When role-playing, you take control of the lives of a character who might be different than you. When, I role-play a character, I think of what he would do in that situation, not what I would want him to do.
For example, if there's a couple of orcs in a corridor with you, and at the end on your side of the corridor, you know there's a large oak door with a latch, my character would rather run back through that door and close it behind him. He would want to survive the encounter rather than fight them and take a beating, unless there's no other way but to fight them, or the character loves to fight (which is the usual way most players play their character).
Most of the time, players would attack the two orcs, calculating that you can kill both of them and get more XP(experience points) for the kill albeit with some serious hurt on your side, but you'll survive.
I blame the player's laziness in not thinking some other way to avoid the fight. They would argue that the quickest way to overcome them is to kill them, which I think is not true. Or saying that, they would lessen the number of enemies by killing these few. It might, or it might not, it's up to the DM. :)
In a way, I also blame the DM. It's the system of killing monsters for getting exp that makes players play this way. In my opinion, XP should be given if the players manage to survive an encounter or did something to avoid such encounters, such as hiding and then slipping behind their ranks (in some cases... no wait... in a LOT of cases, they go behind them just to kill them while their backs are turned <_<) instead of going in with full guns ablazing.
Giving monsters XP for the players to harvest is just not right, which is why I'm not giving XP for the number of monsters killed in my campaign. I have a set of XP for each encounter, if the player can survive the encounter, either through guile or force of strength, I will still give them the same amount of XP regardless of the number of kills. The party survives, all members gain experience regardless of whatever action they take. If you run away while the others fight (if it's in your character to do that), sure, same XP. The player would just have to prepare for the consequenses later if he/she is left alone to fend for him/herself.
Wednesday, August 30, 2006
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3 comments:
"In a way, I also blame the DM. It's the system of killing monsters for getting exp that makes players play this way. In my opinion, XP should be given if the players manage to survive an encounter or did something to avoid such encounters, such as hiding and then slipping behind their ranks (in some cases... no wait... in a LOT of cases, they go behind them just to kill them while their backs are turned <_<) instead of going in with full guns ablazing. "
Actually this is not true. The XP distribution for monster kill is just a basic guideline for bonuses a character can obtain. There is also an option for the gm to give additional xp for players who put an extra effort to think of an alternate solution. XP distribution is optionally up to how you use it. Just don't be santa clause..
And if you want to blame the hack and slash mentality, blame it on blizzar's diablo. DIABLO SUCKS!!!!!!!!
True, but it's the player's hack and slash mentality that lead me to use this kind of XP system. The gameplay gets kind of stale when all the players do is go in kill, loot, gain XP. I wanted to change that.
I will give XP for killing certain monsters, but not if you keep killing the same monster over and over again. In my opinion, when you first encounter the monster, the character have no experience fighting that thing. As he/she encounters more of them, he/she gets used to them and knows their weakness, that's the whole point of having experience (not XP).
As I am new to being a DM, I'm changing my ways as we go along. So, we all learn from our mistakes.
The system is yours to modify as they are just guidelines. If you think that players should not be given xp for their 10000th kobold kill, then go ahead.
Besides, gaining XP should not be the player's focus in any campaign. is the gameplay. hence it is part of the dm's responsibility to help them understand the alternative to hack and slashing in gaming.
Good luck
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