Post/Author/DateTime	Post
Rahlious 01-15-07, 08:47 PM	Ok the term quest XP comes from World of Warcraft. But fear not, even though only one person in my dnd group has not played WoW and 60% currently does we still play dnd in a very reasonable manner :) Many DMs give out experience beyond the monsters defeated, etc. They (sometimes quite liberally) give out some experience just because they felt the group did a good job roleplaying. Or because they felt the party worked very well as a team. Or because the party was very clever and came up with good ways to overcome challenges. Basically, a little extra XP is given out by a lot of the DMs I play with at their discretion. And it's almost always given to everyone. How do you feel about this? Should the players even get anything "extra"?
skelmar 01-15-07, 09:53 PM	quest xp is given out in ddo as well. i like using that system. and my players dont mind when i give them extra xp for clever things.
Regular_K 01-15-07, 09:56 PM	Whenever my players do something clever, I tell them to remind me to give them extra XP, because I usually forget. It doesn't happen often but it does happen.
Rahlious 01-16-07, 10:06 AM	My problem is that if the XP only comes from defeating monsters and other tables in the book, then players might be encouraged to do some pretty unusual things from a character point of view. Yes it could get metagame-y if players don't look for particular things to do so that they can find a few random encounters instead. Characters need to be motivated... yes, there is loot/wealth to be made or people that need helping but sometimes that isn't enough. A little bonus XP for completing quests, being clever etc serves as a good macguffin, I think.
Aratex 01-16-07, 10:41 AM	I really like the idea of quest experience as well.. However, I've run into the problem of having no idea how much to give for quest completion. I don't want rewards to be blatantly huge, but at the same time, saying "Hooray, you've captured the CR9 guy and managed to drag him in for questioning... You get 50 experience for quest completion." feels pretty much pointless.
Free1983 01-16-07, 11:27 AM	I dish out huge amounts of quest XP. I definitly do this in my solo-campaign, where it is kind of hazardous to use a lot of combat situations. So if the player finishes a main quest I might grant her several thousand experience points. I do differentiate the amount of XP of course. If she finished a quest that took her several sessions and a lot of resources & roleplaying, she'll likely get more than when it's a simple "bring the guy back to jail". The amount has also become bigger as she levelled up. It's not a big reward when you get 500 XP if your character is level 15. To get a general feeling about how much she really deserved, I compare to the XP-table in the DMG. Cheers
Matthew77 01-16-07, 12:28 PM	Interestingly, I give out only quest XP. I dislike the "you get XP for overcoming obstacles" system. Instead I use a "you get XP for achieving goals" system. That way you get rewarded for finding the easiest way to achive your goals, instead of missing out on XP simply because you avoided obstacles instead of bashing through them.
Free1983 01-16-07, 12:58 PM	That way you get rewarded for finding the easiest way to achive your goals, instead of missing out on XP simply because you avoided obstacles instead of bashing through them. But surely, you as DM put obstacles in the way of your players to attain their goal. That way, you kind of (not exactly) give the players XP for overcoming obstacles. Of course you can include different ways to attain the goal. Going through a dungeon with a guide you talked into helping you, or going trough teh dungeon and killing every single monster. In the end both ways lead to the goal (getting through the dungeon) and both ways have an obstacle (talking to the guide to get him to guide you or killing the monsters). So, don't you give out XP because of the same reasons as we do (when we hand out XP to players when they accomplish a quest)?
Rahlious 01-18-07, 09:21 AM	Since we are doing a low-powered campaign, the fights aren't as tough. We've fought our way through 775 XP worth of monsters so far but, in terms of time, it's never taken this long to reach level 2 :(
Matthew77 01-18-07, 09:33 AM	In the end both ways lead to the goal (getting through the dungeon) and both ways have an obstacle (talking to the guide to get him to guide you or killing the monsters). So, don't you give out XP because of the same reasons as we do (when we hand out XP to players when they accomplish a quest)? Yup, it works out pretty much the same in the end. What goal exp avoids, however, is the mindset of players viewing monsters and obstacles as potential exp sources, or saying things like "lets go out in the woods and find some random stuff to kill for exp." or "We found the sacred artifact we needed to heal the princess, but lets explore these last few rooms anyway, because they might have some more trolls to kill, and we wouldn't want to miss out on the exp." Unless your characters goals are "rid the woods of dangerous monsters" or "protect the villagers from nearby threats", taking a side trip into the woods for the sole purpose of finding wandering monsters gets you zero exp in my games.
Wopple 01-18-07, 09:52 AM	Yup, it works out pretty much the same in the end. What goal exp avoids, however, is the mindset of players viewing monsters and obstacles as potential exp sources, or saying things like "lets go out in the woods and find some random stuff to kill for exp." or "We found the sacred artifact we needed to heal the princess, but lets explore these last few rooms anyway, because they might have some more trolls to kill, and we wouldn't want to miss out on the exp." Unless your characters goals are "rid the woods of dangerous monsters" or "protect the villagers from nearby threats", taking a side trip into the woods for the sole purpose of finding wandering monsters gets you zero exp in my games. Well, technically, you are supposed to give out XP whenever they overcome a challenge. Whether this means slaying the red dragon, sneaking around it, or convincing some dumb storm giant to kill it, is up to the party. Of course, alot of people ARE stingy with bypass XP. But that also often depends on the method. If it is brillant, maybe full xp or more. If it is hey I can fly zoom... and it has happened about 40 times by now, then the xp usually gets reduced dramatically. The only problem (if you consider it a problem) with quest xp is that you have then really given the boot to the ENTIRE xp system that was pre built (if you aren't giving it the boot, you are usually power leveling your players). Because obviously giving full battle XP, then giving RP xp, then giving quest XP is a bit of overkill if all are according to tables and such. So you really have to kindof give out ad hoc xp for quests AND encounters, and find a balance that works. For this reason, I basically stick to the charts and then give out like 1-4k for long (multi-session) quests. Short ones I ignore.
DigitalMage 01-18-07, 09:54 AM	I grew up on RPGs where "Quest XP" was the norm, to the extent that I have never run an RPG where specific monsters / foes = set XP amounts. Only with Earthdawn (and now D&D) did I encounter the set XP for monster type. In games like Shadowrun where XP (or Karma as it is known) is in much smaller units (e.g. a typical scenario could net you between 5 to 8 Karma), the XP awarded for monsters and foes is done with a very broad brush, e.g. "This scenario had a high threat rating so 3 Karma", "This scenario was mostly investigative with not much physical threat so 1 Karma". Most Karma is award for achieving goals and often equals or exceeds the karma gained for "threat".
Rahlious 01-18-07, 03:23 PM	We don't even get RP XP. The only XP we've gotten is from the things we've killed. There always was a reason to kill them but, as was said above, maybe we as players will degenerate into "let's go to the woods and kill some monsters until we level up" as time goes on.