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Reasonable Rewards - Balancing XP & Loot
32 Plays18 days ago
Players respond to rewards, but how do you make sure the rewards aren't too much? That's what we're talking about this time. Join us as we discuss ways to reward your players without going overboard.
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Transcript
Introduction to How We Roll Gaming
00:00:03
Speaker
D20 Radio, at your game is rolled.
00:00:17
Speaker
How We Roll Gaming is dedicated to spreading enjoyment of great role-playing games. We hope to bring you insights into games you may not have played, tips to be a better game master or player, and share stories of momentous events at our tables.
00:00:29
Speaker
Every game is a new story to tell. I'm Daryl. I'm Nick. And here's Robert. And this is How We Roll.
00:00:43
Speaker
Welcome back to the How We Roll Gaming Podcast.
Catching Up on Recent Events
00:00:46
Speaker
And ah this time, ah it feels like we just recorded a couple of days ago, but it's been like two weeks.
00:00:56
Speaker
I know, right? Time has been flying. Time flies when you're having fun. And in that time, we've we've had the end of Andor. Mm-hmm.
00:01:09
Speaker
And i totally didn't expect him to be Darth Vader's father. we've We've had the new Superman trailer, which was kind of awesome.
00:01:21
Speaker
it It was. Darth Vader deserves its own talking point, but we don't have time for that. Well, and this is the wrong show for that. That's it. We might have to squeeze a ah a casual nerdity in about that ah between now and when the movie comes out.
Upcoming Movie Excitement
00:01:42
Speaker
Yeah, and it's nice to look forward to movies. Again, I'll admit I've had a dry period as far as movies are concerned, but... ah Fantastic Four as well. Fantastic Four looks good. like this there's There's some good movies coming up.
00:01:58
Speaker
One that I don't think it's on your radar.
Planning for Movie Defenders Podcast
00:02:00
Speaker
ah Mifrigan 2, the robot girl horror movie is getting a sequel.
00:02:10
Speaker
I think that was fun. i still need to get out to see Sinners. I've heard that's that's that's good too. I've heard that it is phenomenal. I've heard that it's phenomenal. i just I still need to get out to see it.
00:02:25
Speaker
yeah there' just a lot There's a lot of good movies out there are kind of oversaw by the big blockbuster pictures. Death of the Unicorn is coming out that I'm looking forward to seeing on streaming in about a week.
00:02:42
Speaker
I also am in the process of whittling down my my list that I've made of episodes for my next episode that I'll be on of Movie Defenders because um they were reaching out to me for my next episode earlier this week. And so i found my list and i was like, does anybody have dibs on any of these? and they said,
00:03:07
Speaker
Nope, none of them. All good choices. and now You know my choice. You know my choice, Daryl. Yours is not on my list. Specifically because of that. um Sneak preview for anyone who listens to both of our shows.
00:03:25
Speaker
It will either be The Fisher King, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai, True Lies, Kids in the Hall Brain Candy,
00:03:37
Speaker
or Near Dark. Oh, those are good choices. Ooh, it doesn't. Yeah, can't wait to see how you narrow those down. ah Part of how I'm going to narrow it down is what is available on the streaming services that I have.
How We Roll in D20 Radio Network
00:03:52
Speaker
but That's true. True facts. Because, yes, i had there I have all of those but near dark on physical media, but all of our physical media is currently packed up in anticipation of a move.
00:04:07
Speaker
We're trying to watch a couple moves movies this week since we're taking a break from Clone Watts, another series that we're doing. But we had ah we experienced the fact that a bit of the certain stuff or is not on certain streaming platforms despite them logically said being on them.
00:04:29
Speaker
Yep. Probably we found a way around that. And then at at Chris's suggestion we need to get to Robert in front of Star Trek Strange New Worlds.
00:04:43
Speaker
I think he'd like it. I think he would like it. It would be besides some movies back in I think it was the 2000s. It'd be the first time I've seen Star Trek in a while. Well, found them that's ah that that is fair. and oh This will be good Doctor Who coming out.
00:05:05
Speaker
I understand exactly why Chris recommended Strange New Worlds to be your Star Trek primer. It's probably a great choice.
00:05:16
Speaker
It's a very well-written and performed show. It has... present day production values and production sensibilities, but it still very much has the vibe of, um of kind of the original series of classic Star Trek.
00:05:37
Speaker
Is there a classic, but also a bit, some of the sensibilities of the good part of, part of next gen. Yeah. I mean, there's a lot of next-gen that's the good part.
00:05:51
Speaker
It's just, it's Voyager. You can't start next-gen and be like, you can see what people like got get like, I don't understand next-gen. It's Voyager and Enterprise that I don't talk about.
00:06:04
Speaker
Yeah, the only Star Trek news I've heard recently is that think some developers that used to be with Telltale Games is now starting to create a Star Trek game.
00:06:15
Speaker
Which would be great. Telltale is like heda is ah was a good company. it's just like They overextended themselves. But that that's a whole different conversation. And then, spoiler alert, related to Star and then spoiler alert ah related to star trek um I am kind of working behind the scenes with somebody off the show that we will have some show content in the hopefully near future as we both learn to play second edition Star Trek Adventures.
00:06:51
Speaker
ah yeah Are you two-timing those, man? No, it will be for show. Aren't you just the guys with connections, huh? I mean... When someone one else that both of you know from Gamer Nation Con reaches out and says, hey, I just bought Star Trek Adventures 2, and I would love to play with all of you guys.
00:07:13
Speaker
And I say, hey, yeah, we both need to learn the system before next year's Gamer Nation Con. Would you be willing to come on the show and do an episode about learning a new system with us?
00:07:24
Speaker
And they say, sure, I'm going to jump at it. maybe Nick and I are more of the side of antisocial in some cases. You both know this person.
00:07:38
Speaker
playing it up for the bit. And that means I've seen them twice in my life.
00:07:46
Speaker
that That's plenty of times. Anyway, I suppose we should you know get get on with things here. let's get on with it. Oh yeah, we got a show to do.
00:07:57
Speaker
we We do have a show to do. our podcast is a proud member of the D20 radio network, alongside a great gaming podcast.
00:08:09
Speaker
Other great gaming podcasts. The network's flagship show is, as
Order 66 Podcast Hiatus and New Setting
00:08:13
Speaker
we all know, the Order 66 podcast, which nobody listens to. Nobody listens to.
00:08:19
Speaker
But it I've heard it's dedicated to the Star Wars role-playing game. Now, Order 66 is on a bit of hiatus right now, but in the most recent episodes, GM Chris and GM Phil have been laying out their own unique setting for the Star Wars RPG.
00:08:35
Speaker
It's set some hundred years or so after The Rise of Skywalker, And the Fractured Republic explores the various factions that have arisen after the New Republic failed in the sequel trilogy, with political intrigue, action, and all of the hallmarks of Star Wars seen through a new lens.
00:08:57
Speaker
That's not the similar stuff that we're doing. but Yes. Yes. We're just little closer behind. Maybe we can help feed their story of how the Republic fell.
00:09:10
Speaker
Or we could take a loaf on them, too. And i don't remember if you two either of you two got to, but um I was able to play in Phil's game at Gamer Nation Con that was set in the Fractured Republic.
00:09:27
Speaker
And even though it only had hints of the flavor of Fractured Republic, but it was so much fun. Order was very fun. i i play I saw a little bit of it where Nick was playing, but I wasn't able to get into it myself.
00:09:41
Speaker
there was so It had a whole lot of fun world building and a whole lot of interesting back sits. So be sure to check out the Order 66 podcast wherever your podcasts are, well, I guess not sold, downloaded.
00:10:00
Speaker
I feel like it depends on subscribe. I'm not saying it's kind of the terminology. Bookmarked on your webpage. Webzone.
Balancing Loot and XP in RPGs
00:10:11
Speaker
So now to get into our topic this time around.
00:10:15
Speaker
If there's one thing that motivates players, it's loot. Loot and XP. If there's two things that motivate players, it's loot and XP. And maybe pizza.
00:10:25
Speaker
oh Amongst the things that motivate players are and XP. Nah, nah, nah. Nah, Daryl, let's not get into an Spanish Inquisition sketch. No one expects the Spanish Inquisition.
00:10:39
Speaker
Ah, too late. So loot and XP, they're the sorts of payout that allow players to demonstrate how their characters have taken part in a series of adventures and progressed from them.
00:10:53
Speaker
But how can you make sure that they don't equip themselves with an i win button? Grow so wealthy that there's no real reason they should be adventuring together or at all anymore, or simply become so powerful that they can easily walk through any situation without breaking a sweat?
00:11:14
Speaker
but That is the question. That is a great question. When it comes to rewarding your players, it's... of is a line that deserves discussing. Allow me to waffle a bit, but ultimately it can be decided by the individual role-playing game system.
00:11:33
Speaker
They have suggestions, but they aren't dealing with arbiters as to how everything works. We've played multiple systems together and they have multiple approaches to rewarding your players and advancing their characters and how that may change based on story campaign and how your players are involved.
00:11:57
Speaker
Yes, because we have done aliens and Walking Dead, which are the same thing. We've done Cyberpunk, D&D, where we use the milestone system. Which is a variant version of D&D.
00:12:14
Speaker
The milestone is a variant version of Progressive. Yes, and then we've done Avatar, which is different in its XP. Very unique.
00:12:27
Speaker
i i am still... in prep for your Legend of the Five Rings coming up. So I have not taken a close look at how progression works there. Honestly, I am... The XP works a little bit kind of like how... Best comparison we have right now, I'd say it kind of works like Alien and Walking Dead. There's a little bit more to it.
00:12:52
Speaker
They go more off how long you play rather than what you actually accomplish. But and I'm probably going to loosely follow that description. sort of I'd say it's like based on that description sounds similar, but not exactly like Milestone, but but let's let's dive into these different ideas of advancement as well as also looting. Because I'm also starting a, I'm going to start, I'm in the process of starting the Fallout campaign and
00:13:28
Speaker
You're very excited about a certain aspect of looting in that game. Yes. and How about we start with XP? Yes, XP, the thing that makes your squishy little beginning player turn into the tanky player in the future that can tank off five enemies at once.
00:13:52
Speaker
Or the wizard with who can still squissy, but he can and ken nuke a hundred enemies from a mile away. Or the rogue who can backstab someone in broad daylight because they got the sneaky skill and they crit him every time over and over again.
00:14:10
Speaker
Interestingly enough... Before we settled on this topic for this episode, just a couple of days before, I saw a discussion on, I don't remember if it was Threads or Reddit, talking about something kind of related that was balance of your adversary's to your players and how you don't want to fudge too much one way or the other when you're re-skinning an adver an existing adversary because if you take an adversary that's meant for a starting level group the more experienced players are going to walk all over them but if you tweak it in the wrong way then they're going to walk all over your players
00:15:02
Speaker
know all you don't want You don't want the sewer rat to become a big bad evil guy. Right. Well, maybe you do. If we were doing Warhammer and it was Skaven, yes.
00:15:16
Speaker
Whisper Base, we did have one guy that got ah beaten up for like like half the session and then became a minor antagonist later on. That was because it was hilarious, not because you planned it.
00:15:31
Speaker
Again, that that's a part of the discussion, but it's equally a discussion to discuss like leveling up enemies to scale of your your players. But let's keep on scaling players.
00:15:42
Speaker
Right. So XP is what most people think about when they think about advancing characters and how characters grow.
00:15:53
Speaker
The basic reward. When you see number go up, you beat an enemy... you get a point value that goes up.
00:16:04
Speaker
Yes, very much video game-esque logic. that That is classic D&D style XP. Everything that you do has an XP value that you're awarded for accomplishing. The enemy that you kill, XP.
00:16:23
Speaker
It's why you why you spend an hour killing rats in the World of Warcraft. And personally, i am more of a fan of systems like Star Wars, Alien, what have you, where the XP isn't tied to specifically the enemies that you defeat and things like that, where...
00:16:51
Speaker
It's more of a general range based upon accomplishing the goals of the session, both as a character and as a player.
00:17:03
Speaker
Yes, and... I prefer it based on more story mode. Story... You accomplish a story, or if like you do beat the big big big monster in this session, like yeah, you get a little bit more...
00:17:18
Speaker
Or do you progress the story more, but no one be the big monster? Like, you got that much more. But it's like it's usually a rather, for like, the same pool, with just one or two characters getting, like, a little bit extra, depending on if they did something ah really exemplary.
00:17:39
Speaker
Yes, and I'll admit I've had to get myself out of the video game mindset when it comes to Star Wars specifically. Because I think Nick can attest to this. When some of the sessions are more story-based, like there's not a ah big fight, it's more just progressing the plot, getting into character roles.
00:17:58
Speaker
I have a habit of leaning into low XP results at the end rather than when there's a big fight that they've gone through. Which, that's still totally valid.
00:18:10
Speaker
And that's your that's your style, and... That should be something. True, but I also i don't want to also want it to come off as in I'm punishing them. Like, if you don't get into a fight, you're not getting more XP.
00:18:22
Speaker
Oh, it'd be more of the idea is, like, you should let them know that, like, you, that's your style of XP giving. Like, that that's a big part of it. what I have done before in a situation like that is I've told my players, okay, today's session was kind of low stakes.
00:18:43
Speaker
And so as a result, the XP payout is going to be lower because the stakes were lower. You all did amazing. And what I might try to do there, if I know it's going to be a quote unquote low stakes game, that's going to have a lower than usual XP payout.
Rewarding Creative Role-Playing
00:19:05
Speaker
What I'll do is I'll look for things that the players did That stood out to give those players that did the that went the extra mile a little extra XP.
00:19:21
Speaker
Hey, Robert really leaned into the role play today since it wasn't a combat heavy session. So to stay invested, he leaned into the role play and he knocked it out of the park with that great So Robert gets an extra five XP.
00:19:39
Speaker
Or Daryl Mansook, it wasn't a difficult ah ah slicing check, but that information helped another character that was already pretty good at their role really excel at that.
00:19:56
Speaker
So rather than like give it all to them, i shared a bit of XP between the two. And what i something else that I've seen that I've done in the past, it depends on the system.
00:20:10
Speaker
But if I know that there's going to it's one of those low stakes sessions again, I assign players different, for want of a better term, administrative roles for the game.
00:20:26
Speaker
That makes sense. Nick, I would like you to track the initiative for us whenever we get into structured time. So for Nick, you tracked the initiative for everyone for the whole session, so you get an extra five XP.
00:20:45
Speaker
Robert, Nick did the initiative, but you took care of... keeping track of where everybody was on the map. So you get an extra five things like that. I find things to reward true the players. We did that during during several sessions when we had remote players and we had to like make, make camera checks to like determine where everyone was.
00:21:11
Speaker
i remember we did that once. So if you feel like you're going to be really light on, awarding XP, especially if it's a system like Walking Dead has a very stringent XP system.
00:21:29
Speaker
It has a series of questions that, as the GM, you ask it to be at the end of the session. And for every yes answer, that is one XP. XP payout is really low because it doesn't take too terribly much to advance, but...
00:21:47
Speaker
you can still look for things outside of that list. Okay, well, this is an extra point of XP to give. Yeah, because I think the questions are like five questions in total. five or six. there's There's one that none of you have ever done. and oh Yeah, that one. Those are suggestions.
00:22:06
Speaker
They could always be... the dm's questions but it's similarly the one that you have never done is the dearly departed monologue at the beginning yeah we were busy that one time one of our i one time but depending on how nick goes in the next few sessions if we if we know him if we know he died maybe I mean, you might think he died and still do a dearly departed. I mean, remember Glenn under the dumpster? Everybody thought Glenn was dead.
00:22:41
Speaker
for the True, true. But Glenn got got better and he he beat up Negan in a different series. Also done by Freelie. Yes, and then at least what I like about Cyberpunk is they're also XP or what they call improvement points.
00:23:00
Speaker
Heavy as well. And their skills and traits, as well as roll abilities, are semi-expensive. As I'm sure you both know, they are expensive to upgrade.
00:23:13
Speaker
So how it works is that instead of tracking what each person did, which you can still do, because they do have like, okay, slot them into what type of player they are, like a role player or tactical heavy player. What I do is I follow...
00:23:29
Speaker
A great example is the fact that it's a system that did give you multiple ideas. Multiple systems. Yes, and what I like about is that since you guys are a group, because you work together, how the XP works is like, okay, how does this factor in? How well did they do on their mission? Did they succeed, first of all?
00:23:52
Speaker
And then did they complete any side objectives? How smooth did the gig go? gig go And the more better answers you got, more XP you get, or the more IP you get. So it's, I like it. It's, at least in my opinion, it's a very good way of just designating what they achieved.
00:24:13
Speaker
But an equally different system, but also one that I very much like is Delta Green. Whereas like, progression isn't done by regular granting of awards.
00:24:26
Speaker
It's based on the fact that you tried something that you didn't have a skill in. Yes. Yes. That's what I like about that. i I don't remember what system it is, but I remember playing another system that was similar to that, that you progressed skills that you attempted to use. If you did not use a given skill during the session, you couldn't spend your XP to advance that skill.
00:24:57
Speaker
but i feel like ah especially but I don't know which one you may be talking about. i it was It was years ago. i don't remember. I especially feel it works great in Delta Green in that it is similar to Aliens, a squishy system.
00:25:12
Speaker
But their XP is a little different. Instead of getting XP, it basically just acts, okay, did you fail any of your rolls? If you failed, okay.
00:25:22
Speaker
Roll a d4 minus one and you increase that skill but by whatever results you get. But it does feel realistic in this, like, okay, you tried something. You learned something.
00:25:34
Speaker
right or Or in the case of the unnatural ability, it's just, okay, one, you survived whatever encounter you had. You probably got jumbled in your mind, and you're definitely closer to insanity, but by doing so, you get a little bump on your unnatural.
00:25:52
Speaker
yeah not love it but Again, like it's and it works for the system. It's like... you want to push yourself. You want to like, okay, I want to learn more and do more. But if you want to learn more occult, guess what? you You're playing a deadly game. Yeah. And if we transition back to Star Wars a little bit, what I like about their adventure modules, or at least kind of what they do, is that they'll say, yeah, you get the XP for completing whatever act the module's in. But then it'll also say, okay, if the players did this with this NPC, or if they accomplished this,
00:26:30
Speaker
throughout the act, they get additional bonus XP. kind of gets you in the mindset, okay, yeah, you want to complete whatever session you're doing. But think on how they did it as well and give them XP accordingly.
00:26:43
Speaker
Right. Now... And I guess now we have to talk about what everyone knows XP is. The classic D&D, the boring type of XP.
00:26:59
Speaker
Standard XP gain is you fight the monster, split it amongst the players. yeah know it's ib and i I said it earlier, I'll be more explicit about it right now.
00:27:15
Speaker
I think that's kind of boring. ah it's It's boring. It's incredibly boring. Yes, I personally like Milestone better. It's just saying, okay, have you progressed or accomplished something very extraordinary and unique, good. You get a level. and yeah and be part That can be part of beating a big monster. but it's like It shouldn't be like, okay, ah A got 17 hits on the monster, and but B got the final kill on the monster, and and we gotta divide at it.
00:27:51
Speaker
It's not just because i don't like that. Very video game MMORPG logic. Yeah. It's just like, it's not, it doesn't feel, it doesn't feel like accomplishment.
00:28:03
Speaker
It doesn't feel good when you took all the damage and then someone gets that last kill in and gets all the XP. And personally, I've never been a huge fan of D&D style level based progression.
00:28:17
Speaker
Whether it's XP or Milestone, because it's like you wake up the next morning and suddenly, boom, you're better at everything. At least Milestone, you can you can flavor text that.
00:28:31
Speaker
Base stat in D&D is like, oh, the next day I'm like, oh, man. I'm so more like stronger. It's like, at the very least, if we're like Milestone, it's like, we'll fast forward a week or two. Like, that's what I've been doing with you guys. Yeah, a good example of what Daryl means is like, for all you who play Baldur's Gate 3, you know, they use XP progression.
00:29:02
Speaker
That's your first hint that it works really well in a video game setting. But then they also said... Yeah, but then they also said, we're capping the level at 12. Because if you guys went to the full 20, you'd have god-tier-like spells that would just make every fight meh.
00:29:18
Speaker
yeah You know, that that's a nice segue to a topic that I wanted to bring up regarding rewarding XP. It's nice to want to be generous in giving your players XP.
00:29:33
Speaker
They're doing a great job telling the story with each other and with you. You want to reward them for that. But you need to be careful to not over reward them.
00:29:47
Speaker
This is true. Yes. By way of caution. um Sorry, go ahead, Robert. Nick knows all our jokes about when he'll give XP and we're like, oh, 30,000. Okay.
00:29:58
Speaker
now but But I've i've been through many campaigns, and I know that, like, I'll suit that down, because I know that, like, I've seen campaigns that have gone to, like, two generous DMs, and, like, that goes badly.
00:30:12
Speaker
I think you know the story that I'm about to tell, Nick, as a cautionary tale. Yes. I took part in a very short-lived Star Wars campaign that...
00:30:25
Speaker
The GM is a wonderful guy. I want to preface with that. This was the first game in the system that he had GMed. And he was very, very excited to GM it.
00:30:37
Speaker
He was very, very excited to get to the meat of the storyline that he had in mind. And he was very, very grateful for all of us who were playing for coming to the table with good ideas for our characters and for really diving in and playing.
00:31:00
Speaker
We played ah about three or four, maybe five sessions of the game before it, before it fell victim, before it fell victim to the enemy of all role-playing games.
00:31:20
Speaker
scheduling and now an average XP one day will defeat time itself ah that's funny the average XP award in a game of the Star Wars system is somewhere in the neighborhood of 20 to 30 XP 40 if you do really good accomplish a lot high stakes and all that by yeah that runninging terror but still theyre great
00:31:51
Speaker
By the end of the four or five sessions of this campaign that we played, I meant to pull up my character for this campaign before we started recording and just forgot so that I could tell you exactly how much XP he had.
00:32:09
Speaker
But we had over a thousand XP. Oh, that physically hurts. oh By the end of the second session, i had gone through two specialization trees.
00:32:23
Speaker
Yeah, specialization trees. mean, like, on average, that's like 100 to about 160. So 180. This is emotionally hard so one hundred fill it out eighty ah then are the most one we and um make ever ever told me like to get through a tree.
00:32:48
Speaker
just ballparing because the bottom tier is twenty five ah obviously a no and there's four of them still thousand you could fill two maybe three depending on what trees you pick okay You're Goku but from anime, if anime people know that.
00:33:09
Speaker
And on top of that... um Or Doom oh On top of that, I had you know that a couple of extra trees.
00:33:21
Speaker
On top of that, I had a couple of extra trees to spend XP on, because even though I started off, i was like, you know what? I just want to be a rebel pilot.
00:33:33
Speaker
you know while I am naturally drawn to Force stuff in the Star Wars games, I don't want to be a Force user. i don't want to be Force-sensitive. I just want to be a Rebel pilot. And the GM granted me Force-sensitive emergent at the end of the first session. Okay, now we're getting into part of part two of our discussion.
Avoiding Over-Rewards in RPGs
00:33:55
Speaker
and maybe No, we'll we're get more into part two. This is still XP.
00:34:01
Speaker
yeah we all and You have a great story about part two, Nick. Yeah. yeah That's the one thing I like about Star Wars. They'll like, yeah, you can have your tree, you can have your force powers.
00:34:15
Speaker
They're both expensive, though, so you've got ah balance or decide whether you want more, your career or your force powers. And so i you know I started off as pilot hotshot,
00:34:29
Speaker
And I added another pilot tree. And then I but was granted... Straight pilot. Then I was granted force-sensitive emergence. so I got a lot of that. And I had one or two... I i could go back and pull up the character sheet. but i mean You said this was like four sessions, you said?
00:34:53
Speaker
Four five sessions, yeah. So that's like, what, an average of 250 a session? Yeah, something like that. He sold me it.
00:35:03
Speaker
And that's before he... I think you were getting to your... No, we'll get to the loot part of of that campaign when we talk about loot.
00:35:15
Speaker
So put a pin in the rest of this. Oh, idiot you you are not ready for that. So... i I appreciate and understand where this GM was coming from.
00:35:30
Speaker
i don't want I don't want that to be mistaken. I don't want any anyone to think that I am talking crap about this GM. Because hes he's a great guy.
00:35:42
Speaker
talk him occasionally. he's i know He's talked about coming back to some of our groups, which I am totally fine with. gave her a good heart. the the story Once we got past the first session, had some issues with simply because, again, first time GM, and he was excited about it. Yeah, that's totally understandable.
00:36:06
Speaker
we He was excited about it and was setting the stage, but in setting the stage, we sat through narration and watching clips of the Battle of Hoth because we were there.
00:36:18
Speaker
And then we would cut over to what we were doing at the Battle of Hoth, and then we would get more narration of what we knew from the movies. which Which could have been done well. but that's the new Yeah, first time GM.
00:36:31
Speaker
in the system. So I, I don't begrudge that. It was him one session and he had incredible ideas. It's just, yeah, he, he had great ideas.
00:36:45
Speaker
i I loved where he was going with this. and I could see where he wanted to go with it, but he's just a bit too intense and a bit too,
00:36:57
Speaker
committed to his initial idea that he couldn't, like, its but as a GM that was GMing for him, like, he had an idea, and it's like, okay, I need you to modify that idea.
00:37:13
Speaker
it's like, okay, I'll modify the idea. And just, like, didn't modify it, like, enough to fit. But, like, he had the energy that I i love his energy. He's he's a good guy.
00:37:26
Speaker
And you just, you have to be careful that you're not, you know, we, we mentioned it in kind of the intro to the topic. You know you don't want them to get to the point that they can walk through and do anything without breaking a sweat.
00:37:42
Speaker
Yes. And that's why, again, I'm going back to Cyberpunk. What I like about Cyberpunk is that they, the developers understood yet as these people level, they're going to get better abilities.
00:37:54
Speaker
They're going to hit harder. So they actually brought in a concept, what they call hardened enemies. Basically, these are the enemies that once your group gets really successful, they have good good stats and everything, now you can bring out these hardened enemies that basically, if you ever play a game, it's like they level scale to your player.
00:38:16
Speaker
So this is what this is, more of a level scale to your RPG characters. Not to the point where they're like, dodging every hit and hitting you for like 100 points of damage, but they can still take a hit and deal back out, so the stakes don't become just like slide walk.
00:38:34
Speaker
Not every enemy is going be Adam Smasher, but they're not going to be Corporal Soldier number two. Definitely a great example for like a future session ah future ah topic where we discuss leveling enemies.
00:38:53
Speaker
In regards to players.
00:38:56
Speaker
Yes. Yep. And then, of course, with XP, we've talked about too much XP, but then
Awarding XP to Absent Players
00:39:03
Speaker
there's also the other caveat of you don't want to give too little XP.
00:39:07
Speaker
That's right. To where the characters feel like getting XP is like squeezing blood out of a stone. Right. you You want to be sure that you are incentivizing the players to come back and be involved and and keep participating.
00:39:27
Speaker
And if you're stingy on the XP, then... That that will hurt not just like player players wanting to engage, but also players coming back.
00:39:41
Speaker
Honestly, I'd say like if I had to choose a factor of... be a little bit more generous with XP than not, because that at least keeps coming, gets players coming back.
00:39:58
Speaker
Right. You're giving them that reward for coming in. They're being there. Because they should be doing something. And nick always make them feel like they're doing, if they're doing something, reward them for doing something.
00:40:14
Speaker
Nick, you saying being there... you You are both teeing me up tonight with segues. Thank you. This is a topic that ah years ago on the old FFG Star Wars forums, this was a hotly debated topic for a month or so.
00:40:38
Speaker
How do you guys feel about XP for players who aren't at a session? Oh, that's a complicated issue. It's complicated, it and and I definitely know, at least in my experience, it's up to the player, because one of our players, Betsy, she has literally told me, hey, if I'm not there, I shouldn't get XP.
00:40:58
Speaker
I don't want XP. I want to be there to get the XP. So you definitely first ask your players if they're comfortable with that. She told me the same thing. I've never made a whole, like, she did the same thing with me. She told me that.
00:41:12
Speaker
and office I've never had that given before, but Normally I would be okay, you're not there. I will give you half or the the lowest minimum of XP.
00:41:24
Speaker
Yeah, if I don't want to feel like I'm punishing them for not being there, but I also don't want give them the full XP because you weren't a part of it.
00:41:35
Speaker
So it's that midway compromise. and But there's also like the case of like everyone... ah this is my... My idea is the fact that like this is a hobby and you all have real life things to do.
00:41:51
Speaker
That was the crux. I will not ever punish you. like It'd be like if someone was like, oh, a family member passed away. i have to go the funeral. I was like, I'm not going to punish you for that. but and That was the crux.
00:42:10
Speaker
that That was the whole crux of the conversation on the FFG forums. There were two basic schools of thought. The one being, well, not so much that the player wasn't there, but the character didn't take part in the experience.
00:42:31
Speaker
Therefore, does the character get experience points? Because they weren't there going through everything to progress. The other thought being...
00:42:43
Speaker
Half or minimal. The other thought being, well, I don't want to punish my players and I want all of the PCs on a relatively level level.
00:42:58
Speaker
field so and if i give this person who has to miss sessions yeah no xp for a session then that character falls behind and i inadvertently have overpowered adversaries against them yep you're gonna make a squishy person and that's why when some our players come back after ah long time like three or four weeks sometimes, we gotta be like, okay, I need to at least give you enough XP to where you are not lagging behind everybody, so i need to figure out a good amount.
00:43:37
Speaker
But, uh, in terms of, again, like, you guys know that I'm more of a story guy, so, like, like okay, you were off-screen, were doing stuff, so here's your XP, it's not as much as everyone else, but it's slightly beneath what they got.
00:43:56
Speaker
But you are training up relevant skills that you wanted to do. and that and i and And I'm more good at making combat. So I'm like, OK, I don't want to make you squishy to where my enemies take you out in two rounds.
00:44:14
Speaker
But like like Daryl said, I also don't want you to be killing them left and right. So here's a good amount of XP. Yeah. The best example is ah our Whisper-based game. ah Kyle has been kind of inconsistent a whole lot, but I've been giving him extra scenes where I've given him like, okay, do you want to do force powers or do you want to do lightsaber skills? You can't do anything else.
00:44:39
Speaker
Everything else you have to do is only if you are in an actual assassin. And that's what he's been sort of like building up and stuff. We've been really talking heavily about Star Wars, because it's kind of that type of setting or that type of system that you have to ask these questions. I'll say and at least Walking Dead combat's pretty much the same, depending on what skills you choose.
00:45:06
Speaker
So every losing XP isn't a horrible thing that happens. Skill is equally be disfiered. Yeah, because enemies, like human enemies, yeah, there's a little bit of a skill gap there.
00:45:19
Speaker
In Walking Dead, Zombies don't really have stats. They're more environmental hazards. They're more force of nature. They're more force of nature.
00:45:30
Speaker
They don't change. how yeah And how are you're planning. It's like, do you want to be like, oh, I want to build the fences. I want to build, a I want to be more. Yeah. how did those How did that fence building go for you last time, Nick?
00:45:43
Speaker
Very bad. Hey, we had a really great improv scene playing soldiers. Yes, you did. it was really fun. Yes, you Part of the consensus that came up in that discussion on the FFG boards about present versus not present players, and I agreed with this, and then I constantly forget to do it in my session zeros, is you bring it up in session zero and say, here's how I handle XP for...
00:46:19
Speaker
sessions that you have to miss. I understand that life happens. Here's how I handle XP. Is everybody good with that? yeah that's um i haven't i done that either Honestly, I do agree with that, but also I feel like it's just I have a standard statement about like halfway or like depending on the situation that I'd rather address it when it happens so I don't put it in my Sass Zero. But you can put that in your Sass of Zero. And you can put that in our Sass of Zero ah playbook.
00:46:55
Speaker
Well, remember, yeah we're going to revisit that to the manifesto. Remember, we're going to revisit the manifesto every year. um so i That might be good idea. We have to do it.
00:47:07
Speaker
So we we need to go in and make a note now because we're going to sleep between now and then. I'm already doing it. You're already sleeping. and He's the note keeper.
00:47:22
Speaker
i totally am not sleeping right now.
00:47:27
Speaker
but Anything else that we can think of regarding XP that we would want to bring up?
The Role of Classic D&D XP
00:47:35
Speaker
I'll be the devil's advocate for classic D&D It's like,
00:47:43
Speaker
It is the basic. <unk> It's what's expected. It's in all video games. and It's in Baldur's Gate. It's what's prescribed in every edition.
00:47:58
Speaker
And yeah, there's nothing wrong with it. It's just not our style. There's nothing wrong with it. Other games have simply improved on the concept.
00:48:11
Speaker
Exactly, and of course... if If that's what works for you and your group, because it's worked for groups since the beginning. It's worked for 50 years.
00:48:25
Speaker
Exactly. And I'll add but those of you starting out or choosing a system, as far as XP goes, at least if you want a good base point or guidelines, look into how the book says XP should be handled.
00:48:41
Speaker
They usually know a little bit of what they're talking about. There's been five editions and it's barely changed. Five and a half. Five and a half. Technically six and a half because there was 3.5. I still call it six.
00:48:55
Speaker
ah So that's the XP part of the conversation. Then there's loot, and loot can lead to a similar imbalance, but it seems so much more benign.
00:49:13
Speaker
Oh, it is. because it's You could easily... You could easily overdo it. I mean, going back to D&D... even though I'm not playing a character with much in the way of archery, Nick, how many times have I joked that I want Hank's energy bow from the cartoon?
00:49:35
Speaker
I believe it's, uh, it's, it's a David and why? Yeah. And ie there there are stats for it now. Yes. I know there are stats for it now, but it's like every single session you have made that, that joke.
00:49:51
Speaker
Or if we want something... ahar i was going to say, I've wanted a character with that energy bow since I saw the cartoon in the 80s. so Which I'm not opposed to you getting, but it needs to be... Again, it's a it's a thing that you need to earn.
00:50:09
Speaker
Yes, and giving you an even more obvious example, least in Star Wars comparisons, you probably don't want to give your group in the second session...
00:50:20
Speaker
A fully functioning lightsaber. Oh, I have a specific example.
Mistakes in Loot Balance
00:50:26
Speaker
You don't want to give Mace Windu a lightsaber. Nick, what did you do?
00:50:34
Speaker
Nick didn't do anything. We're going to take the pin out of that short campaign with Amazing XP that I was talking about earlier.
00:50:44
Speaker
we were but we're taking we We're taking the pin out of that one. And we're going back to it. Please tell me he didn't. Because he after i was sorry After I was granted Force Sensitive Emergent,
00:51:02
Speaker
a Jedi character that we encountered who is the one who basically unlocked my Force ability. At the Battle Hoth.
00:51:14
Speaker
No, no, this was after the Battle of Hoth. Oh, yeah. This is wherever we went right after the Battle of Hoth. All of us were bequeathed using some D&D terms, legendary items.
00:51:28
Speaker
Stephanie, who was playing kind of a a prototype of her Mandalorian character from special missions, was granted Jango Fett's pistols.
00:51:42
Speaker
And I forget, there were two other players, two, three other players. I forget what they were granted. They were granted named character weapons.
00:51:54
Speaker
But you... And I was bequeathed Mace Windu's lightsaber. Okay, where the heck did this random NPC get all this stuff?
00:52:05
Speaker
And but two... that of battle of like That's like... Are you still like grunts in the Rebellion? Yeah. We might have been using night level play. I don't remember.
00:52:19
Speaker
But that's neither here nor there. The first night level play was when you and your family was here. So like you guys were at least high level, not a missile night level.
00:52:33
Speaker
Right. So was given Mace Windu's lightsaber. Now, keep in mind, this is also after... you know so my My unreasonable ask when creating my character is I decided that I would like to have Nightsister energy bow.
00:52:56
Speaker
And I came up with a way that I would have come into possession of it. And it was totally up to the GM to say yes or no.
00:53:10
Speaker
The GM gave me yes. so So my my starting weapon was a Nightsister energy bow. Yeah, that's little too much. then I Mace Windu's lightsaber. I mean, that's a strong weapon. It's a strong, decent weapon. Definitely shouldn't be starting equipment.
00:53:29
Speaker
So to to give to give kind of my reasoning is um I ah kind of decided that I wanted the boat. you You both know that I, whenever possible, i like to cast my characters. Yes.
00:53:47
Speaker
And i I cast Stephen Amell from Arrow as my character. Good choice. And was like, hey, you know even though I'm not doing Oliver Queen character-wise, I found a great picture of him you know knocking an arrow. was like, if I went in and doctored this to be an energy bow, and you know the GM was good with it. He's got good at the Photoshop. Yeah, that's a thing you're good at.
00:54:23
Speaker
And so... Yeah, I had Mace Windu's lightsaber. Actually, I think Mace Windu's lightsaber is what unlocked my... Being given that lightsaber is what unlocked my force. That's he described it to the me. It's like, you were given that, and that's...
00:54:42
Speaker
but I want to know who this NPC was that had had all these named character weapons. i his um that that That can... It's not an RPG horror story, but it's an RPG I'm not sure that's cool story.
00:55:01
Speaker
But this NPC that had all of these... all of these i know the guy... Yeah, and I i understand why why he did it this way.
00:55:12
Speaker
Unfortunately, the character was just used as an NPC, but the character that had all of these items was my PC from a campaign that we had both been players in who was ah Jedi.
00:55:32
Speaker
Well, I'm just getting the vibe of those RPG video games where you've finished all this stuff, cleared dungeons, whatever. Then you meet that one merchant that always seems to have the best equipment. And you just like, how do you keep finding this stuff?
00:55:49
Speaker
The only reason that i that I say that it falls into I'm not sure that's cool territory is I wish that he had asked me ahead of time, can I use your character as an NPC in this campaign?
00:56:07
Speaker
Can I use your character from campaign as an NPC in campaign B? And I probably would have said yes. And I understand why he didn't, because he wanted it to be a surprise to my character.
00:56:23
Speaker
Yeah. But yes. I took it in the spirit that it was intended that he liked that character of mine and felt that it would be an appropriate character to slot into this position to kind of, you know bounce everybody off by giving them these items.
00:56:46
Speaker
So yeah, I think, I think he really did just fall down the beginning game master mistakes of just too much and too little time. You want to give too many, many. And I've definitely had that feeling before, especially when I started, I was like, okay, they've killed these enemies. They're doing the usual looting. It's like, okay,
00:57:08
Speaker
I want to give them decent stuff, but I don't want to give them like really good stuff either, to where it's just a cakewalk going forward. So what can i give them that's acceptable, but also good?
00:57:22
Speaker
as a D&D guy, I feel like if I make a high magic world, yeah, yeah bags of holding, that's going to be pretty easy to get. yeah or a certain...
00:57:35
Speaker
hobgoblin portrait that ran for like thousands of gold. Oh yeah they yeah, you went in there. It's like you didn't that that's unusual, but it's like the idea is like, oh, in a magical world, like oh, you guys have at least like two bags of holes in between you. It's like that's that's just a regular thing.
00:57:57
Speaker
like you guys finding an ancient goblin portrait just like in a goblin It's like Yeah, that is what I do like about Eberron. It's like, yeah, you have items, but so do most other people in the world. but it like Yeah, that's what makes those goblin like portraits, goblin stuff. It's like, oh, you actually went into an ancient tomb that's weird and unusual. It's like, yeah, you can carry that all out in your bag of holding.
00:58:28
Speaker
Let's just say we've abused bag of holding in my character's telekinesis abilities. Yes. Oh, you've abused that. While we're on the subject, though, of that painting that brought us quite a bit of gold, that's the other thing that you need to be careful about is making the characters too flush with money.
00:58:54
Speaker
Yes. It's true. Now, We've heard that before. Well, there's a sidebar in the Edge of the Empire core rulebook called Keep Them Hungry.
00:59:06
Speaker
And I don't quite agree with that. i I don't want to keep... I don't know what follow of that, but I... I also cannot speak on that because i please, please be kind to me, Daryl.
00:59:22
Speaker
Well, I was going to say i appreciate the spirit of that sidebar and that you don't want the players, the player characters to become too flush with money.
00:59:34
Speaker
Keep them hungry. Keep them going for, for, for that. It's like, uh, and, It's okay to give them windfalls, but I used this example um when somebody and online not too long ago in a Facebook group or Reddit group asking about the Star Wars system and that very that specific sidebar.
01:00:04
Speaker
was like, don't keep them destitute. Let them have big windfalls from time to time. Obviously, yeah. But when do you give them big windfalls, also throw an obstacle in their way that can cut into that windfall.
01:00:23
Speaker
And a great example story-wise is outside of RPGs, but...
Windfalls with Built-in Challenges
01:00:30
Speaker
There's a comics miniseries based on the TV series Firefly slash follow-up movie Serenity called Serenity Better Days.
01:00:41
Speaker
And the comic miniseries opens with the crew of Serenity having this great job that goes perfectly well, and they make a big score and make a lot of money out of it.
01:00:57
Speaker
But then something happens that basically puts a target on their backs and also requires them to, by the end of the story, they have to spend all of that money that they made. Okay. Yeah, that's a good idea and that's a good way to do it. How did that put us back into a campaign that we're doing in D&D?
01:01:21
Speaker
The Homeless and Suicide Warriors. They had everything going for them. Oh, yeah. We... After that first session, certain people, Daryl, had a lot of money.
01:01:32
Speaker
did They have have a large amount of coin, but that doesn't solve their problems. Also, ah making a tavern is expensive.
01:01:44
Speaker
Yes. But we went into it knowing that, knowing that it was a money sink that would help Nick out mechanically.
01:01:57
Speaker
in being a money sink for us. Yep. And it was also fun. least a little tangent. It's fun how we opened the tavern. And we started with high-end stuff rather than low-end stuff. We're actually trying to find low-end alcohol because we have too much high-end alcohol.
01:02:17
Speaker
Now, Nick has been asking me to go gentle on him. Nick, that gives the suggestion that you have experience with at least one campaign where the PCs were maybe a little too flush with cash?
01:02:37
Speaker
Nick, Nick. Do we want to traumatize the viewers? We have to This is important. i mean we're we're We're not going to go into the whole trauma. We're not going to have a full therapy session. Well, we'd have to involve your son because he has that's great great Well, again, we're not going to go into full details on it. We just need to hit the certain points.
01:03:02
Speaker
We're going to hit the bullet points that apply to the topic that we're talking about right now. And that is that due to some very good gambling roles, one of the PCs came into literally trillions of credits.
01:03:23
Speaker
Mm-hmm. And to Nick's credit, this player was like a beta tester for the Star Wars RPG. He knew the ins and outs. he He hadn't done beta testing for the Gambler Tree, but he had studied the Gambler Tree and figured out all of the best broken exploits for it that are still within the He was a beta tester for what one of the... The point is, this yeah sos me yeah this player we know
01:03:55
Speaker
He's really good at finding the ways to break the system. Finding loopholes in the rules as written. And this PC, rather than keeping that but all of those trillions of credits... I will say, ah what one thing will say that I acknowledge the fact that I will swallow that that responsibility.
01:04:21
Speaker
I feel I should do that. It's like, I will not blame him he he he played the game how the game was made and i was as a player did not know the game as well so that's what i'm saying but but still well he on you he did to his credit he did not hold on to all of those trillions of credits for himself yes but distributed those trillions of credits equally among all of the PCs, such that each of the PCs had at least one trillion credits.
01:05:04
Speaker
And didn't you guys, like, literally own planets? Yes. No, not just planets. Sectors of planets. And we... we had enough credits that we invested those in money-making enterprises that... Made more money.
01:05:27
Speaker
Made more money, so the credits were never depleted. They continued to grow. They had their own corporate If I remember correctly, your character asked the dreaded question.
01:05:41
Speaker
Yes, I did ask the question at one point, because... We continued to go out adventuring. Two of the characters had their and had entire paramilitary forces at their beck and call.
01:05:58
Speaker
And i literally I literally turned to everyone in character one day and said, why are we all still out here doing this? And that's a question you don't want your players to ever ask as a GM.
01:06:13
Speaker
Why are we still here? Um, Daryl, I'll give you the answer to the question that I don't think you've realized.
Imbalance from Excessive Wealth
01:06:21
Speaker
I left and that room and I cried. I'm sorry, Nick. guys get Not your fault.
01:06:33
Speaker
but was like I realized how far everything had gone. And I was like, I do not have control. That's just really big, extreme example of too much. And and i like I like to think... That is my...
01:06:51
Speaker
and get i admit that to you. admit that to everyone. like I made a mistake. There were like seven... so like Roughly around 20 different mistakes that created this.
01:07:07
Speaker
But like ultimately, it does come from the same fact that like you have to control how you award... players And in some cases, you can leave that up to chance. There are plenty of random loot tables.
01:07:27
Speaker
Robert loves him some random loot tables. Yes. That's like Fallout. That's why we're doing a Fallout game. He's going to love it. And as a GM...
01:07:40
Speaker
If something comes up on the random loot table that falls into the category of too good to be true or comes close to an I win button, it's a good idea. a way that you can handle that is to almost make it a monkey's paw.
01:08:01
Speaker
Yeah. You have the I win button, but there are consequences to using the I win button. ah Especially in D&D. It's like, okay.
01:08:12
Speaker
ah You have the cursed artifact. you have You have a sort of plus five damage. Guess what? You can't put it down.
01:08:24
Speaker
You put it down, you die. That sounds stupid, but it's like you can play it however you want. it like Guess what? dear youre Your fighter will be like, oh,
01:08:38
Speaker
Plus five to damage to a great sword. It's like, but if I drop it, I i die. Or every encounter becomes way more intense.
01:08:50
Speaker
And they're like, well, I need to, it becomes a funny moment. was like, well, I got cradle this thing in in my, in my bed sack while I'm sleeping. i I need to lash it to my hand when I go to bed.
01:09:04
Speaker
I think a good example of, good loot, especially in the D&D sense, is actually what our D&D group did in Nick's Hopeless Situation Warriors, because we were initially sent out to receive pieces of what's called the Ashen Crown in Eberron, and there were literally five pieces which each had certain abilities and buffs to the weapon, depending on who attuned to it.
01:09:32
Speaker
And there were literally five pieces, and there were, at the time, Five of us, we were just like, okay, I get this one, you get that one, you get that one. And we made a story out of it. Like, we are now the keepers.
01:09:47
Speaker
We're going to hold on to this part of the Ashen Crown. So to make sure that nobody can ever get all the pieces and form the Ashen Crown. Exactly. Again, it's again like those are meant to be like, those are meant to be like, oh, it's the ultimate weapon. like It's like, all these characters are going to be like, we need to.
01:10:07
Speaker
One of them is going to be like, want to hold the ultimate weapon. Instead, they were like, well, the world's in a bad spot. We don't want to reunite this powerful weapon.
01:10:20
Speaker
We also don't want it to be floating around. So guess what? We'll just keep a piece. and And we were just like, we don't want this getting out, potentially causing another conflict, so we'll just keep our peace over here.
01:10:36
Speaker
This is mine. Don't touch it. Oh, yeah, you guys also don't even know no the ritual to bring it all together. No, you told one of us that. I think you told ah Stephanie's character how to do it.
01:10:48
Speaker
Yeah. And the other thing that you can do, too, is if you're tailoring... loot to one or more members of your group, remember the old adage, be careful what you wish for.
01:11:02
Speaker
You may get it. this the i It's the monkey paw. I want Hank's energy bow, but it's hank's energy bow and so now i have the heroes of the cartoon chasing me down to get hank's bow back i i want a hundred bucks why are there so many many male deers stamp samping for my room or in the star wars sense you want a lightsaber cool you get parts that can make a lightsaber
01:11:43
Speaker
You need the other parts. And you also need to know how to actually make a lightsaber. i I had a player in one of my Star Wars campaigns who was not a Force user, but wanted lightsaber.
01:11:59
Speaker
He was a clone that had been suspended animation up through, he'd been in carbon freeze up through the timeframe that the campaign was set in, which was 250 years after sequels.
01:12:13
Speaker
And... That's a long stasis. Because he had respected the Jedi, he wanted a lightsaber. I let him have one. It was a basic lightsaber. It wasn't a... yeah It wasn't a fully maxed out on mods lightsaber. It was a basic lightsaber.
01:12:32
Speaker
But... But... but You're not a force user. So first of all, you cannot start with ranks in lightsaber.
01:12:45
Speaker
yeah And the difficulty on all of your lightsaber checks is upgraded once because you're not a force user. yeahs Yeah. yeah That's proper. Yeah.
01:12:58
Speaker
yeah And that helps. And then as far as I'm concerned, if people more do get good loot or in the example of Star Wars, it's like, cool. You got a lightsaber. It's a good weapon.
01:13:10
Speaker
But your enemies also have lightsabers, so it's not like you have a great advantage over them. I've discussed with an individual that we know, going to spoil it, but we're talking about a campaign in the future.
01:13:28
Speaker
i wonder who that could be. It's total mystery.
Unique and Narrative Loot Rewards
01:13:33
Speaker
Not to introduce them for sensitive. It's like, yeah, a lightsaber would not be in.
01:13:40
Speaker
Lightsaber wouldn't be their skill. But it'd be interesting to see them like try it. to To learn that. And to to repel an enemy that uses one.
01:13:55
Speaker
This can also attribute to a myriad of other skills. In entirely different systems. But the major factor is like, oh, I think I have a great example of of a unique item that could be like a little bit unique given to a group of players. say ah Something orb-shaped.
01:14:21
Speaker
Be careful what you wish for.
01:14:25
Speaker
you might get it. good A little more difficult. Nick, what do they do with the orb? They did a lot with the orb, but that's... I know they did a lot with the orb. Nick, I'm trying to get you to use three specific words so I can drop the car's sound bite in again.
01:14:44
Speaker
What did they do? sorry. I'm kind of completely blanking on what that could be. Nick. Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick.
01:14:57
Speaker
I'm so disappointed in you that I can't get you to say...
01:15:04
Speaker
I even did the motion. are Are you sure they didn't? Shake it up! They shook it up, but Robert put it in their hands. So feel he should be the one that started up.
01:15:20
Speaker
It's not entirely my fault they decided to take it with them. I thought after having their body swapped, maybe they don't want to take the orb that swapped bodies. But it is your orb. I was throwing it to you, man.
01:15:35
Speaker
but it it's It's my fault. They love my stuff. It can be... It's very tempting to want to reward the players with items that they're looking for or things that will make the characters' lives easier.
01:15:53
Speaker
or not yeah yeah not even items. like A good example for me is that in Nick's Heroes of Hutt Space, we were at this shadow port in my character at Trandoshan.
01:16:04
Speaker
He's a big game hunter. One thing leads to another because it's in an asteroid and the asteroid's shaking. I you're welcome i go and investigate what's causing these tremors.
01:16:20
Speaker
Big, weird asteroid slug thing. My character's a little impetuous. Starts fighting the thing. Somehow manages to kill it. Even though this is like ship level.
01:16:33
Speaker
It's a long fight. It took like half an hour. Yeah, Nick didn't even plan for it. He just said he did the whole giant monster eye behind you illuminating it all, and I was just like, how close is it?
01:16:50
Speaker
I stab it. I stab it. Again, it still took me half an hour to go out that eye through it, fighting it, and then Yeah, had to go to the other and then go in and kill it.
01:17:04
Speaker
i get Like an hour session. There's about an hour session in that. it like It took a while. Yes, but at the end, I did kill im cutting in there We just kept cutting back. It's like, okay, you're fighting it and like here's the next part of it and like you stopping yourself from being crunched by the jaws and then swinging around to the next eye.
01:17:29
Speaker
yeah And then did. It took a full-ass hour. Everyone was like, okay, we're doing this stuff. but Everyone was so into it. They were like, do it. Kill it. I was like, was like okay, I just have to cut back to those guys doing the regular stuff. And you're like, you're having your God of War battles in there.
01:17:53
Speaker
Yeah, that's the closest I've gone to a God of War battle in Star Wars. But I end up killing it. So it stops breaking havoc on the Shadowport. And ended up being, like, crashing it in there in front everyone who's, like, having, like, a regular adventure. or Like, you, like, pump it out. And and that's ah that's a great kind of reward is and event, an occurrence.
01:18:22
Speaker
a ah Actually, yeah, you became the... It's it's called the... more the my It was called before in Hot Tones, The Miner's Horror.
01:18:36
Speaker
But you changed that name. Nah, it's Gorse Spray now. But as far as is concerned, as far as loot is concerned, I saved it.
01:18:47
Speaker
So the Hutt administrator on the Shadowport, I did a great thing, so Instead of like money or ah good item, she gave me but you're a little one kind kind of a boon.
01:18:58
Speaker
She gave me an Argus disc, which for those of you who that's basically in the books, that's basically a disc that basically says, your character is now an honorary Hutt.
01:19:10
Speaker
So basically you get two boosts to any interactions with Hutt as part of that family. but also yeah And that was like, oh. Change the name of that creature. It's like,
01:19:21
Speaker
It was the miner's horse. Like, no. Gorsk's prey. and it's like And that's a good example of a boon. It's like, okay, you did this great feat.
01:19:32
Speaker
You're basically an honorary hut. And huts are very egotistical. It takes a lot to get them to say, you're one of us. Respect. And also, like, everyone, like because you now is huge.
01:19:49
Speaker
Yeah, and as a player... That impacted me more than if they just said, okay, here's 6,000 credits. Thank you for doing that. Yeah. That's a great way of tailoring rewards to the PC without potentially breaking the game by giving them an I win button or a lot of cash or more significantly more XP than the other characters. Also appealing to their player characters.
01:20:20
Speaker
stuff and also fitting in with the story that they were doing like they were investigating stuff like you just went a little bit deeper and like and i did play the whole trend ocean it's all about hunting because they're gods the scorekeeper you keep track of the game you've hunted and killed and i was and my character was like the whole team was that's a lot of points the whole team was going there is like it's like you win one end and ripped out the eye, slid around, hit the other eye, just like... And Nick helped my character in that, because I would get XP, but I would also, after I kill an enemy, I'd also ask, Nick, okay, how many points is that?
01:21:04
Speaker
yeah Yeah. So what else what else do we have loot-wise in terms of advice? I think one final advice is the biggest, and honestly, it's a question that I do have to ask about you guys.
01:21:21
Speaker
Yes? Dragon Hordes. Those are very classic tight type of award. Yeah, yeah, and I know in D&D we're heading eventually towards one of those.
01:21:38
Speaker
But in general, it's just... massive hordes of treasure. How do you guys feel about those? Because again, that's a big question for a lot. would say at least in a D&D sense, as far as hordes are concerned, ah way to make it good loot but still don't break the game and then maybe also add a bit of flavor is that you tailor the horde to either the enemy or dragon you're doing. like Maybe a dragon that's more interested in knowledge would have hordes of
01:22:11
Speaker
scrolls and spells and artifacts, which could be a good reward while not breaking the game. as far as my money, maybe it's out-of-date money or old money that's not in circulation anymore. It's still worth something, but not a lot.
01:22:29
Speaker
Or however you you could maybe say that, you know in in the dragon's paranoia of having their treasure hoard stolen from them, that there's a spell on the treasure hoard that it's basically deadlocked in their lair, and this spell is not dispelled by the dragon's death.
01:22:59
Speaker
That can work especially with like a Dracolic or more advanced dragon. And what whatever but whatever the dragon's horde is, the potential to imbalance is there.
01:23:15
Speaker
And that's a carrot that you can dangle in front of the the players. Oh, there's yeah all of these scrolls. There's all of this gold.
01:23:27
Speaker
There's all of this loot. There's whatever. But it can't go beyond the entrance to the cave. Yes. It can't leave the dungeon until and unless you find the counterspell.
01:23:45
Speaker
Yes, or or at least in the sense of a money ward. Maybe don't make it the reward make it the goal because in your, ah good example is in your orbit project you and Daryl are doing.
01:23:58
Speaker
Yeah. The goal basically is make money, get money enough to retire, live your life. So the goal is to get the money and we've gone gung ho about a Betsy and I are even thinking, okay, we want to find some way to get to a hut treasure world and just rob the vaults blind. We're going to make a lot of money.
01:24:20
Speaker
That's the reward, but also the goal to end the campaign. but It's a lot it there definitely be a lot more difficult. There's a lot of troubles to get to there. or as far as a money horde is concerned, tailored to the campaign. Like, I know, Daryl, you've talked about your Raiders the Lost Jedi.
01:24:42
Speaker
A horde or a treasure trove is a good campaign endpoint. or Oh, i know what the endgame was for that. But it's going to be a lot of smaller objects that are far more wealthy than actual dislike in comparison gold.
01:25:02
Speaker
Yeah, money's good, but some objects are better. The idea is the fact that like and in terms of loot, loot is much more, for lack of a better term, fluid.
01:25:18
Speaker
it But you never should try to evaluate the amount of loot that you get, but also try to like make certain that your players want something. It's like, oh, they got this much gold.
01:25:41
Speaker
What's the ah plus three plus sword that they want? Yes. that Or other good advice.
01:25:53
Speaker
Like, as far as money or it's concerned, that's good advice. Or, like in our example with me and Nick, know your players' characters and know what they want.
01:26:04
Speaker
Nick knew my Trandoshan character didn't really care about money. he wanted points recognition. so he And so he tailored the reward in that sense rather than a monetary sense.
01:26:18
Speaker
And if ah if I had to choose future rewards, it'd be like... I'd give another big creature to take out.
01:26:32
Speaker
Yes, but or Daryl's... But the next reward would be ah big weapon. Yes. On the stage, be like, I can use that on the next big creature.
01:26:47
Speaker
or in Daryl's character in Legacy of the Force, is a big High Republic nerd. So Nick gave him a Jedi lightsaber gun.
01:26:58
Speaker
Yes. So he can nerd out over it and be like, oh, oh I've never seen one of these. Oh, this is good. I want to use this, and this will come in handy against the big bad, but I also want to preserve relics of this kind of thing and it it'll chew up and spit out a lightsaber if I use it.
01:27:21
Speaker
And next also, and when Nick and I have also led him to old high Republic vessels so he can explore them. We went into an old Jedi training room on a Republic vessel and he was nerding out like, Oh, I know what that is. And that is, and look at the statues. And then, Oh, is that, is that real high Republic Jedi armor? And then,
01:27:40
Speaker
That's part of the the fact that you can reward your players without XP or actual loot. You can't just reward them for their player interests, their ideas.
01:27:58
Speaker
and That's still good. like But that's sort of like the... and Honestly, I'll... out Call it up myself. That's what I like more. I like a story beats.
01:28:11
Speaker
But like if yeah the mechanical stuff, like you're like, oh this is stuff that encounters with me and I like that. That's cool.
01:28:22
Speaker
That's so cool.
Encouraging Spending in RPGs
01:28:24
Speaker
And then the most easy advice of all, if you give your players money, give them chances to spend it. get don't only give them chances to spend it, give them needs to spend it.
01:28:38
Speaker
ah yeah Exactly. Give them needs to spend it so the whole trillion of credits scenario doesn't happen. Yes, limited ammo, better armor, cooler stuff. That reminds of Steven's convention game, Slayer Industries, where it's literally yeah, you get money, you get yeah get guns and bullets, but it's limited ammo, and ammo's expensive.
01:29:07
Speaker
So it's actually more profitable to use melee weapons than ranged weapons, because one, you're not paid a lot, but then you also have to pay for the ammo that you spent. So it's a balancing act. Shopping shopping sessions. like As much as everyone makes a joke about was like it, it's a shopping episode. It's like,
01:29:30
Speaker
There's a lot of fun to get me done of that. Honestly, I think we should do one on shopping. Well, our our friends Steve and Steve from Me and Steve Talk RPGs just recently did an episode on shopping sessions.
01:29:46
Speaker
ah so So I heartily recommend... Maybe check that out. that episode yeah we might circle back around and give our own unique uh spin on that later i just don't want to do that too soon after theirs because i don't want to unconsciously steal any of their material because they're good guys because we do it better nick okay okay nick and then
01:30:19
Speaker
Did I say that? Yes, you did. And Nick, you're starting to get too full of yourself. So I think it might be time for us to either start picking on you or just plain call it a wrap.
01:30:34
Speaker
I think we did. Yeah, we need to pick on him a little. Hey, Nick. Hey, Nick.
01:30:41
Speaker
hey hey nick So at at our at our next, let's see, our our next game is D&D on Sunday. So we're getting millions of gold, right?
01:30:54
Speaker
i don't I don't have a camera right now, but I am holding up a finger right now. is it Or Nick, you're definitely going to do another MLP because we'll love to be so generous, right?
01:31:09
Speaker
Now he's holding up the corresponding finger on his other hand.
01:31:15
Speaker
Yeah, for all of those who want to play the NLP one, if you if you want to make a generous character, also make them rich. It really helps.
01:31:26
Speaker
I think we're in the closing time. closing time i guess so all right so i guess it's you know the that time of the show where i say to check out our website at how we roll gaming.com and when you go out to our website you'll find links to all of our socials blue sky facebook threads um and you'll also find information about our current campaigns, the games that we're familiar with running, and links to past podcast episodes, all sorts of good things.
01:32:07
Speaker
Yep, you can also directly support the show through Patreon. Just go to patreon.com slash howwerollgaming, and you'll see our different membership tiers starting at just $2 a month, where we and we'll give you special recognition on our Discord server.
01:32:22
Speaker
and higher tiers, possibly giving you on-air credit and discounts on our new merch store that's actually going to launch any day now. Because I know Daryl has been very busy with the designs. It's looking good.
01:32:34
Speaker
I have. There's all sorts of awesome stuff. And I keep thinking, oho I could add this. And I i just go a little crazy. um He showed us possible wrapping paper.
01:32:46
Speaker
And we just had to talk about it. That's a little too much. Yeah. Yeah, but finally, if you have any questions since you'd like us to answer, topics you'd like us to cover, or even submit your own RPG glory stories,
01:33:04
Speaker
soon an email ad podcast at howrogaming dot com Thanks guys. And thanks everyone for listening. We hope that our ramblings were helpful and we will see you next time.
01:33:20
Speaker
a little cross promotion, some late breaking news. ah Robert and I and possibly Nick will be here in just a couple hours. We'll be stepping over to the aforementioned me and Steve talk RPGs.
01:33:36
Speaker
and ye And, and jumping in there. And good exciting, some cross-show synergy.
01:33:47
Speaker
So we hope you listen to that one too. ah We will throw a link to that one out there on our socials once it drops. But until next time, as always, i am Daryl. And I'm Nick.
01:34:01
Speaker
And I'm Robert. And this is how we roll.
01:34:08
Speaker
This episode of the How We Roll Gaming podcast is copyright 2025, How We Roll Gaming, LLC. All games and associated intellectual properties are copyrighted their respective owners, and How We Roll Gaming makes no claim of ownership by discussing them here.