Experience points

[EvilGM]

According to the DMG, players should receive experience for overcoming obstacles, such as monsters and traps.

What do you award experience for? How much "extra" experience do you give?

For example, do you give experience for completing tasks or quests? For role-playing? Based on monetary value - like AD&D?

I'm curious what everyone else does for experience. Let me know!

 

[the Jester]

Half standard for challenges, plus 25 x character level for each of the following rp categories: class, race, alignment and personal. Also, that same 25 x level for props or making the game run smoothly (i.e. helping take notes, etc). Seems to work really well.

 

[Iuz]

After a long discussion my group and I came to a realization - the whole reasoning behind XP rewards just doesn't appeal to us.

So we now we use the very simple formula of every character gets 1000XP every week. This means that a characters needs to play as many sessions as his current level to reach the next level.

 

[DackBlackhawk]

XPs

I awarded the standard monster XP for overcoming the monster. This means killing them, sneaking by them, parlaying with them, using magic on them, whatever. Our group (with 5 different DMs) used this same rule. I had a gnome illusionist get full XP on two giants by using illusions to cause them to fight each other while the gnome snuck away and got to the objective the giants were guarding.

We also gave out story XP, good Rolplaying XP and sometimes a just that was a cool line XP... Not very specific, but at least more than just hacking the monsters to bits. It gave us encouragement to do more than just attack things....

 

[scholz]

I agree with Iuz, XP just seems more apprpriate to the video-game style of gaming than role playing and adventuring.

We are experimenting with a 'no experience point" system.
We game as normal, then when they reach the beginning of a significant adventure (having discovered the plot of the spider eyed goblins, or found the ancient city and its dark curse) I announce that they will level once they complete the adventure in some obvious way. (Remove the goblin threat, free the villagers from the thrall of the death cult, sack the ancient temple, etc..)
Everyone levels at the same time.

In place of xp costs for spells and item creation, I either require more expensive material components, or give them small tasks (find the special material component, decipher the the ancient scroll).

So far so good, but we are still early in the adventure.

 

[poilbrun]

Please not that this replies comes from an action and fight oriented DM. Now that this is out of the way:

At the time being, I only give monsters and traps XP. The character went to level 1 to 4 in two 8-hour sessions, and since then, it seems it takes them a session to level. However, the last session was very light on XP, and the next one should be more or less the same, basically because I tend to pit them against a lot of low-level enemies until level 5, then start to get only two or three fights per session (a fight against ONE rogue lasted for 1h30 this week end!), but harder ones.

I usually give roleplay XP, but I don't in this particular since 2 of the 4 players are first-time players. If I decided to be fair when giving roleplay XP, the two experienced one would get a lot more than the newcomers (and I would like it even less since the one who would get the most is my girlfriend, and I would not want the other players to believe I give her more XP than she deserves).

I do not give story XP, but mainly because there are a lot of fights in my stories, which means they get enough XP like that. Once I get into the diplomatic part of the campaign (and if it lasts, because I know my players usually prefer fights to diplomacy!), I might start changing that, even though I feel that the characters do not need to progress in level if they're only socially interacting with others. After all, who cares if they're level 1 or level 20 when interacting with the king of the land (well, the assassins do )?

 

[Primitive Screwhead]

XP Awards

I use CR for combats and story encounters, modified by whether the party 'defeats', 'bypasses', or 'avoids'.

As an example, this weekend the group will be going through a dungeon crawl as part of a greater story arc. Within the dungeon is a tightly bound ecology of inteligent life forms. The party needs to acquire an item from the room at the back of the dungeon in typical arcade style fashion.
'defeat' is getting all the critters slain by either direct combat or convicing various groups to battle each other.
'bypass' is leaving the critters alive and still, somehow, getting past them to the prize.
'avoid' is either walking away and hoping the evil plot is stopped by someone more heroic.. or somehow getting the required item without dealing with the intervening critters.

Story encounters also have a CR assigned, based on how difficult they are to attain. This allows a group to continue leveling sans combat. I hide the traps and other problem solving stuff under this category.

Unfortunately, I am currently running a module which leans heavily on arcade style combat, my new campaign will be completely homebrew and story encounters will be the meat of character advancement.

 

[Vrecknidj]

In addition to XP for defeating monsters (and I liberally define "defeat"), I give XP for being on the right path. So, if the players all decide that they'd rather go do something besides what my adventure plan happens to be, they can, but they won't get the story awards. If, on the other hand, they follow through the adventure, they'll get XP for getting to certain points (I suppose this is very slightly analogous to check points in some video games).

So, in my last session, the party absolutely had to get into the green dragon's lair and steal some powders and oils from one of his treasure rooms because later on, they're going to need these as they will provide raw materials for antitoxins to the yuan-ti poison they're going to get screwed by.

Once they got the stuff back home, I gave extra XP for completing that quest. The next big quest will be to make up some of the stuff and apply it to the centaurs that have been turned (their torsos are now snake-like critters, like the yuan-ti, and they are now servants to the yuan-ti). Once the party rescues enough of the centaurs from their plight (the powders and oils contain the magic something-or-other that can restore them), they'll get more XP for completing that quest.

Dave

 

[Theocrat]

So, how many game sessions then?

Hi all-
My last major campaign, The Stroun Campaign set in the Theocracy of the Pale (Greyhawk), lasted 25 games. My wife and another player were the only ones to play in every game. We play every other week (on average). So this 25 game campaign took us about a year. We had a lot of fun. Here's how we do XP. Our current Hardby campaign is the same way.
XP for monsters and traps as per the CR/ PC level. Or as much as the DM percieves is important. We also give 10xp per skill and 15xp per feat used in a game session, with a max number of uses per skill / feat of 3 and a max number of XP from skills/feats is 100x level to be/2 (so if you are 3rd and going to 4th, you can only get 200 xp).
Being that we are in Las Vegas we also gamble. Before each combat, we guess which PC will fumble (and confirm) first, how many total fumbles and how many rounds the combat will take. Each is worth 50xp, and total fumbles if correct is multipled. So if you choose 2 fumbles, then you get an extra 100xp.
One thing that I tried when preparing for a new campaign was to use the XP chart that Unearthed Arcana proposes. After 5th level, it takes a lot more XP to go up. But they also suggest giving more XP for encounters. As such, one thing that we (me as the DM and the players) have disagreed upon is the pace in which PC's go up. I feel that PC's go up too fast, however, most players disagree. I see it that PC's go from their home, picking their noses to coming back less than a year later as a dragon slayer and empire saving hero. Thus why I like the idea of it taking much longer to go up in level. But as Ron, one of the players argued, he played in every game in the last campaign (25 games) and his PC's (when they died, I allowed a new PC only 1 level lower) never went above 13th. The highest PC that never died went to 14th.
So as he argues, after 25 games, and 1 year, it would take almost 2 years before he would get to use some of those high level spells. I agree and think that is the way it should be.
So how many game sessions do you do in a year? How many years have you and the majority of your crew been togeather? My previous group had been togeather for about 5 years. With my wife, Ron and Henry (and now my son), our core group is going on it's 2nd year as a whole.