[Theory] Reward Systems -- A Look at Experience Points and Advancement

[adamdray]

I had a discussion with some FiranMUX players about reward systems in gaming. There's also a Story Games thread brilliantly titled "The reward cycle - who else doesn't give a shit?" that addresses some of the same topics. I had some thoughts about the purpose of reward systems in a lot of games and wanted to share

Comments

[selentic]

This is a great exploration of D&D's troublesome reward system!

Personally, i have been looking into the Quest rules to try to create some added depth to the D&D play experience. Killing monsters is the core gameplay of the system, but i'm hoping it doesn't have to be all you do. It seems like mechanically-powered Quests should be able to take over the starring role of the reward cycle - such that completing a Quest involves engaging with the fiction, using the breadth of the party's abilities, and fighting monsters. And then it provides an advancement award for having done all of that, with no differentiation, and no judgment of the methods employed.

Of course, a D&D character is always defined by and focused on their monster-fighting ability, so that always has to be the core of the game's play.

I just find it interesting that 4e has added this Quest idea to the rules. 3e was all about the monster killing, but AD&D encouraged great XP rewards for being clever/solving puzzles in addition to monster fighting - and 1e didn't actually reward fighting at all, only stealing treasure.

So it seems possible to nudge the game's reward system into making another evolution...

[adamdray]

Completing quests as the reward cycle works, sorta. The problem is that the rewards come too few and far between this way. I should have said something about this in the original post.

See, when you kill a monster, you know you earned XP right there. Lots of GMs tell the players right after the encounter how many XP they got. Some wait till after the session. Either way, you're getting a tangible reward more often than you would if you have to wait to finish a quest, which could take several sessions.

Since questing in D&D is basically just a broader layer on top of the normal game play (exploring dangerous places, killing monsters, and maybe interacting with intelligent creatures), it basically works as a substitute for the normal kill-for-XP system.

As you say, though, in the end, the character is defined in terms of killing ability. That's a sort of "course correction" for any kind of drifting you do with the rules. It makes it very difficult to change the reward cycle of D&D.

If you want to "evolve" D&D's reward system, you have to gut it. You have to replace advancement (leveling) with something else. That's the most important thing. Then you can twiddle with how players earn XP, which is far less important.

[yeloson]

I always figured the key to rewarding with Quests was:

a) either breaking down rewards to check points

b) Layering -LOTS- of quests together, so that players are always finishing up something or other and getting points while progressing on the others.

[selentic]

That layering sounds like an idea well worth trying to work with!

I like checkpoints, and i think i've used something like that in the past with Iron Heroes.

[yeloson]

Layering tends to happen naturally in long campaign games provided the GM picks up on player goals -

"Oh, you're interested in the history of the Elves? Turns out, there's supposed to be an Elven Sage who lives on the Forgotten Mountain, but right nearby are a few monastic orders devoted to his teachings.. etc"

As players pick up multiple goals and events spawn new ones, an expert GM doesn't need to preplan much, just be ready to play with a few of the threads and the players can choose what they're interested in.

[selentic]

Pretty much! ;)

Before 4e came out i played around with re-building 3e to make it work with a different sort of advancement/reward system, but gave up when it became apparent that this basically means making a whole new game system...