Spending experience points

[Maccabe]

I was wondering how everyone out there handled this question.

Do you only allow PC's to spend EXP on things they used/learned during an adventure?

How about "free time" either during or between adventures, for working on

spending EXP? (Example: being in a cluttered room and trying to learn how to "bounce" your EB- combat levels)

[Sean Waters]

Re: Spending experience points

 

By and large* I don't restrict players XP expenditure, but I do like it to make some kind of sense. Having 5 XP and dumping 4 in Russian because that is wehre they are going next sounds wrog, but if they can justify it, then all well and good (I'm an android: I burned Russian into my long term memory...).

 

Most likely I'd let a smart player buy 1 point of phrase book Russian and have them spend the rest elsewhere.

 

Two things that we do with XP that I quite like is buying new abilities in limited form: you can get a quite useful ability quickly, then buy of the limitations as you get better at it eg an extra 2d6 EB with an 11- activation rather than buying just 1d6 EB, and XP mortgaging. This just means that if the player comes across a situation that requires a power that they have not got, but logically should be able to manifest they can either just use the Power Trick rules or just take the ability and pay it off with future XP.

 

 

 

 

* ...which always reminds me of an Emo Phillips joke....

[Rapier]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I also try not to micro-manage XP expenditure.

 

Most players usually have a moderately long list of skills, perks, talents or powers that they would have liked to have but didn't have enough points for. These abilities are within their character concept and just haven't "appeared" yet.

 

We've got a guy in our campaign with nanites in his body. Last week he showed up with Regen, because the nanites can heal him too. All in his concept, yet totally outside the realm of anything he had done in game.

 

I should also probably mention, for equal-time's sake, that most of the XP expenditure I see (especially early on) is all to buy off limitations (usually starting with things like Activation Rolls, Side Effects and Increased END).

 

However, I would also look askance at the character that on Tuesday was informed they would be leaving for Russia at the next session and shows up on Friday with 5 pts of Russian.

[Mike W]

Re: Spending experience points

 

It depends on what they want to buy. Characters do have "down time" which they can use to pick up new skills and powers (Danger Room sessions are good for this), or they can spend them on things they used more actively in the adventure - but I usually don't make an issue of it as long as it makes sense for the character(maybe something they had to cut during character creation to make the character balance on points) and as long as it won't unbalance the campaign (which would probably violate the first rule).

 

Also, I occasionally make use of assigned experience points. Most often, I do this to give out Perks, especially Contacts, for people who roleplayed well and made an effort to actually engage and work with the NPCs.

[Vondy]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I require players to provide a rational, story-based explanation for their character's development. This is not specifically restricted to events that occur during a particuliar gaming session, but it does have to be related to, and fit, with the genre, the overally story, and the campaign guidelines.

 

For instance: a young, talented mage has access to a rare tome of spells. Given time and research he can purchase those spells. We might require a research roll, but, taking extra time to accomplish the task - lets say studying the tome during the winter the group was snowed in at the village in the mountain valley - he is unlikely to miss the roll. He could also study it in the evenings while they are on the road, though he might take negatives for not having a laboratory/sanctum/wherever it is mages go to learn available.

 

The main thing is that it makes sense both for the character AND the story.

[Vondy]

Re: Spending experience points

 

 

Also, I occasionally make use of assigned experience points. Most often, I do this to give out Perks, especially Contacts, for people who roleplayed well and made an effort to actually engage and work with the NPCs.

 

I frequently hand out a combination of assigned and unassigned experience points - also mostly in terms of favors and contacts. It works well in keeping the development organic and story-based.

[Rapier]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I frequently hand out a combination of assigned and unassigned experience points - also mostly in terms of favors and contacts. It works well in keeping the development organic and story-based.

 

I especially like to hand out Contacts along with the XP. Contacts are always a sticking point with me. When the characters start out, many times they don't know enough about this particular game in this setting to choose contacts. If they DO choose contacts, I've got to make sure that those Contacts actually exist in the role the character purchased them in. It can get sticky. Instead I like to dish out the contacts as the team gets into the setting. Or, I do like an occassional blank contact (Police Lt 11-) that allows me to choose.

 

I don't normally substitute XP for Contacts, but use them in addition.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Can I just mention mini XP?

 

Piece of papaer with the character/player names on kept by the GM, and every time a player does something smart or funny or noteworthy the GM makes a mark, and 10 make an extra bonus XP. It is quite a nice system as there is quite a lot of rewarding going on to encourage good, fun play, without runaway XP totals at the end, and I feel it takes some of the potential arbitraryness out of the XP award process.

[Vurbal]

Re: Spending experience points

 

It helps a lot if the players let the GM know ahead of time when they want to spend XP on buying something new. For example, in our fantasy game our characters organized a tournament and had an NPC responsible for some organized gambling. In order to keep him honest my character was with him at all times, and during the process made a point of getting some instruction. I mentioned to the GM that I intended to buy familiarity with gambling and he was fine with it.

 

The same character is trying to set up a business catering to the wealthy, but while he has all the skills he needs to run the business, he doesn't have High Society and only has familiarity with Conversation. Since we have an NPC who has an appropriate background, my character approached him during last week's game session to get some pointers. Once again I let the GM know my intentions to buy a skill so he can work it into the game as appropriate.

[Vondy]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Can I just mention mini XP?

 

Piece of papaer with the character/player names on kept by the GM, and every time a player does something smart or funny or noteworthy the GM makes a mark, and 10 make an extra bonus XP. It is quite a nice system as there is quite a lot of rewarding going on to encourage good, fun play, without runaway XP totals at the end, and I feel it takes some of the potential arbitraryness out of the XP award process.

 

I like the idea. I generally hand out "emergency points" for good roleplaying, creative contributions, being a good-egg, etc. The player can convert them into +1/-1 on a roll, or +1DC. For rolls I don't have a maximum for altering rolls, but for DCs the max is usually +4DC.

[Sean Waters]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Some players LIKE justifying XP expenditure, some don't. Most competent roleplayers can think up SOME excuse (sorry, reason)for almost anything. By and large, unless something happens that gives me whiplash from the double take, I just encourage them, so long as they seem to eb enjoying themselves.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I had a problem with the exact opposite when my fantasy game was still pretty new. I had new players, and was really lax with how they spent XP. So I had one player clearing everything with me and making sure it made sense (that would be Josh, the veteran), another building things with me and getting full approval, and a third just dropping points into whatever he'd found lacking the game before. He'd raised his CON up to 17 (from 12), and STUN up about 10 points. I had to clamp down, big-time, on his XP expenditure, and I had to do it without looking like I was picking on him.

 

I finally explained to the entire group that the spending of XP has to be at least logical. A person cannot lift weights for a week and suddenly be twice as strong; it's impossible. We ARE in a game world, so some of the rules are bent, but it still has to make sense, because Hero is a more logical system than, say, D&D. I also instituted a system where they earn more XP for roleplaying things out (I was having a problem with that, too), and this XP can ONLY be spent on things they worked on specifically in-game. So if they wanted to spend those points on more CSLs, they had to approach an NPC to spar or to be trained in something new, and if they wanted to buy a new skill, I had to see them researching that skill during game time. For the rest of their XP, they can retcon to say they'd been working on something during the down time, but it has to make SOME logical sense.

[zornwil]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I was wondering how everyone out there handled this question.

Do you only allow PC's to spend EXP on things they used/learned during an adventure?

How about "free time" either during or between adventures, for working on

spending EXP? (Example: being in a cluttered room and trying to learn how to "bounce" your EB- combat levels)

Sometimes I freely grant abillities for things the PCs do in sessions, giving them the XP "pre-spent" to reflect their learning - and reward the active character interest/exporation, as often it's things that are more roleplaying than failure-success-driven.

[Frenchman]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Arg...silly firefox just crashed and lost my page+ long post.

Basically, I said I like Zornwil's thingy of 'pre-spending' bonus xp for a player depending on what they did during a session, and that my group of GMs restricts xp spending in the following ways:

Skills - One xp point can be put into a particular skill per session, and not more than 2 or 3 sessions in a row - so learning 5 points of Russian will take at least 6 sessions. Of course, this is waived if there is signifigant down-time or other extenuating circumstances (PC is a cyborg who paid points for an integrated computer which allows him to download skills, magicly-enhanced tutoring, or whatever)

Stats - No more than one characteristic point per session, total. Generally, stats cannot be raised more than 2-3 points above what they started at, and you can't step on other characters toes. Again, extenuating circumstances apply.

Powers - Few, if any restrictions, but we do require the character have a logical way to learn/gain them in-game, and it usually takes time and 'grows' - generally the character gets no more than 5 points of the power per session, though they will often spend all the xp up front.

[Mike W]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Arg...silly firefox just crashed and lost my page+ long post.

Basically, I said I like Zornwil's thingy of 'pre-spending' bonus xp for a player depending on what they did during a session, and that my group of GMs restricts xp spending in the following ways:

Skills - One xp point can be put into a particular skill per session, and not more than 2 or 3 sessions in a row - so learning 5 points of Russian will take at least 6 sessions. Of course, this is waived if there is signifigant down-time or other extenuating circumstances (PC is a cyborg who paid points for an integrated computer which allows him to download skills, magicly-enhanced tutoring, or whatever)

Stats - No more than one characteristic point per session, total. Generally, stats cannot be raised more than 2-3 points above what they started at, and you can't step on other characters toes. Again, extenuating circumstances apply.

Powers - Few, if any restrictions, but we do require the character have a logical way to learn/gain them in-game, and it usually takes time and 'grows' - generally the character gets no more than 5 points of the power per session, though they will often spend all the xp up front.

 

This post, among others, makes me suspect that we have both Champs and Fantasy gamers posting on this thread. I think that is influencing some of the answers too. Fantasy Hero the XP expenditure tends to be more "logical" and controlled. For Champions, because the "normal" rules of how things work have already been completely destroyed by the nature of every character, I think that we as GMs are much more likely to take a "anything that doesn't unbalance the game" approach than we would for a Fantasy hero setting.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Basically, I said I like Zornwil's thingy of 'pre-spending' bonus xp for a player depending on what they did during a session, and that my group of GMs restricts xp spending in the following ways:

Skills - One xp point can be put into a particular skill per session, and not more than 2 or 3 sessions in a row - so learning 5 points of Russian will take at least 6 sessions. Of course, this is waived if there is signifigant down-time or other extenuating circumstances (PC is a cyborg who paid points for an integrated computer which allows him to download skills, magicly-enhanced tutoring, or whatever)

Stats - No more than one characteristic point per session, total. Generally, stats cannot be raised more than 2-3 points above what they started at, and you can't step on other characters toes. Again, extenuating circumstances apply.

Powers - Few, if any restrictions, but we do require the character have a logical way to learn/gain them in-game, and it usually takes time and 'grows' - generally the character gets no more than 5 points of the power per session, though they will often spend all the xp up front.

 

As I read this, it says "design your starting characters to have high stats first and good skills second - buying powers later is much more accepted". My Wizard will have a much easier time buying new spells and upgrading old ones than enhancing his INT, EGO or PRE as he becomes more skilled in the magical arts, so best to start out with those stats at the level I ultimately want them to reach, rather than start out with a character whose abilities across the board are somewhat lower than I envision the character ultimately having.

 

That's probably clear as mud. Let's say my vision for my wizard sees him as a mental powerhouse - 25 INT, PRE and EGO. He should also ultimately have about 75 points invested in various skills, and about 100 points of Powers (spells) and stats costing a total of 75 points. That's 250 points in aggregate. I only have, say, 150 to start with.

 

I would generally build my starting character lower across the board, probably with about 50 points invested in stats (mainly the very high mental stats suffering, and buying these up with xp), about 50 in skills (with the rest to be bought or improved over time) and 50 in powers (more limited, weaker spells with the rest to be bought with xp).

 

In your game, however, I probably want to buy all my stats up front, since your approach to spending xp indicates I may not be able to buy them up to the desired levels with xp later, and if I can, it likely will be at a much lower pace than I was planning on. I might also want to devote more points up front to skills since, again, I may be restricted in spending xp on these down the road. But new spells, and enhanced spells, will be easier to buy with xp, so I should weaken these at the outset and plan on spending more xp on these as I gain xp.

 

Now maybe my stats fall into the "extenuating circumstances" pool, and maybe I won't have a lot of difficulty with the skills, since I only have so many points to spend each session anyway, but your descriptions above definitely imply I should buy my "ultimate vision" stats up front and short change the other abilities if I want to be able to realize this vision in your game.

 

As another example, if I ultimately want a high STR, CON, DEX, SPD warrior with vast weapon skills, I should start as a high STR, CON, DEX, SPD warrior with minimal weapon skills, not have mid range stats and skills, since I will be allowed to buy the skills (esp "power as skills" abilities) with xp, and likely can't buy up the stats in the same way.

 

Basically, your approach strikes me as mandating certain approaches to character growth while prohibitting, or at least discouraging, other approaches. It sounds like a holdover from other game systems where your stats are rolled at the start and stay the same, more or less, forever, while your xp gains result in greater skills and other abilities, but rarely, if ever, increased stats. Hero is designed to be more flexible than that, so why not take advantage of that flexibility?

[Markdoc]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Basically' date=' your approach strikes me as mandating certain approaches to character growth while prohibitting, or at least discouraging, other approaches. It sounds like a holdover from other game systems where your stats are rolled at the start and stay the same, more or less, forever, while your xp gains result in greater skills and other abilities, but rarely, if ever, increased stats. Hero is designed to be more flexible than that, so why not take advantage of that flexibility?[/quote']

 

 

Essentially, what he said.

 

I'm pretty flexible about spending XP. If I didn't want my players spending it, I wouldn't *give* it to them. The only thing I require is that the point expenditure makes sense (I'm using "makes sense" in the comic book or fantasy novel meaning, not "makes sense in the natural world" ). I have no desire to tell my players that with the expenditure of 3 points and some training they can acquire basic competence in a new language in only 6 months of game time, or that desired PS: Professor with 2 points and 6 years of gameplay

 

cheers, Mark

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Spending experience points

 

This post' date=' among others, makes me suspect that we have both Champs and Fantasy gamers posting on this thread. I think that is influencing some of the answers too. Fantasy Hero the XP expenditure tends to be more "logical" and controlled. For Champions, because the "normal" rules of how things work have already been completely destroyed by the nature of every character, I think that we as GMs are much more likely to take a "anything that doesn't unbalance the game" approach than we would for a Fantasy hero setting.[/quote']

Well, yeah. I made sure to specify that in my post, and would've have posted that if this was in the Champs section of the board.

 

XP expenditure is definitely different for different point levels. One can argue further mutation on a power in a supers game, whereas a heroic-level character suddenly sprouting muscles is a bit weird.

[Sir Ofeelya]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I tend only to put a brake on experience point expenditure when it is patently obvious that the character has had no opportunity to acquire or build the new skill or attribute. For instance, spending 3 pts on a new combat level when they never pulled their sword out or spent off-time practising/sparring with their fellows would be a no-no. On the other hand if they spent a month travelling through the wilderness with an experienced outdoorsman I would let them buy Survival without them explicitly saying "During the trip I'll carefully watch what Borg does when he builds shelters, sets traps for game etc etc". Some things can be taken as read in most groups .

[Frenchman]

Re: Spending experience points

 

Basically' date=' your approach strikes me as mandating certain approaches to character growth while prohibitting, or at least discouraging, other approaches. It sounds like a holdover from other game systems where your stats are rolled at the start and stay the same, more or less, forever, while your xp gains result in greater skills and other abilities, but rarely, if ever, increased stats. Hero is designed to be more flexible than that, so why not take advantage of that flexibility?[/quote']

Ah...yes. You assume we TELL our players how we're going to restrict their xp spending.

No, I'm just joking.

While the issues you are talking about do come up, in conversation, it doesn't really bother us too much since characters with high stats/low skills tend to be pretty useless outside of combat, and theres an awful lot of non-combat stuff (Y'know, roleplaying) in our games. Also, if a player were to approach me (or any of our group's GMs) and show me their character 'vision' at 250-300 points, I suspect I'd just kinda giggle and let them know that they'll have to play that character for around 100 sessions before they'll accumulate that much xp - with an average of 3 sessions a month, that works out to almost 3 years in real life. Only a couple of our games have lasted that long, and it was never because they were intended to.

[Vondy]

Re: Spending experience points

 

This post' date=' among others, makes me suspect that we have both Champs and Fantasy gamers posting on this thread. [/quote']

 

I seldom run "Champs" or Fantasy.

[Hugh Neilson]

Re: Spending experience points

 

While the issues you are talking about do come up' date=' in conversation, it doesn't really bother us too much since characters with high stats/low skills tend to be pretty useless outside of combat, and theres an awful lot of non-combat stuff (Y'know, roleplaying) in our games.[/quote']

 

Consider a simplistic example. I want my character to be good at interaction skills, and become extremely good with xp. Ultimately, I'd like him to have a 28 PRE (becoming extremely impressive) and 6 interaction skills at 21-. My plan is to ultimately have the 6 skills (3 points each; 18 points), 28 PRE (18 points; 26 if NCM are in effect) and +6 with all interaction skills (30 points). But I need other things for my starting character, so I don't have 74 points (NCM assumed) to invest. Let's say I have 49 points to invest up front. Clearly, I should start with a 28 PRE, the six skills and one skill level. If I start with a 23 PRE and 3 skill levels, you likely won't let me buy up the extra PRE with experience as liberally as you'll allow me to buy up the levels. Yet I end up in the same place.

 

Let me offer you another example, Willie Wizard. Willie has spent most of his pre-adventuring career studying dusty old tomes of magic. He has a low STR, low CON and low PRE (say 8 each). Is it really that unreasonable to suggest that, as Willie adventures, travelling widely, forced to endure exercise on a regular basis, interacting with people and succeeding with his spells, he becomes stringer (from lugging that heavy pack everywhere), healthier (from getting regular exercise, and actually seeing the sun) and more confident? Is allowing him to gradually buy his STR, CON and PRE up to 13, 15 and 18 somehow less "realistic" than allowing Sammy Spellslacker who was less focused on his studies, and started with those 13/15/18 stats, but less spells, to spend 22 xp on new spells at the same rate Willie bought up his stats? Hey, it took Willie years of study to learn all those spells - how come Sam can pick them up overnight?

 

Also' date=' if a player were to approach me (or any of our group's GMs) and show me their character 'vision' at 250-300 points, I suspect I'd just kinda giggle and let them know that they'll have to play that character for around 100 sessions before they'll accumulate that much xp - with an average of 3 sessions a month, that works out to almost 3 years in real life. Only a couple of our games have lasted that long, and it was never because they were intended to.[/quote']

 

This depends a lot on playstyle. If you expect the characters to accumulate only 25 xp over the course of the campaign, then there will be very little character growth and xp restrictions will be a lot less relevant.

[TheRavenIs]

Re: Spending experience points

 

What the group I play with does is that we allows XP to be spent on almost anything that is logical for the C to have, powers, skills, stat's, ext.

 

Now we do one thing that helps we talk it out as a group on XP. The PC and the GN for the different group is the final authority on the XP being used as the PC wants.

 

We found due to not doing the above PC's were advancing into area's that had no place for the PC to know. So we worked out a way for the PC's to spend the XP, now we have a system that allows us, as PC's to have logical growth.

[Hyper-Man]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I wonder if all GM's should encourage their players to build 2-3 versions of their characters before introducing them into the game. 1 version is the character as they are NOW and then the other(s) are what the player envisions for the character after various amounts of XP are spent (+50 and +100 as an example). This gives the GM more information on where the player wants to go and gives him an opportunity to steer the player to more common ground if necessary and provides a custom roadmap for the player to follow (or deviate from) during the course of the game.

 

This idea was inspired by the multiple version character posts by Oddhat on his New Circle thread.

[AliceTheOwl]

Re: Spending experience points

 

I think that would drive me up a wall. As it is, I'm usually impatient to be spending experience I don't have; having the actual character already built and waiting for that XP to come in would leave me frothing at the mouth. Not to mention all the little things I didn't think of, but that came up in roleplay as things I could justify spending points on . . .