Expedition XP for split sessions - Downloaded from the Wizards Community, all coding removed by Solauren

Post/Author/DateTime	Post
#1 Avross Apr 08, 2015 18:29:14	Sorry if this has been covered ad nauseum, but we occasionally need to split Expedition modules over more than one night due to the store hours. Normally this isn't a problem, but with this last one, we had a few players miss the first session, which required us to run two tables for the second half (and one of the players from the first session needed to step up to DM the second half. (The numbers did not work out to start another module for the players who missed the first session) My questions are... If the rest of the players got 750 XP for their participation in the adventure, what should the player who missed the first session receive? Full XP? Half XP? No XP? The minimum award for the module (in this case 600 XP)? What does the person who DMed the second half receive? He played half of the module and DMed the other half...
#2 Tyranthraxus Apr 09, 2015 18:12:07	According the the rules as I read them right now, you get the rewards when you complete the Scenario, not half way through. Difficulty is determined when you start a scenario (ie the v weak/weak/avg) setup. Its not impacted if someone leaves (and as Ive never ever split an Expeditions scenario) Ive got no ... comparison I can make here bar saying that it wouldnt change if you had more people join because the scenario has already started (in fact hasnt this thread come up earlier in the year.. I could of sworn I read something like this very recently) In Encounters you get renown and downtime etc for the end of the Chapter/Part. Not earlier on, not a session before, not a session after. Id treat Expeditions Scenarios in the same way. You get the rewards at the very end of the Scenario when its all over. (I do have some issues with your allowing players/characters to go in and out of Expeditions scenarios but its a moot point since you are already doing it). So my answers to your questions A) If you calcuate that each player should get 750 exp base on the difficulty level of the scenario with the amount of characters you ORIGINALLY started with, then each character at the end gets the 750. So yeah if you started with 6 players in the first session which put you at say strong, and you lost 2 which would put you at average... then you still have to run the scenario at Strong (essentially the rules dont take into consideration that you are going to lose players half way through or that a player suddenly goes off half way through to become a second DM) b) THis is where this whole thing falls apart. Id be very loathe to give a dm who has dm'd half the scenario anything. The rules dont allow for the dm reward to be split up. I think from now on you probably need to stick more to what is intended. Ie only run the game if ALL the players and the dm are available for both sessions. Otherwise you are just creating nightmares.
#3 Avross Apr 09, 2015 20:00:50	Tyranthraxus wrote:
#4 Tyranthraxus Apr 09, 2015 20:11:04	Can I ask why you dont run on a Weekend when you really shouldnt have a time limit? Is it because people are generally even less available in your local area on the weekend? Again I can only provide my example. I run Encounters on Wed nights from 7-9. I run Expeditions on Saturdays between 11:30 am and 4:00pm (with no breaks cept toletries etc). I run every 2nd Saturday. I dont think Id ever ever consider running Expeditions on a weeknight., because the store closes at 9:30 sharp. Unless we have an admin/organiser pipe in with what needs to be done, I think you are so far in no mans land that they really arnt going to be able to suggest much to get you back on the straight and narrow bar picking a time where you have.. enough time. (I also work 8-5 workdays.. so I really cant even contemplate, rushing home to run a intense expeditons scenario on a schoolnight) As it is, I get home , get changed, grab my prepacked backpack and then back in the car to get to the game. I agree the DM's should get something, but .. well.. Im not sure what. The more I think of ways to perhaps solve this, the more I think its just going to cause other issues. I would honestly suggest running either Hoard or Princes as your weeknight game (because then you can stop the story/narrative far more easily) and stick to Expeditions on weekends if possible.
#5 Ravix Apr 09, 2015 21:22:06	Expeditions are not meant to be split into parts and thus are not going to be able to be divided up like that. Rewards are handed out at the end of the session thus screwing any players who do not complete the entire thing.
(Reply to #2) Nevvur	I faced a similar situation about a month ago (possibly the thread Tyranthaxus recalled). Briefly, do what you think is most fair, and honors the intent of character portability in the Organized Play setting. There are no AL police to ... police you. The absolute worst thing that can happen is if a player takes his character to another event and his session log confuses the other DM. If this hypothetical other DM does not allow that character's XP/gold/renown rewards at his table due to the constraints placed upon your table, well... that sucks, not much you can do about it. I suspect most DMs will be understanding, though. Tyranthraxus was right though, it does cause logistical problems. Players who were present for the entire module should fill out their session log normally, using the date when the module was completed. IMO, everyone else should only receive rewards for what they accomplished, regardless of the minimum XP guidelines. How you split up treasure is up to you, but I would give priority for magical items to players who were present for the whole module. Fortunately, character portability is not a huge issue at my table. Most of the players are not playing at other events, so I'm the only one who has to deal with the fallout from the messy logistics of multi-session Expeditions. As for the second DM, it's already a rough job, and I personally think he should get the full DM reward for his half-session. It ain't "AL legal" but it's not going to collapse Organized Play in your region. It may appear wonky in the WER -- I dunno, never actually used the program.
#7 Pauper Apr 10, 2015 11:55:41	There's a procedure in the Recommended Rulings on how to do partial awards for Encounters, but for Expeditions I'd follow the ALPG more closely: - Experience points: award combat XP to all players who participated in a combat; award non-combat XP to each player who participated in the event to earn it. Note that every character who participated in an Expeditions adventure and does not forfeit his XP award (such as via using Faction Charity) receives at least the minimum XP award for that adventure. Show So for DDEX 1-3, a character who was present for the session with the combat in the village would get a share of that XP, but not for the fight on the ships if he was not present for that combat. Likewise, a character who was not present at the session where the party discovered the information regarding the Dragon Masks would not receive that non-combat XP award. Every character who participates gets a minimum of 450 XP.
#8 Tyranthraxus Apr 12, 2015 20:08:50	I really wish they would just come out and directly say that Expeditions cannot be split (bar of course the Sorc Isle exception). That way this would never be an issue. There needs to be a lot more black and white in the Players guide.
#9 Nevvur Apr 12, 2015 21:48:48	I think it would be better to create a rule that all XP and treasure is rewarded immediately, instead of at the end of the adventure. Forbidding split sessions only reduces the amount of D&D being played, which is bad for both the company and the people who like the product.
#10 Tyranthraxus Apr 12, 2015 22:28:04	why No other Organised Play campaign allows for split sessions.
#11 Nevvur Apr 13, 2015 1:46:34	And none of those are being supported by WotC anymore.
#12 abanathie Apr 13, 2015 3:14:15	WotC cut ties with other "Living" campaigns to cut cost. Some would argue that it was a marketing strategy to distance themselves from the 3.0 OGL. In either case, it had nothing to do with split sessions. However, I do agree that provisions should be in place to "protect" players that have to deal with real life and leave a session early. The rules should stipulate that awarding XP up to that point is a rules standard to help limit the problem.
(Reply to #12) Pauper	abanathie wrote:
#14 Nevvur Apr 13, 2015 9:53:54	I think the preferred interpretation is the one that keeps people involved in D&D. If option A) is to forbid split sessions to maintain consistency across the platform and B) is to allow them so that more people have the opportunity to use (and buy) the product, WotC is going to favor option B). Probably. There's already so many variables (due to DM style and adjudication) that absolute consistency in the Organized Play experience is impossible before split sessions even enter the equation. The sort of people who would leave early for exploitative reasons are (I hope, as we have no census data on such a topic) a minority. Besides, Organized Play is not competitive play. To what extent can a player, who only completed half an adventure and received the full reward at one table, negatively affect another table? As long as the DM isn't creating new entirely new goodies, the split-session character is entirely bounded by the rewards of the OP campaign. He might not have done as much "work" as you and your character to earn it, but the journey (playing the game) is an unspoken reward, and he's missing out on that.
(Reply to #14) Pauper	Nevvur wrote:
#16 Avross Apr 13, 2015 13:49:52	In case anyone is curious, what we ended up doing was treating it as you would an Encounters session. Players got EXP based on the combats and the non-combat tasks they participated in. Which no one blinked at, because it was kind what everyone thought would happen. We made sure that the total XP award for people who were in both sessions was between the min (600) and max (750) allowable for the adventure. The only thing we didn't do, which was suggested here was to award people who only showed to one session the minimum allowable...since the total wasn't much higher than the minimum, it didn't seem fair. (Their awards did come in at between half the minimum and half the maximum, but we didn't do that on purpose.

Post/Author/DateTime

Post

Avross

Apr 08, 2015 18:29:14

Sorry if this has been covered ad nauseum, but we occasionally need to split Expedition modules over more than one night due to the store hours. Normally this isn't a problem, but with this last one, we had a few players miss the first session, which required us to run two tables for the second half (and one of the players from the first session needed to step up to DM the second half. (The numbers did *not* work out to start another module for the players who missed the first session)

My questions are...

If the rest of the players got 750 XP for their participation in the adventure, what should the player who missed the first session receive? Full XP? Half XP? No XP? The minimum award for the module (in this case 600 XP)?
What does the person who DMed the second half receive? He played half of the module and DMed the other half...

Tyranthraxus

Apr 09, 2015 18:12:07

According the the rules as I read them right now, you get the rewards when you complete the Scenario, not half way through.

Difficulty is determined when you start a scenario (ie the v weak/weak/avg) setup. Its not impacted if someone leaves (and as Ive never ever split an Expeditions scenario) Ive got no ... comparison I can make here bar saying that it wouldnt change if you had more people join because the scenario has already started (in fact hasnt this thread come up earlier in the year.. I could of sworn I read something like this very recently)

In Encounters you get renown and downtime etc for the end of the Chapter/Part. Not earlier on, not a session before, not a session after. Id treat Expeditions Scenarios in the same way. You get the rewards at the very end of the Scenario when its all over.

(I do have some issues with your allowing players/characters to go in and out of Expeditions scenarios but its a moot point since you are already doing it).

So my answers to your questions

A) If you calcuate that each player should get 750 exp base on the difficulty level of the scenario with the amount of characters you ORIGINALLY started with, then each character at the end gets the 750. So yeah if you started with 6 players in the first session which put you at say strong, and you lost 2 which would put you at average... then you still have to run the scenario at Strong (essentially the rules dont take into consideration that you are going to lose players half way through or that a player suddenly goes off half way through to become a second DM)

b) THis is where this whole thing falls apart. Id be very loathe to give a dm who has dm'd half the scenario anything. The rules dont allow for the dm reward to be split up.

I think from now on you probably need to stick more to what is intended. Ie only run the game if ALL the players and the dm are available for both sessions. Otherwise you are just creating nightmares.

Avross

Apr 09, 2015 20:00:50

Tyranthraxus wrote:

Tyranthraxus

Apr 09, 2015 20:11:04

Can I ask why you dont run on a Weekend when you really shouldnt have a time limit? Is it because people are generally even less available in your local area on the weekend?

Again I can only provide my example. I run Encounters on Wed nights from 7-9. I run Expeditions on Saturdays between 11:30 am and 4:00pm (with no breaks cept toletries etc). I run every 2nd Saturday. I dont think Id ever ever consider running Expeditions on a weeknight., because the store closes at 9:30 sharp.

Unless we have an admin/organiser pipe in with what needs to be done, I think you are so far in no mans land that they really arnt going to be able to suggest much to get you back on the straight and narrow bar picking a time where you have.. enough time. (I also work 8-5 workdays.. so I really cant even contemplate, rushing home to run a intense expeditons scenario on a schoolnight) As it is, I get home , get changed, grab my prepacked backpack and then back in the car to get to the game.

I agree the DM's should get something, but .. well.. Im not sure what. The more I think of ways to perhaps solve this, the more I think its just going to cause other issues.

I would honestly suggest running either Hoard or Princes as your weeknight game (because then you can stop the story/narrative far more easily) and stick to Expeditions on weekends if possible.

Ravix

Apr 09, 2015 21:22:06

Expeditions are not meant to be split into parts and thus are not going to be able to be divided up like that. Rewards are handed out at the end of the session thus screwing any players who do not complete the entire thing.

(Reply to #2)

Nevvur

I faced a similar situation about a month ago (possibly the thread Tyranthaxus recalled).

Briefly, do what you think is most fair, and honors the intent of character portability in the Organized Play setting. There are no AL police to ... police you. The absolute worst thing that can happen is if a player takes his character to another event and his session log confuses the other DM. If this hypothetical other DM does not allow that character's XP/gold/renown rewards at his table due to the constraints placed upon your table, well... that sucks, not much you can do about it. I suspect most DMs will be understanding, though.

Tyranthraxus was right though, it does cause logistical problems. Players who were present for the entire module should fill out their session log normally, using the date when the module was completed. IMO, everyone else should only receive rewards for what they accomplished, regardless of the minimum XP guidelines. How you split up treasure is up to you, but I would give priority for magical items to players who were present for the whole module.

Fortunately, character portability is not a huge issue at my table. Most of the players are not playing at other events, so I'm the only one who has to deal with the fallout from the messy logistics of multi-session Expeditions. As for the second DM, it's already a rough job, and I personally think he should get the full DM reward for his half-session. It ain't "AL legal" but it's not going to collapse Organized Play in your region. It may appear wonky in the WER -- I dunno, never actually used the program.

Pauper

Apr 10, 2015 11:55:41

There's a procedure in the Recommended Rulings on how to do partial awards for Encounters, but for Expeditions I'd follow the ALPG more closely:

- Experience points: award combat XP to all players who participated in a combat; award non-combat XP to each player who participated in the event to earn it. Note that every character who participated in an Expeditions adventure and does not forfeit his XP award (such as via using Faction Charity) receives at least the minimum XP award for that adventure.

Show

So for DDEX 1-3, a character who was present for the session with the combat in the village would get a share of that XP, but not for the fight on the ships if he was not present for that combat. Likewise, a character who was not present at the session where the party discovered the information regarding the Dragon Masks would not receive that non-combat XP award. Every character who participates gets a minimum of 450 XP.

Tyranthraxus

Apr 12, 2015 20:08:50

I really wish they would just come out and directly say that Expeditions cannot be split (bar of course the Sorc Isle exception). That way this would never be an issue.

There needs to be a lot more black and white in the Players guide.

Nevvur

Apr 12, 2015 21:48:48

I think it would be better to create a rule that all XP and treasure is rewarded immediately, instead of at the end of the adventure. Forbidding split sessions only reduces the amount of D&D being played, which is bad for both the company and the people who like the product.

#10

Tyranthraxus

Apr 12, 2015 22:28:04

why No other Organised Play campaign allows for split sessions.

#11

Nevvur

Apr 13, 2015 1:46:34

And none of those are being supported by WotC anymore.

#12

abanathie

Apr 13, 2015 3:14:15

WotC cut ties with other "Living" campaigns to cut cost. Some would argue that it was a marketing strategy to distance themselves from the 3.0 OGL. In either case, it had nothing to do with split sessions.

However, I do agree that provisions should be in place to "protect" players that have to deal with real life and leave a session early. The rules should stipulate that awarding XP up to that point is a rules standard to help limit the problem.

(Reply to #12)

Pauper

abanathie wrote:

#14

Nevvur

Apr 13, 2015 9:53:54

I think the preferred interpretation is the one that keeps people involved in D&D. If option A) is to forbid split sessions to maintain consistency across the platform and B) is to allow them so that more people have the opportunity to use (and buy) the product, WotC is going to favor option B). Probably. There's already so many variables (due to DM style and adjudication) that absolute consistency in the Organized Play experience is impossible before split sessions even enter the equation.

The sort of people who would leave early for exploitative reasons are (I hope, as we have no census data on such a topic) a minority. Besides, Organized Play is not competitive play. To what extent can a player, who only completed half an adventure and received the full reward at one table, negatively affect another table? As long as the DM isn't creating new entirely new goodies, the split-session character is entirely bounded by the rewards of the OP campaign. He might not have done as much "work" as you and your character to earn it, but the journey (playing the game) is an unspoken reward, and he's missing out on that.

(Reply to #14)

Pauper

Nevvur wrote:

#16

Avross

Apr 13, 2015 13:49:52

In case anyone is curious, what we ended up doing was treating it as you would an Encounters session. Players got EXP based on the combats and the non-combat tasks they participated in. Which no one blinked at, because it was kind what everyone thought would happen. We made sure that the total XP award for people who were in both sessions was between the min (600) and max (750) allowable for the adventure.

The only thing we *didn't* do, which was suggested here was to award people who only showed to one session the minimum allowable...since the total wasn't much higher than the minimum, it didn't seem fair. (Their awards did come in at between half the minimum and half the maximum, but we didn't do that on purpose.