OSR xp Rate?

[Zardnaar]

So ran an adventure tonight very briefly for Castles and Crusades.

You get xp for 5 things.

1. Treasure. 1xp=gp
2. Magic items (recovered 6 +1 animal bane arrows).
3. Defeating Monsters
4. Roleplaying
5. Story awards.

Anyway they ticked all the boxes and got 1600 each. Because they're multiclassed and I can't be bothered with level 1 that much I went with a generous amount and awarded xp for all of it. Story award was completing a side mission (1/8) and exploring some hexes (200xp each per hex).

They need approximately 3700-4600 approx to hit level 2 so 3 sessions approx.

This is with turbo mode turned on they role played 4 encounters so got 100xp for that as well. Monster xp was trivial I guesstimated wrong (100 each actual amount was 32 total).

Happy with the rate at least for now I'm deliberately going turbo mode I'll be less hand wavey later. Xp will be awarded end of each session for book keeping reasons.

How do others do it?

 

[Mannahnin]

They need approximately 3700-4600 approx to hit level 2 so 3 sessions approx.

This is with turbo mode turned on they role played 4 encounters so got 100xp for that as well. Monster xp was trivial I guesstimated wrong (100 each actual amount was 32 total).

Happy with the rate at least for now I'm deliberately going turbo mode I'll be less hand wavey later. Xp will be awarded end of each session for book keeping reasons.

How do others do it?

Sounds legit. I've been running xp for gp with the ability to double up on part of it by Carousing, more generous monster xp (50 per Hit Die plus or minus a bit for special weaknesses or abilities), and occasional story/plot awards.

I agree with Tom Moldvay's guidance from 1981 that if it takes more than 3-4 sessions for folks to hit 2nd level, the DM should bump up the treasure. I like a roughly 3-4 session to advance rate for the first few levels. After that it naturally slows down a bit but PCs are more durable and the players don't have to tip-toe as much and be quite so cautious.

I like the more generous monster XP (though 50xp/HD is still halved from 1974's original recommendation) because it makes that less of an afterthought and gives a bit more substantive a consolation prize and bit of progress for a session where the PCs do some fighting but don't get a good treasure score.

Carousing helps drain the coffers (I also make some potions and scrolls and such available in town) and speed up advancement a little. I let them carouse once after any given delve/per session. Baseline is you roll a d6 and spend that many hundred GP (though I use a silver standard, so it's SP in my game), get that many XP, then make a DC11 Charisma or Con check (I was running 5 Torches Deep; in OSE or a classic game just use Save vs Poison as Jeff Rients originally recommended for this ~15 years ago). If you fail, I roll on a table to see what kind of amusing misadventure occurs. Some of these are actually beneficial or can be plot hooks. You can roll a bigger die for carousing either in bigger towns or cities or once you're higher level, to represent access to more expensive parties/substances/entertainments.