Erik Mona's Lo-Fi Experience System

[Plane Sailing]

I@m really taken by the True20 mechanism of 'level up when its right for the campaign' now.

Otherwise, my favourite xp based mechanism has been the one proposed by Monte Cook in Call of Cthulhu d20, which basically says set up 6-8 story goals for an adventure (say), and then give 300xp * level / party members for achieving each story goal. Basically the idea is that every 13.33 story goals achieved the party will increase in level.

Killing monsters doesn't necessary achieve a story goal, although in some cases surviving a monster might, similarly bypassing a monster.

The only tricky bit is setting up good story goals in advance and ensuring that they are discoverable (or at least that you cover potential major branches in the story)

 

[Plane Sailing]

FWIW, when using a 'level when the DM wants' system (like True20), it is very useful to have some expendable benefit (like conviction or action points) which a DM can grant to someone to reflect great role playing or whatever you might normally give xp bonuses for. Similarly you can require them to be sacrificed for magic item creation if you wanted.

 

[Plane Sailing]

The one big core D&D assumption that I've ditched is 'wealth by level' guidelines. I like giving the PCs powerful items, and seeing what they do with them. The 7th level party ended up with a ring with a Wish in it, and once they realised what they had they had plenty of dilemmas in deciding what to do with it and when (and in the end saved it until an excellent moment).

My game has benefited from allowing some of the more interesting and esoteric (and expensive!) items to be found by PCs well below what the wealth guidelines would suggest.

Cheers

 

[Celebrim]

I've found that the current XP system takes about 10 minutes to figure XP. I just make sure I write down the Crs of all the challenges they face and looking them up is pretty simple.

This is how I do it. It's never proved that tedious. A calculator is part of my standard DM kit, and has been for years.

One of the big advantages of big numbers it lets the DM do small rewards.

"5 XP for making the DM laugh with an IC comment"
"10 XP for doing something suicidally stupid and surviving"
"20 XP for advancing the story in an unexpectedly fun way"
"50 XP for excellent roleplaying"

I never want to make these important to leveling, but I do want to show my appreciation when the player makes the game fun and memorable for me.

 

[Celebrim]

The one big core D&D assumption that I've ditched is 'wealth by level' guidelines. I like giving the PCs powerful items, and seeing what they do with them. The 7th level party ended up with a ring with a Wish in it, and once they realised what they had they had plenty of dilemmas in deciding what to do with it and when (and in the end saved it until an excellent moment).

My game has benefited from allowing some of the more interesting and esoteric (and expensive!) items to be found by PCs well below what the wealth guidelines would suggest.

Cheers

I've always been a fan of a little front ending by giving the PC's at least one nice defining magic item each very early in the game. If you think about how stories usually work, the heroes defining item is usually acquired early in the story. It becomes part of who they are and how ordinary people recognize them. Bilbo with Sting. Frodo's Ring. Raistlin's staff. Perseus's sword. If you wait to give the cool item until the player is 20th level, you never develop an aura around a particular item. And front ending the PC's explains a big game issue. How do ordinary people know that these people are heroes? I mean sure, when a character is 15th level or 8th level, you can recognize him as a hero by what he can do. But what about when the character is 1st or 4th? There are alot of 2nd, 3rd, and 4th level characters out there. But they don't carry tokens of destiny identifying that they have the favor (or curse) of the gods. How do you know that the 3rd level fighter is the chosen champion of the village? Not because he's the highest level fighter in these parts, but because he's the one with the famous sword.

 

[Nightfall]

The one big core D&D assumption that I've ditched is 'wealth by level' guidelines. I like giving the PCs powerful items

So do I! But I think my Sword of Chaos idea needs work.