Out of curiosity, how much XP do players normally earn in your sessions? I'm not looking for a "correct" answer, or a "the rules say this" answer. I'm just curious how your GMs have been doing it. I know out of the book, the recommendation is 10 XP per session, with the potential for more XP for exceptional roleplaying. But I've seen different GMs handle it different ways.

Personally, when I was GMing a game, I wanted faster progression for the characters. We only gamed once every other week, so time at the table was a bit limited. However, when we did game, we tended to go for a good chunk of the day. If less than 5 hours was spent at the table, we considered it a "short" game. As a result, I opted to hand out a base of 25 XP per game. A bit high, I know, but that was the intention. The characters progressed at a rate that all the players were happy with, and since the game only went for about six months, we didn't get into ridiculous levels of power by the end of it, as we'd only really played about a dozen games or so.

My current GM is doing something similar, with a higher XP give per session due to us gaming only every other week. On top of that, he has a system in place that we all feel is fair: At the end of the session, players are allowed to nominate other players for bonus XP, but have to give a good reason why the other player should get that XP from good roleplaying. It encourages the players to do interesting things in character, and to roleplay as best they can, rather than to just show up and roll some dice.

I know that in both of these instances, the XP give is far above what the game recommends, but the players and GM all feel it's appropriate. However, it did inspire my curiosity. I'm wondering if anyone else out there has similar differences in the XP awarded in their games, or if everyone treats the 10-15 XP per session as an absolute rule.

I give 15-20 XP for my typical 4-5 hr session.

I give 20XP for a 3-4 hour weekly session. And bonus XP on top of that as mentioned in printed adventures for accomplishments.

Too much, I'm such a softy. It's 30+ for a session. But our games are irregular at best these days, and I want there to be candy...

I've usually followed the order 66 recommendation for 5 xp per hour at the table, +5 xp for exceptional role playing (rare), +5 to 10 xp between sessions for anyone who writes up a good story from their character's perspective about what happened in the last session and posts it to the obsidian portal campaign site. Since our sessions were typically 5 hours long that would be 25 xp. But in about 1/5th of the sessions where we wrap up a major plot line I give them double the normal xp so 50 for "significant narrative progress".

I consider myself pretty generous. in a 3-5 hour game, I generally give out 25-35XP.

I give a flat rate of 15 exp per session with a session running any where from 2-4 hrs.

25+ for monthly 3hr sessions.

15XP per session with an additional 5 added in for obligation sessions. At every 150XP earned, the base XP per session increases by 5XP. Sometimes I feel additionally generous or we manage to squeak in a long session of like 7+ hours and I give double XP. Every group plays monthly so the idea was that as time goes on, XP rewards would increase with the challenge of the encounters and they would be able to spend XP on things they want almost every session. Most groups have ended due to extremely irregular play (I was running 5 monthly groups at one point). I am down to 2 groups, one ending in December and one that is continuing on with no current end in sight. There is a family game but in 6-7 months we've played 4 times, only when I've asked them if they wish to continue playing which feels pushy, so I stopped asking and they haven't said anything about it.

Currently, the first formed & longest running group is sitting on 460 earned XP. We're officially ending the story & group at the end of December (we've been playing for 2 years) and ramped up the sessions per month so that we have 9 total sessions left to wrap everything up. There will be a session with a large in-game time skip and a dump of XP, from there every session after will net them 50XP so we can start the final session ending the campaign out with 1,000XP earned.

I tend to go with the Jay Little/Order 66 suggestion of 5XP per hour of actual playing, with an extra +5XP for good roleplaying (especially if playing to a Motivation or Emotional Strength/Weakness), with additional bonuses of 5 to 10 XP at the end of an adventure depending on how the group went about accomplishing the adventure's objectives.

For my Skype group, this tends to average about 20XP per session (three hours of actual play plus an RP award), which is enough that the PCs can advance at least one thing in the early going, and doesn't take much to save up for bigger things as they get further into their spec's talent tree.

I'm in a live-table group with the GM handing out roughly 20XP per session on top of Motivation/RP bonuses, but we also play for four to five hours so it still falls within the Jay Little/O66 formula.

Around 5 XP per hour of play is about the norm for games I have run as well.

My GM is mean - we spent the night discussing the direction we want to take the game and he gave no exp!!!!

I've only been GMing the FFG system for about 6 months, but to expound my overall philosophy of XP...

XP is a means to an end: the end of making the PCs grow powerful. How powerful you want them to grow will depend on the story you want to tell, and can even vary from time to time within a campaign.

In my longest-running game, the PCs are legendary heroes with Skywalker-esque potential. They advanced fast at "apprenticeship" stage (level 1-7 in d20, which I would translate to 0-500 earned XP in FFG). Then the story called for them to be Jedi knights and equally-skilled commoners for a long time, so I slowed down the XP awards. When it's time for them to become master-level characters, I plan to speed up again.

In the game I'm just starting, on the other hand, the characters are Force-sensitive teenagers. I expect to hand out XP pretty slowly in that game, because it would be silly to have a 15-year-old get to Jedi Knight-level ability.

17 hours ago, GroggyGolem said:

There will be a session with a large in-game time skip and a dump of XP

I love doing this, it lends an epic feel to campaigns.

I give 5 XP per encounter, with "encounter" broadly defined. This usually breaks down to 15–20 XP per 3-hour session.

I run a campaign where I have no intended end point so I give out 10 xp on average every four hours with a little more for good rp/sticking to obligations and characteristics. Never more than 20.

I'll usually give 10-20 XP, depending on session length (usually between 1.5-3 hours) and roleplaying. Sometimes I end up giving higher, when larger plot points are achieved. I'll try to follow the Jay Little style. Though, I have noticed I should have given less, because PCs are nearing the 600 earned XP level, and sometimes it's hard to challenge them.

It depends on what the players accomblished: Running all evening just in one place to buy, sell, produce items? well 5 Exp or 10 if they at least make ist rollplay worthy by actually talk to the people...

Eleminating 4 Sunken tempel quests(encounters) and survive the onslaught of 2 inquisitors nemesises with 4 death Trooper Rivals and gaining a truce with a pirate group after breaking a blockade, while doing a very good job at roleplaying? Well that was worth 60 EXp at once.

Oh BTW my average sessions goes 7-10 hours.

17 hours ago, Random Bystander said:

My GM is mean - we spent the night discussing the direction we want to take the game and he gave no exp!!!!

I should have relented and given you 4.

11 minutes ago, Darzil said:

I should have relented and given you 4.

Harsh!

Usually I give 20xp, and a bonus 5xp if a player did things that either:

A. Was very in character, even if it was detrimental to the PC in the long run.

B. Was Awesome/Funny

C. Amused me as the GM (Linked to B)

5-10 XP per 4 hour session. The intention around the table is to have a long running game with multiple story arcs so I keep the progression slow.

10 hours ago, P-Dub663 said:

5-10 XP per 4 hour session. The intention around the table is to have a long running game with multiple story arcs so I keep the progression slow.

I agree. I tend to run a bit longer and give slightly more. The impression I've gotten from listening to the podcasts and notes is that you do an adventure with a clear enough end date.

So dishing out more experience isn't an issue.

If you don't have that you should give significantly less in order to make progression feel more appropriately paced.

LOL, you guys give/get so much XP love.

We get anywhere from 15-20XP for a 8-10hr session. And we don't play that regularly ~ roughly once or twice a month. I don't even bother with planning too far ahead. It's fun to tinker with characters, but, once the game starts, all planning goes out the window. With so little XP to worry about, you end up staying focused on the narrative.

10 hours ago, masterstrider said:

LOL, you guys give/get so much XP love.

We get anywhere from 15-20XP for a 8-10hr session. And we don't play that regularly ~ roughly once or twice a month. I don't even bother with planning too far ahead. It's fun to tinker with characters, but, once the game starts, all planning goes out the window. With so little XP to worry about, you end up staying focused on the narrative.

A rule of thumb that one of the devs put forth early on in the game line, that most people feel is pretty reasonable was 5xp = 1 hour of solid game play. Not table banter and chattering and goofing off, but actual play. I mostly use that, since my sessions usually only go for about 4 hours at max, before I have to call it a night due to my schedule the next day. So a good 15-20 is enough for the players to either buy something new, or at least get really close to buying something new for next session.