[Numenera] Thoughts on XP

[NichG]

I recently got the Numenera core book (though I haven't had a chance to play/run anything with it) and I've been slowly familiarizing myself with the ideas and systems of the game. One thing that has me concerned in an armchair theory sort of way is the XP system.

For those who aren't familiar, the basic idea is that XP can be spent on permanent advancement (4 points), but lesser amounts can be spent for temporary advantages (1 point = reroll a check, 2 points = temporarily become trained in a skill, etc). The book claims that in the long term there won't really be a disparity between PCs who hoard XP for permanent gain versus PCs who spend it like water.

For people who have actually played in a Numenera campaign, does this seem to be true? How did your XP usage go in practice?

(If it is a problem) I was thinking of possible fixes, maybe something where if you are a Tier ahead of the rest of the group, 1 out of every 5 XP you get is instead transferred to another player. If you're 2 Tiers ahead, its 2 out of every 6XP, and so on.

[Pilo]

I've played it two time a month since september, we find that strange too, that's why we decided to split XP, so there will be no disparities. A part of scenario XP (about half) is for permanent progression, the rest is for temporary, local and reroll (We called that fate points).

We also houseruled the permanent progression system, you get a tier as soon as you get the requirements or every 20 permanent xp. And you can buy any progression but not more than one per tier (and optional progression can replace any part of the tier and not the skill only).

[Jlerpy]

It's a dynamic that shows up in a number of places. My main familiarity with it as a thing is from 7th Sea's Drama Dice.

It is, to be quite frank, a potently stupid piece of design, as it blatantly encourages you to hoard points rather than spend them. In a supposedly dashing game of daring swashbucklers like 7th Sea, that's a huge misstep.

We fixed it by flipping it around so when you spend a Drama Die on something, you're also spending the xp that die represents on something related to the thing you're enhancing. If you spent the Drama Die for an extra die on your untrained check for swinging across the ballroom to kick the Duke in the face, congratulations, you just spent the xp on Swinging or Finesse. If you spent it to soak damage, you've invested some xp into Brawn.
It becomes no longer a question of "can I afford to spend this Die and lose the xp?" but instead "is this a thing I want my character to be more awesome at? How much more important is this thing to me than other stuff my character will do?".
And it's worked fantastically well in the campaigns where we've done it. It's the houserule of which I'm proudest, I'd say.

I haven't got to read Numenera yet, but from the brief description, it sounds like the same thing could work there. For example, if it costs 4 points to buy a skill, and 2 points to temporarily pretend you have it, then the second time you pretend to have it, you really do have it (either straight away or at the end of the session/adventure, depending on how you feel like handling timing of advancement in your campaign).

Obviously, this functionally speeds advancement, so one needs to adjust either awards or expectations to suit your desired pace.