red-headed android

everyone knows what an experience point is. if you don’t, you’re lucky cause you get my definition first.

an experience point is a reward you get for playing the game the way it wants to be played.

sure, it says ‘experience point’ on the tin, which kind of sounds like maybe it represents your character getting more experienced at some kind of Task or Effort. but… no, it doesn’t. how’s the wizard getting more time to study by killing 100 goblins? the wizard is becoming a better wizard as a reward for you playing the game the way it wants to be played. i.e. killing 100 goblins.

sure, it sounds pretty boring and reductive and even a little exploitative—skinner box, anyone? want to go grind some WoW for 14 hours later?—when you put it like that. but not all games are about killing triple digit numbers of goblins. and so xp is good actually. let me tell you why.

from a game design perspective, experience points (xp) are maybe the best thing that’s ever happened for player engagement. if you get rewarded for certain behaviours, the game has a language in which it can tell you what it cares about. and once you know what the game cares about and you have a reason to seek it out, the game can then assume you’re doing those things. and if the game knows what you’re doing, it can devote all its mechanics to supporting those particular actions. therefore, xp is how a game tricks you into only seeing the good parts of it. and that makes you have more fun!

if you’re playing old school D&D, you get xp for getting gold. and the natural habitat of gold is a dungeon full of monsters. and, it just so happens, all of old school D&D’s actual hard rules (as opposed to stuff the DM makes up) are really good for exploring dungeons full of monsters. so, if the players chase gold into the dungeon—which they will, because they want xp—they are literally playing a better game than if they didn’t! xp is like salt. it improves the flavour of any dish it’s in!

but that’s only one thing players get xp for. let’s look at a few more examples from newer games which have figured out the secret of xp.

a game i like a lot is Blades in the Dark. it’s a game about a team of criminals trying to come out on top in a cutthroat underworld. in Blades, your whole crew gets xp for punching above your weight, showing off what makes the crew special, doing the kinds of jobs the crew is specialized in, and gaining a reputation in the city. your Blades character gets xp for doing crazy dangerous shit, showing off their background and heritage, struggling with trauma, and solving problems using the stuff they’re specialized in.

hold on, you might be thinking. the game gives out XP for… doing the things your character is good at, and roleplaying? doesn’t that make it extremely easy to get XP? why even bother, why not just have the characters level up every couple sessions?

it’s true, Blades is giving out xp for stuff you were already doing. but in so doing, it’s reminding you to put spotlight on those things. it’s giving you an itch in your head, one you’re always thinking about. does this deal match our reputation? am I showing that my character’s drinking problem and qualms about hurting innocents are really slowing her down? does our plan feel like a Ruthless Cult plan like our crew is supposed to be, or just some plan any schmuck could come up with? can I get more XP by being reckless and taking crazy risks here?

and as soon as you’re asking yourself those questions all the time, you have the Blades Shoulder Devil. and the Blades Shoulder Devil is telling you to do all the stuff the game loves, the stuff the developers wanted people to experience. the stuff that makes the game fun. and that Blades Shoulder Devil? it’s made of xp. sure, it’s ‘just a roleplaying guide’—but following it means you get to play with more cool mechanics and cool toys. xp is the reason you listen.

something else that Blades does is it puts awarding xp in your hands, as a player. the GM doesn’t control it; they can only give their opinion as a fellow player on what you should choose. the final decision lies with you. this means that you and the game’s rules are the only ones with authority on when it’s right or wrong to give yourself xp, and putting that agency in your hands means that the Shoulder Devil’s voice is never muffled by the GM’s preconceptions of when and where xp should be given out.

so that’s the Blades Shoulder Devil. and that’s a good way of using xp. but what if we were way more hardcore?

meet one of my favourite games: Shawn Tomkin’s Ironsworn.

Ironsworn is a game about swearing oaths to do difficult things, and then going and doing the things you swore to do. it’s also about pine forests and mysticism and starvation, like any good viking age inspired game should be, but at its core, it’s about the vows. and to fulfill a vow you go on a quest.

and when you complete a quest, and fulfill a vow, you get xp. and that’s the only way to get xp in Ironsworn. no, you do not get xp for killing 100 raiders. no, you do not get xp for roleplaying your character. no, you do not get xp for finishing a journey, even if it was an Epic tier Lord of the Rings ass journey that took you 40 hours irl. you only get xp for fulfilling your vows.

and this makes you a bloodhound. that sweet sweet xp is only going to be yours if you finish your quest. not only that, but if you only partially finish it, you get less xp, so you want to make absolutely sure that you’ve covered all the bases you can.

Ironsworn is a game where it’s easy to get distracted by fleshing out the world, meeting interesting people, thinking about monster ecology—especially if you’re playing solo—and so it needs its xp system. it needs it because your character is Ironsworn, and that means they take oaths seriously. what better way to reinforce that premise by making the player take oaths seriously too—because that’s where the xp is?

in Ironsworn, the shoulder angel (it’s not a shoulder devil, we’re not gangsters anymore) only says one thing: “fulfill the vow”. and that’s what makes its xp system so powerful and what makes the average game of ironsworn so laser-focused on completing those quests. yes, you’re also roleplaying a person who is passionate about their vows, but the mechanics are always reminding you just how important those vows are.

and it’s a good thing, too, because if you try to play ironsworn without constantly taking risks to fulfill dangerous vows out in its gritty, cold world, ironsworn isn’t a fun game. you have to do the quests. it’s what the game’s about. you’d probably still do them without the xp, but the xp reminds you where the fun is.

food can still be tasty without salt. but salt makes it better. and that’s how experience points take any roleplaying game and improve it.

but ash, i hear you saying, experience points suck in D&D. my group doesn’t use them because they’re clunky and hard to keep track of, and besides, the only official guide to using them only awards them for killing monsters. is that really what the game should be about? grinding monsters like it’s Final Fantasy?

it’s true, experience points kind of suck in modern D&D. but that doesn’t mean you can’t use the principle for good. here’s my solution for putting salt on your D&D game:

one experience point.

that’s how much it takes to level up. one. and, and this is the important part, you, the GM, tell your players where the experience point is. tell them that if they solve the king’s brother’s murder, they get the experience point they need to level up. tell them that if they defeat the Serpent God, that’s enough. tell them that if they retrieve the Staff of Morg from the Tomb of Dread that’s a level-up.

or, if specific objectives make you feel like you’re railroading your players, tell them that they get their level-up if they ‘make a major positive change to the region’, or ‘defeat a supreme enemy’ (and you have the list of who’s supreme), or ‘conquer a dungeon’. the key is to tell them exactly what you want them to do, and then (this is also important), put all of your prep, all of your fun, in the place the almighty Experience Point is bringing them to.

experience points are signposts to fun. show your players the damn signpost.

you might be thinking that this is just milestone leveling, the type of leveling most D&D groups use nowadays. to that i say:

first, milestones are xp. they’re philosophically identical. a milestone is just the One Big Experience Point i was talking about just now.

second, traditionally, ‘milestone’ means the GM levels you up whenever they feel like it. some GMs announce what the milestone is (which is good!), but others don’t, for fear of spoilers, or because they don’t want to plan ahead too much, or because they’re worried that the players will game the system. this is bad! you must tell your players what they need to do to level up.

if you level them up whenever you feel like it, they won’t know where the fun is. ttrpgs are a wonderfully open experience, but that also means that if the players have no idea what they’re meant to engage with, what signs they’re meant to follow, the game becomes too open. the players are lost at sea. tell them what you want them to do. don’t be afraid. the greatest sin a GM can commit is not communicating.

because tabletop rpgs are about communication, they’re made of communication, and you know what the best, brightest, most in-your-face flashing neon sign of TTRPG communication is? one that designers, and GMs, and even players (in some games; shoutout to apocalypse world) can use?

it’s “do this thing and you get xp.”