Dealing with Reward Problems
written by Donat P. Fevre
February 9th, 2007 · 5 Comments
Lately, I’ve been having one or two players getting after me about experience rewards. On one hand, there’s the argument that I’m not giving out enough experience. On the other hand, I have a player who complained about everyone being given the same amount of experience for a few battles, even though some players may not have played an equal role in the battle. So how do you deal with this?
Not Enough or Too Much XP?
This is probably a tricky question. If you don’t give out enough, players will get upset with you, as their characters will progress through levels very slowly. This is most true with players who either do not want to, or think they won’t, play their current character over a long period of time. However, if you give out too much experience, their characters will progress very quickly, and generally become much like deities.
However, this also depends on the kind of campaign you’re running too. Are you trying to keep it a low power campaign? Or do you want your players to become their own deities (or whatever you want to call level 20+ characters)? If you want to keep your campaign more low powered, then giving out smaller experience amounts is suitable. However, if you want your players to become an absolute power to be reckoned with, then larger experience rewards may be better.
Despite which way you go, you’ll still want to have players spend some time at a given level. Let them (or make them, if need be) explore the possibilities their characters have at their current level, before making them slightly more powerful.
Evenly Spread XP or XP By Action?
This I think may be another tricky action, though perhaps not as much as the previous one. For a DM who’s fair, it makes sense to spread experience rewards evenly amongst players. It’ll make everyone happy, generally, since no one is getting any more or less than the other.
But what if you have a player who thinks it’s not fair that someone got the same amount of experience as another that s/he claims didn’t do as much? If, for example, one player was specifically trying to stay out of a fight while the others went right into it, other players may not think it’s fair that the ‘coward’ gets the same amount of experience as the others. Besides, that one player didn’t do any damage to any enemies in that encounter. However, it’s good to keep in mind that defeating encounters isn’t always about combat. Sometimes, it can just be a matter of sneaking your way past hostile creatures, or even convincing them that you mean no harm. At the very least, you can claim that the ‘coward’ gets the same amount of experience due to roleplaying.
Another problem that can come up is if you have a player who does nothing, unless s/he is prompted. Would it be fair to give that player the same amount of experience as everyone else, even if he does little? This can be a very tough call to make. However, it may be fair enough to say that the one player gets a little less than everyone else. At the very least, your other players will be happy. And hopefully, the reduction in experience can get the player to take a more active part in the campaign.
While I’ve discussed problems with experience rewards, this can easily be applied to other forms, such as loot. Though, of course, loot sharing can have its own problems as well, from time to time. There are plenty of resources out there, such as the Dungeon Master’s Guide, and even the official D&D website, that discuss loot distribution.
If you have other ways of dealing with reward problems, please leave a comment! I would love to hear what other Dungeon Masters, and even players, have to say. 
Topics: D&D General
Me again
I was a DM for many years, and although to start with I dividied xp evenly I soon changed to a method based on what the character accomplished. After all, xp is supposed to simulate ‘learning’ and characters who do nothing, or try to stay in the background of every combat, aren’ t learning much. In practical terms I usually accomplished this by giving every player an equal amount of xp, and then giving out bonuses for accomplishments (which could double or treble their original xp award).
I’ve thought about doing the same with encounter xp distribution, letting only those that tried to take part in defeating a single creature have the xp from it. However, I’ve decided to evenly distribute such xp for my particular group.
Though, it’s not much of a problem anyway, as everyone usually participates in combat, at the very least. However, I don’t think it’s too fair to deny one character xp for a given encounter just because she tried to hide away. Besides, that character was very much afraid of undead (which the group was fighting), and for very good reason too.
I award a base XP award to the party as a whole and then throw in bonuses for individual players.
Remember, back in the OAD&D days, going up levels took many adventures. D&D 3E has the players asking,”The adventure is over, how many levels did I go up?”
In OAD&D the player’s said, “The adventure is over, how many more adventures until I go up a level?”
The XP award I give for encounters is generally the base XP I give my players. Then I add a bit on top of that for actual roleplaying. Depending on how well my group RPed, I may give them all the same, or I may go by individual player. I guess I’ve teetered back and forth a bit on that point, wanting to give deserving players their due, but also not wanting to favor any player just because s/he RP’s more than others.
D&D 3rd Ed. doesn’t have to be “The adventure is over, how many levels did I go up”. In fact, I’ve always been more a fan of stretching it out, rather than having everyone shoot up to epic level in a matter of a few adventures. Unfortunately, people these days are less patient than those back in the pre-3E days. And that’s a problem that goes beyond just D&D. Also, it may be a problem with DMs who never played D&D before 3E, and thus have no clue what an appropriate amount of XP to hand out. I’ve encountered that on more than one occasion.
I’ve had players (my girlfriend being one of them) complaining to me about not giving out enough XP, and not letting them have a chance to level up their characters. When I took a break from DMing my main campaign (we run a few different ones), the one who took up the reins gave out much more XP than I did. In fact, I do recall him admitting to me that he gave out more XP than what would be considered normal. Basically, all my players shot up from low-level (I think around 5 before I took my break) to 11.
There’s also the issue of group permanency as well. I’ve already had one player approach me and say to me that we won’t be playing those particular characters forever. And there are those who don’t think they’ll be playing D&D forever. I’ve gone through a few players who had come into the campaign, and then leave after some time.
Anyhow, I guess it’s a balancing act, trying to figure out an appropriate amount of XP to award players after an adventure. I guess it all comes down to the circumstances.
I am a glad I found this website. I have been running a game for 9 months now and we recently added more players, two of the players complain constantly about the xp.
I use a combination, of goals achieved, class based xp and roleplaying awards.
The class based xp system rewards classes for class based action-mages get xp for casting spell to overcome problems, rogues get xp for using skills to overcome problems, and fighters get xp for defeating creatures. The awards are variable from day to day, but the average out over time. When you guys play in other groups are you vocally critical of the way GMs hand out xp. I thought that was really a GMs territory, but have you guys actually heard about class based xp in DnD systems.