The thing I find most objectional in the traditional D&D style “kill the monsters, gain in power” model of experience is that it only caters to one style of play and basically rewards serial murder. This is fine, and can actually be fun, but it doesn’t support other styles of game, such as heavy political or social games. This model also fails to reward players for RPing their characters if the character is motivated by things other than slaying monsters. Any type of game can be played with these traditional XP systems, but it usually comes down to GM fiat for experience as he sets quest/accomplishment rewards. Again, this robs the player of some of the feeling of earning their character’s power.

The Shadow of Yesterday has an experience system that seems to address this pretty well. They use a concept of Keys, which basically comes down to character motivations, to reward players with XP. These Keys can be changed, added to, or eliminated as they see fit. The list of “official” keys includes the traditional “kill monsters, gain power” model, as well as OD&Ds “and take their stuff to gain power” model, but also includes many other things that could be motivations for a character. These could be faith, justice, fame, assertion of personal power, forwarding group causes, and any number of other things. I find it to be a perfect way for me to not GM fiat anymore.

I plan to houserule any game I GM to include a Shadow of Yesterday style keys experience mechanic. It is a relatively easy mechanic to add on to any game, and really enhances the possibilities for supporting different feelings in a game. It is basically a system that says “your character gets more awesome by doing the things that have most meaning to him”. I also find that the Aspects of Fate 3.0 go really well with this by saying “Here is a reward for being awesome in the ways that your character is awesome!” Both of these will be in every game I GM.

Enough already of this rant. Thanks for the post.

The difficulty I found, however, is that usually people takes a meta-gaming approaching to gaining XP. Perhaps the GM and the group together could set objectives and the GM will determine the XP allocated to that objective and award XP when the objective is met. It also helps the GM to plan for the game in some way.

I’m not sure if by ’sandbox’ one means “I want to do anything I want without informing the GM”. I rather see it as “I set the goals for my campaign and inform the GM of my direction and he adapts accordingly”.

Of course, in a more antagonistic GM-players relationship this would not work; If I am in this case, I would go for a non-XP system, such as BRP.

However, it doesn’t apply as much in more player driven games that do not have a pre-set plot path or “end game”, in which case “XP” is one of the decision trees players use to guage their actions. Its a resource to both motivate actions and set timelines for future goals.