Non-Encounter-Based XP Systems

[Kadzar]

I don't really like experience-per-encounter defeated, because it encourages players to get into fights, but leveling up according the plot makes advancement seem completely arbitrary. Are there any better alternatives?

[Trask]

One that used to be used in old school D&D is XP for treasure. I think it went something like 1 XP= 1 GP or SP or whatever is the standard of money in your world. Maybe its shells. They get minimal XP from monsters, not none but not much. This focuses the players I think, makes them rethink engaging every foe because the point is to get to the treasure. This was back when D&D was a much more treasure focused game, but I think it can still work. After all most bad guys and big monsters have big caches of goodies, even if its not gold you can say that retrieving this solid gold candelabra is worth whatever XP in gold its worth. It can definitely work, and then you also get the cool aspect of "well how do we get this back to town?" Hauling treasure out of the dungeon or wherever can be a quest in and of itself if youre a creative DM. Players use a donkey train? Raided by Orcs, the Orcs make off with a big gem the players get it back discover something ect ect.

This system is not perfect of course, it makes the game very gold oriented and can also make players greedy. You can alleviate this somewhat by providing XP for "quests". Like "rescue the maiden, recover the maguffin, do the thing" you'll get bonus XP. This helps make the game goal oriented and doesnt incentivize the players to just pick fights with every humanoid that looks at them crossways. I like it a lot and its probably worth a try if you're fed up with the current XP system (and I'd agree with you)

[Ninja_Prawn]

Well, the standard procedure is to award XP for overcoming challenges/obstacles. On an abstract level, there's no difference between the violent challenge of a rabid bear and the athletic challenge of climbing a mountain. What I'm trying to say is, even if you're not throwing your players into fights, your campaign should still be structured around encounters where the PCs want something and have to overcome an obstacle to get it.

When I phrase it in this way, it sort of falls out that 'accomplishing plot objectives' should be rewarded with XP. Depending on how you define 'plot objective' - it would probably feel more natural to award XP for small, discrete objectives. Rather than 10,000 XP for saving the world, it could be 500 for securing the help of the mercenary company, 1,000 for beating the goblins to the mountain pass, 100 for stealing and 200 for deciphering the letter in the pocket of the goblin boss, etc...

[Giant2005]

The Palladium xp system is pretty good and ports over seamlessly. It places more of an emphasis on roleplaying than murder-hoboing.

Combat
Zero points for fighting that's just to show off, too proud to stand down, gets the rest of the group in trouble, or any stupid or selfish reasoning.
25-50 points for killing or subduing a minor menace.
75-100 points for killing or subduing a major menace.
150-400 points for killing or subduing a great menace. Additional Experience Points are likely.

Other Actions. Reasoning & Role-Playing
10-25 points for performing the right skill (successful or not), at the right time, for the right reason, for mid to high level characters (4th level and up), this might apply only to skills performed when they are absolutely critical or done under stressful conditions.
25-50 points for a clever, but futile idea.
25-50 points for using good judgment or one's power or skill well.
25-50 points for playing in character when it would have been easier not to.
25-100 points for a clever, useful/helpful idea or action.
50-100 points for avoiding unnecessary' violence; self-restraint or talking, bluffing or intimidating oneself (and associates) out of trouble or danger.
50-100 points for a small act of self-sacrifice, or an act of kindness, mercy, or compassion.
50-100 points for insightful and helpful deductive reasoning or keen observation.
50-100 points for a successful daring or heroic action (whether it was clever or not).
75-150 points for playing in character/playing one's alignment when circumstance or powerful temptation begged otherwise.
100 points for a quick thinking idea or action that was helpful.
100-200 points for insight or deductive reasoning that plays a huge role in a critical plan or saving lives.
200 points for a critical plan or action that saves the character's own life and/or a few comrades.
400-1000 points for a critical plan or action that saves the entire group and/or many innocent people.
100-300 points for endangering the character's own life (self-sacrifice) to help or save others.
500-700 points for a genuine life and death self-sacrifice in a situation where the character's heroism seemed likely (or almost certain) to cost him his life. Leaping in front of an energy blast meant for someone else to save that person, even though the blast is likely to kill the hero, or offering his/her own life to save the group or an innocent person (and the exchange truly seems to be a death sentence with no apparent chance for escape). Odds are that the character will really die!

[Kadzar]

@Trask I'm planning to run a pretty much strictly urban adventure next, and, while I like the idea of gold for xp in general, it definitely won't work here.

@Ninja_Prawn Yeah, I figured I'd probably have to do goal-based xp, though I don't like it that much because it feels somewhat railroady to me (at least when I did it previously). It's like, "here are the things you need to do if you want to advance in this adventure." And even if it is goal-based, I feel like I'll need some other sources of xp to fill it out.

@Giant2005 I don't think I could even remember all of those during a game, and some of them I'm not that fond of, but I might use some.

I think I might also give xp for players having some sort of character-driven moment (since my players don't really spend a lot of play time with characterization) and give it to the whole party, so people are okay with others taking the spotlight temporarily. And possibly add in some sort of diminishing returns for the same person doing it repeatedly.

But, yeah, any other sources of XP, I'm all for.

[Erys]

I don't really like experience-per-encounter defeated, because it encourages players to get into fights, but leveling up according the plot makes advancement seem completely arbitrary. Are there any better alternatives?

Milestone leveling.

You don't reward XP at all, but as players reach/defeat/overcome predetermined areas within the story, they level.

[gfishfunk]

I use XP to calculate encounter difficulty, and then math it out to see how many encounters should be in a day, but I do not award xp.

Instead, after the appropriate number of days, I award a new level. I also tell my players where they are at in general terms. (At the end of this string of encounters, you will all be gaining a level).

This way, I don't fret people missing encounters or skipping them through trickery or whatever. If they bypass the encounter it is equal to killing everything. Its not exact, but it works for my purposes.

[pwykersotz]

@Ninja_Prawn Yeah, I figured I'd probably have to do goal-based xp, though I don't like it that much because it feels somewhat railroady to me (at least when I did it previously). It's like, "here are the things you need to do if you want to advance in this adventure." And even if it is goal-based, I feel like I'll need some other sources of xp to fill it out.

Keep in mind that the goals don't have to be pre-set. You can award XP for accomplishments. Say my party is on a quest to slay a dragon, and they divert and kill a necromancer instead. They may not have accomplished the initial goal, but they certainly accomplished something worthy of XP. It's a fluid sort of thing.

[Ninja_Prawn]

If you're scratching around for discrete things to award XP for on the fly, I have been known to do it for crafting items (1XP per gp of crafted value) and disarming/avoiding traps (the same amount of XP as they'd get for an easy encounter).

You could also do 'every time you get Inspiration, you also get ECLx10XP.' Or 'every day you survive you get 100XP.'

Those should be relevant to lots of different kinds of campaign.

[Finieous]

When I'm running a sandbox game, I just use session-based leveling. After a predetermined number sessions, the PCs level up. I'll often slow the pace in the "sweet spot" (5-10, maybe, for 5e) so we can spend more time there. In a sandbox game, I throw out hooks and have lots of stuff going on, but the whole point is the players can do what they want. I don't want the leveling mechanic to push them into certain behaviors: "Oh, we have to go kill monsters/get treasure/explore/achieve 'story milestones'/whatever in order to level, so we should do that."

[Jamesps]

I've always wanted to try a game whereby characters can only get to about level 5 with training (the maximum performance of a normal human in this world) and thereby can gain levels only by collecting or controlling areas/items of power.

This would probably require the entire campaign be designed around the concept though. It does create a lot of inworld conflict that's not necessarily the standard DnD good versus evil, since even rival good guys will be fighting over these sources of power.

[Afrodactyl]

I reward small amounts of exp for relevant skill checks. So a rogue unlocking the door the party needs to get through gives everyone a tiny exp bump. But the bard walking into a tavern and rolling to seduce everyone thats in the building doesn't get them anything, unless it's necessary for the plot.

I also award exp for completing 'quests', beating puzzles and traps, and for staying in character when it would be easier to not be in character but still achieving what you needed to do.

[Trask]

Not that there's anything wrong with any of these but for me personally this would be really tedious bookkeeping

[imneuromancer]

A lot of games that use single-digit XP use a system of "how well did the characters do this session."

For example:
* 1 XP = characters did poorly and didn't achieve any goals
* 2 XP = characters achieved goals and progressed the story
* 3 XP = characters were clever and did extraordinarily well.

You could take the same idea and give set "base XP" for a particular session and then multiply by how well the PCs did.

[Tanarii]

I don't really like experience-per-encounter defeated, because it encourages players to get into fights, but leveling up according the plot makes advancement seem completely arbitrary. Are there any better alternatives?
Don't forget that defeating an encounter doesn't require fighting the creatures in it. And the DMG is explicit that non-combat encounters should gain XP based on the difficulty (ie resources expended) in it, provided there was a meaningful chance of failure. (DMG p261)

But for alternatives, the DMG suggests Milestone XP, as well as just discarding XP completely. For the latter, they suggest either session-based or story-based advancement.

(I just went back and reread that entire page due to another thread)

[Waffle_Iron]

I ask the players to "mark exp" when everybody at the table really enjoys something, or when they act in accordance with their personality traits.

At the end of the session, in addition to any encounter exp, I also have them count marks. Then using the chart in the DMG for level/danger I award role play exp.

For example, if Joe makes a really great monologue, I might have him mark exp. Later he acts, to his own detriment, in line with his flaw, so he marks again. Later still he chooses a course of action based on his ideal, so he marks. At the end of the session, he's marked thrice, and he's currently level 5. That's a 'hard' encounter and he earns 750 Xp.

[Kurt Kurageous]

I'm using "scenes" as the primary mechanism for awarding XP. I'm trying to incentivize PCs identifying a problem and solving it while discouraging play that wastes game time such as overanalyzing everything, searching every room for everything, or murder-hoboing a hapless enemy for the XP. I currently tell them the amount of party XP earned at the end of the scene to connect scene completion to XP. They are getting the idea that some things aren't worth fighting or figuring out, and other things that advance the story are always worth figuring out. I'm considering telling them the possible XP at the start of the scene to get them to really focus.

The XP awarded to the party is equal to approximately 1/4 of the daily XP budget for the adventuring day for the individual in a minor scene, and approximately 1/2 of that same number in a major scene. See DMG 84 for the specific number. Tinker with this how you will.

For example, a level 1 character is supposed to have a daily budget of 300 XP (after which they become level 2). The party completes a minor scene and is awarded 75 XP, and 150 for a major scene. If they "defeat" a foe by sword, sneakiness, or whatever, additional XP for that is added to the scene XP. If they run away, they still completed the scene. Using this system, a 1st level party of four would need to complete some combination of (75X +150Y)/4=300 where x is the number of minor scenes and y is the number of majors to level up, and even fewer scenes if they earn XP by defeating a foe. Major scenes advance the story or are necessary to advance the story, minor scenes do not.

Arbitrary? Not really, because higher level scenes can only be played by higher level characters. You don't get to play a scene in the "Temple of the Twin Liches" at first level. If you do, it will probably be your last.