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rethinking xp

XP for killing monsters feels a little old-hat. Monsters should still have XP costs to give a rough challenge-rating, but this shouldn't be the primary XP vector, because:

  • some sessions have like no monster-death, and that's fine, but the current system penalizes players for insufficient murder.
  • we're already giving xp per side-quest, and for codes, and spending story points, and for monster-deaths: it's a bit much to calculate at the end of the session.
  • some sessions don't use any side-quests (just locations) while others use like 4 in rapid succession. That's a difference of 20 XP per player, which is really outside of players' control.

Alternative

  • Codes will grant XP for some creatures: followers of Laique will gain XP for killing the undead, as usual, and followers of Ohta will gain lots of xp-for-death (so players can still choose the standard model, if they want)
  • Story Points will grant 5 XP per point spent.

That last point should do a few things:

  1. The game stays relatively 'low-level', because that XP-boost stops happening once all the Story Points have been spent.
  2. Players with a dead PC don't need to feel so bad about lost XP because their new character can regain 25 of that lost XP, and quickly, so they can catch up to other party members before long.
  3. New characters can get the spot-light for a while as they spend those Story Points.
  4. Players will finally start spending Story Points.

Changing Concept

Players usually don't have a feel for their own character's concept at the start of the game, but once they spend all their Story Points, I think they'll have a different idea about their character's identity. So once all Story Points have been spent, that should prompt a new concept.