Quote from: Theory of Games;1087530I think you assume what players know versus what their characters know. You write "probably" and that's correct, but "probably" is NOT consistent with 'Adventure level 1st to 3rd'. You assume all PCs being on the same page and certain parties do not embrace such a thing. Can I reward active PCs the same as their passive compatriots? How do I encourage RP? XP is a fine method. How do you reward Han Solo, with no background and having only wealth as motivation (until he falls for that young princess)?

How do you reward a character who is evolving into the character he needs to be for your game? I think it's more than what we're discussing RIGHT NOW.
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You don't need to reward things that are inherently rewarding on their own.

The reward for better role-playing is that the player is having more fun.  The reward for more active involvement is more active involvement.

Quote from: S'mon;1087544When it comes to adventure design, I agree with estar about 'fuck the math'. I tend to use a lot of random generation + published adventures to avoid thinking in terms of 'design' at all.

I do adjust a little bit, eg I'm currently running a level 10-12 adventure. I started off with mostly 3rd level PCs, but today when only two players turned up I bumped them to 5th to give them a good shot (they have a bunch of NPC redshirts & can recruit more in play). And two of the encounters today were with Challenge 6 monsters. So I do quite like to keep things in the general ball park.

Re XP, my current system is here: http://simonyrpgs.blogspot.com/2019/01/my-new-xp-system.html - 10 or 20 XP to level up.
Basically, I run the fight/encounter, THEN decide how much XP it was worth - from 1 for something moderate to 4 or 5 for a likely-TPK.

Greetings!

Yeah, my friend. I agree. Fuck the math!:D

I usually have an area, say some new area the group has moved into, say by arriving at some squalid, backwater town on the edge of fucking nowhere. I have several sketched adventures thrown out, then fleshed out by a mix of lower-level and at-level monsters, bandits, whatever. Then I think of the geography and history, and seed the place with whatever appropriate terrors that hve lairs and strongholds throughout the region, regardless of the level of the party. In the north, are ancient citdels full of especially warlike orcs, ruled by evil wraith-knights. In the east, may be a family of powerful dragons, that rule over several clans of savage lizard men. In the south, a vast horde of beastmen gibber and howl through the forests, ruled by powerful evil champions and Minotaur Lords. In the west, tribes of degenerate human barbarians carry out human sacrifices to great altars amidst vine-choked megalithic cities, ruled by a group of ancient, malevolent Tyrannosaurus God-Kings. Then underground I have a vast subterranean city of evil fishmen, ruled by a few dozen Aboleth.

Amidst all the slavery, blood, and chaos, I sprinkle in a few unicorns or happy dryad women in the forest, or a rainbow Barney that is benevolent and compassionate.

Toss in a few random ruins, monasteries, and ancient, blasted cities, and it's all good.

I just wait for the party to step outside the ramshackle town gates, and ask them what direction they go in.

Then the screaming begins....LOL.

Semper Fidelis,

SHARK

I tend to use challenge ratings, but not in the way that WotC presents them.  It is probably a middle ground in between WotC and what you'll often see advocated here.  Specifically, I try to get a sense of the challenge ratings not in order to let them guide the challenges, but instead use them for how I present the rumors, effects, and so forth from something once it's placed.  Crudely:

1. WotC - put the CR 8 dragon in a spot because you wanted a dragon and you wanted exactly a CR 8 encounter.
2. Smon/Estar - put the dragon of some type and personality in the spot because that's what the setting calls for.  Leave it at that.
3. Me - put the dragon of some type and personality in the spot because that's what what I want.  Use CR to guide the placement of clues about the difficulty of the encounter.

Now in practice, I doubt it's that much difference.  Some GMs get an intuitive sense of how they want to handle clues and other information about danger, whether from osmosis, long experience, or something else.  I had it with AD&D, but with later versions, I'd rather systemize the gaining of that knowledge.  

Also, I have very definite preferences on how I want to handle characters of different levels, players that aren't always attending, and other such concerns with a rotating cast.  I've found by doing the math on XP that in 5E about +20% XP for any character below the max level in the group will give me so close to the result that I want, that I then rarely need to think about it further.  That's handy for me, because I don't enjoy making a lot of ad hoc GM decisions on such things.  If you do the math on any such thing, it should be with the idea of making it easier to handle something than you could by other means.

Quote from: SHARK;1087578I usually have an area, say some new area the group has moved into, say by arriving at some squalid, backwater town on the edge of fucking nowhere. I have several sketched adventures thrown out, then fleshed out by a mix of lower-level and at-level monsters, bandits, whatever. Then I think of the geography and history, and seed the place with whatever appropriate terrors that hve lairs and strongholds throughout the region, regardless of the level of the party. In the north, are ancient citdels full of especially warlike orcs, ruled by evil wraith-knights. In the east, may be a family of powerful dragons, that rule over several clans of savage lizard men. In the south, a vast horde of beastmen gibber and howl through the forests, ruled by powerful evil champions and Minotaur Lords. In the west, tribes of degenerate human barbarians carry out human sacrifices to great altars amidst vine-choked megalithic cities, ruled by a group of ancient, malevolent Tyrannosaurus God-Kings. Then underground I have a vast subterranean city of evil fishmen, ruled by a few dozen Aboleth.

Amidst all the slavery, blood, and chaos, I sprinkle in a few unicorns or happy dryad women in the forest, or a rainbow Barney that is benevolent and compassionate.

I always love your stuff, SHARK. :cool:

This sounds very like the Primeval Thule game I'm running, except I'm using a bunch of published adventures seeded throughout the campaign area, and there's usually one or two obvious hooks at a time - but with two parrallel adventuring groups still a lot of interesting dynamics crop up. Plus there's a lot of intrigue in the Big City, Quodeth, as the PCs seek social advancement and powerful nobles plot and conspire against each other. Recently PC noble Zerda of House Sevaschu sent a warning to his sinister patron, the warlock Prince Dredan Taroth, that the Grand Vizier was plotting against Prince Dredan. AFAIK this was a bare faced lie to get revenge on the Grand Vizier for being dismissive of Zerda at an audience with Queen Deyane earlier - Zerda has his sights on the young queen, but of course is far from the only one...

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;10875791. WotC - put the CR 8 dragon in a spot because you wanted a dragon and you wanted exactly a CR 8 encounter.
2. Smon/Estar - put the dragon of some type and personality in the spot because that's what the setting calls for.  Leave it at that.
3. Me - put the dragon of some type and personality in the spot because that's what what I want.  Use CR to guide the placement of clues about the difficulty of the encounter.

I'm more a mix of #2 and #3. Certainly there are status quo encounters IMC, eg the ancient black dragon Matriarx was sleeping on her island for years of game & real time before a PC woke her up. But this was a widely known threat in-world.

I even do a bit of #1, eg running Secret of the Moon Door written for level 10-12 adapted for level 5 I've been editing some of the encounters beyond the Moon Door for balance as well as fun:

- Remove CR 5 'troll-thing' accompanying first CR 8 moon beast guard.
- The low-CR Quaggoth slaves now may not be loyal to their moon beast master, and could be recruited as allies
- Moon beast torturing chained CR 6 wyvern-thing - if freed the 'wyvern' will attack the moon beast, not the PCs as written

OTOH I am leaving unchanged:
- The 2 CR 8 moon beasts together in the barracks are best avoided
- BBEG Dhargo Maath is still a level 14 wizard (with a CR 4 minotaur) and might well TPK the party - but as per the adventure, he can be negotiated with to hand over his captive.

So effectively a mix of 'tailoring' and 'status quo', with pure hack & slash inadvisable, instead there are now
- 1 winnable straight fight
- 2 encounters where the PCs can potentially recruit allies
- 1 encounter best avoided, likely by scouting/stealth
- 1 encounter best dealt with through diplomacy, though combat is possible if very risky

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;10875792. Smon/Estar - put the dragon of some type and personality in the spot because that's what the setting calls for.  Leave it at that.
3. Me - put the dragon of some type and personality in the spot because that's what what I want.  Use CR to guide the placement of clues about the difficulty of the encounter.

I believe you find that in our respective writings (blogs and forums) S'mon and I do clue in the PCs who take the time to investigate.

It not a case of hardy-har! Look at what you just ran into!  

For example Dearthwood next to the City-State of the Invincible Overlord in my Majestic Wilderlands. The chances are decent that a 1st level party can travel into the woods for a couple of miles and explore a ruin. And that is that. The odds of encounter a high hit dice creatures are low because there not a lot of them compared to smaller hit dice inhabitants.

How I run things PCs are generally aware of how deadly the forest is. Particularly that there are sites and regions where truly terrifying creatures are found. Reliable rumors about what lies within a half day walk (5 leagues or 5 hours walking) into the forest are readily available, thus allow the PCs to avoid those area in favor of their target.

However if they try to go deeper in the woods or stay longer than necessary then the odds increase by a lot that they will run into something they can't handle.

Map with Scale (small hex = 1 league = 1 hour of walking)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3391[/ATTACH]

S'mon and Estar:  Right.  That's why I said it was a crude breakdown, and then followed up with this:

Quote from: Steven Mitchell;1087579Now in practice, I doubt it's that much difference.  Some GMs get an intuitive sense of how they want to handle clues and other information about danger, whether from osmosis, long experience, or something else.  I had it with AD&D, but with later versions, I'd rather systemize the gaining of that knowledge.

I suspect that what I did with AD&D is very similar to what you do now, while the difference in what I do now is that I'm doing something expressly analytical that informs how I place the clues.  It might be "fuck the math" on placement, but it isn't "fuck the math" in general.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087530I think you assume what players know versus what their characters know. You write "probably" and that's correct, but "probably" is NOT consistent with 'Adventure level 1st to 3rd'.

I don't really follow what you mean by "'Adventure level 1st to 3rd'", or why it is something I might want to be consistent with.

QuoteYou assume all PCs being on the same page and certain parties do not embrace such a thing.

I admit this confuses me as well.  My xp system doesn't assume this aim it's specifically designed to make this happen.  If this is not a desirable end then of course use a different system.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087530Can I reward active PCs the same as their passive compatriots?

Well if a player never comes up with any particular goals they want their character to achieve individually then they miss out on that opportunity for some extra xp.

Quote from: Theory of Games;1087530How do I encourage RP? XP is a fine method. How do you reward Han Solo, with no background and having only wealth as motivation (until he falls for that young princess)?

How do you reward a character who is evolving into the character he needs to be for your game? I think it's more than what we're discussing RIGHT NOW.
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Do these things need rewarding?  Aren't they inherently rewarding on their own?

XP budgets have been discussed in the game for a long time.  

The main issue is that, in order to work, two different things that are worth the same amount of XP should represent approximately the same amount of difficulty.

A single werebear is 1800 XP; four wererats is 1800 XP.  While the wererats are individually less powerful, collectively, they're likely to pose a bigger threat to the party (assuming tactics appropriate to their intelligence, etc).

If 450+450+450+450 is greater than 1800, we don't have a true equation and we can't really rely on it to help build appropriate encounters.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1087646A single werebear is 1800 XP; four wererats is 1800 XP.  While the wererats are individually less powerful, collectively, they're likely to pose a bigger threat to the party (assuming tactics appropriate to their intelligence, etc).

If 450+450+450+450 is greater than 1800, we don't have a true equation and we can't really rely on it to help build appropriate encounters.

None of the three later editions 3.x, 4e, 5e, challenge level system handle synergy well. It bad enough that it still boils down to developing experience through actual play or examples of actual play.

Quote from: TJS;1087638Do these things need rewarding?  Aren't they inherently rewarding on their own?

Yea, but if you're going to use an xp and level system, it's nice to have multiple ways to earn that xp. As long as the tail doesn't wag the dog. (role playing just for the xp reward)

Quote from: Ratman_tf;1087658Yea, but if you're going to use an xp and level system, it's nice to have multiple ways to earn that xp. As long as the tail doesn't wag the dog. (role playing just for the xp reward)

It doesn't need complex, just award milestone and be flexible about what a milestone is.

For classic D&D I typically define the base aware to be 200xp times their level for a minor goal accomplised, or 500xp times their levels for a major goal accomplished. With goal being being whatever the player or players are trying to do. Whether it to clear a level, a dungeon, build an inn, marry a wealthy lady, or become king.

In addition I award monster XP.

Quote from: deadDMwalking;1087646The main issue is that, in order to work, two different things that are worth the same amount of XP should represent approximately the same amount of difficulty.

Why? Sure that can be criteria and work well in a campaign. But it doesn't has to be that way. While I will be more generous with milestone xp if the goal is actually difficult. The first thing I determine is how important the goal is to the player or group. Generally the more important the goal the more difficult it is but not always. It so nuanced that it always has to be considered on a case by case basis.

I had to do this back in the early 80s because of the multiple ways a player could take to become a king, magnate, or potentate.

While I started with the below, I simplified it to what I described above. Pretty much been using it for 3 decades whenever I run an edition of D&D.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]3392[/ATTACH]

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Quote from: estar;1087664Why?

The OP stated (paraphrased) that you can take the total XP required to gain a level, divide it evenly over 20 encounters, then make some encounters below the baseline and others above the baseline to vary the difficulty.

While that ought to be true, it is not true.  

While the example I chose is illustrative, an encounter with 18 worgs also fits the 1800 XP 'per encounter budget'.  

If the werebear is a cakewalk and the worgs are a TPK, it is clear that there is a problem with the way XP scales with the number of creatures.  

Experimentation matters, sure, but someone needs to point out that the inputs are arbitrary, which is why the outputs don't make sense.

There are other concerns as well.  For example, with 5E casual players, I'm not quite willing to drop XP for monsters altogether (or go to XP for gold), but I want to strongly discourage chasing monsters only for XP while still having lots of fights.  So I give full XP for monsters handled in direct pursuit of some other goal, half XP for monsters encountered but nullified (e.g. if you co-opt them into allies, it is only half XP, but then you've got more help later and the encounter didn't take very long--it's still a great outcome for the players), and only 10% XP for random encounters.  This system is made explicit to the players.  I also give reward quests to each player for about 30 XP times their level, and typically have 6-8 such options available in an 8 hour session.  Mainly, I'm interested in the players focusing on their goals and getting on with the game.  These rewards tend to produce the results I want.  With players less casual, I doubt it would work nearly as well.