We have now had four full sessions of gaming, probably about 4-5 hours of gaming each. I started the campaign with the Finial Sanction adventure modified slightly for the full rules. Our sessions are not slow or bogged down and things seem to move at a pretty brisk pace. The players role-play well and interact well with the NPCs and each other.

So far after about 16 hours of enjoyable play I would say we are past the half-way mark of the Final Sanction game. My guess is that at our current rate it will take about 2 more sessions to finish Final Sanction. So that means about 27 total hours to complete Final Sanction with a group that does not waste much time.

I am curious about how fast other games progress in comparison to ours. I seem to recall somewhere it being mentioned that XP is generally awarded at the rate of about 250 xp per hour of play. This would mean that a 27-hour long adventure would net 3375 xp which seems a bit excessive to me.

Edsel62 said:

The book indicates 500xp for about 4 hours of play using the 'abstract method' which would give you 3375 or so for 27 hours (though your math is a little off, at 250xp per hour you're looking at closer to 6750). I personally find that this works- we play about 4-5 hours a night and they get 500 xp + close to 100 for 1-2 of them for RP. That means each night they get to buy one, maybe two advances/talents/etc. 3375 can feel like a lot for a single adventure, but think about how many hours they've put into it. If you guys get together for 5 hours a night, once a week, you have taken over a month to gain that XP.

Given that it takes something like 37,000 xp to go up to the max rank of 8 (50,000 'cap' at rank 8, minus starting 13,000 xp = 37,000), if you're getting 500xp a week, that's 74 WEEKS to get to 'max XP,' or close to a year and a half.

If you're not thinking nightly and thinking more adventure based, try using the advanced xp systems, which dole XP out based on the encounters/objective you set out for your characters. That means if the eff up and don't accomplish their goals they don't get as much XP. Looking at Final Sanction, it's worth a max of 1,300 XP (300 each for the two primary objectives, 200 each for the 2 secondary objectives, 100 each for the tertiary objectives), which is substantially less than 3400. This WILL result in slower advancement, but if that's what you're going for this is definitely a way to do it.

I think the 125 xp per hour guideline hasn't been created in the context of that long missions. I think the DW rulebook doesn't presume elaborate role-playing etc. So if your mission takes that long, I'd rather award 75 to 100 xp per hour as a rough guideline. Maybe 75 with an xp bonus for successfully completing the mission.

I would say that 2000 xp after having player through final sanction to the hilt is okay, maybe even 2500 if the players tried to solve everything. Remember that this is just a guideline: if the players fail at some assignments, award less. If they do spectacularly well, award more.

You're the GM. Do a quick calculation how long it should take for your players to reach Rank 8. Interpolate from there on how much xp you want to assign per session/hour on average. The rulebook only gives guidelines, you are the final arbiter.

Alex

I took us several 6 hour sessions to complete Final sanction and the second one. I gave them 2k exp for the added time.

I've been doing ~750xp per session, we've only done 3 sessions and each one has been a mission with a fairly high lethality rate. I don't think they're going to fast, but they are able to buy a few things each session if they want to.

When we wrap the intro arc (this saturday) and move on to other, more varied, missions, I may slow things down with XP back to 500-600 XP, and then give bonuses for good RP or arc ending, but we'll see.