As a group who really doesn't like the XP system presented in the CRB, my group has, for the last two years been using a Q&A system for XP. Essentially how it works is the GM will compile a list of questions that occurred during the last session about the plot of happenings (examples might be: "Who do you believe committed the murder? How do you think it was committed? What involvement (if any) do you think X had to play? What happened to the technology that went missing? Do you think Y is lying about the murder?" etc. etc.)

Generally how he runs it is to award a base amount of XP, plus additional XP depending on how well we answer his questions.

Only problem we've started running into, is it sometimes takes time and resources for him to come up with questions in which the answers are not blatantly obvious, which leads to him, effectively skipping XP over several sessions. While at present it's not bad (I think it's only been about 2 sessions since we were awarded XP), I do recall one point where we went somewhere around four or five sessions without any XP, because he didn't have the time or energy to come up with questions for us (or at the very least, that to do so would simply have been to recite the questions from last session with no new information that might have changed our answers).

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So what I'm asking is if anyone has any quick and easy XP systems that require minimal book keeping on the GM's part, and can be applied consistently.

Yeah, give everyone 200XP after each session

More after major milestones in campaigns, etc.

Yeah, give everyone 200XP after each session

More after major milestones in campaigns, etc.

I really don't like this method, and neither does my GM. Yes, it is quick and easy, but it's almost kind of a: "Prize just for showing up" kind of deal. "Yeah, my character did literally nothing but sit in a chair this session and listen in to conversations, but he is getting more skilled for it" (which incidentally we have had sessions in which the party accomplished almost nothing anyways).

To be clear, we are kind of looking for a system that rewards the players and/or their characters for doing things right, we're just also looking for a system that's quick and easy to slot in when the GM's way too tired or distracted to set up our Q&A system.

How about a small amount for turning up and general RPing (50-100) and then another 200-300 for certain milestones I.e 25 for killing the cultists 25 for finding the clue 50 for recovering the missing Noble woman alive 100 for stopping the ritual.

But really xp awards are part of the game and shouldn't take that long so without being disrespectful this sounds like a GM time management issue. One suggestion would be to award XP at the beginning of the session not the end.

Another crazy idea is to ask the PCs how many exp they think they should have. You'd be surprised at how well the average group self polices.

This system (Gm here) works really well when we have freeish schedules and some decent time to play (It was created when we were are more available then we currently are). When I started it I would ask the questions at the end of the session, or at the beginning of the next, and that worked pretty well. However, because of it being harder for us to find time to hang out, we usually end up having to play dark heresy later into the evening, and when we usually end none of us really have the energy to sit around while I create a bunch of questions and then talk about them. I could end earlier but we are still usually tired and that cuts into our already limited time.

The issue with doing this system at the beginning is that we don't always hand out each week, in recent months we have had several week long intervals of not seeing each other (our one player is currently gone for the next month), and I find this usually results in far less detailed answers, and people forgetting smaller details, making it kind off just not worth it. Due to the fact that we are also forced to play later, the players are having an even harder time remembering all the details that are required for this method. The fact that things rarely actually go as planned make it hard for me to create questions ahead of time, as often what happens in a session does not line up with what is prepared, I am pretty new to GM'ing, so I dont have an amazing grasp on what my players will do.

This method is really really fun (We have all agreed it is one of the highlights of playing) but is simply becoming harder and harder to keep up with while our schedules are difficult. Currently I am doing mostly a milestone Xp method (You just figured out a big clue, get 100 xp, you finally got that guy you were hunting, 300 xp) and then just add the questions on whenever we find time.

The questions idea sounds like a good one to be fair. As you have pointed out its just that limitations of play time and gaps between sessions make it not so practical for your group. No harm in switching to a quicker albeit slightly less satisfactory way of giving XP.