Interestingly enough I was just having this conversation with my players last night. Because I use Communistic XP for my group, but I play in a group that uses Capitalistic XP.
I suggest that you head over to Dungeon Meastro's arguments on the subject before continuing. And reading the Id DM's thoughts could be interesting for you too.
My thoughts after the Jump.
I'd like to preface all of the thoughts below: These thought are geared toward home games. As in non-LFR, non-sanctioned games.
The major arguments for Capitalistic XP (other than I'm American so - Eff Communism :) ) is that it gives an incentive for players to keep coming to games on a regular basis. A reward for those that work hard and fight hard.
The major argument for Communistic XP is that it keeps all party memebers at the same level, and saves a bunch of headaches for everyone.
To balance the power disparity that comes along with Capitalistic XP some folk suggest that you should compensate for lower level character's XP by tacking on an extra 15%. That seems to make sense, they fought a harder fight, they get more XP. Eventually, with some hard work, they can climb back up with their higher level breathren, right? Sounds good, but then the whole system is based on do more get rewarded more right? Didn't the higher level players contribute more? I mean that system seems like rewarding the least for the efforts of the greater. Sorta like if I worked my butt off on a project at work, and the intern got a huge bonus for my skilled hard work.
And in practice, lower level characters die more often - unless the DM is cheating. And so if they die, and come back as a new character at the same level digging themselves out of that hole becomes next to impossible and, frankly, no fun.
And besides, doesn't awarding more XP to lower level players simply help remove the level disparity you introduced to begin with? Why all the extra trouble? Aren't there other, easier to track, ways to reward attendance? Or is there another reason it needs to be XP?
Ah...
The Maestro asks, "...why should I show up tonight for the big dragon fight and risk death when I’ll get the XP for it anyway?"
My answer to that is two fold - first if you're character didn't show up that night, you also may not get to partake in the treasure (which is bad enough as it is) unless your fellow players portion you out a bit of it out of the good of their hearts. Sure, that's a bit of power disparity too - but the players get to manage that themselves, not the DM enforcing it on them.
Secondly, who really wants to miss the fight with the big dragon? The biggest reward for making it to a session shouldn't be character advancement. It should be playing the game and hanging out with your friends (or like minded co-hobbyist at the least).
And the last argument I get around the table is one of verisimilitude - "He wasn't there so why does he get the same experience as us? We fought a dragon, we should grow in power more!"
But let's not go down that road, because my next question is always "Then what was he doing?" and then we gotta talk about why a character can suddenly disappear mid-dungeon. Suffice to say, it's a game so we all agree that this is mostly a rules/meta-game issue.
The biggest benefit you can get to giving XP only to attending players is that those players get a feeling of prestige - and that can go a long way to keeping those players coming back. But then again, aren't those the players that are going to be coming regularly anyway? They're dedicated, and obviously enjoy the game enough to make it all the time. But the player that is a bit more casual and shows up when he can (ie work isn't hammering him, girlfriend isn't giving him trouble, or san-girlfriend he isn't about to get laid) suddenly finds himself unable to hit as often, he's unconscious a bunch, and he runs out of powers before all the other players - what incentive is there for him to come back next week just to be shown, again, that his character is worse than everyone else's character?
In theory, he'd have the incentive of "If I keep playing I can catch back up!" but remember, because he's missing sessions anyway, he's probably a more casual player and it's just easier for that player to drop something that isn't fun for him anymore. So congrats, you've dismissed a player, you a-hole. :)
I guess to me, having differing levels only hurts all involved, The player that is lower level is hitting less, and so the other players have to compensate - unless, as mentioned in the comments section of the Id DM by the Meastro, the DM is putting additional stress on himself to compensate for a rule that has no real point anyway, because that player will catch back up soon or else the monster stats fluctuate and in that case, the reward isn't a reward to begin with.
And in reality, the only fair way to go about having party members at different levels would be to have the encounter based off the lowest party member - that way your 1337 players can feel powerful, and the player you don't care about can still contribute in a meaningful way. In this case the lower level character will catch up because he has less XP to his next level, and the lower amount of XP seems like more to him.
So my question is this - why not save all the headache, and just give a solid amount of XP to each character? What are you really loosing?
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