Shiroiken, I'm interested in learning more about your system. I have lots of questions!
Cool. I'll PM you the specifics, if you'd like.
Can you give examples of the various difficulties of social interaction? Do you grant SXP only for "social combat," i.e. when the PCs have to get something they want from an NPC, or are there other examples of social interaction that would award XP?
Die rolls aren't always required for it to be a social encounter. Pretty much any planned social interaction is a social encounter, but not random ones the players setup (otherwise, they'd spend all session just running around talking to random people for xp!).
How do you determine the total value of XP for the entire adventure? Do you just decide you want the party to get to the next level during it, or do you have another method?
From level 3+, I try to use 3-5 sessions per level, but only 1 session to get to level 2, and 2 session to get to level 3. It's not a perfect system, since sometimes adventures take shorter/longer than expected. I try to keep most of my adventures to 1-2 sessions, but sandbox adventures can take a long time (current hex-crawl just finished 3rd session, and players aren't done yet).
To take an example from a converted 4E adventure I recently ran ("Grasp of the Mantled Citadel"): in a pocket dimension with a magic-twisted wood, the PCs encountered an undead dryad who was driven mad by the place. She begged the PCs to take a branch from her tree and plant it in uncorrupted soil so she could be at peace. How much XP would you award for a task like that?
I wasn't too clear about QXP. I primarily use it for adventures that have a primary goal, but one that the players might not choose (or be unable) to finish. QXP is a way of withholding some of the adventure's xp if that happens. Your example seems like a side-quest (which I'll discuss in a minute), but if that was the goal of the adventure, I'd probably make it worth about 10% of the adventure's total xp.
Side-quests that aren't part of the primary adventure, are really cool, and I like adding those in. I figure out how difficult the quest is (Easy, Medium, Hard, or Deadly), and award xp like it was an encounter. Your example seems pretty easy, for example, so for a level 1 party, I'd give 25 QXP per player. One thing to note, is that side quests do not count towards the assumed amount of xp for the adventure, since they actually add time to the game.
Have you come up with a better way of handling traps than giving them CRs? Do you award the same amount of EXP for disabling the trap and bypassing it? Do you award any EXP if the party sets the trap off?
I eventually settled on them being mini-encounters, so they're worth xp based on the number of potential targets. A poison needle trap is only challenging to 1 character, so it's only worth 1 character of xp. A pit trap might get 2 characters, so it's worth 2 characters worth. Complex traps are generally worth more, because of how hard they are to get past (many checks and actions).
Oh, I personally grant half xp for anything that is only partly completed (except QXP). For example, a monster that runs away and isn't later slain, is only worth half it's MXP value. If a social encounter is failed, the party still gets half the SXP, and traps that triggered grant half EXP. This represents the fact that they were faced, but not completely overcome. This is a personal preference, but it really doesn't have anything to do with this system.
Do you have a formula for attaching numbers to difficulty of terrain? Are there any other factors? (What about finding secret doors? Is there a bonus for exploring every area? If there's treasure, does that affect the amount of EXP the area is worth? I could imagine it either increasing the amount of EXP because there's important stuff, or decreasing it because treasure is its own reward.)
It depends on the type of adventure. A dungeon crawl or hex-crawl grant EXP for each new area explored, but if there's an exploration challenge, I replace the new area EXP for the challenge EXP. I was originally going to reward xp for gold instead of this system (AD&D style), but my players rejected that notion (because treasure is its own reward).
The value of exploring each area is a percent of the total xp I plan to give out. For example, if I plan to give out 5000 EXP and there's 50 areas, I give out 100 EXP per area (no, the math NEVER fricking works out that well, even though I'm designing all of it).
What would be an example of this kind of challenge? Like climbing a cliff or getting over a rickety rope bridge, that sort of thing?
Yup. I figure out if it's Easy, Medium, Hard, or Deadly, to determine the EXP. Secret Doors, Stuck Doors, Moving Passageways, etc. Pretty much anything that can confuse, misdirect, or obstruct the players progress is an exploration encounter.
