The XP Battle

XP, or Experience points, suck. No two ways about it, they just suck. If we were to play "Never Have I Ever" and someone said, "Enjoyed calculating XP." I'd be sober as a priest. Experience points in games are a countable item to be collected. Wherever there is something that can be counted, Greed rears its ugly head. Players want XP, because they want their characters to be more powerful. The only way they can do that is by earning experience points. Some games, especially OSR games, make gold your experience points, and boy, Greed has a buffet in front of him. Reasonable players aren't subject to the XP grab mindset that I am slowly alluding to. XP is a reasonable system for reasonable players. However, when it comes to players who are subject to competitive behavior, the team game we have set out to play is out the window. Of course, this assumes the worst of our players, but the possibility is there.

One of the most frustrating facets of this mad dash for XP, whether conducted reasonably or not, is actually calculating it. The GM has to either use an XP calculator based on encounters or painstakingly solve it for themselves. D&D 5e's encounter building is an interesting system as it is a way of buying an "appropriate" encounter. I see this as a reoccurring theme in game design as the GM is more frequently given mechanical permissions to do what they want rather than the old-school, "Because I said so, mortals."

Systems that use a GM economy system tend to have a fair amount of balance. Though, the drive for XP causes an issue when the GM cranks the difficulty up to 11.

Pictured above: The GM plans the encounter after weeks of the party's whining.

(This is Spinal Tap. Embassy Pictures, 1984)

The players are faced with an encounter. Possibly one that they can't win. However, every player knows that as soon as those bad guys are dead, all of the loot and XP is theirs. Thus it rewards to kill and plunder. They players won't realize it until Greg, their Goliath Barbarian, is knocked unconscious and is bleeding out dying-- they can't win.

Then the hurt feelings come into play. The GM made a "dick move" by putting a fight in front of them that defied the rules. If you're following along, you know that the GM played by the rules. The players have found the GM of violating the rule they have assumed: If it can be fought, we can kill it; When we kill it, we get stronger.

( ASDF movie by TomSka )

By rewarding players and their characters in the form of making victory in combat their mode of advancement, the game produces these conflicts. The players are conditioned to expect these results. Then they are mad when this mold is broken. As Ender (my close friend and member of Chronicle and Tale development team) pointed out, most of this problem is that "you could be a rogue, you level up, and your ability to pick locks got better all because you stabbed a bunch of guys."

Milestone Leveling

Milestone leveling attempts to alleviate all the calculating and compiling, which also alleviates the matter of Victory=XP. Milestone leveling can feel less arbitrary over all, as long as the GM knows what the milestones are. If it is the end of dungeon the GM has had planned, or the defeat of a major villain, these are examples of good places to include a milestone leveling. However, milestone leveling can be a very weak form of achievement depending on the nature of the group. In a milestone leveling campaign, unless a team is cohesive and feels like success is everyone's rather individually, it works fine. However, in our days of modern roleplaying game, the personal story line for each character is important. 5e employs traits, bonds, and flaws as a means of personal storytelling. 7th Sea has a personal story based progression system. Milestone leveling is antithetical to this trend. As Starhelm, constantly reminds me, D&D is and always has been a team game. Often, these personal stories fall short in Dungeons and Dragons as it is generally a tactical combat game in nature. Milestone leveling would be fine, if players didn't crave personal achievement.

XP Deflation

We can't assume that this applies to every game beyond Dungeons and Dragons. Some games use their XP systems in ways that D&D does not because XP has a consistent value. For example, both Fantasy Flight's Star Wars roleplaying games and Monte Cook's Cypher System use XP in a way I am much more willing to label "appropriate use". Perhaps one of the biggest differences is that these systems use XP outside of a leveling system like D&D. XP is used in smaller increments. Most new benefits in Star Wars require, at most 25 experience points. This is having worked your way through a tree of lesser point value abilities. This allows a GM and player to have an actual idea of what the XP they are giving and receiving, respectfully, is worth. If you compare this to Dungeons and Dragons, between level 3 and level 4 in 5E, players go from 900 XP to 2700 XP. They need three times what they just had to make that jump between levels. Level 5 requires 6,500 XP. The higher the level, the lesser value XP has. This is how games like Star Wars RPG maintain their XP value. The abilities that are more powerful require more XP, but the XP value does not change. The same is true of Cypher System and even Mutants vs Masterminds (which I possess some bias towards).

Fixing the Problem

In D&D there isn't many ways to fix the leveling problem by overhauling the system, unless you do some serious math. You could try to simplify XP so it takes less to level up numerically but has the same value. You could utilize a system where characters train outside of games during down time and level up instead by cumulating XP by training (which makes the most sense from a real world perspective) or per the GM's discretion just by time passing (Think Empire Strikes Back to Return of the Jedi). Ultimately, trying to change the XP system itself will not solve much, unless characters have their own personal milestones to alleviate the impersonal feel. The only drawback is, not everyone will level up at the same time which can cause tension, but when the personal achievement comes into play, that tension should dissipate.

Designing XP- Chronicle and Tale

I took a pretty fast stance against using XP in Chronicle and Tale. I hope that this design choice continues to work. The main idea behind it is what you do and use should improve. What you don't do and don't use will not improve. I spend my time writing content for games, not art. If my art skills have improved at all during this time, that would be pretty incredible, but it would not be attributed to my writing game content. I clearly would have internalized some method or concept. I don't want to give away too much, but what I will say, is that as you use your skills, powers, magic, features, or etc. those existing abilities will improve, or rather aid in the improvement of your character. Just because you defeat a bunch of enemy characters, I can't guarantee that you will be any more powerful. However, depending on the methods you use, specifically by using the abilities you chose at character creation, you will probably have improved in some way or made progress towards your improvement, perhaps in several different areas.

Wrapping Up

Deciding how to handle XP in a game like D&D should be one of the major topics a GM decides on when beginning a campaign, or even from session to session. Ultimately, by communicating with your players is key. If they want an adventure where they grow by leaps and bounds, perhaps that doesn't match your expectation of play, perhaps they want the XP crunch. Like any other part of the game, it is best left to all the players. Not the GM. Happy gaming all!