Experimental XP system for D&D 5e

Here’s the proposed system:

Characters no longer receive XP points or Inspiration Points in the standard fashion.

At the start of a level, you receive a number of “Persona Points” equal to the level (so 1 at first level, 19 at 19^th). When you gain a new level, left over Persona Points are lost. You can spend Persona points like Inspiration Points. When you spend a Persona Point, you gain an Experience Point.

At the start of a session, each player (sans the GM) puts a fate token into a Fate Point pool. At any point in the session, you can take a point from the Fate Pool and use it like an Inspiration Point. Players can spend multiple Fate Points. Whenever a fate point is spent, all the other players (not including the player using the point) gain an Experience Point. You then pass the GM the Fate Point, and he can use it like an Inspiration Point for a villain or monster.

At the GM’s discretion – like a climactic battle or negotiation—the Fate Pool can be refilled, but it can never have more Fate points than there are players at the table (not characters in play, but actual players).

Players should record their XP on their character sheet and can note when they will gain levels using the following table:

Level	XP needed
1	0
2	5
3	11
4	22
5	40
6	57
7	75
8	94
9	120
10	145
11	171
12	198
13	232
14	265
15	299
16	334
17	374
18	415
19	457
20	500

Rationale:

A good experience system is vital to an RPG’s success. The most successful XP system is the one devised by Gary Gygax: you gain XP after defeating foes or challenges (or collecting treasure) and then level up on a chart. It is simple and effective. It encourages a kind of greed on the part of the player and provides an almost Pavlovian commitment to gaining levels.

As RPGs developed, new XP systems arose: BRPs use-of-skills system, which reached its apotheosis in Burning Wheel. The small points that you spend, common in games like Shadowrun or World of Darkness. Savage Worlds uses a similar small points, combined with an implied level chart (in fact, I think if Savage Worlds simply had a level table, it would be even more popular). The Cypher System rewards players for discovery, and for participating in the game well. The GM gives XP in game, and XP is a commodity that can be spent in game or saved for improvement.

Even more abstract, many gamers have discarded the awarding of XP for a “you level when needed” approach. I’ve been experimenting with this system over the last year. I made no major announcement to the players, it just occurred slowly as I forgot to award XP. I think this level of abstract leveling is interesting, as it allows the GM to control the challenge of the plot, and I suspect it occurred because the use of abstract level is a symptoms of a disconnection between plot and development of character. 

The major problem of all editions of D&D is a tendency to grind combat. This is most prominent in post-3e D&D. Paizo’s well-plotted Adventure Paths are great, but I think they suffer from the “grind” problem: in order to level the characters to match the plot, they have to engage in long, sometimes meaningless combats (the second adventure of the Age of Worms 3.5e Adventure Path is a textbook example).

As the post-3e era developed, the designers incorporated quest XP and skill challenges as a way to legitimate non-combat XP sources and allow the game to level faster. But the problem was they never gave enough XP to make them the center of the system, unless the GM modified the XP tables, which I did throughout 3^rd and 4^th edition.

However, there’s another dimension of D&D XP to be considered: it usually awards characters for doing things, but in all the small-point systems, or the “use-based” models, the player is one who’s rewarded. XP is for the player to spend, game, engineer and seek. In D&D, you only seek it as a contribution of the game – some players fixate on it—but you don’t participate in it. Games like Burning Wheel or Numenera actively have players giving away XP to other players, either at the end of a session or in play.

Likewise, the inspiration points of D&D (and the earlier non-D&D ideas of Willpower, Fate Points, Hero Points, Bennies, or Artha) are attempts to mitigate the problems of arbitrary dice and character-to-plot connections. They are a resource players draw on, but do not necessarily control, because the GM gatekeeps it. I’m bad at remembering to give out such points, because my GM style is either bad or ossified. But I think that the solution isn’t to give the GM more at-the-table work, I think the solution is to make the Players or the system itself the gatekeepers of XP.

So, we reorient the Inspiration Point system to be a static source and then we reward players for playing the game. It doesn’t matter what they’re doing with the points – fighting, sneaking, politicking, child-rearing, animal-taming, bird-watching—it only matter that they care enough about success or failure to use the points.

But the points can also be tied to the social contract of the table. So, persona points reward the player who uses them, but the fate points can be more eloquent: you draw from a common pool, reducing your party’s resources and empowering the GM, but you give everyone else XP. This means you want to spend the pool!

I’m going to pitch this to my D&D group and see if it works…Here’s a breakdown of the XP table. I’m assuming a 3-4 hour session. If you play longer sessions, maybe refresh the pool after that time has elapsed or a logical break point in your routine.

Level	Sessions	Fate	Persona	XP Needed	Total XP
1	0	0	0	0	0
2	1	4	1	5	5
3	1	4	2	6	11
4	2	8	3	11	22
5	3.5	14	4	18	40
6	3	12	5	17	57
7	3	12	6	18	75
8	3	12	7	19	94
9	4.5	18	8	26	120
10	4	16	9	25	145
11	4	16	10	26	171
12	4	16	11	27	198
13	5.5	22	12	34	232
14	5	20	13	33	265
15	5	20	14	34	299
16	5	20	15	35	334
17	6	24	16	40	374
18	6	24	17	41	415
19	6	24	18	42	457
20	6	24	19	43	500