A long time ago, when I was more invested into TTRPGs, I grew increasingly frustrated with the system of only distributing advancement/experience points at the end of a session.
This always made me think that certain challenges could be better dealt with if the players could access/develop abilities as the game progressed in real time.
At some point, I started to divise a play system that relied on a split experience atribution system, with players being able to automatically rack experience points from directly using their skills/habilties, while the DM would keep a tally of points from goals/missions achieved, distributable at session end.
A practical example: a burglar would have the lockpick skill. The skill would be tiered, with each tier having 100 points to max it out, and the higher the tier, the less experience would be given by making use of the skill, as the skill would be further and further refined and new breakthroughs in its understanding become harder to achieve. But DM attributed XP could either be spent towards maxing out the skill faster or gain a new or linked one, like disarming booby traps.
I drifted away from TTRPG and simply let my idea sit in a drawer in a notebook. Today I found my notes again as I was rummaging through the junk and the it brought some nostalgia.
To those with more experience in TTRPGs: would this be feaseable? Or enticing? Interesting?
I recommend you check out Lady blackbird. Ot has a mechanic that to gain experience you need to use your attributes, but if at any moment you make something that goes against it you lose that characteristic forever.
It’s a one-shot that can be played between 1 and 4 sessions depending on your group. If you have a group you should give it a shot. And it’s free I see that now there are other campaigns I have just played the first one
Not all games use that type of system. Masks, for example, along with a few other PbtAs give players Exp/Potential when they fail a roll. That’s an incentive for trying riskier actions, as well as not power-gaming and only use the attributes/labels you excel at since failure has its own reward - besides being fun.
When you’re trying to think about how to distribute/grant exp, its not just about how characters are growing, but also why. Sure, you can have that TES-like system where you need to train Lockpicking, but how many opportunities will a GM have to present enough situations where a player can lockpick for Exp? Imagine every time someone played Skyrim and forged a hundred daggers because they needed to level up blacksmithing and how that would translate to a ttrpg (or not, since its a particularly bad system by itself)
I believe RPGs often benefit from narrative exp, and to use your Burglar example, they could have exp triggers that involve deception, forgery, stealing, etc. So whenever they lie to someone for self-profit, use their skills for ill gain, steal without clear necessity and such, they’d gain Burglar exp, and eventually perfect those moves or learn new ones.
Even D&D derivatives use a system like that, like Flee Mortals’s Level 0 adventures. You start with no proficiencies, and whenever you succeed on a check or save you can gain proficiency in it (within reasonable limit)
I’m pretty sure most powered by the apocalypse games give you exp the moment you fail a roll. (And blades in the dark as well). Blades does have end of session xp also. I forget if pbta games do
That’s a great way to encourage players to try things, and move the game forward despite failure.
I was wrong about blades, that one gives xp for desperate actions, not failed actions
I mean, depends on the system. PF2e has a great XP system and even encourages the GM to hand out XP during the session for things the system calls accomplishments.
But quite frankly, waiting until the end of a session is just good from a pacing perspective the majority of the time.
sounds something like call of cthulhu rules.
If you successfully use a skill during play, without the help of Luck points, mark the box next to it. Between scenarios, you get to roll to improve any skills you marked. To improve the skill, roll 1d100. If you roll higher than your skill, it improves by 1d10. After you’ve rolled for all the marked skills, erase the marks.
personally i think xp is too fiddly. i prefer systems like fate where you can just rewrite skills to fit your style of play better.
That’s a really nifty mechanic. I haven’t played CoC, but this seems like yet another reason to try it.
I run a Monster of the Week game and my players get experience throughout sessions, as well as at the end. The mechanics are basically:
- It takes 5 experience points to level up.
- If you fail a roll, you get an experience point.
- If you level up, you get the benefit immediately.
- At the end of the session, everyone gets 0-2 experience points.
I think other PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse - systems inspired by Apocalypse World) systems do something similar.
I grew increasingly frustrated with the system of only distributing advancement/experience points at the end of a session.
Isn’t the simple fix to this to just distribute experience points as soon as they’re earned?
At some point, I started to divise a play system that relied on a split experience atribution system, with players being able to automatically rack experience points from directly using their skills/habilties, while the DM would keep a tally of points from goals/missions achieved, distributable at session end.
Your system sounds like the way that skill-based video game RPGs (Elder Scrolls games and Arcanum come to mind) handle experience.
In a lot of games I’ve played, I’d rather get experience for in-game accomplishments immediately and to be able to train skills like this during downtime - generally between games.
To those with more experience in TTRPGs: would this be feaseable? Or enticing? Interesting?
I could see people being interested in it. You get instant gratification and a bit of extra crunchiness. A lot of players enjoy that.
With the right skill system I could see this being useful. My main concern is that if you put this on top of a system with relatively few skills, it could encourage people to game it by grinding. There are ways to mitigate that, though.
In a system with fewer skills, instead of just being experience points, the “currency” you earned this way could be used for temporary power ups related to the skill in question.
You could also limit it so you only rewarded players for story-related tasks.
I only get to GM for a couple of hours a week. I’d hate that to involve narrative grinding. Although it’d be fair for a character to do it during downtime.
Cortex Prime has systems that let you gradually improve the characters bit by bit instead of levels either through spending xp or using a system called session recalls
I’m abusing the notion of level, I think.
The intention was to make growth intentional and incentivize role playing, with the characters growing as the game progressed.
