Thread by @MerricB

"In the Beginning", Dungeons & Dragons was a game about delving into dungeons, overcoming monsters, and getting treasure.

Except when it wasn't.

But the rules were written mostly for that playstyle.

Except where they weren't. :)

I was listening to an old episode of the Tome Show where @BrandesStoddard and @DMSamuel talked about XP in the early editions. And one of the things that is hard about discussing the playstyle that XP served is that the game could be so regionally diverse!

This one, btw: thetomeshow.com/e/xp-in-dd-par…

For instance, one of the things they note is how, in 2nd edition, the gaining of XP for treasure becomes optional. However, from the earliest days of D&D, not all groups gave XP for attaining treasure!

We also sort of assume that we have a group of four to six players, and they turn up to every (most) sessions and we adventure together. Except, what happens when the DM says "I'm running a session in the Dungeon of Doom today" and it's just the seven players who were free?

A couple of notes (and you can see this legacy in some of the old rulebooks): "An adventure" has the same meaning as "a session". Because it was a single expedition into the dungeon, which ended when time ran out.

And when the AD&D rulebooks came out, TSR was only just thinking about published adventure modules! This idea of a structured storyline was something that only slowly came into the game. So, XP is on this "one expedition delving into the dungeon" idea, not always with same PCs.

You've also got D&D coming from this background of miniature wargamers working against each other. It's well listening to the @Blackmoor_Film documentary and its descriptions of the early Braunstein games. This is players working AGAINST each other with varying goals.

And then, you also have the players coming from a background of the fantasy fiction of the time. If you look at Fritz Leiber, Jack Vance, or Robert E. Howard, not all of the travelling companions have the same goals or work well together.

So, XP starts off as this "how well did I do this session" mechanic. Awarded in proportion to the threat faced and the treasure looted.

How much XP came from treasure? In early D&D, it's about 75-80%. That's a lot!

And so, once 2E comes along with its new standard of "no XP for treasure" (except as an optional rule) - thus conforming to the views of some existing groups - does it replace the 80% of XP? And that's where 2E is weird. Because it doesn't.

I thought that at the time, and listening to Brandes and Sam talk about it, it was driven in even more. Because the guidelines meant that the split was 50% monsters and 50% story goals. So, XP has been reduced to 40% of what came before!

Meanwhile, there are the bonus XP for characters doing class-specific things. Which I never used, because they seemed very ill-thought out.

I was very amused when B&S mentioned that they seemed Gygaxian. Because, as I understand it, they were!

Gary once mentioned using such rules (in the big EN World Q&A thread). It's quite important to understand that the game we call "AD&D" is not actually the game that Gary Gygax played. It's a snapshot of what he thought the game should be when it was published.

For instance, Gary also mentioned using d10s for initiative. Hang on, isn't that a 2E rule? So, some of 2E is the codification of stuff that Gary was doing with his friends at TSR.

Also, Gary, like most of us, is likely an unreliable narrator.

But between the AD&D XP rules and the 2E XP rules, you have the rise of the adventure module. And the rise of Tracy Hickman (in particular) and more structured story play. Desert of Desolation. Dragonlance. Oh, 2E was mad for more structured storylines!

So, you have this idea of tying XP to progress in these stories. And groups of players that stayed the same (and were smaller than the old days). And a move away from delving into the dungeon to gain treasure.

And 2E is published as D&D is undergoing a major change.

So, I look at the 2E system and I see it caught between the old style of dungeon delving (which never actually goes away, because it's fun!), and the new style of structured storylines, and changes in how players get together... and it doesn't quite all come together.

If the XP system in 2E looks bizarre, that's because it is. It's trying to work out what the game is, and because the game is more than one thing, it's trying to do lots of things at the same time - and not that well.

The weird thing is that I look at later XP systems and see the same problems. OD&D's XP system works for the game it was representing. AD&D's XP system goes too complicated, and includes stuff that wasn't used in play. But for 3E, 4E and 5E, things are equally odd.

5E also uses milestones, which are a brilliant invention for structured storylines, and have been used to good effect in its adventures. But I don't think milestones are appropriate for all campaigns. There is a LOT to be said for XP.

Now, in my personal campaign, I'm slowly moving towards formalizing (as much as I ever will) a system for awarding non-combat XP. For role-playing/exploration encounters, it's based on the importance of the encounter to the campaign, rather than "level of NPCs you talk to".

So, you take the XP that each character would gain for defeating an "Easy", "Medium", "Hard" or "Deadly" combat encounter, and give that out. But I map them according to campaign significance. "Deadly" becomes that centerpoint of the campaign people talk about later!

The trouble with this is that it depends on my gut feel. But it's better than giving out nothing!

Length of encounter also comes into it, btw.