Mike "What is D&D" Mearls' latest wrongness.

[shadzar]

Experience Points and Levels
Mike Mearls

. http://www.wizards.com/DnD/Article.aspx ... l/20140217 .

Tracking experience points and using them to award levels makes a lot of sense in open-ended games,...their primary goal is most often the treasure and XP they'll gain for defeating it.

In a more story-driven campaign, however, that lair assault could have a more complex purpose. In this type of campaign, treasure and XP take second place in the characters' goals, behind the dragon's importance in the narrative.

From the perspective of game design, the difference between these approaches becomes important when we think about how best to implement rewards in published adventures.

How wrong can you be to try to define "story-driven" as level when the DM says, when there are likely plenty of people that play narrative games that want to level at the speed of XP, not the speed of DM fiat?

Again Mike gets it wrong, but at this point do we expect any less from him? He is coming to the conclusion that playstyle in adventure itself drives whether people want XP or levels. He thinks open-ended games are intrinsically tied to one type of leveling and story-driven is intrinsically tied to another. He should jsut notice that the two types of leveling exist, and will exist in EVERY playstyle.

Mike's way:

1: XP is given for open-ended games
2. Levels are awarded in story-driven game.

the right way:

1. XP is given
2. levels are given

A. open-ended style
B. story-driven style

1A: you play what you play and get XP if you survive to play the next session
1B: you play what you want to play and get a level if you survive to play the next session

2A: you play what was given in the adventure and get XP for what was there.
2B: you play what was given in the adventure and level at the end of it.

Mike's style has either sandbox game or GIANT railroad.

When he starts talking about published adventures, it doesn't offer anything new. They all had level ranges. the funny thing is what comes next...

Rather than force the issue, a much better approach is to allow designers to present both options, and let DMs decide how best to run any adventure.

The designers will not be knowledgeable enough with giving XP, they can default to writing based on needing level X as a reward for the adventure and fall back to some number of XP without consideration for the adventure itself in terms of difficulty or challenge. This also means poor mosnter design if they do not know how to use XP. They will jsut be creating a faster paced level-grind, rahter than an XP grind in order to let people play through all the levels quicker to taste DDN, for when it fails, they will put people back on the edition treadmill with DD6.

Also

This simple change to an experience point mechanic that's been in place since the earliest days of D&D

So the name D&D means nothing now and is only marketing buzzword?

especially when it's clear that the default way of doing things no longer matches the way so many DMs run their games.

DMs and player may play how they want, but if you have no clear intent when designing the game, then you will not have a decent game. at least Gary had an intent for making the game other than some profit engine. The profit engine goes back even older. "Build a better mousetrap and people will be beating a path to your door." In order to build it though, you need to have an end goal for the function of it. When that function out performs and is still a mousetrap, then your profit engine has begun running. when you build it and it looks and works like a Model T Ford, you have nothing left to call and sell as a mousetrap, like DDN is no longer supposed to be D&D.

Just change the name and make something else and let D&D die.

"How much of a boat can you replace in the course of repairing it before you no longer have the same boat, but a different one? 50%? 51%? 90%?"

You are no longer making D&D, never really did but you were closer when WotC began. You just want to wrap the carcass of D&D on the new shiny you put on store shelves. Let's just call this edition what it is, a wolf in sheep's clothing. That is all HASBRO will ever produce as nothing more with the D&D logo will be D&D. That was the intent of many players anyway, they didn't like D&D so much they wanted it to no longer be D&D so they could like it. But that is something I have been saying for nearly 20 years.

[silva]

What he is trying to do is give certain story milestones a heavier importance by directly rewarding level ups. (while cutting the xp bean counting in the process)

I dont see a problem with that.

[Atmo]

What he is trying to do is give certain story milestones a heavier importance by directly rewarding level ups. (while cutting the xp bean counting in the process)

I dont see a problem with that.

Shhh, let the man talk.

[deaddmwalking]

XP accounting is as onerous as tracking encumbrance for gold coins.

We don't award XP. We tell people to level up when we feel it is appropriate.

For example, I'm currently running a campaign where two sessions ago I told the group to 'level up'. I never awarded XP for anything they did, nor did I track it to determine when the 'right time' was. They had moved the adventure toward the final conclusion, faced down a recurring villain (a lieutenant that gave them problems before) and were quickly closing in on the 'final battle'. Although they gained the level before the last session, the 'final battle' will be next week - they were entering the room where the 'main villain' is working his scheme.

If I had awarded XP piecemeal (besides forcing players to track it), we might have been short of gaining a level when I awarded it. Leveling up DURING the session isn't a good use of time. I wanted them to level before the 'final fight' because I think it's good to have new toys to play with - particularly since this is likely the end of this particular campaign.

I'm not too worried about what NEXT does because I have my heartbreaker and I'm happy, but as a suggestion, D&D needs less accounting overall. 3.x needs WAY less skill point accounting; encumbrance needs a quick way to calculate, and getting rid of XP is all good.

[silva]

Deaddmwalking just proved Mearls point.

[Gnorman]

In order to build it though, you need to have an end goal for the function of it.

Trolling apoplectic grognards isn't an end goal?

[fectin]

In order to build it though, you need to have an end goal for the function of it.

Trolling apoplectic grognards isn't an end goal?

Actually, Shad's correct on that point.

[malak]

Deaddmwalking just proved Mearls point.

Which is fine, because for once, it's a good point.

Per-Session leveling instead of XP counting is a good idea for some groups. Mearls saying that doesn't make it any less so.

[Gnorman]

In order to build it though, you need to have an end goal for the function of it.

Trolling apoplectic grognards isn't an end goal?

Actually, Shad's correct on that point.

In that having no cohesive vision or overall structure is the death knell of D&D Next?

[TiaC]

Mearls' big problem is in the execution. He will take a reasonable idea and completely screw it up. However, Shadzar tries to argue that the original idea was terrible.

[ishy]

Mike's way:

1: XP is given for open-ended games
2. Levels are awarded in story-driven game.

I don't think this is true at all.
XP is for that constant feeling of progression.
Just handing out levels once in a while is for people who don't want to bother with that.

Has nothing to do with the narrative structure of your game.

[fectin]

Trolling apoplectic grognards isn't an end goal?

Actually, Shad's correct on that point.

In that having no cohesive vision or overall structure is the death knell of D&D Next?

Yes.

It generalizes too: without a coherent, articulable vision, "success" is undefinable, and thus unachievable.

edit: typo

[OgreBattle]

I like EXP and gold weight accounting when I'm in a murderhobo dungeoncrawl focused on getting rich at minimal risk. So the rewards are as much mechanical as they are plot driven.

But if it's a plot driven game, yeah level me up after a boss fight or surviving a megadeth experience.

[tussock]

In the AD&D DMG, Gary Gygax suggested the point of XP was to reward people for showing up more regularly by making them slightly higher level than the slackers. Also for giving a penalty for people who took long powerup actions, because if your character was taking a couple weeks to try and craft something nice, Gary wouldn't let your character run for two weeks either, and you'd miss all that XP.

These days we're all into giving kids trophies not just for winning, but also for showing up a lot, and also only showing up once or twice. Like they're the prodigal son or something. Which is better, because it turns out your reward for turning up is getting to play more D&D. You don't reward people for eating all their candy.


Having said that, along the way XP became a potent tool for rewarding certain character goals (sneaking out with the treasure in AD&D, killing all the wolves ever in 3e). This is also not really necessary in many cases: functional groups are already doing what they enjoy and any other incentives just mess with that.

But unfocused and vaguely disinterested gamers can be helped along by giving out XP for doing stuff that most people find fun. So that they do it often enough to notice, including things like making time to turn up. And having rules for that, even if you tell people to ignore them when they want, is a good idea.

Note that giving out a bunch of XP for killing random wolves is terrible. Just awful. Not saying treasure hunting is perfect, it's just much better than that.

[Maxus]

This being the same Mike Mearls that Shadzar claims he's spoken to at length over the phone and influenced Mearls' theories of games design.

No one to blame but yourself, Shad.

[sandmann]

DMs and player may play how they want, but if you have no clear intent when designing the game, then you will not have a decent game.

That is the opposite of what you said in the "One IP to rule them all, in Hell!"-thread. Not the general opposite, or kind of the opposite.
Exactly. The. Opposite.

We're done here.

[Desdan_Mervolam]

Shadzar looks for any reason to decry any version of D&D past Pre-revised Second Edition as intrinsically bad, completely unplayable, and betraying the spirit and one-true-playstyle of True D&D, no matter how flimsy. You're just figuring out that now?

[Seerow]

This being the same Mike Mearls that Shadzar claims he's spoken to at length over the phone and influenced Mearls' theories of games design.

No one to blame but yourself, Shad.

I thought that was Monte Cook.

[shadzar]

1. Maxus makes shit up. Getting confused by him leaves no one but yourself to blame.

2. Mike is saying that open-ended is linked to XP increments, like that is how they might design it. Which means he doesn't see where someone in a more open game wanting to jsut DING to level. This is false.

3. Mike is saying story games are the only ones linked to going DING at the right time for the story, well this fails to account for games where XP is still given in story games.

he is creating a 2x2 scenario but making the product 2, instead of 4. it is like trying to assign the 9 alignments to little pockets. he is fucking up in his grouping and linking of things just like Gary did.

story is not always linked and only played via DING moments.
open games MAY be played with DING moments.

Mike is leaving out two viable ways to play which do not fit in his two pockets.

[Omegonthesane]

1. Maxus makes shit up. Getting confused by him leaves no one but yourself to blame.

Not on this occasion.

[Maxus]

Thanks, Omegon.

Actually i ahve talked to Mearls a few tiems and changed some of HIS ideas about what D&D is/was, and inspired a few L&L articles...though not going in the direction always i had hoped, it DID get him thinking and reflecting on what it is he was doing as he was designing, and what he plans to do and have others do in the future design.

Except for fiction--and when it occurs I'm clear that it's fiction--and game design (a subset of fiction), I don't make things up. If I'm wrong, it's because I'm mistaken, not because I'm a liar.

Boy, I'd hate to be owning the idea that I had any influence over Mike Mearls. That's a hard one to live down. Shad had better open up a shelter for down-on-their-luck roleplayers to balance that one out. Or take a vow of silence.

[Neon Sequitur]

Q: Why haven't I put shadzar on ignore already?
A: Because he's freaking hilarious.

Ahem...

I've played a number of D&D campaigns in which the GM decided we'd level up when we reached a particular milestone in the game, regardless of XP. It was just as much fun, if not more so, than tracking XP and leveling up that way. I've also played with GMs who used both methods in the same campaign -- it hardly mattered, as long as they let the players know ahead of time.

Go on quests, kill monsters, get loot, save the day, level up. Who cares what the benchmark is?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

XP makes sense when its tied to something explicit, like gold obtained.

When it ends up becoming something like, X amount per adventure, or Y amount per session, and gets thrown out entirely for leveling everyone up via GM fiat because it's easier, then I am forced to wonder why the game even has XP.

At that point, it ends up a cargo cult trapping to earlier games that had XP mechanics.

Some modern games have been trying stuff like stripping down XP from where you need hundreds of thousands to level, to amounts you can count on one hand. And awarding the XP when specific kinds of rolls are made, or other similar types of clear event triggers. Unfortunately, these seem to be mostly in the domain of wacky Forgey games at the moment, rather than gamey games.

[shadzar]

@sakuya

so would you say leveling when someone (not just the DM) decides it is time for the next level to be something the publisher gets to choose for all the players, something that happens only in story-focus games, something that can occur in open-ended/sandbox games?

[Sakuya Izayoi]

EDIT: completely failed to answer the question, starting over

I do think that, with a greater focus on story-based progression, level ups should probably come at arbitrary points, and in a sandbox, conversely, XP should be procedural; for your freedom to matter, savvy choices should result in better rewards.

I don't think there is anything that requires any one approach to use a specific advancement style, though.