Oh my god, they're not even trying to hold onto the veneer of a game at this point!

Cory forfeits easy XP from mooks in favor of achieving plot objectives and moving the story along? This is not healthy, I tell you. Get some sleep, guys.

You get more xp from plot objectives than mooks.

This is D&D, you don't get any XP for completing plot objectives. XP comes from ganking enemies and finishing the whole adventure. And the latter is an optional rule.

Depends on the DM I have a few that don’t bother with XP and only give levels one certain plot points are met

Also the edition. In 2nd I believe you got exp for gold.

As a DM, I definitely give XP for playing your character well, interacting well with NPCs, solving puzzles, completing plot objectives, or just because I would rather get everyone to the next level sooner. If you only give XP to the people who defeat the opponents, then that encourages nothing but sheer combat builds (which some people do enjoy), but it puts a deficit to those who choose more subtle or support-based classes

Agreed. Ignoring story awards merely leads to encouraging murderhobo gameplay.
In response to Gossard, the DMG mentions any mission goal can be worth XP, though it is indeed 'optional'

In the next campaign I run, I'm gonna have enemies that escape with their plans thwarted be worth 2x the xp of slain enemies, Enemies brought to justice worth 4x and eneimes reformed through FRIENDSHIP!!! worth 8x, just to see what that does to PC behaviour.

i have seen that. more XP for reformed enemies lead to the group opting for going for the "Shonen Jump Befriending" tactics. there are a few variations of it, but generally, this mean friendship through fighting. So, while there was still lot of fighting, that actually encouraged roleplaying. Like talking things out while fighting, this can get rather drama-heavy, too.

Because friendship is magic?

I definitely prefer rules that encourage alternative solutions aside from "kill everything", as it gives way to character builds and playing styles that don't focus on being the best at murderizing. In my games, I never award any extra XP for slaughtering enemies, since other solutions, such as sneaking or talking you way past them, should be equally viable alternatives IMO.

My personal preferences aside, "plot objectives net you more than fighting low-level enemies" has clearly not been the norm for the campaign this particular comic is revolving around: Cory has repeatedly called mooks "easy XP" and expressed a strong preference to taking care of all the violence while leaving plot related stuff to others. Would he have done that if moving the story along awarded him more XP?

Even if plot objectives were worth more, they would probably be treated as a group effort anyway, with XP being shared equally between party members. Or at least I would treat them that way, since if Cory cutting those chains was awarded more XP than the other party members who, you know, have his back, it might go against the whole "work together as a team" thing.

i wan skittles, now.
On a side note, the staff at their local supermarket must be convinced that there's some guy in the neighbourhood who really really like skittles.

Any story when the GM ask you to stop or don't do something, only for him/her do it instead?

There was a time where we wanted to infiltrate the Big Bad airship, the Triomphant and sabotage it to drop it. The bad guy was'nt on board at that moment, so we thought it was a good idea.
We should have not been able to do it at this point of the game to begin with, but throught luck and some roleplaying, we had made some competent allies that would have been able to help us with that.
So the GM heavely railroded us to do something else by having a emergencey situation arise somewhere else, that our group could not just ignore.
That was because the fall of the Triomphant was a part of a plot twist that happened slightly after that where the BigBad second in command betrayed him.