Regarding the emotional intelligence bit: I've noticed that a lot of people in TTRPG spaces are neuro-spicy, so there seems to be a lack of emotional intelligence that stems from having certain conditions, and/or just generally being socially awkward. That being said, while that may explain some of the less favorable interactions among the group members, it's still no excuse to not attempt to work on it. In these cases, it's important to look at intent so that the group can move forward.
I agree with Victoria for DnD XP does not make sense. But for games like Earthdawn I very much agree with Eric, It makes a lot of sense. For two reasons. Earthdawn is a build your character system. So by having XP the character decides what will improve. 2nd the whole point iin that system is to become more legendary. So because of that fighting is not the purpose of the game. You get full xp if you can sneak past the guard instead of fighting them. Infact some times I think that is harder so I award more XP in that situation. I even once gave an xp award when one of the larger party members fell on a smaller party member in combat. My reason was the village they were protecting saw it. And for them it was a fun story and it is part of the groups legend.
I saw your clip on tiktok, and figured I should probably track down the video and see if there was more context or explanation to "xp shouldn't exist." In regards to experience leveling: My group exclusively uses xp leveling in both of our games. In our last two or three sessions, we had no combat and went from 5th to 6th level. How did we do that? Literally, just roleplay. This is something that happens to our group all the time, in every campaign. It's not even homebrew, it's literally in the dungeon master's guide(pages 81-84 and 260-261) Every interaction is given a difficulty, (easy, medium, hard, and deadly) just like combat encounters by Challenge Rating. Depending on the difficulty of the soft skill, or severity of the repercussions if failed xp is awarded. For example, if one of our characters talks to one of our contacts, or NPCs from our back story it's considered an easy encounter. An easy encounter at 5th level is worth 250xp. Our characters tricked a hospital into giving a woman free medical care. That was a hard encounter, and we received 750xp (I'm guessing; it may have been more) for it. That's 1000xp for two encounters, and no one lifted a weapon. That's almost the same amount of experience for killing a Black Pudding (cr4 1100xp). I spent part of last session feeding homeless people in Sharn, I have never felt so rewarded to roleplay. I also want to add, I'm autistic, and my husband is my dungeon master, and I also DM for him. Being able to see the progression actively moving even though we didn't go into a dungeon is really nice, as an autistic person. You know what we don't hear at the end of every session? “Did we level up?” And if someone does it's usually as a joke in the same vein as “I have dark vision.” I'm not trying to convert you, but it really sounds like you've never played or run experience as intended and that might actually be your issue with it.
Regarding XP leveling: I personally don't like it, as it tends to reward murder hobos. I prefer milestone leveling, but that's because I prefer the RP heavy sessions with some combat every now and then.
Alternative leveling option... Players can gain that first level after 2 session and each level after takes roughly 25% more(rounded up) sessions per level. 2/3/4/5/7/9/12 et cetera. If playing weekly this would be 7 levels gained in about a year of playing(a few weeks short of a year if you are super consistent). You can use this method no matter what level your group is starting at, and you can reset the counter at any point in a campaign which signifies a step up in the challenges being faced by the group(great for when a campaign shifts between acts).
Not necessarily suited to those groups who have weekend marathoner sessions that last over 20 hours each. Y'all are crazy, figure out your own system LOL
Hi Vic & Eric. I wanted to share this comment on Instagram but it got flagged as “against community guidelines”. But here it is: l am loving this podcast! I'm an intermediate DnD player and I appreciate the DM advice you give each episode. Also we have similar ideas of what friendship is and there are a lot of people out there that use the word friend loosely. Friends should be considerate and caring and help resolve conflicts that arise🖤 I look forward to more episodes 🤗
Regarding the emotional intelligence bit: I've noticed that a lot of people in TTRPG spaces are neuro-spicy, so there seems to be a lack of emotional intelligence that stems from having certain conditions, and/or just generally being socially awkward.
That being said, while that may explain some of the less favorable interactions among the group members, it's still no excuse to not attempt to work on it. In these cases, it's important to look at intent so that the group can move forward.
Intent before content, content before tone, but tone too.
I agree with Victoria for DnD XP does not make sense. But for games like Earthdawn I very much agree with Eric, It makes a lot of sense. For two reasons. Earthdawn is a build your character system. So by having XP the character decides what will improve. 2nd the whole point iin that system is to become more legendary. So because of that fighting is not the purpose of the game. You get full xp if you can sneak past the guard instead of fighting them. Infact some times I think that is harder so I award more XP in that situation. I even once gave an xp award when one of the larger party members fell on a smaller party member in combat. My reason was the village they were protecting saw it. And for them it was a fun story and it is part of the groups legend.
I saw your clip on tiktok, and figured I should probably track down the video and see if there was more context or explanation to "xp shouldn't exist."
In regards to experience leveling:
My group exclusively uses xp leveling in both of our games. In our last two or three sessions, we had no combat and went from 5th to 6th level. How did we do that? Literally, just roleplay. This is something that happens to our group all the time, in every campaign. It's not even homebrew, it's literally in the dungeon master's guide(pages 81-84 and 260-261) Every interaction is given a difficulty, (easy, medium, hard, and deadly) just like combat encounters by Challenge Rating. Depending on the difficulty of the soft skill, or severity of the repercussions if failed xp is awarded.
For example, if one of our characters talks to one of our contacts, or NPCs from our back story it's considered an easy encounter. An easy encounter at 5th level is worth 250xp. Our characters tricked a hospital into giving a woman free medical care. That was a hard encounter, and we received 750xp (I'm guessing; it may have been more) for it. That's 1000xp for two encounters, and no one lifted a weapon. That's almost the same amount of experience for killing a Black Pudding (cr4 1100xp). I spent part of last session feeding homeless people in Sharn, I have never felt so rewarded to roleplay.
I also want to add, I'm autistic, and my husband is my dungeon master, and I also DM for him. Being able to see the progression actively moving even though we didn't go into a dungeon is really nice, as an autistic person. You know what we don't hear at the end of every session? “Did we level up?” And if someone does it's usually as a joke in the same vein as “I have dark vision.”
I'm not trying to convert you, but it really sounds like you've never played or run experience as intended and that might actually be your issue with it.
Regarding XP leveling: I personally don't like it, as it tends to reward murder hobos. I prefer milestone leveling, but that's because I prefer the RP heavy sessions with some combat every now and then.
The only time our group has done XP leveling is ToA, and that was only at the beginning. Also, it was as a group, not individually.
Alternative leveling option...
Players can gain that first level after 2 session and each level after takes roughly 25% more(rounded up) sessions per level. 2/3/4/5/7/9/12 et cetera. If playing weekly this would be 7 levels gained in about a year of playing(a few weeks short of a year if you are super consistent).
You can use this method no matter what level your group is starting at, and you can reset the counter at any point in a campaign which signifies a step up in the challenges being faced by the group(great for when a campaign shifts between acts).
Not necessarily suited to those groups who have weekend marathoner sessions that last over 20 hours each. Y'all are crazy, figure out your own system LOL
Was waiting for a new upload! I’ve been enjoying your content so much!
Oh wow! Thank you so much!! This was such a lovely comment to see first thing, we hope you enjoy ☺️
Hi Vic & Eric. I wanted to share this comment on Instagram but it got flagged as “against community guidelines”. But here it is: l am loving this podcast! I'm an intermediate DnD player and I appreciate the DM advice you give each episode. Also we have similar ideas of what friendship is and there are a lot of people out there that use the word friend loosely.
Friends should be considerate and caring and help resolve conflicts that arise🖤
I look forward to more
episodes 🤗
idk why that would get flagged on insta (that sucks!) but thank you so much!! this is such a lovely and kind comment