My "super simple" system ended up sounding a lot more complicated than I intended.
After trying to create a formula to match monster XP with gold XP, I realized that just using the formula below might be enough for my goals.
- 1 XP = 1 GP.
- 1 HD = 100 XP.
- PERIOD.
That is all. Forget PC level, forget dungeon level, just use the original formula in its simplest form.
But why?
In old school D&D, most of the treasure comes from gold. But, as noticed in Delta's blog, if you exclude/change a few outliers (dragons, medusae, men), the amount of XP you get from gold is not that far from the amount you get from fighting monsters.
I have some reservations about the analysis; it seems to ignore wilderness encounters, for example, which happen quite a lot in my games and AFAICR do not give random treasure. But he certainly went I lot deeper than I'll go here.
I am happy with the idea that monsters should have no more than 100 GP for each HD. If the gold is much bigger or smaller than that, well, just adjust the gold to something more reasonable.
Dragons with their hoards and breath weapons are a fair exception. Maybe medusaes are a fair exception too; they have two ways to kill you immediately!
But why are men outliers in Moldvay?
Maybe I'd just rule that they just do not have underground lairs. For example, a bandit's treasure is in their camp, with an average of 80 bandits, and maybe a few leaders. That would be easily 8.000 XP at least, and their treasure type (Type A) is worth 18.000 GP on average, so maybe just halve it. A brigand's lair is a lot stronger and might justify the full Type A treasure. Likewise, merchants have type A treasure but their caravans are almost as large as a bandit's lair, and so on.
This is also a great rule of thumb to create your own dungeons - place 100 GP for each monster HD, and more if you have traps etc. Most "official" adventures I've run have too much gold IMO.
This means that PCs rely much less on GP to level up, which also means they'll level up faster and get stronger before they are too rich.
I'm not sure if this is perfect for you but it suits my preference for grittier, pulpier adventures, where even mighty heroes are not necessarily swimming in gold.
Will that make PCs fight anything that moves to get XP? I doubt it. As you see, simply avoiding the monster will still give the PCs the treasure XP with none of the danger.
But if there is an incentive problem, just give a few XP for monsters avoided and limit XP gained by unnecessary fights. No XP should be awarded for slaying random peasants!
Finally, the fact we are not dividing XP by current level makes leveling up a bit faster (which is compensated by reducing the treasure). I don't mind. A level 5 fighter that single-handedly defeats a bandit camp deserves to get to level 6, and so on.
I love minimalism. The simplest solutions often end up being the best ones.
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