I've been thinking alot about this lately since I'm about to start up a brand new group next weekend and I'm not quite sure on how I'm gonna handle this.

The idea I have so far is to give out 50 or 100 XP to the players just for being there the whole session, then give out 30-50 for roleplaying and then have the players pick on of them to recieve 50 sort of a "we think this player did a good job playing his/her character"-award, given by the players. Any thoughts on this? and how do you allocate XP in your groups.

Cryxx

Actually, the gamesmaster of the group I am in gives us 20xp to allocate for good roleplaying (there are four players including myself). It works very well. For the group that I am game with, I award them myself, but I think that your idea of rewarding players for turning up is great (well, the players are keen to play, so it seems redundant . . .).

Cryxx said:

This is actually quite close to how I work mine.

I award 100-150 XP per session (sessions usually last about 4-6 hours as we tend to muck about a lot and have a laugh).

10-50 XP for good roleplaying (I assign it but I usually quiz my players how they thought the game went).

Then I use the encounter table on p229 to break down the mission XP.

I've also bribed them with XP to write a character background

Theres also a house rule at my game, whoever brings food that can be passed around (bag of chips to a tray of pasta) gets an additional 25 xp. It sounds like bribary at first, but no one is complaining when we are all well fed.

Ira, if that was the case, my character would be so over-powered... I tend to host our sessions as I live in the middle of everyone and we can pick up two of our players who have been having car troubles on our way home from work. As such, I enjoy cooking, and tend to try and cook a nice home-cooked meal for everyone. So once again, I love the idea, and I will be suggesting it to our GM, but I highly doubt it will fly as I would be gaining experience all the time!

I usually design the Xp allocating part together with my adventures. and reward every PC who survived and completed their task with a set number determined by how deadly the adventure was, how difficult their given tasks were to solve etc.

Then I give out additional xp for bonus objectives completed, and also reward outstanding role-playing preformances and clever ideas the players used to solve problems.

If any given adventure is divided to several acts, the set number for surviving the adventure can be used (I just divide the number between how many sessions it would take).

Basicly I pretty much follow the same method used in adventures published by FFG...

In almost all RPGs I play as a GM I have a hard time giving out XP as I can never figure out what is to much and what is to little and in DH I don't want my players to rise in level to fast but not to slow either, it's a really delicate balance. One thing I know I don't want to do is the D&D style, where they get XP for killing monsters as I've found that players tend to get greedy and fight their way out of a situation they could have talked them selves out of.

So I guess my final question is: do you think 50 XP garanteed+30-50 for roleplaying is to little for a session of 4-6 hours? should I up it a bit?

In almost all RPGs I play as a GM I have a hard time giving out XP as I can never figure out what is to much and what is to little and in DH I don't want my players to rise in level to fast but not to slow either, it's a really delicate balance. One thing I know I don't want to do is the D&D style, where they get XP for killing monsters as I've found that players tend to get greedy and fight their way out of a situation they could have talked them selves out of.

So I guess my final question is: do you think 50 XP garanteed+30-50 for roleplaying is to little for a session of 4-6 hours? should I up it a bit?

In the games i play we tend to give out about 200-400xp for the average 4-5 hour session. But we have quite a high turnover of characters, so we like to develop them quite quickly before they get blown/hacked apart.

I tend to award about 100xp, on average, per productive hour of real gaming. I don't plan it that way, it just seems to work out to that. Here's how I actually structure the awards, per mission, not per session:

You Survived: 100xp

Complexity of Investigation: 0-300 (examples below)

0: Collect clues, talk to some people, find out what's going on and bring in the heretic. Simple.

100: Collect clues, talk to some people, make a couple abstract leaps of logic (or don't and miss some things), reveal traitor in midst, find out what's going on and bring in the heretic. Pretty Standard.

200: Take on multiple identities, negotiate multiple layers of society to assemble a whole picture of a major conspiracy or plot, find the real mastermind behind the project and take him down, while learning who's really pulling his strings. Hard and awesome.

300: Unravel a Byzantine conspiracy where anyone and everyone could be involved, even you! Using faith, reason, and luck bring together unrelated trivia to assemble a picture so complex it threatens to drive one mad. Bring them down and make the planet/sector/Imperium safe once again. Epic.

Danger*: 0-300 (examples below)

0: You fought some human guards at the end, and something kinda dangerous in a stand-up fight.

100: You were ambushed in your sleep by mercenaries, or faced a potent psyker, or maybe tangled with mutants or minor warp spawn.

200: You took down, or just escaped, a full-blow Daemon (appropriate to your power-level). You survived an extended series of firefights as you were hunted like dogs through the undercity by a large cult of heretics.

300: You survived an ambush set by a pack of once-bound daemonhosts. You fought a traitor legion squad. You took on a platoon of genestealer PDF with a primitive knife wearing only your underwear.

* Note: Avoiding actual and present danger through being clever and resourceful counts fully, avoiding it because it never comes up or through dumb luck does not count.

Roleplaying: 0-200+ (examples below)

0: You rolled some dice... you might kinda suck at this part.

50: You kept in character and didn't do anything that made me wonder who you were trying to play.

100: You repeatedly reinforced your character's identity in my mind and the other player's minds through your words and actions.

200: I was fighting back tears, horror, or emotional highs and lows at an important point in the story. Or I just could not stop laughing at your in-character behavior all session.

Goals: Varied, awareded on a per item basis (examples below)

25-50: You discovered important information of use to the =][= ("The priest we thought was a useful informant is actually a heretic)

50-100: You brought in, or questioned and killed a major enemy of the Imperium (such as the cult leader behind everything)

100-200: You stopped a major attack on Imperial interests from happening, that would normally have occured and was unknown to be a threat when the mission was initiated. (We thought it was a just a mutant problem, but you stopped them from summoning a greater daemon of Tzeentch!)

200: You uncovered and identified a previously unknown and significant threat to the Imperium. ("What do you mean the Serrated Query are a major threat? We thought they were just an urban myth.")

300: You saved a planet or major Imperial interest. ("Oh hey, nice work keeping them from summoning another Hive Fleet.")

So a standard investigation, with no major twists or surprises, and no unusual threats, is only worth 100xp if they blow it, but could net them 200-500 if they do ok to extrordinarily well (fantastic role-playing and achieved things I hadn't even planned for).

While an incredibly complex and dangerous mission might still get the PC's 600 xp even if they fail to accomplish any goals (100 for surviving, 200 complexity, 200 threat, 100 RP), assuming they actually progressed through the whole story in a productive and responsible fashion, but just kept coming in a day late and a throne short of what they needed (they still have to get through the complexity and danger to get credit, blowing things completely is never worth much more than 100xp. I've only had one character in one session of any game I've run in over a decade qualify for this sort of "reward", and they were executed by the rest of the party for being a collosal idiot and liability before he could spend the xp anyway).

In almost all RPGs I play as a GM I have a hard time giving out XP as I can never figure out what is to much and what is to little and in DH I don't want my players to rise in level to fast but not to slow either, it's a really delicate balance. One thing I know I don't want to do is the D&D style, where they get XP for killing monsters as I've found that players tend to get greedy and fight their way out of a situation they could have talked them selves out of.

Essentially, it's completely up to you how much you give. There is no such thing as too few or too many, as XP are a completely arbitrary ressource. Just ask yourself where you'd like to be with your group after how many sessions. And, obviously, don't underestimate where your players would like to be.

So I guess my final question is: do you think 50 XP garanteed+30-50 for roleplaying is to little for a session of 4-6 hours? should I up it a bit?

Yeah, up it a little. Personally, I like it when I generally get a new little toy after every session - a talent, a skill, whatever. That generally means doling out a little above 100 XP, with bonuses so you can get the more costly stuff without going dry for too many sessions.

If you hand out 80 XP per session, the characters will arrive at the ends of their career trees after about 200 sessions. Of course, depending on whether you want them to reach that goal at all and how often you play, this may or may not be enough for you.

I award 200xp per 3-hour session, with bonuses and penalties pretty much as I feel moved. This tends to mean that each player gets at least one advance per session. However, I'm pretty restrictive on what Talents and Skills they can acquire - they have to have shown some sign of trying to learn of acquire such skills in the course of the adventure.

R.

Once upon a time, I used to differentiate experience given to my players depending on how well they roleplayed during the session, but found a few difficulties with that model.

First, it's a subjective judgement if you make the decision - it's what you feel is good roleplaying. You can eliminate that by having a group vote at the end of the session (either public or blind). However, it still ends up rewarding the extroverts at the table, and quiet players will eventually begin to feel left out.

So, now I simply reward everyone equally. It's simple, no one feels left out, and it makes it easier for you - as GM - to anticipate rank increases, etc.

Cryxx said:

A quick note on this from a D&D player of all editions. The rules suggest that you give players XP for talking their way out of a situation as if they had defeated the monsters in combat. The XP award is for overcoming the obstacle and not physically defeating it. The problem is with the players and DM running the game and not the game itself.

...just my two cents.

I'm not a fan of people bashing games for player/DM faults. The game is not broken in this case, it's the mindset of the DM and players.

schoon said:

I rather universally do the same, I try to give other, non-xp oriented rewards to individuals, though on occasion the xp awards for RP are different.

I opted for simple this time. 200xp a game, 250 or 300 for the boss fight game at the end of an adventure.

I do give out extra Spendable, but NOT Burnable, Fate Points, for good RPing, and game write ups.

>>I tend to award about 100xp, on average, per productive hour of real gaming. I don't plan it that way, it just seems to work out to that. Here's how I actually structure the awards, per mission, not per session:<<

A well defined guideline and now it's mine! bwahahahaha!

(very nice, and yes, I'm stealing it)

Thanks.