of my sphincter:
The group in question had five players meeting to play at a university about 30 minutes away from my place once a week, using Facebook and text messages to arrange play sessions. We had a general rule that we wanted a minimum of four players for each session, so sessions were only scheduled if 4 players had signed up each week. Since we're all in university and fairly busy, this meant that sessions were had on average once every two weeks.
One of the players (let's call him A) routinely signed up for sessions, then didn't bother showing up and never gave a heads up in advance. He would also never, ever answer his phone, to the point where I started to worry he was dodging bill collectors. He's a really great guy when he does show up, but notoriously flaky. Another player (B) was "unpredictable", but not as quite as bad as A.
I found this frustrating, since from session to session I never knew if I was going to be organizing a game for 3 or 5 players, or what the party setup would be. The other three players were repeatedly inconvenienced by A and B being late and/or not showing up, and we had several sessions belatedly cancelled when we realized we didn't have enough players after repeatedly calling A & B, typically 30 minutes or so after the play session should have started. The players who did show were joking about awarding A hero points for showing up, or that we should tell him the game start at 4 PM instead of 5.30 PM so he might be on time for once.
Now, I don't think I'm a draconian guy - like I said before, if you have something come up then I'm not gonna come down on you for not calling me. If you have to work an extra shift and your phone's out of battery or dinner with the girlfriend took longer than expected I get it, stuff happens to everyone.
In fact, I'll happily accept just about any excuse for why you can't make it to the game because we're all here to have fun - I don't want you to show up if you have something else you'd rather do. All I ask is that you at least try to let me know ahead of time if you can't make it.
It's fine that you couldn't play yesterday because it was your grandmother's birthday, just please call, text, skype, steam chat, facebook or bike messenger that to someone so that we know before the game starts, that way the rest of us don't waste two hours of our evening getting to the session, waiting around for your ass to show up, and then getting back home.
I tried talking to A and B about this repeatedly. I explained that I found the problem frustrating, that I thought it was unfair to the other players, and that I would understand if they didn't want to be in the game. Both players assured me that they thought the game was awesome and that they'd try to do better. After one of these talks B started "getting his act" together and made a point of sending me a text or calling me if he couldn't make it, while A didn't change at all.
In the end the party got together and decided on the "delay a level" thing together, along with a few other rules. It's a symbolic punishment more than anything since it doesn't do anything other than mildly inconvenience the player and the character for a single session, but in my case it did the trick. A had one session where he played level 5 to everyone else's level 6, and then he finally got the message. His attendance was still shaky, but he got much better about giving me a heads up. Come to think of it my original post was inaccurate since I've only had to use the rule once, but I still list it with the other table rules whenever I organize new games now - once burnt, twice shy.
About a year after that game wound down I'm currently playing (not running) in a Skull & Shackles game and player A is in it as well. When I realized A was in the game I tentatively warned the GM that I'd had some issues with him, but A was a good friend of both of us and the GM decided to give him a shot. Unfortunately A was doing the exact same things he used to do in my game, and the S&S GM has been tearing his hair out over him throughout the last two books. At the end of book 2 A was kicked from the game because the GM was simply tired of dealing with it.
TL;DR I do not, nor will I ever punish players for not making it to the session. I will however punish players for, on numerous times and after repeated conversations on the topic, not having the common courtesy to let me or anyone else know ahead of time that they won't bother showing up after repeatedly stating that they will.
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One of my big issues with XP rewards is I've seen, repeatedly, party's seriously talk about, "Hey, if we kill these guys, we'll get more XP and Loot!" or something to that extent. Something as simple as a legitimate toll bridge, and the party considers killing the guards and taking the toll collection along with the guards' gear. Sure, the guards belonged to a corrupt/evil kingdom that they were enemies with, but that shouldn't be the first response. Killing them came up as an option before paying the toll or circumventing them.
Or I've seen issues with people keeping track of XP and saying, "Dude, I only need like 1,300 more XP to level... lets find something and kill it quick."
On a different note, the people I play with aren't the best when it comes to record keeping. Many times in our group, if you have multiple people at the table who have attended every session and each gained the same XP, you might have 3 - 4 different accounts of how much XP each person has. This forces the our GMs to keep track of XP total in addition to the players because everyone seems to add differently, or one guy forgot to add 500 XP or another accidentally added 500 XP twice or something. So if I have to keep track of the XP anyway, may as well ditch it in the first place.
Where did you hear of these Gloves of Dueling? What do you mean "Dueling property"? I have a really hard time with this idea that part of becoming a card carrying adventurer includes a subscription to "Adventurer's Weekly" with a detailed catalogue of the hundreds, if not thousands, of adventuring aids in existence.
A lot of this stuff is simply handwaived for me. Or you have to do the same thing for casters, "Where did you hear of this spell? Who has it? Who taught it?" Especially for casters like Clerics/Druids who 'know' their own list.
I mean, a new book comes out with an awesome spell in it and the Cleric wants to use it, who told him about it? Some might say their God told them, but that sounds more like an excuse than anything else.
Some of the questions can be answered pretty easily. They go to a merchant or guild, or expert in the trade or something and ask questions like, "I need something that will make me more accurate" or "I need to be able to better use my weapon to trip people" or "I need to react faster to threats" etc. and an expert or dealer or Guild leader might point them on the way or even offer up a variety of options with the character picking the best item.
This could be RP'd out, sure, but that turns shopping for new equipment into tediousness as you have to roleplay every purchase for every character.