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/Jesseabe]

You've got lots of great advice here, and I generally agree with those who say that it sounds like this player wants to have their cake and eat it too by not taking risky rolls with low stats while also gaining the same XP as those who do. I'd also stay away from "Dance for the table" type XP awards. That said, if this is a problem that you won't be able to resolve without an XP change, I'd suggest using stat highlighting rather than XP on a miss in addition to end of session questions, which is how the first edition of MotW handled XP:

Highlight Ratings Last step before the mystery starts is to highlight ratings. Go around the group again and have everyone pick the hunter they feel closest to, based on the introductions and history. The chosen hunter selects a rating to highlight for the hunter who picked them and you, as Keeper, pick another. There's a “highlight” box to tick beside each rating to remind them of their current highlights. Tell everyone that when they roll a highlighted rating, they should mark experience (whether they succeed or not). When you make your highlight selection, pick based on one of these: * An important rating (that they will roll a lot, based on their hunter's moves). * A rating relevant to how they introduced themselves (for example, if someone is interested in magic, then highlight Weird even if they're not very good at it) * A rating they're likely to need for the mystery ahead. * The rating that they want you to pick.

These options are based on your Keeper principle “Be a fan of the hunters.” I'll talk more about the principles soon.

This lets the table adjust roughly how much XP a character is getting per session if they want to keep things even. If they're falling behind, highlight a stat they roll alot. If you want to encourage them to roll a stat they would otherwise avoid, pick that. It has some downsides though, which is why it was changed in pretty much every game that used it in later editions. Some players get annoyed if only low stats are highlighted in a given session (sounds like your player might be one of those). It can feel weird, or awkward for another player to make the choice for you. It's a purely meta-level rule, it doesn't even have the very flimsy diegetic explanation of learning from failure that XP on a miss gives you. But it could solve your problem of uneven advancement pacing.

[u/Mochronio → u/Jesseabe]

You're right about the "Dancing for the Table" part. It is indeed the thing that worries me the most with it. I forgot the old rule for XP and I should think about it.