Last night, in my new campaign, the Paladin rolled six Misses, and that gave him enough XP to level up at the end of the session. Everyone else is hovering around halfway to Level 2.
He was an excellent meat shield but a terrible violence-maker!
And the player still had fun! I explained early on that Misses aren’t always failures, and they always progress the fiction. I did my best to live up to that, and at the end of the night he said he had a lot of fun 🙂
That’s great to hear! I have a similar situation going on a PbP game I’m doing. My bard had an unreal amount of 6- rolls, and now’s he’s sitting at 7/8 XP to level 2. And we’re not even at the end of the first session! But it provided all of us plenty of tension and excitement in the game.
The way misses work in this game is absolutely perfect. Because of the XP reward nobody is stung too hard by misses, and thus they don’t ruin the fun of it all. Hell, it can make the game even more fun.
They’re still deep in the first dungeon, having only traversed 5 rooms. It was pretty action-packed, with the paladin trying to lead the way… And having problems all the while!
The player is appreciating the XP, but is less excited about having to wait for a quiet moment before he can Level Up. Still, his spirits are high! That’s all I can ask for, after having so many troubles!