How does everyone feel about awarding xp durng game play. My group only meets onve very 1-2 month but we usually play for 8-12 hours when we do meet. Given the length of the sessions I am toying with the idea of awarding xp during play. Normally we will take a break for lunch and another for dinner so these would be obvious starting points to award the xp.

I am thinking a base xp rate of 5 point/ hr of play with bonuses being given for acomplishing goals or exceptionally clever ideas.

What im looking for opinions on is wether I should:

1)award xp at lunch, dinner, and then at the end. 2) award xp every hour to two. 3) wait untill the end of the session. What has your experience been with long sessions and awarding xp?

You could always wait until the characters have some downtime. If they are spending hours in hyperspace they could take the opportunity to practice some of their skills or research something. It could be like Luke practicing with his lightsaber on his way to Alderaan.

The beginner game does something very similar to this. There is a short interlude about half way through where xp is awarded and the characters are free to level up. If you break up your 12 hour session into 2 or 3 sections where there is some down time that seems fair and reasonable. I wouldn't award xp every hour or 2 though, but you are the GM.

As far as the amounts, it's up to you. I generally award 15 xp per session (lasing about 4-5 hours) with bonuses for good roleplaying or creative solutions.

TLDR: I like option 1.

I think at each break and the end is a good idea. Then they can discuss an think what they want to spend it on and not spend game time doing it.

I usually award XP at the end of a session, but only because I'm forgetful that way. I am also inclined to award XP for stuff like writing up a session recap and whatnot.

For me it depends on the situation some years ago a player surprised me with an idea he used during the game which I immediately rewarded because it did catch me totally by surprise.

But as I said it depends on the situation and whether I feel they deserved it.

So did they deserve it in your opinion?

My experience with long sessions isn't really like yours, in that it would be weekly sessions that sometimes just go super long. In those circumstances we typically just did XP at the end, knowing we'd be playing the next week.

But if you're playing once per month I think the hourly/goal accrual and awards at lunch, dinner, and after would be a good idea. People would see their characters progress over the course of each session and I think that'd be rewarding. Say you play 12 hours, that's 60 XP + anything you choose to give from achieving goals, broken up into amounts of about 20-ish every 4 hours, which is on the generous end for 4 hours of play but not above and beyond anything.

Higher rate and amount of XP gain would compensate in some ways for the lower frequency of play time. Seems like a good idea to me.

My group plays every week, about 4 to 5 hour long sessions. I already know what the players will be getting XP for during the adventure, and at the end of each session I award whatever XP they've earned so far. In addition there's "non-scripted" XP like motivations, good ideas, great roleplaying and so on - this I award immediately when it happens.

When it comes to increasing skills and so on, I let my players spend as much XP as they want between adventures. Each adventure typically lasts 2-3 game sessions. When I ran Beyond the Rim, which was quite a bit longer, I awarded XP per session like normal but let them increase skills after each chapter.

The only thing I'm more restrictive about is learning new specializations. For this I push them to roleplay it a little by building up to it beforehand (someone who wants to buy the Doctor specialization may show an interest in all things medical some time in advance, to set the stage) and I insist that they need someone to learn it from who already has it. I'm not really very uptight about it, but I don't want someone jumping to hyperspace as a Scoundrel and coming out again as an Assassin.

If it makes your game more fun, I say give XP when you like. Especially if you guys are only getting together once every month or two.

I would do this during a break though. Maybe during hyperspace or an act break.