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How Experience Will Work
Topic Started: Oct 4 2008, 06:32 PM (38 Views)
Lunacy
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Most of this is summary from the rule books, but I will include in this post how I will literally apply it to our game.

First of all, there are two types of experience in Hunter. The first is the regular experience, common to all of the WoD. The second type is practical experience, which is specific to Hunter.

Regular Experience

Experience will not be awarded immediately after the end of the game. Because White Wolf rewards specific character actions and role-play rather than a pool of XP that characters earn for killing baddies, I'm going to want a small amount of time to consider what gets earned. So I will officially award the experience the day after the game session, probably somewhere here in the forums. This will give me a night to sleep on it. I'm doing this because if I awarded immediately after the game I'd probably be pretty stingy, so this works to all of your advantages. Spending experience will occur immediately before a Chapter (game session) begins.

Here's just a tad of detail as to how it can be earned (as outlined in the WoD guide).

Chapter XP
1 Point - Automatic. A reward for simply showing up and gaming.
1 Point - Learning curve. I will ask each player what his/her character learned from that session after the Chapter concludes. If I agree that the character truly learned this lesson (and that the lesson is significant), you get the point.
1 Point - Roleplaying. To earn this point, you must have done a very good job remaining true to your character. Anything that adds complexity to the character's development will be especially preferred. It is possible to earn a second point in this category, but you're going to have to sweep me off my feet to get it.
1 Point - Heroism. Your character acted bravely in the face of danger some time during the Chapter. Acts of foolishness or recklessness do not apply. Sacrificing one's safety (in a reasonable fashion) for another is an example. One could also simply stick up for someone who could otherwise not do so for themselves.

Story XP
At the end of a story, you get a bonus set of (possible) experience points.
1 Point - Success. Basically a point for succeeding at anything, at any time during the story (does not stack with other successes, you exploiters - you only get 1 point, hehe)
1 Point - Danger. Basically, you lived through a dangerous event.
1 Point - Wisdom. Your character came up with a plan or solution that minimized the possibility of loss in the party, whether that loss is literal or otherwise.

Practical Experience

Practical experience is earned in every scene in which the characters encounter a supernatural creature. This includes, but is not exclusive to, fight scenes. For example, conversing with a werewolf (provided the hunters know the creature's true nature) works.

Because Practical Experience is earned on each encounter, this will actually be awarded as it happens.

Here's the formula:

Total number of hunters in the scene (including NPCs) +/- any modifiers = Practical Experience earned

I'm not going to list all the possible modifiers. You can find them on pages 209-210 in the Hunter manual. One thing I will say is regarding the log of known qualities of monsters, I will post that log on this forum. Also regarding the log, I will say I won't be happy if a player breaks character by suggesting the cell research a quality that is unknown to the cell, simply because the player read about the quality in one of the WoD books. To implement something like that, you better get pretty creative, because if your character doesn't actually know it, he's not reasonably going to suggest looking into it.

Also, I will be enforcing the counter productivity modifiers heavily. If a character works counter to the group's interest, the Practical Experience will be decreased accordingly. Hunter cells thrive on cohesiveness, and anybody that works against the team will hurt the team (not only in-game, but in the rewards department as well).

Another note. You may ask yourself, "How does the formula work if we encounter multiple types of monsters in one scene?" In this case, possible modifiers will stack for each type of monster involved, but the formula is only applied once. In other words, you can earn the same modifier multiple times for each type of monster. Some (mainly negative) modifiers will not stack, such as if a bystander is harmed by both a vampire and a werewolf, you won't be penalized twice.

Using Practical Experience

Okay. Don't get giddy. Practical Experience is for the team ONLY. Players do not get to apply Practical Experience to their characters individually unless the entire party agrees to it. Practical Experience is automatically banked and can only be spent in ways that the cell decides UNANIMOUSLY. The only exception the the "unanimous rule" is if a player is not present in a gaming session, and the rest of the party agrees to spend Practical Experience. It is not reasonable for the party to have to wait for the presence of a player that didn't bother to show up.

Here's rule #1 with any experience: Do not make any changes to your character whatsoever between game sessions. Due to the fact that I've got your character sheet in front of me, and you have a separate physical copy in front of you, we both need to be present when changes occur.

I don't mean to sound authoritarian in this post, but experience is always the most disputed rule in any game I've ever ran, and I just wanted to make things very clear upfront.
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