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Experience Points

As characters finish each adventure and (presumably) accomplish the goal set forth for them, whether it be to rescue a falsely imprisoned person, capturing or eliminating an enemy unit, saving someone’s life or safeguarding a secret message to the King, the characters should earn Experience Points (EP).

Awarding Experience Points
Character improvement is the primary method for the GM to express his opinion on how the players are doing. There are many ways to quantify success; goals achieved, excellent role and character playing, even contributions to the background of the world. The number of experience points to award to characters will vary from adventure to adventure. Some GMs will also award experience for mapping or other record-keeping duties, character sketches, or other contributions to the game as a whole. Here are some guidelines for GMs to help determine how much experience points to award at the conclusion of an adventure.

Spending Experience Points
Some players will want to scrimp and save for a big character improvement. Others will spend a point here and there just to spend them and improve some small bit. Either of these extremes is probably the wrong approach. In the best games, players should mix long-term and short-term goals, putting points into less expensive abilities while saving others for larger steps.
Characters can increase existing skills, increase existing abilities, and under certain conditions develop completely new skills and abilities. Which of these a player decides to pursue also determines how you proceed.
Most games will have a starting skill maximum. For this example we will use +5. No character can buy a skill higher than +5 at the start of play. This will also be the training skill maximum. That is, no character will be able to take advantage of instructor led training past +5. After that all progression and improvement will only be through experience within the course of the game.
GMs may also wish to limit the way experience is spent to abilities that are used or specifically studied in the game. A rule of thumb would be that if the character did not use a skill or ability that session, then that skill or ability cannot be improved. Some GMs will find this too restrictive.

Experience Point Awards

DescriptionEP
Base experience point award for an adventure1
The adventure was…
…Short (one game session)+0
…Long (two game sessions)+1
…Very long (three or more sessions)+2
The adventure ended…
…successfully+1
…unsuccessfully, but with a chance for the
PCs to fix things next session+0
…unsuccessfully with no chance to fix things-1
The character performed a dramatic or heroic
action or speech that…
…Added enjoyment to the game*+1
…Accomplished a team goal*+1
…Presented serious risk to the character*+1
The player…
…Contributed a major plot element+2
…Contributed a minor plot element+1
…Developed a character background+1

Character Improvement Costs

AttributesEP Cost
Increase Attribute score5x new attribute score
TraitsEP Cost
Buy new AdvantageListed cost of Trait
Increase level of AdvantageDifference in cost of current and new level (and GM’s permission)
Buy off existing DisadvantageValue of Disadvantage (and GM’s permission)
Take new DisadvantageNo point benefit
SkillsEP Cost
Skill Group levelsNew level x5 in EP
Skill levelsNew level x1 in EP
Specialty levelsNew level x .5 in EP
Action PointsEP Cost
Buy one Action Point10 (and GM’s permission)
“Cash in” Action Point-1 (character gets 1 EP)