DJOGamer PT
XP are a universal measure of progression, so XP should
never be circumstantial.
XP for actions violate that, automatically marking you as an uncritical dim-wit who doesn't know better and only does stuff because others, who also didn't know better, did it before him.
More specifically: doling out XP based on specific ways of achieving goals (actions) rather than achieving goals leads to abuseable and shitty game design:
- Players don't get any reward if they solve encounters by doing something clever rather than employing canned modes of interaction (like combat or dialogue).
- Player get extra rewards if they play the game in degenerate manner (sneak by the guy for sneak XP, then return to dialogue at guy to defuse situation peacefully using diplomancy for diplomancy XP, than finally stab the guy in the face and take his stuff + kill XP). Also farming.
The only way out if you still want to advance player based on actions is no longer making such progression universal, but then you replace XP with full fledged
use-based skill system which is not in the poll. Note that use-based is notoriously hard to properly waterproof (for example Bethesda can't do it despite some attempts) and tends to be very heavyweight system to implement even if it could very much be the bee's knees if properly implemented.
Anyway, use-based is no longer XP, and XP for actions is pretty much shitty by design.
If you are making a game that is large enough to justify extra effort AND can actually understand how to make such system work and accomplish that - go for use-based, it's probably your best option.
XP for goals fare better, BUT that depends on what you consider a goal.
For it to work properly goals should be universal and never circumstantial - if a reasonable character might object to a specific goal there should be no XP for it (unless you can provide complete coverage of mutually exclusive goals so that every character can and will accomplish exactly one).
Quest-based XP is a typical example goal based free of the issues of action based but may fail by incentivizing quests that would be out of character for certain PCs. For example if some fop demands wyvern eggs for an omelette and you can have a druid PC who would reasonably not want to do it.
In general quest based XP is not nearly as labour intensive as use-based skill system, and unlike action based XP has a chance of working as intended, but setting up the individual rewards is delicate and adds extra work to the content.
Note that chores should always count as potentially out of character.
An alternative or supplement to quest based can be XP for other universal goals IF you can establish them. For example if you can't have characters that have no use for wealth (or have taken vows of poverty - although you could solve the latter by providing appropriate outlets),
money could be such a measure of advancement. Basically for every GP that enters character's possession, character gets one XP. Simple and also actually rooted in RPG tradition, it also allows effectively trading stuff for XP. Not that there are some exploits possible (for example dropping then picking up the gold) but they should be fairly possible to ward against.
Note that it isn't as much XP as currency, but rather currency as XP.
Finding legendary items (provided you can find use for them even if they don't fit your build), locations or lore could also yield XP.
Actions and quests XP is just quest XP tainted with action XP and not any less shitty than the latter.
Eat that, Mr balance man.
XP as currency is just... weird and very contextual. If you can make it work in your game or setting - go for it, but it will likely need some specific explanation to make sense and work in the context. For that reason I don't consider it universally workable.
And last option that isn't in the poll is of course:
No character advancement - no XP in any form needed for that. You just build character and that's it. They may grow in power by gaining equipment, specific knowledge, allies and so on but not by becoming more powerful themselves. It has advantage of being easy to balance, develop, exploit proof and of making sense most of the time (other than the stories where you want zero-to-hero specifically), especially if the character is already an established professional of some sort.
If you want to, you might go for a sort of hybrid approach:
Predefined final build. It allows adding growth to the above, by letting player specify their final character and unlock that gradually during gameplay. Note that it still needs some advancement method, but even though action based will still work poorly with it, it's going to be quite degeneracy proof by default. It might also use fairly relaxed and eccentric methods of actually advancing character compared to actual growth system thanks to being built effectively outside in. Also note that it has severe drawback of not allowing player to readjust their preconceptions.
