Zero XP

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Found an interesting article posted on Twenty Sided. The writer is basically arguing that any encounter, no matter how un-challenging it is, should reward the player with at least some XP. It's an interesting take against the "no XP for weaker enemies" system that D&D 3E and Diablo (among others) use. Here's an excerpt.

Later I was reading an article on Scorpia's website. She'd seen the previous article on Twenty Sided, and that sparked a different line of thought, in which she discusses a hypothetical game that has no XP at all and rewards the player on a "doing by learning" basis. Now such games exist of course (she mentions Morrowind, but older games had this: Betrayal at Krondor, Lands of Lore...) except that her theoretical game doesn't even have a progress indicator - you can only find out how good you are by how easy it is to do something in the game.

I for one dislike not getting any XP at all. Even getting one point would make me feel I'm getting some reward. As for Scorpia's system, it seems like a good idea but it's very hard to get something like knowledge of how to do something through an interface, hence why designers opt for the easy way and have graphs charting progress (or, to make things even easier, XP and level progression). Taking everything out will be far too frustrating.

I'm curious what others think of both articles.

 

An Encounter is designed to have some element of risk. While sometimes the situation can be adjusted so that a big enough horde of goblins would have a slight risk to high level characters, that would be pretty hard to execute. The way the XP structure is such that it doesn't leave much room for free XP like that to be given out. Now if the one character was higher level and wanted to play with lower level friends, and was putting them over the top in a tough fight, then he could earn some XP (even if it's not as much as the low level PC, as his objective would be to keep his allies alive rather than simply kill bad guys).

 

It depends what the game is about - but if it's about challenging combat and such, I see no problem with giving no XP if there was no challenge. The game should reward the sort of behaviour it supports and not reward (or punish) things that are antithetical to what the game is about.

'You're doing it wrong' is a valid message to send to the player if they are in fact doing it wrong.

 

Actually, 4th Edition would still award XP for encounters that are way too easy, but that would amount to a pittance of what you need to advance. If you want to have your party fighting kobold minions for ten years to go from level 15 to level 16, be my guest, but that would be a little boring...

 

That's one point the article makes. Giving the option of spending 10 years fighting kobolds makes me feel I actually have more freedom in deciding how to play the game. Even though I will never opt for that type of gameplay (I get bored far too easily), even if most people will not, knowing that the choice is there is somewhat important to me.

I don't think it's wrong for the game to send a valid message, but I don't think "no XP" is valid. "Very little XP, it'll take you 10 years" is fine by me, and I consider that to be more valid because the option is viable, even if it's sub-optimal (to put it mildly).

In some ways 2E (and many other systems) deal with the problem by making XP needed for the next level exponentially higher. Eventually you get to a point where you're still getting the same XP from a kobold, but rather than leveling up after 10 encounters with them you need 100 encounters. That works for me. 3E cannot do this because the XP requirement for the high levels are so low (compare level 20 between 2E and 3E). It's pretty bad in computer adaptations because, no matter how weak a particular monster is, they can still hit a natural 20 and cause damage. In that case, if there are enough kobolds attacking you they will eventually kill you (or you'll run out spells, or whatever) and in this case a large enough horde can be a challenge. The game will not give you any XP for surviving though. It's even worse in Diablo 2, where at level 99 you do not get any experience from even the earlier bosses, even though some are still very dangerous for certain builds (Duriel with a Sorceress springs to mind)

 

No exp for low level monsters is something akin to only batting off a tee in baseball. After a certain point, you're going to have to start talking live pitches to get any better. Sticking with that tee will only keep you from regressing.

 

The DM always has the final say if it is within a group; if it is video/pc game than the system has to have limitation or restriction to assist the software developers in how to setup code. Though it can't be too hard to give xp based on a character level. Level 1-5 earn x, etc...

 

I think there should always be XP rewarded for killing weaker enemies. I agree with the comments about raising the XP needed for the next level, so repeatedly killing the same monsters will take progressively longer for you to level up, since they are worth a less percentage of the XP needed. (Sometimes your character is just 21 XP away from a level and you want to quickly kill something before going on... do you really want to or have to wait for the next boss?) I also agree that weaker monsters should still be worth something because they can still be dangerous. There's always strength in numbers because your party of 6 (or any set size) can only have so many attacks per round while they can all direct attacks at you (and hope for a roll of 20). A weaker enemy mage could still hurt you with a level 3 fireball into your group or lucky a disintegrate spell.

Also, the timing of the encounter could be bad. Say you're badly wounded and exhausted of spells from the current dungeon. Then on the way back to the nearest town you get attacked. You deserve some credit for surviving a fight under those conditions.

The only time that I recall getting 0 XP was when a high-level cleric turns undead. It's a bit unfair, given that undead have lots of nasty effects like paralyzing touch and level drain, but the convenience of getting through the fight (especially random ones) quickly with minimum risk is in itself a reward.

I suppose you can get 0 XP for fleeing too. If you give the same XP for fighting and fleeing, I can see people who take role-playing seriously getting upset.

I do support giving 0 XP to people who pick on newbies in online games though. It's very discouraging for the new player if he gets bullied.

 

There are ways to make that interesting and have a respectable difficulty without overdoing the risk--especially in P&P games.

Ageed. But there are still ways for a crafty DM to make these battles tougher than the party bargained for. In one adventure I wrote to try out 4th edition, I put Decrepit Skeletons (level 1 Minions) on a balcony where they can rain down arrows with impunity. This would distract them while they dealt with the rest of the enemy force. This was meant to challenge 3rd level characters...

Maybe not the same exp, but some exp if the objective was to escape, rather than kill everything...

I support something more punitive, but I have seldom seen it in my P&P experience...

 

After reading other people's opinions I can think of at least 3 different situations, where I would have a different opinion on whether to give XP or not. In the case of P&P I agree it should be up to the DM. If the DM is fair then he may not award any XP to a mid/high level party if they, say, encouter 10 goblins while fully rested. However he may reward them with some XP for the exact same fight if they stumble into it with half of the party unconscious, the others with only a fraction of their health and the casters are out of spells. The same combat moves from easy to pretty challenging depending on the circumstances. I recall the DM Guide for D&D 3.5 mentioning that the XP charts are there only as guideline, and the DM may decide to award less XP if the party sleepwalks through the fight, or more XP if the fight proves significantly harder than it would seem at first.

Obviously single-player CRPGs cannot really do this because there is no DM. This is why I'm much more biased towards always awarding XP, because there is no AI to determine if the fight is harder or easier than it first seems. Some fights in IWD2 were giving me no XP, even though a couple of my characters were getting killed. Restoring the game, resting and then taking on the fight meant I waltzed through the fight without taking a hit. It's the same "cirumstantial difficulty" I mentioned earlier, but not getting any XP when the fight cost 2 characters was more than a little unfair IMO.

MMORPGs bring another factor with PvP. In this case I think it should depend entirely on how PvP works. If there are special PvP areas, or if you can only be attacked if you agree to a duel or some such, then I see no problem in awarding XP regardless of the level difference between the PCs. However if any player can attack another one with no warning then I'm all for penalising high level PCs who attack low level ones with no provocation, just to get easy XP or items.