Quest Points Instead Of XP

[HumanFighter]

So I've been thinking of this new subsystem for Leveling Up, using the new "Quest Points" system instead of using XP. Basically, you would gain Quest Points for doing quests in the game successfully, rather than XP. Once you have enough Quest Points, you Level Up. The higher level you are, the more Quest Points you need to level up again, of course. The harder the quest, the more quest points received. But, you can also get extra Quest Points if you meet an optional Bonus Objectives (if any) for that Quest. You do not gain Quest Points directly from combat, and so combat should be avoided if possible, because it can be a drain on one's resources. But, you can gain Inspiration Points from combat (sometimes). These Inspiration Points, if you save up enough of them (5 or so?) you can turn them in for Quest Points.

I am thinking about trying this because, as a GM, I sometimes wonder and get confused when exactly I should hand out XP for certain actions, and how much. It can seriously drag the pacing of the game, calculating XP after each action that might warrant it, such as completing quests, picking locks, disarming traps, discovering new locations, finding secret areas, persuading or seducing an NPC, and combat, of course. All things that will yield either a small or huge amount of XP, depending on difficulty.
I often see GMs get into the habit of only really rewarding XP for combat, and the occasional doling out of XP for "roleplaying" whatever that means. Maybe not every GM does this, but this happens a lot, at least from what I've seen.

With this new Quest Point system, I hope to make character progression easier and more straightforward, and cut out a lot of bs that often comes with XP.

Anyways, what do you guys think of this? Does it seem like a good plan, or are you now shaking your head in doubt and cringe? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.

[Saint-Just]

Sounds like milestone XP which has been around for ages. It's moderately popular because it simplifies the bookkeeping and removes metagame incentives to fight/steal/break things. It is a little harder to balance properly than XP for encounters. Note, there is some confusion in terms: there is milestone XP (killed Strahd: 6666 XP, escaped from Ravenloft: 3333 XP) the same thing 3.5 DMG calls Story Awards (except Story Awards can be in addition to normal XP from encounters while milestone XP usually refers to them as a sole source of XP) and there is milestone leveling (When the party escapes Ravenloft they gain a level). Milestone XP allows for normal interaction with other sources that drain XP (crafting, death, spells with XP costs), Milestone leveling demands something else

Though I must question what is the purpose of having separate Quest Points instead of giving out XP in standard chunks of 200/500/1000? Same for Inspiration points - what is gained by having them instead of minor XP gain in increments of 50 or whatever? Do you want to alter the XP chart so leveling from 10th to 11th level does not take 10 time as much (whatever) points as leveling from 1st to 2nd?

[Grod_The_Giant]

Honestly, I think you're still overcomplicating things. For most games, "you level up at the end of each little story arc" is all you need. Your players finish clearing a dungeon after a few sessions of work? Level up. They track the kidnapped dragon back to the princess' lair and save him? Level up. If the system doesn't use experience points as currency (ie, 3.5e D&D's crafting, or Mutants and Masterminds power points), there's no much point in that level of granularity.

[HidesHisEyes]

I think it sounds great, as long as you take a very structured approach to running the campaign, where “quests” are clearly delineated the way they are in a computer game. And then your design goal should be to ensure the players engage with those quests and complete them: if that’s how they gain xp, they will.

If you regard “quests” as “anything the PCs end up doing” then I suspect you will run into some fuzzy boundaries and need to make calls about when you give xp, and it will probably devolve into ad-hoc milestone xp.

[Anonymouswizard]

Honestly, in practice all you're doing is changing the name and adding a complication in getting XP from combat. Why not just move to 'you get a level when the GM days so'?

[HidesHisEyes]

Honestly, in practice all you're doing is changing the name and adding a complication in getting XP from combat. Why not just move to 'you get a level when the GM days so'?

You can do that, of course, it works fine. This is my personal preference though, I like xp to act as an incentive for certain behaviour by the players. I like the “quest points” idea if the premise of the campaign is that the PCs are “quest-doers” and there are pre-defined quests that they are meant to engage with.

[HumanFighter]

Honestly, I think you're still overcomplicating things. For most games, "you level up at the end of each little story arc" is all you need. Your players finish clearing a dungeon after a few sessions of work? Level up. They track the kidnapped dragon back to the princess' lair and save him? Level up. If the system doesn't use experience points as currency (ie, 3.5e D&D's crafting, or Mutants and Masterminds power points), there's no much point in that level of granularity.

Taking a few sessions to clear a dungeon? I know you're just giving an example here, but since I'm not so great at running dungeons, so I try to keep it to one or two sessions at most.
And saving the kidnapped dragon from the princess' lair? I see what you did there. That's hilarious. :smallbiggrin:


Honestly, in practice all you're doing is changing the name and adding a complication in getting XP from combat. Why not just move to 'you get a level when the GM days so'?


Quest Points are there because there might be Big Main Questlines that the PCs will follow (or ignore) but there is also Side Quests. Each of these sources of quest points will eventually add up to a Level for the players. How is that overly complicated?

[Quertus]

(checks - "role-playing", not "3e" thread)

OK, to start, my gut reaction: sounds like milestone leveling, but I like it better.

Secondary gut reactions: having Inspiration Points (IP) and not just Quest Points (QP) seems odd, but sounds like "emphasis on story awards", with "normal" sources of XP deemphasized. Also, it sounds… painful… to fail at missions "not only did we get beaten up by 'guy who killed our fathers', but we're also not getting a training montage to be able to best him next time?!".

So, what's the point? What problem are you trying to solve? What behaviors are you trying to curb / encourage?

From your post, I got "avoid unnecessary combat".

And I also got a strong "choice of missions" vibe.

And "The harder the quest, the more quest points received" needs some care.

So, let's say that the party decides to collect some honey from some giant bees (yes, I'm reusing that example):

Combat as War: The PCs make knowledge checks, and prepare for the encounter, using their abilities intelligently, and having good teamwork. Realizing that bears raid honey trees in nature, one character contracts ursine lycanthropy, while another prepares Summons spells to summon bears. They also consider how to utilize the smoke that beekeepers use to collect honey, and, while discussing holding their breath and establishing escape routes even in smoke, realize that Undead have DR, and neither breathe nor can be poisoned. With cooperation, and every advantage, they roflstomp the encounter, without taking damage, and reconsider their plan to kill the Queen Bee. Instead, they leave her alive, and vow to return to get even more free money later. The GM congratulates them for a game well played, and for exceeding both his expectations on how much they'd net (given the lycanthropy strength boost, and that the undead added their carrying capacity to the party), and his expectation of this being a one-shot cash cow.

Combat as Sport: the party blunders straight into the encounter as always, declaring that nothing could possibly go wrong as the DM grins ghoulishly, but there’s BEES EVERYWHERE! GIANT BEES! With nasty poison saves! The PCs don't even consider running for their lives, or that they don’t stand a chance against the bees, because they know that the GM will make everything a fair fight. But then the Fighter stowed his magical sword in favor of his hammer, because nobody uses swords against bees IRL, and hammers smush bees, right? The barbarian decides that now, while he's distracted and won't be expecting it, is the perfect time to take revenge on the Wizard, and power attack leap attack shock troopers him into a thin red paste. On a series of unlucky rolls, aided by their poor tactics, the Fighter and Barbarian succumb to the poison. The Rogue, who was hiding the whole time, attempts to flee, using a zigzag pattern (because bees have problems with zigzag, right?), and dies to the maximum number of AoOs. The GM face palms as the party suffers yet another TPK on an encounter his 7-year-old brother was able to solo.

Quertus: Quertus stops time, teleports in, teleports out with honey.

How many QP & IP would each party receive?

Or… Armus sees that everyone in his party has been abducted from their original homeworlds, and decides to get everyone home. He gets a good coin and a soil samples from everyone's boots. He collects components over IRL years of adventuring. Then he submits the components and his recipe to a Wizard, whom he commissions to craft the custom item: a not so cubic Cubic Gate, keyed to 10 different prime material worlds.

How many QP is that worth?

[Stonehead]

Yeah, personally I just use story arc level ups in 90% of games. I think the advantage to handing out XP or QP is that it lets you give out rewards to the players when there's no other in-universe rewards. If you save a cat stuck in a tree, it doesn't really make sense to hand out treasure as a reward. For some groups, saving the cat is reward enough, but if you really start overthinking things, it can start to feel pointless. In those groups, I could see XP/QP rewards being preferable.

As for QP vs XP, everyone expects xp rewards from combat, and I could see players complaining if you had combats, and didn't give out xp as a reward. It sounds stupid, but rebranding it could solve those complaints. Kind of like how WoW rebranded their 'tired' xp rates as normal, and the formerly normal xp rates as 'rested'.

[Anonymouswizard]

You can do that, of course, it works fine. This is my personal preference though, I like xp to act as an incentive for certain behaviour by the players. I like the “quest points” idea if the premise of the campaign is that the PCs are “quest-doers” and there are pre-defined quests that they are meant to engage with.

True, but that's not the stated intent of the system. My point is, I think it's at best buy a real change, and at worst more complicated.


Quest Points are there because there might be Big Main Questlines that the PCs will follow (or ignore) but there is also Side Quests. Each of these sources of quest points will eventually add up to a Level for the players. How is that overly complicated?

Then in practice all you've done is reinvented milestone XP and changed the name. Congratulations!

In practice this system is no more or less complex than XP as it exists. If the innkeeper asks me to run to the shops to fetch a few turnips is that a quest? What if the king asks me to pop over to the city nextdoor and pick up the taxes?

But there is an extra bit of complication, because of Inspiration Points. An entirely new resource that, as written, do nothing except get converted into a different resource when you have n. Surely it would just be easier to have combat give 1/n XP for it's level of 'challenge'?

[Jophiel]

Sounds like milestone XP which has been around for ages.
Sounds even more like the old Advancement Point system from Adventurer's League. Well, one of the systems. Given AL, I'm sure they've changed it and changed it again*

Get a point for playing X many hours, a point for the main quest, a point for the side objective, etc. Add up your points and compare to the matrix of how many points it takes to level up per tier. I thought about using a similar system for an episodic campaign but ultimately decided just going "GM says when" Milestone was less bookkeeping and less likely to irritatingly leave everyone one point shy of a level just because they didn't find the extra Macguffin.


*As soon as I typed that, I remember that they did indeed change it to basically "Level up when you feel like it".

[PhoenixPhyre]

My current model is entirely session-based. Any meaningful (what that means is up to the party, but generally "did you engage with the game and the world? then meaningful") session counts as a point. To get to the next level, you need to get points equal to MIN(your current level, 4).

So levels go like:
Level 1: 1 session
Level 2: 2 sessions
Level 3: 3 sessions
Level 4: 4 sessions
Level 5: 4 sessions
...

This is similar to what you'd get if you had full adventuring days each session...without needing to always be looking for combat or tallying quest XP or anything else. And makes it really predictable. The one wrinkle is that you really get your level up benefits at the long rest closest to that session marker (usually between sessions, but sometimes we'll go into a fight on the end of the 4th session, so I'll let them level up before the fight actually starts the next session).

[truemane]

I find the best way to motivate players to get things done is to be clear and upfront about what kind of game/story I want to do, get their buy-in on it, and then do my best to give them things to do that they like doing. And/or give them things in-game to care about (cute animals, small children, attractive NPC's, etc) and then threaten them. All the XP in the universe won't motivate a party half as much as someone about to kill that nice old lady that gave them cake that one time when they were sad.

But, for numerical awards, the standard 5E template is: XP for encounters, Inspiration for everything else.

Some of the confusion comes from defining 'encounter' as 'combat.' An encounter is better understood as a scene that consumes (or risks consuming) on or more resources (HP, spell slots, Ki, potions, gold pieces, etc), and that require (or encourage, or invite) one or more dice rolls to pass through to the next part of the story.

Combat is easy to adjudicate because it's pretty binary (you're either in combat or you aren't), while everything in between fights can be a little squidgier. If you roll to Persuade a merchant to give you a break on some items, is THAT an encounter? If the trouble-making half-elf Stealths past some guards into a castle was THAT an encounter?

YMMV of course, but generally speaking, if a scene has the potential to consume one or more resources (and sometimes that resource can be time, or goodwill, or reputation), and one or more rolls are needed to move through it, I generally call that an 'Encounter.' And when I'm writing adventures, I give each encounter an XP value based on its CR.

Like combat, CR is based on how hard it is to move from one side of the encounter to the other, assuming the worst happens. It's not based on the PC's solutions. You don't generally give XP for picking a lock. But you give XP for opening/overcoming/surviving a trapped chest. And a higher CR doesn't necessarily mean the lock is harder to pick. It might mean a nastier trap. If you find yourself overthinking the assignment of CR (or find it hard to assign it on the fly when you get caught by something you haven't prepped), just make it the same as their current level. That'll work well enough most of the time.

I give XP for resolving/overcoming/moving through the encounter. Which might mean they avoid it altogether, or it might mean they screw it all up and everything goes sideways and it's a whole mess to get out of. Maybe they fight the Ogres. Maybe they talk them down. Maybe they pick the lock, maybe the chest explodes. Like combat, XP is awarded for getting through it (however that looks in the moment) rather than for any particular method of doing so.

This system can be gamed ("I go call a guy a jerk and then roll to calm him down for 150 XP!"). But, as always, if my players start to weaponize the rules of the game in-universe in a way that's incongruent with the game we're playing, I don't make up a rule to stop them. I just ask them to knock it off.

If you want to reward role-playing, or any other aspect of play, find ways to turn those activities into encounters. If you can't do that, use Inspiration as a reward.

In my experience, there are really two broad choices when it comes to experience points: either the story itself hands them out in a simulationist manner or the DM hands them out in a narrativist manner. Both are fun in different ways.

My general recommendation is to pick one and commit to it, rather than trying to mix them.

[False God]

I did this in a game. The "quest points" for each level were 100.

Every quest basically represented a percentage value of getting to the next level. Harder or "big deal" quests gave more points. Quests would "lose" points as you outleveled them, but no quest gave less than 1 point, so yes, you could grind out a bunch of low level quests, or you could go try the hard/big stuff.

The bigger harder quests also rewarded bigger and better loot, better reknown with bigger and more influential people and so on.

But the idea that you could grind out a lot of small quests also helped rationalize the idea of high-level local heroes, because ya know, they saved everyone's cats from all the trees.

[Saint-Just]

Honestly, I think you're still overcomplicating things. For most games, "you level up at the end of each little story arc" is all you need.


Honestly, in practice all you're doing is changing the name and adding a complication in getting XP from combat. Why not just move to 'you get a level when the GM days so'?


I thought about using a similar system for an episodic campaign but ultimately decided just going "GM says when" Milestone was less bookkeeping and less likely to irritatingly leave everyone one point shy of a level just because they didn't find the extra Macguffin.


My current model is entirely session-based. Any meaningful (what that means is up to the party, but generally "did you engage with the game and the world? then meaningful") session counts as a point. To get to the next level, you need to get points equal to MIN(your current level, 4).

...

This is similar to what you'd get if you had full adventuring days each session...without needing to always be looking for combat or tallying quest XP or anything else. And makes it really predictable. The one wrinkle is that you really get your level up benefits at the long rest closest to that session marker (usually between sessions, but sometimes we'll go into a fight on the end of the 4th session, so I'll let them level up before the fight actually starts the next session).

Interesting that so many people advocate strict milestone leveling instead of milestone/quest only XP. I think that incentivizing player's actions and rewarding achievements with XP is not something that should be routinely dispensed with. Maybe I do not have the right kind of experience but I think that pure milestone either presupposes a relatively strictly pre-defined storyline (not applicable to many games), or is reliant on GM tracking "achievement and coolness factor" loosely and silently when it could be done better by explicit assignment. I cannot offer a critique of strict session-based leveling except it just feels wrong to me.

Maybe it's my experience with levelless systems that make me feel ok with handing out XP by GM fiat but not levels... except in the levelless point buy free-floating points are closer to D&D levels (just tiny ones) than D&D XP... aaargh.

Also: I was found guilty of committing Playgrounder's Fallacy, but the essence of my previous argument is not reliant on the system: if mathematical relation between a quest point and pre-reform XP can be established then I see no reason not to spell it out. I think it's easier to get an informed buy-in from your players that way. No need to tell them that they are Doomsealers (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1054.html).

[Psyren]

Honestly, I think you're still overcomplicating things. For most games, "you level up at the end of each little story arc" is all you need. Your players finish clearing a dungeon after a few sessions of work? Level up. They track the kidnapped dragon back to the princess' lair and save him? Level up. If the system doesn't use experience points as currency (ie, 3.5e D&D's crafting, or Mutants and Masterminds power points), there's no much point in that level of granularity.

+1.

Where I can see "Quest Points" being helpful is in a truly unstructured sandbox where there aren't "milestones" or "story arcs" to speak of. But I genuinely can't think of an example, even the most sandboxiest sandbox games I've played have had subplots.

[HumanFighter]

+1.

Where I can see "Quest Points" being helpful is in a truly unstructured sandbox where there aren't "milestones" or "story arcs" to speak of. But I genuinely can't think of an example, even the most sandboxiest sandbox games I've played have had subplots.

Look, honestly when I first made this thread, I had forgotten that milestone XP was a thing.

And yeah I do try to run sandbox games mostly. I do try to include various plots and subplots in my setting, but I leave my players free to choose whether they want to pursue them or not. I have so many plots going on in my setting by now, I have forgotten some of them (where did I put my notes!? Ah!) and yeah some of these plots have been resolved already, but there is still so much more to go, and I just keep coming up with more and more ideas over time (yay more quest points)

I just never liked the idea of milestones because it seems like to me the players are only rewarded with levels when they "follow along the rails"
My rails go everywhere when I GM. Like, everywhere. In fact, it is more like a spider's web than a railroad.

[Faily]

I don't even like XP anymore. Just give me milestone-levelling.

I've just never been super gung-ho about pestering for XP after encounters and the like, so I'm fine with just being told "you get to level up now". Though this kind of levelling works poorly if you have a GM that just wants to keep you at the same level for waaaay too long (I suspect some of the GMs I've played with would've done that if they had thought of it).

[Anonymouswizard]

I don't even like XP anymore. Just give me milestone-levelling.

I've just never been super gung-ho about pestering for XP after encounters and the like, so I'm fine with just being told "you get to level up now". Though this kind of levelling works poorly if you have a GM that just wants to keep you at the same level for waaaay too long (I suspect some of the GMs I've played with would've done that if they had thought of it).

The general advice I've seen is one or two levels per plot arc or major villain, but I've also been in games that only spanned a single plot arc.

But yes, at that point it's on the GM to balance it. Although I'd argue that short (1-2 month) campaigns might actually benefit from little or no advancement. I own at least one RPG without any kind of advancement rules (although character creation is so simple I suspect it's intentionally designed for one shots).

Honestly, in practice the best system might just be to agree 'X experience points per session' with your group, and have characters just advance automatically. It doesn't even really lead to sitting around waiting for levels, because that's a sure way to spending four hours bored.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Honestly, in practice the best system might just be to agree 'X experience points per session' with your group, and have characters just advance automatically. It doesn't even really lead to sitting around waiting for levels, because that's a sure way to spending four hours bored.

That's actually exactly what I do, just dropping out the "X experience points" math. You get some fraction of a level each session, unless everyone agrees that it was a wasted session (in which case there are bigger issues, and this has never happened). It's predictable for everyone, doesn't put incentives on "following the DM's quest line" or "kill lots of things", and is, most importantly, really really really easy to manage. I don't have to decide how much a given quest/milestone is worth or what counts as a milestone. I don't have to keep track of encounters. It's basically ungameable. It results in players being incentivised to do things they consider fun. Which is win, for me.

[Telok]

I did this 10 or 12 years ago in a D&D 3e sandbox game. It was something like 1/4 level per minor random dungeon/quest, 1/2 level for major or plot dungeon or quest, and 1 level for completing a major plot arc (there were like 6 or something). Removed xp costs for everything and replaced them with 5x gp costs. People who lost levels (drains or resurections) got 2 levels on level-up until they matched the party level.

In theory if they'd done absolutely everything they would have ended up almost level 30. Realistically I expected them to hit the end of one of the end-game missions about level 15. What they did was actively avoid any social situations and insult a number of powerful npcs, resulting in them going into an end-game mission about level 12 fully trusting the npc who gave it to them. Naturally if they'd talked to any other npc about the mission or mission giver they'd have been strongly warned about being used as pawns in a one-way suicide mission.

[Jophiel]

Interesting that so many people advocate strict milestone leveling instead of milestone/quest only XP. I think that incentivizing player's actions and rewarding achievements with XP is not something that should be routinely dispensed with
I've seen the "incentive" argument a lot when discussing why XP is good and milestones are bad. Various permutations of "Why should everyone level up if this guy was doing more roleplaying or that guy missed three sessions?" In my experience, and maybe I'm just unusually fortunate in this regard, getting to play D&D is its own reward and no one in my groups needs to be coaxed into participating. Or, if they do, it's a problem that dangling XP in front of them won't address (shy, unsure of the rules, feels out of place, doesn't like the story, off day in real life, etc). I find there's still plenty of ways to reward people, ranging from loot to inspiration points to character-building side stories to just saying "Hey, that stuff you did was really cool; nice job" after the session.

[Anonymouswizard]

That's actually exactly what I do, just dropping out the "X experience points" math. You get some fraction of a level each session, unless everyone agrees that it was a wasted session (in which case there are bigger issues, and this has never happened). It's predictable for everyone, doesn't put incentives on "following the DM's quest line" or "kill lots of things", and is, most importantly, really really really easy to manage. I don't have to decide how much a given quest/milestone is worth or what counts as a milestone. I don't have to keep track of encounters. It's basically ungameable. It results in players being incentivised to do things they consider fun. Which is win, for me.

To be fair, the systems I've seen it used in were point buy. Both ways reduce bookkeeping to a minimum, they're just for different styles of advancement.


I've seen the "incentive" argument a lot when discussing why XP is good and milestones are bad. Various permutations of "Why should everyone level up if this guy was doing more roleplaying or that guy missed three sessions?" In my experience, and maybe I'm just unusually fortunate in this regard, getting to play D&D is its own reward and no one in my groups needs to be coaxed into participating. Or, if they do, it's a problem that dangling XP in front of them won't address (shy, unsure of the rules, feels out of place, doesn't like the story, off day in real life, etc). I find there's still plenty of ways to reward people, ranging from loot to inspiration points to character-building side stories to just saying "Hey, that stuff you did was really cool; nice job" after the session.

Plus there's plenty of character archetypes they you can roleplay effectively while flying under the radar, generally quieter types.

Plus XP as reward for roleplay just leads to Agony Munchkins. Where a player creates a character with the explicit purpose of hogging as much play time as possible to roleplay, probably to angst about their lost humanity, and thus get more XP to use to buy cool inhuman powers to angst about.

As for missing sessions, eh. People have lives. If a player would rather doing their shopping or roleplaying with their significant others rather than roleplaying with the group that's their decision, and I see no reason to penalise them when they are able to turn up.

[Saint-Just]

I've seen the "incentive" argument a lot when discussing why XP is good and milestones are bad. Various permutations of "Why should everyone level up if this guy was doing more roleplaying or that guy missed three sessions?" In my experience, and maybe I'm just unusually fortunate in this regard, getting to play D&D is its own reward and no one in my groups needs to be coaxed into participating. Or, if they do, it's a problem that dangling XP in front of them won't address (shy, unsure of the rules, feels out of place, doesn't like the story, off day in real life, etc). I find there's still plenty of ways to reward people, ranging from loot to inspiration points to character-building side stories to just saying "Hey, that stuff you did was really cool; nice job" after the session.

I was not talking about individual character awards. I am ok with them, but having a unified party XP pool does not prevent you from using XP-as-rewards for the entire party. Kinda the same as wealth, or items, or social resources or any kind of power whatsoever. Whether you can end up with more or less is separate from whether there is a disparity between characters.

As an aside if rewarding XP would not address the issue (and indeed it will often do nothing) neither will loot or inspiration points

P.S. I should have written "players' actions" instead of "player's actions".

[Jophiel]

As an aside if rewarding XP would not address the issue (and indeed it will often do nothing) neither will loot or inspiration points
True. I was trying to say that rewarding XP was unnecessary (or not useful) for me to motivate participation. However lack of XP doesn't prevent me from throwing out an attaboy reward if I feel one was warranted.

[Quertus]

+1.

Where I can see "Quest Points" being helpful is in a truly unstructured sandbox where there aren't "milestones" or "story arcs" to speak of. But I genuinely can't think of an example, even the most sandboxiest sandbox games I've played have had subplots.


Look, honestly when I first made this thread, I had forgotten that milestone XP was a thing.

And yeah I do try to run sandbox games mostly. I do try to include various plots and subplots in my setting, but I leave my players free to choose whether they want to pursue them or not. I have so many plots going on in my setting by now, I have forgotten some of them (where did I put my notes!? Ah!) and yeah some of these plots have been resolved already, but there is still so much more to go, and I just keep coming up with more and more ideas over time (yay more quest points)

I just never liked the idea of milestones because it seems like to me the players are only rewarded with levels when they "follow along the rails"
My rails go everywhere when I GM. Like, everywhere. In fact, it is more like a spider's web than a railroad.

That sounds like why my gut reaction was to like Quest Points (QP) more than milestone leveling.


That's actually exactly what I do, just dropping out the "X experience points" math. You get some fraction of a level each session, unless everyone agrees that it was a wasted session (in which case there are bigger issues, and this has never happened). It's predictable for everyone, doesn't put incentives on "following the DM's quest line" or "kill lots of things", and is, most importantly, really really really easy to manage. I don't have to decide how much a given quest/milestone is worth or what counts as a milestone. I don't have to keep track of encounters. It's basically ungameable. It results in players being incentivised to do things they consider fun. Which is win, for me.

I like the sound of this. Simple, and effective. OP? What's your opinion?


As for missing sessions, eh. People have lives. If a player would rather doing their shopping or roleplaying with their significant others rather than roleplaying with the group that's their decision, and I see no reason to penalise them when they are able to turn up.

Man, I'm struggling on the fence with this one.

The original RPG setup: open table, various competitors steadily clearing an adventure site. You got XP and treasure for what you actually did. Obviously, giving people unearned income would be wrong.

Daily one-shots: we'll start in the "weakest" system, and slowly progress to the most powerful. Saying, "this is the 3rd session you've attended, so your character is from system 3, while we're on system 17" seems equally unfair.

That said, "balance" and "fun" are not synonyms. Some of the most fun I had was (re)joining an existing 7th level party with a 1st level character. Despite being "Tier 1 OP", Quertus, my signature academia mage for whom this account is named, is all but the load. Some of my characters really carried the team, others were carried (once, quite literally, as I was playing a Sentient Potted Plant).

So I think it really depends on the setup as to where I stand on this one.

[noob]

So I've been thinking of this new subsystem for Leveling Up, using the new "Quest Points" system instead of using XP. Basically, you would gain Quest Points for doing quests in the game successfully, rather than XP. Once you have enough Quest Points, you Level Up. The higher level you are, the more Quest Points you need to level up again, of course. The harder the quest, the more quest points received. But, you can also get extra Quest Points if you meet an optional Bonus Objectives (if any) for that Quest. You do not gain Quest Points directly from combat, and so combat should be avoided if possible, because it can be a drain on one's resources. But, you can gain Inspiration Points from combat (sometimes). These Inspiration Points, if you save up enough of them (5 or so?) you can turn them in for Quest Points.

I am thinking about trying this because, as a GM, I sometimes wonder and get confused when exactly I should hand out XP for certain actions, and how much. It can seriously drag the pacing of the game, calculating XP after each action that might warrant it, such as completing quests, picking locks, disarming traps, discovering new locations, finding secret areas, persuading or seducing an NPC, and combat, of course. All things that will yield either a small or huge amount of XP, depending on difficulty.
I often see GMs get into the habit of only really rewarding XP for combat, and the occasional doling out of XP for "roleplaying" whatever that means. Maybe not every GM does this, but this happens a lot, at least from what I've seen.

With this new Quest Point system, I hope to make character progression easier and more straightforward, and cut out a lot of bs that often comes with XP.

Anyways, what do you guys think of this? Does it seem like a good plan, or are you now shaking your head in doubt and cringe? Would love to hear your thoughts on the matter.


In dnd combat does not gives XP.
An encounter gives xp only if it was needed for the objective you had.
It is a rule people understands poorly.
Encounters can be tons of things that are not fighting: technically if you go see a grumpy titan that lost its ability to speak and have to interrogate him for your quest of finding the flour you need to build a bread wall to stop the world from collapsing on itself it is an encounter and you would logically be rewarded.
Since crs are quite arbitrary for any non combat or trap encounter you can decide easily to make the players gain exactly the amount of xp you want them to gain in order for them to gain the level you want them to be at. (just pick some of the encounters that mattered to you then give them the values you need for the players to gain the level at the moment you want)
Some dnd editions have no cr xp calculations for encounters and instead the encounter directly brings a specific amount of xp in those it is even easier to pick the rate at which the characters are gaining levels.
Then there is some systems where xp is per session directly and not related to the rate at which you solve issues (in those often xp is used directly to buy powers instead of using levels).

[ngilop]

Stuff and stuff.

So, you change XP to QP and add in extra steps to make combat exasperating?

Seems like something that just seems overcomplicating with hate on combat because: reasons.

Not sure why peeps feel the need to re-invent the wheel.

[HidesHisEyes]

Look, honestly when I first made this thread, I had forgotten that milestone XP was a thing.

And yeah I do try to run sandbox games mostly. I do try to include various plots and subplots in my setting, but I leave my players free to choose whether they want to pursue them or not. I have so many plots going on in my setting by now, I have forgotten some of them (where did I put my notes!? Ah!) and yeah some of these plots have been resolved already, but there is still so much more to go, and I just keep coming up with more and more ideas over time (yay more quest points)

I just never liked the idea of milestones because it seems like to me the players are only rewarded with levels when they "follow along the rails"
My rails go everywhere when I GM. Like, everywhere. In fact, it is more like a spider's web than a railroad.

Yeah that’s my problem with milestone. I always see so many people saying it’s great and I just think it assumes a railroad structure. Either that or no structure at all, if it’s the kind where the GM arbitrarily decides it’s time to level up when it feels like an adventure has happened.

To be clear I think that’s perfectly functional, it works. It just doesn’t make use of the really quite excellent technology of experience points as an incentive system to encourage a certain kind of gameplay and narrative experience.

[Psyren]

That's actually exactly what I do, just dropping out the "X experience points" math. You get some fraction of a level each session, unless everyone agrees that it was a wasted session (in which case there are bigger issues, and this has never happened). It's predictable for everyone, doesn't put incentives on "following the DM's quest line" or "kill lots of things", and is, most importantly, really really really easy to manage. I don't have to decide how much a given quest/milestone is worth or what counts as a milestone. I don't have to keep track of encounters. It's basically ungameable. It results in players being incentivised to do things they consider fun. Which is win, for me.

"We do nothing, and don't consider it wasted. One level fraction please." :smallbiggrin:

Just kidding of course. I like this idea.

[PhoenixPhyre]

"We do nothing, and don't consider it wasted. One level fraction please." :smallbiggrin:

Just kidding of course. I like this idea.

I've had a session where we spent the entire time roleplaying chilling with a goblin tribe. Some PCs helped hunt and gather; others played with the kids or talked to the shaman. Despite being "wasted" (it really didn't advance any of their goals, there were about zero dice rolls and certainly no threats), it was one of that group's favorite sessions and featured a bit of character development (one bigoted character realized that maybe goblins weren't so bad?) that eventually contributed to some rather large changes in the setting. And this was ad hoc--I hadn't planned on it, but we started and kept going until the session was over.

If I awarded XP for combat and quests, that would have been worth zero. Instead, we all agreed it was a meaningful session and moved on. That was before I'd formalized it--at the time I was doing pure fiat leveling (I'll tell you when you level), but it certainly counted as a "worthwhile" session in my mind.

[Stonehead]

Interesting that so many people advocate strict milestone leveling instead of milestone/quest only XP. I think that incentivizing player's actions and rewarding achievements with XP is not something that should be routinely dispensed with. Maybe I do not have the right kind of experience but I think that pure milestone either presupposes a relatively strictly pre-defined storyline (not applicable to many games), or is reliant on GM tracking "achievement and coolness factor" loosely and silently when it could be done better by explicit assignment. I cannot offer a critique of strict session-based leveling except it just feels wrong to me.

Maybe it's my experience with levelless systems that make me feel ok with handing out XP by GM fiat but not levels... except in the levelless point buy free-floating points are closer to D&D levels (just tiny ones) than D&D XP... aaargh.

Also: I was found guilty of committing Playgrounder's Fallacy, but the essence of my previous argument is not reliant on the system: if mathematical relation between a quest point and pre-reform XP can be established then I see no reason not to spell it out. I think it's easier to get an informed buy-in from your players that way. No need to tell them that they are Doomsealers (https://www.giantitp.com/comics/oots1054.html).

I think it could be that leveling up is less important for some groups. Could your characters advancement be more precisely tracked by handing out handfuls of xp for every lost farmer you save? Yeah, probably. Is it worth all the extra time, book keeping, and risk of abuse? Definitely for some groups, but not often for mine.


I've seen the "incentive" argument a lot when discussing why XP is good and milestones are bad. Various permutations of "Why should everyone level up if this guy was doing more roleplaying or that guy missed three sessions?" In my experience, and maybe I'm just unusually fortunate in this regard, getting to play D&D is its own reward and no one in my groups needs to be coaxed into participating. Or, if they do, it's a problem that dangling XP in front of them won't address (shy, unsure of the rules, feels out of place, doesn't like the story, off day in real life, etc). I find there's still plenty of ways to reward people, ranging from loot to inspiration points to character-building side stories to just saying "Hey, that stuff you did was really cool; nice job" after the session.

I think the incentives are supposed to be for the group, not each individual player. I get the argument, and it makes sense. Players will optimize the fun out of anything. (https://web.archive.org/web/20110629065855/https://www.designer-notes.com/?p=369) So "incentives" to make the kind of game you want the "optimal" way to play isn't a bad idea. I think a lot of groups just find the in-game state of the universe to be incentive enough that it's not worth the extra effort. To my group, learning the history of the world, or keeping different npcs alive and happy is enough of an incentive to play the most fun kind of game.


That's actually exactly what I do, just dropping out the "X experience points" math. You get some fraction of a level each session, unless everyone agrees that it was a wasted session (in which case there are bigger issues, and this has never happened). It's predictable for everyone, doesn't put incentives on "following the DM's quest line" or "kill lots of things", and is, most importantly, really really really easy to manage. I don't have to decide how much a given quest/milestone is worth or what counts as a milestone. I don't have to keep track of encounters. It's basically ungameable. It results in players being incentivised to do things they consider fun. Which is win, for me.

Yeah, I like this system. It's actually RAW in Fragged Empire (which is a fantastic system btw)

[Psyren]

I've had a session where we spent the entire time roleplaying chilling with a goblin tribe. Some PCs helped hunt and gather; others played with the kids or talked to the shaman. Despite being "wasted" (it really didn't advance any of their goals, there were about zero dice rolls and certainly no threats), it was one of that group's favorite sessions and featured a bit of character development (one bigoted character realized that maybe goblins weren't so bad?) that eventually contributed to some rather large changes in the setting. And this was ad hoc--I hadn't planned on it, but we started and kept going until the session was over.

If I awarded XP for combat and quests, that would have been worth zero. Instead, we all agreed it was a meaningful session and moved on. That was before I'd formalized it--at the time I was doing pure fiat leveling (I'll tell you when you level), but it certainly counted as a "worthwhile" session in my mind.

I mean, to be fair, roleplay XP is a thing even in "regular D&D." That sounds like it would qualify without needing any special constructs.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I mean, to be fair, roleplay XP is a thing even in "regular D&D." That sounds like it would qualify without needing any special constructs.

5e doesn't mention such a thing, and giving XP for roleplaying seems to have all the issues of milestone XP, plus a bunch.

[Anonymouswizard]

I mean, to be fair, roleplay XP is a thing even in "regular D&D." That sounds like it would qualify without needing any special constructs.

It's a convention, and also a pretty bad one. I think the WoD Agony Munchkin shows the issues with it (particularly that it tends to reward only certain character types, generally spotlight hogs). But I'm not certain it's ever been an official D&D rule.

Interestingly, most systems that use it give it a fixed amount at the end of the session if you 'roleplayed your character well', which mostly fixes the spotlight hog issues.

[Psyren]

5e doesn't mention such a thing, and giving XP for roleplaying seems to have all the issues of milestone XP, plus a bunch.

I guess I'm not really seeing the difference between these. Does your player's character breakthrough not count as a "milestone" to you? I would argue it does. And even if you didn't reward them with "XP", you rewarded them with "quantity of thing that if they accumulate enough of, they go up a level" so I'm not seeing a difference that matters.

[PhoenixPhyre]

I guess I'm not really seeing the difference between these. Does your player's character breakthrough not count as a "milestone" to you? I would argue it does. And even if you didn't reward them with "XP", you rewarded them with "quantity of thing that if they accumulate enough of, they go up a level" so I'm not seeing a difference that matters.

The character breakthrough wasn't actually noticeable until much much later, near the end of the campaign. But it traced back to that session. Trying to wedge that into milestone XP (the closest thing 5e has to roleplaying XP) would be hard--how much did it contribute? How much was it worth? What counts as "roleplaying worth XP"? Instead, the point of my system is to utterly divorce character progress from in-character decisions, other than from the fact that in-character decisions happened. The only time you'd end up not getting that advancement is if we all agreed that we didn't really play the game that session. Which, I think, is fair. Nobody played, so the game state didn't change. I don't like the idea of "you roleplayed 'well enough', so I'm going to give you a reward." In fact, I don't like tying advancement in as a "reward system" at all. Feels manipulative.

[Anonymouswizard]

Rewards as a motivator it's appropriate when you're trying to create a very specific gameplay experience. I'm sure if I'm wrong about this somebody who actually played it can correct me, but my understanding is that OD&D had a loop of 'go into dungeon, get treasure, get XP from recovered treasure, use new abilities to go deeper and find new challenges'. A very clear objective and progression that should, in theory, end up with an end point of the group eventually conquers the dungeon and their characters either retire or find new dungeons.

People who use arbitrary leveling systems are generally going for a looser style of experience where the point is that something happens, but what it is doesn't matter. In this view buying a pub and defeating a lich are just as worthy of impacting progression, because the players/characters have decided on a goal for the session and pursued it (with actual success being optional).

[Stonehead]

*snip particularly that it tends to reward only certain character types, generally spotlight hogs *snip

I think that's kind of the point. Not the spotlight hog part, but encouraging a specific type of character. Vampire the Masquerade wants you to play angsty edgy boys, Call of Cthulu wants you to play disturbed investigators, etc. I'm not a huge fan personally, but I think calling it a problem rather than a feature is missing the point a little.

[PhoenixPhyre]

Rewards as a motivator it's appropriate when you're trying to create a very specific gameplay experience. I'm sure if I'm wrong about this somebody who actually played it can correct me, but my understanding is that OD&D had a loop of 'go into dungeon, get treasure, get XP from recovered treasure, use new abilities to go deeper and find new challenges'. A very clear objective and progression that should, in theory, end up with an end point of the group eventually conquers the dungeon and their characters either retire or find new dungeons.

People who use arbitrary leveling systems are generally going for a looser style of experience where the point is that something happens, but what it is doesn't matter. In this view buying a pub and defeating a lich are just as worthy of impacting progression, because the players/characters have decided on a goal for the session and pursued it (with actual success being optional).

That first type feels to me more like you want to really be playing a board game or a video game. I understand that back when OD&D was created, video games weren't exactly sophisticated. But now? If I want that kind of "point scoring" gameplay, I'll play any number of games.

I want to find out what comes next. What does the party try to do? What changes do they try to make in the world? How do they interact with the pieces that are there? What do they tell me about the setting by their actions? Challenge and "winning" or "losing" aren't really part of it for me.

[Anonymouswizard]

I think that's kind of the point. Not the spotlight hog part, but encouraging a specific type of character. Vampire the Masquerade wants you to play angsty edgy boys, Call of Cthulu wants you to play disturbed investigators, etc. I'm not a huge fan personally, but I think calling it a problem rather than a feature is missing the point a little.

To be fair, games can also be very bad at trekking you what they want you to play, or two you that you should play something they don't want you to.

Like, Vampire is much more manageable and works more as intended of you character's angst is inner control, and focused more on whatever conflict is central this edition.


That first type feels to me more like you want to really be playing a board game or a video game. I understand that back when OD&D was created, video games weren't exactly sophisticated. But now? If I want that kind of "point scoring" gameplay, I'll play any number of games.

To be fair, OD&D was intended more as a wargame

[Psyren]

The character breakthrough wasn't actually noticeable until much much later, near the end of the campaign. But it traced back to that session. Trying to wedge that into milestone XP (the closest thing 5e has to roleplaying XP) would be hard--how much did it contribute? How much was it worth? What counts as "roleplaying worth XP"? Instead, the point of my system is to utterly divorce character progress from in-character decisions, other than from the fact that in-character decisions happened. The only time you'd end up not getting that advancement is if we all agreed that we didn't really play the game that session. Which, I think, is fair. Nobody played, so the game state didn't change. I don't like the idea of "you roleplayed 'well enough', so I'm going to give you a reward." In fact, I don't like tying advancement in as a "reward system" at all. Feels manipulative.

In which case the milestone is just "completed X sessions." Or perhaps "X-A", where "A" = sessions that everyone agrees didn't accomplish anything.

It just seems like marketing to me, but the important thing is that you and your group are happy.

[Stonehead]

In which case the milestone is just "completed X sessions." Or perhaps "X-A", where "A" = sessions that everyone agrees didn't accomplish anything.

It just seems like marketing to me, but the important thing is that you and your group are happy.

Isn't milestone leveling typically based on in-universe accomplishments? Seems pretty different to me from a set number of sessions. At that point, you could call RAW DnD leveling just different marketing of milestone leveling, where the milestone is "slay X monsters".


To be fair, games can also be very bad at trekking you what they want you to play, or two you that you should play something they don't want you to.

Like, Vampire is much more manageable and works more as intended of you character's angst is inner control, and focused more on whatever conflict is central this edition.

I mean, a game could always be bad at fulfilling its design goals, but that doesn't change the intentions. You and I can say we aren't fans of being encouraged to play a certain way, but that's still the purpose of those mechanics.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but it wasn't an accident that these games encourage you to play a certain way, that was what the designers set out to do. It's just that I'm not a massive fan of what they set out to do.

[HidesHisEyes]

Isn't milestone leveling typically based on in-universe accomplishments? Seems pretty different to me from a set number of sessions. At that point, you could call RAW DnD leveling just different marketing of milestone leveling, where the milestone is "slay X monsters".



To me, milestone levelling is when you get xp for doing specific things, like “defeat Lord Evilsworth” rather than “defeat your enemies”. Milestone levelling is inherently railroady and that’s why I don’t like it.

Some people also use it to mean “gain xp when it feels like you’ve done something significant”, ie anything that feels like “story progress” after it’s happened earns you xp. This for me has the opposite problem: it doesn’t railroad you but it also doesn’t incentivise you to do anything. It works fine as long as the whole group knows what kind of thing they’re going for and don’t need mechanical incentives up front.

Just saying “you level up when I say so”… it works fine but I wouldn’t call it an advancement system at all. It’s just sidestepping the need for a system.




I mean, a game could always be bad at fulfilling its design goals, but that doesn't change the intentions. You and I can say we aren't fans of being encouraged to play a certain way, but that's still the purpose of those mechanics.

Maybe I'm just being pedantic, but it wasn't an accident that these games encourage you to play a certain way, that was what the designers set out to do. It's just that I'm not a massive fan of what they set out to do.

Yeah and I’d like to see this attitude more often. I think a lot of people assume the core design goal of any RPG to be “make sure the players can use the system to get whatever customised experience they want”. It’s not correct and it seems to cause a lot of tension.

[Vahnavoi]

Rewards as a motivator it's appropriate when you're trying to create a very specific gameplay experience. I'm sure if I'm wrong about this somebody who actually played it can correct me, but my understanding is that OD&D had a loop of 'go into dungeon, get treasure, get XP from recovered treasure, use new abilities to go deeper and find new challenges'. A very clear objective and progression that should, in theory, end up with an end point of the group eventually conquers the dungeon and their characters either retire or find new dungeons.

As someone who's played these kinds of games extensively, you are missing one important detail:

The basic gameplay loop is instrumental to some larger goal. At its most banal, as seen in myriad computer games which copy the basic gameplay loop of old D&D, it's something like "kill ultimate evil" (Diablo, Moria, Angband etc.) or "become immortal" (Nethack etc.). In actual tabletop environment, it's always been more varied. Either way, players who keep their eyes on the price stop seeking instrumental benefits of treasure and xp once they feel confident they can reach their terminal goal, and are fine with not getting xp and treasure if they feel they are still getting closer to their terminal goals.

The more important point, though, is that points-for-treasure doesn't encourage going deeper and facing challenges. It encourages thinking of everything in terms of coin value, meaning players will scheme to alter or skip the basic gameplay loop to get more profit. Classic examples of profit-motivated perversity are stealing everything from everyone, including murdering fellow player characters for their shares, scavenging doors or traps guarding the treasure because they give more money for less risk than the actual treasure, selling fellow player characters to slavery, etc..

In my own games, players turned to piracy and then scavenging and restoring shipwrecks, once they realized how valuable ships are. They spend several sessions of real time and over six months of game time restoring a wrecked galleon, for one case, because they realized it would count as greater treasure than anything they could find from a dungeon.

I've tried points-for-quests, both with player set and game master set quests, and they work worse. The issue with player set quests is that while points-for-treasure sometimes encourages dubious means, points-for-quests encourages dubious ends: basically, players are tempted to set frivolous goals to advance quick and easy. The issue with game master set quests is that players stop setting their own goals entirely: they do only things they think a game master will reward, and don't do a whole lot else.

Tl;dr: experience points and treasure are instrumental for a player character's terminal goals. Once you start giving xp for character goals, you turn the whole process on its head.

[Jophiel]

Some people also use it to mean “gain xp when it feels like you’ve done something significant”, ie anything that feels like “story progress” after it’s happened earns you xp. This for me has the opposite problem: it doesn’t railroad you but it also doesn’t incentivise you to do anything.
I disagree there. If the overarching game theme is "Stop Lord Eviljerk" and the party is progressing towards stopping Lord Eviljerk rather than starting a dry cleaning business then they could be working towards milestone xp. The party is incentivized to be finding some way to stop Lord Eviljerk rather than abruptly deciding that they'd rather plan a wedding or opening an orphanage for young grells.

This is different from "You'll level after you've cleared the Southlands outpost of the Eviljerk Empire". If the party can find an alternate way of progressing towards the game's ultimate goal then good for them. I suppose it also doesn't work in aimless sandbox games without a theme either but I don't find those games to be my preference to run/play.

[Devils_Advocate]

The more important point, though, is that points-for-treasure doesn't encourage going deeper and facing challenges. It encourages thinking of everything in terms of coin value, meaning players will scheme to alter or skip the basic gameplay loop to get more profit.
This seems like another case of "feature, not bug" to me. In such a system where player rewards are tied to acquisition of wealth because that's supposed to be what's motivating the characters' actions, the players are meant to attempt to optimize for wealth, e.g. by circumventing fights and hazards that would be unnecessary risks and drains on resources. In that context, if salvaging shipwrecks is the best way to get rich, then that's what the party should be doing. The players are solving the intended optimization problem and roleplaying in character. Abandoning a more lucrative, less dangerous career to go dungeon delving is at that point playing worse and out of character. If dungeon delving was intended to be the best way to get rich, then making something else more profitable was a screw up on the part of the setting designer or game master, as is any case where earning money is "too easy".

[Vahnavoi]

It's definitely a bug. But it's not a bug in the game, it's a bug in human psyche, where simplistic attempts to externally motivate behaviours via points or money screws with internal motivation and cause counterintuitive results. Going off a tangent in a game is pretty mild example of it.

[Stonehead]

Yeah and I’d like to see this attitude more often. I think a lot of people assume the core design goal of any RPG to be “make sure the players can use the system to get whatever customised experience they want”. It’s not correct and it seems to cause a lot of tension.

Man, the amount of people I've seen use DnD for a modern-day social intrigue game... I've been accused of gatekeeping DnD for suggesting rules-lite systems to people who want to play rules-lite games.

As a more general point, I think a lot of people have a hard time differentiating "I don't like this thing", and "this thing is bad". There are some really atrocious games that should never be played (you know the one). There are also some fantastic games that I don't want to play. Two completely different things that both exist.


This seems like another case of "feature, not bug" to me. In such a system where player rewards are tied to acquisition of wealth because that's supposed to be what's motivating the characters' actions, the players are meant to attempt to optimize for wealth, e.g. by circumventing fights and hazards that would be unnecessary risks and drains on resources. In that context, if salvaging shipwrecks is the best way to get rich, then that's what the party should be doing. The players are solving the intended optimization problem and roleplaying in character. Abandoning a more lucrative, less dangerous career to go dungeon delving is at that point playing worse and out of character. If dungeon delving was intended to be the best way to get rich, then making something else more profitable was a screw up on the part of the setting designer or game master, as is any case where earning money is "too easy".

It stops being a feature when the most optimal way to make money strays from the playstyle the game promises. If the DM pitches a game where you fight liches and save the world, and the players go refurbish boats for 3 sessions because that's the optimal way to level up, something went wrong. If you want to play a game about getting rich no matter the cost, then it might fit, but I don't think the responsibility should be on the DM to manage the entire economy such that following the main hook is always the most economically sound option. And even if you do, you run into that classic DnD issue where you could study magic for years to become a level 1 wizard, or go kill a few goblins for the same result.

I'm still pretty convinced that gameability is a strong negative in any advancement system.

[HumanFighter]

Phoenix Phyre's system of leveling seems to be flawless

[HidesHisEyes]

I disagree there. If the overarching game theme is "Stop Lord Eviljerk" and the party is progressing towards stopping Lord Eviljerk rather than starting a dry cleaning business then they could be working towards milestone xp. The party is incentivized to be finding some way to stop Lord Eviljerk rather than abruptly deciding that they'd rather plan a wedding or opening an orphanage for young grells.

This is different from "You'll level after you've cleared the Southlands outpost of the Eviljerk Empire". If the party can find an alternate way of progressing towards the game's ultimate goal then good for them. I suppose it also doesn't work in aimless sandbox games without a theme either but I don't find those games to be my preference to run/play.

I see what you mean: the PCs have a predetermined goal and any progress towards that goal earns them xp, so they’re incentivised to pursue the goal but can do so however they like. This is different from either of the versions of milestone I described, true, and much less objectionable than either.

My preference is still for a list of generic actions to earn xp: defeat a powerful foe, help someone in need, learn something new and significant, etc. This way the PCs can choose their own goals, and there isn’t even an intended end point in mind - I like this because it makes for genuinely organic narrative and a sense of discovery and surprise for even the GM. But they are still incentivised to engage in certain ways and not others - I like this because it encourages a certain type of gameplay and narrative experience, so you know roughly what kind of thing you’re gonna get. You know a dungeon fantasy adventure game will generate some kind of dungeon fantasy adventure story and not “we want to run a bakery”, for example.

But that’s my personal top preference, not some one true way. Setting a specific goal and rewarding them for working towards it however they like will also result in a lot of organic narrative and discovery, I’d imagine.

[Vahnavoi]

My preference is still for a list of generic actions to earn xp: defeat a powerful foe, help someone in need, learn something new and significant, etc.

In practice, this leads to players asking "do I get XP for this?" for every damn thing and if the answer is ever "no", they stop doing that thing. This interferes with choosing goals more than it helps, because the most common goal players gravitate towards is "gain more XP".

[HidesHisEyes]

In practice, this leads to players asking "do I get XP for this?" for every damn thing and if the answer is ever "no", they stop doing that thing. This interferes with choosing goals more than it helps, because the most common goal players gravitate towards is "gain more XP".

In my experience it works just fine. In the games I’ve played that do this, you generally get the xp at the end of the session for having done the thing in the session, and sometimes double xp if you did the thing multiple times or in a really significant way. But the amount you can earn per session from one type of action is capped. I can imagine the problem you describe coming up if they got xp each and every time they did the thing.

[Vahnavoi]

In the games I’ve played that do this, you generally get the xp at the end of the session for having done the thing in the session, and sometimes double xp if you did the thing multiple times or in a really significant way. But the amount you can earn per session from one type of action is capped. I can imagine the problem you describe coming up if they got xp each and every time they did the thing.

I've done it both ways, but now that you mention it, it is possible when points are revealed makes a difference. This would be a good thing to empirically test when designing a new game.

[Psyren]

In my experience it works just fine. In the games I’ve played that do this, you generally get the xp at the end of the session for having done the thing in the session, and sometimes double xp if you did the thing multiple times or in a really significant way. But the amount you can earn per session from one type of action is capped. I can imagine the problem you describe coming up if they got xp each and every time they did the thing.

Even if you don't tell them why they got XP though, eventually they're going to figure out they got X amount during the session where Y happened, and {X-A} during the session where Z happened or less Y happened instead. Which will likely lead to them doing less Z or demanding more Y.

[Quertus]

In my experience it works just fine. In the games I’ve played that do this, you generally get the xp at the end of the session for having done the thing in the session, and sometimes double xp if you did the thing multiple times or in a really significant way. But the amount you can earn per session from one type of action is capped. I can imagine the problem you describe coming up if they got xp each and every time they did the thing.

Party #2 vs the Impossible Wave Witch

1 Point Automatic [check]
1 Point Learning Curve - Magic Missile is painful [check]
1 Point Acting "Chicken!!!" (Pronounced more like "chiiii-Khan") [check]
1 Point Role-playing - cat chasing mice, Necromancer intimidating [check]
1 Point Heroism

1 Point Taking an Unusual Action that Worked - falling overboard to conceal lycanthropy transformation [check]
1 Point Noticing an Important Fact or Clue - the spells that the Impossible Wave Witch casts are impossible [check]
1 Point Showing Unusual Wisdom, Restraint, or Vision - used the ship's ballista to shoot the dilapidated Ghost Ship out of the water before it closed to ramming range [check]
1 Point Major Accomplishment - took the Impossible Wave Witch captive, converted her to the party's side [check]
1 Point Comic Relief

Seems pretty simply to apply, even months later to a scene where I was GM.


Even if you don't tell them why they got XP though, eventually they're going to figure out they got X amount during the session where Y happened, and {X-A} during the session where Z happened or less Y happened instead. Which will likely lead to them doing less Z or demanding more Y.

Not my experience using the above example. Even though we almost never earned the "Heroism" XP, we never asked for more opportunities to be heroic.


I've done it both ways, but now that you mention it, it is possible when points are revealed makes a difference. This would be a good thing to empirically test when designing a new game.

Yeah, for this style, I strongly recommend "end of session" or "email after session" over "mid-session".