Matt Mercer Tells Brennan Why Experience Leveling Is Superior

Experience matters #shorts #dimension20

[Imperial_Squid]

Matt "XP Point make people feel accomplished" Mercer vs Brennan "Welcome students! Today we're going to *slaughter goblins* " Lee Mulligan

[callysta]

After this was when the debate got super funny. Brennan, choosing the side of milestone leveling, immediately went chaos mode, which then Matt matched with his chaotic rebuttle. I highly recommend this whole adventuring academy episode

[emerald]

My group had a two second discussion on whether we wanted to do experience leveling that went something like this
“Isn’t that a lot of math?”
“Yeah”
“Fuck that”
“Yeah.”

[dman]

…Until you have to, as a DM, assign XP values to things that are not combat. Then things get messy. XP leveling, in my experience, turns players into obsessive number-crunchers and at times can lead them to bad decisions in the name of leveling up. Milestone leveling encourages players to think about the big picture rather than focus on farming XP. I agree that XP is a nice, tactile short-term reward that gives you the dopamine rush, but there are other ways to provide that same excitement post-battle.

[jannebengtsson]

To the ppl who haven't seen this episode. This is heavily out of context 😂

[AbadonXXX]

“I need my points!” -lorne from the background with his eyes sparking with psychic energy definitely

[hosakuwanderer]

I believe this is a segment of the show where they have to each take a different side to a topic. still nice format.

[pedroscoponi]

Gotta make it clearer all these rants are part of a segment, and not necessarily what the guest actually thinks 😅

[dartdevious]

them one dnd should give us rules for non-lethal exp gain

[Eramiserasmus]

I do something like this with my milestone leveling. Doing plot hooks, side quests, or just general fighting earns "Flags" that they can collect to speed up their leveling via my predetermined Milestones for the story.

[MarlaAndRubyT]

How many experience points for that emotional breakthrough my character just had?

[ParallelPenguins]

Matt is only right here if the DM isn’t stingy with experience letting the players go months of weekly play with out getting even half way to levelling up. At some point it just feels like the DM just does t want your character to do anything.

[ASquared]

Tbh, I think EXP works better in D&D 5E as a shared pool, where there’s just 1 EXP bar that determines everyone’s level. That way no one feels left behind, and the players actions don’t just feel like contributions to themselves, but to the whole group. It also doesn’t punish people who miss sessions.

[onerogueidea]

I feel like that is personal preference, I never cared about points but I love dnd

[ashlitious]

This made me realize that some people play it as a game, while I always saw it as a story to be told. Not just the DM, but everyone at the table are writers because they have to write their own characters (personalities, actions, arcs/growth), and in stories characters are more milestone leveling than xp leveling.

I think the best way of leveling depends on how people play the game and their mindset.

[ChannelOfJoris]

Xp keeps track of all your small achievements, while milestones show your big accomplishments

[flfb]

Honestly it's all about what gels best with the group.

[HallowedKeeper_]

Gotta give Matt some Credit, guy certainly knows how to debate.

Out-Of-Context: This clip is from Adventuring Academy, it is a segment where two people are assigned a topic to and against a topic (if I am remembering properly) in this situation is: XP Leveling, in this situation though Matt prefers Milestone he was assigned to debate for XP leveling (which he doesn't like as much XP levelling though he also understands and respects those who use it)

[nerdymormon]

Is this popping up because of the Rat Grinders??? Iykyk

[gatsu]

Using XP rewards is a great concept in theory, but if you want to encourage roleplaying it's much better to award the players with something that is a uniquely meaningful reflection of their chosen course of action, such as giving the character a skill point or personality trait, temporary buffs etc.

When you train people that they get a cookie for being good you aren't training them to be good, you're training them that if they do what you want, they'll get a cookie.

When you motivate people by showing them that participating in various elements of the game can be fun and rewarding without you having to activate a skinner box to get them invested, you've made them a better and more well-rounded player.