Other ways of handling XP

[Acid_crash]

What are some of your ways that you've handled xp during your campaigns? I'm looking for something different than the core system, which I think is kinda screwed up.

And a related question is what guides your decision in handling xp, like what do you focus on and how can it be made to be more unique?

 

[Olaf the Stout]

What are some of your ways that you've handled xp during your campaigns? I'm looking for something different than the core system, which I think is kinda screwed up.

And a related question is what guides your decision in handling xp, like what do you focus on and how can it be made to be more unique?

My current system of handling XP is a real mish-mash of many different things. I award roughly half the recommended XP for combat as I have a number of other sources for XP:

I give out story awards when the PC's accomplish certain goals.

Each player votes who they though was the player of the session. This might be the best roleplayer, the person who made the game the most fun for everyone else, or whatever reason they decide. The only condition is that you can't vote for yourself. Each vote is worth 50 XP.

I give out roleplaying XP each session. This is calculated by the GM giving each player a score out of 10 for the session x character level x 10. Some of the players are simply more extroverted than other or better at it naturally so some of the players are "scaled up" by a point or 2. i.e. The player who is shy and quiet may not give as good a performance as the person who is a natural at acting but if it is good by his standards he will get a good score. The natural in my group is ok with me doing this so everyone is happy.

I give out XP for completing my "homework assignment" for the week. Last week it was coming up with a theme for your caster (everyone has at least 1 level of caster). This week it is coming up with a battle cry for the character. This is optional but all the players seem to do it so far.

I have individual missions that the PC's must complete. It may be something like use an assist action to increase someone's skill check or it may be something like find out another PC's reason for adventuring. The players only get a new mission once they complete the old one.

It has worked ok so far. I brought a lot of these in because I didn't just want to reward combat only. We also had a situation where there was no combats in one session and only 1 in the next two sessions. They were some of the best sessions I have been involved with. I wanted the characters to still feel like they were progressing and reward them for good roleplaying.

Olaf the Stout

 

[FireLance]

Our group's system is that every game session, every character goes up one level, even if he wasn't there (the player couldn't make it, for example). Our group likes quick advancement and we don't like dealing with uneven levels.

 

[Berandor]

Just a few days ago, I wondered the same. I was led to Sweet20 xp system, as well as Piratecat's system, which we'll adopt:

Quick summary:

XP are removed as a means of levelling. Everyone levels at the same time.

Everyone gets a certain number of Action Points every level - 5 + 1/2
your level. They can be used for any number of nifty things - bonuses to die rolls, retaining a cast spell, a temporary feat, things like that. You can also turn one in for 1000 xp worth of points to use for item creation or spellcasting. In other words, besides the normal time and money there's still an opportunity cost for item creation, but it's the tradeoff of "make a cool item vs. use an action point later in combat to pull your fat from the fire." There are some restrictions on this, but that's the basic idea.

Let's take for example an item that costs 12,500 gp and 1000 xp to make.
Underneath the new system, it would cost 12,500 gp and one action point.

Note that extra xp sticks around in a pool until you use it, so if you
turned in two action point but only used 1300 xp to make stuff, you'd
have a reserve of 700 xp for later.

We already use Action Points, and we also use negative levels for resurrection instead of level loss, so the group is kept always at the same level.

 

[Stone Dog]

I just pass out XP based on sessions. A regular session is anything up to four hours, a long session is about four to six and a marathon session is six and up. The equation is something like XP=[(base*party level)/(number of characters)].

Usually I give out kudos of some sort. Action Dice, Drama Points or something of that kind. How many kudos are given out translates into a percentile bonus.

 

[Hussar]

I'm playing in the World's Largest Dungeon and have been for over a year now. I have a pretty good idea of how many sessions it will take the party to complete a given region and I know what levels the regions are designed for.

So, a bit of math gives me the xp/session. Right now, the party should take about 15 sessions to finish their current region (We play over OpenRPG in 3 hour sessions, so, it's a tad slow) and need to go from 11th to 15th. That's 2600 xp/session, which is what they're getting.

Means they crank a level about every 4 sessions which is a nice chunk of time to get acquainted with any new rules that come with a given level.

 

[EricNoah]

I don't use XP at the moment, I just tell the players when to level up their characters. If I need to deal with item crafting I'll just let them craft what seems to me to be an appropriate amount/value of items per level if necessary.

 

[Plane Sailing]

One way that I've handled xp is from the d20 Cthulhu, which is a nice system.

Decide on 4-6 story goals for an adventure. Each story goal contains at least a verb and a noun. In CoC some of the most common verbs for a story goal are discover, recover, find, destroy, subdue, save, rescue, oppose, stop and survive.

Not every accomplishment requires a story goal, and not all story goals are required to complete an adventure.

xp is awarded for each goal fulfilled (300xp x character level / number of characters)

Cheers

 

[Plane Sailing]

I don't use XP at the moment, I just tell the players when to level up their characters. If I need to deal with item crafting I'll just let them craft what seems to me to be an appropriate amount/value of items per level if necessary.

This is pretty much the default True20 model as well, and it has a lot of appeal to it.

 

[EricNoah]

There are people for whom XP is a good system of feedback and rewards. For example, I have known players who more readily cast spells or used their class abilities when I specifically awarded XP for such. But my current group is motivated by their characters' successes, and opportunities to do fun/cool things in the game, and are not made "better" by rewarding them with XP.

In a related matter, I feel that character death is punishment enough -- there is no need for me to then knock off a level or whatever to keep my players from getting their characters killed. I do give them a -2 penalty to one physical stat (Dex, Str, Con) of their choice to reflect the physical trauma of dying, but that goes away next time they level up.