Hi there,

after the 5th session (and conclusion of the first story arc) I am planning to continue with the second story arc 5 or 10 (ingame) years later. How would you handle the XPs and Credits for years of offscreen time?

Give em a chunk you're comfortable with and call it done.

Agreed with the pirate on this one.

If you want to get into the nitty gritty and have your players fabricate some stories - heck, you could all do it together at the table over a favorite libation - you could just ask the players what they intend to do and work from that. While it'll be expedient to just hand them a wad of XP and cash, you might have the kind of group that would enjoy sitting down and crafting something. Maybe they resolved Obligations - how? Maybe they parted ways due to a lover's quarrel - cool, describe it! After the tales have been spun and the session comes to a close, you could hand out the reward just the same, but now there's a whole bunch of new material to work with. It kinda makes me want to think about a "montage" style of play where large blocks of time pass and the galaxy spins, but dice could still add an element of uncertainty.

33 minutes ago, 2P51 said:

Give em a chunk you're comfortable with and call it done.

I reckon that chunk should be small. A session's worth, maybe.

[I've given out XP too fast in my games, and I'm generous with giving XP to folks when they miss a session. What I notice is that players don't have time to get comfortable with their current Talents/Powers before they are ready for an upgrade, and some of them approach new-Pathfinder-player levels of analysis paralysis.]

1 hour ago, BrickSteelhead said:

[I've given out XP too fast in my games, and I'm generous with giving XP to folks when they miss a session. What I notice is that players don't have time to get comfortable with their current Talents/Powers before they are ready for an upgrade, and some of them approach new-Pathfinder-player levels of analysis paralysis.]

Key point. Unless your players know the system well, dumping a bunch of XP on them will only result in them not knowing how to use what they bought. The exception might be Skills, since it's pretty easy to see the dice pool (especially if you use a tool like OggDude's that prints the dice pool on the sheet), but Talents and Powers are easy to forget about.

Why give them anything? They weren't playing after all

You could have them write a paragraph - "What I did on my in-game vacation" to describe what their character would have done during the time skip. Award XP and credits accordingly.

I would let them spend any credits they had before on gear and then have them roll to see how many credits they have as if they were making a new character (they can't save the excess). They would gain no new xp.

2 hours ago, korjik said:

Why give them anything? They weren't playing after all

For example, one PC is a Jedi youngling who is looking for a master who could train her. At the end of the first story arc, she will find one and starts her Padawan training. The other PCs should also benefit from this time by follow thier own path in life until the group meets again in the future.

5 hours ago, korjik said:

Why give them anything? They weren't playing after all

I don't see why not. Have you never run a campaign in "chapters"? I find a time delay between segments of a story is a nice way to give some depth to characters, presumably they don't stagnate just because they're "off screen".

I still wouldnt, but if you are planning to give them a large lump of XP you may want to make a '1rank' rule. As in you can only increase a skill or talent by 1 rank with that lump of xp. That way you shouldnt have to worry about someone going from a 2 skill to a 5 skill all off screen.

Just now, korjik said:

I still wouldnt, but if you are planning to give them a large lump of XP you may want to make a '1rank' rule.

Agreed.

3 hours ago, kingpin000 said:

For example, one PC is a Jedi youngling who is looking for a master who could train her. At the end of the first story arc, she will find one and starts her Padawan training. The other PCs should also benefit from this time by follow thier own path in life until the group meets again in the future.

Personally I love awarding xp for between game story write ups, before I took over GMing for my group the old GM would award points to anyone who wrote up the character synopsis, and when I took over I had the players do a free write about their characters and how they related to their cultures and other players and how they felt about the last story arc in character so that I could get a better feel for them as players and characters as the new GM, and I gave them some rewards based on that.

since you are doing a significant time gap it only makes sense that your player’s characters should be advancing during this time, but they should also be changing as people, I would have them do a free write about the experiences they had over that time period and describe the person they are now as compared to the person they were, and then award them certain bonuses based on what they wrote.

To add clarification, I wouldn’t necessarily give them xp, but I would award them with talents learned, skills increased, credits earned, equipment upgraded, and abilities (I always forget the word for the base stats like brawn and agility) increased. In some situations maybe even grant them an entirely new specialization based on what they were doing. This should of course be a back and forth discussion on how to interpret the writing.

6 hours ago, Norr-Saba said:

Personally I love awarding xp for between game story write ups, before I took over GMing for my group the old GM would award points to anyone who wrote up the character synopsis, and when I took over I had the players do a free write about their characters and how they related to their cultures and other players and how they felt about the last story arc in character so that I could get a better feel for them as players and characters as the new GM, and I gave them some rewards based on that.

since you are doing a significant time gap it only makes sense that your player’s characters should be advancing during this time, but they should also be changing as people, I would have them do a free write about the experiences they had over that time period and describe the person they are now as compared to the person they were, and then award them certain bonuses based on what they wrote.

To add clarification, I wouldn’t necessarily give them xp, but I would award them with talents learned, skills increased, credits earned, equipment upgraded, and abilities (I always forget the word for the base stats like brawn and agility) increased. In some situations maybe even grant them an entirely new specialization based on what they were doing. This should of course be a back and forth discussion on how to interpret the writing.

Free talents, skills and characteristics would break the system but the restiction of talent trees/skills/characteristics makes sense.

I think the idea is that you choose what they get, so dont give them game breaking stuff

You could make up a little table and have each player roll on it. The table has financial disaster on one end and whatever amount of wealth you think is acceptable on the other end of the spectrum. In the middle is little to no change from where they left off as far as financial status.

Indeed, just it sounds a interesting idea but I would generally prefer XP as I don't really tend to write down what I earn, but I print the talent tree sheets off and stable it onto my own, marking it out so that I can track my progress visually. That and I usually save the free talents for pretty epic stuff that can't be taught within the tree, yet is strongly narrative thematic. Like it might be possible to grant someone a force rating for an exceedingly strong roleplay building up to the point, as apposed to just buying exile/emergant e.c.t

My group will usually award a low amount of XP, between 10-30, to a maximum of 50 for a whole year. The understanding is that what is conducted within that space of time is relatively leisurely compared to in session, though we were awarded additional exp for any stories we wrote about that period. The understanding is those times are relatively unexciting or slow compared to in session, thus the character would learn more slowly, but instead obtain knowledge on how to go forwards. A jedi under a master may learn of particular styles to push onwards, the smuggler may develop newer contacts or get in touch with some older one's he's neglected and so fourth. The exception is that for people who write compelling tales about their adventures between adventures can earn a little more.

The players are given the wages for any company they work for, but otherwise they can assume to have broken even. For our group most of the earning must be made with at least some contribution within the session. Though we sometimes have skype sessions to cover shadow dealings that can't be covered precisely at the table.

On 10/5/2017 at 0:11 AM, kingpin000 said:

Free talents, skills and characteristics would break the system but the restiction of talent trees/skills/characteristics makes sense.

honestly the awarding of these is more for narrative purposes so its not just that the character has earned whatever amount of xp and can invest it independently from what they have been doing. although a balance can be struck between the two of using what i described to determine the increase in money and gear and what they could have plausibly trained during the time period, and then having awarded them a set amount of xp based on time they would use that xp towards those predetermined trainable talents, skills, and specializations.