Fimbulvinter

[sparkletwist]

Why would anyone care that the XP reward for one of their favorite/best sessions was not as high as some other session?

Because XP is the only way to achieve any character growth that the system cares about. If you had a really good session in which you felt your character really grew and advanced, a low XP award for that session is essentially the DM saying "no, you didn't."

[Steerpike]

In a system where the DM is the only one that has any say in when the characters level up, the leveling up happens when the DM says it does. You can do this by simple fiat, or you can put a bunch of bookkeeping around it and call them story awards and whatever, but ultimately, the DM makes all the decisions regarding how much XP to give-- so the leveling up happens when the DM says it does, and all of the bookkeeping and rigmarole is just a pointless waste of time and mental energy.

I disagree. The book-keeping is a way to help me, as a DM, evaluate the rewards of a given challenge. It's not pointless rigamarole, it's an aid. I can and will deviate from those guidelines to give further rewards. I hope that makes sense! This is what I'm comfortable with.

Generally I give a flat story award of around 2000 xp per session (to the group) provided a quest objective was met, before factoring in XP from monsters and the like. I usually increase these story awards with character level. Functionally, in many ways this does work out to "you level every few sessions" while also giving me some help in how to scale XP to the challenges rendered.

EDIT: I feel it's one of the jobs of the DM to be an arbiter of things like rewards; this, to me, is just a basic aspect of the structure of D&D and its iterations, though it might not be true of other games where the distinction between narrator/GM and player is more nebulous. That said - if someone feels a very significant milestone was reached that I have undervalued, I am more than willing to hear them out. I would like to think I am usually quite fair when it comes to rewards; in fact, I consider myself rather on the generous side, even in a game like this where magic items and the like are quite rare.

[Polycarp]

Because XP is the only way to achieve any character growth that the system cares about. If you had a really good session in which you felt your character really grew and advanced, a low XP award for that session is essentially the DM saying "no, you didn't."

If I had a really good session in which I felt my character really grew and advanced, I would enjoy the session, and I wouldn't give a crap how much experience I got.  What you're saying seems to imply that character growth requires mechanical advancement, and to me those are two separate and largely unrelated things.

[sparkletwist]

The book-keeping is a way to help me, as a DM, evaluate the rewards of a given challenge. It's not pointless rigamarole, it's an aid. I can and will deviate from those guidelines to give further rewards. I hope that makes sense! This is what I'm comfortable with.

I think the main problem I have is that the "rewards of a given challenge" feel pretty arbitrary and contrived for no real gain. The CR system is kind of bonkers, and, generally speaking, the results-- as you've observed-- tend towards scaling amounts of XP reward given to meet scaling XP requirements that, for the most part, result in leveling up every N quests/encounters/whatever, independent of level. I have no idea what you think you're actually getting out of it other than a headache.

Really, though, you're the one doing most of the work, not me... so if it works for you, whatever. I don't want complain too much. I hope you aren't offended, as I didn't mean any. :)

What you're saying seems to imply that character growth requires mechanical advancement, and to me those are two separate and largely unrelated things.

I'm not saying that character growth requires mechanical advancement. What I am saying is that mechanical advancement is the only character growth the system cares about. If I had a really good session where I felt like my character genuinely improved at something, but I knew that she is not (in the context of the system) actually going to be any better at that thing until some arbitrary number of quest rewards are achieved, it'd feel a bit hollow. Perhaps it wouldn't for you; I know we've discussed and disagreed in the past about how tightly integrated roleplay and crunchier mechanics should be.

All that said, I do have to ask...

Generally I give a flat story award of around 2000 xp per session (to the group) provided a quest objective was met, before factoring in XP from monsters and the like.

Why was this session only "worth" half as much, then?

[Steerpike]

No worries! No offense taken.

CR is a bit bonkers, but I've found it easier than going totally ad-hoc.  I mean, obviously a big scary monster that's really tough is, on some level, more dangerous than a lesser one: higher risk should yield higher reward. The XP guidelines for monsters aren't perfect, but I find them a useful reference point.

Why was this session only "worth" half as much, then?

The 2000 gets divided up.

2000 story award
2400 Thrivaldi
805 for the 3 Guards
135 for Watchtower Warrior

Total: 5340, divided by 5 PCs (Katla, Tigris, Kyfla, Ragnvaldr, Dagny) = 1068; I round to the nearest 50, hence 1050.

[Steerpike]

(Does that seem like too little XP? Now I'm second-guessing myself!)

If we were to play on the 17th, who would be interested?

[Llum]

As I mentioned in chat, I am interested if I am not at work.

[sparkletwist]

Does that seem like too little XP? Now I'm second-guessing myself!

My personal opinion is-- and, granted, this is from someone who is against the traditional XP system-- unless you want a definite hack-and-slash vibe to the game, if you would've given more XP had the party killed everyone rather than solved the problem inventively, then you gave too little, but if the amount given was equal to what we would've gotten if we'd just slaughtered everything that moved, then it's fine.

If we were to play on the 17th, who would be interested?

Me!

[Steerpike]

If you'd killed the whole village down to the last warrior you'd have gotten a bit more xp (not, like a ton more, but a little bit), but several of you would probably be dead and/or captured and enslaved before you could actually manage to mow the lot of them down. I was imagining a full-on assault as a very bad idea.

EDIT: Would perhaps an extra 200 XP apiece for the especially clever solution seem appropriate? It really was a rather ingenious way of handling things.

Also, Llum, do you maybe want to PM me your time availability? Or are you saying that you might or might not have work that day and you'll play if you don't?

[Polycarp]

We'll be having family start coming over on Monday, so I can't say whether I'll be free on the 17th or not.

[Rose-of-Vellum]

What start time for the 17th?

[Steerpike]

It would start round noon - or at least, that time shows the best availability on the Doodle. If a couple more are up for it we could do a session, otherwise I'd say it's best to wait till the 22nd.

[Rose-of-Vellum]

17th, I work; the 22nd, I'm off.

[Kindling]

Either 17th or 22nd works fine for me

[Ghostman]

I'm ok with either date.