Alternative methods of awarding XP

[Scorba]

Does anyone know if there is an alternative method to awarding XP on an individual character by character basis?

I persoanlly do not like shared XP, where the slugs in the party get the same as the truly active members, especially those that go above and beyond simple hack-n-slay techniques.

I have not tried a true search as of yet ... was hoping someone might have created one or know of one, before I start my quest or create my own.

[danielc]

I tried this for a while and gave it up. It created more work for me, the GM, caused lots of drama as peple disagreed with the XP awards, and even caused one person to drop out of the game (he was one of the higher XP characters) because of the drama.

I am not saying you should not do it, but I am saying use care and understand the negatives as well as the benifits before you do it.

[Scorba]

I have had players who had to be all the same level or they would not play ... I think that is pretty much crap. I have had a player also not play because his PC was a level lower than the party avg. He threw a hissy ... but that is an exception.

A group does not all have to the same level to overcome an encounter. It may be more challenging, but that should be part of the game as well.

[Adamantine Dragon]

XP is a bad idea. Just say no to XP. It does nothing but create metagaming situations and gives GMs too many opportunities to prove they have favorites.

Level your players up by plot. That way you always know what level they will be in your encounters.

I've almost come to the conclusion that the main reason XP still hangs on in this hobby is that it gives GMs another way to control players through their characters.

[The Bald Man]

We have run the gamut

...following all the guidelines for XP awards, which was a pain (hey GM - did you remember to such-and-such encounter). Actually found we leveled too fast.

...to the other end of the spectrum - plot based. That can get too slow.

I advocate a schedule based leveling system. We play once a week for about 5 hours per session. Once a month feels like good rate (with some flex - to accelerate based on plot).

We usually play from level 1 - 20ish.

[johnlocke90]

The thing to remember is that Pathfinder is a cooperative game. Encouraging competition between players is generally a bad idea.

Having a 1 level difference between players may not make the encounters much harder, but it has a psychological effect on the players. It encourages people to suck up to the GM and results in the player who is underleveled feeling bad.

[Lemmy]

I give all my players the same XP, and although I usually follow the level up guidelines, I mostly use them just to know if I'm making they stay too long/little on any given level.

Also, I reward/penalize the whole group's XP/loot based on each character action. If someones is a great roleplayer and has creative ideas, the whole groups gets a bonus, if someone is lazy or disruptive, the whole group is penalized.

That means it's in everyone's best interest to encourage creativity/good roleplay and keep the others focused.

[Aranna]

Creating a XP system that favors more damage done is doable...
But I am fairly sure you don't want it. It will create a DPR arms race between the characters and lead to hard feelings all around.

One method you could use however is to put people on the slow advancement track for XP then give bonus XP awards to promote the sort of behavior you are looking for during play. Like a participation bonus for actively fighting a monster rather than sitting back and watching which may earn an XP penalty if they literally barely made an effort.

On a side note if you are running any system which results in varied levels between characters it might be a good idea to grant a +20% earned XP award to all characters who are below average party level. To help them catch up and not fall TOO far behind.

[Vestrial]

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

XP is a bad idea. Just say no to XP. It does nothing but create metagaming situations and gives GMs too many opportunities to prove they have favorites.

Level your players up by plot. That way you always know what level they will be in your encounters.

I've almost come to the conclusion that the main reason XP still hangs on in this hobby is that it gives GMs another way to control players through their characters.

This.

Punishing players for not RPing enough, or not not doing whatever enough, is not conducive to fun. Gaming is about fun. There are a lot of reasons why a particular player may not be engaging in the RP as much as another. There's really nothing wrong with that if they're both having fun. And I guarantee punishing the former won't magically bring him up to speed with the latter.

[Ascalaphus]

I think if you tie XP rewards to amount of activity/damage done, you might end up with a bunch of rabid lemmings humping the monsters.

It's really not fair; a good team doesn't consist of everyone doing exactly the same. A wizard who's not casting spells after a good opening salvo that made the battlefield favorable to the party, because he's holding the other spells in reserve in case there's another encounter that day - should he get less XP? A bard who buffs the fighters, should he get less XP because he dealt less damage?

You can't really compare everyone's contribution, because healing, status removal, debuffing, AoE blasts, full-attacking the BBEG - everything does something different. How can you compare those things fairly? All of them may be necessary in some combination to be truly succesful, so why should one of them be worth less XP?

[EWHM]

Running a simulationist game, I honestly find xp is pretty much absolutely mandatory. This is because one of the key draws of such games is that the PCs have as much rope as they like to hang themselves. If they want to attempt a meteoric rise to prominence at insane risk, they can---and sometimes do. If they want a less risky and more sane pace, they can attempt that too. Each path gives different xp rewards, treasure, etc. The GM cares not how fast you advance nor how slow. The world cares how far you are from Wealth by level, because wealth=wealth by level is the point where you just barely start to represent an attractive target (be honest, would you, were you say, a master thief, pick on a bunch of professional adventurers as a matter of course?-do you have that much of a death wish---now the low level guy who has suddenly somehow obtained a minor artifact---absolutely).

On different xp awards by player, my experience is that few things I can do as a GM arouse more player animosity than that, and I have pretty calm players in general who have a lot of experience, wives, kids, families, and way more patience than I had in my teenage years. Tread carefully.

[Vestrial]

EWHM wrote:

Running a simulationist game, I honestly find xp is pretty much absolutely mandatory. This is because one of the key draws of such games is that the PCs have as much rope as they like to hang themselves. If they want to attempt a meteoric rise to prominence at insane risk, they can---and sometimes do. If they want a less risky and more sane pace, they can attempt that too. Each path gives different xp rewards, treasure, etc. The GM cares not how fast you advance nor how slow. The world cares how far you are from Wealth by level, because wealth=wealth by level is the point where you just barely start to represent an attractive target (be honest, would you, were you say, a master thief, pick on a bunch of professional adventurers as a matter of course?-do you have that much of a death wish---now the low level guy who has suddenly somehow obtained a minor artifact---absolutely).

Nothing about this concept necessitates tracking xp numerically. In fact, you just verbally explained in words how it works without using a single number.

[Googleshng]

Scorba wrote:

the slugs in the party

I would seriously focus more on what you can do to get all your players engaged with your campaign than how to reward/punish people for their participation levels.

If you're really dead set on it though, experience isn't the way to go. Focus on intangibles, like advancing personal backstory stuff, and interactions with NPCs.

[EWHM]

Vestrial,
Only by actually applying numbers in a reasonably objective way can I establish and maintain the necessary 'neutrality credibility' that underlies a simulationist game. Doing otherwise just invites too much temptation to adjust awards ex post facto based on how hard you perceived the struggles to have been. The illusion of neutrality is a lot like the suspension of disbelief---it needs constant effort to maintain and blowing it undermines your entire work.
What I do often do though is expedited accounting of XP. I started this way back in 1st edition. Essentially I sum the xp available in the entire complex/module/etc and prorate the award based on the level of victory/success achieved (those familiar with wargames with victory conditions probably need no further explanation). Precisely how you achieve your victory is of less concern---if you do it by subterfuge, straight slaughter, or clever alliances, I only consider the level of victory/draw/defeat/other achieved at the end. But I only do that for things on the scale of old 1st edition modules. For basic encounters or more 'modern' adventures I don't find it necessary.

[Vestrial]

EWHM wrote:

Vestrial,

Only by actually applying numbers in a reasonably objective way can I establish and maintain the necessary 'neutrality credibility' that underlies a simulationist game. Doing otherwise just invites too much temptation to adjust awards ex post facto based on how hard you perceived the struggles to have been. The illusion of neutrality is a lot like the suspension of disbelief---it needs constant effort to maintain and blowing it undermines your entire work.
What I do often do though is expedited accounting of XP. I started this way back in 1st edition. Essentially I sum the xp available in the entire complex/module/etc and prorate the award based on the level of victory/success achieved (those familiar with wargames with victory conditions probably need no further explanation). Precisely how you achieve your victory is of less concern---if you do it by subterfuge, straight slaughter, or clever alliances, I only consider the level of victory/draw/defeat/other achieved at the end. But I only do that for things on the scale of old 1st edition modules. For basic encounters or more 'modern' adventures I don't find it necessary.

It sounds like you really dig crunching the numbers and playing with the xp awards. That's cool, have fun with that. Not everyone does though, and it is absolutely not necessary, your own temptation to fudge the awards ex post facto not withstanding (though really, adjusting awards ex post facto is not a bad thing imo. Sometimes the dm judges an encounter easier than it turns out to be. The players should be rewarded accordingly, based on the actual difficulty, not the assumed difficulty). The numbers are arbitrary. That we even use numbers is arbitrary (you could collect letters with every enemy you vanquish, when you get the entire alphabet, you level! wee!) What they represent is the important part, which is character progress. The numbers can go right out the window and nothing else changes.

[Kthulhu]

One nice thing that the Adventure Paths started doing with Jade Regent is they added an "Advancement Track" at the beginning of each volume that told approximately where the author assumes that the party will be leveling up. Making it all the easier for those GMs who can't really be bothered to keep track of XP to tell the party to "level up" in the correct place.

[Azaelas Fayth]

You might check out LS's Simple Experience System over on Papers & Pencils. It is a Blog and he has some fairly good ideas.

You can modify it and give a MVP character an extra Point and the LVP loses a Point. And it is without a major XP gap in the group.

[Whale_Cancer]

Vestrial wrote:

[...]Sometimes the dm judges an encounter easier than it turns out to be. The players should be rewarded accordingly, based on the actual difficulty, not the assumed difficulty). [...]

So if the party is completely unprepared for, say, a swarm (no area effect spells or items that can damage them) they should gain more experience than a party that researched the area, knew swarms were an issue, bought some swarmsuits, and had their casters prepare area effect damage spells?

[Vestrial]

Whale_Cancer wrote:

Vestrial wrote:

[...]Sometimes the dm judges an encounter easier than it turns out to be. The players should be rewarded accordingly, based on the actual difficulty, not the assumed difficulty). [...]

So if the party is completely unprepared for, say, a swarm (no area effect spells or items that can damage them) they should gain more experience than a party that researched the area, knew swarms were an issue, bought some swarmsuits, and had their casters prepare area effect damage spells?

Everyone loves a good slippery slope... In your example, the theoretical party that prepared should get the same xp as the other. They get bonus 'being smart' xp. The other team gets bonus 'damn hard fight' xp.

But I meant more along the lines of you design an encounter a couple CR lower than your party, expecting them to trounce it, but it turns out you misjudged the the effectiveness of one of the baddies abilities, and so that encounter was much more difficult than you anticipated. XP awards are factored based on an assumed difficulty. That's the whole premise. But sometimes those assumptions are off, and there's nothing wrong with adjusting awards accordingly. (if you're using numeric xp)

Kthulhu wrote:

One nice thing that the Adventure Paths started doing with Jade Regent is they added an "Advancement Track" at the beginning of each volume that told approximately where the author assumes that the party will be leveling up. Making it all the easier for those GMs who can't really be bothered to keep track of XP to tell the party to "level up" in the correct place.

Yeah, that's one thing I like about APs. You can completely disregard numerical xp and just follow the story...

[Ciaran Barnes]

I have been on the recieving end of a campaign with a DM who was very serious about individual XP. To his credit, he tracked everything that happened in the session, calculated it durring his downtime, and always had a little slip of paper ready for you at the beginning of the next one. It didn't change the fact that some players were 3-4 levels higher than those who had died, and 1-2 levels higher than those who didn't kill many things.

I've been on board for several years with story/plot based level advancement, but tracking XP is fine. Just make sure that the characters who are rewarded level up only a session or two ahead of the others. That should set an ample example. Anything further apart is unneccessary.

[blue_the_wolf]

Adamantine Dragon wrote:

XP is a bad idea. Just say no to XP. It does nothing but create metagaming situations and gives GMs too many opportunities to prove they have favorites.

Level your players up by plot. That way you always know what level they will be in your encounters.

I've almost come to the conclusion that the main reason XP still hangs on in this hobby is that it gives GMs another way to control players through their characters.

This is what I do. works great. frees the GM to create more non-kill the monster type encounters and frees the playes to NOT engage in every battle just for the xp.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Kthulhu wrote:

Making it all the easier for those GMs who can't really be bothered to keep track of XP to tell the party to "level up" in the correct place.

Nicely condescending tweak that, Kthulhu... nicely condescending indeed.

I don't use XP because I was finally convinced that the entire concept of XP is counter to the first principles of the role playing experience. You can disagree, but telling me that I "can't be bothered with it" is not something that I'll let slide without at least a comment.

[Kthulhu]

Er, I wasn't intending to be condescending. Hell, that's how I personally GM with any level-based game. Especially if the adventure is gonna be nice enough to let me know when they should be at level X. I'm not gonna say "The plot can't proceed until you kill 1000 XP more orcs."

[Adamantine Dragon]

Kthulhu wrote:

Er, I wasn't intending to be condescending. Hell, that's how I personally GM with any level-based game. Especially if the adventure is gonna be nice enough to let me know when they should be at level X. I'm not gonna say "The plot can't proceed until you kill 1000 XP more orcs."

Ah well, sorry for taking it that way then.

[Ascalaphus]

In a couple of Vampire campaigns I play in, XP is handled in various ways. Some of the groups award individual XP; one of the things you can get XP for is inspired roleplaying. The upside is that you get called out for the things you did right, which can be motivating. The downside is that if you're just tired that day, you'll probably earn less XP; and if the plot revolves around another PC that day, you'll also have fewer opportunities.

However, it works well enough. In some other Vampire groups though, we just use collective XP, because the players really don't like individual rewards. So there's clearly a player taste thing going on.

In D&D/PF, we award XP per session, based on what happened that session. Players who are often absent will fall behind a bit, which can get uncomfortable. I'm now level 8, the most-absent player 5.

I think it's the level-based XP structure of D&D/PF that makes these discrepancies more important. Vampire has a point-buy approach to XP, so you never get clean splits between PC power levels.

[Blueluck]

I agree with danielc, Adamantine Dragon, The Bald Man, johnlocke90, Lemmy, Vestrial, Ascalaphus, EWHM, Googleshng, and blue_the_wolf. Giving out different amounts of experience to different players is not the way to go.

I think EWHM states it best:

EWHM wrote:

On different xp awards by player, my experience is that few things I can do as a GM arouse more player animosity than that, and I have pretty calm players in general who have a lot of experience, wives, kids, families, and way more patience than I had in my teenage years. Tread carefully.

I've had years of experience playing previous versions of D&D in which differential experience was awarded, and in which party level varied significantly. It never added to the fun of the game.

[Serisan]

Ascalaphus wrote:

In a couple of Vampire campaigns I play in, XP is handled in various ways. Some of the groups award individual XP; one of the things you can get XP for is inspired roleplaying. The upside is that you get called out for the things you did right, which can be motivating. The downside is that if you're just tired that day, you'll probably earn less XP; and if the plot revolves around another PC that day, you'll also have fewer opportunities.

However, it works well enough. In some other Vampire groups though, we just use collective XP, because the players really don't like individual rewards. So there's clearly a player taste thing going on.

In D&D/PF, we award XP per session, based on what happened that session. Players who are often absent will fall behind a bit, which can get uncomfortable. I'm now level 8, the most-absent player 5.

I think it's the level-based XP structure of D&D/PF that makes these discrepancies more important. Vampire has a point-buy approach to XP, so you never get clean splits between PC power levels.

Vampire's XP usage is radically different from Pathfinder usage. Given that XP gained may or may not actually impact the character immediately and disproportionately impacts newer characters vs older characters by purchase costs, this isn't necessarily a good measure.

The more I play PFS, the more I like the XP setup there. It seems to make the most sense for what the campaign is trying to accomplish.

[Ascalaphus]

I was just trying to make sense of why differential XP in Vampire doesn't seem to be all that damaging to the game, whereas it probably will be in PF - levels are much more "visible", and a much sharper difference between characters.

What's the PFS setup for XP then?

[Vestrial]

Ascalaphus wrote:

I was just trying to make sense of why differential XP in Vampire doesn't seem to be all that damaging to the game, whereas it probably will be in PF - levels are much more "visible", and a much sharper difference between characters.

What's the PFS setup for XP then?

Character progression in the two games is vastly different. In Vampire, you can give one player literally half the xp of another, and in 10 sessions their characters still will be pretty much the same general power level (in fact, the lower xp character could be more 'powerful' depending on how they use their xp).

In PF, if you give one player half the xp of another, in 10 sessions his character will have advanced precisely half as far as the other, and the difference will be immediately apparent, and appreciable.

PF is also a team game, Vampire not so much. If you penalize my teammate's xp, you also indirectly penalize me, because I rely on my teammates for survival.

[Serisan]

PFS gives 1 xp per session, requires 3 xp per level up. You can choose to spend a level "on the slow track" and get 1/2 xp per session to milk a particular level.

[Ascalaphus]

Serisan wrote:

PFS gives 1 xp per session, requires 3 xp per level up. You can choose to spend a level "on the slow track" and get 1/2 xp per session to milk a particular level.

What's the advantage to not leveling up as fast as you can?

[Azaelas Fayth]

Ascalaphus wrote:

Serisan wrote:

PFS gives 1 xp per session, requires 3 xp per level up. You can choose to spend a level "on the slow track" and get 1/2 xp per session to milk a particular level.

What's the advantage to not leveling up as fast as you can?

More play time in a given level.

[Adamantine Dragon]

Azaelas Fayth wrote:

Ascalaphus wrote:

Serisan wrote:

PFS gives 1 xp per session, requires 3 xp per level up. You can choose to spend a level "on the slow track" and get 1/2 xp per session to milk a particular level.

What's the advantage to not leveling up as fast as you can?

More play time in a given level.

+1 to this. I don't mind slow level progression at all. I prefer it in most cases. There are usually so many things to explore when you gain a new level that it takes time to learn how to best learn the new skills, abilities, spells, feats, etc. I've been in games with players who literally don't even remember which feats they've taken or what new class abilities they've gained because they've gone up in level so fast they can't keep track of it.

In our groups we tend to level up every fourth or fifth play session, which means about a dozen or more encounters. By the time we level up, we generally have figured out how to best utilize the abilities of the level we are leaving, which tends to make us more effective in adding in the new abilities of the new level.

Perhaps if we played on a daily basis and had dozens of characters that we played regularly we'd have that sort of knowledge already, but our group is a bunch of old married guys with children and other responsibilities so we play a couple times a month tops. It takes us a while to sort it all out individually, much less in how we synergize new abilities in combat.

[Azaelas Fayth]

I use the XP system simply for the fact that I run sandbox campaigns 9.5/10 times. I use the Medium or Sow Progression unless I am running a Single Arc Campaign similar to Majora's Mask.

NOTE: The .5 comes from Campaigns that end up like Final Fantasy XIII & XIII-2.