The Man Keeping the Martial Down

[Man_Over_Game]

No, why would it? Do you have an alternate method of doing the same task that functions better and simpler than XP? Video games use it for the same purpose, discouraging players from going back to old zones with weak enemies and effortlessly racking up progression strength. Often you can do this to some extent for farming if higher enemies are too strong for your team but it's much less efficient and grindy, promoting again the idea that taking on stronger challenges is worthwhile while not completely isolating players who are unable to do so. Similarly, if Crafting gives XP, the game devs want you to craft. If murdering every bunny you see gives no XP then the devs don't want you to go on mass killing sprees of the NPC fauna. Sometimes they'll even include it as a joke and give 1 xp. Feel free to kill 800,000 bunnies to level up (disincentive without banning).

Like all things in the book, it's one idea DMs are free to take or leave. Variant suggestions exist because the idea is not definitive or mandatory for the game experience. You are free to take as much or as little of the book as you want, establishing the rules as guidelines rather than a war game's hard-and-fast strict structure of permissions. It's a mechanic that facilitates what it aims to do -- assist the storyteller.

One particular thing that needs to be considered on this topic of the "carrot" is that rewards are often better than punishments. It's fine to control someone by offering them a reward for doing so. It is not fine to punish someone for not doing what you want them to do.

And a lot of this comes from perspective. Take a look at these two scenarios:

"To push for a more narrative game approach, I'll be rewarding you guys less on combat and more how you guys act within the narrative. It'll make things more fun!"

"To push for a more narrative game approach, I'll be rewarding you guys some bonus experience based on how well you guys act within the narrative. It'll make things more fun!"

Same exact thing, but one is trading something for something else, and the other is a bonus on top of what you'd already be getting. Unless a player is metagaming, do you think they actually care how much experience they earn from fighting? The mechanics and experience ratios could be exactly the same in both options, yet the second option makes a better DM (at least from the perspective of the players).

[PhoenixPhyre]

This is getting off topic, but I prefer to use XP (and XP analogues) as advancement markers, not as incentives. I tend to do "fiat" leveling--you level up when I say you do. I'm planning to move to a session-based approach--each session that the party does something meaningful (as decided by them), they get a mark. A certain number of marks (starting small and growing to a cap) gets you a level. The only incentive here is not to totally waste your and everyone else's time. I don't care what you do (not marking story beats or kills or anything), just that you're engaging with the world and the characters. I've had meaningful sessions where they spent the time playing with goblin children, helping a goblin tribe gather food, and otherwise "sitting around". We may have made a total of 1 check that whole time. But it was one of the better sessions as far as players' attitudes.

[Florian]

I love this term. Do you have a definition / origin for it?

Origin is the german roleplaying scene, the Tanelorn crowd as far as I can remember, late 90s.

The definition is a two layer thing that needs a bit of additional context.

The first layer is the ability of our hobby to be engaged without actually engaging in the actual hobby. As in, you don´t actually need to play the game at a live table to write fan fiction about what your character does, or engaging in the character creation mini-game whenever you like.

The second layer is based on total immersion into a fictional character and refusing to participate into the content of the game (ex, be heroes, have adventure) because no sane person would do so.

Context is that this was coined for DSA, which is the 800 pound gorilla in the german RPG scene and which suffered from the duality of being extremely SIM-based, but wanting to tell heroic fantasy (still does, actually).

[AMFV]

I disagree with AMFV, and I still like 3E.

What exactly do you disagree with, I'll restate my argument, for like the third time. Since everybody has been ignoring it.

Point 1.) In 3e, one of the disparities between casters and martials is that casters are largely exempt from the "Character Creation Minigame" they have a much simpler experience of creating characters than any kind of Martial character does.

Point 2.) There are several systems who tried to address this by removing the character creation mini-game entirely.

Point 3.) Wouldn't it be cool to have a game that made the character creation mini-game apply to every class instead of just the martial ones, how would that affect the disparity?

And then at point three people decided that you could not be better or worse at character creation, that any system that wasn't the simplest was always bad design (even if the added complexity allows the system to fulfill other goals), and that I was a bad ("Toxic" I believe was the phrase) person for enjoying that kind of complex character creation.

The problem isn't that character creation minigames or competitive RPGs are wrong, its that you have one very different sort of game as an entrance to another.

Which is not uncommon for a lot of games. It shouldn't be present in every game, but having it occasionally isn't that big a deal.

Imagine, for example, that your stereotypical jock has to win a chess match before he could play football or vice versa. Chess and football are fine games, but they are very different and appeal to different people, and smashing them together like that is going to make them worse for the vast majority of people.

There is a thing called Chess-Boxing, which many people agree improves both activities considerably. Again I wasn't suggesting that games with complicated character creation mini-games were a thing for everybody, or even a simple majority of people. I'm saying hey this could be an interesting way to approach fixing the caster martial disparity. And then people responded by telling me that chess was immoral and that I was a toxic person for enjoying chess and that nobody should ever play chess and it isn't really a game.

You are just arguing between challenge and story telling based role-playing games at this point. Please stop or move it to a different thread. You could discuss how either type of design effects the caster/martial divide and this would be a good thread for that. However just arguing about which one is better is off topic.

Actually what I have been discussing the entire time was a way to address the caster-martial disparity, at least part of it that I perceive.

Whereas I reject the entire concept of "minigames" in RPGs. I've even seen someone describe elements as granular and transitory as a locked door as "the getting around this locked door minigame", and it's just... aggravating. There's no "minigame" there, it's just characters interacting with an element in the setting, an obstacle they want to get around.

That depends, if the game involves you opening a game of snakes and ladders and playing through it to open the door. That's a Mini-Game. It's a mini-game because it is a game that is separate from the main game, shorter, and has an impact on the main game.

[Kyutaru]

This is getting off topic, but I prefer to use XP (and XP analogues) as advancement markers, not as incentives. I tend to do "fiat" leveling--you level up when I say you do. I'm planning to move to a session-based approach--each session that the party does something meaningful (as decided by them), they get a mark. A certain number of marks (starting small and growing to a cap) gets you a level. The only incentive here is not to totally waste your and everyone else's time. I don't care what you do (not marking story beats or kills or anything), just that you're engaging with the world and the characters. I've had meaningful sessions where they spent the time playing with goblin children, helping a goblin tribe gather food, and otherwise "sitting around". We may have made a total of 1 check that whole time. But it was one of the better sessions as far as players' attitudes.

Quite right, the topic is not XP and that line of thinking stems from the idea that competition in character creation is not logical unless done outside the game for flexing purposes. Within the game, players should not be aiming to win at all costs even if it destroys the experience for everyone else such as with scry and die tactics. XP was used as an example of DMs controlling such behavior by discouraging it.

DMs all have methods that are used to prevent problematic gameplay at their table, especially the kind that disrupts the game flow or makes someone else feel punished. Character creation is no different and it's up to each DM to govern what they allow and how they handle builds (or wizards) that bring too much to the table. We don't expect to play games with Pun-Pun in the party.

[Thinker]

What exactly do you disagree with, I'll restate my argument, for like the third time. Since everybody has been ignoring it.

Point 1.) In 3e, one of the disparities between casters and martials is that casters are largely exempt from the "Character Creation Minigame" they have a much simpler experience of creating characters than any kind of Martial character does.

Point 2.) There are several systems who tried to address this by removing the character creation mini-game entirely.

Point 3.) Wouldn't it be cool to have a game that made the character creation mini-game apply to every class instead of just the martial ones, how would that affect the disparity?

And then at point three people decided that you could not be better or worse at character creation, that any system that wasn't the simplest was always bad design (even if the added complexity allows the system to fulfill other goals), and that I was a bad ("Toxic" I believe was the phrase) person for enjoying that kind of complex character creation.

Let me take your points as you have succinctly put them:

1. I agree that in 3e Wizards and other casters are easier to optimize with less effort than other classes. They're a high-power floor/high-power ceiling class. Other classes are harder to optimize and require more knowledge and skill.
2. I think that there's more fun to be had from the game without worrying about if I built my character wrong. That said, I have had fun building characters in the past for pen and paper RPGs and for video games (I hate finding games with talent-tree systems where I can't respec often).
3. For a game to have such a system, you would have to rebalance the base classes so that they are approximately equal in their power levels - 20 levels of a rogue should be about the same as 20 levels of sorcerer, but you might have a better character with 10 levels of sorcerer and 10 levels of rogue. I could see some merit in that, but you would have to build that game from the ground up and I don't think you would be able to retrofit DnD 3e to work with such a system. I also think that the existence of point-buy games already fills a similar niche with an even better ability to customize characters.

[Rhedyn]

No, why would it? Do you have an alternate method of doing the same task that functions better and simpler than XP? Video games use it for the same purpose, discouraging players from going back to old zones with weak enemies and effortlessly racking up progression strength. Often you can do this to some extent for farming if higher enemies are too strong for your team but it's much less efficient and grindy, promoting again the idea that taking on stronger challenges is worthwhile while not completely isolating players who are unable to do so. Similarly, if Crafting gives XP, the game devs want you to craft. If murdering every bunny you see gives no XP then the devs don't want you to go on mass killing sprees of the NPC fauna. Sometimes they'll even include it as a joke and give 1 xp. Feel free to kill 800,000 bunnies to level up (disincentive without banning).

Like all things in the book, it's one idea DMs are free to take or leave. Variant suggestions exist because the idea is not definitive or mandatory for the game experience. You are free to take as much or as little of the book as you want, establishing the rules as guidelines rather than a war game's hard-and-fast strict structure of permissions. It's a mechanic that facilitates what it aims to do -- assist the storyteller.

I see no reason to replace XP with anything. It's useless and serves almost no point within a table top RPG.

For the DM, variants of XP can be a pacing tool, though the games I am thinking of where XP drives playstyle (good looted = xp), also dole out xp too slow for my players to retain interest.

[Thinker]

I see no reason to replace XP with anything. It's useless and serves almost no point within a table top RPG.

For the DM, variants of XP can be a pacing tool, though the games I am thinking of where XP drives playstyle (good looted = xp), also dole out xp too slow for my players to retain interest.

You're literally responding to @Kyutaru giving you a reason for XP in RPG's. It helps to encourage players to maintain focus on the themes of the game. A little further back, @PhoenixPhyre gave another reason - milestone tracking. Another purpose is to make players feel less-bad about poor outcomes (you fell down a pit and broke your leg, but at least you got XP!). You then acknowledge that XP can be used as a pacing tool.

You can alter the speed at which players earn XP. I played a fair amount of Dungeon World recently and people were leveling up once or twice per session. I'm not sure how fast you need your players to level up, but I would hardly think that is the fault of XP as a game mechanic.

[AMFV]

Let me take your points as you have succinctly put them:

1. I agree that in 3e Wizards and other casters are easier to optimize with less effort than other classes. They're a high-power floor/high-power ceiling class. Other classes are harder to optimize and require more knowledge and skill.

1. Yes, and the current batch of solutions involved raising the floor for other classes, rather than lowering the floor for Wizards. At least in terms of complexity of character generation. Actually in play though, casters are somewhat harder to optimize, because you have to make a lot of decisions in the game (as far as which spells to prepare) whereas the fighter (if you've optimized), starts out pretty well off.
   
   

   I think that there's more fun to be had from the game without worrying about if I built my character wrong. That said, I have had fun building characters in the past for pen and paper RPGs and for video games (I hate finding games with talent-tree systems where I can't respec often).

   I think that there certainly should be games where building a character wrong isn't possible, where the character creation mini-game doesn't exist. I think that those are fine. Just like it's fine to have boxing without chess.
   
   

   For a game to have such a system, you would have to rebalance the base classes so that they are approximately equal in their power levels - 20 levels of a rogue should be about the same as 20 levels of sorcerer, but you might have a better character with 10 levels of sorcerer and 10 levels of rogue. I could see some merit in that, but you would have to build that game from the ground up and I don't think you would be able to retrofit DnD 3e to work with such a system. I also think that the existence of point-buy games already fills a similar niche with an even better ability to customize characters.

I don't think you'd have to rebalance. I'm not looking to "solve" the problem, I'm looking at a different way to approach mitigating the problem.

Point buy works well if customization is the only goal. But not so much if the goal is the actual mini-game in question. At least in my own personal experience.

[Max_Killjoy]

The thread broke.

E: now less broke.

~~~~

Anyway, to get back to the OP's subject...

I would still assert that this comes down to conflicting goals on the part of the system (and thus its designers) and/or conflicting goals on the part of the players. And that can be an individual player, or different players.

Specific to D&D, even with 5e's attempt to rein in some of the crazier spellcaster tricks, there comes a point in the level progression where things just diverge, and your Fighter cannot remain purely "unmagic" and also keep up with the Wizard especially, in the typical D&D quasi-medieval quasi-realish setting.

If you want a setting and system where the heroic "fighting man" of whatever sort can thwart dastardly spellcasters with wit and grit and steel and thews and agility, no magic of their own allowed (and again I am using "magic" here as broadly as possible, well beyond spells to fight spells)... then D&D is probably never going to be the system you want to use.

[Cluedrew]

What exactly do you disagree with, I'll restate my argument, for like the third time. Since everybody has been ignoring it.

Let me try something:

The amount of effort to create a character of a given power-level for any given archetype should be roughly the same.

What exactly we use to define power-level and archetype can vary with system. There will also be exceptions for systems like Ars Magica which has two (or three) types of characters who are supposed to exist at different power-levels. This would then apply within each group. This also applies regardless of the curve of effort in character creation vs. power. In a challenge based game you might be able to crank out several times the power (or orders of magnitude) while others are completely flat, the basic options give you tons of power with little effort and extra effort can shape the character's abilities but will rarely flat out increase them.

Can we agree on that without worrying about which power vs. effort curve is our favourite/is best/should never again see the light of day?

Actually what I have been discussing the entire time was a way to address the caster-martial disparity, at least part of it that I perceive.

I was speaking of the general flow of conversation. I have not been keeping a tally of each person's relative contribution to off-topic vs. related vs. on-topic conversation.

Anyway, to get back to the OP's subject...

I would still assert that this comes down to conflicting goals on the part of the system (and thus its designers) and/or conflicting goals on the part of the players. And that can be an individual player, or different players.

Generally yes. You can have any two of:

• Gritty fighters with realistic abilities.
• World shaping magic users.
• Balance between magic users and fighters.

But not all three. In D&D 5e in particular I think the conflict comes mostly from legacy problems and the fear of changing too much brought on by 4th.

I consider that issue to be solved. I'm now curious about how that happens by accident. I have looked at things like failure of imagination on creating good abilities for martials, people's notions of magic*, the problems from an ill defined magic theory. Now I want to look at implicate bias in the base rules and rules organization that might have surprising results.

So far I have the stuff I said in the first post, the "mechanical definitions" of martial (who is strong related to base rules) and casters (who rely on special rules) and there was some good comments on better turn mechanics in the early pages.

* Although in hindsight not in much detail, that might be a future thread.

[AMFV]

If you want a setting and system where the heroic "fighting man" of whatever sort can thwart dastardly spellcasters with wit and grit and steel and thews and agility, no magic of their own allowed (and again I am using "magic" here as broadly as possible, well beyond spells to fight spells)... then D&D is probably never going to be the system you want to use.

I agree completely! I would argue that D&D blurs the line between casters and martials at anything over medium levels. Which is perhaps why E6 was so popular.

Let me try something:

The amount of effort to create a character of a given power-level for any given archetype should be roughly the same.

I agree or at least the amount of effort to create a character of demonstrably lower power level should not far outstrip the effort to create a character of demonstrably higher power level.

Gritty fighters with realistic abilities.
World shaping magic users.
Balance between magic users and fighters.

Agree here. Although I think that it's possible to get ratios rather than they're binary options.

So you could have "gritty fighter with almost realistic abilities" and "near balance between magic users and fighters" and "Magic users with almost world shaping abilities.

[Kyutaru]

So you could have "gritty fighter with almost realistic abilities" and "near balance between magic users and fighters" and "Magic users with almost world shaping abilities.

Since E6 was mentioned, Ryan Dancy splits tiers like so:

Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: Superheroes

In the same sense, not all superheroes are born equal. The mages definitely reach near to the power of Doctor Strange while martials are left little better than Wolverine. If you wanted to upgrade a martial to something like Captain America then the current feat system is just not going to cut it. High level warriors don't gain tremendous stacking power from a few late game feats mostly because there's no tier structure for them like there is for spells. Meeting the requirements tends to be very simple for the majority of them and only a handful are gated for later levels of power.

[AMFV]

Since E6 was mentioned, Ryan Dancy splits tiers like so:

Levels 1-5: Gritty fantasy
Levels 6-10: Heroic fantasy
Levels 11-15: Wuxia
Levels 16-20: Superheroes

In the same sense, not all superheroes are born equal. The mages definitely reach near to the power of Doctor Strange while martials are left little better than Wolverine. If you wanted to upgrade a martial to something like Captain America then the current feat system is just not going to cut it. High level warriors don't gain tremendous stacking power from a few late game feats mostly because there's no tier structure for them like there is for spells. Meeting the requirements tends to be very simple for the majority of them and only a handful are gated for later levels of power.

Right, which is why I wasn't talking about upgrading martials but rather a "nerf" to casters. Where they wouldn't be as effective unless they used builds and multiclassing. I think you'd probably have to link spell progression to feats rather than to advancing Wizard levels. So that the mechanism they use is similar to the one fighters use.

[Kyutaru]

Right, which is why I wasn't talking about upgrading martials but rather a "nerf" to casters. Where they wouldn't be as effective unless they used builds and multiclassing. I think you'd probably have to link spell progression to feats rather than to advancing Wizard levels. So that the mechanism they use is similar to the one fighters use.

Or if you want to leave off feats and stick to spells at least have spell progression. Some systems have you start off with a basic Firebolt and upgrade to Fireball and then Delayed Blast Fireball and then Meteor Swarm, forcing Wizards to waste resources on lower tier magic before even having access to the upper tier versions of it.

[AMFV]

Or if you want to leave off feats and stick to spells at least have spell progression. Some systems have you start off with a basic Firebolt and upgrade to Fireball and then Delayed Blast Fireball and then Meteor Swarm, forcing Wizards to waste resources on lower tier magic before even having access to the upper tier versions of it.

The thing is that the lower tier resources are unlimited for the Wizard. Even if you make him a Spells Known type, he'll certainly have enough resources to commit. Right now the Fighter has enough resources for usually one or two tricks. Consider to get to be an Ubercharger you need a whole series of feats (not that Power Attack or Shock Trooper are worthless in and of themselves), but to get to the point where you finally reach build maturity it may require an almost total investment of resources, and for a Horizon Tripper type, it takes a bunch of feats and a specific plan towards multiclassing, with some of those being only to meet later resources.

[PanosIs]

The thing is that the lower tier resources are unlimited for the Wizard. Even if you make him a Spells Known type, he'll certainly have enough resources to commit. Right now the Fighter has enough resources for usually one or two tricks. Consider to get to be an Ubercharger you need a whole series of feats (not that Power Attack or Shock Trooper are worthless in and of themselves), but to get to the point where you finally reach build maturity it may require an almost total investment of resources, and for a Horizon Tripper type, it takes a bunch of feats and a specific plan towards multiclassing, with some of those being only to meet later resources.

All of this is related to mechanics though and is very specific to a subset of D&D editions. There are ways to make the fighter be amazing at bashing stuff and have versatility in combat. Various systems have fighters that are very strong mechanically, and there have been fighter fixes for even an intrinsically broken system such as 3.P that push the fighter high up into tier 3 or 2 ("Great at bashing stuff in, good at a set of other stuff").

[awa]

Generally yes. You can have any two of:

• Gritty fighters with realistic abilities.
• World shaping magic users.
• Balance between magic users and fighters.

But not all three. In D&D 5e in particular I think the conflict comes mostly from legacy problems and the fear of changing too much brought on by 4th.
.

I actually would add a caveat if you limited the world shattering powers to villains who need complex rituals and stuff to wield those amazing powers it can still work. Under such a system an evil wizard could for instance animate all the dead bodies in the world but still end up getting ganked by a Conan wannabe. The problem arises when you let a player use the powers or worse try and mix and match those power.

[AMFV]

All of this is related to mechanics though and is very specific to a subset of D&D editions. There are ways to make the fighter be amazing at bashing stuff and have versatility in combat. Various systems have fighters that are very strong mechanically, and there have been fighter fixes for even an intrinsically broken system such as 3.P that push the fighter high up into tier 3 or 2 ("Great at bashing stuff in, good at a set of other stuff").

Pathfinder fighters are still Tier 4, bud, like probably a mid-low tier 4. They did upgrade some Martials, Paladins settle into lower tier 3 and higher tier 4. That was their biggest buff. And I'm not talking about fighters in specific as much as Martial classes vs. Caster classes. I'm aware that this problem was most prevalent in D&D (although many other systems have powerful wizards with weaker mundane characters. I was mostly looking at a way to deal with the fact that martials have a profoundly different game experience in that edition D&D, except dealing with it in the opposite way of the way that other people (like Pathfinder or 4e tried to fix it) instead of making the play experience as far as building goes easier on fighters, making it equally complex for wizards.

[Cluedrew]

To awa: That is true if the magic users with the world shaping power are not the ones balanced with the gritty fighters. And there are other implicate assumptions we might be able to break and create a balanced system.

For instance what if the magic users only have world shaping power? That is to say nothing that effectively solves problems on a local scale. They can alter weather but not call lighting to strike a target. Or what if they can't cast magic on their own? They are some sort of magic ritual architect but the construction skills are in other archetypes, either allowing more options or adding speed and power.

You know I think I would add "thin skill system" to the list of biases that hurt martials. Yes, this one is very D&D but would extend to any system that has combat, magic and other. Combat and magic get a lot of attention and casters draw from both, or just the magic part for out-of-combat things. Outside of combat martials just get to draw from other, which tends towards flavour text compared to the others.

[awa]

To awa: That is true if the magic users with the world shaping power are not the ones balanced with the gritty fighters. And there are other implicate assumptions we might be able to break and create a balanced system.

For instance what if the magic users only have world shaping power? That is to say nothing that effectively solves problems on a local scale. They can alter weather but not call lighting to strike a target. Or what if they can't cast magic on their own? They are some sort of magic ritual architect but the construction skills are in other archetypes, either allowing more options or adding speed and power.

You know I think I would add "thin skill system" to the list of biases that hurt martials. Yes, this one is very D&D but would extend to any system that has combat, magic and other. Combat and magic get a lot of attention and casters draw from both, or just the magic part for out-of-combat things. Outside of combat martials just get to draw from other, which tends towards flavour text compared to the others.

You could still have the wizards throw lightning bolts and what have you (at a level appropriate power) you just need to lock the op stuff behind evil rituals pacts with dark gods or sufficiently exotic components (and have pcs willing to accept that). With that set up the necormancer has the power to bring a kingdom to its knees but still lose an epic boss fight to Conan, Bruce lee and Indiana jones.

On an unrelated note I tend to find really powerful d&d wizards kinda boring their are just tones of spells out there but most are garbage so no one ever uses them, and since their are a handful of simply Superior spells most wizards start to blur together in a kind of bland unfocused mess. Give me back the pyromancer, the slime wizard, the creepy spider wizard.


Definitely agree the skill system is a problem pcs in my opinion don't get enough skills not even rogues. There was a 3rd party alternate phb called iron heroes that tried to fix that by giving every skill combat applications. So i don't have it on me this second but i vaguely recall you could use sense motive to study a foe and gain bonuses against them or use appraise to find weak spots in their armor. It wasn't perfect the system was very fiddly with lots of separate counters to remember and tons of tiny bonuses but it had some good ideas even if they weren't necessarily well implemented.

[Satinavian]

You know I think I would add "thin skill system" to the list of biases that hurt martials. Yes, this one is very D&D but would extend to any system that has combat, magic and other. Combat and magic get a lot of attention and casters draw from both, or just the magic part for out-of-combat things. Outside of combat martials just get to draw from other, which tends towards flavour text compared to the others.

Yes, the skill systems of every version of D&D is somewhere between half-assed and barebone. And obviously this hurts characters that would rely on and excel in skills. That does hurt the martial, but at least a martial can fight. Most other muggle concepts even get relegated to NPC classes like commoner or expert because the system recognizes that skills don't work as main character feature the way they are handled ruleswise.

Many other systems with proper skill systems have viable player characters that work via those skills.

[Florian]

That just creates situations where people needlessly put themselves at risk to gain XP.

At which point you have killed all roleplaying.

Congrats?

I generally only play live tables, no PbP formats or online. So the general risks are mainly household related, like burning your mouth on a hot pizza, being clumsy enough to hurt yourself with chop sticks or dying of alcohol poisoning by trying to keep up with my level of consumption (nobody has been killed by my cat yet).

What I did there is that I've simply defined the nature of the game that I'm hosting and I've used the reward structure that should gently push people in that direction to reward action in accordance to the set nature.

Simply put, in case of PF, that means going thru the dungeon not finding a way to circumvent the dungeon.

Now I can see that we can have a bit of disconnect there. But only if you understand "roleplaying" as using you or me as Zero and basis for the decision-making process, instead of going straight-out for genre emulation and using that as a basis. To put it a bit bluntly, if we're talking about "Pulp Hero level", and you don't want to engage in "Pulp Hero Level", why are you actually here?

[Pleh]

I'm now curious about how that happens by accident. I have looked at things like failure of imagination on creating good abilities for martials, people's notions of magic*, the problems from an ill defined magic theory. Now I want to look at implicate bias in the base rules and rules organization that might have surprising results.

One thing that comes to mind is the implicit difference between the scaling of spell effects compared to weapon damage. Spells not only scale in damage far better than weapons, they apply non HP damage effects that offer a player strategic choices (essentially, spell selection is a minigame wizards play every in game day).

Going back to 3e, Tome of Battle tried to fix this by making Maneuvers that allow martials to play the same minigame (with slightly different rules so it didn't feel too much the same). I think questions about implicit bias in the rules between martials and casters have a lot of room to work here.

At some point, I was playing around with modifying 3e and one thing I came to very quickly is that Condition effects are both underused and unfairly favor casters. It's the same with attribute damage, but it was so much more clear with Condition effects. Spells that apply conditions like Dazed or Fatigued are very common and are a fantastic strategic alternative to chipping away at the enemy's health for certain monsters that players would prefer to not simply trade HP damage for several rounds. But martials often habe no choice but trying to optimize their chance to trade HP damage.

One rule I thought of was Rogue characters having the ability to apply a Condition through Martial Strategy called, "Outmaneuvered." Creatures under this condition effect must move out of the threat range of the attacker or defend themselves against the attacker on their turn or else their condition increases to FlatFooted against that attacker.

A simpler example is the sorely underused Staggered condition. Suppose a Fighter or Barbarian could make a called shot to the head or torso designed to stun their opponent. The fighter can still whittle away at HP if they want, but if the enemy seems stronger than the Fighter, a quick sucker punch forces the enemy to choose between moving and attacking for a few rounds.

It's not just lack of imagination in class abilities. It's bias about which classes even have a choice about switching tactics in combat.

[Florian]

I don´t have to work today and I'm quite in the "sober" spectrum of what is normal for me....

I would like to point out the Max Frei/Labyrinth of Echo novels as an outstanding piece of world building that managed to tackle to whole integration of the magical with the mundane in a functional logical manner and managed to disproved the laws of averages when we're talking about that specific topic.

[MeimuHakurei]

I generally only play live tables, no PbP formats or online. So the general risks are mainly household related, like burning your mouth on a hot pizza, being clumsy enough to hurt yourself with chop sticks or dying of alcohol poisoning by trying to keep up with my level of consumption (nobody has been killed by my cat yet).

What I did there is that I've simply defined the nature of the game that I'm hosting and I've used the reward structure that should gently push people in that direction to reward action in accordance to the set nature.

Simply put, in case of PF, that means going thru the dungeon not finding a way to circumvent the dungeon.

Now I can see that we can have a bit of disconnect there. But only if you understand "roleplaying" as using you or me as Zero and basis for the decision-making process, instead of going straight-out for genre emulation and using that as a basis. To put it a bit bluntly, if we're talking about "Pulp Hero level", and you don't want to engage in "Pulp Hero Level", why are you actually here?

So you only get XP for metagaming arbitrarily inefficient methods to appease the DM over actually trying to complete story goals?

And it's not the player's fault (and occasionally, not the DM's either) for being punished because the game assumes a tone its rules absolutely do not accomodate. Nor are players happy for being punished for being effective.

[Thinker]

So you only get XP for metagaming arbitrarily inefficient methods to appease the DM over actually trying to complete story goals?

And it's not the player's fault (and occasionally, not the DM's either) for being punished because the game assumes a tone its rules absolutely do not accomodate. Nor are players happy for being punished for being effective.

In D&D XP is a meta-currency that is tied to advancement - Gain enough XP and you gain another level of class abilities, HP, saves, skill points, etc. The GM is using it to encourage a specific style of play. That is one of the best uses of XP in any system. If Florian wants to encourage dungeon-delving adventures, he should be giving XP for interacting with the dungeons. The players are free to accomplish the greater goal without interacting with the dungeon if they so-desire. In that case, they are rewarded with whatever was promised at the on-set of the quest.

The only time this would be inappropriate is if Florian said, "This quest is worth 10,000 XP" and then when the players finished, if they didn't go through the dungeon, he said, "I'm only going to give you 5,000 since you didn't do my dungeon."

[Rhedyn]

I generally only play live tables, no PbP formats or online. So the general risks are mainly household related, like burning your mouth on a hot pizza, being clumsy enough to hurt yourself with chop sticks or dying of alcohol poisoning by trying to keep up with my level of consumption (nobody has been killed by my cat yet).

What I did there is that I've simply defined the nature of the game that I'm hosting and I've used the reward structure that should gently push people in that direction to reward action in accordance to the set nature.

Simply put, in case of PF, that means going thru the dungeon not finding a way to circumvent the dungeon.

Now I can see that we can have a bit of disconnect there. But only if you understand "roleplaying" as using you or me as Zero and basis for the decision-making process, instead of going straight-out for genre emulation and using that as a basis. To put it a bit bluntly, if we're talking about "Pulp Hero level", and you don't want to engage in "Pulp Hero Level", why are you actually here?

Does this honestly make sense too you?

[Satinavian]

Pretty much all the groups i played with for the lact couple of years have switched to xp per session.

xp as motivator... yes, i get the idea. But honestly, if the players don't want to play the way the GM wants them to play, you solve that with a converstion between adults, not with ingame incentives.

[Florian]

So you only get XP for metagaming arbitrarily inefficient methods to appease the DM over actually trying to complete story goals?

And it's not the player's fault (and occasionally, not the DM's either) for being punished because the game assumes a tone its rules absolutely do not accomodate. Nor are players happy for being punished for being effective.

Does this honestly make sense too you?

We´re talking about different sources of fun here. For example, there's a marked difference between the statements "the journey is the goal" and "the destination is the goal", with both being more or less incompatible as sources of fun. One player will have fun until the journey comes to an end, the other player will have fun only when the journey ends.

If, say, the game is set up to be a good-natured dungeon crawl using the PF rules, then players should only join that sort of game when they are really interested in it. It would be dubious when someone brings a character to this sort of game that doesn't want to engage with it (Ah dungeon? No, thank you, they are dangerous and full of monsters. My character rather hangs around in the tavern..) or when someone intentionally breaks the game.

Or something being seriously wrong when you set up a game based on drama and someone shows up with the equivalent of a Teflon Billy, a character with immunity to drama.

Pretty much all the groups i played with for the lact couple of years have switched to xp per session.

xp as motivator... yes, i get the idea. But honestly, if the players don't want to play the way the GM wants them to play, you solve that with a converstion between adults, not with ingame incentives.

The problem is more that XP flat out suck as a meta currency. A functional reward structure should be more concerned with the ongoing action than with character advancement that will happen at a later time, so more immediately rewarding and instantly useful.

Ok, I guess you will not like the examples....
- You could set up a risk vs. reward structure. In L5R, corruption and blood magic are extremely powerful, but come along with the risk of game over for your character.
- D&D 4E used the milestone system as an incentive to not rest. It took a certain amount of fighting encounters without taking a break to gain the milestone and activate the corresponding abilities.
- Marvel Heroic Roleplay emulates comic books, logic and tropes. Basically, the players have to chose archetypical mishaps for their particular character to power up their abilities later.

Using XP as a motivator only really makes sense when you plan something for an unknown audience, for example when planning to publish your own RPG and bring it into circulation. You are present on any individual table, so you hard-code how you think your game should be used into the system. An example here would be AD&D 1st, which rewarded going thru multiple characters over the length of a campaign by tying bonus XP to a) high stats and b) engaging into class-related actions. Beyond that, the 1gp = 1xp rule encouraged trying to out-smart the GM/solve a situation like a puzzle instead of blunt combat.