Quote from: Headless;1008577This whole DM rewarding the players thing.  I don't think I like it.  If you have a specific type of game in mind say so.

If some one comes and falls asleep during the session either wake him up or let him sleep.  No need to punish him by withholding.  He clearly needs the sleep, and its not like he's depriving others of their chance to shine.  

If someone doesn't come at all don't give them experence unless ypu need them to be above a certain level to hang with the rest og the party.

Well, somebody "checking out" during the game does have a bit of a disruptive effect on everyone else, since it takes them out of the game. It's like when someone starts checking their phone -- it makes everyone else want to start to check. Especially since it's somewhat demoralizing to RP out a nice moment and realize half the table isn't paying attention. What's the point then?

Quote from: S'mon;1008425Which is better? Is one of them badwrongfun?

Nope. The only thing I'd say is be clear from the start and don't mix the two.

The very idea that characters are supposed to level up is an arbitrary game mechanism added because people like to fight orcs one month and liches another. Xp-as-reward could have just as easily just been like a pinball high-score mechanism in it having no purpose except to compare to others/your own previous best. There's literally no specific reason that character competency and PC achievement have to go hand in hand. But if you aren't rewarding success, then say so, and don't think of it as such. In that scenario, being 5th level isn't an accomplishment, it is just a change in ability to keep things varied.

There's no inherent problem with either approach. Just different purposes using the same mechanism.

Which one to use is dependent mainly on the player group dynamic:

If you are one of the rare player groups where every player shows up every week, then XP as a pacing mechanic works.

For the rest of us, XP as a reward is the best method. Players who show up get XP, no shows get nothing. Each session is a random mix of various PCs so there is no consistent party nor party level.  Adventure Paths don't work in this environment so sandbox type setups are the way to go.

It all works together. The early D&D campaigns of Arneson and Gygax were open table campaigns where players varied from session to session. That's why D&D originally was designed the the way it was, with individual XP awards and player determined difficulty.

I've done it both ways.  I'm fine with both ways, as long as the players are on board.  The players I have now overwhelmingly favor XP as reward--as in a few of them don't care, but the ones that care all want it that way. Therefore, we do that.  

It's not the same thing as using XP as a pacing mechanism, but I do prefer to have some idea of the expected leveling pace when I start a campaign.  It's not, "The characters will all be at level X by session Y so that we can go to Z and play there."  It's more, "Knowing how these players are, can probably expect to hit level X after about Y sessions for all the players that make every game, and thus they will probably be interested in Z by then."  From the outside, it probably looks about the same, but it makes a big difference in how I run the game, in that I'm perfectly happy to let the players tangle with Z anytime they feel like it, or run from Z if they prefer.  If they seek out information, they probably won't tangle with Z too early to have any chance of survival.

Quote from: S'mon;1008582Well 5e is designed so that PCs roughly double in power from 4th to 5th - fighter types go from 1 attack to 2, wizards get fireball, clerics get spirit guardians - massive damage area-effect powers - clerics can raise the dead (revivify), wizards can fly, both can do sending long-distance comms etc. There's a very definite tier break built in there.

Yeah, it seems like the power curve from experience is a lot steeper in all editions of D&D than GURPS pretty much any way you slice it. The most excessive PC I've ever run in GURPS (largely from the GM giving out "good roleplaying" points per 8-or-so-hour session rather than per adventure even if we mainly just socialized with other characters, for several years) was I think 300-something points (started as 25 points) and still had below average will/magic-resistance, no spells, and could be knocked out by an unlucky hit, a spell, or getting jumped by too many 40-point thugs at once in the wrong circumstances.

Quote from: mAcular Chaotic;1008587Well, somebody "checking out" during the game does have a bit of a disruptive effect on everyone else, since it takes them out of the game. It's like when someone starts checking their phone -- it makes everyone else want to start to check. Especially since it's somewhat demoralizing to RP out a nice moment and realize half the table isn't paying attention. What's the point then?

Its fun.  

I don't rp so I can get an abitry number of pats on the head at the end of the session.  

I have a game where one of the players nods off.  It's fine.  

Phones I won't put up with.  I even try to prevent people jumping into the rule book.  

I also played a first level charcter in a 5 level adventure.  I could do stuff.  But I couldn't fight.  1 hit and I was down, and the tiny amount of damage I could do (if I even hit) was insignificant.

Nodding off, OK. What do you do if one player gets up to sleep on the couch? Knowing that it is late and they get tired earlier than others.

Playing that 1st level character, did you think it was fun? Would you recommend that to others?

If someone had to crash.   It would depend.  If they were an ass hole about it, or just rude and inconsiderate I would tell them to go home.  If they were someones ride and they apologized with out being disruptive ...

The first level game was fun.  I cast farie fire which turned the battle, (not sure if the DM read it correctly it seems to be very effective).  If I had played again I would have been level 3 to there 4, 5 &6 that would have been fine.   So it was just one session, but also there was no need of it.  I had a level 2 or 3 charcter ready to go, but it wasn't an adventure leage charcter so no go.  

Because I had spells and was clever playing an underpowered pc was ok.  If I was a fighter thief barb or any other class with no spells, I would have had no fun, cause I wouldn't have been able to do any thing.  And If I tried I would have been swatted down.  I got one shotted by an ogre after we took down the fire giant.

Both.
I use xp as pacing, and expect/budget the characters to run a level or two over if they play well.

I like having a character survive, prosper and learn to be rewards of successful play, including gaining abilities from experience.
   
What is this "pacing" you speak of? The only kind of "pacing" I tend to want for character improvement is one that models how characters' abilities improve as a result of their experiences, studies, practice, drills, training, etc. I want it to be more or less consistent with real human (and NPC) experience and development.

I don't like awarding XP for players attending sessions - I prefer XP to be a natural consequence of what happens to the PC in play.

I rarely play games with levels, and I would rather play a game world with situations that respond to what happens in ways that make sense, rather than the idea that adventures and future events are how play is organized. I like adventures to be what happens more or less organically and unpredictably during play, and I like the players to have most or all of the responsibility for choosing what dangers they want to take on.

I don't think either is 'heresy'.  When I do use standard XP (which I don't much, anymore), I prefer not to put limits in for the sake of pacing.

In the respect of granting experience, skill-based games are so different from class-level games that they should almost be two different threads because they are really two different things.  Something like GURPS or Mythras, even a large difference in skill is not a perfect defense against a lower opponent like it would be in a level-based game.  There really are no de facto tiers.

I dislike any system where the DM puts him/her self in charge of deciding how many EXP you get; they feel patronizing to me, and have an odor or indirect, campaign-scale railroading. I think rpg's don't feel very much like games if the players don't have clear, rule-defined ways of earning rewards. It doesn't really matter much what those rules are - EXP for treasure; check marks for skill use; etc. - the important point is that you know what it is you have to do if you want your PC to get better, and it's up to you, not the DM, to make that happen.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1009130I dislike any system where the DM puts him/her self in charge of deciding how many EXP you get; they feel patronizing to me, and have an odor or indirect, campaign-scale railroading. I think rpg's don't feel very much like games if the players don't have clear, rule-defined ways of earning rewards. It doesn't really matter much what those rules are - EXP for treasure; check marks for skill use; etc. - the important point is that you know what it is you have to do if you want your PC to get better, and it's up to you, not the DM, to make that happen.

The GM can still declare whether a skill use is valid & can decide how much treasure to place, though.
But I do enjoy the session end in my new 5e Stonehell game where the players get to total up their session xp = gp, without my intervention. They still get some XP from me but it's only about 1/4 of their total.

Quote from: Larsdangly;1009130I dislike any system where the DM puts him/her self in charge of deciding how many EXP you get; they feel patronizing to me, and have an odor or indirect, campaign-scale railroading. I think rpg's don't feel very much like games if the players don't have clear, rule-defined ways of earning rewards. It doesn't really matter much what those rules are - EXP for treasure; check marks for skill use; etc. - the important point is that you know what it is you have to do if you want your PC to get better, and it's up to you, not the DM, to make that happen.

YMMV, though.  I'll turn that around to my LARPing experience.  I was in the LARP for fourteen years, and I was its second-oldest player the day I joined.  I reached the maximum number of spells the system would allow in 1994, at which point I was already 35 years old.  By the time I was 40, I was doing six hours of fighting practice a week just to keep my combat skills from deteriorating, fighting a lot of people half my age, and that was a battle that anyone who knows about athletics knows I was losing.  I was the leader of a major nation, the most powerful wizard in the game, no progress on those fronts either.  Somehow, I managed to have roleplaying fun without any character advancement at all, and none in prospect.  It was no less a game.