So, this argument came to X (Twitter) awhile back and I chimed in. That was a mistake. (Lol!) Somehow this ended up being a way more serious debate than any of us anticipated.

I’m not going to repeat the entire social media drama here. It’s not worth it. We had people call one another Communist over such a silly thing. Guys, it’s a TTRPG for crying out loud!

Presenting: Experience Point leveling first.

Back in the ancient times of 1974, Gygax, Arneson, and company devised a way to track the progress of adventurers from one dungeon to the next. They decided to use Experience Points! Monsters slain, gold collected, and sometimes the assorted treasure (destroyed.)

It was great! Now instead of being a low level noob with a THACO of 19, it was possible to be a low level chump with another d6 Hit Points and a THACO of 18. Those pesky saving throws might improve, too. Keep it up and NPCs might respect your character, too.

This was the way up until about 3rd Ed Dungeons & Dragons. Instead of all that crunchy bookkeeping, maybe we could just have the characters level up after they accomplish certain things. Somehow this ridiculous nonsense caught on. (I’m kidding!)

Then came Milestone Leveling.

I’m sure this notion was probably originally pitched in Dragon Magazine or some other publication. For every fiddly number crunchy thing in Basic and AD&D, there was someone’s house rule workaround. Honestly, I don’t remember where milestone leveling began. I know it caught on in 4th Ed D&D and became the standard for the most part in 5E and other roleplaying games.

The idea here is the characters have certain goals to accomplish or certain story points to touch on. This requires players to work a bit more closely with the Dungeon Master and develop a backstory for the character. Part of developing story milestones is having a backstory that is at least somewhat cohesive with the DM’s overall plot.

Is there a dragon to slay? Is there a great uncle to avenge? Why are we here and what are we doing with these characters overall. It doesn’t have to be world-shaking and huge, either. It just requires a bit of thought about what went into the character besides stats on a page.

Why Milestones? Because math is hard, apparently. It’s faster just to tell the player(s,) “Hey, you level up tonight.” Then they go through the leveling up process. Easy enough.

Where’s the happy medium?

Compromise? This is the internet. What is this travesty you speak of? Compromise? We don’t speak that language around here, do we? Well, I do. Several of my like-minded fellows on the Internet see eye to eye on this..

There’s a concept called group leveling. Instead of assigning levels or experience to each player, the DM simply tells the whole group to level up. First session down- gain a level. Fifth session in- another level. Survive the big boss battle seven sessions in? Well, that’s probably the end of the campaign because the “experts” tell us most campaigns end at seven sessions. At that rate, it really doesn’t matter how many levels you gained.

I’ve seen games where characters leveled up every session. The risks are pretty heavy for the characters at times. If the campaign is going to die seven sessions in, I’ll take that level. I like advancing characters. When/if I’m playing, I love that feeling of improvement.

Back in Ye Olden Days of Table Toppe Rolle Playing Games.

Some games had differentiating leveling systems. It took the Cleric 1,000 XP to get to Level 2. It took the Fighter about 1,500. It took the Thief maybe 1,700. Poor Magic User knew the struggle was real at like 2,000. That’s okay, Magic User, the Cleric will be at 3rd Level at 2,200. At least someone can heal you.

Experience Points used to be handing out for a variety of reasons such as destroying magic items, gold collected, or killing monsters. I’ve been in a couple of groups where the majority/all the XP were handed to whomever got in the killing blow on a monster. I don’t know if everyone ran it that way back then, but it could get pretty competitive around the table. Maybe that’s why my Cleric didn’t need much XP to level up.

I know I’d get in trouble with a lot of the Rules As Written dudes when I say good riddance to all that variable XP jazz from the olde days. I didn’t much care for it. I had multiple workarounds that I used. Some of my fellow DMs not so much, and that’s okay.

I used to start my campaigns at about Level 3, with everyone having roughly the same amount of experience. The odds of sudden character death were shown to drop off dramatically after Level 3. Then everyone got different XP awards depending on their class in an effort to keep the levels close to even. I never had to worry about adjusting for anything because my players understood that I was trying to keep it close in level, almost like a Milestone.

I got by on the appearance of XP Leveling much of the time.

Sometimes it was just easier to look at my players after three or four sessions and say, “You all gain a level.” That is best done after a session so the group can do all of the bookwork before the next week. My players seemed pretty happy as long as they didn’t go too long between levels.

Sometimes I’d toss out 10 or 25 XP for people saying something particularly funny or just really slick roleplaying. It was never enough to tip a level as everyone usually got at least a one-liner every session. It was just a little treat to encourage more character interaction and player participation.

If I’m being completely candid, I really miss the old 3rd or 3.5 Edition D&D method for encounter generation. It was kind of a crunchy formula, but it helped a lot on the back end of the encounter. It was even faster when I finally got the computer program for D&D that calculated most of it automatically. It’s a shame WotC will never bring that idea back.

As I say toward the end of all of these discussions, there’s no wrong way to DM/GM as long as the players are enjoying themselves. Do what works best for you and your table. (Probably not best to switch between XP and Milestone mid-campaign if you can avoid it, though.) Don’t let anyone tell you their way is better than yours. Every GM has their own style and it should be embraced.

Thanks for being here. I appreciate you. More tomorrow.