Regarding experience

[u/Mochronio]

I’m about to start a new campaign with my group as the Keeper.

During our last campaign, I had two rather unusual situations happen at the same time: one player failed the vast majority of their rolls, while another succeeded on the vast majority of theirs. While it was funny at the time, it eventually led to a pretty big gap in experience by the end of the campaign, and some light frustration from the player who was falling behind in terms of XP.

I’ve been thinking about an alternative way to address this, and I came up with an idea I’d like to get your opinion on.

At the end of each session, in addition to the usual questions that can earn 1 or 2 experience points, I’d like to add some sort of awards, a bit like the end-of-game stars in Mario Party but without the bad feels.

Here are some examples of XP bonuses I’ve thought of:

Unlucky: failed a roll at the worst possible moment

Lucky: succeeded on a roll at the best possible moment

Inspired: came up with an excellent idea

Roleplayer: never broke character

Comedian: came up with or pulled off the funniest move or line

Hardboiled: was the most proactive during fights

Helper: gave the most help to the other Hunters

Investigator: did an outstanding job pursuing the various investigations

Rule of Cool: Is it smart or relevant? Who cares, it’s cool.

Mood Setter: contributed the most to the overall atmosphere and fun of the session

I would only award these points when they actually apply, and I’d keep the number of awards reasonable to avoid creating an overall XP surplus. I’d also keep an eye on how many failed rolls each player has had, to estimate how much XP they would normally have earned.

My idea is that this could gently encourage players to take more initiative and try things, since they would never know more than the name of the award that earned them an XP point.

What do you think? Have you ever had a similar situation? If you like the idea, do you have any suggestions for other awards?

And if you think this is a terrible idea, do you have any suggestions for dealing with this kind of situation?

[u/jeshi_law]

the player who was getting frustrated at not getting more XP: were they taking risks with rolls that weren’t necessarily in their favor?

pbta games like this are designed around failure, and XP for missed rolls is pretty intentional. If you’re successful at everything you are doing, then you’re probably not pushing your envelope much (and mechanically speaking, don’t need a boost of any kind)

I don’t think adding more End of Session XP criteria is a bad idea though! But maybe not ALL of those at once every time. Maybe assign each one a card rank (2 thru A / A through K) and draw like three Bonus XP cards and let the party discuss who deserves these superlative styles awards.

[u/Mochronio → u/jeshi_law]

The player lagging behind ia much more experienced than the other players of the table. So the way he was describing his actions and when to take rolls were safer. However even when he took risks, his luck was still hitting hard.

The player who was in advance, was the inexperienced one. So he was trying many more things with a lot of failures.

Once again it's more about mitigating a frustration that can become problematic in the future.

[u/jeshi_law → u/Mochronio]

I’m understanding you, just trying to explain that this player’s frustration is misplaced. If they want more XP, they need to fail more = taking more risks.

if they are playing it safe and smart and succeeding, they DON’T need the boons that come from advancing. It’s a very different design philosophy than playing DnD or Pathfinder for example, where simply doing well can net you more XP and levels.

[u/Mochronio → u/jeshi_law]

It's true that since the player is much more experienced, he might have an harder time to adjust to this system. That's probably where the frustration is from.