Do you have any special rules/restrictions to regulate character advancement pacing?

[Colarmel]

I find that a lot of this comes down to making sure players and GMs are on the same page. I don't feel at all bad about giving out a lot of points per session, so long as my players aren't min-maxing like psychotic murder-hobos. I give out lots of points with the understanding that I expect my players to allocate those points in a way that enhances the character as a whole person.

Players who get points in a trickle will IME, use points for specialization much more than players who expect to continue to advance quickly. But I've got good players.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Colarmel

I find that a lot of this comes down to making sure players and GMs are on the same page. I don't feel at all bad about giving out a lot of points per session, so long as my players aren't min-maxing like psychotic murder-hobos. I give out lots of points with the understanding that I expect my players to allocate those points in a way that enhances the character as a whole person.

Players who get points in a trickle will IME, use points for specialization much more than players who expect to continue to advance quickly. But I've got good players.

I agree with both these points and I tend to encourage generalization or interesting builds over min/maxing or super optimization.

[whswhs]

I'm pretty basic. My players get an average of 2-3 points per session: 1 for participating, one for acceptable roleplaying, one for good roleplaying, maybe one for doing something ingenious and/or heroic. I restrict their spending them in two ways: They can only add one level to anything per session, and they can only raise a skill if they've made actual plot-relevant use of it. On the other hand, if they establish that their characters are studying something formally, I mostly use the monthly study rolls system in Back to School.

I haven't found this to be a problem. Some of my players have ended up with several sessions worth of unspent points because they haven't spotted the thing they want to buy, or because they're saving for a Talent or attribute.

[sir_pudding]

Originally Posted by AlexanderHowl

I generally do an average of five sessions per adventure and five adventures per campaign (so an average of 25 sessions per campaign). With my new rules, that would translate to 40 CP over 25 sessions, plus the other rewards (which are probably the equivalent of an average of 40 CP worth of monetary rewards and 40 CP worth of social rewards per campaign).

What is the point of giving points at the end of the campaign? Game over, have five points you actually can't spend?

[Hide]

As some have said before, it depends on your gaming style. In my situation, I think 1-4 character points per week is acceptable.

We earn at least 1 CP for participating in most sessions, then 2-3 CP for achieving important or relevant feats campaign wise. My I approach is more or less as Bill recommends.

This means that people in our campaigns may earn up to 192 CP per year, which should be like increasing whatever average skill 48 levels, after investing the first 2 CP. Finally, there's also a skill-level-cap, for example up to 20 levels per skill. This prevents players from over-specializing.

- Hide

[whswhs]

Originally Posted by Hide

As some have said before, it depends on your gaming style. In my situation, I think 1-4 character points per week is acceptable.

If you have weekly sessions, of course. I usually have monthly sessions. Currently I have a monthly session in Riverside, a bimonthly session in San Diego, and a monthly session I play in via Skype.

[tanksoldier]

It just seems too much to me for one skill if one decided to allocate their points that way.

That's a player problem, not a points problem... and I would promptly start designing encounters where that skill is minimized and others are critical.

I use downtime study, let the players specify what the character is doing off stage... working out, going to school, martial arts classes, whatever. I allow 4 hours of study per day, so in 2 months they earn 1 point. If school is their full time job I allow and extra 1 point per two months on academic skills.

During play, 2-3 points per session... but only on skills they used or otherwise could have learned/ improved during that session.

IMO being stingy with points tends to force players to spend them on critical skills, usually combat skills, and ignore fluff and secondary skills.

[exalted]

Why would you ever limit yourself to strict rules per session or campaign without looking at the context of the game. I've had sessions lasting a few hours of in-game time and those lasting for months or even years. In some sessions the players accomplish nothing of note in others they cast kingdoms into ruin or defeat dark gods.

What I usually give out is gurps equivalent to 5-7 points (my tweeks make high stats and some other stuff much more expensive) per sessions with more for particularly impressive feats or endings of important arcs. But that is for basically young demi-gods. When doing more realistic campaigns it might be less but I and the players I GM for like there to be noticable advancement or we lose interest in longer campaigns. Giving fairly generously also allows for wider competency and narrow interests that aren't useful that often.

Strict rule whatever I GM however is that everyone gets more or less the same XP, very small rewards are ok but anything else eventually causes problems either with one or more player or with charcter balance.

[AlexanderHowl]

Originally Posted by sir_pudding

What is the point of giving points at the end of the campaign? Game over, have five points you actually can't spend?

A campaign is not game over for the characters. It is not unknown for characters to go from one campaign to another.

[JMason]

For me it depends on what sort of game I'm running and what I want the advancement speed to be.

Most of the time I'm around 2-4 CP per session. But, I've run "zero to hero" type games with 150 point Dungeon Fantasy character and a superhero game that both were more in the 5-8 CP range.

In most cases, I let players spend points to buy up Attributes as they like, buy off Disadvantages with a good reason as to why, and any skill they have used in game. To buy new skills, they need some down time and a teacher or some other good way to learn. I don't bother with exact time tracking most of the time. New Advantages can't normally be bought, but I do allow this in DF.

If you have an issue with the speed in which someone is advancing, then there are lots of ways to limit it. Tell them they have to dedicate X number of down-time hours to gain skill. Add a $ cost for training, things like that.