Stupid, Simple Way to assign Milestone XP's in OSR games

Besides experience point awards for monsters defeated completing “other challenges” is the only other way to earn xp RAW with the Basic Fantasy Roleplaying Game. What the xp awards are for monsters defeated is easy to calculate for like most OSR rules systems there is a chart outlining these awards. But not so these other challenges. Here all is subject to DM/GM whim. If you are interested in reining in randomness which may occur in the flurry of events, and begin to set PC’s teeth on edge, may I recommend a simple xp calculator.

BFRPG has an optional rule for “Ability Rolls” which I am not to keen on and do not use in play. But I see it as a useful method to assign experience “for other challenges as the GM sees fit.”

Use the Target Number as a quick guide to calculate XP awarded for such “milestones” achieved. The scale of difficulty for BFRPG goes from 7 to 17 with a “roll over” needed for success. The DM assigns a milestone, a goal the character (or characters) wishes to achieve with one of these difficulty numbers. When success is achieved multiply the difficulty number by 100. The DM doesn’t even need to tell the PC’s ahead of time what the number assigned is. All they know is they should make 700 to 1,700 xp when successful. This is for each character, not an award to be split. And it doesn’t matter how many characters are involved in pulling whatever it is they are trying to pull off. Three, Four, Nine… just hand them out to the characters which are invested in the outcome.

Of course this shouldn’t be applied to every little thing the character gets up into. You have players that want to win xp for successfully walking across the room and opening the door? Rocks fall all die.

Milestones, goals, achievements; these are not created equal. Saving the world is not the same as saving someone from a burning building. With only a thousand point swing separating the extremes of this goal orientated method of achieving xp we may need more granularity. Especially as PCs reach high levels. Adjust the multiplier. Instead of multiplying by 100 multiply by 1,000, or only by 10 if that makes sense. These awards are all subjective. It is up to the DM to give each task and/or goal, player driven or not, a number.

BFRPG makes gold for experience points as an optional rule interestingly enough, leaving awards “for monsters defeated, and for other challenges as the GM sees fit.” as the players only way of measuring their overall success in the game. I gladly add GP=XP, optional rule or not, into my BFRPG. But I like the players can establish their own path to XP through achievements and goals as well as grabbing loot. Hopefully this use of difficulty target numbers can guide your hand with fair and equitable disbursements.