Random Encounter

Had a busy weekend, including a hiking trip/drinking session with my wife's uncle and his co-workers that took up the whole day yesterday, so I didn't get to post my next Oriental Accents piece like I wanted. Don't have the time today either, so here's a short little post to bide my time and waste yours. :)

Last Friday morning, I was going to the radio station to record for the Saturday show and then do my normal live show. I got off the subway and up onto the street, listening to my mp3 player. There's a homeless guy, 50-ish, who walks up and says to me in English, "Are you a foreigner?"

Well, I think to myself, "That's bloody obvious," and keep on walking. He runs up and kicks me. Not hard enough to bruise, but it did hurt. I turned around and knocked the asshole on his ass. Then I went about my way.

Now, what's this got to do with RPGs? It made me think about the rate of XP for encounters. Now, in D&D terms I'm just a Normal Man and so was the homeless guy, so by the book I'd get no XP for that. If I had been of a character class, I'd have gotten like 5xp from the bum (didn't take his stuff--if he had any, so only monster xp). At least if I were playing any old school games.

If I were playing 3 or 4E, that would have been a level appropriate challenge for me. Since I was alone when I was accosted, all of that XP would have come my way. I don't need 3-4 other guys to take down a bum. I don't know for sure the 4E XP scheme (10 appropriate encounters to level I think...), but for 3E it was 14 encounters. Since I did this alone, I'd be about 1/10 of the way there in 3E, maybe 1/8 of the way to a new level in 4E.

Seems like levels mean more to acchieve if they take more than knocking 10 homeless guys on their ass to earn them.