A new way to handle XP, and 'problem players' to boot? [Archive] - Wizards Community

A new way to handle XP, and 'problem players' to boot? [Archive] - Wizards Community

Post/Author/DateTime Post
ShadowDragon8685
07-25-05, 06:53 AM Okay, first off, I'll admit this idea is more than partially inspired by Shadowrun.

Second, I'll freely admit that I'm biased towards playing Good characters. I don't want to see villians or players pushing around people for more money or something like that.

So I was thinking, what if the DM kept a private running XP tally for all the players, and instead of just one lump sum, divided it into multiple catagories. Such as,

Killings:
Style:
Roleplay:
Karma:

And then added them all up, adding them to a lump sum that they tell the players.

A Killings catagory is in there because, let's face it, nobody wants to beat the unholy crap out of monsters and get no XP for it. This would be your standard D&D encounter XP. Maybe rename it to Encounters, but I'd prefer to put overcoming challenges through nonviolent means (or at least not directly violent means,) under Roleplay and Style.

Style: This is a catagory for character backgrounds, character descriptions, when the player describes their actions in a dramatic way that looks like it was choreographed by the guys who did Pirates of the Carribean. It's also where you reward players who actually take pride in their characters as more than numbers. If they go out of their way to accessorize with something that's not magical and offers no benefits, I'd give them a bonus here. On the other hand, if they just ignore such things altogether and just want to roll dice, I'd start giving them a flat -100 here every session.

Roleplay: I think we all know what this is about. :)

Karma: This is a catchall, for moments of dramatic heroism, and doing things that would handicap them. Like refusing monetary reward, demanding that the money go to the needy or the reconstruction effort or something. Things that anyone with an alignment of Neutral or Evil would never think of doing. You know, stuff that dosen't tangibly benefit them. This is where it would come to shine. Conversely, acts of dramatic villiany, or pressing for more money, even through kind means, would get you punished here. The amount of ruth (or ruthlessness) the DM shows in this catagory is directly proportional to that you do in game.

Alternatively, if you don't want to tell players why they only earned the flat minimum XP per session because they're being styleless, evil rollplayers, you could simply track this as Karma points, and tell the players who do heroism all the time to give themselves an extra point of a stat here or there, or award them an extra spell or turning per day, tell them that their completely nonmagical cloak has mysteriously been identified as a Cloak of Resistance or something.

Thoughts?
Carn Vandoril
07-25-05, 07:07 AM Your 4 items are pretty clear. But I always thought a DM could do this anyway?
I always have the encounter/kill exp (MM, etc) and I give roleplay points. As i also give roleplay points on the fly, like your karma item.
The good thing is: you're the DM, so it's ok anyway, just let the players know this is how you do it, upfront.

The idea of the cloack however is excellent! I think it's a good way to reward your players for staying in character/playing their alignment very well.

Greetings.

ps: could you minimize your sig please? :D
ShadowDragon8685
07-25-05, 07:39 AM I'm an old-school Sig *****. I want the sig at the bottom of every post, and I want to read it, damnit.

Sometimes, people put funnies in their sigs. :)

The problem I have with telling them up front about the system is that it would polarize them. I don't want them to be acting a hero for the phat lewt. And I don't want those who are the noble heros to be ****ed over in comparison to the greedy miser who always uses his insane Diplomacy check to wrangle every last copper the farmer's have, or the dirty rotten one who Charms people into 'investing' in his bisuness.
Carn Vandoril
07-25-05, 08:33 AM ah yes I see your point.
But woundn't that solve your problem anyway?
I mean, if you tell them and they start acting that way on purpose= ok. (albeit, at first the lewt is all they care about)
If you don't tell them, but reward them on the fly (like the cloack), it will make the player aware of it also.

I usualy give 500 exp to a memorable act. Wether it is 'good rp, karma, or dramatic', it just has to be memorable. This way it's a lot easier and you are the judge of it.
The alterantive is the '2nd edition, reputation points', a good party will have better modifiers in dealing with the population.

I really think you should stick to the 'cloack'-idea and special stuff like that, I think it will work better than every other sollutions we'll come up with on these boards.

Greetings
Lina_Inverse
07-25-05, 08:54 AM favortism is the second sin of dming.thou shalt torment all pcs equally.
ShadowDragon8685
07-25-05, 09:16 AM o.O

Errr, what?
Carn Vandoril
07-25-05, 09:34 AM favortism is the second sin of dming.thou shalt torment all pcs equally.
Nope,
Shadowdragon favors ACTIONS not PCs.
Ut-Napishtim
07-25-05, 10:12 AM What I'm trying to figure out is how this works to help with 'problem players.' I mean, I would see a problem player as someone who argues with the DM or other players all the time, eats more than his share of snacks without bringing anything, or something else along those lines. Your system just seems geared towards punishing hack 'n' slashers for not embracing your high-rp style.
:twocents:
BeyondFated
07-25-05, 10:14 AM [other good ideas]
On the other hand, if they just ignore such things altogether and just want to roll dice, I'd start giving them a flat -100 here every session.
[/other good ideas]

I'd say thats a bad idea. Don't shaft the die-roller, if he's having fun doing arthimatic in his head for hours, hurray for him.

As is common here, I find Ut-Napishtim laid out you're weakpoints best.

Your system just seems geared towards punishing hack 'n' slashers for not embracing your high-rp style.
:twocents:

Regardless, I do say that that is a wonderful idea, and I may just start implementing it myself. Though, I would tweak it a bit. Perhaps by giving rewards to the combat heavy players for killing the BBEG in two hits...
Carn Vandoril
07-25-05, 10:18 AM Your system just seems geared towards punishing hack 'n' slashers for not embracing your high-rp style.
:twocents:
Isn't that called 'education'? They signed up for the school, now face the teacher :D
astute1
07-25-05, 12:27 PM Killings:
Style:
Roleplay:
Karma:

Are you really suggesting awarding only 25% of XP based on encounters? I'm not sure that you are, but breaking up xp into four catagories does imply that each catagory will be weighted equally. That seems wrong to me.

Style - This catagory would be better if you broke it down into a one-time xp bonus for a good background history, and putting the rest into the roleplay catagory. If I were to play in your campaign, I might try writing an additional snippet of background story for each session, so that I could "squeeze" more XP out of this catagory. The other problem is that some people - especially those who are shy - have a very difficult time explaining their moves. "I whack him" is all they might say, then retreat back into silence. They'd lose out on XP in your system, which probably isn't what you're shooting for.

Roleplay - I'm not sure why people have such a resistance to assigning EL's to roleplaying encounters and just counting them in with everything else - that's what the RAW suggests doing. It's also how they're written up in Dungeon and prepublished adventures. Anyway, if you feel you need to assign xp for roleplaying, then by all means, go ahead. I feel it's not the right way to go about it, though.

Karma - I rather like this idea. Again, it's a bit tough to tell where this crosses over into "roleplaying," as you could roleplay an action that gives you karma points. Still, this is basically the old idea of giving people bonus XP for doing something cool, and it works very well.

A few general suggestions.
Awarding the same XP to every member in the group really helps people work togther as a group. Giving people bonuses for individuality potentially creates friction within the group, as people begin to compete for XP. For example, you might find that the cleric in your group wants to visit the temple without the rest of your group and have long in-character discussions with the high priest, just so he can get bonus XP.
I would strongly suggest treating roleplaying as an encounter. It simplifies the adjudication process enormously.
BeyondFated
07-25-05, 12:33 PM Isn't that called 'education'? They signed up for the school, now face the teacher :D

No, thats called 'forcing one's wiews upon another'.

A DM should never penalize a player for not doing something that the DM wants. If a player doesn't want to role play, then he shouldn't be penalized in game, he should just be left out.
Kuronue
07-25-05, 12:39 PM I dunno, what I do is I give the normal XP for encounters then a bonus 50 per minor plot point and 100 per major. Minor and major is up to me. Not even my assistant knows what I'm assigning ad-hc XP for, which is good because he's practially memorized all the rules and stats.

Sometimes my players tryu to track their own XP, but always they default to my number becauyse it's usually higher.

I give 100XP for making a character, 50XP for having them sign up for citizenship in the colony town, and then on it's all up to me. The Bard who found the enchanted pipes got 100 for it. The sailor who found the other colony got 100. The character who signed up to be an apprentice to an animal trainer got 50XP for it. Et cetera. That way, the more they play, the more they get.

However, my system is tailored for my online community, which often times feels more like an MMORPG than a table-top game. Everyone has multiple characters, there's no set time for games, et cetera. This way I reward people for playing, so they don't sit and idle in the chan a lot.
Kuronue
07-25-05, 12:41 PM No, thats called 'forcing one's wiews upon another'.

A DM should never penalize a player for not doing something that the DM wants. If a player doesn't want to role play, then he shouldn't be penalized in game, he should just be left out.

At what point was it decided that the players run the game?
ShadowDragon8685
07-25-05, 02:35 PM Usually, I'm all about the players being 'in' on everything.

However, having been in recent games with hack and slashers who ruin everything for the roleplayers, it becomes clear to me that an XP dichtonomy between them and the roleplayers is nessessary to keep them on a level balance.

Plus, I can't stand gits who won't RP. We don't have a shyness problem, we play online.

And, also, there's been some misconceptions about the catagories.

Killings: This catagory is your standard reward for killing the orc in a ten foot by ten foot room. You draw your sword and slice his guts out. You get XP for that.

Style: If all you do is say "I kill him" and roll dice, you'll take a penalty here. It won't be enough to offset the Killings XP, but it will put a dent. If you give me a sentance or two describing your swashbuckling that kills him, you'll get a bonus here.

Roleplay: Again, if all you say is "I attack" and stuff, you get penalized if you've made it a habit. I mean, we all just get tired of one more freaking orc at some point, but if it's ALL you say, I'm going to start putting a flat penalty per level or something in here, to drag you down, because you're dragging down the game experiance of the other players. Again, they won't be getting NO XP, they'll be getting XP. Just not enough as if they'd participated in a roleplaying game.

Karma: This catagory is purely to discourage selfish characters, and encourage ones who act selflessly. Someone who donated his entire portion of the loot to helping the rebuilding effort, and consequently ****ed his character over by the point of view of the powergamer, might find himself mysteriously making enough XP to get that next level, even though they leveled last game. But for those events, I'd think I'd rather arrange a deeper reward. Such a selfless act of charity might be noticed by an Extraplanar creature or a powerful goodly mage who wants to reward them. It could mean some piece of nonmagical junk they've had forever because it's a familar heirloom, even though it dosen't do anything, suddenly becomes a powerful ward to protect them from harm (Have it add a +2 or +3 Dodge bonus to AC,) or something that protects them from some kind of miscelanious harm. It might mean that he wakes to find himself feeling a lot healther, because he got a permanant +2 unsigned Bonus to his Con, retroactive for all levels, to represent his karmatic goodness coming back to infuse him.

Whereas the greedy miser gets... Gold. And that's what he wants. So that is exactly what he shall recieve.

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
ShadowDragon8685 07-25-05, 06:53 AM	Okay, first off, I'll admit this idea is more than partially inspired by Shadowrun. Second, I'll freely admit that I'm biased towards playing Good characters. I don't want to see villians or players pushing around people for more money or something like that. So I was thinking, what if the DM kept a private running XP tally for all the players, and instead of just one lump sum, divided it into multiple catagories. Such as, Killings: Style: Roleplay: Karma: And then added them all up, adding them to a lump sum that they tell the players. A Killings catagory is in there because, let's face it, nobody wants to beat the unholy crap out of monsters and get no XP for it. This would be your standard D&D encounter XP. Maybe rename it to Encounters, but I'd prefer to put overcoming challenges through nonviolent means (or at least not directly violent means,) under Roleplay and Style. Style: This is a catagory for character backgrounds, character descriptions, when the player describes their actions in a dramatic way that looks like it was choreographed by the guys who did Pirates of the Carribean. It's also where you reward players who actually take pride in their characters as more than numbers. If they go out of their way to accessorize with something that's not magical and offers no benefits, I'd give them a bonus here. On the other hand, if they just ignore such things altogether and just want to roll dice, I'd start giving them a flat -100 here every session. Roleplay: I think we all know what this is about. :) Karma: This is a catchall, for moments of dramatic heroism, and doing things that would handicap them. Like refusing monetary reward, demanding that the money go to the needy or the reconstruction effort or something. Things that anyone with an alignment of Neutral or Evil would never think of doing. You know, stuff that dosen't tangibly benefit them. This is where it would come to shine. Conversely, acts of dramatic villiany, or pressing for more money, even through kind means, would get you punished here. The amount of ruth (or ruthlessness) the DM shows in this catagory is directly proportional to that you do in game. Alternatively, if you don't want to tell players why they only earned the flat minimum XP per session because they're being styleless, evil rollplayers, you could simply track this as Karma points, and tell the players who do heroism all the time to give themselves an extra point of a stat here or there, or award them an extra spell or turning per day, tell them that their completely nonmagical cloak has mysteriously been identified as a Cloak of Resistance or something. Thoughts?
Carn Vandoril 07-25-05, 07:07 AM	Your 4 items are pretty clear. But I always thought a DM could do this anyway? I always have the encounter/kill exp (MM, etc) and I give roleplay points. As i also give roleplay points on the fly, like your karma item. The good thing is: you're the DM, so it's ok anyway, just let the players know this is how you do it, upfront. The idea of the cloack however is excellent! I think it's a good way to reward your players for staying in character/playing their alignment very well. Greetings. ps: could you minimize your sig please? :D
ShadowDragon8685 07-25-05, 07:39 AM	I'm an old-school Sig ***. I want the sig at the bottom of every post, and I want to read it, damnit. Sometimes, people put funnies in their sigs. :) The problem I have with telling them up front about the system is that it would polarize them. I don't want them to be acting a hero for the phat lewt. And I don't want those who are the noble heros to be **ed over in comparison to the greedy miser who always uses his insane Diplomacy check to wrangle every last copper the farmer's have, or the dirty rotten one who Charms people into 'investing' in his bisuness.
Carn Vandoril 07-25-05, 08:33 AM	ah yes I see your point. But woundn't that solve your problem anyway? I mean, if you tell them and they start acting that way on purpose= ok. (albeit, at first the lewt is all they care about) If you don't tell them, but reward them on the fly (like the cloack), it will make the player aware of it also. I usualy give 500 exp to a memorable act. Wether it is 'good rp, karma, or dramatic', it just has to be memorable. This way it's a lot easier and you are the judge of it. The alterantive is the '2nd edition, reputation points', a good party will have better modifiers in dealing with the population. I really think you should stick to the 'cloack'-idea and special stuff like that, I think it will work better than every other sollutions we'll come up with on these boards. Greetings
Lina_Inverse 07-25-05, 08:54 AM	favortism is the second sin of dming.thou shalt torment all pcs equally.
ShadowDragon8685 07-25-05, 09:16 AM	o.O Errr, what?
Carn Vandoril 07-25-05, 09:34 AM	favortism is the second sin of dming.thou shalt torment all pcs equally. Nope, Shadowdragon favors ACTIONS not PCs.
Ut-Napishtim 07-25-05, 10:12 AM	What I'm trying to figure out is how this works to help with 'problem players.' I mean, I would see a problem player as someone who argues with the DM or other players all the time, eats more than his share of snacks without bringing anything, or something else along those lines. Your system just seems geared towards punishing hack 'n' slashers for not embracing your high-rp style. :twocents:
BeyondFated 07-25-05, 10:14 AM	[other good ideas] On the other hand, if they just ignore such things altogether and just want to roll dice, I'd start giving them a flat -100 here every session. [/other good ideas] I'd say thats a bad idea. Don't shaft the die-roller, if he's having fun doing arthimatic in his head for hours, hurray for him. As is common here, I find Ut-Napishtim laid out you're weakpoints best. Your system just seems geared towards punishing hack 'n' slashers for not embracing your high-rp style. :twocents: Regardless, I do say that that is a wonderful idea, and I may just start implementing it myself. Though, I would tweak it a bit. Perhaps by giving rewards to the combat heavy players for killing the BBEG in two hits...
Carn Vandoril 07-25-05, 10:18 AM	Your system just seems geared towards punishing hack 'n' slashers for not embracing your high-rp style. :twocents: Isn't that called 'education'? They signed up for the school, now face the teacher :D
astute1 07-25-05, 12:27 PM	Killings: Style: Roleplay: Karma: Are you really suggesting awarding only 25% of XP based on encounters? I'm not sure that you are, but breaking up xp into four catagories does imply that each catagory will be weighted equally. That seems wrong to me. Style - This catagory would be better if you broke it down into a one-time xp bonus for a good background history, and putting the rest into the roleplay catagory. If I were to play in your campaign, I might try writing an additional snippet of background story for each session, so that I could "squeeze" more XP out of this catagory. The other problem is that some people - especially those who are shy - have a very difficult time explaining their moves. "I whack him" is all they might say, then retreat back into silence. They'd lose out on XP in your system, which probably isn't what you're shooting for. Roleplay - I'm not sure why people have such a resistance to assigning EL's to roleplaying encounters and just counting them in with everything else - that's what the RAW suggests doing. It's also how they're written up in Dungeon and prepublished adventures. Anyway, if you feel you need to assign xp for roleplaying, then by all means, go ahead. I feel it's not the right way to go about it, though. Karma - I rather like this idea. Again, it's a bit tough to tell where this crosses over into "roleplaying," as you could roleplay an action that gives you karma points. Still, this is basically the old idea of giving people bonus XP for doing something cool, and it works very well. A few general suggestions. Awarding the same XP to every member in the group really helps people work togther as a group. Giving people bonuses for individuality potentially creates friction within the group, as people begin to compete for XP. For example, you might find that the cleric in your group wants to visit the temple without the rest of your group and have long in-character discussions with the high priest, just so he can get bonus XP. I would strongly suggest treating roleplaying as an encounter. It simplifies the adjudication process enormously.
BeyondFated 07-25-05, 12:33 PM	Isn't that called 'education'? They signed up for the school, now face the teacher :D No, thats called 'forcing one's wiews upon another'. A DM should never penalize a player for not doing something that the DM wants. If a player doesn't want to role play, then he shouldn't be penalized in game, he should just be left out.
Kuronue 07-25-05, 12:39 PM	I dunno, what I do is I give the normal XP for encounters then a bonus 50 per minor plot point and 100 per major. Minor and major is up to me. Not even my assistant knows what I'm assigning ad-hc XP for, which is good because he's practially memorized all the rules and stats. Sometimes my players tryu to track their own XP, but always they default to my number becauyse it's usually higher. I give 100XP for making a character, 50XP for having them sign up for citizenship in the colony town, and then on it's all up to me. The Bard who found the enchanted pipes got 100 for it. The sailor who found the other colony got 100. The character who signed up to be an apprentice to an animal trainer got 50XP for it. Et cetera. That way, the more they play, the more they get. However, my system is tailored for my online community, which often times feels more like an MMORPG than a table-top game. Everyone has multiple characters, there's no set time for games, et cetera. This way I reward people for playing, so they don't sit and idle in the chan a lot.
Kuronue 07-25-05, 12:41 PM	No, thats called 'forcing one's wiews upon another'. A DM should never penalize a player for not doing something that the DM wants. If a player doesn't want to role play, then he shouldn't be penalized in game, he should just be left out. At what point was it decided that the players run the game?
ShadowDragon8685 07-25-05, 02:35 PM	Usually, I'm all about the players being 'in' on everything. However, having been in recent games with hack and slashers who ruin everything for the roleplayers, it becomes clear to me that an XP dichtonomy between them and the roleplayers is nessessary to keep them on a level balance. Plus, I can't stand gits who won't RP. We don't have a shyness problem, we play online. And, also, there's been some misconceptions about the catagories. Killings: This catagory is your standard reward for killing the orc in a ten foot by ten foot room. You draw your sword and slice his guts out. You get XP for that. Style: If all you do is say "I kill him" and roll dice, you'll take a penalty here. It won't be enough to offset the Killings XP, but it will put a dent. If you give me a sentance or two describing your swashbuckling that kills him, you'll get a bonus here. Roleplay: Again, if all you say is "I attack" and stuff, you get penalized if you've made it a habit. I mean, we all just get tired of one more freaking orc at some point, but if it's ALL you say, I'm going to start putting a flat penalty per level or something in here, to drag you down, because you're dragging down the game experiance of the other players. Again, they won't be getting NO XP, they'll be getting XP. Just not enough as if they'd participated in a roleplaying game. Karma: This catagory is purely to discourage selfish characters, and encourage ones who act selflessly. Someone who donated his entire portion of the loot to helping the rebuilding effort, and consequently ****ed his character over by the point of view of the powergamer, might find himself mysteriously making enough XP to get that next level, even though they leveled last game. But for those events, I'd think I'd rather arrange a deeper reward. Such a selfless act of charity might be noticed by an Extraplanar creature or a powerful goodly mage who wants to reward them. It could mean some piece of nonmagical junk they've had forever because it's a familar heirloom, even though it dosen't do anything, suddenly becomes a powerful ward to protect them from harm (Have it add a +2 or +3 Dodge bonus to AC,) or something that protects them from some kind of miscelanious harm. It might mean that he wakes to find himself feeling a lot healther, because he got a permanant +2 unsigned Bonus to his Con, retroactive for all levels, to represent his karmatic goodness coming back to infuse him. Whereas the greedy miser gets... Gold. And that's what he wants. So that is exactly what he shall recieve.