Firstly Xp is a form of progress, the more xp you have the higher level you are and by extension more powerful, players in xp based games could quite fairly judge their progress in a game through their levels as resources can be lost and expended along the way and some games may have more of an episodic quality to them than more story path focused play. There may be those who reject xp as a form of progression seeking to keep their games within the level 1-3 range indefinitely, personally i find this form of gaming frustrating and unrewarding but it is largely irrelevant to this discussion, all of what will be written in this blog post assumes the standard xp for gold system of OD&D, B/X or AD&D are being used and looking at it from a purely game play perspective.
So now that we should be on the same page the main subject of this post is to discuss XP attrition(or the more funny term XP Cucking), which I will define as xp that permanently leaves a game. As the title suggests this mostly has to do with open tables with inconsistent players and the general boom or bust gameplay of extended dungeon crawling, I feel that this could (pure speculation) be one of the factors behind a open table game running its course and fizzling out due to lack of enthusiasm on both player and Dm side (been there many times)
Firstly the main candidate for XP attrition is characters leaving, this could be characters dying, players becoming too busy and having to leave the game or people who turn up for a odd session and decide its not for them, this is generally a perfectly organic thing with no malice behind it (Allegedly) but should be something DMs are aware and keep an eye out for, some player loss is generally inevitable these days and honestly something ive come to expect (not everyone who clicks interested on a event will show event planning 101). Around mid level when res spells and items start being more available a dead character may no longer be "lost XP" which is generally good given the amount of time it takes to get a pc above the 5th or 6th level range, but these spells usually have limitations so not 100% guaranteed.
Second common issue is too many characters, this could be a boom in your open table where you have a dozen players for a session or maybe the hiring of npc henchmen or pc backup characters, this is the death by a thousand cuts (of xp) generally if you have a pc count over 6 you should probably not allow players to bring more than one character, remember that henchmen and fighting hirelings get a share of xp and loot and REMIND players of this fact whenever they hire them make sure your using the loyalty and hiring rules for henchmen to prevent them becoming just the instant win button of expendable body's to throw at a situation, in games using some form of 1:1 time like in a west march style game, where characters might be out of action for a few days while adventures are still available players will naturally want alternate characters to allow them to experience more of these adventures, its worth noting that these are probably the most invested players in such a game so punishing or restricting such behaviour is probably unwise for the long term health of the game. Its worth keeping note of the number of PCs and hench men from session to session so you have a general idea of the average characters per sessions for you to stock future dungeons with an appropriate amount of monsters and treasure (remember that these games generally assume a base player count of 6)
Thirdly there is xp lost through level drain, this is particularly nasty though generally not the most common thing, especially low levels when most open games struggle to get momentum, but its worth noting as a hazard for when the game gets into mid level.
Lastly i think i should mention that i generally fall on the more Monty haul side when stocking dungeons, these games tend to have limits on levelling more than once a session or rules like training which places a time cost onto the act of levelling up, there is also the fact that these games EVERYTHING can be taken away at a moments notice (really liking item saving throws btw 😉) from level drain to breath weapons to landing on that healing potion you were saving for a rainy day, attrition is a part of the game, a lot of the time its about being fair with rewards and punishments don't go out of your way to stave the party there's plenty of mechanics that do that already.
Anyway just something to chew on and have a happy new year, looking back at the numbers for this blog i think i managed an average of around 3 blog posts a month though this was far from a consistent out put, for next year im probably going to try putting out posts more consistently and staying productive to avoid creative slumps.
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