Well this thread certainly grabbed my attention through a cold induced haze this morning.
To answer the original line of question from dreaded_beast, I don't even consider the CR system in calculating XP. The only time I even glance at a creature's CR is when I'm deciding whether to throw them at the party and in what quantity. But even that determination is made more on the basis of the creature's capabilities compared to the party's. I can think of many examples where a small group of CR 1 foes could take out a party of 5th level PC's with weaknesses in some areas. And I've seen lots of cases where a group of PC's took out CR's much higher than their level would indicate possible, thanks to good tactics and the right combination of abilities. So, for me, the CR system is largely useless and unused.
The best feature (in my opinion) about the system that we use is how customizable it is with just a few alterations to the base idea. Obviously, you can simply add or delete categories if you decide that there are other areas that you want to reward or areas that you don't. For example, some people have expressed to me that they don't want metagame considerations coming into their XP system. So they have left out the Creation category as this rewards people bringing stuff to the game like painted figures, spell templates, new charts for keeping track of equipment and so forth. Early on, there was no Melee category and we felt that the up front fighter types should be rewarded in a way similar to how the spellcasters got the Magic category. So we added in Melee and now, in sessions that are primarily one long series of fights, the fighter types and spellcaster types seem to come in about even with each other on XP (all other things being equal).
One idea that I've had but never implemented is to customize the chart by making different categories worth different amounts of points. Some may feel that, while they don't want to reward ONLY combat, they don't want the PC's to be able to gain similar levels and abilities by sitting around weaving baskets and chatting up barmaids. So you could either award more tic-marks in "combat oriented" categories or change the multipliers you place on those categories to be higher than what you award for things like Social or Learned.
As for the "rate of advance", my dearly departed friend, The Lone Corndog, worked up an Excell spreadsheet that calculates how quickly a PC would gain levels based upon the average tic-marks earned and the amount awarded per tic-mark. I'd be happy to send that along to anybody who is interested in it.
For those who are hearing about this system for the first time in this thread, I feel it only fair to mention the chief complaint I've gotten about it. As Henry alluded to in the other thread, his players didn't like having to go to the effort of justifying their accomplishments in each category in order to get the XP. I've heard more than once that the players said, "just tell us how much XP we get and be done with it!" They felt it was too much work.
I'm not really contending that this is a "bad attitude" per se. But it isn't the one that I try to cultivate around my gaming table. I'm not a "DM by the seat of my pants" sort of guy and I do a lot of work in preparing for the session. I make maps, design NPC's and encounters, write a story and then make up "combat cards" for all the baddies (these are simply index cards with their stat blocks written on them to use for initiative and to cut down on me referring to the Monster Manual or whatever). Since it takes about the same amount of time for them to fill out their XP sheets as it does for me to draw up maybe 2 of these "combat cards", I don't have any qualms about the amount of work that I'm requiring from them.
And, just to be clear about what sort of "work" is required, here is a look at what my own character's XP sheet looked like from the last session of our Arcana Unearthed campaign:
II__Combat: Yes
II__Melee: Yes
I___Skills: Listen, Spot, Spellcraft
___Social:
I___Magic: Cast over 1/2 of my spells
___Creation:
I___Learned: When Mia asks if she should cast Mark Allies, say "Yes!"; Kaylin has been captured by the evil Giantess.
I___Character: I was nasty and uncooperative toward Kaylin
____Goal: Took down Salee
____Sacrifice:
The "I's" in front of the categories represent tic-marks I got for them. Just to put this in perspective, this was a combat heavy session where we spent most of our time in a big battle with a group of enemies that were recurring foes. At the end of the fight, we discovered that our "ally" (Kaylin) had been captured. So running down through the categories: Yes was sufficient for the Combat and Melee categories as the GM was well aware of the scope and nature of the combat that evening. I only used three skills but I used them a great deal and the GM knew that so he awarded me a tic here. I got nothing for Social, Creation or Sacrifice that night. I did use more than half of my spell allotment (this is the typical threshold we use to qualify for a tic in the Magic category). I Learned an important tactical lesson (the bit about Mia, our Magister) and an important story point (Kaylin got captured). My character's reaction to her capture was indifferent and he voted against any sort of rescue attempt (I never liked that bitch anyway - she forced us into helping her against HER enemies on the flimsiest of reasons). Under Goal, I put down that we took down Salee, a long time NPC antagonist, but the GM felt that by itself that wasn't significant enough to warrant a tic (he probably would have given us one if we'd taken out her entire band, but some of them escaped).
I don't know how long it took for me to fill in my XP sheet, but it was a lot less time than it took for me to type that last paragraph. Still, for players who are indifferent about playing their characters OR indifferent about filling out the sheet, they will garner less XP than other more dilligent players. And they may prefer an XP system that doesn't require them to write out what they did to deserve the XP. I suppose that quality is a strength, weakness or simply a feature of this system depending on your outlook.
Anyhow, if there are any other questions about it, I'm happy to answer them.
