Betting XP as a way to offset/replace randomness

[Caid]

Perhaps I've been studying game theory (as in the the branch of mathematics) too much but I got the idea have a task resolution mechanic based on betting. I see two alternatives, one just a modification to the standard d20 mechanic, one less conventional.

1) Allow players to buy dice rolls with XPs. So, in case the played decided a particular roll was important, they could pay an amount of XP to buy a roll result. This would in essence be the premium version of "taking 10/20". You could use it anytime, but if you do it too often, the cost would negate the gain from completing encounters. Apart from the possibility to buy rolls, everything would remain the same

2) Have the players bet against the GM. The GM secretly assigns a bet on behalf of the challenge (with a budget based on the encounter difficulty) and the player decides on a XP bet. If the player outbids the GM, the challenge is defeated.

Comments?

Edit: Forgot to add that in mechanic 2, player skill/ability would constitute a bonus to the bet, just like it does for rolls.

[RobbyPants]

Well, if you use the concept of saving throws, it will help with survivability. Betting XP against potential death seems like a good trade, not that this is a bad thing.

Now, is taking 20 on an attack the same as rolling a natural 20 and possibly critting? If so, it could make a lot of sense to open up most/all of your fights this way on round one to try to drop people right off the bat. This, or course, slows down how otfen you gain levels, but it can make fights trivially easy in its own right, so it might come off as overly powerful.

Basically, if the experienced players are (rightly) telling the new players "only newbs don't pay XP to crit on round one", then it's probably an overpowered option.

[Caid]

I think that critting is supposed to be rare, so I guess that either I wouldn't allow a bought roll to be a crit, or I would have the player pay extra for it to be a crit.

Even so, few of our encounters can be won simply through critting a few times. In the case the players get into a random fight that they are more or less guaranteed to win, I don't see it as an issue if they decide to breeze through by burning some XP.

[hogarth]

I would hate this system. Not because it's necessarily a bad system, or because I dislike the idea of spending XP to change a roll. It's because I KNOW that I would be stuck playing with some tightwad player who would rather see everyone in the party die rather than part with even ONE of his precious experience points.

Not that my prior experiences have made me bitter. Oh no, not at all.

[RandomCasualty2]

Giving away individual character advancement for benefits now is pretty much a bad idea. It means that you're falling behind the rest of the group.

If you wanted an easy difficulty game though and ran with universal group XP, it wouldnt' be terrible to allow PCs to dip into their XP pool to do cool stuff, so long as everyone agrees to it. That way the entire group would slow their progression some, but it might stop TPKs and the like.

[RobbyPants]

Yeah, that brings up a point I hadn't considered either. One player spending XP on an offensive roll can likely make the fight easier for all players involved.

Has anyone ever played Illuminati? It's a multiplayer game where each player is out for themselves, and die rolls can be influenced one way or the other by spending money. So, if player A is attacking to win the game, players B and C want to stop him so they don't lose. However, B and C want to get away with spending as little as possible, so you end up with these stupid situations of B and C staring at eachother in sort of a pissing match to see who will do anything about it.

I could easily see this system as encouraging something similar.

[Username17]

I don't see how it could possibly end up either being essentially never used or essentially always used. If you are pulling ahead spending XP for crits and winning encounters, then encounters will go faster if you just crit every attack. So you'll just do that and have more encounters. In such a situation, failing to spend XP for crits would offend the other players, since you would be slowing down their power curve in order to selfishly gain XP by not contributing your share.

I just don't see how it could fail to suck ass.

-Username17

[TheFlatline]

I'm not feeling it either.

Marvel Super Heroes by TSR did something similar, where you could boost die rolls with XP, or purchase/expand your abilities with XP as well, but the point there was that you're already a super hero, and you rarely manifest new powers. Instead, you push your abilities to the limits and occasionally develop new ways of using those powers. It fit the theme.

So unless you were planning on a game where you started out at the top of the power curve and planned to have little character advancement, I'm just not seeing how this is a good idea.

The XP wagering idea is even less workable. What's to stop your players from "wagering" the maximum XP that they can every single time and simply overbidding the GM? Once I have say 5000 XP, and I know you've never in the entire campaign thrown a 5000 xp "challenge" at us, I'll just bid 5000 every time and win.

I've seen systems where you have so many "points" per session, and you bid/spend those points to influence the plot and overcome challenges, but those are very, very story-centric games and at that point you don't need to use XP.

[hogarth]

I don't see how it could possibly end up either being essentially never used or essentially always used. If you are pulling ahead spending XP for crits and winning encounters, then encounters will go faster if you just crit every attack. So you'll just do that and have more encounters. In such a situation, failing to spend XP for crits would offend the other players, since you would be slowing down their power curve in order to selfishly gain XP by not contributing your share.

I just don't see how it could fail to suck ass.

It's not really that different from the idea of charged items in D&D (you burn treasure in order to get an advantage in an encounter). But if a player is stingy with charged items (which is very common from what I've seen), that would be nothing compared to how stingy he would be with experience points, IMO.

[Username17]

I don't see how it could possibly end up either being essentially never used or essentially always used. If you are pulling ahead spending XP for crits and winning encounters, then encounters will go faster if you just crit every attack. So you'll just do that and have more encounters. In such a situation, failing to spend XP for crits would offend the other players, since you would be slowing down their power curve in order to selfishly gain XP by not contributing your share.

I just don't see how it could fail to suck ass.

It's not really that different from the idea of charged items in D&D (you burn treasure in order to get an advantage in an encounter). But if a player is stingy with charged items (which is very common from what I've seen), that would be nothing compared to how stingy he would be with experience points, IMO.

You realize that you're making Andy Collins' argument for The Free Vacation, right?

-Username17

[Lokathor]

Earthdawn has "Karma" points that you can add to rolls and such. You start with a few, and you get more by spending very small amounts of XP. A person who uses Karma wisely will mostly end up having an easier time advancing than someone who doesn't spend karma at all and tries to just save all of their XP, simply because they get bonuses at the right moment.

It's okay. It mostly suffers from the problems that Frank talks about.

[Lago PARANOIA]

hogarth, that is precisely by Wealth-by-Level completely refurbishes you of expended resources every time you gain a level.

Doing that is broken because the magical item pricing system is blatantly unbalanced (permanent items are overpriced compared to charged ones) -- but that's not a problem of the Wealth-by-Level system. If they were priced fairly then it would just be a simpler choice of 'you get more power now for an equal amount of less power later'.

The system of permanently burning resources for a temporary advantage is broken as fuck, which is why trading experience for magical items was a colossally dumb item.

[hogarth]

I don't see how it could possibly end up either being essentially never used or essentially always used. If you are pulling ahead spending XP for crits and winning encounters, then encounters will go faster if you just crit every attack. So you'll just do that and have more encounters. In such a situation, failing to spend XP for crits would offend the other players, since you would be slowing down their power curve in order to selfishly gain XP by not contributing your share.

I just don't see how it could fail to suck ass.

It's not really that different from the idea of charged items in D&D (you burn treasure in order to get an advantage in an encounter). But if a player is stingy with charged items (which is very common from what I've seen), that would be nothing compared to how stingy he would be with experience points, IMO.

You realize that you're making Andy Collins' argument for The Free Vacation, right?

-Username17

I'm specifically addressing your remark: "I don't see how it could possibly end up either being essentially never used or essentially always used." I don't think either of those situations is true about expendables in D&D, in general, although I have met individual players who would never use expendables.

I'm not "making an argument" or saying anything at all about how things should be, in D&D or any other game. I have no idea where you got that from.

[Lago PARANOIA]

The difference is that burning experience is a permanent expenditure in 3E (since you cannot get them back without getting more experience) while burning through items is a temporary one (where you will get reimbursed regardless of whether you find more items or not).

The first is blatantly unbalanced on first principles. The most important reason why it is unbalanced because 3E ties experience to overall difficulty. When you burn through experience, you decrease the difficulty of the game. But 3E characters have more than one measure of power--so spending experience for items allows you to artificially decrease the difficulty of the game because you gain power faster than the difficulty curve advances.

The second one is not, since it gives players the choice of 'do I have average power for unforeseen events or do I blow through my power now at the risk of being weak when I need it later?'. Even if people make a bad choice they're only punished for the next 12 or so encounters at most, then the DM hits the reset button and they get to make the choice of temporary vs. permanent power again.

[Archmage]

Something I don't think anyone has mentioned is that if spending XP to win encounters counterbalances the XP gain from winning those encounters, you never level up. In a system like D&D 3.5e, not gaining levels because you're burning XP has a strange consequence--if everyone in the party is doing it, and your party's average ECL doesn't increase, then the appropriate CR for an encounter doesn't increase either.

You don't ever actually fall behind in this system unless the DM deliberately throws over-CR'd encounters at the party with the justification that "you would be level 5 if you hadn't spent all that XP to boost your die rolls."

Even outside the example of 3.5e, having level-based advancement slow down or stop doesn't hurt the PCs at all if the base assumption is that the party will be facing threats appropriate to its current level.

[TheFlatline]

You don't ever actually fall behind in this system unless the DM deliberately throws over-CR'd encounters at the party with the justification that "you would be level 5 if you hadn't spent all that XP to boost your die rolls."

Even then if you have something to show for your your XP expenditure, such as a feat or a permanent bonus granting item, it's not *that* bad. You still have something to show for it. Using XP to modify die rolls is completely transitory.

Plus, the idea of swinging your sword as hard as you can making you dumber makes my head hurt.

[Crissa]

Well, it's not like everyone spends XP becoming 'smarter'.

-Crissa

[Caid]

I think one of the older DM guides (maybe 3.0) said that XP was something you gained for completing dangerous tasks. No danger, no XP. Paying for a roll with XP would be the equivalent of temporarily reducing the difficulty setting of a video game so you could get past a difficult or uninteresting part. With the lower difficulty comes lower reward.

As for the betting system, let me be a bit more specific. Assume that a challenge is worth 100 XP. The DM is allowed to bet up to that amount. The player is informed of the challenge value and bets a number of XPs. Now, something that I failed to mention before is that as I see it, the player looses the XPs used for the bet. Again, if the player opts for completing the challenge with high probability, i.e. taking little or no risk, he will bet close to 100 XP, thereby offsetting the reward almost completely (or completely for an automatic win). It is through this that the system promotes taking risks.

[hogarth]

I think one of the older DM guides (maybe 3.0) said that XP was something you gained for completing dangerous tasks. No danger, no XP. Paying for a roll with XP would be the equivalent of temporarily reducing the difficulty setting of a video game so you could get past a difficult or uninteresting part. With the lower difficulty comes lower reward.

A video game is different, though. I would always try something at least once before skipping past it, which isn't possible in any tabletop RPG I've heard of. More often I'd try the same thing many times before giving it up as tedious.

The idea of being able to automatically bypass one obstacle per RPG session, say, (as long as it's not a "boss-level" encounter) sounds vaguely interesting, but I don't know how it would work in practice.

[RobbyPants]

The idea of being able to automatically bypass one obstacle per RPG session, say, (as long as it's not a "boss-level" encounter) sounds vaguely interesting, but I don't know how it would work in practice.

The only way I could see doing that is if victory is pretty much a foregone conclusion, anyway.

So if a group of 10th level PCs runs into forty orcs because it makes sense for the story, you just hand wave it away and say the PCs trounced them. I supposed you could make them fight through it as an exercise in resource management, but it would be a tedious and boring exercise at best.

[hogarth]

The idea of being able to automatically bypass one obstacle per RPG session, say, (as long as it's not a "boss-level" encounter) sounds vaguely interesting, but I don't know how it would work in practice.

The only way I could see doing that is if victory is pretty much a foregone conclusion, anyway.

If it's a foregone conclusion, then why would you want to skip over it, thus losing any XP for defeating the challenge?

I was thinking along the lines of skipping a puzzle (which I find can bring an interesting game to a screeching halt). You don't get any XP for solving it, but you get to move on with the adventure.

[RobbyPants]

Honestly, I don't want to be forced to grind through 40 orcs just to earn the XP if we know the group can do it with nest to no chance of defeat. It's boring, it's not fun, and it's not good for the game. The XP just becomes some sort of cruel carrot being dangled in front of the player's noses at that point.

Your point about puzzles makes more sense, although puzzles are their own can of worms.

[Wageslave]

I had an idea similar to this using a variant of the action point/force point systems. Calling it Mana (not at all original, I know but I had to change the name) Allowing a player to spend temporary resources for a temporary bonus. Characters receive 1/2 their level (round up) +5 points that would refresh with a full nights rest. and could be used for various effects.

more below the spoiler

Enhance Body
Can spend 1 Point to add an additional 1d6 to any one Skill, Ability, Saving Throw, or To-Hit check. This ability can be used once per round per roll.

Enhance Ability
Can spend 3 points to increase any one ability by 2d3 for 1 encounter. This ability can only be used once an hour.

Hasten
Can spend 3 points to give the effects of a haste spell for 1 round. This ability can be used once a round.

Enhance Strike
Can spend 5 Points to infuse a weapon with eldritch energy, so that for the next successful full attack action or 3 rounds whichever comes first the weapon is considered a +5, ghost-touch weapon in regards to what it can hit and damage reduction

Enhance Weapon
Can spend 5 Points to charge a weapon with eldritch energy, so that it can pierce any armor, making the next attack with that weapon a touch attack

Enhance Spell
Can spend 5 Points to apply the effect of any one Meta-Magic Feat to any spell cast, this is a full round action to do (thus the Quicken Spell meta-magic feat does nothing)

however, for the sake of game balance I came up with the idea of scourge

Scourge
It is possible to use more than one Mana Ability in the same round; however, doing so is taxing and causes 1d3 con and cha damage per mana point used beyond the first abilities cost, that returns at the rate of one point an hour alternating between the two stats. Thus if a fighter wanted to make sure he were to hit his enemy; and decided to spend 5 mana for Enhance Weapon and 5 mana for Enhance Strike, thus causing 5d3 con damage and 5d3 cha damage.

[Lago PARANOIA]

Wageslave, not that your system is unbalanced or unfun or anything, but why in your opinion do you think that 3E PCs need another pool of resources to draw from? Do you feel that PCs don't have enough options at certain points in the game?

[Wageslave]

Wageslave, not that your system is unbalanced or unfun or anything, but why in your opinion do you think that 3E PCs need another pool of resources to draw from? Do you feel that PCs don't have enough options at certain points in the game?

It was originally created for a game world with little to no magical items, and where arcane magic was considered anathema. It was supposed to balance the fact that players would not be getting that type of bonus.

Edited for grammer