D&D General What Have You Awarded XP For?

[Charlaquin]

In my current swamp hexcrawl, for example, XP is earned by paying trainers 1 gp : 1 XP to level up. So the focus there is just acquiring treasure by whatever means the players see fit. In another game I ran where the PCs were pirates, you only got XP if you buried treasure somewhere and drew a map to it.

I like this idea a lot for a sandboxy campaign. Do you find the pacing of level ups works out similarly to your games that use XP for encounters and/or milestones, or no? Does training to level up also take up downtime, and if so, how much? Do you have the PCs spend money on lifestyle expenses in the meantime?

 

[el-remmen]

I've also done Milestone XP instead of Milestone leveling, for groups that wanted a more granular view of their advancement.

Can you explain the difference? Do you mean awarding XP at certain times vs. as you go along? If so, that is how I do it as well. I only award XP at the end of an "adventure" (or during a milestone completion in the middle of a longer adventure - so for example when my group did Against the Cult of the Reptile God, they got XP when they dealt with the town threat allowing them to level up and then undertake the more harrowing swamp lair threat, after which they got more XP and leveled up again!).

 

[iserith]

I like this idea a lot for a sandboxy campaign. Do you find the pacing of level ups works out similarly to your games that use XP for encounters and/or milestones, or no? Does training to level up also take up downtime, and if so, how much? Do you have the PCs spend money on lifestyle expenses in the meantime?

I find it starts a little slower as the players figure out the lay of the land and the strategies they want to pursue to get the most amount of gold per session. But then it's basically normal pace on progression. Training takes a week in my swamp hexcrawl, but I don't charge them for lifestyle for the Training task. (Other tasks in town cost them though.)

 

[Deset Gled]

I answered no to "finding treasure" and "finding/exploring a secret area", but that's feels a little misleading. IMX, the act of finding/exploring would always involve one of the other tasks on the list. I can't think of a case where someone just stumbled onto treasure or a secret passage that didn't involve some type of encounter (before, after, or during). And in that case it would be the encounter, not the "finding" that gives the XP.

 

[DND_Reborn]

I voted for most of the options as I award XP for anything I think the character or player can learn from.

It should be noted I don't award XP for finding treasure (unless that was the goal, to find something particular), but I do award it for getting it back to "town" or whatever. So, I selected Other as well for that.

As a side note, I have never awarded XP for "player" contributions (snacks, rides, etc.), but I used to give their PC an occasional magic item back in the day if I was feeling particularly generous.

 

[Vaalingrade]

I no longer use XP, but in the past, I gave it for basically everything but finding treasure --because treasure is the reward for finding treasure.

 

[aco175]

I used to give a story award for meeting the quest goal of the adventure, along with the other monsters/encounters XP. It was a bonus for finding the McGuffin, defeating the dragon, etc.. I found it helps to have clear goals for the adventure and then the players know when to start to take on more. The group tended to collect goals, but did not drop them when finished.

 

[not-so-newguy]

My "other" is that any Player will get a bonus xp for writing a journal entry or sharing their session notes.

 

[Blue]

Can you explain the difference? Do you mean awarding XP at certain times vs. as you go along? If so, that is how I do it as well. I only award XP at the end of an "adventure" (or during a milestone completion in the middle of a longer adventure - so for example when my group did Against the Cult of the Reptile God, they got XP when they dealt with the town threat allowing them to level up and then undertake the more harrowing swamp lair threat, after which they got more XP and leveled up again!).

You nailed it. My style of running often does not have hard breakpoint for "this adventure". While I'm currently just doing story/milestone based leveling, I have done it broken up smaller. Just for player preference - they could see progress but the same result. That said, I have given out individual XP rewards before and this would work well combined with them.

 

[Iry]

I was awarded XP for carnal relations with a farm animal.
Which option would that be on the voting choices?
Slaying? Exceptional Roleplaying? Other?