I had a question privately about how I calculate my XP awards, and since the response ended up being pretty long, and potentially of general interest, I decided to post it here as well. I've put it in an sblock, since people may not want that much behind-the-scenes insight.
[sblock]There's not a simple set of criteria for it, it's largely ad hoc. Roughly speaking, it falls into three categories. First, there are party bonuses for accomplishments, be they winning encounters, delivering letters, getting into important conversations, et cetera. Second, there are individual bonuses for effectiveness; that is, for decisions and actions which advance party goals. Thirdly, there are bonuses for role-playing, whether it's in or out of combat; these are any posts or series of posts which flesh out the game. When it's time for an award of the first variety, I go back to the previous award and read through the thread, post by post, giving awards of the second and third varieties as I go.
Generally speaking, awards for accomplishments are the largest (1000+ XP); this keeps the players from diverging too much in terms of levels, and also acknowledges the fact that even if one important achievement may lie primarily on one character's shoulders, it still took the whole party to get them there, and still carries the same importance to everyone. Individual rewards are smaller; effective decisions will generally run from 100-500 XP, while role-playing generally runs from 25-100 XP per instance; while role-playing is important and I want to encourage it, it isn't what XP was meant to reflect, so I want to adjust its impact accordingly.
It's worth mentioning that these numbers have been scaling up slowly, and will continue to do so. While this is partly due to the amount of XP it takes to gain higher levels, I've found that I haven't had to take this into account much, at all; the significance of party accomplishments, the impact of individual decisions, and the depth and complexity of role-playing have all increased naturally as the game has progressed and you all have had more to work with.
Also note that I try to work from the perspective of the party when I determine what is an "accomplishment," which can lead to some contradictions between what I perceive the party's current goals to be and what I anticipate they will become. This means that I will award decisions that advance toward a party goal, even if I know that goal to be based on incorrect assumptions or otherwise ultimately futile; conversely, when I base awards on what I expect the party's goals to become, they may seem inexplicable. I remember Nurthk getting some decent XP once, a while back, for making one comment which was largely shrugged off at the time, but which has since become a significant question. Although there's always the chance such things will never become important to the party, I prefer to err to the player's benefit in these situations.
If anyone has any questions or disagreements about this, feel free to bring them to me, either publically or privately. I realize that all of this is very subjective, but I do believe it balances out fairly enough over time.[/sblock]
