New GM here, and was just curious what other GM's give to a group after a session. Time wise so far, my group have been doing about 4 hour sessions when we are able to get together. We've completed two so far with me as GM, and I've given 15 for the first, and 20 (with an extra 3 to on PC for good roleplay) at the second.

I don't get to play as often, or for as long, as I'd like, so I've been giving 15 - 20XP for 2 to 3 hours. If you meet fairly regularly, 20 for 4 hours seems pretty good.

I usually give 15/15/20, so 50 XP per three sessions.

Okay thanks. Seems like I'm on the right track. We usually do bi-monthly sessions.

We play every 2 weeks, and I generally hand out 10-20 per, depending on how it all went down. We've been playing since May so you'd think I'd have a gaggle of superheroes right now, but strangely no!

We play every 2 weeks, and I generally hand out 10-20 per, depending on how it all went down. We've been playing since May so you'd think I'd have a gaggle of superheroes right now, but strangely no!

My group is at about 300 earned XP each (with about a 50/50 split in spending between skills and talents), and while most of them are fairly good at what they do, they are still not super-heroes.

When I get the chance to play a PC, I'd enjoy more jack of all trades type to being just focused on only one aspect of the game. Probably not going above 3 in any one characteristic at the beginning. So even after a good amount of play time, I wouldn't be very super hero either, but able to do anything decent.

We play every 2 weeks, and I generally hand out 10-20 per, depending on how it all went down. We've been playing since May so you'd think I'd have a gaggle of superheroes right now, but strangely no!

My group is at about 300 earned XP each (with about a 50/50 split in spending between skills and talents), and while most of them are fairly good at what they do, they are still not super-heroes.

Yeah I think we're close to that number, and people haven't even bought down the talent trees to the bottom save for one guy. I think I'll end our next session a little early so we can do a little bookkeeping.

I think based on previous conversations regarding XP you may want to start by being a little generous and then slowly cutting back to the point where you feel the players are getting a fair reward and oportunity to progress their characters at a speed you feel most happy with.

I have been fairly generous and my players have about 100xp after 6 sesssions. This allows them a chance to get some defining skills and talents so that they can start to be good at some role within the group. I think I'll hand out 10 per session hereafter, looking at about 8-10 sessions for the next 100xp.

Can I ask a question of the folks that are pulling upwards of +300XP, how would you approach XP if you had a player death or new player join the group? Could a player on zero XP consider joining a group on 300+?

The issue with starting generous and then cutting back is that purchases get progressively more expensive as your skills increase and as you get deeper in the talent trees. If the rewards decrease as the costs increase, advancement will feel much slower.

I usually start new PCs with the same XP as the rest of the group. IMO, more experienced people will tend to attract the same.

My group gets together once a week (more or less) for 4 or so hours and we usually get 10-13-ish points, depending on how awesome the story was, if it was a major milestone or the end of a story arc.

I give a base of 10, then the group gets to nominate others for up to 5 "Style Points". We've found it gives players more incentive to be involved, and to pay close attention to the goings on in the session.

Two sessions in and we've done 15XP each time. There are two GMs in our group (I'm one of them), and last week, the other GM awarded 15XP and when I stepped in to GM at the last minute last night, I intended to only give 10XP, but our group did such a nice job of playing to their motivations that it felt criminal to not give them the 5XP bonus.

I think, as many others have already said, 10 is a good base and 5 as a reward for solid player engagement. I can also see, as the players wrap up a major arc or story hook, or if they work as a group to resolve obligation, the group might earn an additional 5.

Any more than 20 in one session, though, seems a little excessive.

Hm. I might be a bit on the stingy side...

I tend to give roughly 14 points every two sessions. Given that our sessions run at most three hours, I can usually fit in one major conflict and a few minors. Lately, though, I've been doing 12 XP and then having and extra two XPs that the players can vote on to see who deserves them the most. It seems to work pretty well.

Personally, I don't want my PCs to get too powerful too fast. Right now, they seem to be in the low-to-medium level, although after the last mega-adventure they eliminated their debt to the crimelord they were working for, and got a ton of cash, too. I'll have to find a way to relieve them of it...>

Hm. I might be a bit on the stingy side...

I tend to give roughly 14 points every two sessions. Given that our sessions run at most three hours, I can usually fit in one major conflict and a few minors. Lately, though, I've been doing 12 XP and then having and extra two XPs that the players can vote on to see who deserves them the most. It seems to work pretty well.

Personally, I don't want my PCs to get too powerful too fast. Right now, they seem to be in the low-to-medium level, although after the last mega-adventure they eliminated their debt to the crimelord they were working for, and got a ton of cash, too. I'll have to find a way to relieve them of it...>

Those are interesting amounts. I don't think I would ever give away XP awards in this game that are not increments of 5 XP, but to each their own.

Those are interesting amounts. I don't think I would ever give away XP awards in this game that are not increments of 5 XP, but to each their own.

I wonder why there are increments of 5 to begin with. I can only thing there are things coming that might cost < 5, or they wanted to leave the door open to that possibility.

Hm. I might be a bit on the stingy side...

I tend to give roughly 14 points every two sessions. Given that our sessions run at most three hours, I can usually fit in one major conflict and a few minors. Lately, though, I've been doing 12 XP and then having and extra two XPs that the players can vote on to see who deserves them the most. It seems to work pretty well.

Personally, I don't want my PCs to get too powerful too fast. Right now, they seem to be in the low-to-medium level, although after the last mega-adventure they eliminated their debt to the crimelord they were working for, and got a ton of cash, too. I'll have to find a way to relieve them of it...>

Those are interesting amounts. I don't think I would ever give away XP awards in this game that are not increments of 5 XP, but to each their own.

I feel that because every XP purchase option is a multiple of 5, the system designers could have easily said "frist-row talents are 1xp, bottom row talents are 5xp. Career skills are 1, 2nd rank 2, etc. Unlocking your second Spec tree out of career costs 3xp." and so on.

Why have the the xp system multiplied by 5, unless you want to allow GMs the option to hand it out at a finer level of detail.

That being said, I tend to be a more generous GM on the XP award front. I go with the suggested per-session award of 15 PLUS the bonuses listed for solving certain puzzles or plot points in the published module (Beyond the Rim for example). I get the "I don't want everyone too powerful too fast" argument...but on the flip side, its hard enough to get everyone together on a given night on a regular basis. Think about how long (in actual years of your life, not game time) it would take for you explore even half of the cool possibilities character advancement in this game has to offer if you get together only twice a month....even once every single week, earning only 10xp a session. We're not (ok, some of us might) going to play this game for the rest of our lives. In my opinion, lets let the players get some fun out of the system.

Sure, its not 'realistic' for a character (lets say he earns 35xp in 4-5 hour session) to learn 4 to 7 new skills between sessions, but that same 35 might buy you a bottom row talent and an out of career skill , or unlock your second spec tree and buy a top row talent from it . After all we are playing a fantasy space opera here... so I guess like HappyDaze said, to each their own.

I feel that because every XP purchase option is a multiple of 5, the system designers could have easily said "frist-row talents are 1xp, bottom row talents are 5xp. Career skills are 1, 2nd rank 2, etc. Unlocking your second Spec tree out of career costs 3xp." and so on.

Why have the the xp system multiplied by 5, unless you want to allow GMs the option to hand it out at a finer level of detail.

This is hardly the first system to unnecessarily inflate XP awards and costs by a multiple. Consider the WH40K lines where all of the costs could be divided by 50 without any impact on the game. There are probably more games out there that have such inflation than those that do not. Gamers like big numbers.

Yeah, Warhammer Fantasy (1st and 2nd) both had inflated XP numbers, using increments of 100.

I like Jay Little's suggestion of "5 XP awarded for every actual hour spent playing the game, with a +5 bonus for playing to your character's Motivation." So if the group spent four hours on a session, with roughly one hour spent on "off-topic" conversations, then they'd earn 15 XP, plus the bonus for playing to their motivation, as well as any extra awards the GM feels they've earned for exemplary role-playing or taking down a major challenge.

It's a steady guideline, but also gives players an incentive to not go off on too many unrelated tangents or waste time talking about "cool new movie/game/video/song/whatever" they experienced prior to the sessions.

My process:

I don't give out XP per session. I give XP out at the end of the adventure. I give them XP based on Goals of the PCs and the adventure. I pick out a few goals from the adventure, and give them 5 point for each of those goals they complete. I give them 5 XP for playing to their motivations (as long as they did so, for the whole adventure). I also give them 5xp for each play session the adventure took to complete.

This works out to give them between 40-60 XP for 8 hours (2 play sessions) of play.

Can I ask a question of the folks that are pulling upwards of +300XP, how would you approach XP if you had a player death or new player join the group? Could a player on zero XP consider joining a group on 300+?

I am always for letting people start close to the same XP level if not at the same level. Never fun to be the guy who's less competent than everyone else just by dent of being new.

My process:

I don't give out XP per session. I give XP out at the end of the adventure. I give them XP based on Goals of the PCs and the adventure. I pick out a few goals from the adventure, and give them 5 point for each of those goals they complete. I give them 5 XP for playing to their motivations (as long as they did so, for the whole adventure). I also give them 5xp for each play session the adventure took to complete.

This works out to give them between 40-60 XP for 8 hours (2 play sessions) of play.

This is more or less my approach as well. I've found that giving XP per session doesn't exactly encourage my players to keep moving forward with the adventure, but often leads to dawdling and delays. So I much prefer setting various objectives throughout the adventure and awarding XP at the end of each session based on the objectives they accomplished that session. All told I usually hand out 30-35 XP for an adventure that typically runs two 4-hour weekly sessions.

I should note that I tend to run very long-lasting campaigns, so I don't want them getting too powerful too fast. Since my players know how I do campaigns they don't mind, knowing that they'll get to play their characters for a long time and get to see them grow very powerful eventually.

New GM here.

I've been giving 15xp per session, and we usually play about 5 to 6 hours every 2 or 3 weeks. I'll also give a max 5xp bonus for good roleplaying, clever solutions etc.

I was thinking of letting the players decide who the MVP was for the session, and reward him/her with an extra 5xp. This might encourage them to maybe up their roleplay, or make smarter decisions, or what not. On the other hand, it could also backfire, and they end up picking the one who did the most fun/ridiculous things.Guess I'll have to test that.

Hey everyone. This came up today with my group. We played Beyond the Rim, episode one. We started about 1300 or 1330, and finished Episode one at around 1730 to 1800. That was not our stopping point for the day, we continued on into episode 2 quite a bit, and we stopped gaming around 2200. I pretty much went with what the adventure module says in XP. 1-10 for this and 1-10 for that. My group did pretty good and got about 95% of the investigation complete! Did some great role playing encounters and played to their motivations pretty well. So I tallied up the XP from the end of the chapter and divided it among the number of players, so they all got 10 XP for the first episode. I did hand a few XP here and there for great ideas or awesome role playing/comments. So my, and everyone's question, should I have added up all the XP for the encounters, then divided it between the players? I know older systems did that, but this system I'm not too sure about, 10 XP seems kind of low, but 40-50 XP for the first episode of BtR? Then this adventure could be worth 190-220 XP per player? We will have this module done in just two of our sessions, which are every other week for about 10-12 hours long. With diner and just getting off topic, that is about 8 hours of good gaming time. So what is the thought out there about dividing up the XP among the group, or not? Thanks in advance for the feedback.

R2