How are you handing out EXP?

Hyena said:
GhostWolf69 said:
I don't bother with XP at all, they're just stupid numbers and the moron who decided that xp should be sacrificed for certain spells and magic items should have his head examined. :D

/wolf

*shakes fist*

You can have my XP when you take them from my cold dead hands !

No, I couldn't resist. Why do you ask ?

Well I won't take them away from you friend, since I can't take something that you don't have... you start with 0 and I won't give them to you. But if you like you can just write the minimum for the level acquired each time I let you level up. If those silly digits make you feel better I mean.

/wolf
 
XP has been a staple of gaming since the dawn of DnD. However with d20 xp charts all classes are created equal now. No longer will your thief be reaching 3rd level as the Wizard gains 2nd. As such, the need for tracking & giving xp is lessening.

As a DM there is something gratifying seeing the look on a Player's face when he realizes the next level was missed by 2 xp and than the bargaining begins...how far will that Player go for the 2 xp? :twisted: Useful to get PC writeups or other game benefits.

The one modification I am looking to make is to use a Cooperation based XP flow where other PC deaths aren't rewarded. Move the Companions Death = Your Profit ( Total XP/# Survivors ) to a Companions Survival = Profit method. (Individual XP award * # Survivors ).

Of course figuring out the XP is still subjective and I'd end up granting a PC scholar a larger bonus than the penalty would be if he needed to sacrifice another PC due to a demonic pact or plot written by me.
 
I think giving out points is important for encouraging or rewarding players to show up for the game. I have a group of theoretically 9 players, of which somewhere between 3 and 7 show up at any one time. I I jst advanced everyone together it would take away some of the reward to the most faithful players.
 
I find it interesting that the people that identify discontinuities and numerical deviations/miscalculations tend to avoid doing any sort of calculation for experience.

Don't take this the wrong way. I just thought it was interesting enough to point out. :lol: Of course that could be just an indicator of the difference between the objective and subjective.

I do remember a time when we were very particular about the XP that we were given (as a group, I mean). We worked very hard to RP our way to the level that we had achieved and were very possessive of our characters and how they developed. I imagine that, if handled rightly, you can still reap the benefits of good RP with or without XP.

Back to my regularly scheduled lurking.
 
DrSkull said:
I found that the unarmored Shemite nomads were a good foe for the PC's. The PC's could fight enough of them at once to make it a worthy battle, and not get immediately slaughtered. Tito and Vizzarro got a good sneak attack on the party barbarian before they went down. The hell bats and the Nameless Horror also put up good fights. The only Fate point spent when we played was against a swarm of Hell bats, when 2 of the 3 PC's swooned in terror. When the last PC fell to -1, one of the swooned spent a Fate point to revive and save the day.

Ah, that reminds me of another point I was going to make - I allowed the expenditure of a Fate point to overcome the effects of terror - everyone failed against the Hell Bats and then everyone failed against the Nameless Horror?! Against the Hell Bats, I had then swoon for a round, waking up to find themselves being gnawed on ;)
 
My guys were a little luckier. 2 out of three swooned vs. Hell Bats, but only 1 swooned against the Nameless Horror, and he was the most severely wounded.

Actually he was the one who HAD NOT swooned against the Hell Bats, and the Hell Bats tore him up, because he just was hideously unlucky on his to hit rolls, he only managed to kill 2 out of 6 before he went down. When he went down, his buddy spent the Fate point, jumped up and killed the remaining 4 Hell bats in short order.

The two standing guys did manage to beat the Nameless Horror, with only one of them falling to negatives. I decided to count the natural armor on the Nameless Horror as "unarmored" for the purposes of To The Hilt, which allowed our Shemite soldier to jam his sword into the things back, and to allow the 1d4 damage per action to speed the beast's demise along.
 
I love the idea of the "Hacks" and having the characters rate each other. I play with a fairly large group, six, and they all have, shall we say, outgoing personalities. For instance, last night, I was describing the summoning of a demon by a Pictish shaman. It was a pretty dramatic scene (I had the "Conan the Barbarian" soundtrack in the background), and I started describing the conversation between the demon and the shaman, described as "something from your worst nightmare". Then, our Zamoran thief mentions that his worst nightmare stars Richard Simmons. That ruined the feel of the scene. I would love it if something would penalize such a thing. I feel that some of my other players would have rated him lower for that.
 
KiltieMacBagpipes said:
I love the idea of the "Hacks" and having the characters rate each other. I play with a fairly large group, six, and they all have, shall we say, outgoing personalities. For instance, last night, I was describing the summoning of a demon by a Pictish shaman. It was a pretty dramatic scene (I had the "Conan the Barbarian" soundtrack in the background), and I started describing the conversation between the demon and the shaman, described as "something from your worst nightmare". Then, our Zamoran thief mentions that his worst nightmare stars Richard Simmons. That ruined the feel of the scene. I would love it if something would penalize such a thing. I feel that some of my other players would have rated him lower for that.

hey... ONE of the Zamoran thieves... I had nothing to do with the Richard Simmons deal, man...
 
DrSkull said:
The system has a few advantages:
1) Player competition

2) No paperwork

3) Simplicity

I've alredy praised this system DrSkull, and I like it so much that I will use it in my own Conan the RPG campaign, and if it works well it will show up in D&D too. :)

I've come up with an addition though. We used to have each player grade the other players as to how much they contributed to their enjoyment during the game session. People loved to get the Most Enjoyable Character award at the end of a session. Well using your Poker Chip XP System, I will simply give each player a chip at the start of the night, which they have to turn over to another player at the end of the evening, as an award for contributing to their entertainment.

I might also experiment with different colored chips, such as white chips being your described hacks, whereas blue chips could be for great characterisation and roleplaying, and red chips might be Fate Point awards. I'll keep you posted.

TTFN,

Yokiboy
 
For my GM, it depends on how long he decides to GM the campaign. If the campaign is going to short (10-12 adventures) we gain enough xp per adventure to acquire two levels. If its going to take three or four months (we game once per week online), we gain one level and one eighth the experince needed for the next level. In a long campaign (8 months) he doles out half the amount of xp needed for the xext level per sesseion (two sessions per level).
 
How i do it, is every time some one kills something, does something useful or does a good bit of roleplaying, i put down a tally, at the end of the adventure/ session or when they go back to a town to rest up, i multiply that by a factor, detirmined by myself usually reflecting, difficulty, harshness.

Usually its around 10-50
 
Unholy Thread Revival!

I dug out this thread with the forum search because I wanted to discuss a topic that some people may have issues with:
In your group, does each player get the same amount of XP, or does the GM award XP individually (proportional to what the player added to the game)?

A few months ago, I had a very heated discussion about this subject on a German rpg board. Especially one person there found it utterly unfair, unbearable and rude to give anyone less XP than the rest for whatever reason.

I try to handle the XP awards considering several factors:
- Story: if the party as a whole achieved certain goals, that's worth a hunk of XP for everyone. If one player had a particularly large part in attaining these goals, extra XP for this player. -- No extra XP if you just sit on the couch and wait for the next fight.
- Effectiveness: particularly effective players earn individual XP. This applies not only to combat effectiveness, but also to having the right skill at the right time, getting the party out of a tight spot etc.
- Roleplaying: extra XP if you stayed in character very well, and/or your play was "fun to watch", as well as nice climatic dialogue and/or actions. No extra XP if you just sit on the couch and wait for the next fight.
- Other: this includes all the little boons, from a Survival bonus to a "didn't really help, but gave us a good laugh" award.

The "system" does what it is supposed to do: reward players that add to the game. This also results in PCs levelling at different speeds. I think that's fine as long as there's not more than one level difference between the players.
So far, none of my players has complained. Actually, most earn pretty much the same XP, except for one guy who just sits on the couch and waits for the next fight... he's running quite a bit behind.

BTW, I also like the idea with the chips as markers (see page 1), I guess I'm going to try that too. =)

What are your feelings on the subject of disparate XP awards?
 
I havent been watching this thread very closely but I noticed some allowing for XP bonuses due to player roleplaying skills and such. I find this completely inappropriate and although it seems somewhat of a staple for XP awards, I never use it. XP represents the character's development. Its assumed he is acting "in character" all the time, whether the player reflects this or not. It doesnt seem right for a character to develop faster than another because one player is more vocal or theatrical than another. XP should be awarded based on life (in game terms) experience only - not because you told a good joke or brought the chips to the game.
 
Alright, that's also a position. But I expect a player to act according to his character's personality. If you play a grim, sullen Barbarian, the character should say other things than if you play a light-hearted jester type.

(Once, in a Shadowrun round, I had to remind a player his character was a 10-foot troll with Intelligence:1 and Charisma:1, after that character addressed another person in-game with something like "Good day to you, dear sir, may I ask you what leads you to this less-than-desirable neighbourhood" or something to that extent.)

Be that as it may, roleplaying awards are only a minor component in my round -- maybe 10% of the total at best. This also applies if the player, while staying in-character, makes the entire group laugh. After all, we do this stuff for FUN.

XP represents the character's development.

Which brings me to another question: do you award XP for failures or bad decisions? After all, you learn from your mistakes.
This is something I haven't done so far, but I consider it an option. Provided that the players made a good effort, and either failed against overwhelming odds, or even if they had a bad plan but learned from their mistake.
Or what about avoiding or fleeing from an overly powerful opponent rather than fighting it out?
Intuitively, this should be only a fraction of the XP you get for outright success. However: suppose you have to steal something out of a guarded manor. Out of luck, you find an extremely easy path. Should this get you more XP than taking the regular path, which requires you to bluff or fight guards, find and disable traps, and make your getaway? The latter is certainly a more intense _experience_.
 
I used to give individualized XP when running games, in games where XP were direct points to spend on things, e.g., Hero System, Star Wars, etc. I don't recall ever giving disparate XP awards in level-based games. I no longer bother with individualized XP, since everyone is playing fine and it's not that important to micromanage the situation.

But since we are talking about Conan, I feel it is important to emphasize why I don't give individualized XP awards in level-based games like Conan. In point-buy games, etc., where you get a couple of points after an adventure and then spend those points to buy a little something here or there, small amounts of disparate awards are less of a big deal, because it just amounts to a little better skill here or there, not resulting in huge differences between the characters in the party. But if you start giving disparate awards in level-based games, there are times in which a PC will level up while another will not, and a level is a huge difference between characters, as opposed to just a few points here and there in a point-buy game. That can create a number of problems, from the PCs being disgruntled that they didn't advance when another did, to in-game issues of power differentials and the types of foes being fought. And if you massage the XP to avoid some leveling while others do not, then there's no point in awarding individualized XP. So basically I just don't see it as being worth the trouble to spend the time to individualize the rewards in level-based games when the only result of that is that on occasion PCs will end up at different levels and it may cause unnecessary problems. (I.e., why waste time differentiating when it may just cause trouble?)
 
Those are all fair points, and of course it's always okay to always give equal XP.
But I can give you a few reasons why it may be worth the trouble. Mainly, to incite players to make an effort. Of course a player that gets fewer XP than the others may feel dissed. So there has to be a good reason for that to happen.
However, I've also seen the opposite happen. Some players do a lot for the game. Some other players limit their contribution to the annihilation of chips and making die rolls when called for. Sometimes, the enthusiastic players get slightly annoyed or disappointed when that couch potato receives the exact same reward as they do.

There's a German saying: "Allen Menschen Recht getan, ist eine Kunst, die niemand kann" - roughly: you can't please all of the people all of the time. So if I step on somebody's toe no matter how I handle XP, I'd rather step on the toe of the, well, less useful player, and reward the more useful ones.

Note that by no means am I talking about a player having an occasional "bad day". I'm rather talking about the type that always behaves that way.

Of course, if things are fine in your group, and all players are more or less on par, then there's really no reason to go into the trouble.
 
Which brings me to another question: do you award XP for failures or bad decisions? After all, you learn from your mistakes.

I tend to award experience based on the level of activity the character participates in more than how much they succeed or fail. Similarly I award XP for combat, not due to the level of the opponant but by how challenging the engagement was. As a general rule I award experience by the day - a minimal amount simply for a day passing, then bonuses due to activity level and challenges faced. I do modify the result based on the way certain activities develop as well.

For example - in a recent game the players spent 3 days gathering information, healing up and resupplying in a Zamoran city. As the city is particulary interesting with lots of cultures represented, plenty of interaction and such - I gave them 20 points per day as a base. One of the players stayed at the Inn through most of it, laid up from some nasty injuries and essentially resting. I gave him a 10 point bonus for hanging out in the common room one night and asking some questions but that was it. Another character, a thief, went out each night and visited some seady establishments, scattered some coin in bribes and tried to gain some informatiion they needed. His rolls were terrible and he netted very little but the experience seemed pretty rewarding so I gave him an additional 20 points per night. A third character ran an errand for a local blacksmith, in exchange for his services. The errand led him to contact several interesting NPCs, caused a run-in with the local guard and ended up getting him into a bar-room brawl (Which he won by the way but took a good bit of non-lethal damage) I gave him 50 points for the mini adventure's challenges and a bonus of 20 more for completing it successfully.

Just an example, it varies each time we play Ill admit.
 
Clovenhoof said:
Those are all fair points, and of course it's always okay to always give equal XP.
But I can give you a few reasons why it may be worth the trouble. Mainly, to incite players to make an effort. Of course a player that gets fewer XP than the others may feel dissed. So there has to be a good reason for that to happen.
However, I've also seen the opposite happen. Some players do a lot for the game. Some other players limit their contribution to the annihilation of chips and making die rolls when called for. Sometimes, the enthusiastic players get slightly annoyed or disappointed when that couch potato receives the exact same reward as they do.

There's a German saying: "Allen Menschen Recht getan, ist eine Kunst, die niemand kann" - roughly: you can't please all of the people all of the time. So if I step on somebody's toe no matter how I handle XP, I'd rather step on the toe of the, well, less useful player, and reward the more useful ones.

Note that by no means am I talking about a player having an occasional "bad day". I'm rather talking about the type that always behaves that way.

Of course, if things are fine in your group, and all players are more or less on par, then there's really no reason to go into the trouble.

I understand what you are saying, but:
1. the people I game with play fine,
2. I focus the game on the excitement of the adventure rather than the character awards (whether in-game such as loot or out-of-game such as XP), so the XP isn't as much an emphasis as I have seen it for other games / game groups. Therefore, Mr. Enthusiastic Player will get more out of the actual game than will Mr. Dull Player, and really that is what Mr. Enthusiastic Player is more interested in anyway, rather than XP, so XP given out as an after-thought ends up not being significant.
 
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