Steve Jackson Games Forums - View Single Post - What's your advice on how to hand out experience points?

Darklim · 10-16-2013, 01:51 PM

I'm kinda sorta jumping in, but I'm pretty sure nobody mentioned John Wicked's "Playing dirty". He had a whole article talking about experience points, and how to handle them. One of his technique, directly appliable to GURPS, is the reward-by-proxy: giving a single point to each character, and tell them that they can award it to anybody, except themselves.

Also, I have a personal technique (tried it, loved it, sticked to it), but it can only works easily for GURPS or other points-heavy systems: giving a flat amount of points per session for the characters to spend, and then "giving" each of them from 1 to 6 points regarding to their participation. The trick is, they never actually get to spend said points. Worse: they don't ever know how many they won. But sometimes, during the game, they'll discover some strange abilities lying within them. Or get the occasion to make stronger bonds with a Contact, propelling him to the rank of Ally. Or save a cyberdoc's life, and get an amazing discount of 100% on a cyberlimb. See where I'm getting at?

Well this only works, of course, with players willing to wholly entrust you with their characters, and never question what you do.

10-16-2013, 01:51 PM	#38
Darklim Join Date: Jun 2013 Location: Inside a castle built of your agony.	Re: What's your advice on how to hand out experience points? I'm kinda sorta jumping in, but I'm pretty sure nobody mentioned John Wicked's "Playing dirty". He had a whole article talking about experience points, and how to handle them. One of his technique, directly appliable to GURPS, is the reward-by-proxy: giving a single point to each character, and tell them that they can award it to anybody, except themselves. Also, I have a personal technique (tried it, loved it, sticked to it), but it can only works easily for GURPS or other points-heavy systems: giving a flat amount of points per session for the characters to spend, and then "giving" each of them from 1 to 6 points regarding to their participation. The trick is, they never actually get to spend said points. Worse: they don't ever know how many they won. But sometimes, during the game, they'll discover some strange abilities lying within them. Or get the occasion to make stronger bonds with a Contact, propelling him to the rank of Ally. Or save a cyberdoc's life, and get an amazing discount of 100% on a cyberlimb. See where I'm getting at? Well this only works, of course, with players willing to wholly entrust you with their characters, and never question what you do.