Why was XP for gold largely abandoned as a way to reward players?
>>97161391Because the style of gameplay and games that supported this way of rewarding players went out of popularity about 40 years ago.Next thing, you gonna ask why rotory dial phones got abandoned
>>97161391because the door-monster-treasure routine gets old really fast
>>97161391If you want kick-in-the-door action you need to incentivise action, not looting and selling dungeon fixtures for every possible copper. If you want tense, gritty survival it makes no sense to risk life and limb for some nebulous amount of gold once you have tavern establishment money. If you want a fantasy heroism story like lotr then it doesn't work to have gold mentioned much. XP for Gold was mostly a way to double-pay for completed mission objectives but the desired gameplay loop changed.
>>97161391Gold provides "fictional positioning" where it gives you in-universe wealth and status. XP provides tangible mechanical benefits. Tying these two together is actually pretty limiting in the kind of story you can tell, because not everyone wealthy is powerful and not everyone powerful is wealthy
>>97161391Well, the whole point of gathering treasure is so by high level you could own a castle and have knights under your command.
>>97161391Getting Hoarding more Gold is bad
new players want combat, to the point combat became a more-and-more elaborate 'subsystem' (almost a game in itself). if you asked a young player, 'make a Combat (Strength) vs Combat (Dexterity) skill check...19 against 7, success! you kill the goblin rogues!' they would moan.the point of the game in the Fantasy Adventure Game days was exploring dungeons and collecting treasure. to me that's interesting fun and has a stellar risk-reward system to it. a game loop in a way vidya people say (it's just the 'procedure of play' in the actual books).the other newer thing is 'story' and 'quests' in the vidya sense. you advanced The Plot, have 500 XP each. that makes absolutely NO sense to me: so...it can just happen, at any time? what if The Plot was when you and the group decided to free those prisoners down on level 5?just a matter of taste, really. but i definitely prefer gold-for-XP. it means you have the information, and a very obvious goal, with different ways to get there. it's like a well-oiled machine.
>>97161553Close but my next question is what's a rotory phone?My question after that is why did rotary phones get abandoned?
>>97163638A phone that uses a rotating dial instead of a keypad, you often see them in older TV shows. Nobody uses them anymore except for aesthetics because a keypad is infinitely easier to use.
>>97161391it's gay and dumb like you
>>97162947Your "what if" question doesn't make any sense. If that was The Plot, then you got XP from it. What are you confused about?
>>97162947>the other newer thing is 'story' and 'quests' in the vidya sense. you advanced The Plot, have 500 XP each. that makes absolutely NO sense to meYou've had 30 years to figure it out.
>>97163662I kinda want one...
>>97161553Rotary phones dropped out of existence for technical reasons and advancement in actual, actionable, material technology, not for a change in popularity by itself, you stupid fucking mongoloid. Fucking retard.>>97163662>>97164053They are actually very pleasing in many tactile ways, but their inferiority of usability is what saw them go the way of the dodo. In an age where home phones are dying even as a concept, a rotary phone would unfortunately be a decorative piece at best - although it should be trivial to design a fully functional cordless one, which could be cool, maybe with bluetooth hooked up to your smartphone. That'd be quite cool.>>97162947>the other newer thing is 'story' and 'quests' in the vidya sense. you advanced The Plot, have 500 XP each. that makes absolutely NO sense to meThat's because you're a clueless autistic idiot. You traditionally get awarded experience not for "advancing le plot xD" but for overcoming challenges, whatever they were, and the completion of distinct chunks (usually at the end of sessions, but often based on the collected events overcomed, such as the entirety of a dungeon or the savior of the princess or whatever).This is a trivial concept to grasp unless you're literally, factually, actually mentally challenged. Reconsider suicide.
>>97161391>Why was XP for gold largely abandoned as a way to reward players?gold makes you rich, it does not make you a more skilled fighter, mage or priest etcits a moronic and wortless monopoly-like tier tabletop game remnant that has no place in rpgs.
>>97161391Because it supports the lies of imperialism. You think it's an innocent action to invade a dungeon and genocide it's natives while taking their resources and artifacts? Fuck you and your hylic ways.
>>97164901lol seething subhuman
>>97161391Because getting XP for the things your character has actually accomplished, rather than if they managed to bring back enough loot, makes more sense and allows for more interesting play. With Gold as XP, if your party decides to flee out of fear for the well-being of their party members or because they know they won't survive, the game can continue and develop. If the only way they level up is if they get the loot, then they are more likely to keep rushing in and get themselves killed, because murderhobo behavior is the only thing truly being incentivized.Also, the faggots whining about Gold as XP are not grogs. They are wannabe BrOSR faggots who get their opinions from twitter culturewar retards who can't keep a game going for more than a couple sessions, if they can get anyone to actually show up for their bullshit old school games in the first place.
>>971649017/10 It was >you hylic ways that tipped the hand. Figure out how its used and you'll be able to bait better with it.
>>97165546>Also, the faggots whining about Gold as XP are not grogs. They are wannabe BrOSR faggots who get their opinions from twitter culturewar retards who can't keep a game going for more than a couple sessions, if they can get anyone to actually show up for their bullshit old school games in the first place.this is accurate
>>97161391Because it pointlessly limits games to being about treasure seeking instead of potentially something more interesting.
>>97161391It's redundant.1. Gold is already a reward.2. Players are already loot-obsessed murderhobos.
>>97161391Because games got more diverse, and not everything is about gaining gold anymore.
>>97161391We still use it
>>971613911. It doesn't reflect the reality of how people actually learn and practice skills. If you spend a lot of time fighting, you don't become incapable of learning how to fight better just because you didn't get paid for it.2. Some players want to pursue goals that don't immediately give monetary rewards but still want to gain experience.
>>97161391I ran an xp-for-gold OSR campaign beforeWhat ends up happening is that players don't want to take any risks, which means they don't get treasure, which means they don't level upI had to constantly remind them "if you don't get any treasure then you're not going to level up or advance your character at all"And very often they would still say "no" because they didn't want to risk their level 1 character dying.Basically, modern gamers are very hard pressed to view their D&D characters as arcade game avatars. They subconsciously role play their characters with strong sense of self preservation. Why are they playing D&D? Who fucking knows.
>>97164178and just like phones, we invented better games, so the old games stopped being popular. retard.
>>97161391Cause it was stupid.
>>97166026I recall seeing a specific clique of poseur "hardcore" RPG enthusiasts who would unironically say shit like>as Gygax intendedconstantly passing around blog posts and twitter threads about how this one old school try from some old edition of D&D they could never actually cite, would make every game perfect and make players want to show up every week and how that was the secret to running amazing long-term games that go on for years. None of them had played in a while and all of them had excuses for why they weren't actively running or playing in a game at the time.
>>97164178caused them to go the way of the dodo. not saw. illiterate dumbfuck.
>>97166961>why are roleplayers playing a roleplaying gameTruly, mystery for the ages. Why don't you play proper wargames instead of bitching about RPGs not being wargames?
>>97166085there is nothing more interesting.
>>97167009More like why are they playing DUNGEONS & DRAGONS if they don't want to engage in with the dungeon or slay dragons?If you only want to explore a dungeon and fight dragons when you will win 99% of the time, what is the point?Why not play a different system?
>>97166961characters are avatars moron. if you die you don't level up. self preservation is obviously good.
>>97167027A character dying at level 1, with no xp, and a mediocre stat line is inconsequential
>>97167023why do you expect players to rush to their deaths? they won't gain anything.
>>97167036does dying help you level up?
>>97167015I pity whoever has to play with you.
>>97167048my games are better than yours and my players have more fun than your players.
>>97167037>>97167045See, this is what I'm talking about.If you don't take at least SOME risks you don't get magic items or level up.You have no reason to NOT take risks with your mediocre level 1 new character. Just play the fucking game, retards.
>>97167066how much xp do you get for dying?
>>97167070>agree to play turn based card game>refuse to pass turn because you might lose>game grinds to a halt and stalls because nothing is happeningthat's what you are advocating, dumbass
>>97167070The same amount you get for doing nothing.
>>97167066You are now aware of where you are, and why the people who are here, are here.
>>97164178>you're literally, factually, actually mentally challenged. Reconsider suicide.Peak irony
>>97161391Because modules started being built with the idea of you going to a location and killing a boss enemy rather than going to a location and exploring. There is less of a focus on dungeoneering and exploration and more on fighting a clear threat without having to worry about going back to town to drop off loot.
>>97166961This is partially due to a shift in character building paradigm. Until 3e edition released, D&D character creation could be considered quick and simple. Roll stats; chose race; chose class; chose equipment; start playing. This played heavily into emergent story and losing a level 1 character was not a great loss. The current character building paradigm leads to character creation taking longer, more work, requires long term planing and assumes creative resources have been invested in the character to the point where loss at level 1 is considered a great tragedy.
>>97167401>This played heavily into emergent story This is that bullshit that comes from guys who think "My faceless chump randomly did some stuff" is a story. That's not a story, that's a half-remembered dream, and about as interesting to listen to. The OSR retards who keep repeating that same sales pitch and then complain about "storytelling/storyshitting" or whatever dumb forced meme they're currently working on, really are just trying to make their embarrassingly dull game stories seem somehow better even though they still can't get anyone to care about them.Stories developing from character actions happens in every game, not just games where characters start as empty mannequins, and trying to pretend that older editions have some kind of monopoly on "emergent" stories is a particularly lame and deceptive form of coping.
>>97167485At the same time--and, for the record, I'm not a "Bob the Fighting-Man" type of guy--I have definitely had players show up before with character concepts that flat-out denied room for growth and development. Sometimes, it wasn't even part of the character concept, just how the person played. However, that phenomenon isn't one that is inherent to having a backstory or playing any particular edition.What is true is that a good roleplayer can start with a bare mannequin and spin a compelling story out of what transpires in the game. A good roleplayer can also build a character with a specific concept in mind, giving the GM a solid backstory and making use of game mechanics and character options to have a soundly-built character right out of the gate, and still spin a compelling story out of what transpires in the game. I tend to prefer the latter, if only because it enables both the players and the GM to explore a larger number of starting configurations, but I'd look askance at bringing anyone into the group if I didn't think they were capable of the former.
>>97161391Doesn't it extra super incentivize loot as the core reason and goal behind everything more than it is already?
>>97167485Seething tranny
>>97161391Sometimes you get jumped by broke ass mfers. Or animals who don't have currency. Or OP's father, see above.
>>97162947>you asked a young player, 'make a Combat (Strength) vs Combat (Dexterity) skill check...19 against 7, success! you kill the goblin rogues!'absolutely no early ttrpg ever worked this way, ever. Tabletop roleplaying grew out of tabletop wargaming. Even in OD&D combat was still by far the most involved aspects of gameplay, the novelty was controlling an individual "hero unit" adventurer instead of an entire squad or battalion of soldiers and giving them a name and backstory as you fought and grew stronger. Early fighters had name levels of hero and superhero directly taken from chainmail units, it's the equivalent of somebody playing 40k and wanting an entire game where they just play as their Captain alongside a Librarian so you make a 40k RPG."Roll your combat skill to auto win combat like it's picking a lock" is something firmly in PBTA handwavium territory that sees the tabletop wargaming legacy as embarrassing and goes out of its way to snub and de-emphasize combat as much as possible
>>97168659The post you replied to didn't claim that any game worked that way.
>>97167084Exactly. You get the behavior you incentivize. If you want different behavior, design your game differently.
>>97167872Falseflagging tranner, you cannot be more obvious lol
>>97167485It is a story, and whether it's interesting is entirely irrelevant. Story is the result of choices made during play, and nothing else. End of discussion.
>>97168790>it is a storyThat is literally the lowest qualification available, the "give the loser in last place a participation prize" standard.>Story is the result of choices made during play, and nothing elseOh, you're just genuinely retarded and not actually making real posts. Here's your chance to run away, fix your own mistake and apologize for being so stupid, or double down on your bullshit, and I'm telling you right now that if your plan is the latter, I'm going to beat the living piss out of you in under ten words, so think twice.
>>97169216didn't refute anything I said because you can't.
>>97161391Because D&D was never a good game, but tried to learn from other better systems that used different reward systems.
>>97165546The only thing about 5e existing I'm thankful for is that it got me into the hobby. The first time I'm actually having fun running a successful game is running a west marches OSE campaign. And having Gold as XP AND for spending it, effectively giving out double XP. So how does this work so well? It has incentivized my players to play in a way that is predictable. With these play pretend imagination games this is quite important, because if anything goes, GM can't prepare without railroading/quantum ogreing stuff.>If the only way they level up is if they get the loot, then they are more likely to keep rushing in and get themselves killed, because murderhobo behavior is the only thing truly being incentivized.You got it wrong. If this is your perception on OSR styles of play I'm not surprised of your attitude. The point is for the players to make ingenious plans to get the treasure without endangering their characters. Trick, bribe, outmaneuver, trap, cajole, scare or sneak by the monsters etc. Whatever you can come up with that makes sense within the (consistent) fiction and the basic fundamental rules or rulings.Murderhobos fail, that's true. The only style of play that truly encourages murderhoboing is WotC era D&D linear adventures. They got a module after module filled with sequences of fair fights, incentivizing violence and tactical combat, not making meaningful choices outside fights.Gold as XP works the finest when the players...a) want to go explore for treasure without GM having to motivate them with a story plot that makes the players feel obliged rather than genuinely free agents b) encounter threats and hazards because D&D is not Animal Crossing (or shouldn't be)c) overcome challenges all by their own ingenuity simultaneously generating interactive emergent storytelling d) receive tangible PC progression that feels truly earned.
>>97162947Story XP was in AD&D adventure modules.
>>97169301>retard troll doubles down, as expected"Choices based on what, and what about?"
>>97169377yep, no rebuttal. you lose.
>>97169378lol, you suck at trolling. Here's a last pity (you) for so blatantly trying to dodge those questions because you know they fuck you so hard.
>>97169384questions don't refer to anything, no rebuttal, you lose.
>>97169344>You got it wrong. If this is your perception on OSR styles of play I'm not surprised of your attitude. The point is for the players to make ingenious plans to get the treasure without endangering their characters. Trick, bribe, outmaneuver, trap, cajole, scare or sneak by the monsters etc. Whatever you can come up with that makes sense within the (consistent) fiction and the basic fundamental rules or rulings.There's really nothing stopping anyone from doing this with any edition. OSRfags thinking they've cracked some special secret riddle by touting this shit are just kind of exposing that they didn't actually read any of their books as closely as they pretend to.
>>97169465The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.For example D&D 4e is a tactical combat game. If you solve challenges and defeat your foes without violence, you'd better play with a rulebook that's not 99% combat rules and character options that effect mainly combat.You are right that nobody is stopping you from playing in whatever style in any edition, but should you? Go run a survival dungeon crawl in 5e or CoC cosmic horror investigation adventure in 4e, and then tell me the system does not matter.
>>97169563>Go run a survival dungeon crawl in 5e...You're aware that 5e was built to enable that, right? That there's actually a pretty active OSR-using-5e scene, right?CoC in 4e is just you shitposting a bit, but I'm actually concerned about what kind of rock you live under if "survival dungeon crawl in 5e" is some sort of impossible challenge to you, or even something that isn't a popular option played by thousands of groups.
>>971695975e trivializes basic stuff like light, rations, traditional adventuring gear and tools. Those thousands of groups you mentioned could use a better system that doesn't hinder the style of play and improve their game.I'm willing to try out 5.5 if you try out some basic OSE.
>>971696935e offers the ability to trivialize those. Un-trivializing them can be as easy as saying "Rations actually matter and no Goodberry". It's much, much easier to add a few subsystems that add the book-keeping you have such a hard-on for onto a competent, modern system like 5e, then it is to take the ass-backwards designs of older editions, with their terrible combat, nonsensical exploration subsystems and mechanics, and clumsy and obtuse writing and structure, and somehow turn them into an enjoyable experience, all for the sake of "Look, you have to track torches!"5e has rations, torches, traditional adventuring gear and tools. By default, they're not that important, because decades ago people discovered that they can carry enough torches/rations/gear that it's only if things go completely tits up (and you have much more important problems to deal with) that running out of them is going to be a concern. They almost exist just to punish completely new players who don't know the appropriate amount to carry just yet. But, if you're the kind of close-minded grognard who actually thinks "old rules must equal good rules" and that those are vital to the "survival dungeon crawl" experience as opposed to tracking stuff like health/spell slots/potions/escape routes/etc., it's hardly an effort to tailor the game to your particular specifications without losing all the QoL modernizations it otherwise has.
>>97163946>>97164178>>97169346other points aside (there are some good ones) you're not telling me anything new with this.it's a bad mechanic. but the expectation for it as some default is there. i've heard it called 'milestone XP'? put another way, introducing vidya game quests (and i am NOT saying video games invented quests, not even games did, you know exactly what i mean but here is a whole parenthetical to hedge that off)...introducing vidya quests has utterly fucked expectations, people expect that, you're solving quests, aren't you? that's the goal of the game, not only does it advance the plot, but you level up for it!now imagine taking away combat XP. ever.>b-but we killed 5 goblins!>no sorry Timmy, XP is for quest completion.they took away gold-for-XP. and yet increased the prominence of storygaming XP. the books even encourage shit like>wow, that matched your Personality Trait! 50 XP.and>that was a great speech, you roleplayed a whole court case with rolling a Charisma check! 100 points to Gryffindor.it's shit, you guys. really shit.
>>97169774what you're describing as though it's boring actually sounds (and is) really tense and fun.'tedious bookkeeping' isn't even that bad. it's the most basic maths. you keep track of SO MANY resources in 5E, you can add/subtract HP but not...torches? how many Bardic Inspiration rolls you have left, but rations are busywork?some systems do a middle-ground like how in Dungeon World, you have the actual item Adventuring Gear and *poof!* 1/5 of its uses gone, you now have A Ladder.don't you want to feel like you're actually going on an adventure, with all the survival stuff, the risk-reward that matters? if you just scale everything up to the point of Dragon Ball Z fights then, well, why NOT have those prior-to-centuries-ago problems you describe?it's not some handy quality-of-life improvement. it's actually a worse game. 5E has a couple of paragraphs about time, but it doesn't have something as simple as turns (which were already an abstraction, read how Holmes Basic describes one game turn).
>>97169867>now imagine taking away combat XP. ever.If you can comprehend the idea of giving out XP for beating some goblins, is it so hard to comprehend the DM tallying up all the XP from all the monsters in the dungeon, and then giving it all to you in a lump sum after you rescue the princess from the dragon?I dunno what to tell you anon. You might just be retarded.
>>97169898i mean if you come up with some thing like beating != killing (sneaking past, bribing, diplomacy, burning the tower down) then i do think that's lovely.but really it should be a pittance. the main source of XP (at least in D&D) should be from gold as XP. you know what that motivates you to do, by its very nature? get treasure out of the dungeon without the monsters stopping or killing you.
>>97161391Because, as has been pointed out, the way games are run has (generally speaking) changed. Back in the day, a lot of adventures were your typical cycle of:>Go into dungeon>Get Loot>Build Status>RepeatThe goal was to go and get rich, and because things were dangerous you would later use your wealth to buy hirelings, holds, armies, and so on to improve your odds of getting more gold and so on and so forth.Now - and it's been this way for a long, long time, 30+ years now - the loop has changed. Rather than just fighting monsters and getting loot, people want actual adventures. They want to experience a game like the fantasy stories of their era (LOTR for the oldfags, Warcraft and D&D adventure novels for the 90s kids, eragon and narnia for the 2000s kids, whatever isekai slop is popular for the 2010s kids), they don't want something that they can get out of Vidya (Roguelikes are a very accurate representation of old, OLD D&D, not 1:1 due to the limitations of vidya but the basic concepts are present), they want freedom and branching, emergent narratives. So the games evolved with the times (for the most part). Now, it's about the characters, both player and non-player, in the fictional world of the game, about heroes and monsters, about a more selfless, heroic goal than "get rich". The evolution of progression in TTRPGs went Gold-as-XP > XP for kills > XP for quests > Milestones for narrative progression. A good milestone system, of course, has clear guidelines on when progression happens. I've myself moved to a baseline "Milestone per 3 sessions" which gives progression resources to spend, with variant options for per one session (one/two-shots or short games) and per five sessions (longform games) with my TTRPGs. It's a solid system that allows the GM to easily plan encounters and know when to expect spikes in player power.
