some background: a post at MadAdventurersSociety by @theAngryDM (whom I am not).
Years ago (3rd era) I abandoned XP because I didn't like it. It was work, it didn't connect to the players or the game in a meaningful emotionally satisfying way, and the players weren't recording it anyway. Something about 1754/3000 was just too removed, conceptually. And Angry talks about that in the article.
I kicked around the milestone advancement idea. And the 4E quests idea. But XP didnt really gel for me until I spent some time playing Apocalypse World and Dungeon World. Among other things, XP is awarded in those games for failure (learn from experience), discovery (learning about the world, achievement (defeating a notable enemy), and adventuring/exploring (acquiring significant loot). Apocalypse World rewards relationship development between PCs, and playing according to the Stats highlighted for that session. (Meaning, your DM and another player will highlight two of your ability scores and you get XP when you take actions related to those abilities). What's more, the total XP required for advancement was low (5 to 26 points) while each reward was 1 XP.
Those rewards are doled out when they occur, and at the end of session. So about half your XP for the session comes during play and half at the end. So there is a strong relationship between what the game rewards and how the game is structured.
I am still not a huge fan of XP. So I've been looking into things to see if there's a better way. Maybe a milestone reward system that isn't a fig leaf for my laziness. What I'd thought was creating a Quest List, an itemized checklist of deeds required to advance a level. That list would include race, class, background, ideals, bonds, & flaws requirements. Also considered having substitutions.
Example. We have an elf fighter soldier. They've fulfilled their racial and background requirements but not their class requirements. But we want to encourage things like discovery and exploration, so we give those deeds a kind of wild-card reward, and instead of fulfilling the soldier requirement, our fighter cashes in an Exploration Reward instead.
This is a first pass at a concept, but I feel we can give milestones a try if we adhere to a few fundamentals.
1.) Rewards should be tied to accomplishments and to decisions.
2.) All "requirements" can be fulfilled in more than one way.
Basically I want to enable a player to feel rewarded for doing what they want to do, and also for playing and engaging the game. And I want to get away from numbers. I want the experience to be experiences, not points.
I'm not a big fan of XP either. I like the concept. I'll see if I can come up with any ideas when I have more time to think about it.
For several years now we we just level up the party when it feels appropriate. Excellent role-playing is its own reward.
bawylie wrote:
Orethalion, hadn't gotten quite that far. Still conceptual.
Lets say fighter might have "Defeat an enemy with a CR equal to or greater than your level" and/or "Defeat a number of opponents equal to your level." And that's the standard fighter requirement every level.
Elf might be something more closely tied to the setting or campaign. I don't know. Like you said - a scavenger hunt.
So we come up with like 8-10 items on the scavenger hunt. However, you can satisfy any entry on the scavenger hunt with alternate stuff instead. Like undertaking and completing a quest, uncovering secrets, learning something about the world, etc. So kind of hybrid between the two you outlined. So a 19th level fighter can just defeat 190 enemies 10 requirements times 19 enemies, or they can jump around and do other stuff to satisfy the quest list to hit 20th.
Again, still kicking this around. Pick it apart.
This is from a post of mine in
http://community.wizards.com/comment/51573986#comment-51573986
but it is still valid. It works for me at least.
What I use is the folowing system.
There are multiple ways for the PCs to deal with a given situation, I can never be sure of the PCs future actions but the worst outcome (just like in real life) would be a battle. So I use the XP from the potential combat as a baseline. If combat occurs, this is what they get. If they get through using other means, all the better for them, they avoid combat, they get what they would earn by combat and maybe some more if the solution was really that good (but it has to be really good). It goes without saying that actions like attacking peaceful villages will get no XP unless they have clearly a defined purpose (evil PC fueling a ritual with villagers instead of paying a personal cost would be one). So, by getting the same or more XP with pottentialy less danger by avoiding combat, the PCs are encouraged to seek other solutions.
I should clarify, XP budgets for encounter design in 4E were good - but I still had a problem with XP as a reward in 4E.
I actually really like the default XP system and tables of 5e.
Back in 1st edition games, I always felt like XP was a bit too low, or too high, but extremely variable due to the 1 gp = 1 xp rule. A group would advance incredibly slowly based on monster kills alone, but if they found one nice treasure horde suddenly everyone had half a level or more worth of experience just from one encounter. It was very spiky and random.
5th edition seems to be just right to me, so far.
I could probably guestimate and award XP myself instead of using the RAW, but there is the risk of accidently giving out way too much or too little based on my impression of things, which I don't want to do. I think there would also be a natural urge to award based on actual difficulty, which I think is wrong. If the party can defeat a challenge 4 encounter easily because they made good usage of spells and tactics, more power to them! I'll still award them the full listed XP, I'm not going to penalize them for good tactics. And on the same track, if a supposedly easy encounter actually downs several PCs and the others barely win, I'm not going to give the party bonus XP for failure. They will get the listed XP for the encounter, even if it seems small for the apparent difficulty they suffered. Rewarding failure just encourages everyone to be medicore, no thanks.
And TBH, I feel like the whole "XP is so much work, it's too hard!" is just a poor cop out. How hard is it to use simple addition to add up a few numbers and divide by the number of party members? It takes less than a minute and only needs to be done once per session. I just don't get the hate.
This still preserves the "number" aspect, but I think it's a good idea to encourage the types of behaviors we want to see in play: Intersectional Advancement. (Also not my blog.)
There's some distinction between work that's hard and work that's tedious. For me, XP is tedious. And I still have the emotional connection issues.
If you like it, more power to you. My complaints about it likely don't apply to you, but likewise, your enjoyment of it doesn't really apply to me.
iserith wrote:
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
@FFSAA
Im not necessarily looking to associate advancement with the game-world, per se, but your point is well-taken. What I think I want is a way for each individual to pursue the course of advancement most rewarding to them. Such that, people who DO want close in-game associations pursue those, while others of the beer and pretzels variety are free to pursue theirs as well. By making it a personal choice, I think we have a better shot at an emotionally satisfying connection with the game.
I do like the training and major milestone ideas, too. Perhaps major milestones at the tier levels. 5, 10, 15, & 20 (or wherever the DMG suggests tiers occur, I forget).
Orethalion wrote:
We talked about Marvel Heroic RPG on Twitter a while back. In that game, each character has two sets of milestones. Often, an event (what that games calls an adventure) will have milestones as well. At the start of play, each hero chooses up to two milestones either from their datafile or the event. You then earn XP for doing the things listed in those milestones. There is a limit per XP value of how much you can earn per Act (part of an event) or for the whole event (going off memory here). In this game, you spend XP for stepping up dice and adding skills and whatnot. I could see that being tweaked to work for D&D. Maybe this will help with some ideas for structure.
Milestones for the character Deadpool:
One of the Milestone for the event called "Civil War":
I like your first sentence, but I like numbers so I like to keep it in points.
This is another way in which I really like the way ACKS does things. In ACKS, you gain XP from GP when looting it, like in older editions. However, you also gain XP from spending it (on different things depending on class).
A fighter-type can gain XP from civilizing a domain and constructing strongholds, while a wizard-type gains XP from successfully performing magical research (which covers spell research, magic item construction, and so on).
Since most characters will, in general, want to get money to do things, this system lets you get XP for getting money and then get XP for doing things with it. It rewards both getting as much money as you can, however you want to get it (you can trade or farm or invest or loot, you still get XP) and then being efficient in spending it (as opposed to blowing money on whatever you feel like).
It does have a lot of numbers and some complexity problems, so as-written it's not for everyone, but I think the concept is sound for what you're talking about here. It sounds like you've got a good start on brainstorming the sort of things you could get rewarded for spending it on.
edit:
Another thing I like to do is take something from WoW and use exploration XP. Whenever I'm running a game that's even vaguely exploration or travel-focused, I award XP for discovering new locations. (Even if you only "discover" it like Columbus, as long as you didn't take good directions on a well-traveled road, it counts.) I also like to use travel as a milestone by gating things by location; for example, it might not be possible to learn any 3rd-level spells while you remain in the Middle of Nowhere, you might have to go to A Small City to have the resources necessary.
My group couldn't be more different.
I have all my encounters in excel (Auto calced based on the formula in the DMG) and simply copy and paste the encounters into the party sheet (hosted in Office Online) after each session. It then dishes out the XP for them to see.
We use excel online to track many things from XP to party loot to spell components. It couldn't be easier.
Its also a completely transparent process between player and DM.
We hate milestone leveling with a passion. If you are smart are find ways to kill the BBEG before his time, you get the XP reward for it.
We are all engineers/maths guys/developers whatever so we love spreadsheets and numbers. XP per encounter is a manifestation of a reward system in a language we are all comfortable with and understand.
I've been toying with just going back to gold. I can reward exploration by just hiding the gold in ways that encourage exploration. I don't like thinking about xp during the game session. xp for me is metagame so any talk of it I want to occur after the session is over. I think gold works. When 3e change the default to monster killing I was on board, but with hindsight I think it was a mistake. Xp really can't be made realistic. It's an out of game concern.
I do like the idea though of xp penalties.
1. Acting against your alignment could become an xp penalty instead.
2. Death and resurrection cost xp.
3. Some monsters hitting you cost xp. Instead of level drain just make it static xp.
4. Cures to some really diabolic curses or diseases require xp.
The DM can track all this stuff and handle it at the end of the game.
Not looking to make it realistic. I'm looking for a greater emotional connection between action, reward, and advancement.
Gold can work if there's enough stuff to spend gold on. that's definitely food for thought.
bawylie wrote:
iserith wrote:
No, I don't mean desire (exclusively).
Say I wanted to create a system of incentives broad enough to satisfy a spectrum of tastes, that tied closely to play (by which I mean taking actions and engaging, not merely being a present wallflower), and encouraged a player to express their character the way they wished to. It is a MetaGame concern, and I'm taking a MetaGame approach. But I'm looking to tie it a little more closely.
Your character's experience becomes a list of deeds instead of a point total. "I slew a horde of orcs, discovered the lost temple of Qarn, restored my homeland!" And these experiences are also histories and doing more of them results in advancement. Of course you already have histories, naturally. And play does result in acquiring XP as it stands now. I think I'm just trying to eliminate these ephemeral abstract "points" and start thinking of "I want to accomplish these deeds" instead of "I need N more XP to next level."
I believe achievement and working toward a goal is probably more satisfying than sort of passively racking up XP at end of session. A reward, if it is a reward, ought to be given as close to the thing it's rewarding as possible for maximum emotional impact. You check another deed on your Quest List when you accomplish it, instead of watching an already inflated number continue to bloat.
Instead of trying to fix something that isn't broken....
You should do what your players enjoy first, and then if they don't care you do what makes life easier for you.
Ultimately though experience is gained by experiencing things whether you accomplish a goal or not. In fact, failing often leads to more experience.
FFSAA wrote:
DaveDash wrote:
If video games have taught us nothing, it is that Experience poitns are the second most important thing to your health bar. I mean hit points.
Batman: Arkham does that. Defeat enemies, little clouds of bats fly out of them and "land" in your XP bar. Also replenish Batman's life & armor bar.
As a player, I find that when I play in a tabletop game that uses XP, I end up focusing too much on the "Are we there yet?" aspect of leveling up; whereas when I play in a game that doesn't use XP, I find I am better able to focus on my character's development and on the story my fellow players and I are helping to create.
As a DM, I can go either way. Back when I was running the Dawn of Defiance adventure path for the Star Wars Saga Edition game, since there were ten adventures, my plan was to level up the PCs twice per adventure (once partway through, and again just before the climax). We never finished that campaign, but it seemed to work well enough. I am currently running two 5e games: for the first, I am running LMoP, and I am using XP as I am teaching the game to my wife and some mutual friends of ours, so I decided to change things as little as possible from the RAW; for the second, I am running LotCS, and while I initially opted to use XP, one player complained that he didn't get any XP for "roleplaying his butt off", so I put it to a vote, and my group overwhelmingly voted to stop tracking XP and have me level up the PCs at dramatically appropriate times instead.
bawylie wrote:
And I forgot something. XP isn't the only incentive to kill monsters, you also have loot. If you want avoiding monsters to be as interesting as killing them, you'll need to give your players something equivalent to the loot they lost or they'll still feel compelled to kill everything.
bawlyie, i think i get what you're up to here, but i can't help thinking that what you're talking about doing is a lot of work. i mean, that strikes me as a considerable amount of extra work that needs to be done continuously: tracking PC progress on their path, developing new waypoints along the paths in question...while i admire the impetus behind this, it really makes me wonder how much time this might chew up above & beyond whatever you already spend in session prep.
honestly, i'd say eyeball it. it has as much or as little granularity as you want, and is infintely extensible.
I hear Ya. But that's why I'm kicking it around here first.
Also considering a kind of menu from which players track their own progress/advancement.
And last, I don't mind work if I love what I'm doing. But I feel this is all still at a conceptual level.
I am probably too lazy given the payoff for me Bawylie to do the depth you want. But in the interest of the discussion here are some ideas.
You could determine the "victory" conditions for every adventure (or adventure path) and give xp for achieving those goals. So for a pure raid the tomb treasure heist maybe it just becomes gold whereas in a different sort of adventure it would be something else. You might find players though advocating for particular types of adventures if you took this approach which might be a win if you like that. Maybe this is where you were going and I just missed it.
I suppose you could also give each character a "life" goal that when achieved grants them a level on the spot. Maybe upon achieving the goal they get another or perhaps not. Life goals might be restoring the true King to the throne or finding out who murdered your parents and exacting revenge. If every character had a life goal it might create interesting group dynamics.
I vaguely remember one of the Sims games having life goals. That was a nifty concept. Maybe have each player give you 10 or so. They could relate to class, race, background, bonds, flaws (or finally overcoming one), etc. That way it's a more broad system and it could actually update with new goals when old ones are met and new storylines add to them.
Edit:
When on my phone I tend to be more brief. The life goal system entails all of the things above and you could then further divide it into things like short term life goals, long term life goals, and life long goals.
You set points for each duration, something like 1 point for a short term goal, 5 points for a long term goal, and 25 points for a life long goal. Then set about trying to figure out how many points you need to level up at each level(or maybe even have it work with tiers). If you go with tiers, you need 3 points to level up in tier one, 7 points to level up in tier 2, 15 points to level up in tier 3, and 25 points to level up in tier 4. Being that as you get further in you will be finishing up higher level goals, the points needed to level up should jump pretty high.
I think something like this keeps it story based and pretty simple at the same time.
Emerikol wrote:
I gave up on xp decades ago and never looked back. Playing the game is its own reward and I have zero interest in promoting any particular "behaviour" that my players finds less enjoyable than their default behaviour. Tracking XP imo brings only drawbacks and no benefits whatsoever.
FWIW, when I polled my players on whether or not we should use XP, this is what they said:
- "i dislike XP as it just feels like a punishment more than anything..."
- "XP is too stressful. There are other ways of rewarding PCs if they do something impressive."
- "Xp is an interesting question, lots of hassle for the players and dm. Players feel they have to be everywhere so they get their share, they can't relax and enjoy a sub group doing something cause they are missing out. If you reward rp directly players are more likely to compete for the limelight, complain or be unhappy if the disagree with its distribution. For the dm more paperwork, generally I found characters take too long to advance if you stick to the rules and combat only xp. On the other side is what is the penalty for players creating a new character every week, or not participating in combat or rp."
I do quite like the idea of basing leveling up on achievements, though. Yes, it could potentially involve more work than tracking XP, but it seems more tangible and like it would tie character development to mechanical advancement better than XP does.
Xp can be pointless in d20 D&D games. I still lke different xp rates for different classes and it is more important there.
The default exp system works fine in my opinion. But I also hand out quest completion xp, and roleplaying xp. The latter is the most important. Whenever a player does something really good/fun/entertaining I reward the whole party with bonus experience. I make sure that all of my players always have the same amount of exp at all times, so that a reward to the individual, is a reward to the group.
I also make sure there are other progression methods in place in my sea fairing campaign. The party has a ship that can be upgraded, and they have factions that they have to recruit. There's also various naval strategies that they'll be able to learn, and bonusses for their party leader that affect their whole fleet. I also have some basebuilding, where the players can dump all of their gold, while they construct a fortress with defenses and devious traps.
It might be better then to do three independent things:
1) First, develop a non-reward-based ways to communicate what makes this game, campaign, session, moment so fun.
2) Develop an advancement system that is CLEARLY not a reward loop, regardless of whether it uses xp or not. Do this by balancing every character advancement with an opposing antagonistic advancement. Not merely more challenging opportunities -- those are just rewards in villain's clothing -- but actual and obvious oppositional advancement that will make the players go "Oh, no!" This way you are advancing the story, and the story itself is the reward for participating in the story's creation. Inherent motivation!
3) If needed, develop a reward system only for those parts of the game that that meet all three requirements of being a) necessary, b) non-creative, and c) work. The reward should fit the punishment: don't tie it to character advancement or story, either one, for the work had nothing to do with those things. Rather, reward through things like opportunities for creative expression or relaxation.
It was never that big a deal for my groups. I just totalled the xp at the end and divided it by the number of players present. If someone was a no show they get no xp. If they no show enough to fall too far behind then that's a good sign they should just drop out anyway.
My crew has always been pretty devoted to killing the enemy. So having xp reward any other behavior is probably a broadening aspect to the game.
I do prefer a slower advancing game. I don't mind the first nine levels going fast but after that three a year is fine. The higher levels should involve a lot more than just dungeon looting. I like to bring in all of the intrigue. The PCs are now powerful members of the local establishment so it's fun to play around with that responsibility. I think a lot of my players have set game goals for themselves without me having to do it. In fact some of the examples I gave were taken from character goals.
Hey y'all, if XP is working for you they hats great. If you're ignoring it, also great.
im trying to find some kind of via media.
XP was a big deal in the "days of yore", when PC's levelled at different rates, and the distribution of XP depended on the action of the individual PC's. It was an incentive, not because it meant getting more power, but because it was a competition between you and the other players (your friends at the table.) Being the one to get to the next level and get access to the class ability that let you shine in the spotlight of the next adventure.
Then newer editions arrived and the idea of levelling at different rates changed. No longer was it reasonable to have PC's with greatly varying levels play in the same game, this was discouraged because the mechanics made it a bad idea. So in general, either everyone was receiving the same XP, for the same group decisions, at the same time, so everyone was pretty much levelling at the same time anyway or close enough. If you didn't technically achieve the next level this session with everyone else, you were certain to tip the scale next session, and no one like being that one guy left behind.
Add that to the need to plan the encounters around actual PC levels, and levelling just anytime the PC's received the correct amount a points became a math problem the DM had to solve. If you let the PC's go off the rails and interact with game elements you hadn't anticipated before the BBG, then they are going to be the wrong level, oh my!
So that's where you get the whole XP system getting thrown out the window. The need for PC's to be close in level, and the need to balance encounters around PC levels just leads you down that garden path.
Besides, if the reward of a job well done is not good enough for your players, you are Doing It Wrong (tm).
"Reward enough" is a tricky metric. And yeah, I can run good enough games that are rewarding enough. But I'm shooting for explosms.
I think the best thing we can do here is propose reasons to get xp from an individual character perspective.
So here are some ideas...
1. Vanquish an enemy of your "tribe" (family, nation, friends, etc...)
2. Restore the order. Make right some social wrong. It might parlay well into #1.
3. Achieve some iconic goal such as finding the incredients and crafting a rare high powered magic item, carving a domain out of the wilderness, gain control of the underworld in a city, ascend the ranks of the priesthood. Those are stereotypes but with though more could be designed.
4. Solve a mystery. Why did the ancient eladrin disappear? What are the floating cities and how do I get to them? Why did "atlantis" sink beneath the sea? Is the God XYZ really dead or can they be brought back?
5. Accentuate some characteristic and roleplay it to the nth degree. Maybe being a womanizer gets you in trouble with the local lords who prefer their wives be chaste. Maybe the rogue feels the current power structure is evil or corrupt and she wants to rob from the rich and give to the poor.
6. Secondary Missions. Maybe in addition to being an adventurer you work for somebody as a spy or informant. Maybe you kill people for money on the side. Maybe you have a lust for knowledge and you are part of a knowledge gathering secret society that is always on the lookout for lost treasures.
If you establish stuff like this in advance then you can give xp for successfully accomplishing these goals. I would though if it were me probably have the "regular" way of getting xp and then have this stuff be bonuses. Some players aren't very motivated. I have on occasion tried to motivate them and it's worked sometimes and sometimes not.
If the bonuses only add up to one level per five then someone can still go along even if they don't participate. I don't see a problem with a 16th level character and a 20th level character adventuring together.
Many of the quests in my campaign often have optional goals, that provide additional experience rewards. If the players raid an ancient tomb, do they also return an ancient relic from it, to its rightful owner? Do the players not just defeat the boss, but also break the curse that he laid upon his lair? Do the players not only take down the spider queen, but also destroy her eggs? Do the players perhaps retrieve valuable information from a dungeon, that was difficult to find, and not required of them?
When my players discovered the lair of an ancient pirate captain, they not only broke the curse that caused his skeletal crew to rise from the dead, but they also retrieved a long lost treasure map from inside the canvas of a painting. All of those things are reasons to hand out bonus exp.
Before 3e, I used gold to achieve the same thing in most instances. If I wanted to reward exploration then I hid gold behind secret doors. If I wanted to reward quest completion then I had the quest giver offer a gold reward. The only things that don't really fit are the personal goals above such as revenge. Hard to map gold to that.
I realize now that going to monsters for xp in 3e was a bad move but I didn't at the time. Just hindsight is 20/20.
bawylie wrote:
bonethug0108 wrote:
I like the concept you have but I'd hate to see it turn into the players doing random things to earn their level or being in a position where they can't level because they don't have access to one of their requirments.
I don't mind competing priorities - that's for the players to work out.
But I do mind bottlenecks. Which is why I might lean toward Orethalion's suggestion about multiple avenues.
What if (somehow) you gave xp not for how a challenge was concluded, but rather for who triggered and fueled the challenge? That is, reward those players who get things moving.
That's what I mean when I say I want to reward decisions. @theAngyDM points out that accomplishments are good to reward, but also its good to reward other decisions, including those that don't necesarily drive the game forward. Such as uncovering secrets, exploring new places, etc.
So I want to do that, too. I want to reward quests, but also curiosity. And taking initiative.
Why not simply do as I do, and always give the entire group a shared reward (exp or otherwise) for the accomplishment of one of the players, or for beating an encounter? If all players have the same exp at all times, they will compete for rewards less, and just work together, and focus on having fun roleplaying. If someone does something cool, and gets rewarded for it, everyone gets rewarded, and thus everyone is happy.
I don't necessarily want them to compete for rewards less. I want them to pursue those elements of the game most interesting to them. And I want to ditch the points themselves.
Still im in conceptual territory and I might just be barking up the wrong tree. I don't know.
Well the thing is, if exp is shared among the party, regardless of who earned the reward, it starts to matter less to the party as well. They'll be more concerned with roleplaying, and having fun, rather than the leveling of their character. And to me that would seem like the right way to go. In any group you'll always have players who are good at the game, and those who are not. And you'll have good roleplayers and bad ones. If the rewards tend to go to the best player, or the best roleplayer, then the other players feel like they are always missing the boat. It should not feel like a competition. It should feel like an adventure.
I see your point. But what if we can reward each player for playing out what they most enjoy?
So we have a kick in the door guy who can advance his character by defeating foes and overcoming challenges.
And we have an explorer who delves for histories, loot, and lore.
And they each have their own "track" so that their pursuits result in advancement without regard to anyone else's play. So the best RolePlayer isn't getting all the rewards - they're just getting RP rewards. Meanwhile, the hoarder is advancing by accumulation of wealth, even while the player sits quietly while the RPer jabs on.
bawylie wrote:
bonethug0108 wrote:
I base XP on the story arc. Not story arc as in episodic storytelling; more like Gorillas or Angry Bird where they set the angle and velocity. In any situation I ask players what their intentions are and once they stated their intensions whether they succeed or fail they get xp. Basically you get experience for throwing the banana or launching the bird. The destroying wrought from the decision is for entertainment purposes only. So whether the party says they want to slaughter every orc to a man or negotiate a peace accord between the human and orc. Even if both those sentiments come from the same party. The decision and seeing that decision through to its conclusion earns the experience.
Noon's got a good point.
Im still troubled by two things. Inflated numbers and a system that's not conducive to expression or personal goals.
I hear what Ankiyavon is saying, but having things give XP doesn't help my dislike of XP.
Need further development.
If you want to include some form of training in the levelng process, there are better ways to go about it. Keep exp and gold seperate, and use training to unlock new abilities for the players. Maybe the players first have to do a quest for a master swordsman, in order to earn the right to train under him. This would then give a good roleplaying reason how the players suddenly earned a new skill/feat/power.
I'm still trying to rid myself of XP, so while I appreciate everyone's suggestions "use XP this way" tends to be less helpful.
What do you mean by inflated numbers?
bawylie wrote:
It seems to me that unless you go with a straight milestone system, it's gonna have to involve keeping track of numbers in one way or another whether it's called xp or something else. In PFS they give out 1xp for every adventure your character participates in (I don't think you actually have to be successful) and you gain a level every 3xp. It keeps the numbers really low and downplays the importance of doing any single thing to level up (like, it doesn't directly reward getting loot, killing, negotiating, roleplaying or anything, just participation). Although, they do have other rewards and prestige points or something that you can also get if you achieve certain goals related to to the adventure, your faction and the ongoing storyline. Anyway, you could do something similar and go with a certain number of xp for every level like PFS, or you could maybe divide the level progression values by 100 or something.
Have you thought about tying xp to inspiriation and BIFTs in some way? Combine that with a simple, low numbers xp progression?
bawylie wrote:
Gnarl wrote:
Emerikol wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Yeah even with what I'm saying SOMETHING is being tracked. The only way to get rid of that aspect is to randomly level up. Even my current system of leveling every 2-3 sessions is tracking something, even if it's on a very basic level.
That's what I was focusing my efforts on suggestions that were geared more towards using goal completion as a reward, as that seemed to help with the disconnect you were having with XP.
I went over a lot of this in post 1.
Theres nothing wrong with XP, per se. I have some issues with it. Among those issues is inflated numbers, weak emotional connection, tedious implementation (for me), and I just don't like them.
I've used XP, I've use "level when I say so," and I'm looking for something else.
bonethug0108 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Reius wrote:
Reius wrote:
Mine wouldn't abuse it, but it isn't quite what I'm looking for.
bawylie wrote:
I agree that my critiques (except inflation) are not inherent in the concept of XP, but tend to be common in the implementation.
Theres certainly better ways to handle XP, if you want to have a stronger emotional connection.
But I still want to see if there's an accomplishment/decision kind of way to go about it. I feel gold is closer, but it simply trades some strengths for others. It may be part of the solution though.
For emotional connection players should earn titles for heroic deeds. "Slayer of the Cumberbach", "Savior of the seven seas", and then have these read aloud whenever they enter a reputable establishment.
bawylie wrote:
In The Burning Wheel players write down three Beliefs which represent their character's core convictions and motivations. The GM's job is to test these beliefs by putting PCs into situations where following their beliefs will be difficult or costly. If the players do choose to follow their beliefs instead of taking the easy way out they get rewarded. It seems this could be the foundation of a system that works for you. The big thing about it is that it's both simple and focused on what drives a character rather than discrete actions.
bawylie wrote:
Alright, y'all know how video games on Xbox & PS4 grant you these little trophies from time to time? When you're playing a game, you typically get one for completing whatever level or chapter you're on, but there are others. And some are known conditions and some are hidden.
Im thinking rough draft 2 is something along these lines.
Draft 2
1.) Each level needs 3 (or 2 or 1, or whatever) + your current level (number) of "trophies" to advance. So if you're level 1, you need 4 trophies to advance to level 2.
2.) "Trophies" are awarded each time you complete a quest (none for failure), and sometimes for other stuff.
3.) Other stuff can include amassing a certain amount of wealth, dropping a foe in a single hit, surviving a lethal attack, bypassing a number of traps, healing a number of HP, etc. Some mix of what you tend to do, what you want to do, what you might stumble into, and what you might choose to do via exploration & curiosity.
4.) training during downtime, as in draft one
Trophies is a placeholder name.
Another thing you could consider, is that levels are merely tied to chapters of the story. So as soon as the story is advanced beyond a certain point, the players gain a level. The advantage of such a system, is that you don't really have to upscale the enemies arbatrarily. You can keep the players within a certain area with the same level monsters for a longer time, which means less work for you as a DM.
I'd consider failure gaining a trophy just as much. Perhaps a different trophy name, though. If you're not so inclined towards win/lose play, well, stories with failure in it and people getting stuck in carbonite are good stories. When you're more inclined towards unfolding story than win/lose and failure is a good part of unfolding story, then you might want to reward it just as much as success - since it's not about success/failure (not primarily, anyway).
Dems my brain thinks.
You could just have milestones along the way and let players decide how many of their goals they felt they furthered since the last milestones. The player will get xp based on what they believe they achieved. The more personal goals that took a step forward the more xp the party receives. Remove yourself from the process of assigning xp beyond setting when a milestones is reach (which is possibly deals with your problems with XP.)
Pompadour64 wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Nah, I'm okay with some variance.
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
I try to assume good faith action among players. Yeah, some things are abusable, but most people I feel are pretty good/fair.
ankiyavon wrote:
A friend of mine uses the MVT concept as well. The players in his group simply vote for who they felt was the most awesome (roleplaying wise). They can even vote for themselves, although that is usually not what happens.
When MVPing I prefer to prohibit people from voting for themselves.
Not because I think people would abuse it or always vote for themselves or anything, but because I think it's useful to make absolutely certain that no matter how awesome one person was, there are always at least two people being told how awesome they were.
So Bawylie, I am going with your "help me refine the draft" concept. So when I criticize I'm just aiding in the refinement process.
Some questions....
1. What percentage of a sessions xp comes from doing your normal job. Killing & Looting.
2. How much variance off of this standard can you tolerate per session?
3. Are there other rewards besides xp that add another dimension to the entire reward process? (wealth, magic items, renown, position, favors).
4. Do penalties ever make sense instead of rewards? (e.g. failure to play alignment or changing of alignment results in penalty)
For me I probably would want 80 or 90% of xp to be the normal job. Probably gold based. Then I'd add a whole bunch of individually driven rewards that could vary it up somewhat. My fear with individual rewards dominating is that the separation between players could quickly grow out of proportion. The reason I think this is that I know that some players just aren't as aggressive as others.
Ideas for individual rewards.
1. Playing your character as you the player original defined it.
2. Playing up your flaws.
3. Pursuing a long term story goal.
4. Achieving a short term story goal.
Answers to questions.
1.) As much as the players are interested in doing.
2.) As much as the players desire to vary.
3.) Yes, absolutely. All those things. I want my advancement system as supplemental-to-coequal to these.
4.) No. I don't believe in penalties for alignment violations or playing out of character; I believe in character growth and change. A strictly lawful good who decides to kill An awful future tyrant during time travel before the tyrant takes over is violating his moral code, but he doesn't get penalized. He simply adopts a new moral code. I would rather have character development than static characters who never change. Many notes > a single note.
Ideas for individual awards look good. Might need some formalized way of saying "Ok, this is my goal." And "Misson accomplished/failed."
It occurs to me that Aces & Eights has a goal-based XP system; characters gain XP based on goals they select.
At some point, probably tomorrow, I can pull out the book and provide a summary (I don't remember it well enough off the top of my head to be able to give any really useful information).
Side note: I agree I would never punish someone for playing against their "code", but I will change that character's alignment to how he actually plays. That's the main reason I loathed alignment being tied to mechanics. Some spells were fine(detect good/evil, protection from good/evil, etc.) as those were not restrictions caused by alignment, they simply played off of it.
ankiyavon wrote:
I put sidenote for a reason and that was in response to bawylie and not really based on what you said. As soon as I finished that note I went back to the topic at hand.
I agree, though, that penalties can come in many forms for many reasons. I don't really do mechanical penalties though(outside of things like disadvantage and other things "baked" in the rules), so I guess they're more like setbacks in that sense.
argh, will have to post from home!
Can't Wait.
So this is how the Aces and Eights XP system works.
There are a large number (I'll say 100 without counting) of Profession Paths. At the start of a session, a player declares what Profession Path they are following for that session.
Each Profession Path has four or more objectives. These objectives do not need to be performed strictly in order, but only one objective at a time may be skipped (you can go back for it though). The objectives get more difficult, and more rewarding, as you go down the path. Completing an objective gets you XP.
The thing I want to note as being something I like is that all goals are not equally valuable, which I think is a good thing to steal. Getting drunk at the inn might be worth 1 BP (Aces and Eights uses BP instead of XP, a starting character has 75 BPs, so 1 BP is a very small reward); owning your own inn might be worth 5 BP; and owning every inn in town might be 10. The difficulty of the objective determines the reward. (Translating it into actual progression would depend entirely on what you want your progression-counter to look like, but the idea is clear, I think.)
I also like the progression it has along the paths; you essentially have your one final goal (own every inn in town), but every significant step you take towards it (get drunk at the inn, work at the inn, buy an inn, etc) gets you an increasing amount of reward until you finish the goal itself and get the big bonus.
The limits on doing things in order (even if it's a minor limit) could probably stand to be lost, I don't think it adds much. I would rather see you just mark off those objectives without getting XP for them if they are clearly no longer relevant (once you own every inn in town, you can't go back and work as a bartender for a night to get the free XP, that's not a real goal anymore).
I like the existence of predefined paths for common tasks that are about your interaction with the world and not about your personal goals. I would definitely support writing new paths for specific personal goals, however ("Hunt down and kill the man who killed my parents" is a fine quest, and one that deserves its own path written for it.) If a character wants to be the best blacksmith in the world, you can just point him to the blacksmith path, and he can follow as much or as little of it as he wants.
I think I might also want to do something with the session-limit on path XP if I were doing it this way. The limit is intended to keep you from doing a lot of simple things from different paths to stack up XP, which is a fine goal, but you shouldn't be prevented from gaining XP along your personal quest if a hint to it falls into your lap and you leave your blacksmithing business for another time. I think for the purposes of an actual game, it's a fine rule to have, but for the purposes of a houserule, a blanket admonition to not be a jerk is more than sufficient.
Extrapolating, I'd need progression paths for each race, class, background, and maybe even each ideal, bond, flaw, trait, & subclass.
Maybe better to see what Aces & 8s has. Where can I find it?
bawylie wrote:
OK,bawlyie, i've got a proper keyboard now. i also have thought some more about this and my thinking has evolved somewhat.
it's hard to speak of each character's path without presuming that there's a story involved, and stories have plots. rather than try to anticipate out all the possible branch points--a prohibitive task i would think, and one doomed to failure given how often PCs surprise GMs--i propose something diferent. it will help give your players a little more ownership & autonomy over how their characters can grow.
a) characters select a theme for the level for their PC
b) the player identifies a pivotal moment that marks the evolution or growth of the PC consistent with the theme
c) upon successfully completing x pivotal moments and by mutual consent between player and GM, the PC levels up
d) on a temporary/restricted basis, the PC can briefly gain access to one or more of the possible benefits to be gained next level
i propose setting x as the square root of the next character level, rounded down, this means that over 20 levels of play the number stays within 1-4. this keeps it easy to manage at early levels without being onerous, while at upper levels it scales somewhat--but not directly, which would definitely become onerous.
a few definitions:
pivotal moment:
this is ultimately dependent upon player choice, but all that needs to happen is the player states this is such a moment. no action or in-game, rules-related cost is necessary. as an optional rule, spending an AP puts the moment on the list for consideration for the future. but such moments must involve a choice being made by the player. it may be a character interaction, an attack or other action taken during combat, or anything else the GM decides to permit.
but the character must make a choice of some kind, the kind that helps define/re-define who or what the PC is.
now, these decisions need to be linked in some fashion or this idea lends itself to random minmaxing without any unifying vision, and that’s lame. so pivotal moments need to relate to one another and support the broader theme for the level.
in instances where multiple possible benefits are potentially available next level (e.g., new spell slot vs another class benefit), allow the player to choose which.
this allows the player to experiment with the bennie, test-drive it for a while and if it isn’t a good fit, so be it. maybe they can invoke the benefit once/day for a turn if it’s combat-related, or for the extent of a scene of it’s an interaction thing. allow this up to x times (as discussed above)--this part probably requires revision/testing.
i think this approach has several merits:
1) it helps you get where you want to be without requiring extra work
2) keeps player focus where it should be: on their characters and who they are, beyond merely a collection of abilities and numbers.
3) fairly extensible, yet capable of granularity.
thoughts?
In place of a formula, I'd be inclined to use the proficiency bonus number for that level. 2 at level 1. 5 at level 19, etc. Digesting the rest.
Now as I think about it. It seems to have the reverse problem of gold. It's strongly good with expression, exploration, & role play. But it does nothing for submission, collection, etc. it still gives things to strive for, and that's great! But I want a wider net, so I can catch the casual player as well as the extremely dedicated.
Now im thinking of somehow combining both this idea and gold.
i went back and i'm not sure to which other post you're referring re: using gold for advancement. ?
Post 75, my "first pass" at this.
"
Gold & wealth aren't bad ideas. So long as the opportunity to spend exists.
Then you just set prices for training, I guess, and players pay the fee & the downtime.
Alright. 1st draft of this replacement advancement idea:
1.) There is no XP.
2.) The cost of training to advance 1 level is equal to the XP value in GP.
3.) The time to train is a number of weeks equal to your level.
4.) Some kind of trainer must exist: I'm thinking bard colleges, thieves' guilds, and churches cover it.
I'm setting the fees at this level to combat inflation, but that can be adjusted up or down as you like. There's a strong tie between adventuring and advancing (but not necessarily for uncovering secrets, etc)."
I didn't read this entire thread, but a lot of it. Short version: I compltely agree with Bawlie (big surprise).
1) I am 100% in favor of single XP rewards for discrete objectives, with single or double-digit XP requirements for levels. E.g. Dungeon World, The One Ring, etc.
2) I really dislike the incentive to kill everything for the XP. Most adversaries are no different than traps, bad weather, argumentative shopkeepers, etc.: just steps along the way to the real story. You shouldn't have to slay everything to get XP. We joked about this last AL session after some successful Persuade rolls: "Thanks for the information about your employers. We'd love to let you go like we promised, but we need the XP...." (We didn't actually kill him.)
3) I like the idea of scavenger hunts, with party members sharing some objectives but also having some of their own. And some are long term, some are short term.
4) I also like the idea that some of those objectives are assigned (chosen by the DM, determined randomly, intrinsnic to class/background, etc.) and some are selected by the player.
Some ideas:
- Each class and background has something that looks like a (big) talent tree, each box containing an objective that, when checked off, gives you 1 XP. (This would make backgrounds much more relevant to gameplay on a continual basis.) Each sub-class could also have a smaller version of the talent tree, flavoring the scavenger hunt appropriately.
- A deck of cards containing all kinds of objectives. DM shuffles, players draw X cards. When you complete a card you get the XP and return the card to the deck and draw a new one. Each session the DM reshuffles the deck, so you may get the same card multiple times.
- Adventures could be written such that at the end of each chapter there's a list of objectives/accomplishments, each one granting 1 XP (usually to all party members, but in some cases only applicable members). E.g., "Princess saved" "Demon banished" "Ritual interrupted" "No party deaths" "Prisoner healed" "Book returned to owner" "Trap disarmed safely" "Puzzle room solved" etc.
Also, I encourage everybody interested in this topic to read how Bonds work in Dungeon World.
End of Adventure rewards & "hidden" rewards looks good. They reward notable accomplishments (like your basic trophies for completing a level) and exploration, investigation, etc (returning a book to owner, finding out secrets).
The talent-tree idea has a lot of merit, but it would be absolutely sprawling. It's still compelling, but would have to hit as many of the 8 Kinds of Fun as possible to appeal as broadly as possible.
Then we get to the deck of cards. 52 things you need to do (54 with jokers) to get XP. It's scavenger hunty, which is fun. But not for everyone. Consider drawing 5, and these 5 quests or w/e are your opportunities to earn XP. You can only get 5 XP max, but you can repeat cards. So let's say you get "Defeat a monster with a CR = your level," "Accumulate 200 GP," "Revive a Fallen Ally," "Complete a Fight without attacking," and "Learn a New Spell." That's kind of eclectic to have to do all 5. So instead, maybe you defeat 3 enemies, revive a fallen ally, and earn 200GP. You still get 5 XP. Drawing a joker might be a free XP.
I think this is getting closer. It's random and gambley, but allows freedom in how your pursue it. It can allow for expression and submission (but doesn't guarantee either - which is a mixed bag here), it's tactile (because you draw cards and hold em, fan em out), it creates a challenge, and also allows (but doesn't guarantee) exploration and discovery. Finally, it isn't strictly tailored to each background, class, race, etc (meaning it's a generalized but only needs 52 items vs however many in the talent tree). That said, there's no reason a card couldn't say "pick off the class quest list" or "background quest" or "racial quest."
Someone chime in; I think I need to focus this idea better.
Further development of the Card Idea:
1) Players could trade them
2) Some (all?) could have options. E.g., "Do one of these three things..."
3) Some cards could result in XP for the whole group
4) Cards could/would be in addition to normal XP earned for completing adventure objectives
Draft 3 then:
1.) XP needed to level up = N + current level. N may be proficiency bonus for quick pace, double proficiency bonus for medium pace, or whatever number you damn well please.
2.) At the end of a play session (or adventure, up to you), players earn 1 XP for each of the following: A) Completion of a Quest, B) Overcoming a Substantial or Formidable Obstacle (no bag o' rats), & C) Learning Something Unique & Important About the World/Setting/Adventure. (Tailor these to your preferred way to play, whether that's typical adventuring, investigation, political intrigue or whatever. This isn't exhaustive, but open to your game's needs, intentionally.
3.) Card system. 54 cards each delineate some action, activity, or prerequisite for earning 1 XP. Each player draws 5 (or prof bonus?) cards at the start of every session (or adventure, whatever pacing demands, up to DM, etc). These 5 cards represent the character's opportunity to earn XP; only these things (and the things listed in 2) earn XP for that character. Up to 5 XP can be earned (pacing, blah blah). A player may complete each card once, or any number of cards in any combination so long as they don't exceed 5. Once complete, no more (or draw again? Up to DM).
ok. Thoughts on 3rd draft? Looking for opinions from lurkers, people who are strongly Actor Stance, & people who are very casual. Also anyone else 
I'm probably against assigning random reward objectives. I like the idea of cards though that players could look over and choose. I could see having the DM draw the card and introduce a plot element that could lead to a player reward. If the rewards were really session based then I'd wonder what they could be.
So some of my ways of earning xp might be as follows...
Each of the characters have life goals. Long, medium, and short term.
1. Achieve a short term goal. Often times this might be exhibiting one of your flaws or living up to one of your class or alignment expectations.
2. Achieve or Advance towards a medium term goal. Adventure completion, enemy defeated, treasure found, Plot foiled, Mystery solved, etc...
3. Achieve a Advance towards a long term goal. Build a castle in the wilderness, take over a thieves guild, create a powerful magic item, discover your long lost enemy and kill him, and so forth.
4. Spend gold in a way that fits your background and character concept. This might relate in many ways to the others.
5. Establish an ally. Aid an ally. Gain favor or renown.
For example if the Paladin stands in the doorway and tells the rest of the group to run and he will slow the enemy down that seems very heroic and paladinic.
I hate to be heavy handed on any of this though so I probably would not make it a primary way of earning experience. I'd allow for some standard approach to provide 75+% and this would all be bonuses. Nice to have but not required.
I think with the deck & combining it with end of session/adventure, you can get the short, medium, & long term goals by adjusting the time frame. You could also use it as primary means of gaining XP or as an added bonus. If so, players that were really motivated would be able to achieve that extra level while more casual players don't fall too far behind.
Personally, I hate the cards, because they are random. I would not ever want to play with randomly selected objectives for my advancement. (Well, in a beer and pretzels game like Kobolds Ate My Baby it could be fine, but not for any campaign that's going to last more than 1-2 sessions.)
Even if there are multiple choices on the card, the fact that I might end up with no choices I feel fit my character (whether or not that ever actually happens) would greatly bother me.
Cards in and of themselves are fine. I played in a game once where anytime we set ourselves an objective or accepted a quest or any such thing, the DM would write down the objective and the reward on an index card and give it to us, so anytime we wanted to know what to do next we just checked our pile of cards, and that was pretty cool. I just hate the randomness.
(edit: And I know hate is a strong word and of course you can do whatever you want, I'm not a player in your campaign! I'm just saying, if I were considering joining a campaign and found out it used this system for XP, that would be a dealbreaker and I would not join that campaign. If my group of friends were planning to use this, I would argue against it until they got sick of listening to me and agreed to do something else.)
What if you could select them instead of drawing at random?
In other words, you get a menu from which you can build your own advancements and pursue your own interests.
With the deck you might be looking for a particular theme for the campaign. A sort of area of focus for the campaign.
As per old style advice, it's better to write down the theme before a game is even proposed, then state the them along with the game proposal. Players have to make PC's that tie into the theme (to some degree) or they can't play.
Generally most players can do that (I know there are a few clueless ones, but I'm going to ignore them for the time being)
@Pompadour
If you had the deck, you could design your own tree, instead of drawing randomly. Provided the cards were designed to accomodate. No?
Noon wrote:
bawylie wrote:
I'm considering whether the suits should go by the 4 basic roles. Warrior type stuff in Spades, Clerics/Priests/Druids in Clubs, Rogues in Diamonds, Wizards in Hearts. Or whatever. Maybe different suits altogether. Just do em thematically by suit for our typical:usual themes?
bawylie wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Alright, those who would NOT use this as a primary driver for XP, what would it need in order for you to change your mind?
bawylie wrote:
shpelley wrote:
bawylie wrote:
Emerikol wrote:
What a thread.
I have to admit the Exp system has been one of the reasons that didn't really keep me in the game after a hiatus from 2nd ed.
The 5th ed Exp system is very solid. But I too have my own way of doling out exp.
Mission Experience for Monster kills. Players vs. CR... give it all out. But in the case of a scenario where every party member dies but 1 remains to obtain all the spoils.
This could put this character at a severe advantage. So I will let them get their level and halfway to their next level as well. The rest goes into a stored "bank" for exp.
Mission Experience for Roleplaying is split 50/50 into the class experience as well as into the bank.
Civilization Experience is dependent on the type of interaction. If the party is going out and randomly just trying to pick a fight without real cause or effect towards the main mission then any exp gained is going into the bank. otherwise if it's towards the mission goals. 50/50
Discovery Experience, Growth Experience, Completion, Reknown, pretty much everything that goes into these players mindsets for their characters is what I dole out exp for and I tell them towards their player or to the bank.
But mainly I ask after each campaign from each character what they thought about the particular run. And from that give out additional exp. Because it's a learning experience for everyone involved. Be it from someone constantly using out of character knowledge to someone who did something hilarious. These are the people who may be inhabiting our homes for the next decade.
The Bank.
How this works. Magic items and lots of other stuff. Require an Experience debt. So this bank is what that's for. Every class can have a magical item or something that they need which requires experience points. So it's a seperate currency of it's own. Now bought magic items don't require any expended exp. But somewhere down the road they may need to have something made. So this is where this currency comes into play.
The other part of this bank is that upon death of the PC that the remaining balance is given to the new rolled up character in a 50/50 split, which is my way of having a new character brought in with a not so bad disadvantage. Now if they decide to do something stupid and get themselves killed that's out of my hands. But they still have 50% of that stored exp to halve and create a new character which isn't still too shabby.
So it's very much a meta-game resource for the players - although it's very tightly bound to in-game activity. That's interesting.
I prefer focusing on Experiences rather than Experience Points.
That said, I am currently leaning toward a bottom-up experience system. Characters gain abilities by actually learning them as a part of the story. Find a teacher, read a scroll, watch and mimic, experiment, whatever fits the story you're telling at the time. Each ability is bound to an attribute, so every so many abilities increases the related attribute. Your character level is based on the total attribute points. Everything else branches out from those three levels.
This emphasises the character's journey, turning each ability into an experience to be recounted whenever it's used. Attributes go up appropriately because you're stretching those particular "muscles" in new ways, and your level properly becomes a reflection of your abilities, rather than their determinant.
Okay, I did it! I made a card deck called The Deck of Many Deeds.
Read about it here!
And let me know what you think.
bawylie wrote:
Ok I'll work on it.
Edit: Alright that should do it.
The deck link doesn't work because of a simple typo; it leads off with ttp instead of http.
Add the h in and you can get to it.
Haven't read the deck, read the post, I think it's good. I like the 'repeat or draw a new one' for the cards, and I like how there's enough options (between drawing a bunch of cards and trading) that I wouldn't feel compelled to do something I didn't care about for xp. (And on the off chance that no one in the table managed to draw a single card I was interested in, I'm sure you or anyone else running it would fudge it in some way.)
Also I had never heard of this godeckyourself site and it seems awesome, so I'm happy to have learned a new thing!
I read through the cards. Very impressive. That must have taken you a bit of time, B.
They would be really interesting to play with.
They kind of make a game within the game, but at the service of roleplaying, story development and character development.
I wonder how quickly PCs will advance with your default rules? Have you tested it yet?
Well, anyhow, great stuff.
Haven't tested it yet. The cards took 3 hrs to do up and another 2 to print, cut, glue.
We'll see how it goes pretty soon though!