How Using Gold for XP Changed My Game

A while back I wrote a blog post about where I tried to change the leveling up system in Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition to one that used gold instead of XP.

Today I wanted to come back to that topic and write about what actually happens when you use the system and how your players change their behavior when they need gold to learn new abilities and spells.

The group I played with was one that I played with for a really long time. We'd gone through an entire Age of Worms campaign that I'd adapted from D&D 3.5 to 5e, and in that saga I leveled them up using a kind of milestone system. Basically everytime they completed a chapter they got another level... or two.

So I've been with these people and have seen how they play the game from Level 1 to Level 20. And I can say that gold for XP coupled with a more open world campaign setting, certainly changed the way they played the game.

A Recap of the System

Level	Funds	Time
2	100 gp	1 month
3	150 gp	1 month
4	200 gp	1 month
5	400 gp	1 month
6	2000 gp	2 months
7	2500 gp	2 months
8	3000 gp	2 months
9	3500 gp	2 months
10	4000 gp	2 months
11	4500 gp	2 months
12	9000 gp	3 months
13	10,000 gp	3 months
14	14,000 gp	3 months
15	18,000 gp	3 months
16	22,000 gp	3 months
17	26,000 gp	3 months
18	80,000 gp	6 months
19	160,000 gp	9 months
20	180,000 gp	9 months

Before I talk about the campaign, I just wanted to post here the chart of how leveling up works in the game. In order to advance a level, you need the required gold, and be willing to spend a specified amount of time training. This accomplishes a couple of things. It means players have to stop adventuring and spend time "getting good." It also means the world changes while they're training. This can create some interesting choices. If there's a juicy dungeon or outstanding issue with an evil wizard, players have to decided if they should take a month or two to level up and potentially risk a situation getting worse or a dungeon getting looted by other adventurers. 

Save Money: Levels 1 - 4

For our campaign my players were a group of immigrants who landed in a new country. The only money they had was whatever starting funds they happened to roll up. Which meant that as soon as they got to town they had to start inquiring about a job.

We were playing a hex crawl, so I gave them a general map, with some points of interest. Their first job was a simple delivery job, taking a package of goods from one town to another. This would help them explore some hexes and make some money.

Their change in behavior was pretty immediate. Halfway through the journey the players needed to rest, and happened upon an inn. This inn was a fancy place and one night was expensive but they could totally afford it.

They slept in the stables instead. 

Spending money became the worst thing they could do, and so they bummed around from town to town, and ate goodberries, thanks to having a ranger in the party. They refused to buy new supplies or spend money. 

Every session there would be at least one moment where they would come up with a harebrained scheme and wonder if it could become a lucrative business. The most notable was when they were attacked by winged monsters in a forest and the ranger decided to piss herself as a defense mechanism to ward off predators. Somehow this worked and the players immediately wanted to sell the rangers piss as monster repellent.

This is the kind of thing that happens when you do gold for xp. You end up with a group of adventurers that we now refer to as Dominant Piss.

What's the Rush? Level 5

I found that Levels 1-4 was the period that my players wanted to rush through the most. I think this is the case for most tables that play D&D 5e. Everything was about getting enough money to go to Level 5 as quick as possible. 

One of the reasons I liked this gold for XP system was that I, as a player, could choose when to level up - as opposed to being told after killing a certain amount of monsters that I'd suddenly become a better wizard and gained new spells.  It feels like I have more control over when my character goes from scrub to legendary badass, and I like that.

But I think most folks when they play Fifth Edition cannot fucking wait to get to 5th Level, because for them that's when the game gets "fun". And they're not wrong. Level 5 is when you get multi-attack, and just that one extra attack makes combat more palatable. However I'm not sure exactly why. I've played plenty of games where one attack or major action is all you get, and it doesn't change regardless of how high you level up. And those games rock. 

And it's not just multi-attack, Wizards get fireball, which means you get to drop a ton of dice whether the monsters save their dexterity throw or not. Maybe that's the key. There's something about 5e where rolling more dice to do bigger numbers is so tied what it means to Level Up, that those first four levels feel like somewhat of an extraneous preamble. Who wants to roll 1d10 every turn (If they even hit!) when they know at 5th level they could be rolling 8d6s.  Or getting multi-attack and using your action surge as a fighter to lay down damage that makes the Level 2 Version of you look absolutely pathetic.

So those first four levels are gonna fly by because the mechanics of 5e conditions players to want to get there quickly. And if you're doing gold for XP, your players will make their characters sleep next to a horse's ass every day for months to get there.

No More Goddamn Goodberries (Post Level 5)

This is about when my players started spending money on rooms at inns and getting real food. The cost to level up was high enough, that they didn't feel like they could get there by saving pennies. It would take a big score to level up, so in the mean time they could start buying healing potions and paying for a decent night's sleep. 

At this point the characters were deep in the world and its politics. They knew nobles, and feuding factions, and an evil lich that was on the verge of being freed from their prison. So they started using money for little projects like paying characters to make magical items or build walls around their home base. There was an element of budgeting, where players would have a collective party fund and their own personal fund. Sometimes players would use their own gold for someone else's purchase. Sometimes it would come out of the party fund. It was fun listening to the players sort that out, because I love listening to players plot and plan their futures. It helps me know where they want to go, so I can build situations and scenarios to facilitate that - but also let's me know they're engaged with the game. They're living in it.

Where We Left Off

Sadly the campaign had to come to a pre-mature close. I was honestly beyond tired of playing 5e, and my schedule had shifted so that our usual game time was tough to swing. It was tough to say it was over though. I felt like there was so much left to do. So many more stories to tell. The characters were all so great, and I miss them dearly. More importantly, I miss playing with the players themselves. 

When we left off the campaign, they were Level 8, and they'd essentially built a small town of Kobolds and nomads around an abbey they'd reclaimed from evil cultists. Money was usually split between leveling up, buying gear and investing in the town. They wanted to develop a small army, and so they had people training other villagers while the party was off adventuring. When they returned they'd hear about the progress of their village. 

I don't know if I'll ever run 5e again. But I can say that if I ever do it'll be with these Gold For XP rules. I just enjoyed the way it colored the game so much more than vanilla XP for killing monsters. It made money in general more interesting, and I was often amazed at the creativity of my players when it came to how to spend it and how to earn it. And it allowed all of us to better dictate the pace at which leveling up happened. Experience Points don't really add anything to the game, and certainly don't inspire any additional creativity or immersion in the world.

Advice for Running Gold For XP Games

The first concept you need to recognize is that you establish the economy. You not only determine how much gold can be earned or discovered by the players, but what options they have to earn it. This means you need to plan accordingly. I would start a campaign by having at least a handful of jobs available for them to choose from. If you're running a more open world game driven by player initiative, it's best to have options. They'll certainly create their own problems, and get sucked into quests of intrigue, but having an option to go kill a monster that's terrorizing a village for money is a nice way for them to control the pace. Maybe they only need a few gold to get to the next level, and killing that monster will get them over the hump quickly. That may be preferable to engaging on a dungeon delve that may last a couple of weeks.

If you're running a pre-made campaign, definitely check to make sure there's opportunities for the party to take breaks and level up. Some adventures are written as though you're constantly fighting against the clock and you're characters are meant to go through levels 1-10 in a matter of a month or two using XP. So you'll need to figure out how to make room for down time. Maybe that means changing the speed at which the evil army can get their troops together, or maybe the lich will need time to research their own spells to doom mankind. 

Flexibility is key in a game like this. If players are getting bored of being level 3, maybe add a little more gold to that treasure chest in the secret room. Learn your players and when the gold for XP mechanic is a challenge or an annoyance. Some players may be into it. Others may wish they could speed run to level 20 as quick as possible and are pissed that you only put 200 gold pieces under the floor board they uncovered. Figure out when those complaints are valid and when it's just players voicing frustration at a challenge they're looking forward to overcoming. There's a difference. 

Another element you may want to plan for is downtime. I did some random tables that the players could use to give them some cool world developments that tie their characters deeper into the world. For example, the ranger got involved with a crime syndicate during her training, and after some down time leveling up, she had a contact that she could leverage for jobs or information. Another player became the life of the party in the town they were staying at, and gained benefits to their charisma rolls in that area.

I definitely recommend Downtime in Zyan for some inspiration. It’s a fun zine that only focuses on downtime for old-school games. The best supplements and zines are not only functional, but inspire one to create their own version or mechanic. Downtime in Zyan is that.

Other than that, have fun messing with their money. Give them reasons to spend their money on something other than leveling up. Don't just send thieves to steal their coin purse. Introduce something cool that requires some investment and watch them squirm over it. Those are fun problems to have. Gold For XP, can sound a little annoying at first, particularly if you're players just want to max out their stats and throw meteors at gods. But if you come up with ways to make it more fun, and encourage them when they get creative too, I think its a superior way to play the game. 

Post-Script

Before I sign off, I'd like to thank again my amazing players, Clint, John, Gail, and Connor, who allowed me to run this Gold for XP on them, and for providing me with some of the funniest damn moments I've ever experienced playing a game.

May Dominant Piss Never Die

Inspirations and Further Reading

Here’s a list of links and ideas from other people that have inspired me to put more effort and intention in how I use the internet, and how I’m making my own space on the internet.

Reddit Post: 5e Wealth by Level

Grognardia: Gold As Experience

Mazirian’s Garden: Downtime Activies: Non-Magical Research

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