Ynas Midgard wrote:

Ar'Pharazon wrote:

gizmomathboy wrote:

 the spell book is its own reward. Assuming it has spells that the caster could read and use.

I'm with Giz on this. To me, this is no different than giving a fighter XP for finding a +2 longsword. 

But... ASSH _does_ award XP for +2 swords.

I should have given some context to my statement. I don't give any XP for loot (HERESY!!!), rare or otherwise. Call me a purist, but I give xp for gameplay (they talked their way out of a nasty situation), baddies dealt with (they cast sleep on the thugs and moved on - not solely for killing), and achievements (they completed the quest by saving the girl from being sacrificed to a daemon).
This might be controversial, but to me what you reward XP for demonstrates what you are emphasizing with your players. I tell them upfront what I reward for, so expectations are properly aligned. I also am generous about XP for gameplay and achievements, so they aren't progressing at a slower rate than what would happen if I followed RAW about XP.


Adding to the later thoughts of this thread: I pool XP together, and then divide. Then it's off to carousing!! 

 

Last edited by Ar'Pharazon (4/16/2018 9:22 am)

rhialto wrote:

Ar'Pharazon wrote:

Adding to the later thoughts of this thread: I pool XP together, and then divide. Then it's off to carousing!!

Interesting...I'm an indolent heretic and just skip to the carousing: I usually take a sip of my beverage of choice, then tell them they've leveled up, no XP calculations necessary. It's fast, it's easy, and it tastes good.

"

I like both ideas.  Prior to 2012 the "Year of Hyperborea's Birth" I ran a two year campaign with another old school system.  I leveled the characters every few adventures and had time pass (months up to a year) to allow for training, scroll creation, expenditure of cash, and other campaign type stuff.  It worked and everyone was happy and removed the accounting for xp which is my least favorite part.
 

mabon5127 wrote:

I'd be interested in the mechanics of your system and how you adjusted xp awards to balance with no awards for loot.  
 

I'll use a game I ran at Gary Con as an example of how I do it, as it's an easy example of a session for a campaign.

Group starts the session chained in a room. After some attempts and much discussion, they figure out how to get free. They make their way around some catacombs, figure out where not to go, kill/incapacitate some wandering bad guys and eventually figure out how to make their way down to the lower level. 
In the lower level, they figure alternative ways they could have made their way down, set off a non lethal trap or two, deftly avoid a lethal trap, encounter the big bad that is stalking them, but yet manage to survive, and figure out how to teleport their way out to safety.

The following is essentially how I'd grade out xp for the session. It's off the top of my head, so it's not exact per se. 

Killed/incapacitated 8 bad guys @ 100xp each (800xp)
Figuring out how to get out of the chains, which is the entire basis of the adventure: 600xp.
Figure out the mechanisms to get the lift to move down to the lower level and avoid certain death: 350xp
Setting off non lethal traps: 150xp
Avoid the lethal trap: 100xp
Figure out the big bad is stalking them and avoid it/live to fight another day: 300xp
Deducing the non-obvious way to get out of the catacombs: 200xp

Total xp: 2500. 
PC's who lived: 6
417xp per PC. 

Based on the session, they didn't get any cool loot, in fact, all of what they picked up was basic equipment and zero monetary items. IMO, if I'm basing xp around killing and loot, I'm likely disappointing the players in this game, as they didn't kill much, they ran from the big bad and lootwise, I gave them a pathetic haul.
I'd also feel guilty about this being a low xp session, and probably stack it with more bad guys to kill or start throwing in loot for them to find. This would conflict me, since I don't want my campaign to feature the players slaughtering bad guys every session, and in Hyperborea, I want magic stuff to be rare, if not arcane.  
 

When we played AD&D 2E (no mechanism for treasure = XP), killing monsters became the focus of gaining levels, to the point where we would joke about finding a rat to kill, if you were short a few XP. Of course, Ar'Pharazon presents a plethora of other ways to gain XP, but some of these (the chains one, for example) seem inflated to make up for the lack of XP for treasure. So, at the end of the day, looking at the presented list, I think the outcome works out the same, more or less, as when XP is awarded for winning treasure.

XP is a tool DMs can use to incentivize player behavior and reinforce the theme of a game.

At the risk of sounding like a raving fanboy, I think the AS&SH XP formula is perfect for the kind of game I'm running - murderhobo dungeon crawling. Players advance by hauling treasure out of dungeons and, to a lesser extent, through story goals and problem solving. Fighting monsters is risky and offers relatively little XP.

I have a second campaign in mind, where the player characters are the retinue of a Xathoqquan Inquisitor. I'd tweak the XP formula to incentivize different behavior such as investigations and purging daemon cults.

Last edited by Brock Savage (4/20/2018 12:29 am)

It seems to me that XP for gold subsumes everything that was done to gain it (with the exception of combat, which has a separate award). I have a hard time believing that any system taking note of individual actions during an adventure would be simpler than just dividing the loot and awarding 1 XP for 1 GP; certainly the ideas presented here - whatever other merits they may or may not have - don't strike me as particularly simple, and definitely not simpler than 1 GP = 1 XP.

That really only leaves the rather tired (and, to me, not particularly convincing) argument that "wealth is its own reward". That statement may be true, but it's not especially pertinent for a couple of reasons. Firstly, lots of things are "their own reward". Killing monsters before they eat you is its own reward. So, for that matter, are escaping chains, avoiding traps, evading a stalking monster, and finding the dungeon exit. But we have to award XP for something in a level-based game, whether that something is "its own reward" or not. Secondly, to my way of thinking, XP isn't really about a "reward"; it's a way of keeping score, of evaluating how well the players did in the gaming session that just ended. I've already stated that I believe 1 GP = 1 XP is simpler than any system that tracks individual actions (such as the one in 2E, or some of the ideas presented in this thread). But it has three other merits: it is objective, concrete, and non-specific.

XP for gold is objective because 1 GP = 1 XP is a simple mathematical calculation with no room for bias or arguments. A player can't, for example, argue "I was extra whiny about my PC's childhood traumas tonight, so I deserve a larger Role-Playing Award!" or "The chimney is a really non-obvious way of escaping the dungeon, so I deserve a bigger DM's Choice Award!" 1 GP = 1 XP, and that's all you get (at least where treasure is concerned - but XP for combat is similarly objective). XP for gold is concrete because the PCs have to take a physical commodity, treasure, and move it to a town (or other well-defined safe haven) in order to collect the award. This leaves no room for ambiguity or argument. Either they got the loot safely home or they didn't. And if they didn't, too bad - no trying to make up for it with arguments like "I advanced the story in some vague way!" or "My PC learned some important life lessons!"

Finally (and perhaps most importantly for the Old School style of play), XP for gold is non-specific because it takes no notice of how the PCs earned that gold. This preserves maximum player freedom of action, while still providing them with a very general incentive (get richer one way or another). It doesn't matter if the players choose to slaughter the inhabitants of dungeons for the wealth they hoard, or try to rescue the king's daughter for a reward, or seek employment in the retinue of an important NPC, or set themselves up as assassins for hire, or whatever they might do to get wealthier; they get 1 XP for 1 GP regardless. Similarly, on a smaller scale, it doesn't matter if they pick the lock on the chest or smash it with a hammer, or bribe the guards or incapacitate them or kill them*, or bend the bars or lift the gate, or use the obvious exit or the secret exit, or take the gold overland or float it down the river, or pay the excise on the gold or smuggle it into the city; they get 1 XP for 1 GP regardless.

That's what player freedom means to me - they decide what they're going to do, and I judge the results of their actions. XP for treasure is a perfect fit for this mindset.
* - I mean that it doesn't matter for treasure awards; some DM's may give less than full combat XP for non-fatal encounters, although I usually give a full award if opponents are "overcome" in any way. That's the beauty of player choice, in my opinion!

Last edited by Blackadder23 (4/20/2018 10:37 am)

I have never awarded XP's for spellbooks (although I can't think of very many cases where it has come up, to be quite honest) but I could certainly see awarding the same XP as a scroll of the same spells. If the spellbook was sold, the PC would get XP for the sale price instead.