Fixing XP

 

Milestones, where the GM tells you that you level because you met some goal, are the absolute worst way to level up a character. The. Worst. Basically it's whenever the GM feels like giving you a level for doing whatever nonsense he came up with. It takes the already-bad trend of GMs throttling the life out of their players and amps it up to eleven. "Trad", where the GM has total control, needs to be eliminated, not further entrenched. 

The problem is that XP is normally implemented so poorly that it makes more sense to hand the GM leveling power. XP isn't really anything, it's just numbers on a sheet. There's no context to XP, there's nothing you do except get it. Anything is better than milestones, but XP usually isn't. So how do we fix it?

Those who know Dark Souls are laughing, because I didn't exactly bury the lead here, didn't I?

Dark Souls is certainly on the right track: XP becomes a resource: you use it as currency, you lose it if you die and have to get it back, and it requires actually being at a bonfire to spend to level up. You also can farm XP, deliberately going to places where you know you can get a lot of XP relatively easily, kill everything in sight, and then go back to the bonfire, reset the area, and farm some more. You can manipulate XP gain. Mechanically and setting-wise it's an object, part of the game in all senses.

The OSR keeps the old ways, even if they're imperfect: gold brought back to town is XP. It's not perfect because XP is still just this random abstract object, but the way you get it is by playing the game in an objective way, outside of GM fiat. How you get that gold which gets you the XP is totally up to you, so long as you get it. And this creates a really cool loop of players picking their own goals, going out in the world, and getting their gold how they want to. The GM preps the sites and the players go where they want, doing what they want. At that point so much player stuff is going on that nobody cares if XP is an abstract object, with no actual game relevance beyond marking what you've done so far. If anything the XP then serves as a marker, as a "YES WE DID IT!" sorta an object.

But I think more can be done with it. Here's two ways I mess with XP.

So in Crescendo I use XP as a resource. You get it by various actions and yes, you spend it on stats and skills and whatnot... but you can also use it as currency, and to bypass certain challenges in the game system. Basically it's used to get around certain things I don't think Crescendo to get around. And, since it's not used as a static number to level, you don't really have to care whether or not you spend it. You have it. You do what you like with it. It's a resource, not a tracker.

There's another game I'm kinda working on, Once More!, where XP is gained for each and every HP regained; you're rewarded for getting roughed up. Now, you can spend XP or burn HP to improve your rolls at any time. Given that you get XP for regaining HP, you'd probably opt for one or the other... until you hit a threshold of XP; I'm thinking it should be the character's current max HP. When you do, you must get your XP back down to 0... which means spending it to augment rolls. And then you level up. The problem is that if you roll too high you run the risk of creating unexpected trouble in the setting. This little trick puts the player in an environment where getting in trouble isn't just inevitable, it's necessary. You get this awesome romp, where your character is super powerful and just breaking everything in your way, while setting up for the next arc.

Milestones are bad. XP  can be a good way to provide an objective measurement of progress, but it can be so much more! Dark Souls already paved the way on that, showing that XP can be a general all-around resource. I've been experimenting with a few ways that XP can be used as resource, and am definitely looking to do more! If you've seen some innovative ways to handle XP let me know!

But not milestones.

Milestones very bad.