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| Picture Credit: KindelMedia |
Particularly when it comes to calculating experience points, and seeing that moment when player-characters "level up" and improve.
I've heard a lot of whining about this topic of late, but generally from the point of view of giving the players extra bookkeeping ("home work") to do.
But I've always been of the opinion, when I'm in charge of a campaign, that it's my responsibility as gamesmaster to calculate the experience points earned from a session, log them myself, and share the results via an email or campaign blog.
I, honestly, get a thrill from seeing how each individual player-character advances differently through a campaign (but then I am a bit of a stats nerd).
I also, strongly, believe that experience points gained should be on a personal basis - meaning everyone gains experience based on their own character's actions in the game.
For example, if a party overcomes an opponent by luring it into a trap, the experience points for defeating the monster should be split between them, but the person - or persons - who came up with the plan should get a bonus on top of that.
My understanding of the current D&D approach to experience is not only is there a unified level table for all the classes, but generally everyone levels up at the same time and pace.
That's on a par with "participation ribbons" for me.
People simply don't learn and grow at the same rate. I was never particularly academically gifted at school (spending too much time daydreaming, dodging lessons, and thinking about roleplaying games, comics, and girls), but I bore no ill towards those who did achieve things, win awards etc
It would have been an incentive for me to try harder... if I could have been bothered.
If everyone gets the same rewards whether they turn up or not, where's the incentive to turn up?
To be honest, I would consider docking a player's character experience if they failed to show up to an agreed gaming session (I'm also not a fan of forcing the players who did bother to turn up to run the absentee player's character by committee).
It's hard enough organising a get-together of mature gamers in the first place (herding cats is the perfect analogy), so a player certainly shouldn't gain any mechanical benefits from the evening they missed.*
Experience points are about more than simply killing monsters (and stealing loot), it's an abstract measure of the life the character has lived during that session, the lessons learned, the sights seen, and so on.
Check out this particular ruling from the Arduin Grimore on awards for completing missions.
Everyone "experiences" these things differently and thus they grow, and improve their skill set, at different rates.
* Obviously, often there are valid reasons (work, illness, family emergency etc) for a player's absence.
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