Comments on: XP by GM Fiat

By: Martin

Martin — Fri, 15 Sep 2006 23:59:00 +0000

Thinking about this a bit more, Abulia is right on the money: XP by GM fiat wouldn’t be nearly as fun without an in-game reward to complement it.

Anyone had a different experience with XP by fiat?

By: Abulia

Abulia — Thu, 14 Sep 2006 17:41:46 +0000

“Reading your comments, something occurred to me about our game that really contributes to this approach working well: the way our GM handles Action Points.

In d20 Modern, APs come once a level. In our game, they come at the end of every session — kind of like XP — as well as throughout the sessions. Do something cool, and you get an AP. Make everyone laugh, get an AP.”

Martin beat me to it in describing how I handle “rewards” in the Stargate game. Yes, there needs to be an immediate way to reinforce positive behaviors for the players. In fact, I daresay this and hand waving XP/levels is a better way to get the type of behavior you want in your games than the traditional XP/level model.

My players get immediate feedback and an immediate tool (an Action Point) that they can put into play immediately, right then and there. Their actions are reinforced and they get a “tangible” reward.

The levels between games just help cement the overall plot of the campaign and provide milestones for a “job well done.”

Total amount of time that it takes on my part for both? ZERO. That’s time I spend working on the next great adventure.

By: ScottM

ScottM — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:53:36 +0000

Your APs sound like PTA’s Fan Mail. That’s a good thing.

By: Martin

Martin — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 22:27:56 +0000

I’m not surprised that item creation in D&D 3.5e is a sticky wicket for a lot of GMs — it’s a tough one to resolve without retooling the system, although several excellent options have been mentioned.

Reading your comments, something occurred to me about our game that really contributes to this approach working well: the way our GM handles Action Points.

In d20 Modern, APs come once a level. In our game, they come at the end of every session — kind of like XP — as well as throughout the sessions. Do something cool, and you get an AP. Make everyone laugh, get an AP.

In other words, a lot of what makes XP fun (at least for me) in other games is made fun in this one by APs. We have something to work towards, and it has a meaningful impact on the game.

By: Stephen W.

Stephen W. — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 17:00:39 +0000

Quite true, Zephyros, and I’m not suggesting it’s a bad solution. I’ve just always been a fan of drama. To see the look on a player’s face when they have to trade their precious character advancement for goods is priceless to me. Honestly, I have no intention of adopting a system without XP because of that. I guess I’m just a sadistic DM.

By: Ralph Hodge \'hellibrarian\'

Ralph Hodge \'hellibrarian\' — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 15:03:17 +0000

When I create an adventure, I usually set out to create enough experience through challenges/battle for the group to level up. This averages a level up of every 4 to 6 sessions of play, which is what many other use. However, I adjust that xp earned down if they miss things, or fail part of the ‘mission’, or up if they excel and learn more or come up with a better solution.
The players also have a system to reward each other for good play, either role or role. I’ve also used the system from the original version of Spycraft to allow the players to spend xp on skills and feats in lieu of level advancement. They still have to meet the requirements of what they buy in this way.

By: JeffV

JeffV — Wed, 13 Sep 2006 14:23:37 +0000

I’ve been handing out levels instead of XP in my D&D games ever since I saw it in True 20.

I hand out a level every time the party achieves something significant in the campaign.

Its not ideal, and I’m sure some players might not like it, but it saves me precious preparation time, which can be spent on the fun parts of DM ing instead.

No one in the party has any magic item crafting feats, or (so far) any spells which require XP, so that is not an issue.

If it was, I’d simply keep track of how much XP characters had “spent” and use it to gauge how much slower to level them up. However, as the XP in these circumstances is usually being spent to benefit the party as a whole I’d give the players the option of spreading the cost amongst all the characters as well.

By: ScottM

ScottM — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 22:03:14 +0000

Charlie, here are several alternative costs for item creation: Magic Item Costs. They're from many sources, including WotC and the RPGA.

By: Zephyros

Zephyros — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 19:01:17 +0000

Though I’m in danger of going too far off-topic, Stephen, you are right on in saying it’s not a perfect solution to this issue. It wasn’t made to be. Our goal in designing the house rules were twofold: 1) make item creation worthwhile, and 2) improve customization and personalization of items rather than PCs always shopping at Magic Items ‘R’ Us. (There are other tweaks to support the latter goal, but those are more ancillary to this discussion.) By controlling the rarity of the resource you can introduce some of that same reluctance to enchant willy-nilly, while still leaving them willing to enchant at all, since they’re not giving up precious precious XP. No, it’s not a perfect solution, but I don’t think there IS a silver bullet…

By: John Arcadian

John Arcadian — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:58:14 +0000

Experience for levelling up seems so arbitraty. That’s why I think point buy systems are so good. You still get experience, but you actually get to use that experience directly towards how your character develops. It is still a game of numbers, but the numbers start to mean something.

By: Cineris

Cineris — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:48:50 +0000

When I was running my own campaign months ago I did experience this way — I had wanted to assign experience for RolePlay but it ended up being too much work to try and track everything that happened in a session. My players didn’t seem happy with it, as I think they felt rather lost without an indication of how close they were to levelling.

Personally, I’d prefer not to have to think about when I’m going to level up and just focus on the story.

By: Buzz

Buzz — Tue, 12 Sep 2006 18:41:38 +0000

I’m all for variant methods of acquiring XP, but I want absolutely nothing to do with a system based on GM fiat. XP doesn’t have to be about cmobat, but it has to be something a player can earn in an objective way, so that their choices matter. E.g.,

http://files.crngames.com/cc/sweet20/experience.html
http://rpgtalk.net/bankuei/files/23/55/Character%20Bonds.pdf

Though, really, if I’m looking to emphasize something other than combat, I don’t play D&D.