Design for Choice

I received a terrific comment today, unfortunately from an anonymous reader.  As it was made on a post I wrote in 2011, I felt it needed to be reposted where more people would see it:

"I've been using this [advice from the post] for a while now and XP from damage dealt & received has changed the tenor of my game. Additionally XP for treasure instead of plot, the norm by the time when I started playing, really makes a different game. XP for plot points tethers players to the railroad. I've found my group more creative and empowered. The XP helped solved a persistent issue of players refusing to flee when outmatched by bad rolls or unbalanced encounters. Their logic was that all encounters had to be defeated in a railroad like fashion and if they couldn't win then they never could.

"Anyway from all the rules I've adopted this has had the greatest effect."

However I'm re-evaluating the purpose and point of my writing at present, I will continue to argue that adverse changes to the game, such as denying experience for gold or providing experience for plot, makes the game worse, not better.

When making rules for game play, the goal is to shape the player's options so that they have MORE choices, not less.  Experience for hit points caused and taken increases the choice of fighting or running, and when its right to do so, while experience for solving plot points excludes all possible choices except one.  This is bad game design, no matter how many stupid DMs insist that it isn't.