XP: The Star Wars method in D&D

[Mercule]

The pre-Revised rules gave a flat rate per adventure, based on adventure length and character level. IIRC, the Wheel of Time rules are the same.

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Can't vouch for Star Wars, but WoT does have a flat rate.

It's (BASE x LEVEL) / CHARACTERS

where
LEVEL = the average party level
CHARACTERS = the number of PCs
BASE is a function of adventure length:
short = 1000 XP
medium = 2000 XP
long = 4000 XP

There aren't any guidelines on just what constitutes a short, medium, or long adventure.

 

[RobNJ]

Can't vouch for Star Wars, but WoT does have a flat rate.

It's (BASE x LEVEL) / CHARACTERS

Mercule! Dude! Long time, no talk. How's DND-L?

And by the way, you are a godsend. Thanks for the help.

 

[Arani Korden]

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Can't vouch for Star Wars, but WoT does have a flat rate.

I did RC, then. Good. The rules Mercule just posted were also the old Star Wars rules. (I've used them for D&D myself with no problems.)

 

[The_Gneech]

I always rather liked the HERO System experience guidelines, which are something like this:

1 pt. - For being on any adventure (minimum award)

+1 pt. - For a challenging adventure
+2 pts. - For a very challenging adventure
+3 pts. - For an incredibly challenging adventure

-1 pt. - Characters were thrashed
+0 pts. - Characters were a moderate success
+1 pt. - Characters had a spectacular success

+1 pt. - Player excellently RPed character

You could apply that as a modifier to a "fixed rate" award, so that there are exp. incentives. Maybe something like

MOD x (Character Level x 100) = X.P. for that game session.

-The Gneech

 

[Gospog]

RobNJ,

You might want to check out the "free-form xp system" found in the Omega World mini-game from Polyhedron.

It's how I do XP for Star Wars, and pretty much every other game I run.

 

[RobNJ]

RobNJ,

You might want to check out the "free-form xp system" found in the Omega World mini-game from Polyhedron.

It's how I do XP for Star Wars, and pretty much every other game I run.

Can you give me a vague overview? If I remember correctly, that issue's pretty old, might be hard to find.

 

[Gospog]

Sure, I'll try. Though the author makes it really clear in the game. (and the game itself rocks, I reccomend looking for the back issue, try the Paizio site)

Basically, if the PCs spend the whole game hiding, and avoiding trouble, they get as little as 0 xp.

If they step up, look for trouble, and save the day, they can get as much as 5,000 xp.

If they step up, look for trouble, and fail miserably, they can get as much as 5,000 xp.

Basically, it treats XP as if the X stood for experience.
An experience being anything the character learns from and lives through, good or bad (or both).

Kind of a Nietzche thang.

In my games, I like the pace of the characters going up one level every game for the early levels, and then after 5th or 6th level, they go up a level every 2-3 games. My players seem to enjoy this pace as well, and so I try to scale the XP accordingly. Of course, I still give out extra XP for a game well played, but mostly, I use the "guidelines" above.

Note: Before anyone "corrects" me, I understand that this system places a lot of power and responsibility in the hands of the GM, and requires a lot of trust between players and GM, and would not work for many groups. But it works for ours!

So, good luck to you in finding what works for you.

 

[RobNJ]

Thanks for the info, Gospog.

So, good luck to you in finding what works for you.

I'm not currently DMing, so all this "work" is being done on behalf of others. I think I know what I'm going to recommend, however. I'm going to suggest we use the Wheel of Time method with the addition of an X-factor that I'll call Competency. So the formula is:

Level * Session Length * Comptency / # of characters.

Competency is defined as how well the party did. Did they they make lots of really bad decisions, role play poorly, spend the entire game arguing with one another, piss people off for no reason, and generally flip up (stupid content filter)? Or did they come up with really great ideas, work together like clockwork, have really funny or interesting or dramatic (in order of liklihood, in my experience) role play during the session, and generally do better than I expected?

The Competency score starts out at 1. It can go from .75 to 1.25, preferably at .05 increments. This way you can have XP scores modified by performance.

For completeness' sake, Session Length is 1000 for a short game, 2000 for an average game and 4000 for a long game.

You can even add the DMG's variant rule on story awards, no more than 50 xp per level per session for each character, or you could apply the competency factor individually, depending on how effective each character and player were.