Them Bones of Adventure - XVIII: Experience

Continuing my exposition on table procedures for common exploration feats & rules, which began here with part one.

Introduction

Like spice melange, the Xp must flow.

And flow it should, from multiple wellsprings.

Advancement mechanics act as player behaviour drivers and what they reward ultimately serves to define what a given running’s all about. This informs my interest in affording a modicum of choice between options rather than reducing the whole process to a simple univocal “gain” mechanic, certainly not limited to death-dealing.

We’ve all been there, done that and gotten the mythril t-shirt. The plan’s to keep it old school, with some twists. I’m doing like the Inca civilization here so no invention of the wheel at all: Xp is to come mainly from loot, with second fiddle reserved for death-defying stakes through combat and some residual thought given to hazard and survival.

A World of Dunces

The game’s setting will operate on the presumption that NPCs have no inherent level. Being levelled implies a world of potential simply beyond the reach of most mere mortals, it implies that more can be attained, that the peak of one’s abilities and condition has either been pushed up way past the cloud cover or altogether removed, the way to demigodhood laying ripe for the paving.

Of course, enemies – sentient ones – can acquire greater skill in arms and resilience, but I feel no need whatsoever to align and harmonize these facts into a coherent system of levels common to all characters.

Are You Experienced?

I’ve toyed and tinkered with mechanical ways of keying a character’s starting Xp to his age or stats but ended up bowing to the simple gaming truism of “a player begins a game with zero points on the scoreboard”.

No matter a character’s age, physical potential or status, it must be assumed all the time up until now was spent accruing the life experience to make it to first level. Not all of that time need have been necessarily productive, as achieving first level simply represents the moment the spark of greatness is ignited within the character.

Casualties of Cool

Straight from the page, narrativism is very much ingrained in the 5E rules through the whole bonds/weaknesses/bullshit (basically WoD’s lunch money) and the Inspiration award which, despite its name, is a rather uninspired mechanic.

My head's banged on this wall enough times to get a Pollock out of it: to award or not to award Xp for roleplay, for treasure, for quests, for accomplishments, for milestones, for tardiness (don’t laugh, I’ve seen it done), for mapping, for journal keeping, for fetching the DM some cigs.

In short, I’ve seen Xp used in completely tone-deaf ways and its attribution attached to totally arbitrary acts and game-removed situations, some of them verging on homework assignment.

My own attempts to establish a clean procedure for awarding rewards for roleplaying (as, for the longest time, I was wedded to the idea) made me stumble on several blocks that ground at me until I gave it all up:

- The slippery slope of reward relativism (“X’s move was cool, but not as cool as that other maneuver made by Y two turns ago, and even less than that other stunt Z pulled last session”).

- The related fact that every time a would-be referee acts as an arbitrary fountainhead of Xp this deepens the Player-DM rift, as it forces table conformity to one person’s aesthetic vision and quantification of coolness. The mantra for me being that a referee should primarily provide challenges. Rewards, if any, should always come indexed to the challenges provided, never to be pulled out of thin air.

- The fact that it is an inherently dissociated mechanic.

- Being new player unfriendly. This one was the deciding factor, as a long lasting game thrives on the capacity for absorbing fresh blood and nothing feels more cliquish than a group that knows which DM-buttons to push for extra sugar cubes while the newcomer is left to conform or see his progress impaired.

Ultimately, my desire for making the game an open table is what sold me on the idea that rewarding roleplay, while not inherently wrong (I’ve done it in the past, which means I’m obliged to stand by it to the death), definitely requires a narrative-driven running, with both a talented (well, willing) table of players and a stable ensemble of characters who can mature without bothersome stuff like getting the loving shit murdered out of them in the midst of their precious growth process clouding up the proceeds.

The decision as it now stands is to keep things on the dry and gamist end of the spectrum, in keeping with the spirit of the original. A scoreboard to track each player’s progress with some spice added while endeavoring to keep subjectivity at bay. By aiming for what some might think of as the lowest common denominator of gameplay, I actively strive to keep the table open, as I’d rather be accused of “the game being all about killing” than have the soliloquist thespian get an unsurmountable edge while the wallflowers get ever more sidelined.

To want immersion one has to be willing to work for it, without having to bribe players into compliance. If someone’s feeling inspired to map, draw, write or in any way contribute to add some ribboning to a campaign, that drive must be genuine, not bought. When all’s said, you can’t put a price tag on enthusiasm.

Despite absence of rewards, emergent roleplay is still possible, as nothing stops me from making voices to my heart’s content and the same going triple for the other players. For narrativism-heavy campaigns, rather than concentrating on numerical rewards, my advice boils down to: always meet the players halfway across the bridge (and be prepared at first to go fetch them to the other shore entirely, too).

A Man Should Have Some Standards

Mine just happens to be silver.

Specifically, LotFP’s 10 copper pieces to the silver piece, 50 silver pieces to the gold piece. This casts the glint of gold back into association with true wealth, giving value back to the bottom tier of coin, instead of mostly pretending it doesn’t exist past expenses one might not even want to be tracking anyway.

Now, if characters are to gain experience for treasures unearthed, this presents a dillema: what is entitled to count as treasure?

The answer is one that sets the goal posts for many a game’s own brand of awkwardness: to award Xp only for treasure extracted from *certain sources* or make it so that only *certain activities* qualify as yielding treasure? The answer, by way of essentialism, is that it cannot really matter how coin is obtained. As only levelled characters have the wherewithal to convert it through training or research into something that will unlock higher echelons of power, this means that a merchant prince, no matter how rich, will ever find himself locked outside the ornate steps that lead to godhood.

In any event, if a party opts in for the mercantilist approach, I have it on more than just hope that I can probably squeeze an adventure out of that.

The Crunchy Bits

Character Advancement Chart

Aiming for a fairly glacial pace of advancement, one that feels earned, as I don’t feel like the quality of a running is ever dependent on the power level of the protagonists but also don’t disregard the fact that a progress measure of some sort is desirable as psychological reinforcement.

Despite not thinking of wide-ranging advancement in levels as a particular requisite of a successfully evolving campaign and preferring the lower levels, it is important for characters to be ever growing in power and prospects and for players to have something tangible to bear witness as a way of score (as in game score), all the more since my intent's on giving player characters recognition for their power, rather than just throw them onto the hamster treadmill of climbing numbers.

Whoever gives credence to the whole “first and second levels are formative” bullshit can just as well start the characters at third, I for one see no need to corrupt the whole growth ladder with facile little baby steps.

Level Attained	Xp Required to make Level	Experience Total
1	0 Xp	0 Xp
2	1.000 Xp	1.000 Xp
3	2.000 Xp	3.000 Xp
4	4.000 Xp	7.000 Xp
5	8.000 Xp	15.000 Xp
6	16.000 Xp	31.000 Xp
7	32.000 Xp	63.000 Xp
8	64.000 Xp	127.000 Xp
9+	128.000 Xp	255.000+ Xp

Prime Requisites

As detailed previously, I’ve decided to attach the old-school experience premiums from high stats to Wisdom and Intelligence, both of which cover different facets of learning and thus relate to experience gain.

This also punishes dumping these same stats, though for even a minimally rounded-out character, it ought to be a wash at worse.

- Both the Wisdom and Intelligence attributes modify the experience needed per level by a percentual point per modifier point, subtracting for positives and adding for negatives.

Lessons in the Steel and the Better Part of Valour

At its core, experience is a reward for stakes. If a character risks life or limb, be it parcels (Hp) or wholecloth, he gets something back from the ordeal.

As such, since combat is to be deadly and the same going for hazardous obstacles, with the existence of one’s beloved character not being the least bit insured, avoiding combats or obstacles through diplomacy or cleverness will stand as its own reward, valued in continued survival to fight another day.

Team challenges – Combat, Exploration, Survival, Treasure Hauling

Experience for combat, exploration, survival and treasure hauling should all be divvied up in equal shares by the party, enforcing team spirit. Even if a character is less than competent and plays only a residual part in a fight , wisdom gained from failure, observation or setting a bad example will still resolve into a learning experience.

- Combat experience is divided into equal shares by all the participants and is obtained by driving the opposition to flight, reducing them to surrender or outright vanquishing it.

- Characters that perish during a combat are still entitled their share of the experience, taking it to the grave.

- Opponents who have already awarded their experience won’t provide any further value if faced again on the same day.

Facing hazards and Individual rewards for risk

Despite the game not being centered around them, occasions will arise where an individual challenge involving stakes will be faced (or initiated) by a player character. Coherence obliges that some form of reward be alloted. As such, individual experience will be awarded whenever the possibility of character demise is placed on the table, such as being the lead climber on a treacherous climb, or disarming a trap.

True to concept that the rewards drive the style of play and that the running should focus on group experiences, only residual experience will be granted, as here I’m none too worried if the rewards don't offset the chances taken. Thus, while individual Xp gains will be accorded to whoever braves risks, in scenarios such as that of the thief that recklessly plies his craft putting life and limb on the line, the player will only find himself accounted for, not rewarded.

For braving hazards, much the same schema of reward applies, but naturally extended to all the participants.

Individual & Hazard rewards come in three tiers. These are then either multiplied by the task’s DC (for single round challenges like trap disarming or purse cutting) or the hazard’s dimensions (feet to a climb, yards to a river crossing, hours of ill weather endured, miles of desert crossed, etc.) for prolonged challenges:

1 - If failure costs Hit Points or Exhaustion: 1 experience point per character level;

2 - If failure implies a roll on the Dismemberment table: 5 experience points per character level;

3 - If failure means Death: 10 experience points per character level;

Note that all of these are awarded independently of the character failing or succeeding (though Xp for a failed number 3 would only be of use to a ressurected character) and that a protracted challenge may shift into a more dangerous category at mid-point (such as a climber ascending enough that a fall will mean a guaranteed dismemberment roll).

Though the exact DC may or may not be open information, the player must always perceive in advance, writ large, what stands to be lost from the course of action, before jamming the pins on a blade trap/plunging into a lava pit/being killed by a raging mob/drowning foolishly.

Training Montages

Taking treasure for experience as a given, there still remain some finer points to hone. My wish is for players to have to strategically weigh the benefits between investing in advancement or equipment acquisition that will keep them alive in the immediate future:

- Treasure must be converted to experience points through training.

- Self-training is completely abstracted, with no prescribed behaviour or basic conditions other than some grounding in-world logic for it being considered appropriate to the character’s Class and upcoming level features being trained for. All treasure converted during this time is considered to be fully spent on any and all requirements, from sundry training arrangements to research material, bribes, adequate equipment, sparring partners, etc, with no tangible benefits afforded beyond the experience.

- Spending a whole day training without guidance allows a character to convert 10 silver pieces into experience points.

This is meant to negate the sudden power-jumps that always bothered me about the “wealth for experience” approach.

As the levels climb, a character will doubtlessly need to turn to illustrious martial masters, infamous retired rogues and capricious sorcerous figures if he’s to have any hope of unlocking greater potential before old age claims him. This feature serves both as story-hook by way of advancement as well as carving a place in the world for any retired player characters that using a fully operational dismemberment table is bound to create.

Though it comes as prescribed that a party share all of its wealth equally, the fanning of circumstances provided by training and the realities of character attrition mean that different Xp totals within a party are to be the norm, rather than the exception.

Closing Thoughts – Upward Mobility

Experience originating from Quests, Titles or Achievements will doubtlessly prove necessary for levelling past the initial stages of play. Though I’m as yet emphatically unconcerned with this, my thinking is that these will first need to be purged from their subjectiveness and may provide the characters with a percentage of the experience needed to level up, rather than a lump total.

This frees up my refereeing hands from plotting appropriate rewards to actually be generous, as I’m unchained from obsessing with artificially curbing the pace of advancement since the natural player and character attrition rate already will do a lot of that pruning for me. And as there’s no narrative “arc” dictating that the characters have to be at this or that level to credibly face down the spectre of plotted threats, it’s all on a come, as you are basis.

Of course, all this slow pace of advancement, besides feeling earned, shouldn’t be seen as a window of opportunity for a canny referee to tamper and develop the character classes as the players progress along them, perish the thought!