Strangest thing you've done for XP

[Laserlight]

What's the oddest thing for which you've gotten XP?

Some time ago, our party was exploring the ruins of an abandoned druidic stronghold. It turned out to be not as abandoned as we'd have liked; we were attacked by an animated tree/vine thing. The DM set out the map, then started rummaging around and muttering "I need something to represent the enemy...I need something to represent the enemy...."

I was wearing a scarf. Brown in color. Fringes on the end...hmmm....I balled it up and put it on the table, with the fringes reaching for our fighter.

The DM said "You get XP for that. You totally get XP for that."

[molten_dragon]

I read one of the Eberron novels once for XP.

That was a weird DM.

[Yael]

Give my char a last name, its name was originally, Twilight Moonwalk, but my DM an his girlfriend messed with me by calling my char Twilight Sparkle (because of the ''My Little Pony'' series; I was like at 200 XP for leveling up, and a big encounter was coming soon, so I asked if I could get my leveling up and pay the XP later, he told me the next: ''If you call your character Twilight Sparkle, Il'l reward you with your 200XP.'' I was like :smallannoyed: but well, I agreed...

[AuraTwilight]

I once had a character read through FATAL and told er I'd give her bonus XP if she made a character, as proof that she actually read the whole book.

She did it.

I gave her some XP...for her FATAL character.

I'm going straight to hell.

[Chilingsworth]

Agreed to let my character (an asimar Healer of Pelor) go on a date with an NPC I was pretty sure was a vampire. (He was.) Date went fine: The vampire wasn't hungry, and I had more imporant things to do (like stopping the Savage Tide) than divert my attention to wiping out his clan.

I think it netted me 1,000 xp.

[ko_sct]

When I was young, I went to a D&D day-camp, and well... the animators used extra xp to incite kids to do a lot of things.

Soo... i got xp for things like:
-Giving back-rub
-Bringing food to share
-Winning a match with foam swords
-Helping other players with their characters
-Fooling my group into going ahead to scavenge our destroyed village

Overall the thing was pretty awesome, lasted 2 weeks and we went from like lvl 1 to lvl 8-10 in a 2ed game.

[NichG]

Lots of stuff. Lets see...

I've done game writeups, graphics, and even a few minutes of 3d rendered video for xp.

Once a GM made a Minecraft dungeon with signs containing keywords and xp values, and we had 5 minutes to run through and record as many keywords as we could (no one got xp for duplicate words, so we had to destroy the signs too).

But really, the weirdest is probably the Brothel: your character works the Brothel and the GM tries to creep you out with an NPC you have to interact with for a few minutes, which is usually weird stuff like saying every line in Shakespearean prose or talking to the analogue of the Joker or something. You then get paid xp for your trouble. Note: this was actually something created by another PC and then approved by the GM, so.... I got 8000xp from that once, but mostly because it ended up being used as a vehicle for plot.

[Chilingsworth]

When I was young, I went to a D&D day-camp, and well... the animators used extra xp to incite kids to do a lot of things.

Soo... i got xp for things like:
-Giving back-rub
-Bringing food to share
-Winning a match with foam swords
-Helping other players with their characters
-Fooling my group into going ahead to scavenge our destroyed village

Overall the thing was pretty awesome, lasted 2 weeks and we went from like lvl 1 to lvl 8-10 in a 2ed game.

Umm... is it just me, or is that one kinda creepy?

[Krobar]

I had a sorcerer cast Gate and summon a pit fiend. He told the pit fiend "bow, grovel and scrape before me in the most demeaning manner you can think of until I tell you you can get up."

My sorcerer got 1,000 exp for making the DM laugh, and giving him lots of plot hooks for the future in the form of an extremely angry and vengeful pit fiend.

[ko_sct]

I guess back massage is an more accurate translation ?

"massage de dos" in french.

It was more of a shoulder massage, guess i didin'T realised the connotation back-rub has in english, but whatever, no it wasn't creepy.

[Fates]

I've not really gotten exp for anything really weird, but I've granted exp for...

-The party rogue once snuck into the house of two people, erhmm, in bed, and rather than taking any of the valuables lying around, took all their clothes and any other fabric that could be worn, then sneaking out without them noticing. 2500 XP

-A straight, male PC who wound up fighting a bunch of guards unarmed tried to confuse one of them by kissing him on the lips, frenchly. Despite his abysmal charisma, he rolled a natural 20 on his charisma check, and the guard rolled a natural 1 on his will save, so the guard turned against the other guards and knocked them all unconscious. 3000 XP

-The party bard was mugged by a goblin, then made friends with a half-orc druid (DMPC by necessity, as nobody was willing to play a healer and there were no clerics in that world), and together they tracked down the goblin in an underground bar, picked a fight with his gang, lost, and accidentally burned down the bar. The bard and the goblin later became best friends. 3750 XP

[ArcturusV]

Probably the campaign where my teammate wanted to play a devout cleric of this Goddess of Love and Seduction. And at one point had one of the higher ranking spirits of this Goddess come down and tell him that, more or less, he's boring and he needs to branch out and try new things than the same old, same old routine he was going through of typical male fantasy 1 guy with 8 women sort of thing, and his complete inability to actually "Seduce" anyone outside of mindjacking abilities like Charm Person.

So my character decided to "help him" get over his problem without telling him. Found several transvestites who I dressed up as per his usual fetishes (Including him being all tied and bound and such), and sent them his way. And I got XP for that.

Less "Strange" but was kinda funny? Old World of Darkness Werewolf game. I was supposed to be playing someone who had yet to change for the first time. I got kidnapped by a clan and dragged out into the mountains. I tried to make a break for it and the PC who was the big, dumb, block of muscle came after me. As he almost grabbed me I pointed over his shoulder and called out, quite convincingly, "LOOK AT THAT WHALE!"

... 150 miles or so from the ocean.

... he looked. I got XP for it.

[Chilingsworth]

I guess back massage is an more accurate translation ?

"massage de dos" in french.

It was more of a shoulder massage, guess i didin'T realised the connotation back-rub as in english, but whatever, no it wasn't creepy.

Hmm... still sounds abit creepy to me. Must be the puritanism soaked into the soil of the USA rubbed off on me more than I'd thought. :smallconfused:

On the other hand, a D&D camp sounds awesome!

[Guizonde]

weirdest things i've ever done so far that netted me xp:
DND:
-grabbing an ice-cold beer for the dm. (5xp)
-giving a "99 reasons why you suck" speech to the boss, while i was at death's door, and at his mercy, buying the rest of my party time to flee (the sheer defiance of my character netted him 500xp, and a demonic possession attempt...)
-buying the pizza for the whole group (netted me the respawn of a character, and the launch of a future one-shot. the character is my halfling ex-paladin, now necropolitan ranger. i don't even know how much xp that is)
-insulting orks (in ork! as a dwarf!) that captured us to the point of them breaking the cage we were in got me 250xp for roleplaying the insults (and the scorn of the dm... again)

WHFRP:
-getting in my boxers and acting out how my chameleon skink acted, walked around, looked at things, spoke... uh, i think that was worth 300 xp...
-relaunching the "chronicle of the lizardman" after a hiatus of 9 months, and the loss of 3 players out of 5 (the name of the campaign. that netted me and the other survivor 100xp)
-ad-libbing a play irl, again in the aforementionned campaign (100xp for all)
-not so much xp as anything, but learning how to read, count, and speak estalian (all 3 badly) by playing cards and wagering the same ham exclusively. (all those skills would've cost me combined 600xp minimum to buy)
-willingly jumping into a beer barrel, getting roaring drunk and providing comedy relief to the extent that the entire table couldn't breathe netted me 50xp, and opening up for me alcohol resistance (when i've got more xp)

ok, i think that my whfrp campaign is weird...

[Seer_of_Heart]

I had a sorcerer cast Gate and summon a pit fiend. He told the pit fiend "bow, grovel and scrape before me in the most demeaning manner you can think of until I tell you you can get up."

My sorcerer got 1,000 exp for making the DM laugh, and giving him lots of plot hooks for the future in the form of an extremely angry and vengeful pit fiend.

Doesn't gate cost 1000 exp? Did he use the gate for anything else?

[Slipperychicken]

I got like 500xp for bringing some skin lotion to the session for my DM's... ladyfriend? Which I had in my backpack anyway. She had some kind of condition and her skin was cracking.

A few hundred for showing up to play frisbee with him, on 2-3 occasions. Not out of desperation either. He's actually a very socially-competent guy, friends with everyone, and just about every female at the table had feelings for him at some point.

3200xp for doing really well at frisbee (200xp per successful catch). Same DM. He discontinued that scheme once I announced how much I got from it.

~600xp for lifting more than my DM thought I could (we regularly work out together). I was going to do it anyway, and usually don't get tired from lifting.

A few hundred for auditing the power-gamer's character sheet.


But to be fair, he was using xp as a currency and leveling people according to "plot". Also, he didn't have the foggiest idea of how the rules worked, and used truly excessive and unnecessary fiat as a crutch for his terrible DMing skills. Needless to say, I had much more xp than anyone else.

[Alaris]

Wasn't me, but a good friend of mine dressed up as his character.

>.>

His FEMALE character.

Fake boobs. A corset. A dress. Dyed hair.

>.>

He didn't shave his chest though.

<.<

So much XP... and so many other players were scarred by this event.

[Guizonde]

Wasn't me, but a good friend of mine dressed up as his character.
>.>
His FEMALE character.
Fake boobs. A corset. A dress. Dyed hair.
>.>
He didn't shave his chest though.
<.<


meh... my dm's girlfriend (and our resident ingame skillmonkey/sniper) gets a kick out of dressing me up in her clothes. we call that a regular friday night :smallbiggrin:

... although if i got xp from that... how much xp is epic-level, again? :smallconfused: i might have a bargain for my dm

[gr8bookworm]

We get 250XP for getting our DM a beer :smallsmile:

[krai]

I as a GM gave a player 5 xp for getting me a soda. The other players said that it was silly, not because it was an out of game action that resulted in in game reward, but because it was only 5 xp. So the next time the party was close to level up i gave everyone 95 xp so the soda bringing player leveled and no one else did. (I waited for them to get annoyed by this and then raised the rest of the party a level, it was very funny for me.)

[Krobar]

Doesn't gate cost 1000 exp? Did he use the gate for anything else?

Yeah. I should have said "netted me 1,000 Exp." And no, I did nothing else with it. It was an epic level game, and this was my replacement character for my bard that had just retired. The party had a Paladin of Heironeous, a Cleric of Pelor, and various other goody two shoes characters, and I wanted to make sure they liked me. They were questioning my morals and abilities, so I said "okay. Watch this. I'll show you all you need to know."

Then I cast the Gate.

The paladin thought it was hilarious, because he knew how much the pit fiend was going to hate me for that.

Every once in a while you just have to say "screw the EXP cost. This is gonna be worth it."

[Captnq]

I just realized I'm always DMing and I haven't earned XP in over a decade.

Now I has a sad. :smallfrown:

[Palanan]

In my first 3.5 campaign, our DM dropped Heart of Nightfang Spire into our party's journey on the way to the Silver Marches.

Since this module deals with...creatures of the night, let's say, I was fairly concerned with accurate times for sunrise and sunset. So I calculated the lat-long coordinates for Silverymoon, generated a table from the USNO site (http://aa.usno.navy.mil/data/docs/RS_OneYear.php), and renamed the months and year according to Dale-Reckoning.

I showed it to my DM. He awarded me 1000 XP on the spot.

[Gem_Knight]

Got XP once for a WoD campaign when I helped the Storyteller do a few things at work so he could be done faster.

[Deathkeeper]

My GM once gave me (secret) exp for writing the dialogue for an NPC during a Skype RP session between actual PF meetings, because he's bad at that particular kind of speech. The reason it's weird and the reason he couldn't do it himself? Said NPC was the prosecutor trying to prove that one of our party members had committed high treason.

[Uhtred]

I played in a campaign where one of the players was a fifteen-year-old first time D&D player who had the irritating habit of questioning the DM's judgement calls. He would typically do so with the high-pitched keening cry of "REALLY?" He wasn't there one session and we were all talking about him, and the DM said that he felt it could almost be a drinking game, one that would leave someone totally smashed after moments. We all looked at one another and decided it COULD be a drinking game. A fun one. So the parameters were established: Every time he said "Really?!" We would go around the table, starting with the player to his right, drinking whatever we were drinking. If there was no drink in hand, we would pantomime a shot. Every time we successfully pulled it off, we would get +100xp for the session.

He was singlehandedly responsible for getting us from levels 7-9.

[Ranting Fool]

I just realized I'm always DMing and I haven't earned XP in over a decade.

Now I has a sad. :smallfrown:

Not quite so long for me but yeah it's been awhile :smallbiggrin::smalltongue::smallbiggrin:

I should REALLY start handing out XP for players bringing me tasty food for the sessions :smallbiggrin:

[Shaynythyryas]

On one session, our group heard an infamous song about them in a tavern, smacked the minstrel a bit and made our bard (me) learn him a new song that would depic our exploits ; the DM said we would have to bring next time a rough content of that song and then quickly forgot about it.

Two of us sat down between sessions, composed a theme, wrote lyrics and then i brought my guitar to play and sing it in front of my DM.
I got 2500 xp (and my co-composer 2000) !

[Palanan]

On the subject of lyrics...as it happens, I'm the DM mentioned in the OP.

Laserlight doesn't mention that his character--who is part bard, part Casanova and all halfling--recently earned a little XP for not doing something, viz., finishing the lyrics to a rowing-song he was composing.

It was designed to entertain and invigorate sailors while rowing the ship's boats. I...um...don't think I can post the first stanza here. The XP was for not composing additional stanzas.

Or at least not sending them to the DM.

:smalleek:

[dysprosium]

i was running a session where the players were shopping/exploring a city. most of the players went their separate ways to do their own things. so while i was playing the npcs the players were talking to in their scenes, some of the other players started to act as other npcs in the background

so all of a sudden i had a city full of boston accented guards trying to help the players find all of the places they wanted to go. so while these guards guided the characters they started talking about their families and their favorite sports team the Rocks. Every conversation ended with "Go Rocks!"

we all had such a good time playing i awarded them XP

sadly the very next session was a TPK

[Andreaz]

Once we swelled a gelatinous cube until it took over the mansion and sealed the exits for it to kill the drug makers inhabiting it, and then...

Our rogue set up a picnic in front of it. We had an extensive discussion about the pros and cons of making giant acidic fungi do our bidding.

[Guizonde]

awesomesauce in word form

can i borrow this idea?
signature wall o' text:
my dnd table has been struggling with a rules lawyer, and so far, the punishment meted out for having us remind him of rule zero (i dm PF, another dnd, the third whfrp) has been:

-i've deafened him for 48h (crit roll on a thunderstone, crit fail on his part, and he's a rogue, mind you)
-dnd has had him lose all levels of dragon disciple (cheated on sheet)
-warhammer has had him catching nurgling plague (with the cure to maintain he doesn't derail the campaign)

however, your idea could really slam the point home, and maybe correct his very annoying tendency to call out the dm on "that doesn't work that way", "yeah, but RAW...", "i've got this ultra-badass-showstealer! at level 2!", "here's my optimized pseudo-cheesy build!", etc... we're all in a fairly low op kind of playstyle (i play a healer cleric, another is a true rogue skillmonkey, another's a monk, the other plays a wizard who refuses to use magic missile...), but we're stupidly heavy on roleplay and out of the box thinking (crunch is only when we can't think of a better way out), and we simply can't make him roleplay or stop trying to optimize without fluff justifications. (my healer uses blunt weapons exclusively because his god is pelor, in an undead heavy campaign. that's our max optimization...)

tl;dr: you rock, i'm stealing the idea.

[SaintRidley]

I went an entire session without speaking out loud. I was given two levels for that.

[Story]

How did you tell them what you were doing?

[CaladanMoonblad]

I've given XP to characters for... in game actions...

... returning a pawned horse from the butcher shop to a destitute farmer (original owner) at a PC's own purse simply because the player felt bad for the horse (played a Ranger).

... buying cheese for orphans... and for buying reading primers to start a literacy campaign in the hopes that the locals will foment a revolution in ten years time to topple a corporately owned city whose corrupt sheriff was a potential quest giver...

... my wife plays a dwarf fighter who has Craft (poetry) and performs limericks on her turn to shame and enrage enemies.... she comes up with the lyrics between during the fights as well on the spot... and talks in a brooklyn accent (inner city dwarf)...

... a druid who tracked down a killer by judiciously casting spells to communicate with animals and plants...

However, I NEVER give XP to players who are effectively "looking for trouble" by starting fights or recklessly instigating confrontations.

[Andreaz]

However, I NEVER give XP to players who are effectively "looking for trouble" by starting fights or recklessly instigating confrontations.I presume you despise fighting-heavy games, then? Sometimes these things are all the fun.
Like how once we set a gambling ring and in the finals we made sure every player had loaded hands (9 aces in game :D).

[NichG]

I presume you despise fighting-heavy games, then? Sometimes these things are all the fun.
Like how once we set a gambling ring and in the finals we made sure every player had loaded hands (9 aces in game :D).

I definitely see his point though. XP is a carrot that can be used to encourage certain behaviors in the game. The game does enough on its own to encourage the murder-hobo trope without the DM incentivizing it further. There's a big difference between interesting fighting and fighting which just derails the game and has little actual gameplay to it. When, e.g., a Lv15 party picks a fight with a bunch of city guards there's no real tactics or challenge or whatever to it, and after that point all you're left with is a lot of burned plot hooks and resources the party can never again access).

[SaintRidley]

How did you tell them what you were doing?

Passing notes.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

I just realized I'm always DMing and I haven't earned XP in over a decade.

Now I has a sad. :smallfrown:

Your group doesn't give you xp? :(

No big loss though, the experience chart is insane and the class is very heavily front loaded.

[Gnaeus]

Middle Earth RP/Rolemaster

You get Xp for doing something the first time. One player climbs a tree. He gets Exp. Everyone else says "Thats Easy!" and the entire party immediately climbs trees.

Someone fails their roll. Falls out of the tree and breaks their arm. But in Rolemaster, you also get exp for taking criticals. Everyone else immediately falls out of their tree.

[Hand_of_Vecna]

Leaving out all out of game favors(sexual and otherwise).

Social Engineering- Took a job board style side quest to kill some goblins and ended up feeling sorry for them and teaching them how to obey laws to fit into society, farm enough food to survive(this also required buying them some land), one of their best and brightest ended up apprenticed to a party member who was a legendary smith.

Learning Common- Played a Barbarian that didn't get Common as a racial language, had to learn it one word at a time. I kept a sheet of words he knew seperated into knowns/verbs/adjectives.

Hurling Insults- Same character as the above. Got hit with Forcecage so I asked the GM

"So, this guy looks like some kind of outsider? Does he happen to have the understand all speech ability? If so I'll actually come up with the insults."

"Lemme check . . . Ya he does, so Fire away."

The best one I remember were something like.

"I know why you fly about and fear my axe, Birb-Man; it is because your Sword is as impotent as your ****!"

this one

"If you're afraid to fight me, I challenge your magic. I dare you to attack me with your strongest spell, Birdman!"

provoked him into bouncing a dominate off my Steadfast Determination, Raging Self.

My players rather than me but:

Shearing Celestial Phrenic Winged Sheep to make the finest dresses before the Spring Festival, aside the wools superior quality it comes in pastels that are nearly impossible to replicate. Their alpha was a Celestial Phrenic Winged Dire Sheep he was robin's egg blue btw.

Oh one more

Roleplaying Xp- to a new playing for finding her husband's character "skeezy".

[CaladanMoonblad]

I definitely see his point though. XP is a carrot that can be used to encourage certain behaviors in the game. The game does enough on its own to encourage the murder-hobo trope without the DM incentivizing it further. There's a big difference between interesting fighting and fighting which just derails the game and has little actual gameplay to it. When, e.g., a Lv15 party picks a fight with a bunch of city guards there's no real tactics or challenge or whatever to it, and after that point all you're left with is a lot of burned plot hooks and resources the party can never again access).

YUP!

Currently my players are 10-12 and are two weeks into a large wilderness area (think Alaska!) where civilization is sparse with low populations. The only thing keeping them from ousting the current Evil Sheriff of Teedon and his monopolistic merchant allies soaking the local populace is that they are trying to repair the reputation of their guild in the area and tracking down a rogue guild faction (the one they belong to) and cleaning up messes over 2 years old in game time (mystery sleuthing and PR cleanup). The Sheriff is like level 5 Aristocrat and he has 30 guards, but is allied with a nearby Count who is allied with a further away Duke that is uber powerful (in terms of resources and military). So the heroes have to find alternative ways to frustrate a Sheriff who is fluff / background and not part of the main quest, or even a side quest (but who is a potential quest giver). Even killing the Sheriff will do nothing to stop the systemic evil that pervades over Teedon (think of a medieval company town where wages are depressed, the corporation owns all the land, and sells to its employees; wage slaves!)

I run nonlinear stories for the most part; the party enters a geographic area with multiple plot lines and based on where the heroes travel they run into specific situations/challenges that feed off each other (some plot lines are hinted at in nearby areas, and some plot lines affect different communities). It's a lot of work on my part, but my players never should feel railroaded and have complete freedom... but picking fights and instigating side conflicts that are not part of the established set of scenarios receives... nothing for experience. It's fairly easy to determine what are legitimate plots and what is "trouble" because the guild my players belong to is... "The Adventurer's Guild"- it's like a Temp Agency in D&D.