Doing XP Awards better

[tjoneslo]

I'm looking for some advice on the best way to determine experience awards for my group.

Currently I simply hand out a set XP award for each session to each character, less some if the player isn't there for the session. It is a simple way of doing experience, but perhaps I'm missing something.

The players are all very experienced, long time role-players, with wild imaginations and the ability to come up with strange and unusual plans at the drop of a hat.

I tend to run combat light sessions and scenarios (1 combat per 5 sessions is normal).

Because the players are more imaginative than I, I also tend to overpower the monsters to provide a challenge. Which the players don't seem to mind as they don't view monster bashing as a challenge.

Example of encounter: six characters of 7th level now get to investigate an Ancient Huge Black Dragon/Epic Sorcerer and his circle of 50 magic using assistants. If the characters encounter the group, talk to the dragon, steal the mcguffin, foil his plans, and get away without being eaten and no one being killed how do I assign XP?

 

[Darklone]

Check out Rels storyhour, he has a great system somewhere hidden there... or he might read this and post it ...


REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEL! MODS OVER HERE!

 

[Ambrus]

I've been using a derivitive of Rel's aforementioned XP system for a few years now. It's been working rather well for our group.

 

[Darklone]

Cool, could you post it?

 

[Ambrus]

Well, uh, I'm certain that Rel could do a better job of pimping his own system but I'll give it a try.

In brief, at the beginning of each session I hand each player a sheet divided into six boxes. Each box represents a different category of activities the player's PCs might participate for which they can earn experience points such as:

- Combat (kicking butt)
- Extra Effort (Improving the metagame experience, such as bringing snacks to share)
- Goals (completing a personal or story-related quest)
- Legends & Lore (uncovering or deducing relevant information)
- Problem Solving (answering riddles, navigating traps or formulating plans)
- Roleplaying (interacting with NPCs, portraying one's character well)

As the session progresses each PC fills in the various boxes on the the sheet with appropriate actions she performed during the session. At the end of the session, I collect the papers, review what the players wrote in each category and if I agree that what they've written down is valid then I award them one or more marks for each such category. Then I add up the marks for each PC and calculate their individual xp awards with the following formula:

Character level X # of marks X 25 = experience points

A character one level lower than the party's average level gets his total multiplied by 1.25, while a character two levels lower gets his total xp multiplied by 1.5

And that's pretty much it. The system gives equal awards to various adventuring activities rather than simply rewarding combat. On average, a PC advances a level every 5-6 sessions.

 

[shilsen]

I'm looking for some advice on the best way to determine experience awards for my group.

Currently I simply hand out a set XP award for each session to each character, less some if the player isn't there for the session. It is a simple way of doing experience, but perhaps I'm missing something.

I don't think you're missing anything. Personally, I find it much better to remove XP awards based on encounters or any other formula, for that matter. I simply award a flat XP award per session to keep PCs advancing at a speed I'm happy with. It's usually independent of what they do in the game, though a very climactic encounter that ends a particularly long-lasting plot point may make me say, "Okay - everyone levels up." There are two big advantages with this method for me. One is simplicity. Since I don't do it based on a formula, I don't have to make decisions about things like the question at the end of your post. The other is that players, knowing that combat (or anything else) is not the optimal method to gain XP, can make decisions in the game purely based on what their PCs would do and never have to worry about whether it will gain/lose them XP.

I also award exactly the same XP whether the player is present or not. I don't think the PC should end up weaker than the other PCs because the player had to miss a session, and I think the player's already been penalized enough in having to miss the fun of the game without his PC being penalized too. If the main draw of showing up to my game was to gain XP for the character, I'd quit DMing.

 

[mattcolville]

I don't think you're missing anything. Personally, I find it much better to remove XP awards based on encounters or any other formula, for that matter. I simply award a flat XP award per session to keep PCs advancing at a speed I'm happy with.

This is basically what I do. I figure out how much XP I need to award for the session, so that each character will level up about once every 4 sessions. If anyone in the group has done some keen roleplaying, I award everyone a bonus for it. Some of my players love watching people speak in character and roleplay well, without having any particular desire to do it themselves, and I've never been keen on the idea of awarding some people for playing one way, and not rewarding others for playing a different way, when they're all just playing the way they like.

Now, I've been running 3.5 for so long, so often, than I've gotten pretty good at making sure that "1/4 what the party needs to level up, each session" is roughly equal to the actual total EL's they face, so it's not so much breaking the rules as it is shorthand. I've even built whole sessions from the "25% the xp necessary to level" point backward, reverse engineering the encounters so they'll legitimately provide that XP should I have to show my work, which I never do. I've never had a player challenge the XP I give out.

 

[Eldragon]

A very good system is to have each player after the session ends to email the DM his accomplishements (Combat, Role playing, diplomacy, etc) and his version* of the events so far. The DM then awards XP based on how well the PC told their story. The DM can then take choice lines from these stories and share them with everyone else. This really helps get all the players to understand eachothers characters.

I use a general measure of 8-12 hours gameplay = 1 level. XP bonuses and penalties are then assigned for quality of role playing during the session, and cooperation with the group.

I also like to award an XP bonus for taking combat turns quickly. Paying attention, stating what they want to do succinctly, and not doing the old "umm, ahhh, Where are we again?"


*As in, told from the PC's point of view. The rogue will embellish his picking of locks, and gloss over the fight with the hoard of zombies, whereas the paladin will focus on his prowess in smacking down the aforementioned undead.

 

[Flynn]

You might want to check out my OGL Alternatives: Alternate Advancement System. It shifts the focus from combat to any of a set of advancement aspects that the DM gets to choose, and then the DM evaluates each session to determine session points. There's a quick and simple conversion from session points to experience points, so your players don't even really need to know you're using it unless you want to clue them in on what will provide XP instead of simple combat.

Oh, and it's inexpensive, if that helps...

With Regards,
Flynn

 

[tjoneslo]

Thank you every one for their responses. I can see I wasn't too far wrong in the idea for handing out XP.

One interesting thing I picked up from this discussion is that leveling should (or does) occur about every 4 to 6 sessions. The way I've been doing it has been about 10 to 15 sessions. So I need to think about upping the experience awards. So my problem may not be how I'm handing out xp, but how much xp I'm, handing out.

Or I should ask the question this way, If you handed out xp so the time between leveling doubles, would your players rebel?