Just do 15 per session but give out rewards to players that do exceptionally well. Like if they role play a conversation really well, or they really put in the effort to engage the story - just hand out little micro-XP bonuses.

My D&D GM has been doing this for years, and I feel like it's a really great way to encourage the players to stay focused or do things that are really interesting. The only problem he has is he'll say something like, "That's awesome... 5XP." Except in D&D... 5 XP is really quite useless even at level 1.

But in EotE - if you just dish out 1XP here and there... well... that 1XP can actually add up pretty quickly. You can potentially do a lot with only 5XP. Of course later on, you might consider bumping it up to maybe 2 or 3 bonus XP, but you get my point.

The group I play in seems to receive 15xp flat each session, plus I believe extra for special milestones (usually at the conclusion of an adventure). In addition there's Motivation xp, and the GM has told us there is style and roleplaying-xp to be had. We try to play bi-weekly (sometimes skipping a beat), so I don't think any less than 15xp is fair if we want to steadily develop our characters.

When I GM (which is not often) I usually stick to a flat ratio plus milestone, rp and motivation xp. I've been asked to run a short summer campaign for some friends where "one" session most likely will span over a weekend in some remote cabin or whatnot. I'd have to figure out something smart for then. Per hour seems fair, with big milestones marking a "new" session.

I guess it really depends. I tend to reward more, and prefer larger pay offs, if we don't play that often. It allows players to develop their characters steadily to the abilities they want, whether one plays short weekly sessions or only meet once or twice in a month. Xp is also a player-investment reward imho, and if I put down 5-6 hours twice a month or 2-3 hours weekly, I still feel I've put down "a month" for the campaign once the month is up. Same is true even if the weekly sessions are longer.

25 XP.

I hand out XP at the rate of which the PCs will have a steady progression and will become the supreme version of the character depicted in their backstory by the end of the Campaign.

I want the campaign to run for about a year. After that, I feel that the campaign will run its course; people will either fatigue or we might want to start up an entirely new campaign. There's 52 weeks in a year, and I'll just shave off 6 weeks- a wild guess at how many weeks we'll miss, not that it matters that much.

Next, I determined how much estimated XP it would take to complete a character. I went through Oggdude's character builder, made myself a character with 5 ranks in his top 3 skills, 4 ranks in the next 3, 0-3 in the rest, and then I took 3 talent trees, filling one almost to completion, filling half of one in a second, and barely any on the third. The total came out to 1150 XP. After spending that much XP, I felt that any more XP I obtained would just dilute my character past what he was intended to become.

So 1150 XP / 46 weeks = 25xp per session

That's a very guesstimated amount of weeks and XP gained to come up with a guesstimated xp per session, but it's a start.

10 XP per 3 or 4 encounters. we have 6 hour sessions that happen about every six weeks

We are only a few sessions into our game. So far I have given out about 10XP per player per 4 hour session.

I modify it as follows:(per player)

+5 at successful conclusion of story arc.

+ 0 to +5 per session for following their motivation. (This one is tricky but will come easier as I learn there characters/motivations.)

+0 to +5 per session for helping me add content,value, and documentation to the campaign in the form of session reports and short pieces of fiction I incorporate on the campaign management tool (Obsidian Portal).

TIL I am a stingy GM. I hand out on average 5xp per game. We play once a month for 8-10 hours. Last game was awesome and the players did great. I gave them 7. If my players read this thread I will never hear the end of it.

I was a bit generous last time, giving out 20 for the last session. However the players rolled all kinds of triumph, and came up with awesome ways to apply it. I suppose it was basically 15 base +5 for awesome. I want to see my players progress given we play only once per month.

15 XP for an average session. 20 XP for a session where my players do a good job of roleplaying or think like criminals. I had a tough time at start as my group, despite being smugglers and criminals, seemed reluctant to actually think up ways to enrich themselves. I think it was a holdover from the D&D mindset where they were expecting me to tell them what their next adventure was rather than taking any of the plot leads and threads I'd put in front of them and coming up with their own capers.

As a sort of related question to awarding xp:

What do you do with absent/new players?

For example I've awarded about 40 xp so far but next session we have a brand new player. Would you give that new player any extra starting XP or just have them start at "level 1".

Additionally when you have players who miss sessions, do you give them say, 5 xp just so they don't fall behind the curve and become unhelpful to the group or are you stricter than that?

We run it episodic, so gots to be there to get paid. In between sessions the GM gives opportunities to add creative fluff to our Obsidian Portal page which can earn a few xp here and there.

I go with a base of 15 per session, +5 for playing to motivations and +5 for reaching a significant milestone. I'm rather generous, I think, when taking those into consideration.

We've also recently transitioned into Age of Rebellion, so I'm also generous with the post-session Duty accrual.

I encourage my players to get involved in the reasoning when determining the amount of XP and Duty given. I like hearing how them describe how they see their characters contributing to the story.

As a sort of related question to awarding xp:

What do you do with absent/new players?

For example I've awarded about 40 xp so far but next session we have a brand new player. Would you give that new player any extra starting XP or just have them start at "level 1".

Additionally when you have players who miss sessions, do you give them say, 5 xp just so they don't fall behind the curve and become unhelpful to the group or are you stricter than that?

I think some people are more harsh, but my group keeps everyone on the same playing field. When someone new starts we set them at the same XP that everyone has. Also, when someone misses a game we still give them full XP that the rest of the party received. We do this because our group has been pretty dedicated to a weekly for years and we don't have a problem with people skipping often.

If you need to lure your players to game, then not giving them XP when they don't show is a decent way to do it.

As for starting new characters. An interesting way to do it would be to start them fresh with no bonus XP. However, each week they receive more XP than the rest of the party (50%-100% extra) until they catch up with the rest of the party. That way the player has some growth time with the character and they eventually catch up to the rest of the party and are on an even playing field.