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change my name
Aug 27, 2007
Probation
Can't post for 4 hours!
I like the idea of the party having to contend with a guy who's like level 15 but got there accidentally from killing rats town to town for 20 years

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PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Taeke posted:

No that's just metagaming in the most obviously dumb and blatant way. The character has no reason to club rats to death. The only reason it's happening is because the player is aware of things the character can't be.

You can't blame metagaming on the system, and you can't expect the system to account for metagaming. That's just dumb.

The character has every reason to club rats to death if the character has learned that clubbing rats to death is a pathway to more power. Ser Jeff the Holy understands that defeating Lord Thraktos the Insanely Evil is the most important thing he can accomplish, and losing the battle will curse the entire kingdom of Fantasylandia to generations of evil insanity. He also understands that Jebus grants him more smiting power and endurance based on how many foes he's defeated, so spending some time defeating more foes--in this case, rats--is clearly the right thing to do.

And you can blame metagaming on the system because metagaming arises from foibles of the system, like rats awarding XP upon death and grinding easy XP being a prudent way to gain power.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world
Trying in good faith not to metagame really puts you in the worst of both worlds here because now a player can't even trust their own decisions. Two quests are on the town bulletin board: rat slaying and postal delivery. Which do you take? If you choose the rats, you're going to get a frown and Marge Simpson grumble from the DM. If you choose the mail, are you really doing it because it's what you want to see happen onscreen/what your character would really prefer, or are you overcorrecting because you're worried going for the rats would mean you were some kind of scheming rollplayer?

Dexo
Aug 15, 2009

A city that was to live by night after the wilderness had passed. A city that was to forge out of steel and blood-red neon its own peculiar wilderness.
Give exp for social and exploration encounters

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



PeterWeller posted:

The character has every reason to club rats to death if the character has learned that clubbing rats to death is a pathway to more power. Ser Jeff the Holy understands that defeating Lord Thraktos the Insanely Evil is the most important thing he can accomplish, and losing the battle will curse the entire kingdom of Fantasylandia to generations of evil insanity. He also understands that Jebus grants him more smiting power and endurance based on how many foes he's defeated, so spending some time defeating more foes--in this case, rats--is clearly the right thing to do.

And you can blame metagaming on the system because metagaming arises from foibles of the system, like rats awarding XP upon death and grinding easy XP being a prudent way to gain power.

I don't blame metagaming on the system because, ultimately, the GM is the gatekeeper of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. You can justify the use of metagaming on the player because it's a part of the game mechanics, but it's insanely easy for the GM to step in and say "doing this will not grant you any XP". Even the game says, explicitly, to do this.

Again, any system can be metagamed. The more rules you add to the system the more metagamey players can potentially be. If we're strictly talking about milestone leveling, a player could very well eschew all other content or sidequests because they know they're going to level up after a certain threshold is hit anyway. "Let's go kill the green dragon because we'll gain a level and that will make sidequests easier" is just as metagamey as "let's go kill the green dragon because we'll gain 1250XP and level up which will make sidequests easier".

Ultimately players perform actions for rewards. XP is a reward, just like gold or items or levels. But just like you wouldn't allow a player to pre-read a module to know there's a +1 sword hidden beneath the floorboards of this dungeon room, you wouldn't necessarily allow a player to say "I want to go into the sewer to kill rats to level up my character".

Ferrinus posted:

Trying in good faith not to metagame really puts you in the worst of both worlds here because now a player can't even trust their own decisions. Two quests are on the town bulletin board: rat slaying and postal delivery. Which do you take? If you choose the rats, you're going to get a frown and Marge Simpson grumble from the DM. If you choose the mail, are you really doing it because it's what you want to see happen onscreen/what your character would really prefer, or are you overcorrecting because you're worried going for the rats would mean you were some kind of scheming rollplayer?

This seems like a bad example, because I can't imagine a scenario where a DM presents the players with two options, and thinks one of them sucks and is metagaming.

Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 21:46 on Feb 6, 2023

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Dexo posted:

Give exp for social and exploration encounters

But then player characters would just start exploring and socializing all the time! Wait-

Caphi
Jan 6, 2012

INCREDIBLE
The solution to this is not to write more rules and then beg players not to "metagame" them. The solution is to have rules that do not place barriers between the intent of the GM/players and the play that occurs between them. "The purpose of a machine is what it does."

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Caphi posted:

The solution to this is not to write more rules and then beg players not to "metagame" them. The solution is to have rules that do not place barriers between the intent of the GM/players and the play that occurs between them. "The purpose of a machine is what it does."

Hey, take it up with WotC! Because the game in question here has an infinite number of ways for players to metagame even with milestone leveling in place.

And I think it should be stated that, metagaming is not inherently bad. Every group has their limits, and coming up with those limits is important.

Verisimilidude fucked around with this message at 21:51 on Feb 6, 2023

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

Verisimilidude posted:

This seems like a bad example, because I can't imagine a scenario where a DM presents the players with two options, and thinks one of them sucks and is metagaming.

Well, maybe neither of them suck. Maybe you'll actually be ambushed by MORE rats on the delivery trip; there's no way to know. The problem is not actual bad faith on the DM's or player's part but the cognitive load of having to metametagame, to know that you'll be rewarded for certain actions but also know that chasing rewards in an insufficiently-self-conscious or too-mercenary way might incur some kind of social or even in-game cost. It has a chilling effect on enjoyment of the game even if (indeed, even because) each atomic in-game decision is carefully vetted so as to be unimpeachable.

If we were talking about Vampire, it'd be nuts to get mad at a player for metagaming because he had his PC bite some humans on the neck so as to stock up on the blood she needs to use her dark powers. That's just... gaming.

Ferrinus fucked around with this message at 21:56 on Feb 6, 2023

brap
Aug 23, 2004

Grimey Drawer
I think one of the biggest risks in this game, especially when your players are analytical computer toucher types, is overanalysis and overpreparation. I take care to tell my players out of game: have faith that if you just follow your gut with your character’s choices, I will honor that by making the resulting situation fun and fair. I won’t place you in an unwinnable situation without warning or let a situation go badly because the player forgot a detail that their character would know.

I feel like this *should* inoculate players against the desire to “grind” for power instead of pursuing their characters’ concrete goals. Noting of course that “obtain the powerful mcguffin so we become strong enough to defeat the evil guy” is a great goal.

I’ve really suffered as a player in parties that would bring a game to a standstill by second guessing or doubting the consequences of any action at all. So I do try very hard to avoid letting that situation occur in the games I run and use both in-game and out-of-game nudges to dislodge it.

avoraciopoctules
Oct 22, 2012

What is this kid's DEAL?!

I stopped using XP for 3 reasons.

1. Extra bookkeeping for little reward. Save the players and the GM some time and effort they could spend on fun scheming instead.
2. I don't want to feel obligated to put in filler fights. We're definitely going to have fights, but now we can only have fights when it would be fun and interesting. 6-8 combat encounters per adventuring day is way too many.
3. We would rather keep everyone at the same level. Why track individual XP if we don't want those numbers to diverge?

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

Verisimilidude posted:

I don't blame metagaming on the system because, ultimately, the GM is the gatekeeper of appropriate and inappropriate behavior. You can justify the use of metagaming on the player because it's a part of the game mechanics, but it's insanely easy for the GM to step in and say "doing this will not grant you any XP". Even the game says, explicitly, to do this.

I'd argue that the DM is metagaming here. They're looking at things from a mechanical rather than narrative perspective, which is what I take people to mean when they say "metagaming." You're right, though, that it's up to the table (not just the DM, I'd say) to decide what is and isn't appropriate game behavior.

quote:

Again, any system can be metagamed. The more rules you add to the system the more metagamey players can potentially be. If we're strictly talking about milestone leveling, a player could very well eschew all other content or sidequests because they know they're going to level up after a certain threshold is hit anyway. "Let's go kill the green dragon because we'll gain a level and that will make sidequests easier" is just as metagamey as "let's go kill the green dragon because we'll gain 1250XP and level up which will make sidequests easier".

Ultimately players perform actions for rewards. XP is a reward, just like gold or items or levels. But just like you wouldn't allow a player to pre-read a module to know there's a +1 sword hidden beneath the floorboards of this dungeon room, you wouldn't necessarily allow a player to say "I want to go into the sewer to kill rats to level up my character".

Oh I am not suggesting that milestones are less ripe for metagaming than XP rewards. And it really all comes down to phrasing, right? What if the players just say, "I think we should take care of this green dragon before we look after those side quests"? That can be a perfectly fine in-character statement that's underpinned by wanting the dragon XP/milestone because it will make those side quests easier. Similarly, "I want to go into the sewer to kill rats to level my character" is a very metagamey statement, but "hey, let's explore the sewers some and see what we can find down there" is not, even though both may have the same exact player motivation behind them.

quote:

This seems like a bad example, because I can't imagine a scenario where a DM presents the players with two options, and thinks one of them sucks and is metagaming.

It does, but it's sort of what Rime offers players as their first adventure option: they can investigate some murders and hunt down the murderer, or they can meet up with some cute nature spirits.


Verisimilidude posted:

And I think it should be stated that, metagaming is not inherently bad. Every group has their limits, and coming up with those limits is important.

This is very important.

Taeke
Feb 2, 2010


PeterWeller posted:

The character has every reason to club rats to death if the character has learned that clubbing rats to death is a pathway to more power. Ser Jeff the Holy understands that defeating Lord Thraktos the Insanely Evil is the most important thing he can accomplish, and losing the battle will curse the entire kingdom of Fantasylandia to generations of evil insanity. He also understands that Jebus grants him more smiting power and endurance based on how many foes he's defeated, so spending some time defeating more foes--in this case, rats--is clearly the right thing to do.

And you can blame metagaming on the system because metagaming arises from foibles of the system, like rats awarding XP upon death and grinding easy XP being a prudent way to gain power.

This only works if it's explicit in the narrative that Jebus will grant him more power the more enemies he kills numerically, and that Jebus accorded each enemy a specific value according to how challenging they are, and the player's character knows that.

I'm guessing that's not the case. I'm assuming that stomping a million rats won't prepare the charcter for defeating a dragon, even though the system (that the character is not aware of) works that way.

The player's character isn't aware of the experience points he gains. He's just aware of becoming more powerful after a certain amount of adventuring. Pretending like the character knows how Jebus works is metagaming. Period.

Unless of course it's part of his character where he's a keen mind wizard with the goal of deciphering how exactly Jebus grants his powers to adventurers and he spends time keeping track of every enemy killed and every accomplishment in Jebus's name and does the math in his downtime, but I'm guessing that's not the case either, is it?

Sure, that's how the system technically functions but the game played isn't just the system for xp and levels and all that. There's an expectation of roleplay, word building and cooperative story telling and if one of my players were to tell me "hold up, lemme crawl down some sewers and stomp some rats because I'm this close to leveling" I'd tell them no because that's bullshit. Or I'd introduce a bigger challenge than they were counting on, punishing as that may be. Preferably I wouldn't let it get to that point because leaving a player just shy of leveling is mean so I'd find a way to award a bit more xp, but then you might as well milestone, right?

homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

Its a dumbass premise imo because its absolutely the DM's fault not making both options award equal amounts of XP if they're meant to be equally interesting to the players. Just like you should get full encounter XP for encounters you sneak past or subvert somehow, you should also get that much XP for doing, a social encounter or whatever else that's, equally interesting. Is that just milestone XP? Only in so much as, the first people that did milestone XP just followed this logic all the way to the end, but you don't have to go that far if you want to bookkeep encounters.

Bobby Deluxe
May 9, 2004

change my name posted:

I like the idea of the party having to contend with a guy who's like level 15 but got there accidentally from killing rats town to town for 20 years
Guy with a cockroach infestation spends all night stomping them, wakes up the next morning knowing fireball.

PeterWeller
Apr 21, 2003

I told you that story so I could tell you this one.

If killing poo poo is how the character gets more powerful, it doesn't matter that he's not aware of XP and levels, he can connect the dots between killing poo poo and power. He doesn't need to be a wizard with a spreadsheet to do that. That's his experience as a paladin of Jebus and his understanding of how his relationship with Jebus and power works. He's (presumably) not a complete moron. I don't need to know the physics of muscle mass to understand that lifting more weights makes my arms bigger.

Obviously this is a ridiculous situation that should never arise because if all you want to do is watch numbers go up, there's good old Progress Quest to keep you entertained. But what if Jeff just says, "I don't think I'm ready for Lord Thraktos yet; I should do some more adventuring before heading to his dark tower"? My point is that's not as explicitly metagaming as "lemme go kill some rats to level up first," but it's still metagaming in that Jeff (the character) saying that is a reflection of Jeff's player understanding that Lord Thraktos is a lich or something like that and Jeff isn't high enough level to handle a lich yet.


Bobby Deluxe posted:

Guy with a cockroach infestation spends all night stomping them, wakes up the next morning knowing fireball.

Again, this is why guy should spend a tenday studying and training between killing all them roaches and learning fireball :v:

Taeke
Feb 2, 2010


homeless snail posted:

Its a dumbass premise imo because its absolutely the DM's fault not making both options award equal amounts of XP if they're meant to be equally interesting to the players. Just like you should get full encounter XP for encounters you sneak past or subvert somehow, you should also get that much XP for doing, a social encounter or whatever else that's, equally interesting. Is that just milestone XP? Only in so much as, the first people that did milestone XP just followed this logic all the way to the end, but you don't have to go that far if you want to bookkeep encounters.

Exactly. Either way you plan to have players be a certain level at certain points of the adventure, unless you're entirely winging it I guess? So I say just get rid of the bookkeeping. Me and my players don't need the incremental accumulation of points to make a fight worthwhile. The fight is worthwhile on it's own merits. It's fun to fight, and it'll get you past whatever to reach whatever, or whatever. The excitement of almost leveling because you have enough points is the same excitement of almost leveling because you accomplished the big goal you've been working towards.

Both work towards the same end, so how you get there is entirely player preference. Some people like to keep score and some people don't, and either way is fine. Just don't try to dress it up as something it isn't, and don't accept metagaming just because that's how the system works. Unless you want to accept metagaming, of course, which is fine as well if that's what the table likes.

History Comes Inside!
Nov 20, 2004




Milestones rule there’s already too much maths stop making me do homework

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Numbers people are willing to track:

-HP
-AC
-To-hit bonus
-Damage
-Skill bonuses
-Gold, silver, copper
-Loot
-Spell slots
-Item charges
-Levels

But XP? A number that only goes up? No, that's too much. I hate math.

hot cocoa on the couch
Dec 8, 2009

homeless snail posted:

Its a dumbass premise imo because its absolutely the DM's fault not making both options award equal amounts of XP if they're meant to be equally interesting to the players. Just like you should get full encounter XP for encounters you sneak past or subvert somehow, you should also get that much XP for doing, a social encounter or whatever else that's, equally interesting. Is that just milestone XP? Only in so much as, the first people that did milestone XP just followed this logic all the way to the end, but you don't have to go that far if you want to bookkeep encounters.

agreed. the game is ultimately a collaboration between dm and players are certainly not being "encouraged" by the framework of the system to power/metagame. all it takes is some communication between the dm and players as to what kind of experience everyone wants. iof i ever had players that acted like some of these ridiculous hypotheticals i'd tell them to gently caress off to some other game

Caphi
Jan 6, 2012

INCREDIBLE

Verisimilidude posted:

Numbers people are willing to track:

-HP
-AC
-To-hit bonus
-Damage
-Skill bonuses
-Gold, silver, copper
-Loot
-Spell slots
-Item charges
-Levels

But XP? A number that only goes up? No, that's too much. I hate math.

I am the one who hates tracking gold, especially in 5e when the purpose to tracking money to such fine detail is all but vestigial and only there for "simulationism". Just implement wealth rolls or treasure tokens or something.

HellCopter
Feb 9, 2012
College Slice

Verisimilidude posted:

Numbers people are willing to track:

-HP
-AC
-To-hit bonus
-Damage
-Skill bonuses
-Gold, silver, copper
-Loot
-Spell slots
-Item charges
-Levels

But XP? A number that only goes up? No, that's too much. I hate math.

Maybe if it didn't scale based on the # of monsters and their CR and the EXP to the next levelup also scaled based on some equation. And Bob keeps forgetting his character sheet at home, he has an old copy on his phone but does anybody remember how much EXP he had?

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



hot cocoa on the couch posted:

agreed. the game is ultimately a collaboration between dm and players are certainly not being "encouraged" by the framework of the system to power/metagame. all it takes is some communication between the dm and players as to what kind of experience everyone wants. iof i ever had players that acted like some of these ridiculous hypotheticals i'd tell them to gently caress off to some other game

Same, and I think (and hope) most of these examples here are just that: hypotheticals.

In my 20+ years of playing/running D&D I've never once had someone suggest farming monsters for XP.

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



HellCopter posted:

Maybe if it didn't scale based on the # of monsters and their CR and the EXP to the next levelup also scaled based on some equation. And Bob keeps forgetting his character sheet at home, he has an old copy on his phone but does anybody remember how much EXP he had?

A creature, rules as written, gives a number of XP that is literally in their statblock lol.

You're acting like figuring out XP is advanced calculus. It's literally just addition.

As for forgetting a character sheet, that sounds like a completely different problem!!

History Comes Inside!
Nov 20, 2004




Verisimilidude posted:

Numbers people are willing to track:

-HP
-AC
-To-hit bonus
-Damage
-Skill bonuses
-Gold, silver, copper
-Loot
-Spell slots
-Item charges
-Levels

But XP? A number that only goes up? No, that's too much. I hate math.

Exactly there’s already too much maths so just knock it off

Caphi
Jan 6, 2012

INCREDIBLE

Verisimilidude posted:

A creature, rules as written, gives a number of XP that is literally in their statblock lol.

You're acting like figuring out XP is advanced calculus. It's literally just addition.

As for forgetting a character sheet, that sounds like a completely different problem!!

It's not, though. The elephant in the room with this specific subject is that marking experience has been at the GM's final discretion since at least AD&D.

e: sorry, this is the math thing, not the killing rats thing. I stand by the contribution though.

Caphi fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Feb 6, 2023

homeless snail
Mar 14, 2007

HellCopter posted:

Maybe if it didn't scale based on the # of monsters and their CR and the EXP to the next levelup also scaled based on some equation. And Bob keeps forgetting his character sheet at home, he has an old copy on his phone but does anybody remember how much EXP he had?
I think you're confusing things with the DMG encounter building rules, which is easy to do because its bad and confusing, but the adjusted XP value of the encounter isn't the amount of XP you get. Its just for (poorly) judging the strength of groups vs solos. An orc gives you 100xp each no matter how many orcs you fight, though.

avoraciopoctules
Oct 22, 2012

What is this kid's DEAL?!

Caphi posted:

I am the one who hates tracking gold, especially in 5e when the purpose to tracking money to such fine detail is all but vestigial and only there for "simulationism". Just implement wealth rolls or treasure tokens or something.

I am a big fan of just saying the PC has gear equal to their wealth by level and abstracting away all the little transactions. There are some pretty decent gear/wealth by level tables for 5E, too. You do not need to constantly monitor how many dragon dollars are in your elf's wallet to have a fun game.

EDIT: Occasionally, players see how much time 5E saves by not rolling for damage and just taking the average for many monsters, and they ask if they can just make their fireballs do 3.5 damage per die too. That seems fine to me, though I wouldn't require it. Some people really like rolling multiple dice for their actions.

avoraciopoctules fucked around with this message at 22:43 on Feb 6, 2023

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Caphi posted:

I am the one who hates tracking gold, especially in 5e when the purpose to tracking money to such fine detail is all but vestigial and only there for "simulationism". Just implement wealth rolls or treasure tokens or something.

I can agree with this but primarily because there isn't much to buy in 5e. Gold is as fundamental to D&D as the 6 stats though, so I doubt it's going anywhere any time soon.

Taeke
Feb 2, 2010


Verisimilidude posted:

Numbers people are willing to track:

-HP
-AC
-To-hit bonus
-Damage
-Skill bonuses
-Gold, silver, copper
-Loot
-Spell slots
-Item charges
-Levels

But XP? A number that only goes up? No, that's too much. I hate math.

I trust my players with like all of that. Like I'll remember gear and magic items and poo poo but if they tell me they have 1200 gold while they only actually have 1000 I probably wouldn't notice or even care. I do have access to their character sheets and I've got a pretty good idea of their stats but when it comes to items, if they want to cheat themselves idgaf.

Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Taeke posted:

I trust my players with like all of that. Like I'll remember gear and magic items and poo poo but if they tell me they have 1200 gold while they only actually have 1000 I probably wouldn't notice or even care. I do have access to their character sheets and I've got a pretty good idea of their stats but when it comes to items, if they want to cheat themselves idgaf.

I'm under the assumption all of these numbers are being tracked by the players. I don't do any tracking of my players whatsoever.

Leperflesh
May 17, 2007

When I used the phrase "perverse incentives" that's shorthand from other realms of study, especially economics but also law, especially tax law for example. The adjective is very important. A perverse incentive is one which directly rewards people for doing something that is either not in their own long-term interest, or not in their group (society, for economics or law) interest. The examples given for the "tragedy of the commons" or for prisoners dilemmas both include perverse incentives as a premise.

In my mind and intent, a perverse incentive is a much narrower case than a general "can you metagame" case. Metagaming isn't necessarily incentivized directly by the game's rules. For example, if I can minmax my PC, and outshine the other characters in the party in combat (or whatever), that doesn't directly lead to my character levelling up faster or getting more money - so there's no explicit rule incentive. There may be a non-rule incentive at play - a desire to outshine my fellow players at the table, or a sense of satisfaction that comes from investigating the rules, finding synergies and multipliers, and constructing a highly efficient and perhaps uniquely interesting character sheet, or maybe just chasing a feeling of smashing faces in battle to its logical conclusion. Meanwhile simply making some optimal choices may be incentivized by the structure of the game, but that's not a perverse incentive because it's not harmful to the game experience if I do that.

XP for killing things is one example that can act as a perverse incentive. It's not the only one. I think it's reasonable to point out that in a system of rules as complicated as a heavyweight RPG like D&D, it's impossible to avoid at least some situations of perverse incentives. However, in this case I think it's been recognized as an issue for decades, and lots of people have proposed lots of alterations to the system to remove the perverse incentive.

Players can also metagame in a way that isn't responding to a perverse incentive. If a player knows the GM always puts secret doors in every castle and insists on checking for secret doors over and over again until the party finds one, that could be metagaming but there's nothing in the rules that explicitly created that situation, and it's not even a "perverse" incentive because it's genuinely in the party's interest to find secret doors.

If a player knows that an NPC is always important if the GM had a name for them already at hand, and uses that to decide that some random NPC they ran into in the street is important enough to investigate with no other clues hinting at that, again that's metagaming maybe, but the rules didn't create an incentive to do that.

A lot of folks have seen this clip, but I'll post it anyway:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m2q-Csk-ktc&t=16s

David Mitchell is describing a situation where a group of people - wealthy Brits - are directly incentivized to avoid as much tax as possible, but that society nevertheless expects to make some kind of judgement call about exactly how much legal tax avoidance is "too much." It's bizarre to expect the rich to decide for themselves, individually, how much tax to pay.

Similarly, it's fine to incentivize players to earn XP, but I argue it's bizarre to expect them to judge exactly how much is appropriate to pursue this vital reward before it becomes "too much" and is having a negative influence on play. Of course most of us managed to navigate this connundrum fine, most players will understand that they're not supposed to relentlessly pursue this particular reward, so demanding to go slay rats is still recognizably poor behavior by a player. I fully acknowledge that.

But the perverse incentive doesn't have to be there and it's better policy to modify systems so that players are incentivized to do things that are good for the game experience. That's why I'd function just fine in a system where we murder orcs for ex pees but I'd rather play in a system where we become more powerful as characters because we learned valuable lessons, faced genuine challenges, or perhaps were recognized by divine entities as increasingly worthy by following their tenets.

Story awards do that. A rule that says you don't get XP for killing things that are helpless or too far below your level or whatever does too. That cool bingo idea sounds great! I don't think most of us really think voluntary ratquest are a huge problem at the game table. To me this is just an interesting point of game design theory that I would like game designers to understand better and focus on.

Leperflesh fucked around with this message at 23:09 on Feb 6, 2023

theironjef
Aug 11, 2009

The archmage of unexpected stinks.

Obviously this is all fixed by taking to your players same as always but I am tickled by the idea of a DM, wholly in charge of their game world, being flummoxed by a player character constantly being able to find rats to kill. Like, just don't put any rats there!

Skellybones
May 31, 2011




Fun Shoe

Ferrinus posted:

But then player characters would just start exploring and socializing all the time! Wait-

Really not the right game system for that lmao

nelson
Apr 12, 2009
College Slice

theironjef posted:

I am tickled by the idea of a DM, wholly in charge of their game world, being flummoxed by a player character constantly being able to find rats to kill. Like, just don't put any rats there!

I had a similar thought but I went the other direction. Instead of rats, there are much more dangerous monsters hiding down there.

Zurreco
Dec 27, 2004

Cutty approves.
If you are on the fence about using experience points, go play a tier 1 Adventurer's League campaign. Nothing kills the vibe more than surviving a great combat just to have the entire game grind to a halt while players and DM discuss the exp pay out. It's the only time that RAW players (mob size means more exp and that bandit had more than average HP!) and RAI players (we are only 10 exp from leveling and remember when I passed that tough DC?) will team up against the DM to maximize their reward. Eventually the DM has final say and either the PCs are completely out of their element when you get back into RP or they ding and immediately force an RP reason to long rest as soon as possible.

Also, don't play Adventurer's League. Plot and play take a backseat to getting into the next tier of play.

Ferrinus
Jun 19, 2003

i'm finding this quite easy, i guess in part because i'm a fast type but also because i have a coherent mental model of the world

theironjef posted:

Obviously this is all fixed by taking to your players same as always but I am tickled by the idea of a DM, wholly in charge of their game world, being flummoxed by a player character constantly being able to find rats to kill. Like, just don't put any rats there!

Fantasy novel about a city-state's advances in sanitation and hygiene dramatically cutting down on vermin populations and so inadvertently strangling their native adventurers of XP.

Arrrthritis
May 31, 2007

I don't care if you're a star, the moon, or the whole damn sky, you need to come back down to earth and remember where you came from
I think XP is useful in games like dungeon crawlers where there isn't a guarantee that players are going to see every encounter or you don't know what order the characters are going to tackle each encounter in. That way they'll feel rewarded if they try to fight the level 7 boss (and win) when they were only level 3.

Taeke
Feb 2, 2010


nelson posted:

I had a similar thought but I went the other direction. Instead of rats, there are much more dangerous monsters hiding down there.

Yeah, that's what I said as well. If it was an experienced player I know well I'd just be blunt and stop trying to metagame like that but if they were a new inexperienced player I'd roll with it but come up with a complication. Maybe they'd find a body with a magic item instead of rats and now they're involved in a murder plot or whatever.

Not even to punish the player, but just to make it clear that they can't game the system as if it were a computer game with random spawns. Either way I would have a talk with them or the group as a whole on the whole metagaming thing and trying to act as your characters would, but my table is fairly roleplay vibed anyway.

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Verisimilidude
Dec 20, 2006

Strike quick and hurry at him,
not caring to hit or miss.
So that you dishonor him before the judges



Zurreco posted:

If you are on the fence about using experience points, go play a tier 1 Adventurer's League campaign. Nothing kills the vibe more than surviving a great combat just to have the entire game grind to a halt while players and DM discuss the exp pay out. It's the only time that RAW players (mob size means more exp and that bandit had more than average HP!) and RAI players (we are only 10 exp from leveling and remember when I passed that tough DC?) will team up against the DM to maximize their reward. Eventually the DM has final say and either the PCs are completely out of their element when you get back into RP or they ding and immediately force an RP reason to long rest as soon as possible.

Also, don't play Adventurer's League. Plot and play take a backseat to getting into the next tier of play.

Don't use Adventurer's League as a metric for anything.

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