And there I have let the XP for gold standard lay. The end-all and be-all means of OSR-character advancement, while expanded means of character advancement I accepted in any other game as well as the conceit implied. I mean, I never had reason to change OSR experience awards. Sure it forced me to become oblivious to standard economic reality in my fantasy settings, and what it would require for in-game financial management, let alone where are the staggering tall stacks of cash being kept! But I was young, impressionable and really didn’t care. My sandbox DM hands were kept out of meddling with value judgments and in-game awards outside of the prescribed method.
But
now I am older and game time is not had everyday. It is three times
a month or less. Me and my players will be long dead before multiple
campaign worlds will be played out and characters risen to heroic,
high fantastic deeds if I kept XP count strictly on coin. Besides, my interest in player motivation and
player-driven goals leads to no other conclusion than XP awards for
goals, activities and actions.
My
current OSR campaign, the Dying Earth of Rom’Myr, started as a
genre-enforcing thought experiment by restricting PC class. Basically
house-ruling the character creation rules to suit the game worlds
genre. Without diving into too much detail, here is the long and
short of it. Decidedly pulp-flavored fantasy the default class is
Thief. Good attributes qualify the budding PC for any of the other
six character classes available. But restricting character class
wasn’t going to get my desire across. That of incentivizing PC play
inline with genre tropes typical of the literature.
For
this task I had to offer up
XP awards for actions and behaviors. For example, I wanted the PCs to
take a look at some great indie-OSR product as
well as take faction affiliation more seriously.
Therefore I offered 250 points for a god from the Petty-Gods
compendium at
character creation.
Completing “jobs” for
Patrons gave more XP than just their financial award. Achieving
party-agreed upon goals generated XP awards, causing
story-appropriate reactions and results gained XP, engaging with the
campaign world’s people and places gains XP.
How
these XP’s are rated and distributed has been an ongoing
experiment, really just giving out group XP rewards for great game
play. Here is a good example of my evolving thought on these XP
awards. The PCs placed a modest wager on a racing long shot. They
then involved themselves mightily in
the races intrigue and double-dealing to orchestrate a win! Against
all odds the PCs slapped their marker down at the betting window,
achieving an 8,000 dollar win! Except the poor never win in Rom’Myr.
Just like the real world, when the powers that be are denied they
call foul and cancel the payout! No gold, no XP. I did not like this,
not one bit. So the crown and cathedral confiscated the “fairly”
won spoils. Why do the PCs get no XP? The players themselves achieved
an amazing in-game feat, one worthy of cataloging in any dying earth
tale. So I gave the party the 8,000 XP.
Look,
I want my players to succeed. That is why I don’t fudge to-hit and
damage rolls. It makes those miraculous rolls, those narrow odds
achieved, really memorable. I
also don’t want them to toil endlessly for thousands of coin to
achieve heroic stature and reputation. The geometric expansion of XP
totals forces me to litter the game world with ridiculous treasure
caches otherwise. Screw that noise. Specifically, cash and gems
generates instant XP. Items of value must be converted into cash
before XP is awarded. Pulling off risky actions typical of the genre
grants individual awards. Now I am rewarded by having good players.
Players who “do stuff”. They most likely would play in-character
even without artificial XP awards. But sometimes they want to play it
safe, drift away from trouble and take the road more
traveled to save their hides.
Turning up the possible XP
available makes ignoring new, dangerous hooks and threads just that
more harder. That the call to adventure, and its awards, can be found
in completing well known tropes and attitudes. I think rewarding the
PCs for completing goals agreed upon by the party the
most satisfying of all. This
“rapid” advancement drives the game with a fast pace, the other
great ingredient marking a good game. This idea of additional XP
awards driving pace is something for another blog post itself.
Suffice to say, reward your PCs for doing stuff. Not just with coin
and magic. But with meaningful XP awards.
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