"Between Session" XP Ideas

[adamdesa]

I've been looking around, and can't seem to find anything about this on here.

I'm a bit stumped on ideas for awarding XP between sessions. I like to keep everyone pretty involved, and would like to keep people thinking about the game even when they're not at the table. I just can't seem to come up with ideas to keep them involved, rewarding small amounts of XP for things they do either on the forum we use, or in email or something...

If there's another thread on this, please link it, and we'll get this one closed, thanks!

[alisbin]

depends how you end your sessions, some DMs have months pass in between sessions (in game time i mean) and in that case it would be reasonable to do so

example;
You: "alright, tell me what you've been doing for the last 3 weeks"
Player of 8th level Fighter: "i've been doing mercenary work for that merchant guild that kinda likes us"
You: "ok, that sounds good roll 3 intimidate checks and a diplomacy and to see how you did each week"
Player of 8th level Fighter: "9, 17 and 22 for intimidate, 19 for diplomacy"
You: "you scared off 1 bandit raid and fought off 2 more, gain 500 xp, 150 gold and your contact at the merchant guild owes you a favor for working cheap"

however if you don't have more then an in game day or so between sessions i'd say avoid it. overall i'd suggest RP rewards rather then XP, player spent his downtime making contacts with the thieves guild? cool, reduce his gather information DCs by 2 whenever he tries one in that town.