I never total up and divide for players. I think the XP rewards in the book were a guideline. Don't worry too much about that.

I typically start with a baseline of 15 xp and throw in 5 for good roleplaying and maybe 5 more if they reached a significant plot point.

I typically give my players all the same XP.

I'm still running my players through Long Arm of the Hutt, in which I'm just doing the simple 10xp after each session (we do a 3-4 hour session evey-other week) just to get them warmed up to the system.

When we run my campaign, I plan on assigning small increments of xp (1-3) to each player for various actions or accomplishments (fights, negotiations, resolutions, etc) and awarding them at the end of each session.

My theory behind this...
The lower ammount (1) will be for just partaking in the event; 2 will be for doing something meaningful/influential to the event and 3 will be for really playing the game out via role play or thinking outside the box (this is mainly to help encourage our smash-and-bash player to try more than just solve every issue with a vibro ax - after hearing the junk dealer [from Escape from Mos Shuuta] had the hyperspace reactor part, but promised it to trex... the player just cut him in half [he rolled really well and it ended up doing about 2.5x the dealer's threshold]).
With how encounters are going now, and what I have in mind for my campaign, I feel this will still give every player around 10 - 15 xp each session.


On the note of increments of 5 or not, I like the idea of distributing non-5 increments because I feel like it adds to the story. You're always working on a skill, ability or talent and it happens gradually; you don't get it right away, and there's always a little residual knowledge after you do get it. ...that and I feel like having neat numbers (5, 10, 15...) makes it seem too clean of a system - this is the edge of the galaxy, we get down and dirty and things are rarely neat and clean

Im not much of a fan of giving different XP amounts to different players. There are better ways to encourage good role play and original thinking than handing out XP for it. Such as just encouraging good role play by talking to your players and putting in consequences for bad decisions like killing shop owners. The main problem i see with various XP amounts is that the already strong players get ahead of others leading to character imbalance. If you still want to keep balance, then you also have to remember who has what xp so amounts can match up over time. Thats a lot more book keeping.

To answer the initial question of the thread, I give out 15 xp (which seems to be fairly common) per session and then add to that for major accomplishments. For Beyond the Rim I gave 15 for sessions and when the group finished an episode I gave out 10 plus some of the recommended XP per player. I did not feel comfortable giving more than 25 in one shot.

Phil how long is each of your sessions? Each time we play it is for 10-12 hours; actual time gaming would be about 8-10 hours. And we play every other Saturday.

I read or heard somewhere that a good rule of thumb is 5 XP for about every hour of session time. And that seems to match up about right with the official adventures we've run so far and their recommended rewards.

We've also thrown in a bonus 5 XP for good role-playing, creative/epic actions, and winning competitive events within the story (like the swoop race from the "Taming the Dragon" modular piece).

5 xp for every hour? Hope my players don't get wind of that. 2 sessions of a 6 to 8 hour duration so far (including an hour or so of gasbagging and eating per session) and I have awarded only 28 xp. But then, as I have mentioned to my players, this is a new system for us. Better that we start of stingy and up the awards later on than tone it back later.

No-one likes their toys taken from them after all...

5 xp for every hour? Hope my players don't get wind of that. 2 sessions of a 6 to 8 hour duration so far (including an hour or so of gasbagging and eating per session) and I have awarded only 28 xp. But then, as I have mentioned to my players, this is a new system for us. Better that we start of stingy and up the awards later on than tone it back later.

No-one likes their toys taken from them after all...

I believe that original statement doesn't include all the out-of-game BS-ing that tends to happen. Just pure game time.

Kasoe, 100% correct. Hygric, you are on about target with those numbers. If you session is about 6 hours of actual playing time, then 6 times 5 is 30, so you are just a touch low at 28. I went back and altered the amount of XP I gave my players for Act 1 of BtR. I awarded each player between 34 and 39 XP each. Act 1 I think took us about six hours of actual gaming time, so I think that I'm going a little high right now. Better than the 10 I awarded originally.

But the most important thing is that the group is happy with the amount awarded. Hopefully my group is a little happier now...

My numbers to correlate pretty good with the CRB now.

Phil how long is each of your sessions? Each time we play it is for 10-12 hours; actual time gaming would be about 8-10 hours. And we play every other Saturday.

3-4 hours every other week.

You have some marathon games dont you? Your looking at like 40ish xp a session

Yeah, my group is able to dedicate a whole Saturday every other week to the game. So we can start around noon and end around midnight. I provide diner for everyone and we have snacks and drinks...some alcoholic. We have a good time with the marathon sessions, but it is strange, it is the way that I have gamed forever. To me, that is the norm, when I heard people would game for 2-3 hours at a time, I thought that was really weird.

So with my marathon sessions, if we hit 10 hours of actual game time, then I should be giving out 50. I guess it all works out in the end.

R2 builder, I meant that I have awarded 28 xp total, so only about 14 on average for a 6 hour session of actual gaming.

In my ongoing game, we play weekly for about 3.5 hours of game time per session.

I've been giving a base 14 XP plus an additional 2 XP as long as the player is contributing in a manner befitting main cast instead of a supporting cast member. So they're all getting 16 per session base unless they **** around for an hour in which case I lower the base to 10 or 12.

Exceptional RP, clever ideas that propel the story, etc. can earn them individual bonuses in increments of 3 XP per award. These are not consistently earned every session.

At the end of sessions where the players resolved major story arcs for their characters or the group as a whole, I assign a bonus based upon magnitude and how many sessions they spent meaningfully working towards the resolution. Between 2-4 times the number of sessions.

The resolution bonuses help encourage the group to keep working towards larger goals most sessions.

Eleven played sessions in the group has come together well and the dicking around rarely happens now and when it does, it's short-lived. So they're earning an average of 16-20 XP per session now.

I have a couple of players that plowed to the end of the Talent Tree and maxed their characters' primary skills. I have a couple who diversified and one in-between on that spectrum. The ones that plowed the trees and maxed a couple skills are VERY good at their specialty, but also very reliant on the rest of the group outside of their focus.

I prefer a more granular approach to XP awards.

After reading through the comments, it appears the average XP award per session ranges between fifteen and twenty. Our group meets very regularly, once per week for five hours. With that in mind, I'm thinking a base award per session of 5XP, with an additional +1XP per full hour of play. This will encourage players to be punctual and to stay focused on actual game play. Considering the obligatory kibitz session that precedes most of our sessions (usually a result of tardy players) this works out to a base of 9XP per session.

In addition, I will award each player +1, +2, or +3XP per hour for Trivial, Noteworthy, or Outstanding role play participation- the intent being to encourage each player to remain focused on in-game participation- and players who initiate or engage in prolonged non sequitur segues that disrupt game play may possibly forfeit their bonus XP for that hour.

If each player then receives the average bonus award of +2XP per hour, the total XP award per session would be nineteen. With a base of 5XP, +1XP per hour of game play, and maximum bonus XP awards per hour (indication Outstanding participation), the total XP award possible per session is twenty-five.

In general, for those sessions when players do not attend, their PCs will be awarded 10XP for the fist missed session, and 5XP for each subsequent session missed, to a maximum absentee award of 25XP until attendance is resumed.