ttrpg

I hate 'gamified' XP.

There's a lot I like about the more 'narrative' approach ttrpgs have been taking, but between Chronicles of Darkness, ICON, Forged in the Dark, Apocalypse world, etc. all having XP be earned for specific actions in game, its just a pain in the ass, that takes me out of the action.

FWIW, I mostly GM, but I just vastly, vastly prefer milestone XP. For some of the above games, its easy enough to gut their bespoke XP systems out of it, and just have players advance over time, but in several of them, it fucks with the overall balance, since several actions are 'bad', but made worthwhile because they earn XP.

Even beyond the pain in the ass nature of interrupting session to dole out tidbits of XP, I hate, hate, systems that have players advance unevenly. There's always going to be a certain degree on uneven-ness in player attention, of rules mastery, and of spotlighting. As GM, its important to manage those so that everyone gets a chance to shine. But I despise as GM needing to seperately pay attention to the XP actions, and try to drag or XP share the players that don't find those systems engaging to not mechanically fall behind.

And as a player, I tend to have higher system mastery and attention than the others I play with, and tbh it feels Bad to end up with more XP because of that... but it also feels bad to knowingly pass up free XP by purposefully not engaging with those systems.