Experience: What's up with that?

[Welknair]

For a while I've been puzzled by the Experience point system that virtually any Tabletop RPG has. The basic premise makes sense: You get fight the goblin, you get better at fighting. Except in every game that I've seen, you need XP for everything involving character development or, in the case of D&D, Magic Item Creation. Why does killing goblins cause you to get better at swimming, and why can you not get better at swimming without killing monsters, such as goblins? Then there's the matter as to whether or not the Game (Or DM) has training times, and the relevance of the skill in the current environment (Most DMs rule you can't get better at swimming if you're in the middle of a desert at the time), but that's another thing entirely.

So I've been juggling around various ideas for my own D20 and I came up with something for an alternate Experience system: The idea that you have two experience pools. An amount of "Mundane" experience, and some "Heroic" experience. Mundane could be used for... mundane things. You could use it to get better at swimming, crafting, etc. and it would be gained a little over time, but mostly based upon training and practice of the skill to be increased. (You would have Generic Mundane, from time, and Specific Mundane, from training and practice). Heroic Experience would be garnered from the killing of monsters, completion of quest objectives, yadda yadda, as in most games. It would be used on supernatural benefits, such as becoming supernaturally strong, gaining increased senses, various "Spell-like" abilities, etc. However, Heroic Experience can also be used for mundane things, though some mundane is still required. So you can still get better at swimming without having to train for weeks, though you still need to train for a bit.

It's just a rough idea and is still in the works, though I think it fixes some of the problems I see with the current XP system. I probably need to make it a bit less complicated... Thoughts?

Edit: I've never liked the D&D class system, either, but after learning Exalted I see that it's not always done like that. The hypothetical system that would be using the above experience system would not have classes. It would make absolutely no sense if it did, as the above system focuses on mundane and supernatural abilities advancing separately.

[graeylin]

In the old days, we were rewarded for using the skills and tricks that made up our classes. Spellcasters got EXP for casting spells properly and effectively, thieves got it for opening chests and finding traps, fighters got it for beating things, etc.. everyone got some for treasure.

As a more modern DM now, i still calculate that kind of stuff into my EXP. If a cleric is especially clerically in an encounter, she gets more EXP than the wizard who did nothing. The bard who sang and raised morale gets a bit of a bump over the archer who waded into combat with a sword cause 'it looked like an easy slaughter'. Or the mage who spent his time shooting crossbow bolts into the air elemental or something.

[Khatoblepas]

Try looking up Basic Roleplaying. It's not class based, and the skills you use are the ones that improve, so the thug can't become a great Basketweaver without training to learn how to weave baskets, but if he whacks people, he'll get better at whacking people.

You also learn skills from reading books, being taught by a teacher, or training in the skill. It might be a raise of 1d6 points (BRP works on a percentile dice, so 1d6 added to a 01% chance won't break the game, because it takes so long to do. You effectively gain a +1 bonus, max, for a month of training). You pay for this by being more squishy than most other game systems. The old scholar doesn't then get heartier and harder to kill by studying magic. He gets better at magic. The bodybuilding fighter can train his Strength and Size, to become more of a powerhouse, and the thief can practice his sleight of hand and do parkour to train his Dex. This takes time - time better spent adventuring! But the rules are there.

It might make a bit more sense than a complex hierarchy of XP types.

[MeeposFire]

In the old days, we were rewarded for using the skills and tricks that made up our classes. Spellcasters got EXP for casting spells properly and effectively, thieves got it for opening chests and finding traps, fighters got it for beating things, etc.. everyone got some for treasure.

As a more modern DM now, i still calculate that kind of stuff into my EXP. If a cleric is especially clerically in an encounter, she gets more EXP than the wizard who did nothing. The bard who sang and raised morale gets a bit of a bump over the archer who waded into combat with a sword cause 'it looked like an easy slaughter'. Or the mage who spent his time shooting crossbow bolts into the air elemental or something.

Part of that was that it took forever to level up without using XP for everything and to enforce behavior that the designers decided was appropriate for the time (and which feels like a straight jacket for many now). 3e's experience tables are so much smaller that getting XP for everything is not so necessary. Heck do it too much you will find characters leveling faster (whether that is a problem or not is up to you). 4e has gone bakc to giving XP for completing certain types of non-combat stuff such as skill challenges though it is not as much as 2e (1XP for every gold piece would not work in 3e or 4e).

[Quietus]

Also note that the DMG does call out for experience from noncombat encounters. The most basic level is traps - they have a CR, they grant experience for being "defeated", etc. They also call out social encounters as being worth experience, though not as much as combat because of its nonlethality.

As for raising mundane things if you've only done mundane things - that can be enforced by the GM. Just let your players know that "Hey, I want your advancement to make sense, so if you haven't done anything regarding baskets, please don't raise your basketweaving skill". Then in social encounters, give a bit of experience - maybe 5% of the exp needed for their next level for a basic encounter where they have a goal and achieve it - finding out the mayor's secret from the town drunk, who used to work for the mayor, for example - and scale up the exp as the importance of the encounter rises. Keeping track of different types of exp and what they can be used for is just plain annoying. Bookkeeping is never fun.

[Roderick_BR]

As was said, it's an inherited mechanic from older games, where things were simpler, and you get experience on acting on your area.
Many groups I played get experience from minor encounters, and you need to declare which abilities you are training in your off-time, so no points in swimming if you haven't been near a lake or any water body in the past weeks, but if you've been sneaking a lot, you can add points to your move silently/hide.

[Hammerhead]

Your solution keeps the problems it tries to address, but with more paperwork. If I get heroic experience for feats of strength and my vision somehow improves (Heroically!), there's very little difference from the original setting.

Unless you want to bury yourself in paperwork for every skill (and maybe even every use of every skill - should feinting really make me a better poker player?), you're going to have to face abstraction.

[rayne_dragon]

I played a system once where you had the regular experience system that could be used to buy anything and also where each individual skill accumulated its own XP through use, leveling up when you had XP in the skill equal to the current rank of the skill. It actually worked out okay in terms of not being too complicated and combining the ability to make a choice in progress with learning from things you're doing.

[GoodbyeSoberDay]

It's an abstraction that provides a metagame reward for overcoming more difficult challenges. It's assumed that if your basketweaving skill increases it's not because you navigated the labyrinth and killed the mighty minotaur; rather, it's assumed that you had been practicing your basketweaving the whole time. The two just happened to coincide.