Friday, February 5, 2016

Discussion: Do You Track XP?

How much XP does your current character have in them? If the GM wanted to bring someone new in at 75% of your XP could you tell them an amount? Is it written down somewhere, or would you have to re-work your character's build out to figure it out?

As a GM, how strong as your PCs? How much XP do they have? How much XP have you given out? Where will they be in three sessions? Five sessions? If someone new joined the game and you wanted them to be equal to the weakest PC, could you do it or would you need ot check with the PCs and rebuild characters?

Do you track XP? If so, why, and has it helped?

I started tracking XP a short while ago (with the start of my Star Wars game iirc.) Now on every new character, and in every new game, I keep track of how much XP I've given out to my PCs or earned as a player. it lets me double check my own math, and helps us catch errors when people have under or over spent on something.

At present, two of the three characters I play have fully tracked XP, and one does not because that game started before I kept track. I find myself regularly wishing I did track the XP that character had earned, because I use the totals so much in my other games.

In Esteren it helps me track how much XP I've lost buying back survival points from fighting (a lot...has to be near 40 XP at this point.) In L5R it lets me double and triple check my math. In my games I run it lets me catch when a player under or over spends, and also to plan accordingly for what I can expect my PCs to face because I know how much XP they have on them.

It works for me. How about you?

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