Character Advancement

## 1.0 Experience Rewards (Deprecated)

Bonus experience was awarded to every player who attended the session based on their performance during the session. In addition, every player received a Survival Bonus, a discretionary experience amount for completing the session determined by the *DM* each session. Player’s performances were recorded in a tracker that the DM managed throughout each session as follows:

**Tracker**

* **Critical Fail**
	+ Whenever a player rolled a natural 1 on a d20.
	+ No Bonus Exp
* **Critical Success**
	+ Whenever a player rolled a natural 20 on a d20.
	+ 10 x Player Level Bonus Exp
* **Efficiency**
	+ Whenever a player succeeded on a meaningful skill check (Non-combat)
	+ 10 x Player Level Bonus Exp
* **Role Playing**
	+ Whenever a player role played a character in a meaningful and notable fashion
	+ 15 x Player Level Bonus Exp
* **Most Memorable Moment**
	+ A discretionary group vote for players responsible for creating a scene in the session that the session will be remembered for
	+ 100 x Player Level Bonus Exp

## 2.0 Experience Rewards (Deprecated)

### Categories

Categories of rewarding engaging play is overhauled into three different categories: Creativity, Fellowship and Immersion. These work similarly to the 1.0 system where the DM tracks tallies whenever a player exhibits one of the indicated behaviors listed in each category. The character earns 10 x Character Level in Experience points for each tally they have in each category.

**Creativity**

* You perform an outlandish combat maneuver that feels cinematic, non-standard, improvised and has some level of significance
* You leverage the environment during combat to gain an edge or take it upon yourself to invent elements of the environment to aid you. Ex: I’m in a jungle so there’s likely vines everywhere, but that’s not established during the scene description. DM, I want to use a nearby vine to swing over this chasm to the enemy
* You enact a non-obvious, inventive solution in order to solve a social problem
* You smooth talk your way through a situation that evokes dialogue or events unplanned by the DM which proves beneficial for the party or yourself
* You take it upon yourself to explore something nearby that doesn’t come off as railroading or jerk-like towards the party

**Fellowship** You work together with the group in some meaningful way that goes beyond the standard expectation.

* You perform a maneuver in combat to aid an ally in a significant way
* You pay for a companion’s stay at a tavern or for their meal
* You go the extra mile to care for a companion struggling with recent events
* You partner up and combo somehow during a task
* You go out of your way to commend an ally for a deed they performed for you at the expense of your money, humility or some other cost to you.

**Immersion** Playing your character feels believable and non-meta.

* You perform a meaningful deed which feels compelling that your character would perform based on their personality
* You speak a different language, talk in an accent or relay some other quirk IRL that your character would exhibit and the conversation is meaningful
* Your character roleplaying feels more impactful than the standard expectation in any given situation
* Your interaction with a NPC feels like something out of a movie or play
* Your character's behavior isn’t justified by “it’s what my character would do” and simply feels natural

### Objectives

Player characters primarily earn experience points by completing self-imposed objectives. During downtime, players can come up with accomplishments their character will strive for. They’ll explain it to the DM and iron out the details to fit into a single objective. The DM assigns a significance rating (SR) of 1 to 5, 1 being very minor or low effort that can be expected to achieve it within the session is was created, 5 being paramount, requiring a lot of effort and likely will take several sessions to achieve. Each objective will generally take a number of sessions to complete as its given SR rating. Upon achieving a goal, the player is rewarded with character advancement gains. The significance of the reward scales with the significance rating and character level.

*NOTE* Due to the group nature of play, there may be boundaries with objectives that characters cannot fulfill because playing as a party comes first. However, it’s encouraged to bring these sorts of things up to the group and inquire if they wouldn’t mind pursuing objectives together. Otherwise, those characters should try and come up with other things they can achieve in a group setting if that happens.

**Significance Rating (SR) Yield**

* SR 1 = 350 x Level EXP
* SR 2 = 600 x Level EXP
* SR 3 = 800 x Level EXP
* SR 4 = 2,000 x Level EXP
* SR 5 = 3,000 x Level EXP

### Shared Experience

All player characters will remain the same level throughout the entire campaign. This means that whenever a player character earns experience, all other characters also receive that experience. There are several reasons why character advancement has turned to this system, but overall it aligns with the ideal of fellowship and keeping everyone at generally the same power level.

## 3.0 Experience Rewards

Players simply earn levels based on a merit by the DM according to the narrative. This is often referred to as the milestone approach.